Well, whiskey coming Take pains, don't you?
From power Line blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com. This is the Three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward, John Yu and power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia has.
Gotta giving let that whiskey clone when you're feeling in love, down and loa.
Well, welcome everybody to this very special and it is indeed very special edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour because we can see and I took a picture Steve, so that you can actually put it up. All three co hosts of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour in the United States of America and in their own homes over zoo. It doesn't last long because, of course, our world traveler friend John is taking off again for Switzerland, and Steve's going other places in California. I, on the other hand,
am staying home and not leaving anywhere. I've decided I no longer want to be a world traveler for a while. But anyway, we do want to talk momentarily one more time about our trip to Tuscany, because, as we talked about last time, we all visited the castle the Brolio Castle, which is the main castle of the Ricossoli family, and tasted their wines, had a lovely, lovely time at lunch with their wines. And one of those wines is actually
on Wine Spectators one hundred best. Steve's showing it. Maybe I take a picture of it there so I could get it all at once, Steve, hold on, keep holding it. Did you know that, John? It's number fifty? Isn't that.
One more time? That is a bargain? Oh?
Sorry, Okay, there it is?
Uh okay wow? Which which one of the twenty vintages that Steve was drinking won the prize?
It's the It's the Baron Ricosoli Kanti Classical, Guyoli, Cordi Colada grandwy One. I didn't get that all right, but those long things no. Look of course John doesn't know this. I mean he pretends to be a dad.
I'm the only one who has the bottle right in front of me.
Okay, I have that one still, we didn't.
I have it right in front of me on my desk.
I did find, you know. We had a difficult time locating where you can buy some of the Ricossoli family wines, but I did go to my local total wine local, you know, an hour and a half away, and find uh a couple of bottles of from the Brolio Castle. So it is a.
What's that? Oh wow?
On a show.
That doesn't mean a bad thing.
No, I think that's it's got photos on it. It's the fortieth anniversary of Camus.
Camus is one of the better stags Leap, you know, sub Appalachians in Apple Valley.
That's usually a very expensive bottle of wine. John, I'm not sure what Lucas.
Was talking about, but no, no, it's I mean my opinion as a gift giver just went up. Yeah, sure, yeah, they have expensive wines.
They have two three hundred dollars bottle of wine that costc So, I don't know, I don't remember what that one is. I do want to tell you really quickly, John, before we move on to real stuff, is that I was at a Christmas party for the college last night and somebody had brought there a student who just came to us from South South Korea. So I went over to welcome her and talked to her and I said, you know, my good friend is has a lot of
students Asian students. You come to him, and he insists that it's a Korean cultural tradition that you have to bring your professor's bottles of alcohol and the whole you know, you know how they are at my university, the teetotalers, that they are their faces all, you know. And I said, and she's she looks a little bit shocked, and she goes, do you like him?
It was very funny, Lucretia, you just outed another North Korean agent.
I know, I know, because there's no way that person's really Korean.
Answer exactly. All right, gentlemen, how are we doing this week?
Are you?
Are you both caught up now? Back with the happenings of the world. I don't know how anybody stays caught up, right. I thought my email was going to get better after the after the election was over, you know, because I was getting a thousand a day with politics. Now of course I'm getting still politics, but cyber Monday, Black Friday. Oh yeah, anyway, so sorry about that, go ahead.
Thought I thought that actually the things had were a little bit calm when we had left the country to go to Italy, right, they compared to what it's like now. But I think this is I think we all forgot the speed at which things happened in the Trump years. I think it's just come back to the average for the four years under Trump. Remember we had the Russia hoaks and a Special Council and Ukraine, and I mean that's just we had impeachment twice, we had COVID lockdowns.
To think of all that, We had an amazing economy, think of all the stuff that happened in that For I think we're just returning to the pace that's Trump normal, you.
Mean, as opposed to somebody who's brain dead and living and basically living in the basement. I do want to say before one more thing before we go on with the serious stuff, that how happy I am that both of you were not washed away out to see with the tsunami that followed the earthquake.
Well, yeah it never happened, but yeah, go ahead, Well you were, but I was still overseas John.
And I'm oh I was.
But yeah, the minute I got the warning, I headed for the Golden Gate Bridge and I was actually on it at I actually was on it at twelve ten when the tsunami hit. Because Steve and I am Stephen and I've talked this. I wanted to see if it was Godzilla. I was hoping to see some Kaiju come out of this huge wall of water like in the movies and then tear the Golden gate bridge into shreds. Nothing happened.
Nothing happened, but I gave the bathtub. I do want to tell you that, John. This was John's comment when I said I was worried about him. He says, I'm thirty feet above sea level. But but I'm about to drive into San Francisco across a golden great gate bridge at the time the tsunami is to hit. This will be so cool parenthesis, famous last words. John was looking forward to it.
Yeah, I really was.
Regardless. We're glad you're here. So my theme for the podcast is Trump has Trump has in fact a revolution? What would be the right word, Steve, help me with a good word here? Trump The world is now Trump's world.
Yeah.
Well, I've been saying this for you know, months now, or maybe longer than that, that Trump is the dominant political figure of our time. I mean, it's you know, the age of Trump on the global scale. I mean, and occasionally I get I'm not say mystical about it, but I've been saying there's something about him. He's a figure of destiny, he's a force of nature, all those things. And you know, one of the things that you're saying, things are happening fast John already is Isn't it.
Interesting that Trump it seems like he's president already.
I mean, you have Justin Trudeau hopping the first plane tomor a lago after Trump raises a threat about tariffs. You have I think one interesting thing is Trump is en route maybe today Saturday, to parents to and apparently he was asked to come personally by Macrone, who's in a whole heap of political trouble. And Biden's not going, Jill's not going, Vice President Harris is not going. But
Trump is going. It's like he's president already. And even the people in Europe who hate him and fear him, they wanted me next to him and they want to get on with him. And I think that's extremely significant. He's going over to do that, and so there you go.
It's like he's already ruling our.
Country and and you know, taking over foreign policy, and I you know, I can't think of any I mean, there was the long interregnum between Hoover's defeat and thirty two and Roosevelt taking office those days still in March. Remember it was after that we moved it up to January twenty, during which time Hoover kept this long story. But I'll just say, in one sentence, Hoover kept saying, Roosevelt, what would you like me to do to help you know,
we're going to Cristis. Tell me what you'd like me to do, and I'll try and do it and ease the transition and speed things up. And Roosevelt refused to respond, and you know, wanted to get a fresh start of his own. And that's a long, controversial story. But instead, you know, Trump's not paying attention to Biden.
He's just gone.
And you know it's it's going to be a long four years in this sense, in a good sense that because Trump does so much, so much turmoil, it's gonna be a wild ride.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
I think, Look, I'm gonna get down and dirty. I did not know Steve was a follower of Rousseau and hegel. He thinks all the spirit of the age has concentrated into one leader who can recognize it and ride the wave, like Napoleon or somebody.
Well, yeah, I mean I knew it. I knew it.
Hegelian, Hegelian. This is like what happened. I was with a bunch of Straussians and that's what they were yelling at each other. Really, but the other I was at Ai for this Natural Law and the American conference, and after dinner there are accusations of Hegelianism being thrown about left and right. I wasn't sure what they were arguing about, but.
Now I get it.
Steve thinks that Trump is one of these world what's the first world historical figures?
Well, yes, yes, but you know it doesn't have to be a gay and to believe that, all you need to do is think about supremely talented people like like Napoleon or Marlborough, you know, Churchill's great ancestor or Churchill.
Right, that's that's all you don't have to go John, Okay. I was working out this morning, blow man, I know God.
And I was working out this morning and the Ricochet podcast appeared on my podcast list, you know, right front and center on my phone. So I decided to listen to it because you were on.
It, and that's what happens when Steve's in flight.
I guess so. But before you came on, I don't know if you listened to the Yeah, they're they're boring without you. I hate to see it. But anyway, I didn't say that out loud, but one of the one of the things they said that was actually very interesting.
They were all talking about their especially James was talking about his uh international travels and that he was in I believe he said, can kun somewhere in Mexico, and that all of these Europeans and Canadians and on and on and on, we're there and they all hate their
country right now and they're all thinking that America. It was part of a whole discussion about what you're thankful for, that America was just the number one prime place on Earth to be and the rest of the country is so jealous of us because of electing Trump and all that that means.
You know. I was reading something about how when we wrote to how depressed the Europeans are, Yeah, and why and one reason that I think I really was struck by being there again, how everything is in stasis. There's no growth, there's no innovation. They even will say that about themselves. They're worried about at least in Italy, all their young people are coming here. There's a brain drain in Italy for the United States and England, the Anglo
Saxon countries, as the French dismissively call us. But one statistics suck with me. I think I read that during the Bush ministry George W. Bush took office, the size of the European Union economy and the US economy were us roughly the same.
Yeah.
Now we're fifty percent larger somewhere around there, and the European Union economy is roughly the same as it was in two thousands. There's been almost no growth there, and we've clearly done despite all of the terrible policies of Obama and Biden. Despite them, we have still you know, the American economy is still dynamic compared to the rest of the world. I would be depressed too if I lived in those countries. They're becoming a bit like Disneyland
for adults. You know. You know, you go there for vacation. The people who live there seem to enjoy the life there, but there's no thing productive going on there.
Yeah, So, you know, I've for years referred to England as History Land, you know, sort of Disneyland for right, And yeah, no, I've looked at some of those same figures too, John. It's really stunning how little growth there's been in Europe for quite a while now. If you can look at stock market capitalization which has been flat while ours has been soaring, startups, you know, I pos.
All those kinds of things are lacking, way behind. And England.
By the way, you said people want to flock to the Anglo American world. I think you really want to say the American world. Most people don't know this, but real per capita income in England is lower than Mississippi, our poorous state. Really, I mean seriously, England, you know, the great nation of the Empire, and you know their incomes.
Of stagnant, so bad or below Mississippi. So it's an amazing thing.
And the other thing I'd add to it is the thing why they're excited about Trump and so many places. And I wanted to make this point that our presentations we made in Florence two weeks ago now, but didn't.
Have the time every time.
By the way, the reason Steven have time because he was mobbed with students.
I hope people saw the photos.
Mob people ignored me, and the Kresha absolutely ignored us. No student asked me single they were twenty people. Steve, we still don't know why.
It's my raw animal maggotism job.
It was your raw animal world historical magotism.
I just give off that Hegelian aura wherever I go.
Now, No, the play is every ruling party is losing votes and getting clobbered. And by the way, it's a bipartisan thing. I mean as I did mention but didn't explain the point. The great cautionary tale for populace of the right is Boris Johnson, who you know ran and won a smashing victory in twenty nineteen and then governed from the left, and that was his mistake. He totally capitulated the left and the Tory Party five years later was nearly wiped out.
There were showing in two hundred years.
And you know that's the That's what faces say Marine Lapan if they allow her to be president of France or by the way, breaking story. I haven't gotten the details. I've only seen the headline is that some court, I guess a constitutional court in Romania has invalidated the presidential election that went on this week because a conservative populace was in the lead and they're claiming Russian interference.
The boy, isn't this interesting?
Right?
Again?
My definition of populism being when the wrong person or party wins an election from the establishment point of view.
So there, you know, that kind of thing is going on in France.
They're trying to disqualify Marine Lapin from running for president through you know law fair So the stuff that was done against Trump is spreading overseas fast.
So things are going to get worse before they get worse.
I'll stop there, Okay, John, anything else to add to that?
Let me oh, I already accous Steve of being a Hegelian several times or something.
That I think that he probably is.
I think so too.
He is a.
That's even worse than being called a pretentious intellectual. John.
This is really I've studied what I know what's considered an insultant trouse world.
Ah, the mun slinging hasn't begun, all right.
So if my theme, my belief, my theme is it's Trump worlds Now. We're actually gonna start with a really interesting article that John wrote the other day. Which he was worried was untimely because this happened what seven days ago. We no longer can discuss major events that happened seven days ago because they've been preempted by other events. But really interesting article. Let me make sure I get the title exactly right, because that was my favorite part of it, John,
There was a good article. Why an international arrest warrant for Net and Yahoo is legal trash? Now let me set you up like this, John, and say that the Biden administration, as you point out in there, has gone along with you know, the I should let me say that again, something on which Net and Yahoo and Biden
and the Biden administration agree. I'm wondering, though, if the fortunes of the Biden administration were stronger, if if Trump was not on the scene, if the Biden administration would have been so quick to condemn the International Criminal Court. Your thoughts, your article, you give me your thoughts.
Well, I agree with you that if Obama or a Biden, well, first of all Obiden Obama Obiden, we should call it Obiden. Their administration always played foot see with the ICC, just like Clinton did. They call the Clint administration actually signed the treaty creating this International Criminal Court, which is an abomination of the rule of law. Here's this institution which is politically unaccountable. No one allocts a prosecutors, there's no juries.
The judge and the prosecutors are the same office. There's no way that nations can actually influence what they do. They don't take into account that Israel is a democratic country with its own legal system, a very vibrant legal system, and a very vibrant democracy where if the president did something wrong, as as we've seen, the people think they doesn't,
they'll prosecute. I mean Yahoo was under prosecution for corruption, and that this abomination is allowed to police the way the United States and our Western allies fight wars that are fought to defend Western civilization and world stability. I think the whole thing was a travesty.
That's just one.
And so here's the positive thing which I saw lacking in most commentary is what could Trump do about it? Trump could, I think, right sanctioned countries. Here's the other n I think this thing is supported by the countries that are pleading with us to protect them. Some of the greatest financial donors to this body are Japan, Western Europe and so on. They're the ones that want us
to fight the wars to save them. So I thought one thing Trump should do is saying, oh, Japan, you're the I think they're like the number three or two donor to the ICC. Well, maybe we're going to use military spending in Japan by the same amount or more. Maybe we don't need the base in Okinawa to be
as large as you would like it. Why should our troops be under threat of prosecution by this rogue court when we're fighting for our allies and those same allies are essentially funding this institution is sticking a knife in US.
Yeah, ste have any comment on that?
No, I agree with all of it. It shows that, you know, even Hegelians have their redeeming virtues.
Well, I will say this much. You know the military commitments in Japan Okinawa. You know, my dad was in the Korean Wars, a Navy flyer based in Japan and flying essentially spy missions, trying to track Soviet fleet movements up.
Oh yeah, well, you know, seventy years ago now. But one could imagine the scenario in which North Korea gets risky and an American pilot fires on a freighter that they think is a spy or something with military purposes, and maybe it's a mistake, maybe it's a civilian after all. And suddenly the international criminal courts is, oh, those American soldiers who made a mistake, or even it's not a mistake, they bring an indictment, and you know, Japan's giving them
money behind all this. As though I think your point is a good one, we got to tell them, look, you cut this nonsense out or you know, we're going to rethink entirely our committment, which Trump wants to do anyway, in a lot of ways, right, And it's a whole separate question about whether that's a good idea because we're overextended militarily or not.
But still I think it ought to be done.
Okay, So to show my incredible reputation for flexibility on these things, I'm going to flip things around. I had actually put John's legal trash article under my categories of the legal world, but because we started talking a little bit about Korea, I'm going to move to Trump's influence on or why it's Trump's world now in world politics, and ask John to talk to just a little bit
about South Korea. I do want to say I had dinner the other night with the general who just last duty station was in South Korea, and he gave me some interesting insights which I probably won't repeat, but I'm interested to see if you have the same ones, because he loved, loved the response that you gave, which was, no, it wasn't a coup. If it was a coup, they would.
Have called me.
Yeah, I'm like, I know, I'm like Lucretia's favorite public figure, John Bolton, when he said about the January I think he said this about January sixth, he said, that wasn't a coup.
I've done coups, that's no coup. So what is going on there?
Yeah, so it's interesting, you know. So I think what's going on is the president of President Yun, who's a former prosecutor and had never held public run or held public office before or elected office. His approval ratings are really in the dumps. One is because of the economy, which if you had any other country in Europe had South Korea's economic figures, they would be joyous. They would be re electing the party empowered by huge majorities.
But people are because he can't be re elected, right.
Yeah, it's interesting. The presidency there and the constitution is reaction to the military dictatorship that existed there for a long time, and so the president can have only one term and it's easy to impeach the president. It's a very strange way to impeach at the National Assembly has to pass a super majority of impeachment and then it goes to the Constitutional Court and they actually decide whether to remove the president. It's really interesting by a supermajority.
So the Supreme Court, the Constitution Court career, has to vote by a supermajority to remove the president. The previous president was impeached and removed for what I think of as a minor corruption scandal that comes nowhere near what Hunter Biden.
Was up to.
By the way, what happen is his in the dumps. This is the other thing is he's also in the dumps because everyone hates his wife. So in Korea, if you're unpopular, you blame your wife or your mother.
His wife.
His wife.
His wife is very glamorous and has an affinity for designer clothing and bags and accepted a few gifts, including Philippines, but much more attractive than.
Not saying much.
I mean, look, Korea is like the capitain Asia of cosmetic surgery and everyone and everyone Korea. I'm just don't giving you what people of Korea talking about, Like, oh, did you have cosmetic surgery? Why does she like all these designer handbags. It's like a lot of there's a lot of resentment against elites, and she kind of looks like that. And so because of those corruption scandals, his is really low, so President Yune claimed, and so this simply is about to impeach him. His arrange are in
the dump. So I think he thought the Claring Marshal law and he claims that he expected the Parliament to overrule him, which a can. He expected that it would just jar the system loose and get it out of this funk, and it really backfired terribly on him. It was overruled. But now everyone thinks he's reckless. It does seem reckless to me. But he was trying to get
out of this sort of logjam because the parliament. Oh, by the way, the Congress there is controlled by the opposition party, and they were investigating him, they were going to impeach him. They were refusing to pass any of his spending bills. So the president is there. But you know, here's one thing. I think this shows the virtue of the Framers by not having a single term presidency. And it was actually considered, it was actually i think included in early drafts.
It was actually pushed by Feral You had to.
Have a single term six year I think it was maybe six years, four years. They changed the well, remember.
Let me just mention quickly Virginia two years and that was a model original.
The Virgi plan. That's right. So the problem is that when you're a single term president like this president is, there's without the discipline of having to run for reelection and also the prospect that you can go to the people and get affirmed. I think it deprives the executive branch of a lot of legitimacy and power. And you're seeing that, I think played out here. So you might have seen just today the Congress and Korea failed to
hit and impeach the necessary votes for impeachment. The opposition party refused to cooperate. I don't know if that sounds familiar to anybody, But so the president there's not going to be removed from office. Their impeachment, which means it'll just be more chaos.
Can I do a follow up cultural question?
John?
Now, I know that you actually don't speak Korean, and you were born in Philadelphia, but still you go over and I.
Was born in Korea. I was born in Korea. But you speaking any Korean? Yeah?
I oh, I saw. I thought my parents of the time.
Came in the sixties. My parents were big believers in the Melting Pot.
Oh, okay, well so I mean, but I hope I have this history right that you know, South Korea.
After the war was evangelized, I think, especially by Baptist and now is largely a Protestant country religiously.
Is that right?
There's a lot of Catholics too, but I believe. But case, I think it is in Asia, not counting the Philippines. I think in Asia it is the most Christian country.
Right right, well, the other far and maybe we don't want to chase this tangent, but I wondered if a certain puritanical aspect of Protestant Christianity contributes to the sort of resentment of the leads, and especially a first lady who likes glamorous use and flowthing and gifts and things like that.
I don't know, I'm just it's a chicken.
And egg thing. Yeah, no, no, I think it's a chicken egg thing. But Calvinism is a strong factor in Korea. Not necessarily belief in Calvinism, but Calvinism is moral codes very strong. It's very similar to Korean culture before Christianity came ah, so Confucianism is kind of similar in many ways.
So there's yeah there.
This is a huge problem in Korea is this conflict between all the wealth that was created and basically fifty years they went from the second porest country in the world to the tenth richest country in the world in two generations. So there's a huge amount. If you go, we'll go who wants to go to canty anywhere? Let's go to solve from this trip, I guess that a really different experience. So you have enormous wealth but in a society that's still very socially conservative. There it's actually
a perfect combination. So when you go on this I love this lucretia like this, when you go on the Korean subway, which is an amazing subway system, there are this is just understood. All seats are given first to
the elderly. So if you see a young person sit down and not yield the seat to an older person, people will go up and slap the guy in the head until he actually gets I've seen old women roll up newspapers and continuously hit young people in the head until they get up, to the applause of everyone on the train.
So I need for the New York subways. It just import a whole lot of Koreans to start writing the mirror.
Oh yeah, yeah, you don't need any Daniel.
You don't need to know Daniel Pennies. You don't need any Daniel Pennies. You know, Korean grandma would take care of the problem.
What would a Korean grandma have done. I don't know if you guys saw the viral video of some pre adolescent approximately young African American girl just walking through the store, just kicking things over, taking bottles and throwing them and just walking through and causing and everybody's just standing around watch. Instead of somebody walking up and slapping her across the face and putting her hands behind her back and sending her over to the police, they just stood there and
watched her. It's like it's ridiculous. So, yes, we don't need them just in the subways. We need them everywhere, John, everywhere.
And they make great food too. It would be such an improvement to our country.
Yeah, now, of course we'll postpone this.
But the problem, John, is that the fertility rate in Korea is one of the lowest in the world now, and if the current fertility rate doesn't change, the last Korean is going to be born about eighty years from now.
And I mean barely anyone speaks the language anyway.
Well, I mean even in Korea.
No, no, I'm just trying.
Aren't that many Koreans around all right?
Yes, it is.
I mean, this is the solution to the problem is unification, because North Korea has a lot of people, right, and they are you know really it's a huge you know, labor pool and same culture. So that'll solve the problem temporarily. But no, by the way, this is unfortunately this is South Korea is also given to extreme politics too, because it's young democracy. It sort of reminds me of the politics at the time of the founding and the fighting
between Federalists and Jeffersonians. But remember we talked about it just a few episodes ago. Korea is where this refused to date or get married movement by women comes from that. Now, all the leftists here, yes, all the leftists here are
adopting right and in response to Trump. But in Korea it was because it was a response to sexual harassment, because it is still a patriarchical society, but women are now gaining good quality and so Korean young Korean women feel that the government and the legal system don't respond enough, so they're protesting ad by saying I won't date, I won't I won't reproduce until the society, you know, treats women better. So strangely that's converted into this any Oh,
I don't know. I don't okay, I just asked.
Really a huge movement or is it just sort of the a spearhead of want to be feminists?
Yeah, I don't think it's very many people, and it's certainly not converted into a partisan thing the way it is here where people who lost an election say I threatened to punish you by making our demographic even smaller.
Right, I love these people.
Yeah, they're okay, we are never going to get through my very ambitious agenda. Not that this hasn't been fascinating. So let me ask my quick question for you both of you. Are we already in World War three?
And is it?
Because this is my favorite, my second favorite to your to your article title, John, it's the warhors of the military and industrial comp are lighting the world on fire in order to make the world a horrible place when Trump takes over, as in you know, World War three, Syria, you could go Ukraine, on and on with all of the disastrous things going on in the world, mostly being pushed by the idiots in charge like Jake Sullivan and Anthony Blincoln and so on. What are your thoughts on that, John.
I actually think what's happening is Syria is a good thing for us. It shows that one of our main opponents, you know, the Russians, by spending so much effort in Ukraine, they've had to pull back around the world and so they can't pop up all these allies they used to have, like Syria.
I think.
I actually think the amazing thing to me is that the Biden administration has been incredibly lucky. They almost lost Ukraine. I mean, I think the Russians came very close in the very beginning of the war of taking Ukraine. This real troublemaker, this real threat to the reach in Israel Syria. It looks like they're how they might collapse. I don't think this has anything to do with the Biden administration policies. I think they've actually been way more fortunate than their
passivity and weakness would allow. So I think, I actually think, I think actually things might be in good shape for Trump to strike some deals now to UH to stabilize things in the Middle East and in the Ukraine and in Ukraine and Russia.
Yeah.
So I have been saying for a while now, and getting some blowback from readers, that we are, in fact in the early stages of.
World War three. Really yeah, And I mean, I you know, maybe you're.
Right about Syria, John, I could see it the other way around, which is the instability there.
See.
I think I think Israel is a stable equilibrium with Syria. I think Asada is terrified of Israel, so they're not a huge problem for And by the way, every time Israel attacks something in Syria, including in downtown Damascus, to kill sin Iranians, Syria does nothing, and they even say nothing thing near as I can recall and and who knows what might replace them. It could be chaotic, and it could be another Iran who the heck knows.
I don't know.
But but drawing back from that more broadly, I don't know, Lucretia. If I'm quite as cynical as the author of that headline that they're deliberately trying to screw up the world to make Trump's life miserable, that's possible, I suppose. I think it's more born of ignorance. And I go back to what's around October first of last year, when it was either Sullivan or Blinking. It doesn't matter which one because they're both.
Idiots, and it was Sullivan. But I know what you're gonna say.
Yeah, Sullivan has said, gosh, the Middle East is quieter than it's been in decades now. Now, only a fool would say something like that. You know, the absence of a visible conflict does not mean there aren't the things behind the scene that led to October seven, And anybody with their head on straight would know that, it would never say something that stupid. In fact, they should think the other that's been too quiet? What's what's building here?
Right?
So wait, here's another here's another person Lucretia loves. But isn't this this isn't a rumsfeldianism. It's the absence of evidence is not evidence of the risence.
Yeah, well, I think, you know, I think back to my great teacher strategic studies at Paramont, Harold rud who had always point to little things going on that aren't in the papers or aren't in the headlines and say, this adds up to something or is he like to put it? I love this phrase, nothing happens for no good reason, and I think that's you know, a lot of things you can say. You know, the Ukraine invasion October seven. Now we have what ten thousand North Korean
troops fighting for Russia inside their own territory. I don't I mean, don't get off on the weeds of tactics and all the rest of that. But that's not just a military statement. That's a political statement too, I think. And so all this adds up to a whole world of trouble that we did not see when Trump was president.
And maybe that's because you know, the I also, like, I suppose the in addition to the alien world spirit that is Trump, he's also the ultimate crazy man because you don't know what he's gonna do, and you know that actually is useful in world politics.
Another let me, I was just gonna add onto something John said. I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced that you're right or Steve's right about this not being purposeful on the side of the Biden administration, even purposeful to the point of wanting to hand over Trump a world in chaos. However, what we know is that Trump will be able to handle that chaos, and he will for all the reasons you both have talked about. I think that if they if they are purposefully doing this, they will be very,
very sorry. Because I think you're gonna see Trump make make some deals. Right, He's gonna make some deals, and he's gonna bring about peace in Ukraine. He's already been threatened by the NATO guy saying the world is going to be in a dangerous place because somehow if Trump negotiates a deal on Ukraine, it's gonna make us look weak. I mean, what a more on that guy is. You guys heard that I'm a sue.
I'm not sure I did, but I mean, I'm just back to the first term for a moment.
There's two bookends to Trump's first term that I think will repeat itself.
So first is in reverse order.
You know, he kills Sulamani, the you know, the one of the senior Irani military guys, which shocked everybody.
Neither Biden or Obama would ever do something like that.
And then early in his term, I think you'll remember this too, he's having dinner with President g from China at mar A Lago and Trump leaves the dinner table and he goes, and he comes back and sits down and says, oh, I just bomb Syria. Well, you know that's those are data points for leaders around the world who're going to say, you know, we don't know what this guy is gonna do. A deal on Ukraine may or may not be a good or bad deal, depending
on your point of view. But I think you're right, Lucretie, he's going to try for one and probably is the only one who can achieve.
It and make it stick.
I think we're just a bookend on this. I think we're gonna look back. We're already looking back at the Biden administration as a failed presidency. Yeah, trying to look at why did it fail? And I think this theme is common. I think in foreign policy and domestic policy. We're seeing it acutely here with the examples Lucretia's raising
is this is a government that went on autopilot. You don't have a commanding presidence at the top of the executive branch, and so what happens the administrative bureaucracy just takes over and puts into effect its own policies, but without any creativity, any sense of the new circumstances. It's just following the old playbook.
And so the.
Playbook in the old ideology of being embarrassed about being an American power, right, a great power. I honestly, I mean that that certainly pushes the ideology of Lloyd Austin, of Anthony Blincoln, of Jake Sullivan. Steve and I were laughing before that that Lincoln's Lincoln, Sullivan and Austin sounds like a really his his.
Comment was a really bad law firm, but you want to avoid and.
I just said it sound like a really bad beginning to a children's poem, you know, and blink in a nod. Yes, okay, So we could talk about that forever, but I want to move back for a moment because I did hear you talk about this as well, John on the Ricochet podcast, and I found it fascinating. Back to the legal world, we've heard a lot of people talk about the Daniel Penny since since you got You were on Ricochet yesterday. As you probably know, the most serious tra charge of
negligent homicide, right, no negligent that's okay, was dropped. But but it did not end in a mistrial, at least not yet. But and you know, we have to wonder watching not just this case fall apart, regardless of how many jurors are responsible for the hung jury. I was paying attention, Uh, is this the collapse of Soros DA's like Alvin Bragg, like you know, all of these people who I think the election has proven that voters are just damn tired of this nonsense. The picture of the
actual prosecutor's name, I can't remember. My comment about it was that she looked like all of her parents, grandparents, and great grandparents were either siblings or first cousins.
You know, normally normally look as them as Lucretia's department. But I'm totally with her.
There's this one great side by side picture of that really she is a repulsive looking woman, I have to say, and me, no, no. Well, the side by side picture that's now showing up on social media is the if you remember the second James Bond movie from sixty years ago from Russia with Love and the KGB assassin woman, who's this.
Very with the knife in the foot.
The knife in the foot, right, there's compared to that.
There's a resemblance there, right, and it sort of goes deeper than looks. Look I remember. I think a contrast here, in addition to just the narrow facts of this particular case is the Bernard Gets case from the mid nineteen age. Remember he was the guy who pulled out a gun and shot four muggers were approaching him with sharp and screwdrivers demanding his wallet. Now, he was convicted ultimately of a gun charge, which maybe now wouldn't hold up after that.
How many how many jury grand juries refused to indict him?
Yeah, I don't remember.
Yeah, grand jury would not indict him for homicide or any of the other things. They recognized that it was a you know, legitimate self defense, but they did get him on a gun charge night. I think he served
six months in jail or something like that. But you remember the time before they you know, the story came out, uh and oh my god, it's you know, it's uh, what's uh what was the famous movies Death Wish and all the rest of that, And then they found out, Yeah, that's spons movies, right, And so anyway, he was kind of a folk hero, and I think uh, and the
media played it that way at the time. By the way, if you go back and read it, and some liberals wrung their hands, we don't want vigilantism and all the rest of that. But now contrast it with now with bringing homicide charges against this guy.
And what I hear, by the way, and who knows.
What's going on, but our pal Inns Stepman, who I think is well connected in New York, says she hears that the holdouts on the jury are the holdouts for conviction, not holdouts for acquittal, and in fact that the people who want to convict him are a minority on the jury. So I hope that's true, and that's a hopeful sign. But I mean, this is could be the end.
Of all this. I don't know.
You saw the mayor of New York, Adams saying we need more people like Penny.
He's a hero.
If he's convicted, I think there would be enormous pressure on the Governor of New York, Athy Hokeel, to pardon him immediately, and I think she might do it. People can well, Trump should pardon him, but it's not a federal charge, which people would not wish. People would at least understand that. But he could make a big stink about it.
People on the Ricochet podcast, John.
They said that John, Oh right, Okay, yeah, I mean you can you could imagine Trump making a big stick about this and bringing so much pressure that they had to pardon the guy, which would be a suboptimal outcome, But there we are, John uh Well.
One development that occurred since the podcast is that because of the hung jury, actually the prosecution and the judge took a I actually can't remember ever hearing of this before. They actually dismissed the charges on which the jury been hung. And the reason this is important is because the prosecution, if that was a hung charge, has the right to had the right to recharge Penny again and we try
him again on it. So effectively, by hanging the jury not coming to unanimous verdict, they did effectively acquit penny of this. He can't be tried again for that. Once the charge, once the char house started, jury's impaneled, and then they dropped the charges. He's double jeopardy plies, he's you know, he's done with that. So the only thing left is now this thing called criminal negligence. And as trying to forgere out a good way to explain it.
It's not that you intended to kill somebody. It's that you did something that was negligent, you acted unsafely, and then just the consequence of your act was that you killed somebody. It's not even necessarily foreseeable that you're going to kill someone, So maybe a good So here's a difference. So the first charge was how fifteen years would be like shooting a gun into a crowded area without trying
to aim or hit anybody. But it's so reckless to shoot a gun off, say, in a stadium filled with people. That it's so really you're going to kill somebody highlightly and you don't want anyone doing things like that. Criminal negligence would be something the one that's now still open. Although gosh, I think they're gonna hung hang or a quidum too, So that's only four years to zero years if Penny could actually, even if he's convicted, go free
based on the judge's sentence. That's sort of like drive being with your texting and driving at the same time. So you're just driving and texting and you happened to hit someone, but you weren't intending to. It wasn't that you were doing something reckless with you know, you know, any normal person would see, oh, you are going to kill someone. If you do something like that, you just don't know who. It's not planned, it's just something you
shouldn't be doing. It's unreasonable, and as a result of that, you kill somebody. So that's all that's left. But your larger point, Lucretia, I think is a good one that what does this mean in terms of the big picture, is Yeah, this these rogue prosecutors, they're failing all over
the country, right right here in the Bay Area. Not only did Chase of Boudin get recalled by the people of San Francisco, of course he moved immediately to Berkeley, the Colleague of ours, but the DA for Oakland, for Alameda County, another source prosecute was just recalled by the people. And these are the you know, some of the most liberal communities in the country. The DA in Los Angeles County. George Gascon another maybe the first of the Soros prosecutes,
was just recalled there too. But now, recall he was beaten for reelection by a former Bush administration Justice Department official who was head of the tax division.
So they think they're so.
Bad in LA.
They're like, we better put criminal law in charge of a tax attorney. Right, that's how good and things are in LA. And so the counter the counter though, to my point, is for some reason Bragg was just re elected, right, I mean he's got.
Big Fannie Willis.
Yeah, and Fanny Willis was just re elected despite their abuses of the prosecutorial system. I don't get it.
I don't get what.
And in Philadelphia, my home city, well he wasn't first, but this guy Krasner, he's maybe the worst of the Soros prosecutors. I mean, he really has sort of dropped charges against violent felonies, a crime rate has gone up incredibly the Philadelphia area, and still he gets re elected by large margins. I don't I really don't understand it.
I hate to say it, but it's almost as if those cities deserve the prosecutors that get if they're willing to keep an office people who are harming the communities. In fact, minority, inner city poor communities suffer this crime way the worst.
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, Okay, So give us really a five minute dissertation on the never mind the hunter, the hunter pardon That one's probably been talked to death. Although Steve and I did have an interesting conversation about I actually felt sorry for Mophead yesterday.
Really why that's amazing?
It is amazing. Well, the better way to put it is that for the first time she was being challenged not by Peter Doucy, but by the you know, the regime media, the White House correspondence. If Biden had apologized, she would apologie, if Biden had apologized for lying to her basically about the fact that he would never and you know, she came up with her usual word, solid answer and got out of the question. But as Steve pointed out, it really wasn't Peter Doucy, it was all
these other people. And my answer to Steve was that maybe the first time ever that I actually have more sympathy for Karine Jean Pierre than I do for the White because they knew they knew she was lying, they knew Biden was lying, but they want to blame her
because they didn't push back on it. Then. Anyway, I'm actually more interested in you discussing for our listeners really quickly the notion of the preemptive pardons that are being bandied about, whether a you think they might do it, and b you have your own historical but not constitutional justification for them, and I'd love to hear that well.
Tutions. Granted, the part and power is one of the broadest presidential powers. There's only two exceptions. One is you can't pardon for convictions of impeachment and the second, as a president can't pardon for state law crimes because they're just outside the scope of the federal government. And so a lot of this has been determined by practice, not
by clear Supreme Court precedent. You could have read the part and Power narrowly and said it should only apply when someone's already been convicted, for example, or someone's been indicted, But from the very beginning, the part and power was used in this way to immunize people who've done something
potentially illegal before they're ever investigated. The first major uses George Washington, you know, the Whiskey Rebellion in seventeen ninety four, the Whisky Rebellion, which it kind of sounds like the name of Steve Hayward's House right of Rebellion exactly. So the was gear rebelly. George Washington. Remember, he comes out, he leads the army into the field to go after these people who you know, tax federal court houses and
attack tax federal tax collectors in western Pennsylvania. And so Washington let the army out, the rebellion immediately dissolves, and then Washington pardons prospectively the ringleaders before they're ever brought to court. So that's early. And then the biggest example in terms of numbers is the Civil War. Lincoln and Andrew Johnson effectively pardoned everybody in the Confederacy even though every single Confederate was guilty of treason, right, every single
one of them guilty treason. I looked up. I mean that's millions of people. And and so that's now the thing that's interesting that there is a difference in kind uh and the creatures right about this and that in these cases in the past and the and the Nixon pardon is just a part in over a time period. So the problem is that everybody knew what those pardons
were for. We knew what the crime was and what Biden did for the first, I think it might be the first time, aside from these examples, was just say anything you might have done in this time period of at all, you're immunity from prostcation.
That is different.
I think it's constitutional, but as a bad policy to set because now right given despite the claims that the you know, the Supreme Court gave undermine the rule of law by immunizing the president, what has Biden done? Biden has turned around and at least I could see the argument for the presidency being unique that you have to immunize his official actions. Here you have Biden giving his son the same kind of immunity that only used to
be reserved for presidents. Not even cabinet members get this kind of immunity.
Steve, I know you have a lot to I want you to say. I just want to I want to harken back for just a moment something John said earlier, where he said the lack of of re electability for the president deprives the executive branch of legitimacy, and so looking at that in a kind of broader way and applying it to this situation. So Biden says he's not gonna pardon his son up until and the election's over, and he does it because he's not I mean, okay, he wasn't up for he wasn't going to be re
elected anyway. But also the Democrats loss. Maybe if Kamala Harris had won, he might have who knows, It's hard to say. But my point is that the fact that they're also talking about these preemptive pardons for other other members, for uh, the guy I hate so much, Milly Mark Milly, for Anthony Fauci, you know, and the and the list
goes on. What I want to say is you are absolutely right that the lack of the reelectability possibility makes it possible for the executive to act really irresponsibly, which is I think what's happening here, because the pardon power is not even though the Constitution is not very specific about its actual limitations and someone we've always understood it to mean it's an opportunity for the executive to fix
the defects of the rule of law. The rule of law means general laws apply equally to everyone, and there are times when actual circumstances dictate that if the law is applied equally and equitably in the general sense, it will result in injustice. Right, so I'll stop talking, Steve.
You go on.
Well, the classic sample of that, I think in modern times of a pardon used correctly to correct the defect of the law, I arguably was the Patty Hirst case.
Right.
She was convicted being part of the terrorist group, and you know, it emerged later that you know, she'd been subject to so much coercion and psychological abuse that maybe she did not deserve to be convicted in central law, and Jimmy Carter gave her a full pardon.
Okay, maybe maybe not whatever.
A wife who's endured years of abuse at the hands of her husband.
Yes, sure, right, yeah, but not this We're miles away.
Wait, does mister the Crees get a preemptive party?
Might hear you?
But look, I mean I think so let's step back a minute. That these perspective pardons for Millie and Pouchier whoever else, h keep in mind that what's really going on behind the scenes is Uh, you know the Biden criminal Syndicate, right, I mean, how many suspicious financial activity reports did BANG forward to the Treasury Department about the Biden banking transactions. The point is has been pointed out is you know Hunter Biden is now cannot lead the
Fifth Amendment privileging against self incrimination. Well wait a second. That means you could have investigations of Jim Biden, the President's brother, who seems to have been in the chain of custody of the transactions.
I might also get a preemptive pardon.
That's just it.
If you say I'm getting the politics of this and I'm being too circumlocucious for you, as I usually am. Look, you pardon always other people saying fauci. There're gonna be targets of a vindictive Trump. So you do all those partons, and then you slip in more partners for the Biden family, for Jim Biden, maybe for the President himself. Now, I wasn't going to comment on the law on this, but it seems to me there are only two remedies for this,
both difficult. One of them, John, I'll see what you think about this is maybe there needs to be a constitutional amendment that says the pardon power shall be ineffective or or not eligible after the presidential election of a departing president.
Because Biden's not the first person to abuse this.
We saw Bill Clinton on his way out the door in two thousand and one, partnering a lot of very dubious cases and including his brother and Mark Rich and so forth. And the second one would be, maybe Biden should be impeached for abusing the pardon power. Now, he's only got forty days in office, and you'd have to rush things.
But maybe president in the set, Steve, what's that he's for an after for an impeachment process when you're out.
Of all I see what you're saying, right, Yeah, but maybe that should be done. I don't know.
I mean, you know, probably Republicans don't want to spend the time involved in doing that. But that seems to me the only other remedy that's available right now.
It should It's always was supposed to be a political remedy, not a constitution. There is no real if you do if you have a pardon power that does what I say, and you guys agreed it should do, which is to allow the executive to do what's right as opposed to what's strictly legal, what's just in a special circumstance of particular situation. What's the what's the check on that? It's it's it's politics. It's it's a political check. You're I've been thinking about Ford.
Your your your buddy, your Claremont Graduate University buddy Douglas Adair. He wrote this book of Fame and Rithers, and his view was, you will be, you will go down in history. It's a terrible president and that's the real right Hamilton says, that's the real check on the president's is their reputation and their legacy, which Biden cares about.
Right.
He thought he was going to be FDR and he turns out to be Jimmy Carter. One last can I just make one last point about the other larger constitutional issue here is that this is this is I was saying, this is like, uh, constitution. This is like a constitutional pyromaniac who sets his neighbor's house on fire. And I was like, oh my god, the fire is coming to my house, right, because what why? What is this a
response to law fair? Biden is the one who launched investigations and prosecutions of the previous president and you know his main advisors, And now what's he doing. He's s issuing these parties because he's like, oh my god, this might happen to me. Now if he had never broke in the you know this, our long history of not
engaging law fear, these parties wouldn't be necessary. And he says, and in classic projection, he's assuming Trump is going to do exactly what he did, even though when Trump won, remember Trump went on locker up and he never had Hillary prosecuted.
He didn't prosecute Comy.
He didn't prosecute Comy either, for all draunistic reasons.
Remember, not because he was a coward, not because he was afraid to do it, but because he didn't believe that it would be good for the country. And he pissed off, excuse the expression, a lot of his followers by not doing that. So we're going to run out of time. This is a really important one for me. I'd like you just I'd love to discuss all the cabinet picks and the fact that maybe as of today, Haig Seth seems to be rallying I guess you could say,
or his chances are getting better. That seems to be the latest momentum. I don't know, it's hard to say, but I want to discuss really quickly Trump's nomination of Jay Bodicharia, our friend, Jay o friend, because we haven't discussed the whole COVID thing all the other stuff we discuss a lot. So tell me what you guys think a about that appointment, and one of you catalog a little bit about what he's promised to do if he actually is appointed in confirmed to the NIH National Institute of Health.
Steve, you're the scientist on the podcast.
Why don't you Well, I don't know about that, but well, I am hard pressed to think of another appointment in the past that represents such a diametrically opposite not his point of view, but repudiation explicitly of what has gone on before and a deliberate signal of a wholesale transformation of what's a big problem. And so one of the things that doctor j has said, by the way, you know, he's a very serious guy. He was called by Fauci and Francis Collins, who I always had a lot of
respect for until COVID came along. They called him a fringe figure, which is absurd. But he's a mild manner guy. He's not all that politicized in the ordinary sense, but
boise angry now in his soft spoken way. And so one of the things he has said in recent days that's been reported is that in considering who to give federal research grants to, and they mostly go to university outfits like Johns Hopkins, is their academic freedom and free speech ratings from FIRE the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression? And I do know, because I've you know, talked to a couple of college presidents who've gotten f ratings or made red light.
I guess it is from Fire. And they don't like it.
They really, you know, they don't like the reputation of being hostile academic freedom and free expression. But of course they don't know what to do about it because their college presidents.
Of course, right.
And anyway, I think the idea that Johns Hopkins, which I think is the leading recipient of federal research something like that stem of their budget you mean, or I don't know, now.
Fift NIH grants go to Johns Hopkins.
Could be I don't know, if it's it's a huge amount of money, I think it's idea. Oh yeah, I think it's in the It's over a billion and maybe multiple billions, and you know they have a formidable research outfit. But the point is is, uh, you know, boy Johns Hopkins or Harvard or anyways, they're going to be in a world of hurt if they're uh, if they're maybe lucreastia.
You may know this.
Every time there's a government shut down and just the basic flow of funds is cut off, it reachs havoc with the research labs and the graduate students and all the all the things at public universities that depend on all this federal large ess. So this could be fun to watch and so that's you know, it's one of my favorite appointments for sure.
Yeah. Remember they they coursed universities into vaccinations because of mandatory vaccinations, or you would because they of all the federal money dumping into universities, they had to force mandatory vaccines across the board. Well, you know, everybody but people who student workers. Yeah, I mean one quick workers were for a grants right, go ahead.
One quick story about Johns Hopkins is an acquaintance of mine. There is the very eminent econounist Steve Hankey, and sometime in twenty twenty or maybe early twenty twenty one, he came out with a study I forget the details of it.
It was very critical of COVID policy.
And he put it out you know, Social Science Research Network, because there wasn't time to go through the journal publication process that takes eighteen months at best.
And even though he's he's a.
Guy who's like run currency boards for countries around around the world to get into trouble with their currencies, and anyway, Johns Hopkins made him take his affiliation with Johns Hopkins off the study. And I think that's because my hunch is he got a phone call from Francis Collins or Faucy or somebody saying, you know, your grant money is in jeopardy if you allow this economist guy to be trashing us with a study like this.
So you know that's how they play hardball, So we should play it back.
Yes, we absolutely should. And and he says he's going to and I believe him. You know him better than anybody. I think, John, what do you think?
I love?
There's a great profile of him in the Wall Street Journal to just today. And I love the anecdote that starts with saying that Jay's first name in the Indian language means he who is victorious.
In the end.
Yeah, I love it. I love it.
I know I love it.
Isn't that great?
I love it. I absolutely love it.
So that I think is the grace ory that here's a guy who's persecuted now becoming head of the very agency that persecuted him, and he's not looking for vengeance, but he wants to do is fit make sure this never happens again. Yeah, concentrates so much power and just a few you know, he doesn't say it, but I think he applies. You know a few people who themselves are not up the stuff, like doctor Fauci is not really an epidemiologist. But I actually this ties in with
Lucretia's earlier point about questions about law fair. I mean, I thought, I think doctor Fauci should could well be investigated because he I think he's lied to Congress. There's a plausmum case he lied to Congress about how did the funding get to Wuhan. And I was thinking, this is like, this is I'm actually I was curious about that Steve's thought about this is I was talking about this with someone and I said, why is this any
different than Iron Contra. Here's this funding research, this funding right to engage in, uh, you know, research into viruses to make them more lethal, you know, more communicative, more lethal. There's a band in the United States, so Fauci roots money appropriated by Congress outside the federal government to send it deliberately to China. Is that like really not that different than what happened in Contra?
In much different, It's much much worse.
It's worse in a way.
There's no national security justification, like there was a round Contrac and.
The damage that it did to the world is is you know, i'mtold.
We trillions and million lives and lives, and.
So I told you I was going to say, and I tell you an anecdote. I'll make it very quick. But when when COVID started, we had these meetings of the deans, the university deans every single day over zoom of course, at three o'clock every single day. And and the at the time, the dean of the medical school
was he still is a really good guy. And when fall came around and we were coming back to school, you know, but under these extreme extraordinary measures egress and ingress, things on the floor and waste water and you know, all these new things to the air systems. Anyway, he said, the best thing we could do would be to encourage students to party. Get drunk, party, party, party for the first couple of weeks of school. Let them all get COVID, get over it, and we'll move on. He said that
a week before school started. The next thing, you know, he came back and said, oh, I was completely wrong about that, ah, because they threatened to the nih threatened to cut off all federal funding for projects at the university. Yeah, completely change changed his tune. And my president at the time was a good friend of Scott Atlas and Jay Bodicharia,
and he caved on every bit of it too. To be honest with you, it was it was ugly, which is I mean, I'm saying that to remind people of how ugly it was and how perfectly good, respectable medical professionals were coerced, at risk of their careers into going along with the program even though they knew it was wrong. So I just a serious point one last week, I say, I know we're going way way over. But I really got to know what you guys think and if it
has any any legs? Shall we say about the Ninth Circuit Court opinion dealing with the chartered flights out of some airport in Washington State where some executive order from some official there said you can't, well, yeah, give any more contracts to contract air carriers unless they promise they won't fly illegals deport illegals. And the Ninth Circuit Court said, sorry, are you aware that one? John? You're muted?
John read I'm sorry. I hadn't read the opinion, but I saw the summarison. But it seems like an easy case. Actually, the state law is not allowed to impede the execution of federal law.
So what if what if your guys's favorite governor gruesome? Besides, it actually gets his twenty five million dollars to resist efforts by ICE to deport illegals in California? What happens in that situation?
Then I was at a panel and talking about the Trump immigration agenda and what should he do with the California's a sanctuary state, not just a sanctuary San francisc is not just sanctuary city. The whole state is sanctuary state, right, and Newsom is gearing up, you know, pulling up and trying to ask the legislature for more money to start suing the Trump administration. I think the Trump I think Trump should just cut California office as much federal funds
as he feels like. And you say you want to go to court, let's go to court. And I'm not.
Last time this.
Happened the Trump Justice Department, I think they cut maybe fifteen million bucks out of the DJ grants of San Francisco. Trump should go bigly this time. He should say I'm going to cut the entire state of California off if you guys continue to impede federal law enforcement. And yeah, California can sue spend the twenty five million dollars on getting it back. It'll take years.
Yeah, or any illegal aliens that Trump can't deport, he can send to California, you know, the Martha's Vineyard strategy.
Oh that's not a bad idea too.
So, by the way, I think this is partly I think this is partly bluster on Newsom's part. Look, he wants to run for president desperately in four years, and it turns out.
We'll see how this unfolds.
But it turns out that deporting illegal aliens, at least the criminal ones and and you know, the migrants phony asylum seekers is popular.
And yeah, so what's his point here?
Well, I think his point is virtue signent to progress is that he needs as his base. But I'm not sure he really wants to go too far down this road because it will kill his presidential bid.
That's all.
Yeah, Okay, all right, that makes sense. Okay. I want to keep discussing all this exciting stuff with you guys for days, but we're way over time, so I'm going to move to Babylon Bee, and I do want to. We didn't really discuss it other than the general terms about Trump being the invited everywhere and everybody loves him. He had that conversation with McCrone that led to some really hilarious real headlines. Of course, the Babylon b does
it better than anybody. So the first one, Trump announced his plan to a next Canada and rename it Gay North Dakota.
And there was you know, typical of Trump to Annexada, after all the Hollywood celebrities have fled there.
Right right, that was the next one. Celebrities flee to Canada, only for Trump to ann exit tragic suspicious Biden partons Hunter for anything you might do tonight between two thirty and four seventeen. Am Oh, yes, so you guys, I don't think flew through through London, but I did. This one's one of my personal favorites. Paddington Bear arrested for telling Muslim immigrants to be more polite. Do you even get it?
Something happened?
No, Paddington Bears one of the things that they teach children manners and and but yeah, never mind. Anyway, you'll have to figure it out. John Prosecutors warn Daniel Penny acquittal could lead to rampant acts of heroism. That's not even funny. I don't I don't get this one, So I'm gonna I'm gonna say it and ask you guys to explain it to me. Supreme Court rules eight to one in favor of taking turns bonking Justice sodomy Er on the head with their gavels.
Well, look, there's a there's a there's a contest on who's the dumbest of the two, Progressive.
Jackson or Soda my ore. They're both this week really dumb.
I don't know.
Yeah, we didn't even talk about the case that I know there was just.
Way too much. Maybe we just need to have a podcast every day and we still keep up. I'm just kidding. That's just a joke. Okay, So you've probably heard. Another area we didn't talk about was so much winning. I'm I'm not yet tired of winning, but so much winning.
The de I.
The whole DEI structure we have discussed before, is collapsing on itself almost everywhere. Walmart has decided, as you've probably heard, to end its focus on DEI, which makes me happy because there's only one store in my town. It's called Walmart. Walmart ends DEI program. Well, now I'll treat all employees like garbage, regardless of race and gender.
Totally unfair, But I get it, I.
Know, I know.
I actually don't think that that's true at all. Joe Biden pardons the twenty twenty four Chicago White Sox.
Yeah, if you're a baseball fan, that that really hurts.
Yes, the last ones since we did mention barely making America healthy again. RFK Junior announces reduction of five second rule to three second rule. Yeah, John's not even laughing at that one. Do you know what the five second rule is? John? When you when you the picture shows a checkcake dropping on the floor, on top on the frosting, and the five second rule is as long as you pick it up before it's been on the ground for five seconds, you can still.
Eat it because bacteria move really slow.
What's the theory of that?
Step on a crack? You'll make your brothers bring their mothers back. I don't know that there's science behind.
It, John, You need to have kids to understand that rule.
Actually, don't you want them to eat it to build their immunity?
Why it's five seconds?
Zero second?
Or the ants get it or the cockroaches you're okay, yeah, you know, because you don't want a cockroach growing in your stomach. More science. Okay, your turn, John, I'm done.
Okay, Well we really we really do have to redo our closing now and now that when Biden leaves office because he's not going to make sense. But always drink your whiskey meat, let's go Brandon and.
Steve Hamela who.
Yeah, anyway, all right, by guys next week.
When I drink red wine. A lot of things why I drink red wine.
I'm too donna break a lot of things, but for that bottle, because I'm feel just I good kid. Well, you know I can't chell lord of good grape from a bad. Well, Lord, I can't tell lord of good grape from a bad.
But I judge a bottle by how much fun I had. Well, I'm drinking red wine, drinking red wine. Well, I'm drinking red wine, drinking red wine. Well, I'm drinking red wine.
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