Well, whiskey coming fame my pain. Honey? All right, oh 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 lap lapp? And David?
Ain't you easy on the should taps?
You gotta give me? And let that whiskey flo It's the three Whiskey Grumpy Hour. No, that's not it. Let's start again. It's the three It's the three Grumpy Whiskey Hour. Oh wait, hold on, that's not right either. Let me get an extra Snickers bar listeners and then we'll be ready to go. So okay, I've had my phill Snickers. It's the three Whiskey Happy Hour. U recording on a Saturday morning because that's the only time we could find. So we're not live like we would like to be.
But here we are. I'm having coffee instead of whiskey. Are you guys having coffee? Tea? Anything? Fun? Irish? Whiskey? Coffee?
Twelve mug?
You're eighteen twelve mug? Right?
What happened in eighteen twelve? Pardon what happened in eighteen twelve. That's on your mug. There was this little war John really Madison's Folly. It was called Madison's Folly.
Remember, I say, but I actually think that it's the the Francis Scott Key over Fort what what's its name?
What fort? Was it McHenry? Wasn't it?
Was it Fort McHenry? Anyways in Baltimore.
Yeah, I have to say I'm embarrassed to say I'm drinking out of my Sheets mug, which is for those of you who, like you two, know nothing of the East Coast. Sheets and wah Wah are in a contest for world domination. So Sheets is from Pittsburgh and Ohio area, and wah Wah is Philadelphia. So every now and then the Amish Country is right in the middle. So when you go the Amish Country, you have Sheets and Wawa next to each other. So I have mugs from both.
Aha. Well, all right, I'm drinking out of an Age of Reagan coffee mug from the Reagan Library. It's not name for my win I know, I win Well, it's not named for my book exactly, although they decided to use that title for the conference. The Academic Conference they do every other year, so they always have to invite me since they're using the title. Okay, but while we're talking about food and comestibles, two things. One is I think I sent you guys that poll from Pew about
what people think is immoral, and I was pleased. I think it's a stupid pole but never bind why. But I was pleased to see that only four percent of Americans think eating meat is immoral. And yet why does it seem that fifty percent of America's gone vegan? Because it's the hel from the corners or something, right?
Anyway, I just think they're louder Steve, I don't think. And now they have their their soy boy champion in Texas.
Oh, I'll come back to him very briefly in a moment. I do have an interesting piece of McDonald's trivia for you, John, and it has to do with the legendary fact checking of the New Yorker magazine. If you know in journalism, the New Yorker is legendary. Are used to be for their fact checking, and you know they would find any
little mistake in the process. And so I was reading this in John mcfee's memoir of All the writing he did for New Yorker, and he said one time he had an article that went in said there are two Illinois rivers, one in Illinois and the other one in Arkansas and Colorado, And of course the fact checking department comes back and says, oh, actually, there's like five of them. There's one in Oregon, there's one in a couple other places. And so you know they're like that. You know, nothing
gets by their fact checking. Well, guess what. They published a short story in two thousand and five where the characters said they bought chicken mcdugad's chicken McNuggets at McDonald's on a visit in nineteen seventy nine, and exactly, well, the readers. It turned out that they weren't introduced till nineteen eighty three. Everybody knows that, well, anybody but the New Yorker fact checking department, which I thought was kind
of funny. And as you can imagine, New Yorker readers loved pounds in any factual mistake they might make in there.
I remember as a kid when they came out and I of course rushed to get them and we were all, I mean, and my friends are trying to figure out like where what is this made of? Like where did it come from? How did they make this? Like where did the bones go?
Right?
Questions that still remain unanswered.
Right. Well, Jay Leno used to have a great routine about the chicken McNugget back in the eighties, cause it's all, you know, pressed and formed chicken. And he says, you could put a bunch of these in front of a chicken and they'd look down and say, I see nothing here that defends me because they're fair, right, Or you could dig it up in five hundred years and say, oh, look a chicken McNugget and probably still be edible. Right.
But the other other statistic I saw that bears on your four percent is I saw a report that steakhouses are killing it. Yeah, absolutely killing it. Like that's the most popular segment in the restaurant business right.
Now, even with the high price of beef.
It's because of the high price of beef, because people don't want to spend you know, nineteen dollars a pound on a nice ribbi and then take it home and ruin it. Oh okay, that's the reason.
That's a good theory. I like that one.
But meanwhile, I'm I'm sorry. Told it's not a theory. I'm told that's the reason.
Could be, Yeah, it makes sense. Meanwhile, we have Causus belly to raise the Jolly Roger. So I've recently been listening now and then to a brand new podcast it's just been going three four months that's a little bit like ours because it's two dudes and a chick. You know how many podcasts are you know? Two dudes and a chick like ours?
And it's called Sounds.
I don't know, but well, but it's about politics, although they're not political philosophers or economists. Mostly it's it's it's
called Central Air because they think they're centrist. But I'm sure Lucasia would say they're all radical, progressive soft headedness, although they do oppose Tallerico in Texas and thought he's a terrible nominee, not because they favored what's your name, but because they think they were both hopeless and anyway, it's Josh Barrow, whose father is Robert Barrow, the Harvard economist John who you may know of. He is actually
pretty good. And then Megan mccardal at the Washington Post who writes his really good economic articles, and then the third person is why I would actually kind of like. It's Ben Dreyfus, who actually is pretty far out there. He used to work at Mother Jones and his father is the actor Richard Dreyfus, and he's actually pretty funny. But his substack is called is to you the sense of these guys and why you can actually listen to them? His substack is called calm down, Well, calm down about what?
Calm down about Trump? He says, you know, he's anti Trump derangement syndrome, even though he doesn't like Trump, which it kind of marks him out as unusual because you're supposed to be all in on hating Trump. And so he says, I don't care about the ballroom. I don't care about the Kennedy Center. People are sort of dumb. That people are dumb to get worked up about all these things. But here's the problem. The other day, I'm listening and they went off for twenty minutes about McDonald's
and the new big Archie Burger. Here's a quick sample of what I mean. This is Central Air. You wrote about McDonald's this week because of the video. I wrote an article on McDonald's this week and the number of commenters, yeah, who were like, I would never eat at McDonald's. It's like, you know, sometimes I like a big mac and I thought they can't do that. That's our territory. Yeah. But
Megan mccarnald made a really interesting point. This was you know, if you remember the controversy, the head of McDonald's, crisins Pinski, whatever his name is, took this dainty little bite out of the burger and got ruthlessly mocked on social media and the other burger come Breeze actually their own videos mocking him. Megan makes a simple point, what did that just do? It made much bigger news that McDonald's has a new burger, and then they went and talked about
the burger salmon with mixed reviews. You've had one, right, John, I think, yes.
I didn't think it was so bad. But look, this just tells us more about the NEPO baby power structure. You just explained. These people are hosts who are distinguished solely by having the blood of more famous parents, and so they were coddled in life. They weren't raised on McDonald's. They've probably been in McDonald's maybe five times their whole lives I don't trust their taste. Right, they're one of those four percent who probably think eating meat is immoral.
And I bet all of those people on that podcast have gone through various phases of not eating this, not eating that, denying the omnivivorous nature of mankind. Right, you guys should like that. It's human nature to be omnivorous.
Well, you know what, John, they wouldn't have disappointed you if you listened through, because they talked about other chains like five guys and in and out. But then they did live up to your stereotype, which is they said, but you know, burgers really aren't very good for you, and you shouldn't have Oh exactly, I said, No, that's where they lost.
It, right, hamburgers aren't good for you.
Come on, you know it should be a rare treat. I thought, No, you're all wrong.
And anyway, instead of their lightly grilled cucumber sandwiches they probably have at high tea, I would arm wrestle either of them after they had one of their will to desparegas burgers. All right, sorryn but Lucretia was going to comment and she's you know, she's in a Hamburger testosterone Field household over there with mister Lucretia and Lucretia Junior. I mean that sounds like a great idea for a burger Lucretia or the Lucretia Jr.
Yeah, So nobody in my house eats, except for me on occasion, eats anything but meat as a as a health as a matter of health, it's yeah, I can't even imagine that people think that somehow taking some a bunch of products and processing them to the hilt and making soy the central thing and then eating that, actually eating that. It's just amazing to me. The only thing I'll touch with soy and it is soy sauce because it's fermented. So yeah.
Can I tell a story about how I took the Lucretia family to dinner in San Francisco once and the Tadditch Grille, which is kind of like a steak has a great place, and I have to say, uh, there were some large pieces of meat produced brought to the mill of the table, and you know those like African safar shows where like the cow goes down and then the hyena pack comes in and then you just see the movement of the animals and pieces of fly out, but you don't see anymore of the piece.
I'm embarrassed that you would say that, because I do, at least you, Lucretia Junior, learned better manners than that.
I haven't been here in a long time. They still serve the lamb shoulder. Isn't it one of their specialties? Oh?
Yes, Actually, I mean the thing they love. They actually serve corned beef hash for dinner.
With past good. That's what I had. All right, all right, let's take a quick break from one of our sponsors and then we'll come back and get into some serious topics. All right, John, you're up first today in our free for all round robin format, and I think you want to talk about it. Ron, I'll just say quickly, yes, set you up that I finally figured out this week how you can tell that we're winning you know, fog
of war. We don't know the details, but the light bulb went on and said, oh, I know why we're winning this war, and we're winning it big because the media is telling us it's a quagmire. And I mean, you go back to what they did in Vietnam, reported everything completely backwards, like the tet offensive and so forth, and I just thought, oh, I don't need to chase after details of the media says it's quagmart means we're winning, So over to you.
Well, I thought I would kick off this topic with the resignation of Joe Kent, who was I guess the deputy to Tulsa Gabbard, who's the National Intelligence Director, and it's thought to be along with jd Vance, of center of the non interventionist wing, if you want to call that in the administration. And one he made two points, both of which I think are wrong but also the wrong standard. He said first that Iran raised no imminent threat to the United States and so he had to resign.
And then he said that the United States have been I don't know, enticed into war. Would that be the right word by Israel and its American lobbyists. So I think raising this anti semitic, raising the anti Semitic flag him, I think making his true nature clear. I would actually not have questioned his motives if he had just left it at I don't think Iran's an imminent threat, and I'm happy to have a debate about it. But then to say, and it's the Jews, the It's like, what
is what these people? I mean, every time they say something, they just attached and it's the Jews right afterwards to every problem in the United States. But it did raise questions too. We're talking about I think, one is how's the war going? And then two what does this mean for you know, the Trump the Trump administration and the MAGA movement. Now, I think as exactly as you said, Steve, the more the media makes it seem like the war
is lost. Right if you read the headlines of the New York Times, you think the war has been lost. Even the Wall Street Journal news page has a story today saying Iran may be winning and they might be, you know, ropidoping US, and then at the end of the war they'll control the straight Offoe moves. You know, we have an argument about whether the strategic choice to attack Iran is the proper one. I tend to think it is. But at the level of operations and tactics,
we are kicking the hell out of Iran. I mean, how much better could it go. We have totally wiped out their top leadership. The president hasn't been you know, the president of Iran hasn't been seen, not the president, although he hasn't been seen either, I think. But the you know, the Ayatola sign, yeah, actually runs Iran has
not been seen in public. There was a very I don't know, kind of to me comic example where the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is their real religious military and really runs the country, came out with a press release saying the United States isn't winning, Israel's not winning, We're still building lots of missiles. And then there was a press release later just later that day saying the spokesman has been killed by a strike. So it gives
you examples. But you know, the the Iranian name at the bottom of the ocean, the Iranian Air Force is nowhere to be seen. You know, the missiles attacks and drove attacks are way way down to ninety percent down. And then the heart, just the strait of Hormuza just strikes me is the hardest problem, because two guys with a drone can start shooting at tankers in that very twenty mile isthmus. But that's a good problem to have, is that If that's the challenge facing us now, I
think that means we've pretty much won the war. From a military sense, this mal political issue. And then the last point, I think this idea of that Joe, the Jews drove us into it.
It is just crazy.
I mean, I think that's just crazy. I really worry about the right wing of the Republican Party that it accommodates people who blame the Jews for everything.
I'd like to go back to your Joe Kenton start there. My understanding I would never listen to it, but I read it is that. In the midst of his latest podcast with Tucker Carlson Interview with Tucker Carlson, about thirty minutes in, he talks about the fact that the reason he knows, the reason he knows that there is no threat from Iran is because one of those iotolas. I can't keep them straight. Why can't they have different names?
But anyway, one of them. Five six years ago, in the midst maybe even longer, sorry, maybe closer to eight, in the midst of all the nonsense with you know, Obama sending palettes and negotiating the deal with Iran, he sent a KAHMANI sent a communication to the I think it was the UN. I'm not going to remember the details. You can look it up. But in which he said that they that the Iranian people, the Iranians believed that nuclear weapons and chemical weapons were what's it called haram haaram?
I don't know, Yeah, evil bad, just like homosexuals, and so all those things and dogs, right, nuclear weapons are that as if that was a a fat wah And so he claims there's a fat wah against a nuclear weapon, and b how stupid do you have to be to think that because Kamane says something, it means anything. You know that in the Koran, what is it called tekia
something like that. I can't keep it straight there. It is a tenant of Islam that you can lie and dissemble and be disingenuous and do whatever you have to do for the good of the whole. So that is his argument. My understanding was left out of any kind of briefings on I run for the last several months. I don't know if that's a misinformation campaign or what. But supposedly for the last several months he hasn't heard any of the briefings and so doesn't know what the
actual strategic and tactical reasons were and so on. But that's his argument. So let's start there. I want to mention Yesterday in my class, I asked students about was it true that most young people believe that we're fighting this war because of Israel, that you know, we were too afraid not to join it, Trump was too afraid not to join it, that Israel has an outsized impact,
outsize leverage on our foreign policy decisions. And one of my students, he's a very smart student, looks at me and says, he says, does anybody understand who Trump really is? Can you imagine him actually being plowed by Netan Yahoo into doing something which came from a young person, Okay, which I thought was a really, really smart So I
wonder I just want to mention one more thing. John the CNN, I don't know, CNN announced it that guy Henry Henry Harry Harry, what name Harriet, that's him, was talking about the fact that mag is basically one hundred percent behind Trump on this war. So what we ended up discussing in my class, for what it's worth, was this is all that winning the war is going to require the political will to do so, and that's going to require the political messaging that keeps a majority of
the public behind the war. Does that make sense. That's going to be not our military capabilities, weapons capabilities, but actually whether or not Trump can and his people can convince the Americans across the board that we needed to do this. And of course things like Joe pan Bring, Tucker Carlson, and Megan Kelly, all of those things make it more difficult. Never Mind, you know the Democrats, so they're not even worth thinking about. But to see this
split is very upsetting. But I don't think the split is as big as they're I think that's right.
Uh. I meant to send this to you guys, and I just look out of time. The most startling to that, I mean, I expect Tucker and Candice Owens to go berserk, and the American Conservative magazine, which is fully isolationist and hates Israel. What startled me the most two or three days ago was Christopher Caldwell in a Spectator coming out with a very harsh article just out of nowhere, it seemed to me, saying this is the end of Trump, a total betrayal of everything he stands for and ought
to be doing. And it was startling. I mean, there was no equivocation about it. He just and and you Look, Chris is a smart guy. I've had my disagreements with him. I've also thought he's reporting on Europe is the best for an American and this that just staggered me to see that.
And that's just Steve. Do you mind my saying that that may be the reason why he gets this so wrong, because he is, in fact, call it, I would call it maybe obsessed with Europe, and that that sometimes I think changes his perspective because you know, you're Europe is Europe, and I do think you know, he's critical, He's been critical of France. He's certainly the most knowledgeable American reporter writing about France and so forth. But at some point
that kind of influence has to have. The European way of thinking about things has to seep steep in there somehow, is what I'm thinking could be.
I don't know. I was totally I thought you did. Yeah, I thought I couldn't. I was just staying.
And then he came out with another one a day or two later, with another anti war person, I forget, Yeah, unspectator, inspectator right right, Yeah.
Well, the latest news I saw first thing here Saturday morning is that Iran fired long range missiles at Diego Garcia, which is twenty five hundred miles away. We had doubted they had the capacity to shoot something that far. Apparently it didn't hit. I'm not sure if they fell short or were just inaccurate, but that range puts most of European capitals in range of Iran right now. And you know, okay, that's an interesting fact.
Well, they're already changing their minds to some extent after basically turning their backs on Trump, and Trump saying sorry, we don't need you. All the businesses, oil and everything else is causing some of them at least to resthink to their position and send some help, shall we.
Say, Oh yeah, Well, that's an interesting point is that they're much more dependent. Everybody's more dependent on the Gulf of Straits of Hormus being open than we are now. Oil is traded on a global market, and so whatever the world price is is going to be the price here and so. But we're not going to have gas lines, we're not going to have shortages. Apparently Australia is only forty five to sixty days away from running out of oil, and you know, China and the others and the Europeans.
They've got a big problem and we don't. All right, I want to go back to something you've said, Lucretia. Did I hear you say this right? That you think Trump could be better in his communications? There needs to be more direct or vigorous, and it can occasions of why and how we're doing this. Is that what you said or is that a student who said that?
I actually think I think that's probably true because and it's it's really because the legacy media, of course is going to report it exactly like John said. And Trump has been good on true social I mean, he's sort of outlining the war for us day by day, minute by minute, practically on true social but and that that has a reach, but I don't know that it reaches
far enough. I don't know how, for instance, you would recreate the tire yellow ribbon phenomenon from the original Desert storm, right, I don't know how you do that, But something like that really needs to be done, if that makes sense to in order to make this an American project that Americans can get behind. And I know that there's never been a war that there hasn't been opposition, and we're losing and all those other things. But there's the political
side of it too. He needs to do that or get out in time for people to recover for the midterms.
Right, well, could Yeah, the gas price thing is going to be a problem.
Can I just make one last comment, which is that my students believe that that he does that that if he doesn't fix gas prices and so on, he will lose, but that Trump doesn't care. This is I thought this was really interesting. Of course, you know this is anecdotal, this is not even data, but that Trump thinks he's
doing the right thing regardless. Now I know he said that, right, we had to do this if gas prices go up a little bit, But that message really needs to be pound at home because the Democrats approach our pound in the opposite.
Yeah. So I'm in heated agreement with that. I mean, let's remember that Trump said that he was against stupid wars, not any war, and the next thing he always said was we never win wars anymore. He wants to win this one. Now we know he's got this ProTem capability declare victory for anything he does. Right, he always wins, But I think he has to really mean it. In other words, this has to be a real victory and not simply a rhetorical one, or you know, even the
supporters will be disappointed. And that's the exit question. John is. Of course, Trump is has his usual inconsistencies and improvisations, like saying the Japanese Prime minister the other day, gosh, why did you tell us about Pearl Harbor?
What Trump really meant to say it was it was the Jews who were behind Pearl Harbor. There you go, the good surprise attacks.
Right right, sur But by the way, some of the America first people in nineteen forty did think he was the Jews, dragons, the never mind rule. But here's my observation. You both can chime in on this. But and then we'll go to a break. I have been on the whole very impressed with Trump. He's steady, he seems calm, he seems resolved. I think, by the way, the creature of the true social post may be a better way of communicating than doing an oval office address, which people
don't watch anymore. And he's not very good at I don't think, but leave that aside. But the point is is that this is Trump at his finest hour, I think, and he has risked everything on this, which is, you know, another thing about him that is sort of remarkable, and so I'm pretty confident in the guy. I don't worry he's gonna wimp out or or or as Lucretia says, I don't think he's going to bend to the pressure on this. I think he's going to see it through.
And what that means I don't know. But I've been very impressed with the guy.
What have you thought, Well, one thing, your comment and the creatious comments prompt meet to think. What I had thought before coming on was no matter what Trump does, he gets criticized for so before it was he's you know, he listens too much to the magabase, was his Now it's he doesn't listen enough to the megabase. But you know, if we wanted to find presidential leadership, is doing the right thing even at the cost of popularity or when the people initially are against them and have to be
persuaded of it. And we you know, look at Lincoln in the early years of the Civil War as that you know, one of the great examples of this. Well, that's what Trump's doing. He's uh he I mean, I think it is the right thing to remove Iran or the Orenian regime from power. And I think picking off all of China's trouble making allies in the world makes a lot of strategic sense to us. And actually, our
allies in the world should be happy with this. If they're all getting their oil through the strait of horror moves, we don't need it because we're energy independent. We're actually doing a service again for our allies and the rest of the world, not for ourselves. That seems to me
like one of the very definitions of leadership. It'd be easy for Trump not to have war, just coasted into the midterms with low gas prices and relatively stable foreign policy, and now the other the one downside people criticize them for, although I don't think this is what the MAGA base would criticize. But he's a bit of a gambler, right He's he's rolling the.
Dice on this.
Yep, there's no certainties in these kinds of things. I just wanted to ask you if you thought that there was any kind of argument, any kind of attack that could be made against Trump. That's sort of similar to the first Bush going in just for oil. And remember remember the comments too bad that Kuwait's number one export
wasn't broccoli. And you know, because this is a war for oil that under the second Bush it was for you know, this was for Chenese friends at Halliburton, and you know those kinds of there's a an ulterior motive that is this base and as you know, pernicious as possible. There isn't one of those for Trump, right, there's really I mean, all they can say is it's the Jews. That's about the best that they can do. Right, Am I missing anything? No?
No, I was gonna mention that was to notice how the it's all about oil has completely disappeared from the used to be all it's all about the oil. Well, now we have plenty of oil here, so you got to find something else.
Well, all those people who said, you know, fifteen twenty years ago that Sarah Palin was an idiot for saying, drill, baby, drill, we couldn't drill our way out of oil dependence. They should keep it discreet silence about this and just shut up. So and we're going to shut up about this topic down and go to a quick break and then come back for Lucretia's turn to set the table. All right, Lucretia, you're up. What's on your mind? Or should I say
what's not on your mind? This week? It's usually it's.
Everything, but yeah, everything, I want to chan Maga's absolute complete and total frustration with John Thune. Now, I will remind you, guys that I was against any one of the Johns from taking over for Mitch McConnell. I wanted not the John in present company. If John in prison company was actually a majority leader of the Senate, I would be thrilled to death, even though he's a little shaking. Yes, But I mean, this guy's been worse than you could
have imagined. He's accomplished essentially nothing other than I guess you could say the big beautiful bill. Tell me what else is really that that he has used any kind
of political capital to get something done. Compare him, and I know it's not the same to compare a majority leader in the Senate with a Speaker of the House, but compare him to Nancy Pelosi, who could get her caucus to do anything practically even when she had really serious when the squad was coming in, and so one seems incapable of managing anything in the Senate, so right now here we are, it's it's what's the date today,
the twenty first? How many days have we not had funding for organizations that have absolutely nothing to do with the Democrats disingenuous and ridiculous demands about ICE, which was we know is funded for what three years? And they can't make this argument. They can't they can't come out and embarrass Democrats, and Democrats get up there and gaslight about the fact that it's all Republicans fault, and then the Save Act is even worse. I mean, how does
he not realize that? I really do believe that if Republicans can pass the Save Act, they we will get back to a level playing field. If they don't, they if we can continue to have the kind of manipula bowl I'll say it like that electoral practices across places like California that are you know, so completely one state, et cetera. If we can't do that, Republicans are done. And John Thune obviously knows that, and he doesn't care because he's too much of a swamp creature. I don't know,
I don't know what his problem is. I'm so frustrated.
I'm gonna mostly agree with you on this. I can't. But actually I can't believe it. And well, first of all, I did hear. Oh, I'll leave it to you. I'll say two things quickly, John, and you can try and do your worst to say the worst. I heard Thune on. I was in my car and listening to one of the Sunday chat shows on satellite radio and Thune was on, and boy was he weak. I mean, there was sort of no attack on the Democrat. What it was his
very meanly mount attacks on Democrats. But that raises a bigger point, which is I mean, I think I think there's an argument about what is the prudent course on the philipbuster, Natah all the rest of that. Can that out for a long time on both sides. But I recall now I forgot about this, but about back around maybe twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, you know, Thune was a
rising star. There was talk he might be a presidential candidate at some point in the near future, and so some friends of mine, uh you know, sort of heavy hitters and Saturn California hosted him for a small dinner at the California Club. I wanted to size him up. I think former Governor Wilson was there and I was invited and Thune gave a talk, and the verdict afterwards was unanimous. Boy is he unimpressive? That guy's going nowhere near a presidential campaign. He has not got it. I
mean I and this is before a friendly audience. You think he'd know at least some red meat or something. And I couldn't believe how unimpressive the guy was. I think the only reason people talked him up is he was tall and handsome. Supposedly, I guess I don't know, and.
A new I know that my day friend believes that.
Well wait, never mind, So I'm so it was kind of a week leader.
But before John goes, Steve, I just want to say that that maybe the most annoying thing he said to me all throughout all of this was we can't do the talking filibuster. And maybe John can even explain that a little bit because people seem somewhat confused, which would not be a change of any kind. First of all, he said, the talking philibuster has never worked. What a moron has he heard of the Civil Rights Act of
nineteen sixty four? Jesus, what a moron? But anyway, he says, if we have a talking philibuster, we won't get anything else done. Explain to me what they're getting done in the meantime. Nothing, absolutely nothing. And he's also kept the Senate from going into recess, so Trump can't make recess appointments. I can't think of one good thing about that guy, but I'll be quite known. Let John defend him. His namesake.
Well, actually, who did you want to be Majority leader? Ted Cruz or other other supporters of the institution. I mean, the problem is not the Yeah, the problem is not the.
It's Thune.
It's the institution. I mean, the Senate exists and the way it does because anybody can, any single Senator can stop it from operating. Right, That's the that's the way it works. It's very different from the House. They're completely different animals. I mean that the speaker has enormous power.
Yeah, and kind of just jump in right there, sorry, interrupt the difference. I mean, Lucretia rightly brings up Nancy Pelosi who had narrow majorities and still got stuff through. Why because her members feared her. Now, you're right, the senators have more power individually than the House member has. But you know what, Lyndon Johnson was the most successful Senate majority leader because people feared him. Nobody fears John
Thune and the Republican Caucus. I think some of them did fear Mitch McConnell and.
Right, but this idea that, I mean, the only way you really get anything done in the way you guys want is to have sixty votes in the Senate. Right, there's just no major legislation passed that has a sir purity to it other than something like Obamacare when they had briefly six sixty senators. And I really think getting rid of the Philipbuster would be real, I mean, would really harm us more than progressives. The progressives remember what they wanted to do and came within two votes of
doing at the beginning of Biden's term. If it hadn't been for Lucretia's favorite senator from Arizona, right, the Philipbuster
would have been gone. And what happened, well, they would act the Supreme Court add to liberal right to liberal Commonwealth I don't know what their territories to the DC and Puerto Rico to the Senate, which would permanently change the structure of the Senate, I think against us and pass their own voting rights bill HR one right, which would forbid voter I D even by states that want to have it. Meanwhile, what would we do with it.
We would have a rule to require voter ID, which the Democrats would change immediately when they got the Congress back, and they wouldn't have to have a filibuster because we got rid of it.
But I'm not asking for that.
You just said we should get rid of the filibuster.
No, I never said that.
That's one of Thune's problems.
I said that we should have that. He should start a talking filibuster, in other words, a real filibuster as it was intended, which would mean that the Democrats would have to get up there and talk about all the reasons why they do not think voters should have voter I D et cetera, et cetera. They would have to. They would the best thing that happened, but they would.
There's no way we would overcome a talking philibuster. There's not enough votes. But yeah, you could say, make the Democrats get up and talk and they can.
Eventually they quit. Eventually they quit because they're embarrassing themselves. That's what would happen. You don't have to have the votes, you just have to they don't keep talking. The talking's over, you vote, I have fifty one.
No, The way the talking filibuster works is right, So the Democrats will have the right to speak, there's no time limit on it, so they will keep yielding the floor to each other. There's basically forty five of them, so it's easy to keep the talking philibuster.
But what's that going to look like? People are going to actually pay attention to what's happening in the Senate, and at some point they're just going to look ridiculous. That's how it worked in nineteen sixty four, Well you had.
Well also nineteen sixty four we had much more of the votes on our side because of it, and we all said the right that. The good thing about the nineteen sixty four filibuster is that the defenders were just these racist segregationists in the South, like John Thurman. Whereas I think that Democrats can just say I don't think the federal garment should have right rote or I d I think it's racist. So they can say that over and over again for hours and hours. They don't feel it.
They don't feel any shame defending that.
You know, in Urnst majority doesn't believe it. Yeah, I mean a majority of Democrats favor the main features of the Save Act, and I think I'm with the Crees on this. I think they make them pay a cost for their obstruction. It might not succeed because, by the way, I do think that you know, you want judges approved, you want to you want to get funding for DHS and get secure a TSA people back working again.
But those are all but those are all things we want. The problem with the talking filmbuster is there's nothing that Democrats want to pass that where that's being held up by just having talking of you know, talking about their you know, our voting rights bill.
The all the all the.
Harm that occurs politically for keeping the Senate basically shut down while they do this is to the Republicans, right, Well, that's why it's different.
Well yeah, okay, Well they still have there's.
Going to be the Iraq Fund, the war funding bill, there's going to be a bill to reopen the TSA and parts of the DHS that aren't already closed. Right there, all the.
Times they've come up for a vote five times it's been defeated by Democrats.
Yeah, yeah, but.
It's things that the administration wants, right. The Democrats sits that there they don't get anything out of passing those bills, so they don't mind the harm from a filibuster.
Maybe that's what I think I get explained For the political side of it, John, is the point the fact that eighty percent of Americans believe we should have voter ID and cares.
I mean, look, the Democrats have been stopped the Democrats. They they say on polls they care, but the Democrats have been stopping this kind of legislation for like twenty five years. Don't do they really suffer any harm at the polls for being against voter ID?
Really they might this time with the talking philibuster if they stand up there and talk about how it's racist and we should because what it's really doing is going to keep married women from being able to vote. And they did make all those other stupid arguments. If they have to do that, John, that means that that people are actually paying attention to what they're saying.
And you know, you can say this about any bill.
You could say this about any bill that you favor, that we ought to have a talking philibuster.
That's the point of the Senate.
That's the point of the filibuster, because.
The way you believe that the American people will suddenly awaken themselves and politics will suddenly shift because of the politics. I just don't think it makes a big It doesn't make a big difference, all.
Right, All its are on our side.
Yeah, let's get out with this observation about how insincere the Democrats are in our opposition. If they really believe that this bill would prevent married women from voting, they would be for it because married women vote overwhelmingly Republican. They're just making stuff up.
It's the polite term for it, right, which is what would happen if they had to actually defend it on the floor of the Senate. People would realize how disingenuous and really ridiculous their arguments are, and at some point it's going to have an effect on their electoral prospects, which is the only thing, of course, they care about.
The only sample you have is the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act, which shows you how far out of proportion the real victory over this was versus the small potatoes of this bill. It's just not worth it. You want to pass something like monumental like the sixty four Act.
That's what this is. Like.
This is just not as not even remotely in the same universe as.
Important I think it is. I think if we don't get the Save Act.
We are that's war. It's a warp sense of politics.
Let's remember one little detail about the sixty four filibuster.
In those days, you had to have sixty seven votes to break it was hotter, So you know, that's why it dragged on so long, is because that allowed it an even smaller minority the minority to block it, whereas what they changed it to sixty votes, I think in nineteen seventy six, coincidentally, when Democrats are starting to roll up big majorities in Congress, but were still divided enough about things that they couldn't get some of the things they wanted through.
They still had Southern Democrats.
That's right, that's right. Well, you had liberal Republicans too, so it was still a scramble mess. But the point is, I think it's easier now to impose a political cost and control the debate if you I just think it's whimpy to not try it.
Yeah, I do too.
Let me just remind really symbolic and performative politics, because there's no chance it would actually pass.
I don't agree with that. I absolutely didn't agree, I think. Let me just remind you what George Washington said about the Senate. I think it was George Washington, why do you have a Senate? And he says, why do you pour coffee into the cup? Oh, from the cup into the saucer? Why do clear? I can't imagine doing that because I don't like my coffee cold. But the point is is that the Senate is actually supposed to be
supposed to debate these things, genuinely debate them. And that's why you have had the filibuster begin It's only a rule, it's not in the Constitution. In case anybody's confused about that, I get it. But the whole point was to reflect the deliberative sense of the Senate so that you could actually discuss these things. And if you had a minority opinion that was important enough and they could defend it for thirty days or whatever they did talking about it,
then great. But if not, if you've got a majority opinion in the country, eighty percent is unbelievable in terms of an absolute that's unanimity in a country like ours. If you can't, if the Democrats can truly get up there and make the case for why they shouldn't have this, okay, then but force them to do it when the rest of the country is against it, and that's why they don't want any part of it.
Okay.
So there's a big difference between your hopes about how the Senate would work and how it actually works, all right, And the fact is there has not been an override of a filibuster since nineteen sixty four. And you really think that this voting Rights Bill is as important as
the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act. That is an example of how exaggerated people's sense of winning and losing is today over minor things versus the important things of things like the Voting Rights Act of nineteen Now the Civil Rights Act is sixty four, the Virus six, So this is the pales in comparison. All right, important those are, But my point is there are so many other pieces of legislation since nineteen sixty four and sixtyo didn't go
overcome a filibuster, which are also more important. This and you have to compromise in the Senate to get those through. We're not we don't have. The Senate is not the greatest deliberative body anymore.
I think I maybe never was. I think that thesis there, John might not be historically accurate. But have to go back and check and parse them all out. But instead, but would know.
My main point is there hasn't been an override of a filibuster since nineteen sixty four.
I mean it doesn't That doesn't mean it hasn't been used effectively. But that's a new topic. I want to look into the sum For now, I am going to appeal to the three whiskey happy hour parliamentarian who will rule that by a two to one vote, we are going to overcome Lucretian. Are going to overcome your filibuster on this topic, John, and we're going to go to a quick break and then we'll go to our wrap up.
I don't filibuster. I am short and concise you guys, youu Straussian's philibuster endlessly.
Okay, well, all right. A lot of passings this week, the passing of Paul Irlick, the passing of more and more Iranian leaders, the passing of Caesar Chavez is a reputation. But I think the most important passing of the week has to be Chuck Norris. And I'll bet our friends of the Babylon B and elsewhere because more Chuck Norris has generated some of the greatest memes for the last what twenty years.
Yeah, I just want to point out that Steve debated Paul like and and Steve killed him twice.
But anyway, and.
Okay, I'll come back to Chuck Norris in a moment, but just this one's for John. John Thune vows to say to bring Save Act up for vote as soon as he's sure it won't pass.
Ah.
Sorry, iran update current tax dollars winning battle against tax dollars from three years ago. That's notice, I don't get that palettes of cash. Yeah, yeah, sorry, my dogs are out here with me, which I really would be. You can't hear him?
Oka?
Good, Well, I would just say I'd normally be embarrassed about it, but since you know, I'll just leave it at that. Man bravely it's a picture of Joe kent Man bravely resigns from Trump administration at great cost of doing podcast tour, getting book deal. Okay, how about this one, Kevin the Janitor now most senior military official left in Iran.
That's about right.
I like that Democrats fear higher price excuse me, higher gas prices could affect Molotov cocktail production to get it. Oh yeah, if you California's really quick. California celebrates installation of single la trash can that costs four hundred billion and took eighteen years to build.
Yeah, that's not that much of an exaggeration. Yeah, no, it's not.
Newsom allocates nine hundred million for black Bear orta potty. Okay, back to the the Chuck Norris one. Fear not, says Chuck Norris to calm trembling angels. And then this one is actually not Babylon V. It was a a meme posted on x and it's a picture of Chuck Norris in his gee and it says, oh, come on, God, wrong, Chuck.
I know there'll been a time of great ones already.
Yeah, yes, right, right, but that's my favorite for today.
Yeah.
Oh wait, I have one last one, if you'll forgive me. Confirmed in his final days, Charlie Kirk came to agree with whatever you believe.
Oh yeah, that is an ugly story.
Yeah, and we've never talked about all that craziness with what's her name, canvae Owen and Charlie Kirk's wife and all that.
Yeah, I prefer to give it a little bit. Yeah, I prefer not to give that any more oxygen than it already has.
But yeah, finished, Steve, yep, many more, But I'm finished.
God, Well, always drink your whisky, meet, buy more books, and Steve, I'm told you have a new AI enhanced ending for the show.
Well for today anyway, a custom ending. I'm still working on new stuff because I want to work in the
proper acknowledgments of our new sponsored the Civitas Institute. But I was listening to you John yesterday on law Talk, uh, extending yourself on the definition of imminent, because you know, Lucretia roughed you up on imminent a couple of times and other and generally people said this, there was an imminent threat from Iran, And I got to thinking, I wonder if we can mess with John's head by asking him to think about not imminent but immanent. Right, you
know it's I look so imminent. I am m I and t im Man is a whole different time exactly, Lucretian.
You know you Strausats are so crazy. Not only now do you care about the single word in a sense, but the single letter in a word?
What new people? Well, I asked GROC to give us a John Yu memo about imminentizing versus imminent, and I got a lot of stuff, but I'm going to give you just two quick paragraphs from it because I think they're fun. So Introduction, and some listeners will know the reference here and others it won't matter. Introduction. The esketon the final perfected state of burger being has long been
deferred to some future, heavenly happy meal. Gnostic heretics, vegans, and the Ninth Circuit have insisted that such perfection cannot be forced into the temporal realm without grave constitutional peril. Yet recent events such as the limited time introduction of the Big Arch present an opportunity to reconsider. The question is not whether the end can be imminentized, but whether the President possesses Plenary Article two authority to do so through unilateral executive mastication.
Finally, something I can understand, and what you just said, there's more, not much more, I conclude he does and so PARTA is inherent executive ingestion power.
This isn't very long. The Framers, living in an age before frame broiling, could not foresee the Big arch yet to endow the president with those powers necessary improper to the office see McCullough versus Maryland, but substitute Maryland with extra value sizing the take care, claus red and light of the Commander in chief power authorizes the President to consume and thereby sanctify objects of national gastronomic significance without
congressional interference. To hold otherwise would convert the Oval Office into a mere suggestion box for calorie counters. There you go, John, I think that's a pretty good parody of you.
Now, you guys, Seria, I don't exactly real know the reference, but you guys are into this phrase imminent ties, the escton.
What the hell does that mean? Again, that's what this all take off here. Now, Yeah, it's essentially communist, but it's you know, I'll just add for I don't know if you know this, Lucretia, but uh, it's it's very weird stuff. Mark Blitz at Claremont, who's written some really good books about Heidegger, who's just impossible. Right, So Mark Blitz gets hideger. But he told me not long ago that Mark Blitz did that he took a semester course
with Vogelin and didn't understand a single word. The guy said, so, and I know, I know that's that's saying something, right.
I guess it must be a little bit like people who can read Burke.
That's right. But uh, I'll add that. There was once a debate at the Philadelphia Society back in the seventies, and it was a resolution, and the resolution was resolved, this house will not imminentize the escaton. And one of the debaters on the negative was Judge Danny Boggs, who were going to have dinner with next month. So and and maybe he'll regale us with tales of that because one of the other debaters was Mike Yelman. That's funny.
So, yes, John, the simplest way to understand it is bring perfection here, now make it happen.
Now, you mean it as a joke, You don't mean you say you guys say it as an insult. Right, Well, I'm just.
It's a way of everyone. All right, we're gonna we're gonna imminentize the escaton of this show and draw to a close. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll be back next week, probably live next week. We're gonna try and do I think a Friday afternoon evening next week, but we'll see. Stay tuned by everybody.
Sor to the.
So much of a bu funny ways, A fun.
More bye live.
What you think for your own funny ways, a fun muchmore mm hmm my ways, A strange them nevever, change, Ricochet, Join the conversation.