'You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi, Ep. 213: The Great Assimilation Debate

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Welcome back, everyone, to a new episode of You're Wrong
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with Molly Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist and David Harsanyi,
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senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just as a reminder...
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like to email the show please do so at radio
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at the federalist.com we sometimes love to hear from you
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um molly did you see this email where the i
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think it was a woman she just called me old
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she just she just mocked me for being old i believe.
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The subject line on the email from emily was david
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sounds younger than he looks that's.
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A confidence booster that was awful um wait.
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Can i go on Yeah, sure. David, I saw you
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for the first time on Jeremy Boring's podcast. I was shocked.
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Shocked.
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I guess it's because I consider you Gen X like me,
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and I refuse to think of myself as being old
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no matter my age. I knew you were a few
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years older from your references on You're Wrong, but I
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didn't translate that into someone looking as old or older
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than me. Your voice just sounds like a perpetually younger person.
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Mm-hmm.
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Anyway, she actually said she loved listening to us and
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that we are one of her favorite podcasts. I do think,
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I mean, I see you every week and I feel
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like because you dressed up and put a suit and
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a tie on and your hair had been freshly cut
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or whatever, you did give off a slightly different vibe
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that I'm accustomed to seeing when we tape this show.
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I rarely ever wear a suit. Only when I have to,
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I tried to get dressed up there. Um, I my
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hair went gray when I was in my late 20s already.
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So I have had silver or now it's just all white,
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but for a long time. So I think I've always
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sort of looked a little older maybe than I am.
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I don't know. I don't know. But I don't appreciate
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that email at all.
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I want to know if I'm one of those people
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who can rock my gray hair, but I haven't seen
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my gray hair in decades because I work in television now.
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So that's like you're not really allowed unless you have
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silver fox kind of hair, like a John Roberts.
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Obviously a lot of people color their hair. I have
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to tell you that I am too lazy. I was
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too lazy when I was young to start doing it.
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And once you don't do it, you don't do it.
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And I don't really care. I wouldn't even do it
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if I, I know we have.
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More important things to talk about, but I actually am
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not a huge fan of men dying their hair. I,
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I am barely okay with women dying their hair. And
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obviously I have to do it once a month. It's
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a huge burden. And also as I get grayer, it
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has to go lighter because real Molly, before I turned gray,
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had very dark brunette hair. Now I'm so gray that
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you can't, it actually looks weird if you dye as
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much gray as I have. So, okay, great. Glad we,
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glad we opened with our dotage.
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Yeah. That's not the kind of emails we'd like. Okay.
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I love that email.
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And I think we could totally have more like that.
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There was much delight over that email.
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Let's talk about the Kennedy Center.
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Okay.
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Just quickly, the Supreme Court, oh God, what did they,
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they stopped Trump from doing something he wanted to do.
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I have to tell you something, this story, I couldn't
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care less. But then I saw that the Kennedy Center board,
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which had been put in by Donald Trump completely within
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his power to do that, shut the place down. And
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all these left-wingers are online right now talking about how
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Trump is going to secretly demolish the place. But they
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said it like it was a bad thing. I couldn't
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care less about the Kennedy Center. I don't know what's
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going on. I'm sick of the place. So have you
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been following this? What is happening?
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It's a bit of a mess all around. And I
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love the Kennedy Center and had been going quite a
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bit this year and last year. Seen some great stuff,
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including Stuttgart Ballet's Onegin. And saw the Wagoneers perform there.
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Today is my 20th wedding anniversary.
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Oh, happy anniversary.
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And Mark proposed to me 20 plus years ago at
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the Kennedy Center. So I always kind of loved being
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there when we launched. But I will say that if
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you're being honest, it is beyond need of repair. I mean,
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it's not good. The place should have been... taken care
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of for decades much better than it has been. And
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so one of the disputes that have been going on
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here is about whether you're allowed to do renovations and
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Because the board is a Trump board, the lawfare against
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Trump has hit that board. And they're saying you can't
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do anything to improve it. But the actual operating people
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at the Kennedy Center say we can't really go on
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without improving it. And so I don't know how much
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of a mess is I don't know who all to
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blame for the mess. But it's just kind of sad
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because when the Kennedy Center was built, it was built
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to be a living, ongoing arts memorial to President Kennedy Jr.
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following his assassination. And I think that's an important, wonderful
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thing to have in DC. And I would like to
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see it continue. Okay. Oh, but on the other hand,
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the Kennedy center had become this sort of really bad
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place that was just pushing bad left-wing art that wasn't
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very good in many cases, or was being used as
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a place to just highlight left-wing artists. And I understand
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artists are almost always like throughout history and people of
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the left for reasons that psychologists can analyze. But it
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should have always been a monument for the people, a
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memorial of JFK for all people, not just Democrat elites.
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And I had liked how in recent years, they seem
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to be offering really good things that would work for
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a variety of people. I'd taken one of my kids
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there a bunch because she's really into the arts and
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they should... If when they reopen or get things back
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on track, whoever the president is, I hope they focus
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on good art that is good for the people.
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Yeah, I feel like if you're going to have a
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government funded art center of that sort in the nation's capital,
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it should probably feature works that bring us together, classic works.
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I don't care if they're musicals or art, whatever it is,
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it should be something that is non-offensive. There are plenty
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of venues for us to do, you know, transgressive art
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or whatever and political pieces. Like we should have like
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the music man at the Kennedy Center. You know what
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I'm saying? That sort of thing.
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I saw Hugh Jackman as the music man perform on Broadway. Yeah.
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He was pretty good down on that.
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Then he left his wife for Sutton Foster, who was
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in that with him. Not good. But anyway, go on.
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We have two topics we'd like to discuss. I think
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that we might find some areas of disagreement on them.
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So the first one is immigration. I mean, we're immigration
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related stuff. So the other day, this guy named Beau French,
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who I have to say I've never heard of, he's
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running for president. what is it, commissioner, railroad commissioner, which
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sounds like a stupid job, but is actually a regulatory
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job that covers oil and gas industry in Texas. So
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it's not, it's an important position. Anyway, he posted this
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picture of these people who look like Indian Americans cheering
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the Texas Longhorn victory over Ohio State. Longhorns came back
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in the fourth quarter, scored like 20 points to win it.
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He wrote, I heard UT graduation this year looked like this.
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I didn't believe it. The problem is now obviously far
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worse than anyone imagined. Then he followed up by saying
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that he weeps for the families in Texas who can't
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get into UT because they prioritize foreigners over Texans. Everything
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about that is wrong, in my view, at least. The word,
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the key word for me there that really is offensive
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in a way is looked. It looks wrong. Because he's
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making judgments about Americans celebrating the most American thing possible
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over over the color of people's skin. And, you know,
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I have a lot more to talk about when it
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comes to Indian immigrants today. and so on. But I'd
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ask you, what was your reaction? Because this blew up online.
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I don't know how important it is for regular folks
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out there, or if they heard about it, but it
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was a big deal online. What was your reaction when
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you saw it?
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Oh, even on that note, I always try to remember
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that things that are big online are not always big
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in the rest of the world. And sometimes it's good
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to step away from social media.
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But it's an important topic, right? I think for most people, immigration.
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Yes. But in this case, I do think it's important.
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And I'm of two minds on it or three, five minds.
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I don't know.
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So I didn't love the tweet because I don't like
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when people speak in such outsized fashion without knowing facts
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in front of them or when they don't make the
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best case for their argument. And to me, this was
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such an example of that. The guy in question, as
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you know, he just says, this looks bad. Well, if
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you want to talk about the problems caused by mass legal.
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migration in recent decades and what that has wrought in
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places like Texas, there are wise way. There are very
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wise ways to go about it and then less wise ways.
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On the other hand, sometimes just being outlandish provokes a
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conversation that is needed. And I understand that. I don't
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hate the, you know, I think it's okay to notice things.
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And maybe I'm saying this because I flew to Dallas
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to do Allie Bestucki's podcast when my book came out.
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I hadn't been in Dallas in a few years, just
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a few years. We have staff there.
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We have a.
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Cousin who lives there. And I was genuinely shocked by
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the number of Southeast Asians that I saw just everywhere
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in at the airport, outside the airport, everywhere. I mean,
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I was only there for a very brief period of
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time and I was like, Oh, I am in quite
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a few Southeast Asian neighborhoods. And I noticed that it
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was different than the Dallas Fort Worth of my experience previously.
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And then I also have talked with people who say
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that depending on the neighborhood that you're in, in Texas,
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In some cases, the mass migration has caused some issues for,
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you know, just have caused issues for the communities there.
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And it's very neighborhood dependent. Some neighborhoods retain what you
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might think of as a more typical Texan experience, which
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would be a lot of white people and a lot
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of Mexicans. And then other areas... clustered in some of
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the major cities in particular, have experienced mass waves of immigration.
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And when people come from different cultures, that causes different
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cultural conflict, there are different norms. Also, when it's a
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mass level of migration, there is almost no assimilation. So
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even like in that picture, it was interesting to see not, oh,
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there's a certain percentage of Southeast Asians in this picture,
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but more like Exclusively that. And that is just I
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don't I don't like condemning people for noticing or claiming
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that it's like racist to notice, although it can be
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depending on your perspective.
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It's 100 percent racist to say you don't like how
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people look.
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I never said I didn't like how people look.
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Not you. I'm talking about him. He's not noticing what
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you're noticing. He's not making.
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Actually, I just I want to I want to say even.
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Can I say quickly, say one quick thing before there
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is 10 in that picture, there's 10, 12 people. The
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stadium holds 100,000 people. There are probably many other Indians
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in that stadium. This group of friends or whoever they
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are went to it together just as. You know, immigrants,
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first generation Italians probably hung out with the Italians in
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their neighborhood or Jews or whoever it was. And my
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big problem is that we're folding in mass immigration. Now
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we're just saying Indians are part of that and Yemenis
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are part of that. And this one, they're different people.
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American Indians are integrating and assimilating into American life. I'm
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not saying the first generation is doing the same things
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that the second generation is doing. And I think that
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you're making a bigger, broader argument, but that's not the
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argument he was making. But anyway, go on. I have
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other things to say about this.
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Well, I do. You know, there are issues here. I
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think that Indians receive like three quarters of all H-1B visas.
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So H-1B visas enable people to get really like the
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kind of jobs that my niece struggled to get in engineering.
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High level jobs. high-paying jobs, that if you are importing
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people from a different country for those jobs, it does
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affect workforce issues here. And if three quarters of all
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H-1B visas are coming from the same place, again, I
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think it's okay to be like, okay, well, that's interesting.
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Or also that when you come with your own religion,
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your own culture, your own ideas about even you know
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business practices and they don't always align with American practices
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and if you come in at such a level that
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you're able to force your own cultural norm on people
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who are you know not coming into the country that
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way because they were born here or they've been here
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for you know their families have been here for multiple
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generations and assimilated to a distinct American culture. I don't
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think it's wise to tell people they're not allowed to
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care about that, to worry about that, to be concerned
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about that. And I wish we could have a healthier
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conversation because if you just say like everyone who's concerned
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about it is a racist, it just makes, I don't
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think that's, I don't think that works anymore.
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Well, I think that the people who talk about it
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should be a little more careful than, Beau French is
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when he's dealing with this. But first of all, I
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just want to go back to his initial tweet. University
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of Texas at Austin has an undergraduate student body that's
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made up of almost 85% Texas residents. He's claiming the
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people from Texas can't get into the school. It's not true.
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It is a significantly higher in-state population than most state
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schools in the United States by like 10 percentage points.
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Foreign students make up around 4% of the freshman class
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that just came in, which is like average. he said there,
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he called these people foreigners, but he didn't know they
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were foreigners. Do you believe that an Indian who's here
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is a citizen and maybe a second, third generation? I
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don't know. He doesn't know anything about those kids wearing
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a cowboy hat at a football game with all their
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neighbors is a foreigner or an American.
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Well, I think that what you're hitting on right there
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is a dispute between like paperwork and and culture, or
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it can begin to hit on that. So whether someone
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is a citizen or a legal permanent resident is different
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than what a lot of Americans are talking about when
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they are concerned about massive changes to their community. Maybe
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we take it out of Texas for a minute and
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just go up to Michigan or Minnesota, where you have
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had massive Muslim immigration from different places that are Muslim.
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You know, in some cases, it's African immigration from Muslims
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in Africa. Sometimes it's Muslims from the Middle East. And
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we've had so many decades of mass migration from these
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places that most of what we're talking about are, in fact,
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legal citizens of the United States. Do you think it's
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not okay for people to be concerned about some of
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the cultural issues in play there.
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Like, I think it's not, I think it's not okay
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to lump Indians and Muslims together because they're from different
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cultures and they acclimate and acculturize differently with them. That's
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that word up differently in this country. So you, you
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want to make it a broader argument, but he's talking
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about Indians and there's a lot of anti-immigrant I'm sorry,
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anti-Indian bigotry going on online. That is nonsense. And, I
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agree with you. First of all, there is no mass
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immigration of Indians. They are 1.2% of the American population. 1.2.
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That is actually- There are certain neighborhoods where they live
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in Northern Virginia and in Dallas and maybe New York
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City and people around there notice it. But that's what
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immigrants always come into some major areas and then disperse
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into the American, into the world. Indian Americans who, if
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we want to go through it, we can are- very
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successful in this country not on welfare no criminality virtually
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um do great in school and in texas incidentally they
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are over represented quote unquote because texas has a five
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percent rule that in public schools the best students get
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to go and indians are very good academically and they
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get to go are we going to have a meritocracy
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here or not once people are in the country and
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citizens I don't agree with you either when you say
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that some people are paperwork citizens. Every person who comes
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here and is a citizen has the same rights. There's
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no tiers of citizenship. That doesn't exist. That does not exist.
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You want to change immigration policy? I'm with you. Let's
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change it. But once you're here, once you're a citizen,
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you are just as much a citizen as anyone else.
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There are people who think that being American is simply
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and solely a matter of paperwork. there are other people
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who think that it's more about, um, like what's in
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your brain. And probably in my view, the answer is
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that it's, it's both. It's like, you hear these debates
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that people have about, are we a creedal nation or
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are we a plate people? Are we an ethnic group?
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And it's like, we are both actually. And it's okay to,
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it's good to be both. And it's, To neglect the
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issues of how religion and culture affect the people and
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our strength, it's really, really tricky to try to keep
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a country together when you have mass immigration. And we've
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had mass immigration for decades.
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We can talk about the people separately. Like, if there's
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a person who comes here with bad ideas, I'll give
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you an example. Ilhan Omar is a terrible, terrible American.
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She's a citizen, though. You know, I probably can't do
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anything about that.
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Yeah.
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But a kid with a with a cowboy hat at
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a football game who is probably going to be an
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engineer or a doctor who's going to have kids who
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has a whose community has a far higher marriage rate, incidentally,
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than other Americans, I believe, is is the kind of
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immigrant we want. And he's here. So why are we,
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especially if you're a Republican. Massing everyone together, you say
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you want good assimilation and when people assimilate, you still
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don't want them here, not you.
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Well, I would first of all say that it takes
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more than attending a football game to be assimilated. Zoran
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Mamdani is frequently pictured in a baseball hat at a
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Yankees game or whatever. And I think there are issues
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with his cultural heritage as well.
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These kids don't look like they're faking it to me, though.
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And they're going to this university. But anyway, go on.
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I didn't say they were faking it. I said it
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takes more than attending a football game to be assimilated.
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And I want to go back to what you said
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about Ilhan Omar. She actually is being investigated for immigration fraud.
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It's a bad example.
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And, well, it isn't a bad example, exactly, because we
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have had such loosey-goosey immigration laws, including... that we have
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not enforced requirements that immigrants be self-sufficient for like 100 years,
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or we have been giving out H-1B visas to people
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at the expense of our own citizens' employment in a
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way that has been horrific, or we have even, yeah,
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made people train their H-1B replacements before they are out
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of work. These things are not nearly so cut and
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dry as I think a lot of people want to
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make them out to be, and that we have to
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provide space for people to be able to talk about
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it without being called xenophobes or racists or bigots. It's
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okay to notice that that Texas football stand looks different
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and to think about why. Now, I do want to
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say something because I got some interesting information on the
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UT Austin situation. You're pointing out that UT Austin has
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some merit-based admissions.
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No, no, all of Texas. Yeah, it's a Texas law.
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I think it was at 6%. Now it's at 5%.
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So 80% of all undergrad seats in the University of
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Texas system go to graduates of Texas high schools. Now,
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I don't know if those graduates need to be citizens
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or not, but anyone who graduates in the top 10%
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of any high school, any high school at all, is
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automatically given a spot at a UT school. Anyone in
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the top five to 6% of any high school graduating
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class automatically gets a spot at UT Austin. The result
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is actually massive discrimination against all of Texas's top high schools.
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And those high schools are overwhelmingly white and Asian. My
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point just being that you might not be seeing such
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a high percentage of people there who are Southeast Asian
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because it's merit-based. You're actually maybe seeing fewer than you
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would if it truly would were merit-based?
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Of course there's, uh, there in, in, in our colleges,
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there's affirmative action hurts Asians more than anyone. They're the
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ones who bear the brunt of it these days. And
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so that's a good point you make. I, you know,
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I hadn't thought about it sort of in a widespread
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way that every high school, no matter how poor it is,
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it has an E you know, has a 5% equal chance.
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If you're a good student there, if you just did
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the 5% best students of Texas altogether, you'd probably even
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have more, uh, Asian Asian kids.
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And they do have they have reserved. I think it's
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like I don't know if they've reserved or the way
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it works out is that they have 15 percent of
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their slots go to for merit at UT Austin. And
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those all go to white and Asian kids, apparently. It's
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just an interesting part of the discussion. Oh, and I
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think maybe 10 percent of their admissions go to foreigners.
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which sounds incredibly high, but it's actually low for an
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American college, for American university system.
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But they've pulled back on that. I think it's 4%
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this last class. I don't remember all the numbers, but
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I have to say places like Columbia have like 35.
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I'm completely open to having a conversation about student visas
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and who should get them. I'm completely open to having
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a conversation about what kind of visas we want to
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give and to who we want to give them to.
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But 73 or something like that percent of Americans generally
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believe immigration is a net good for the country. I
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don't know if you believe that stat or not. It's
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a rolling pole from Gallup. It is pretty high historically.
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I think most people, because at some point they feel
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like they were immigrants or come from immigrants, that they
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feel like others should get a chance.
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Or they have family members who are immigrants.
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And I agree with that sentiment. You know, I've said
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many times my own parents are immigrants.
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Right.
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But here's the thing. Like, if we're going to have
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some level of immigration and we have people here already,
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should we be celebrating the people who are trying to
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become Americans rather than going– But then noticing that group,
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I want to notice Somalis who hate America. I don't
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want to notice the American Indians who, by the second generation,
434
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are melting into suburbs. Like, it just doesn't... Indians have
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00:25:41.740 --> 00:25:45.940
the highest level of household income in the whole country
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of any ethnic group. This is a group that thrives here.
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And their religion, I've never, never once has a Hindu
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ever said, well, boy, we should have a caste system here.
439
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I've never even heard that. There's no Hindu terrorism. There's no...
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00:25:55.940 --> 00:25:58.460
They don't want their own Sharia type law on us.
441
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There is none of that going on that I can
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see where it does go on with other faiths. So
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I think lumping them together is a big mistake for
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people who want to actually start controlling immigration from certain places.
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The fight for truth doesn't take a day off, and
446
00:26:18.619 --> 00:26:22.230
neither do we. This September, a generous donor has committed
447
00:26:22.309 --> 00:26:27.059
to match every dollar given to The Federalist up to $ 100, 000.
448
00:26:26.420 --> 00:26:30.700
So your gift isn't just a donation. It's twice the
449
00:26:30.740 --> 00:26:34.349
support for the work we're doing every day to expose
450
00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:38.990
the truth, challenge the powerful, and give you journalism you
451
00:26:39.029 --> 00:26:43.529
can trust. Go to TheFederalist.com and double your impact today.
452
00:26:44.049 --> 00:26:46.380
That's TheFederalist.com.
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00:26:49.220 --> 00:26:52.910
Okay, so much here again. Part of the issue with
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what you just said, you know, these are people who,
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when they immigrate, they're making so much money. And I
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do think that is true. And there are many good
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things about this. And then there are also some complicating factors,
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such as what I mentioned about all the H-1B visas
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going to Indians right now so it's kind of easy
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when you get all the cushy jobs to have a
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higher income level than.
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Do you see their educational attainment here of first generation
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Indians it's not hand my point is I think.
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It's amazing I also think it would have been cool
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if my niece hadn't had to wait a year to
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get a job because she was competing against a bunch
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of h1b visa holders okay.
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I do think that too I haven't I have not
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argued with you on that point because I think it's
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more The economy is more complicated than saying someone's here
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and then someone else loses a job. I don't think
472
00:27:45.490 --> 00:27:47.849
it's that simple. But I agree if there's a problem there.
473
00:27:47.869 --> 00:27:51.130
I haven't studied it. If we are overcompensating from one
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place in one kind of industry, that may be problematic.
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I'm not saying not. But tweeting out, hey, I don't
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like how these people look. It does not help that
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situation in any way, especially because we didn't even know
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he didn't know anything about those kids who could be
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just as American as him.
480
00:28:07.250 --> 00:28:09.089
I'll give you that. I mean, I'll give you that
481
00:28:09.170 --> 00:28:14.230
entirety of that argument of was this guy helping with
482
00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:17.160
this discussion a few weeks ahead of an election in
483
00:28:18.019 --> 00:28:20.799
a political party where you have a bunch of people
484
00:28:21.299 --> 00:28:24.140
of the John Cornyn, George W. Bush, Karl Rove variety
485
00:28:24.200 --> 00:28:26.869
who already hate him and want to ally with the
486
00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:30.430
media to make it seem like Republicans are racist. I mean,
487
00:28:31.049 --> 00:28:37.769
not the wisest move, perhaps. But At the same level,
488
00:28:37.789 --> 00:28:46.599
I think that according to my friends and family in Texas,
489
00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:52.880
there has been some mass migration that has created kind
490
00:28:52.900 --> 00:28:58.000
of ethnic enclaves of people who aren't even just first
491
00:28:58.059 --> 00:29:03.180
generation immigrants, but their children and grandchildren who are more
492
00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:08.470
or less unassimilated. And that is also true outside of Texas.
493
00:29:08.509 --> 00:29:13.000
That's true in some places in Maryland and Virginia. And
494
00:29:13.599 --> 00:29:17.660
that's not healthy, too. So you want to have an
495
00:29:17.700 --> 00:29:19.660
immigration policy. And I am one of those people who
496
00:29:19.700 --> 00:29:25.630
thinks immigration has been a net good for the country. Well,
497
00:29:25.869 --> 00:29:28.210
I mean, again, it kind of depends on exactly what
498
00:29:28.230 --> 00:29:31.720
we're defining here. And we're maybe after the last few decades,
499
00:29:31.809 --> 00:29:34.569
it's no longer in that good because it's caused so
500
00:29:34.630 --> 00:29:39.950
many problems in recent decades and a dissolution of American unity.
501
00:29:40.690 --> 00:29:42.859
We just celebrated or so my gosh, that's horrible way
502
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:47.019
to put it. We just marked the 25th anniversary of 9-11.
503
00:29:47.660 --> 00:29:51.299
And I think it hit people really differently this anniversary
504
00:29:51.380 --> 00:29:54.460
than it than previous ones. I know you and I
505
00:29:54.500 --> 00:29:56.819
both lived through that. And you were in New York
506
00:29:56.900 --> 00:29:57.779
and I was it right.
507
00:29:58.660 --> 00:30:00.819
Yeah, I mean, if you listen to emails, I lived
508
00:30:00.839 --> 00:30:02.569
through Pearl Harbor, so I've been around a long time.
509
00:30:04.069 --> 00:30:09.410
And I was in D.C. And it was, I watched like,
510
00:30:09.430 --> 00:30:12.390
forgive me for this tangent here for just a minute,
511
00:30:12.450 --> 00:30:16.849
but I watched a 45 minute clip from Good Morning America.
512
00:30:16.869 --> 00:30:18.089
I've seen that.
513
00:30:18.950 --> 00:30:22.769
Prior to the first plane hitting until the second plane hit,
514
00:30:22.809 --> 00:30:24.119
I think, or I don't know how long it was.
515
00:30:24.279 --> 00:30:26.279
Maybe it wasn't that long, but it was a 45
516
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:30.500
minute clip. And it was it included commercials and it
517
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:33.700
included scenes on the street and scenes from the audience.
518
00:30:34.599 --> 00:30:39.650
And it's only 25 years ago. And holy bleep, does
519
00:30:39.710 --> 00:30:43.829
it seem like a completely different country. just again, in
520
00:30:43.890 --> 00:30:47.009
terms of what it looks like, like even in terms
521
00:30:47.250 --> 00:30:52.900
of demographic changes in New York, which was a pretty
522
00:30:52.940 --> 00:30:56.319
diverse city to begin with, but to go from that
523
00:30:56.420 --> 00:31:00.500
clip to then like Zoram Mamdani over, you know, giggling
524
00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:05.549
at the 9-11 ceremony with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And you're kind
525
00:31:05.569 --> 00:31:11.809
of like, okay, some things happened here. Even like, There
526
00:31:11.930 --> 00:31:17.130
is a difference, I believe, between Italian immigrants and Irish immigrants,
527
00:31:18.109 --> 00:31:26.690
German immigrants, and people who aren't Christian immigrants. And I
528
00:31:26.710 --> 00:31:29.470
don't even mean by that that I'm not even making
529
00:31:29.490 --> 00:31:32.309
a qualitative judgment. I'm just saying I think we have
530
00:31:32.329 --> 00:31:35.710
to recognize there are differences in how assimilation works, even
531
00:31:35.750 --> 00:31:40.130
how intermarriage works. There is, I think, the third tallest
532
00:31:40.170 --> 00:31:44.029
statue in America right now is, oh, what's the name
533
00:31:44.069 --> 00:31:48.190
of that Indian god? Do you know who I'm talking about? No,
534
00:31:48.230 --> 00:31:53.329
there's like a 90-foot tall statue of Hanuman. Is that
535
00:31:53.369 --> 00:31:53.970
how you say the name?
536
00:31:54.329 --> 00:31:54.710
Hanuman?
537
00:31:55.950 --> 00:32:00.440
It's like a monkey god, and it's in Sugar Land, Texas,
538
00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:07.799
I believe. And you know, people can think about whether
539
00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:10.799
they think Texas, whether, you know, what, how, how well
540
00:32:10.819 --> 00:32:13.700
that matches with Texas. I, I just.
541
00:32:13.720 --> 00:32:16.599
I wrote a magazine piece, a feature on, on nine
542
00:32:16.599 --> 00:32:19.920
11 and in my own, I was in New York,
543
00:32:20.309 --> 00:32:22.630
you know, that day. And I wrote this piece about
544
00:32:22.730 --> 00:32:25.329
how that day changed my life. I don't really like
545
00:32:25.369 --> 00:32:27.430
writing about myself in that way, but it mirrors how
546
00:32:27.470 --> 00:32:30.690
America changed in 25 years seemed to fly by to
547
00:32:30.730 --> 00:32:33.210
me in some ways. And I was thinking about how, um,
548
00:32:35.140 --> 00:32:38.119
Pearl Harbor in the same amount of time past Pearl
549
00:32:38.140 --> 00:32:41.450
Harbor would have been 1966. Like a generation's a long time.
550
00:32:41.490 --> 00:32:43.890
A lot of things change in a country. Have they
551
00:32:43.910 --> 00:32:46.390
changed for the better? In many ways, yes. In many ways, no.
552
00:32:47.690 --> 00:32:49.339
So anyway, my point here and the point of that
553
00:32:49.380 --> 00:32:52.740
piece is that I am no cultural relativist. I actually
554
00:32:52.759 --> 00:32:55.279
think this is a Christian country. I think Christian ethics
555
00:32:55.359 --> 00:32:58.400
are superior to other ethics. I want people to come
556
00:32:58.460 --> 00:33:01.700
here and They don't need to be Christians themselves, but
557
00:33:01.720 --> 00:33:06.880
they need to adhere to the norms and civic relationships
558
00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:08.920
and things like that that we do here. I am
559
00:33:09.099 --> 00:33:13.640
totally for all that. I don't think immigration from everywhere
560
00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:16.230
is good. And I definitely don't think immigration from places
561
00:33:16.430 --> 00:33:21.789
and people that don't want to embrace the creed and
562
00:33:21.829 --> 00:33:26.210
become the ethnicity afterwards after being here for becoming citizens
563
00:33:26.269 --> 00:33:29.980
is a good thing. Though there are many Americans, heritage
564
00:33:30.019 --> 00:33:32.710
Americans who have been here forever, who are terrible Americans
565
00:33:32.789 --> 00:33:35.970
to hate the Constitution, who hate this country.
566
00:33:36.130 --> 00:33:36.329
Right.
567
00:33:36.349 --> 00:33:38.549
So we don't get to decide who gets to be
568
00:33:38.569 --> 00:33:41.450
the citizen after their citizens. We just don't. So we
569
00:33:41.470 --> 00:33:44.029
have to be careful on who we let in. But
570
00:33:44.049 --> 00:33:47.200
this last point, I was sidetracked in my mind. The
571
00:33:47.240 --> 00:33:50.640
demographic change in Texas, the big demographic change, and the
572
00:33:50.680 --> 00:33:53.180
reason there are 38 percent white people in Texas right
573
00:33:53.200 --> 00:33:57.240
now or non-Hispanic white people is Mexican immigration. That has
574
00:33:57.279 --> 00:33:59.759
been the immigration where you had maybe too many people
575
00:33:59.880 --> 00:34:03.900
coming at the same time from the same place forming enclaves.
576
00:34:04.200 --> 00:34:06.859
That's the danger when you have way too a lot
577
00:34:06.900 --> 00:34:09.099
of people coming and they're in the same place. They're
578
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:11.949
not assimilating. And we've talked about this many times. We
579
00:34:11.989 --> 00:34:14.570
no longer expect them to assimilate. In fact, I would
580
00:34:14.610 --> 00:34:17.349
say the liberals and I don't even call them liberals anymore.
581
00:34:17.670 --> 00:34:20.170
The leftists in America don't want them to assimilate because
582
00:34:20.210 --> 00:34:22.809
they don't. They want them to vote Democrat and they
583
00:34:22.929 --> 00:34:24.829
hate what this country is about quite often.
584
00:34:25.429 --> 00:34:30.389
Well, I certainly certainly know quite a few excellent Americans
585
00:34:30.510 --> 00:34:34.389
of Indian descent. And what's funny is they're the most
586
00:34:34.550 --> 00:34:38.829
immigration hawk people I know. They're among the most immigration
587
00:34:38.869 --> 00:34:41.980
hawk people I know. Like not even offended by this
588
00:34:42.019 --> 00:34:43.619
discussion because.
589
00:34:43.659 --> 00:34:46.099
No, I've said a million times my dad's an immigrant.
590
00:34:46.139 --> 00:34:47.880
He wanted to shut the door right after he got
591
00:34:47.940 --> 00:34:51.179
in here. I mean, and he especially is enraged by
592
00:34:51.219 --> 00:34:55.219
any kind of illegality, you know, coming in here. And
593
00:34:55.239 --> 00:34:57.159
I get that a lot of immigrants don't like that.
594
00:34:58.039 --> 00:34:59.400
But I don't know. I have a soft spot for
595
00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:02.659
certain immigrants. I like Cubans, right? Now I kind of
596
00:35:02.699 --> 00:35:05.719
like Venezuelans. I just think there are people who make
597
00:35:05.739 --> 00:35:07.139
good Americans. Cubans make good Americans.
598
00:35:07.159 --> 00:35:11.190
My husband sometimes is like, let's get Vietnamese food at
599
00:35:11.210 --> 00:35:15.329
the Eden Center because I love eating at a restaurant
600
00:35:15.449 --> 00:35:18.210
owned by an anti-communist.
601
00:35:18.670 --> 00:35:21.489
I'm always, always want to allow the anti-communists. And I
602
00:35:21.510 --> 00:35:27.719
think they'll make great Americans. But Yeah, I people I
603
00:35:27.800 --> 00:35:30.260
online I lost like a million followers today and people
604
00:35:30.440 --> 00:35:32.300
I think are just mad that they think I'm some
605
00:35:32.429 --> 00:35:35.150
open borders freak or something. I am not. But I
606
00:35:35.170 --> 00:35:36.849
think we need to be careful. I guess that's what
607
00:35:36.889 --> 00:35:37.190
I think.
608
00:35:37.710 --> 00:35:38.929
I was going to say I was I think we
609
00:35:38.949 --> 00:35:40.929
can move on to the next topic. But I will
610
00:35:40.969 --> 00:35:46.829
just say I think this ignited conversation online precisely because
611
00:35:47.230 --> 00:35:52.659
people are fumbling toward a better discussion of. immigration policy
612
00:35:52.699 --> 00:35:54.260
or they just they don't want to have it and
613
00:35:54.449 --> 00:35:56.730
and sometimes it doesn't start in the best way but
614
00:35:56.769 --> 00:35:59.030
it's good to have it and i hope people will
615
00:35:59.070 --> 00:36:02.389
continue to think about all the issues that play that
616
00:36:02.409 --> 00:36:06.650
come into play here and also a little to divert
617
00:36:06.690 --> 00:36:10.329
from where i had been earlier i just want to
618
00:36:10.389 --> 00:36:13.170
say that i don't like any like i don't like
619
00:36:13.190 --> 00:36:16.750
too much victim talk where people are like, these immigrants
620
00:36:16.829 --> 00:36:19.969
are doing everything to us. And then they're not doing
621
00:36:20.010 --> 00:36:22.070
a good job of raising their own kids to be
622
00:36:22.090 --> 00:36:29.679
high achievers, working on a good work ethic, forming families,
623
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:32.619
keeping families formed, like whatever you think about how the
624
00:36:32.679 --> 00:36:36.760
world has wronged you, and maybe you're right. Focus on
625
00:36:36.780 --> 00:36:39.980
your own business. And it's a very productive way to
626
00:36:41.429 --> 00:36:43.530
Just order your affairs as well.
627
00:36:43.949 --> 00:36:46.449
I'm happy you said that. A lot of people find
628
00:36:46.489 --> 00:36:49.710
it easy. Not to say that immigration doesn't cause any problems,
629
00:36:49.730 --> 00:36:51.679
but a lot of people now, it's an easy way,
630
00:36:51.739 --> 00:36:54.139
an easy out for them to make excuses about things
631
00:36:54.159 --> 00:36:57.360
that they're not doing. So the other topic we wanted
632
00:36:57.400 --> 00:36:59.900
to talk about, we haven't been here for a few weeks.
633
00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:06.409
This is probably two weeks old, was J.D. Vance's Now, actually,
634
00:37:06.429 --> 00:37:08.360
I'm not sure where it is. It was rumored, I think,
635
00:37:08.400 --> 00:37:10.659
to be happening, but I don't think there's anything official yet.
636
00:37:10.679 --> 00:37:12.070
I don't think I've seen any kind of.
637
00:37:13.679 --> 00:37:16.199
Certainly not legislation, but any kind of I don't know. Well,
638
00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:19.010
let's talk about it. So the Department of Health and
639
00:37:19.050 --> 00:37:22.769
Human Services has a child care and development fund. It's
640
00:37:22.829 --> 00:37:25.809
one of 82, by the way, welfare programs that we
641
00:37:25.849 --> 00:37:29.269
have in this country. It was originally created in 1990s.
642
00:37:29.610 --> 00:37:32.230
It gives low income single parents. I think it's a
643
00:37:32.269 --> 00:37:35.289
nine thousand dollar subsidy for child care per year. I'm
644
00:37:35.329 --> 00:37:39.329
sure it wasn't nine thousand then. It's probably probably grown now.
645
00:37:40.800 --> 00:37:43.860
So this new program Vance would like to give, or
646
00:37:43.960 --> 00:37:45.780
I think it's his pet project, at least that's what
647
00:37:45.860 --> 00:37:50.659
was reported, would give that money to married parents in
648
00:37:50.719 --> 00:37:58.070
low income with kids in low income married moms. I
649
00:37:58.090 --> 00:38:00.909
think it's I think it's a bad idea. Tell me
650
00:38:00.949 --> 00:38:03.289
why you think it's a good idea or a bad idea.
651
00:38:03.309 --> 00:38:03.949
What do you think of it?
652
00:38:04.769 --> 00:38:08.010
I think it's a good idea. I haven't read the
653
00:38:08.190 --> 00:38:12.659
underlying legislation yet. enough to know whether this is permissible
654
00:38:12.699 --> 00:38:17.760
or not. But really going back to my reading of Moynihan,
655
00:38:17.780 --> 00:38:22.260
I have been concerned about how welfare policy privileges or
656
00:38:22.340 --> 00:38:28.050
incentivizes people away from a traditional family structure, a good
657
00:38:28.110 --> 00:38:32.829
family structure. You can get more by not marrying the
658
00:38:32.869 --> 00:38:35.929
father of your children or child than you can if
659
00:38:35.969 --> 00:38:38.139
you form a family unit. And when you look at
660
00:38:38.940 --> 00:38:43.019
what happens to the children of single mothers. It's just
661
00:38:43.480 --> 00:38:47.309
off the, by any metric, it is bad for kids
662
00:38:47.369 --> 00:38:52.570
to be raised not by an intact family, intact married
663
00:38:52.750 --> 00:38:56.510
parental unit. You're more likely to end up in prison.
664
00:38:56.610 --> 00:38:59.800
You have lower literacy rates, higher drug abuse, all this.
665
00:39:00.260 --> 00:39:05.500
And our welfare policy has been so geared toward paying
666
00:39:05.599 --> 00:39:10.780
single women money that they lose if they are married,
667
00:39:11.159 --> 00:39:15.380
that it has destroyed quite a few families and men
668
00:39:15.559 --> 00:39:18.449
in particular. It's particularly bad for men who are raised
669
00:39:18.489 --> 00:39:22.989
by single mothers. And so I'm all for reforming all
670
00:39:23.010 --> 00:39:26.210
of our welfare programs to take away that incentive structure.
671
00:39:27.929 --> 00:39:32.280
And I was a broad when this fight erupted and
672
00:39:32.300 --> 00:39:34.840
I was kind of happy to be abroad because I
673
00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:39.349
didn't love the way the conversation was going online. because
674
00:39:39.409 --> 00:39:41.449
people seem to respond to it by saying it's just
675
00:39:41.530 --> 00:39:45.909
socialism to have what seemed to me a pretty mild
676
00:39:45.989 --> 00:39:48.969
reform in a positive direction on a welfare program. I
677
00:39:49.010 --> 00:39:52.570
will admit that my ultimate preference would be something that
678
00:39:52.590 --> 00:39:55.289
will literally never happen, and nobody's even tried to make
679
00:39:55.309 --> 00:39:57.289
it happen, which is not have the program at all.
680
00:39:57.909 --> 00:40:01.269
But if you're going to have the program, this seems
681
00:40:01.309 --> 00:40:04.070
like a slight but good improvement.
682
00:40:04.090 --> 00:40:07.730
I actually don't think it's a good improvement for this reason.
683
00:40:11.920 --> 00:40:16.699
the program exists already for people who are single moms
684
00:40:16.760 --> 00:40:20.460
and have kids. The point of the program is to
685
00:40:20.539 --> 00:40:24.019
let them go find a job and get off welfare.
686
00:40:24.280 --> 00:40:27.550
So the whole point of the program is to take
687
00:40:27.590 --> 00:40:30.150
this person who is now dependent on government and get
688
00:40:30.190 --> 00:40:34.369
them off government. It's that's the point of it, right?
689
00:40:34.469 --> 00:40:36.530
It was a reform in the nineties of, I think
690
00:40:36.550 --> 00:40:41.710
a preexisting program. Um, so that they become self-sufficient and
691
00:40:41.730 --> 00:40:43.869
they won't be like, I would rather a woman were
692
00:40:43.909 --> 00:40:46.070
married and had a child, but this is already a
693
00:40:46.110 --> 00:40:50.480
done deal. What's happened there. Um, we know. So, so
694
00:40:50.519 --> 00:40:52.079
the point is to get them off welfare and this
695
00:40:52.159 --> 00:40:55.139
new program, the point is to hook people on welfare
696
00:40:55.159 --> 00:40:58.960
who aren't even on welfare anymore. And it, it still
697
00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:02.099
incentivizes the husband or where, you know, to, to, or
698
00:41:02.139 --> 00:41:07.429
whoever's working to, to, to stay poor enough, not to
699
00:41:07.489 --> 00:41:11.210
lose the subsidy. And it hooks a group that's huge.
700
00:41:12.329 --> 00:41:17.030
The idea, every welfare program you know grows. Every welfare program,
701
00:41:17.329 --> 00:41:21.320
there's mission creep. Now, you have poor married couple with children,
702
00:41:22.539 --> 00:41:25.460
and the eligibility pool is going to be huge, and
703
00:41:25.500 --> 00:41:28.079
the demand is going to be huge. And in the end,
704
00:41:28.179 --> 00:41:30.800
here's my biggest problem. You are now going to have
705
00:41:30.860 --> 00:41:33.119
to defend a welfare program. You are going to have
706
00:41:33.159 --> 00:41:36.050
to make the case that For a welfare program, J.D.
707
00:41:36.070 --> 00:41:38.190
Vance and Republicans who support this can't go up there
708
00:41:38.230 --> 00:41:40.010
and say, well, it's a bad program. We're sorry we
709
00:41:40.030 --> 00:41:43.059
did it. No, you know, we had no choice. They
710
00:41:43.079 --> 00:41:44.500
can't say that. They're going to have to say this
711
00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:47.119
is a good program. It helps families, this and that.
712
00:41:47.699 --> 00:41:49.800
And I just think, like you mentioned, Moynihan and others,
713
00:41:49.860 --> 00:41:52.309
we know that welfare doesn't. We know, first of all,
714
00:41:52.320 --> 00:41:54.699
this has been tried in Hungary and I think Finland
715
00:41:55.019 --> 00:41:58.079
and other places. And it doesn't work to have people
716
00:41:58.099 --> 00:42:00.659
don't have more kids. People aren't having more families just
717
00:42:00.679 --> 00:42:03.679
because you're giving them money because it's all fungible anyway.
718
00:42:03.739 --> 00:42:06.130
But I don't know. So those are my main problems
719
00:42:06.150 --> 00:42:10.010
with it. I didn't call it socialist because it's not socialist,
720
00:42:10.489 --> 00:42:13.090
but it has a socialistic element to it. When you
721
00:42:13.110 --> 00:42:16.000
start making these sorts of arguments that I saw someone,
722
00:42:16.739 --> 00:42:19.289
some social conservatives say we need to. First of all,
723
00:42:19.300 --> 00:42:21.659
they're already making arguments that there should the program should
724
00:42:21.679 --> 00:42:25.519
be expanded, but that that we should fund families. You know,
725
00:42:25.559 --> 00:42:28.449
we should fund government should fund families. No, we shouldn't.
726
00:42:29.289 --> 00:42:32.619
It's not a job to fund your family. Your job
727
00:42:32.659 --> 00:42:34.619
is to fund your family. The government should get out
728
00:42:34.639 --> 00:42:36.880
of the way. We should free families from government, not
729
00:42:36.980 --> 00:42:39.139
fund them. And now we're creating a program that's never
730
00:42:39.179 --> 00:42:40.480
going to go away for single moms.
731
00:42:40.739 --> 00:42:43.949
Anyway, that program was created that will never go away
732
00:42:44.130 --> 00:42:46.409
decades ago and it will never go away. And I
733
00:42:46.429 --> 00:42:50.269
do think people have to have that reality mindset or, uh,
734
00:42:51.829 --> 00:42:55.670
I mean, you just need to be accepting the reality.
735
00:42:56.530 --> 00:43:00.530
And I do want to point out that the proposed
736
00:43:00.590 --> 00:43:07.710
change does not actually affect the budgeted item. Maybe it
737
00:43:07.750 --> 00:43:16.210
will grow, but it wouldn't necessarily grow. But I do
738
00:43:16.269 --> 00:43:20.010
think all of our welfare policies should be changed so
739
00:43:20.139 --> 00:43:24.099
as to be more about family assistance as opposed to
740
00:43:24.199 --> 00:43:30.329
incentivizing the destruction of the family. And A lot of
741
00:43:30.349 --> 00:43:33.530
people were calling this socialist. There was an interesting piece
742
00:43:33.570 --> 00:43:36.760
by Mike Fregoso where he said the actual word for
743
00:43:36.780 --> 00:43:42.400
this is not socialist, it's neoconservative. And he pointed out,
744
00:43:42.480 --> 00:43:46.980
and I'm, you know, neoconservative has such a bad association
745
00:43:47.460 --> 00:43:52.699
with foreign policy issues. But the actual neoconservatives, and Jonathan
746
00:43:52.739 --> 00:43:56.230
Bernitsky has written beautifully about this, as did Matthew Continetti,
747
00:43:57.170 --> 00:44:02.199
was really about reforming domestic policy away from the Great
748
00:44:02.260 --> 00:44:06.159
Society domestic policy into a more conservative version of that.
749
00:44:06.179 --> 00:44:09.199
And I think Irving Kristol was actually pretty explicit in
750
00:44:09.260 --> 00:44:13.380
saying that as a neoconservative, he wasn't hostile to the
751
00:44:13.460 --> 00:44:16.260
idea of a welfare state. He was critical of the
752
00:44:16.300 --> 00:44:20.429
Great Society version of the welfare state, but he approved
753
00:44:20.949 --> 00:44:28.429
of a welfare state that did so with a minimum
754
00:44:28.550 --> 00:44:33.940
of bureaucratic intrusion in the individual's affairs. And he specifically
755
00:44:34.039 --> 00:44:36.780
mentioned in that that some kind of family assistance might
756
00:44:36.820 --> 00:44:39.199
be okay. Now, I'm not saying you have to agree
757
00:44:39.219 --> 00:44:41.679
with Irving Kristol or that any conservative has to agree
758
00:44:41.719 --> 00:44:44.599
with Irving Kristol. But if you're going to have a
759
00:44:44.619 --> 00:44:47.949
welfare state, and we do, I think it's very wise
760
00:44:48.010 --> 00:44:50.510
to battle about the contours of that as opposed to
761
00:44:50.550 --> 00:44:52.750
just say, we shouldn't have it and then not do
762
00:44:52.789 --> 00:44:55.480
anything to stop it. So To go back to our
763
00:44:55.539 --> 00:45:01.130
previous conversation, I think the administration is now going to
764
00:45:01.190 --> 00:45:04.849
enforce the rule that if you're an immigrant, you can't
765
00:45:04.869 --> 00:45:06.030
be on welfare.
766
00:45:06.530 --> 00:45:06.730
Right.
767
00:45:06.750 --> 00:45:12.699
I think it's in court, but yeah. And that is
768
00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:14.139
the law anyway.
769
00:45:14.400 --> 00:45:18.719
It is. But enforcement matters on these things. And that's
770
00:45:18.760 --> 00:45:20.800
a great example of the kind of change I would
771
00:45:20.840 --> 00:45:24.489
like to see. You hear libertarians sometimes say, my perfect
772
00:45:24.570 --> 00:45:30.409
world is complete open immigration, no borders and no welfare state.
773
00:45:30.590 --> 00:45:33.489
It's like, well, we've definitely had the no borders, but
774
00:45:33.510 --> 00:45:36.050
we're never having the no welfare state. So it's just
775
00:45:36.090 --> 00:45:39.000
a cop out to talk that way. Even though I, again,
776
00:45:39.380 --> 00:45:43.579
in my imaginary perfect world, I might not even have
777
00:45:43.639 --> 00:45:46.489
as well, I've In my libertarian days, I would have
778
00:45:47.130 --> 00:45:48.110
not had a problem with that.
779
00:45:48.670 --> 00:45:50.860
Well, I quickly want to just say that neoconservatives, the
780
00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:55.000
original– like now neocon just means person I hate. Neoconservatives
781
00:45:55.019 --> 00:45:57.820
were Democrats originally, and there's a lot of social engineering
782
00:45:57.860 --> 00:46:00.980
involved in their thinking. They just transposed that social engineering
783
00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:03.480
to building nations abroad, right? I mean that's how I
784
00:46:03.539 --> 00:46:06.920
viewed it. So they were open to welfare state stuff.
785
00:46:07.079 --> 00:46:10.119
I just don't think that their idea.
786
00:46:09.940 --> 00:46:18.780
That it's– welfare. Friedrich Hayek opened to some. So it's not,
787
00:46:22.099 --> 00:46:24.280
you know, it has an illustrious heritage.
788
00:46:25.260 --> 00:46:27.079
No, I get that. But the point is that the
789
00:46:27.139 --> 00:46:29.409
idea that you could keep it at a minimum is not,
790
00:46:29.639 --> 00:46:32.219
just doesn't work. And we know that. Nolan Friedman did
791
00:46:32.260 --> 00:46:34.230
not believe in a welfare state, believed in a negative
792
00:46:34.309 --> 00:46:37.329
income tax, which is different. But my point only is
793
00:46:37.590 --> 00:46:41.000
that these programs always grow. And now the Right is
794
00:46:41.039 --> 00:46:43.179
going to be arguing instead of saying we should get
795
00:46:43.219 --> 00:46:45.369
rid of the welfare state, they're going to be arguing, oh,
796
00:46:45.429 --> 00:46:47.199
we can do it better than these people did it,
797
00:46:47.230 --> 00:46:48.630
which I don't think is going to be the case
798
00:46:48.670 --> 00:46:51.920
in the end. But one quick thing also on this,
799
00:46:52.360 --> 00:46:54.969
the same day or maybe the day after, this whole thing, oh,
800
00:46:54.989 --> 00:46:56.889
this is an existing program. It's not going to add
801
00:46:56.909 --> 00:46:59.849
to the deficit. OK, that's great. But the next day,
802
00:47:00.289 --> 00:47:04.409
Donald Trump says, I'm going to send everyone a $ 5, 000
803
00:47:02.650 --> 00:47:03.869
check if I win the election.
804
00:47:04.150 --> 00:47:07.619
I am so glad you mentioned this. It shocked me. Again,
805
00:47:07.639 --> 00:47:11.260
I was abroad. People got so mad about the idea
806
00:47:11.340 --> 00:47:14.440
that married families with a woman raising her own kid
807
00:47:14.860 --> 00:47:18.409
would be eligible for a benefit that goes to single moms.
808
00:47:19.579 --> 00:47:22.099
But then I didn't really see much pushback on this
809
00:47:22.559 --> 00:47:26.489
insane idea of this bread and circus is like five
810
00:47:26.550 --> 00:47:27.210
thousand dollars.
811
00:47:27.250 --> 00:47:27.969
I'll tell you why.
812
00:47:27.989 --> 00:47:28.989
Republican.
813
00:47:29.309 --> 00:47:30.769
First of all, I did see plenty of pushback. But
814
00:47:30.789 --> 00:47:33.610
here's why. Everyone knows that's never going to happen ever.
815
00:47:33.889 --> 00:47:37.969
It's a complete gimmick. And they don't believe that. At
816
00:47:37.989 --> 00:47:38.789
least that's my view.
817
00:47:39.590 --> 00:47:42.019
We saw it happen already during covid. Right.
818
00:47:42.119 --> 00:47:42.360
Right.
819
00:47:42.639 --> 00:47:45.099
Right. But I just don't think he you know, where's
820
00:47:45.139 --> 00:47:48.579
the first of all. The money doesn't exist. This money
821
00:47:48.639 --> 00:47:52.250
does not exist because it would cost. I forgot what. Listen,
822
00:47:52.289 --> 00:47:54.489
he would add a trillion dollars to the deficit for
823
00:47:54.590 --> 00:47:57.110
one year. This is an insane idea. No one believes
824
00:47:57.150 --> 00:47:59.949
it's going to happen. We've only collected, I think, 300
825
00:47:59.949 --> 00:48:02.739
billion in tariffs last year. You want to give people
826
00:48:02.820 --> 00:48:05.300
one point three trillion dollars in checks. It's not going
827
00:48:05.320 --> 00:48:08.579
to happen. I think it's a really dangerous idea. And
828
00:48:08.599 --> 00:48:10.579
I'm sorry you say you said you're not as averse
829
00:48:10.599 --> 00:48:13.239
to populism as me. But to me, populism always ends
830
00:48:13.260 --> 00:48:14.489
with like we're going to send you checks.
831
00:48:15.090 --> 00:48:20.369
It's a situation of voting yourself into the treasury or,
832
00:48:20.429 --> 00:48:24.469
you know, emptying the treasury through through voting. And it's
833
00:48:25.449 --> 00:48:29.469
it wounds yourself when you have. And I do understand
834
00:48:29.610 --> 00:48:32.550
why we did it during COVID. The government shut down
835
00:48:32.789 --> 00:48:33.570
every business.
836
00:48:34.150 --> 00:48:35.070
So it's complicated.
837
00:48:35.130 --> 00:48:38.110
Yeah. Yes, I get it. But the net effect is
838
00:48:38.159 --> 00:48:41.019
the inflation that we experienced in the aftermath was due
839
00:48:41.099 --> 00:48:43.780
to that. So it's like, well, we're going to give
840
00:48:43.820 --> 00:48:46.300
you money now so that your lives can be less
841
00:48:46.409 --> 00:48:50.730
good as gas and food prices skyrocket over the course
842
00:48:50.789 --> 00:48:52.690
of the next six years.
843
00:48:52.789 --> 00:48:54.730
I think Donald Trump has a good case to make
844
00:48:54.789 --> 00:48:58.659
right now. I'm serious. We have had inflation. Most of
845
00:48:58.760 --> 00:49:01.260
the inflation came during Joe Biden's term. We're trying to
846
00:49:01.280 --> 00:49:03.400
figure out this war, whatever. A lot of people don't
847
00:49:03.420 --> 00:49:04.719
like the war. I think he could be making a
848
00:49:04.780 --> 00:49:06.599
much better case. I, by the way, think we are
849
00:49:06.639 --> 00:49:11.260
winning that war. We are winning that war with economic sanctions, 100%.
850
00:49:11.260 --> 00:49:14.030
I see you just made a face. People can't see it.
851
00:49:14.230 --> 00:49:17.309
We can talk about that next week. By any historical standard,
852
00:49:17.329 --> 00:49:20.469
we are winning that war. But the thing is... he
853
00:49:20.510 --> 00:49:22.989
has a case to make about the economy that I
854
00:49:23.030 --> 00:49:26.110
think is relatively or much stronger. I think people have
855
00:49:26.159 --> 00:49:29.380
such a misconception about what's going on. Inflation is up again,
856
00:49:30.159 --> 00:49:34.280
but it's still within normal bounds of inflation, like 2%
857
00:49:34.280 --> 00:49:37.860
to 3% most quarters. So I don't know. I just
858
00:49:37.909 --> 00:49:40.690
feel like he doesn't need the gimmicks. The gimmicks make
859
00:49:40.710 --> 00:49:41.710
him seem unserious.
860
00:49:43.110 --> 00:49:43.769
All right.
861
00:49:43.869 --> 00:49:44.250
Culture.
862
00:49:44.329 --> 00:49:47.949
Well, let's talk about culture. I know you are probably
863
00:49:47.989 --> 00:49:51.289
watching a lot of movies because you're working on your book.
864
00:49:52.510 --> 00:49:54.369
No, I'm not. But I do have a few things
865
00:49:54.489 --> 00:49:56.150
to talk about. You want me to go first?
866
00:49:56.570 --> 00:49:56.969
Yeah, sure.
867
00:49:57.769 --> 00:50:00.989
I wanted to first mention a book that just came out.
868
00:50:01.030 --> 00:50:03.469
It's called In the War Room, The Fight. The Inside
869
00:50:03.489 --> 00:50:06.050
Story of Israel's Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Accent
870
00:50:06.110 --> 00:50:09.309
by a guy I don't know named Yonah Jeremy Bob
871
00:50:09.369 --> 00:50:11.639
and a guy I do know named Elliot Kaufman, who's
872
00:50:11.679 --> 00:50:14.519
an editorial writer, who's on the editorial board of the
873
00:50:14.699 --> 00:50:19.159
Wall Street Journal. It's fantastic, this book. Just fantastic. Great,
874
00:50:19.219 --> 00:50:22.750
deep reporting. I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know.
875
00:50:23.010 --> 00:50:25.030
So I'm plugging the book. I would never plug a
876
00:50:25.050 --> 00:50:26.670
book that I didn't believe in, even if my friend
877
00:50:26.710 --> 00:50:27.889
wrote it, just so everyone knows.
878
00:50:27.909 --> 00:50:28.730
Then.
879
00:50:31.340 --> 00:50:33.159
listen, this is going to be somewhat embarrassing, but I'm
880
00:50:33.179 --> 00:50:35.440
going to say it anyway. I am, I've been watching
881
00:50:35.590 --> 00:50:38.670
star Trek, strange new worlds, and I love it. I
882
00:50:38.849 --> 00:50:42.289
love that show. It's very funny, really good. Uh, so
883
00:50:42.309 --> 00:50:44.869
I recommend it. Another show I was watching, which I
884
00:50:44.909 --> 00:50:47.489
would actually be interested in, in hearing from you. If
885
00:50:47.510 --> 00:50:49.579
you watch it, it's called furious. Have you heard of this?
886
00:50:50.179 --> 00:50:50.420
No.
887
00:50:51.199 --> 00:50:55.079
Um, it's about an FBI agent, a woman and a
888
00:50:55.219 --> 00:51:00.389
serial killer. Who's a woman. The acting in it is tremendous. The, the, uh,
889
00:51:01.699 --> 00:51:04.829
the filmic quality of it, like tremendous. It's all real good.
890
00:51:04.849 --> 00:51:07.130
I am a little bit turned off by how all
891
00:51:07.150 --> 00:51:09.710
the men are terrible as usual. And these shows always,
892
00:51:09.949 --> 00:51:14.570
you know, just the men are always bad, the bad
893
00:51:14.630 --> 00:51:18.170
guys and immoral and all of that. Um, but it's
894
00:51:18.210 --> 00:51:20.070
really well done. It's a little too adult for me
895
00:51:20.110 --> 00:51:22.050
at this old age that I'm in right now. I
896
00:51:22.090 --> 00:51:24.840
don't love seeing the sexual sex scenes and the kind
897
00:51:24.860 --> 00:51:27.139
of the murder scenes are a little gruesome for me,
898
00:51:27.260 --> 00:51:29.719
but I do, it is really well made. So I
899
00:51:29.760 --> 00:51:32.570
don't know. I haven't made up my mind about it.
900
00:51:32.610 --> 00:51:35.329
Maybe people can email and let us know. So that's
901
00:51:35.429 --> 00:51:38.050
all I did. But I know you, over the last
902
00:51:38.110 --> 00:51:40.510
two or three weeks we haven't been here, had a
903
00:51:40.530 --> 00:51:41.030
big trip.
904
00:51:42.409 --> 00:51:45.420
I did. I, Mark, I mean, I don't even remember
905
00:51:45.460 --> 00:51:47.480
the last time we talked, David. And I would like
906
00:51:47.519 --> 00:51:50.780
to thank everybody for complaining about it on Twitter. So
907
00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:55.179
sorry that, or X, that we were off for a
908
00:51:55.199 --> 00:51:58.340
couple weeks. But Mark and I were in Italy for
909
00:51:58.360 --> 00:52:02.670
a couple weeks. Yes. I mentioned today is our anniversary
910
00:52:03.750 --> 00:52:07.599
and it's our 20th anniversary. So we were kind of
911
00:52:07.619 --> 00:52:10.480
doing that in conjunction with that. And we cruised with
912
00:52:10.500 --> 00:52:13.679
the young America's foundation as they did this cruise from
913
00:52:13.840 --> 00:52:16.380
Rome to Venice. And we went to Rome a couple
914
00:52:16.400 --> 00:52:18.489
of days early and we stayed in Venice for a
915
00:52:18.510 --> 00:52:19.730
couple of days, you know, just like a little bit
916
00:52:19.769 --> 00:52:20.769
before and a little bit after.
917
00:52:21.030 --> 00:52:21.789
Have you been before?
918
00:52:23.309 --> 00:52:24.969
I have been to Rome and Venice before, but I
919
00:52:24.989 --> 00:52:27.469
hadn't been to all the places that we were on
920
00:52:27.489 --> 00:52:32.920
the cruise before. And yeah, In Rome, we went to
921
00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:38.320
this very cool, it's called the Doria Pamphile, is that right?
922
00:52:38.360 --> 00:52:46.400
Doria Pamphile Gallery, which is this amazing sort of like
923
00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:54.179
family home that has beautiful works. There are three Caravaggio's
924
00:52:54.300 --> 00:52:57.199
in there, just like in one of the rooms, which
925
00:52:57.239 --> 00:53:02.429
was cool. Um, it's a Caravaggio's. Yeah, I do too.
926
00:53:02.610 --> 00:53:04.840
And I really liked these that we saw. And I,
927
00:53:05.429 --> 00:53:06.969
when I went there a couple of years ago and
928
00:53:07.010 --> 00:53:09.650
saw some Caravaggio's in person, I know he's got a
929
00:53:09.690 --> 00:53:11.429
complicated personal history.
930
00:53:12.329 --> 00:53:16.300
Um, yeah, it's, he's a murderer, right? Then you murdered
931
00:53:16.320 --> 00:53:17.260
someone after shooting.
932
00:53:17.280 --> 00:53:17.480
Yeah.
933
00:53:18.280 --> 00:53:19.619
Yeah. Sorry. Listen, what are you going to do?
934
00:53:20.480 --> 00:53:21.099
But it's owned.
935
00:53:21.239 --> 00:53:22.380
No one's perfect.
936
00:53:23.090 --> 00:53:24.809
Yeah, I mean, but this home, it's a private gallery,
937
00:53:24.849 --> 00:53:30.510
beautiful works, beautiful statues. There was Raphael in there, Titian.
938
00:53:31.289 --> 00:53:33.190
And I don't think a lot of people go in there.
939
00:53:33.250 --> 00:53:38.849
And oh, this beautiful Annunciation by Filippo Lippi. Just some
940
00:53:38.909 --> 00:53:41.329
great stuff. Oh, there was this, I thought it was
941
00:53:41.369 --> 00:53:44.010
kind of funny. I can't remember who the artist was,
942
00:53:44.050 --> 00:53:51.360
but he was obsessed with... money changer paintings. And you
943
00:53:51.380 --> 00:53:55.329
would just like go into different rooms. And I was like, Oh, this, uh,
944
00:53:55.409 --> 00:54:00.989
Semitic obsession seems to be throughout history. Um, but it was,
945
00:54:01.530 --> 00:54:03.469
it was really interesting. And it was from, it was the,
946
00:54:03.889 --> 00:54:08.599
the gallery is the private collection of the family that
947
00:54:08.679 --> 00:54:15.719
created Pope Innocent the 10th. So just a very powerful,
948
00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:19.090
powerful family. OK, we also went to the Pantheon, which
949
00:54:19.110 --> 00:54:23.090
I hadn't been to before. We had a lovely dinner
950
00:54:23.309 --> 00:54:28.150
with Larry O'Connor and his beautiful wife, Meredith. And then
951
00:54:28.170 --> 00:54:29.849
we got on the boat and then we went to Sicily.
952
00:54:29.929 --> 00:54:32.949
And I do want to mention here that I finished
953
00:54:32.969 --> 00:54:36.179
this great novel that I highly recommend. And I'm thinking
954
00:54:36.219 --> 00:54:39.599
about it because it takes place in Sicily. It's called
955
00:54:39.639 --> 00:54:42.039
The Leopard by Lampedusa. Have you read it?
956
00:54:43.230 --> 00:54:47.389
Years ago, yeah. I just saw someone writing about how
957
00:54:47.429 --> 00:54:50.070
they considered it maybe one of the greatest novels ever written.
958
00:54:50.090 --> 00:54:54.519
I forget where this article was, but yeah. It's kind
959
00:54:54.539 --> 00:54:59.219
of political intrigue and family intrigue. It's about so much.
960
00:54:59.599 --> 00:55:02.159
I loved reading because it's ostensibly just about a family
961
00:55:02.179 --> 00:55:06.820
that kind of dies at the same time that Italy
962
00:55:07.380 --> 00:55:10.900
is united and changes its system of governance. So it's
963
00:55:10.980 --> 00:55:14.480
a royal family that dies. And that's an interesting story
964
00:55:14.500 --> 00:55:18.309
in and among on its own. But he writes beautifully
965
00:55:18.389 --> 00:55:23.610
about sex and love. His description of death was so beautiful.
966
00:55:23.690 --> 00:55:26.900
It had me sobbing on the plane on the ride home.
967
00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:32.119
But it also has... a look at how to handle
968
00:55:32.280 --> 00:55:35.880
changing systems and whether you fight it, whether you ignore it,
969
00:55:36.039 --> 00:55:38.960
whether you sort of ingratiate yourself to the changing system.
970
00:55:39.489 --> 00:55:42.150
And so I enjoyed reading it also while thinking about
971
00:55:42.170 --> 00:55:48.849
the coming AI age and also changes in political structures.
972
00:55:48.869 --> 00:55:50.510
I mean, some of what we were just talking about,
973
00:55:50.550 --> 00:55:56.550
even about populism and immigration. It was so great. I
974
00:55:56.690 --> 00:55:58.949
cannot recommend it enough. Lampedusa.
975
00:55:58.969 --> 00:55:59.070
Yeah.
976
00:55:59.739 --> 00:56:02.840
Okay, and then we also, we were in Corfu, which
977
00:56:02.880 --> 00:56:06.809
I'd never been to before. I got to visit Montenegro,
978
00:56:06.989 --> 00:56:09.869
although there were bad forest fires. That was a beautiful place,
979
00:56:09.929 --> 00:56:11.309
and I'd always kind of wanted to go.
980
00:56:11.329 --> 00:56:13.269
Oh, Montenegro, yeah.
981
00:56:13.809 --> 00:56:16.389
And Croatia, which I loved. And we went to this
982
00:56:16.610 --> 00:56:20.280
sacred art museum in Croatia. First off, I just want
983
00:56:20.300 --> 00:56:23.260
to say, in Zadar, or however you say it, they
984
00:56:23.300 --> 00:56:26.820
had maybe the best public art I'd ever seen. They
985
00:56:26.880 --> 00:56:32.489
had this beautiful... tribute to the sun that incorporated a
986
00:56:32.929 --> 00:56:38.159
lot of the ancient nature of Zadar with its churches, with,
987
00:56:39.139 --> 00:56:42.099
I guess, Alfred Hitchcock had said that Zadar had the
988
00:56:42.139 --> 00:56:44.860
most beautiful sunsets in the world. And so they did
989
00:56:44.880 --> 00:56:46.880
this tribute to the sun there. And then they have
990
00:56:46.940 --> 00:56:51.570
a sea organ where as the water comes in and out,
991
00:56:51.809 --> 00:56:54.650
it laps into pipes and it makes like interesting sounds.
992
00:56:54.670 --> 00:56:56.929
And I was like, this is good public art. But
993
00:56:56.969 --> 00:57:02.269
they had this museum of sacred relics that was unbelievable.
994
00:57:03.690 --> 00:57:06.820
As a Lutheran, I'm not into relics. And I, I
995
00:57:06.860 --> 00:57:08.840
don't know if Luther actually said something like this, like
996
00:57:08.860 --> 00:57:11.900
there were, there was enough, there were enough splinters of
997
00:57:11.980 --> 00:57:15.639
the cross, supposedly that you could build Noah's Ark out
998
00:57:15.679 --> 00:57:19.860
of it. It's easy to claim a relic and, much
999
00:57:19.900 --> 00:57:25.659
more difficult to support it. But the art surrounding the
1000
00:57:25.719 --> 00:57:29.880
relics was also quite beautiful, and the art, you know,
1001
00:57:29.900 --> 00:57:33.420
the paintings, the altar works, and these nuns, you know,
1002
00:57:33.440 --> 00:57:36.960
because Croatia had so many different people in charge over
1003
00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:40.949
the years and was bombed by the Allies, and these
1004
00:57:41.090 --> 00:57:44.260
nuns had hidden all of this work behind fake walls
1005
00:57:44.320 --> 00:57:47.570
so that it wouldn't get stolen during the many Decades
1006
00:57:47.590 --> 00:57:51.260
of conflict. Just a beautiful museum. Highly recommend. Then finished
1007
00:57:51.320 --> 00:57:54.199
in Venice and had a that was sort of to
1008
00:57:55.579 --> 00:58:02.869
and I love Venice. Went to a beautiful museum there, too.
1009
00:58:02.889 --> 00:58:04.210
Never been to Italy.
1010
00:58:05.360 --> 00:58:07.099
Oh, how have you not been?
1011
00:58:07.119 --> 00:58:10.539
I have to say, it seems to me so touristy
1012
00:58:10.579 --> 00:58:12.159
that I worry that it's just going to be this
1013
00:58:12.219 --> 00:58:13.980
big crowd. I'm going to have to wait in line
1014
00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:17.639
like it's Disneyland with cool old stuff, right? And that
1015
00:58:17.940 --> 00:58:19.739
is not something at this point in my life I
1016
00:58:20.360 --> 00:58:20.780
want to do.
1017
00:58:21.550 --> 00:58:25.570
I do hate that aspect of it, but because we
1018
00:58:25.590 --> 00:58:28.130
were there in September, it was a little less crowded
1019
00:58:28.190 --> 00:58:29.989
than it had been when I'd previously been there in
1020
00:58:30.010 --> 00:58:32.309
the middle of the summer. But I did want to
1021
00:58:32.349 --> 00:58:35.300
just mention this palace. I think it's called Palace. Plazzo
1022
00:58:35.360 --> 00:58:38.840
Grimani in Venice that we just went to because we
1023
00:58:38.880 --> 00:58:41.559
didn't have anything else to do. And it was stunning.
1024
00:58:41.739 --> 00:58:45.530
It was this, this family again, who should have been
1025
00:58:45.550 --> 00:58:47.670
a Cardinal, but he was never quite made a Cardinal
1026
00:58:47.809 --> 00:58:53.389
because he had Lutheran bias and which was interesting. And
1027
00:58:53.409 --> 00:58:55.750
I didn't know that until I'm like reading it inside
1028
00:58:55.809 --> 00:59:02.280
the place, but beautiful statues, such interesting, encyclopedic knowledge of
1029
00:59:02.340 --> 00:59:06.090
mythology that my husband, who I thought had encyclopedic knowledge
1030
00:59:06.110 --> 00:59:08.070
of mythology, was like, I don't know this story or
1031
00:59:08.110 --> 00:59:10.510
that story. And then there would be beautiful art and
1032
00:59:10.710 --> 00:59:14.329
statues related to it. And it was just wonderful. And
1033
00:59:14.349 --> 00:59:18.750
then also, um, we were walking one night and we
1034
00:59:18.809 --> 00:59:20.809
went by Harry's bar and I was like, Oh, I
1035
00:59:20.829 --> 00:59:25.449
think we have to go into Harry's bar because we're Hemingways.
1036
00:59:25.710 --> 00:59:28.230
And that was a fun little thing too. Sorry. That
1037
00:59:28.269 --> 00:59:32.329
was a big, um, Culture dumped. I have two more things.
1038
00:59:33.530 --> 00:59:36.590
On the way over, I rewatched Sideways.
1039
00:59:37.610 --> 00:59:38.809
Oh, the wine movie?
1040
00:59:39.429 --> 00:59:39.969
Yeah.
1041
00:59:40.050 --> 00:59:41.050
With, I forget his name.
1042
00:59:42.389 --> 00:59:44.949
I just remember hating it so much when I watched it,
1043
00:59:44.969 --> 00:59:47.300
I wanted to give it another shot. And I'm glad
1044
00:59:47.400 --> 00:59:50.539
I did. It was... Paul.
1045
00:59:49.559 --> 00:59:50.980
Giamatti, that's the guy I was forgetting.
1046
00:59:51.000 --> 00:59:53.340
Yes, it was much better on rewatch. And then on
1047
00:59:53.380 --> 00:59:56.619
the way back, I watched a documentary on Lorne Michaels.
1048
00:59:57.389 --> 00:59:59.969
Wait, a documentary or a movie? There's actually a movie too,
1049
01:00:00.030 --> 01:00:00.389
I think.
1050
01:00:00.929 --> 01:00:06.170
No, it was a documentary. It was good. I always
1051
01:00:06.610 --> 01:00:11.329
think about this tweet I saw where someone said, writers
1052
01:00:11.429 --> 01:00:15.050
on SNL are always talking about the late nights and
1053
01:00:15.269 --> 01:00:20.550
how crazy it was. And it's like war being a
1054
01:00:20.860 --> 01:00:23.079
writer at SNL. And then you watch the skits and
1055
01:00:23.099 --> 01:00:26.309
they're like, three different ways to drink milk or whatever.
1056
01:00:26.349 --> 01:00:29.730
Like the actual product isn't really that edgy or even
1057
01:00:30.630 --> 01:00:33.610
quite good enough to warrant all of the obsession over
1058
01:00:33.659 --> 01:00:36.010
the show. But I still find Lorne Michaels to be
1059
01:00:36.050 --> 01:00:39.239
an interesting person. And I thought it was pretty good documentary. Oh, yeah.
1060
01:00:39.260 --> 01:00:43.199
I'll watch that. I think initially SNL was probably far
1061
01:00:43.260 --> 01:00:46.389
more edgy for television than obviously became by the 80s.
1062
01:00:46.460 --> 01:00:49.139
It was kind of milquetoast, right? Even though even when
1063
01:00:49.179 --> 01:00:54.539
it's funny, it's not edgy. But OK, that's great. It
1064
01:00:54.579 --> 01:00:57.559
sounds like an amazing trip. You did a lot. Happy
1065
01:00:57.579 --> 01:01:01.159
to be back. Happy everyone's back. And if you'd like
1066
01:01:01.179 --> 01:01:04.460
to reach the show, please do so at radioatthefederalist.com. Please
1067
01:01:04.500 --> 01:01:07.480
be nice. We'll be back next week. Until then, be
1068
01:01:07.500 --> 01:01:09.840
lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.