'You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi, Ep. 219: Barack Obama’s Poor Taste

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Welcome to a new episode of You're Wrong, normally featuring
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David Harsanyi, senior writer at the Washington Examiner, and me,
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Molly Hemingway, editor-in-chief at The Federalist. I am very happy
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to be joined today because David is at jury duty
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by the wonderful, talented, handsome Mark Hemingway of Real Clear Investigations.
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Great to have you here with us, Mark.
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Suck it, David. No, I'm glad to be here too.
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I bet he's never been described as handsome on this podcast.
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Never. Not a single time. Actually, I think maybe we've
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had some reader email that describes him that way also
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old sometimes but um i want to remind everybody that
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if you have questions commentary jokes etc please send them
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to radio at thefederalist.com also want to remind everybody to
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hit like wherever you're getting this from however you you
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know the thingamajig hit like give us the best ratings
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for for all the things OK, so Mark Hemingway, we're
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supposed to disagree a lot on this show and you
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and I never disagree in marriage. So that's going to
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be really difficult.
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Yes. Yes.
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OK. All right.
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I'm not going to disagree that we never disagree. OK,
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so I want to get this off to a good start.
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So we are a week out from elections. What do
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you think is going to happen for these midterm elections? OK.
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So I think it's going to be a bad night
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for Republicans, obviously. Just, you know, a big mistake people
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make in elections is they look at polls and not
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necessarily fundamentals. You know, the polls are bad. Yes. But
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we've also seen a tremendous amount of shenanigans involving polls
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this cycle in particular. I mean, the polls, particularly in
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Senate side, have been bad for a long time. But,
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you know, the fact that we've uncovered like something like
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four or five fake pollsters that are being included in
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polling indexes and stuff this cycle is just absolutely bananas.
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And it makes me feel like the polls are very unreliable. Further,
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I talked to somebody recently who's running a major Senate campaign,
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one that's hotly contested, and he told me that they
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just don't even know what to think about polls because
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the main reason why is they're having a tremendous amount
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of difficulty getting any, especially rural and or conservative voters
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on the phone at all. People just have gotten inherently
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distrustful of polls, you know, and it's been that way
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for a long time. You know, they tend to be
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liberal organizations associated with, you know, news organizations and or
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you know colleges these are not people that i think
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rural or conservative voters necessarily want to talk to um so.
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You wonder if lots up in the air i do
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wonder if people aren't answering polls just because they're also
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not that excited about voting is that a possibility this.
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Is absolutely true and this is why i'm saying to
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say you know you pay attention to the fundamentals and
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the economy's bad it's a midterm election trump's unpopular you
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know You would expect things to not go well for Republicans,
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and you wouldn't necessarily get that from the polls. Now,
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that said, because we can't measure the actual level of
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enthusiasm or engagement from rural and or conservative voters, I
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think that some of the polls are exaggerating Democratic leads
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to the point where I think in places like Iowa
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and Texas and other things where the Senate races are
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contested even though– They tend to be Republican states. You
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might see some conservative voters come home and the night
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won't be nearly as much as a blue wave as
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people are hoping for. At least that's the rosy scenario anyway.
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I'm not sure that I agree that the economy is bad.
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I wouldn't say it's thriving or humming perfectly. But don't
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you really mean that they're just affordability issues more than
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bad economy?
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Well, affordability issues are, for the purposes of elections, you know,
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about as bad an economic issue as it gets. Now,
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the problem is for Trump, which is that almost all
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the affordability issues are the result of the Biden presidency.
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And we had like a six-month period there where we
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saw like 20% inflation in the price of like food alone.
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But the problem is, is they also got elected saying
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they were going to fix that. And they haven't quite
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fixed these things. Prices have still stayed elevated. Gas is
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still high, thanks to the... the war in Iran. And
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so the affordability issues are, you know, especially for consumer
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goods are a big deal. Further, even though the economy
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itself is not that bad, there's a lot of growing
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anxiety about the AI bubble bursting and other things like that,
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that is, you know, hovering in the background. And I
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think that's affecting people's state of mind as they go.
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To the polls. Okay. So did you see Barack Obama
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was out on the campaign trail this week? And he
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gave a speech that the Obama bros were just very
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excited about because he had a line about how Donald
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Trump is spending too much time improving the White House
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and that it looks like Saddam Hussein redecorating an olive garden.
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What did you or something like that?
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What did you think? It was a cheesecake factory.
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Oh, yeah. Sorry.
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An olive garden.
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Yeah. Which is kind of weird because Cheesecake Factory is
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actually kind of a nice restaurant for most people.
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Well, yes, I do want to state for the record,
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I have never eaten at a Cheesecake Factory.
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You didn't go to the one up on Wisconsin Avenue back.
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In the day? No, I never went to the one
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in Wisconsin Avenue. I think there's one in.
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Mark, I feel like I went there with your parents.
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How were you not there?
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I don't... I have no memory of ever going there.
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I think you might be confusing it with Maggiano's, which
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is different than Cheesecake Factory.
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Oh, yeah. Which we did go to my parents.
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With a few times.
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Okay. Anyway....
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Uh, I've never been to a cheese factory. There was
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one in Arlington, not terribly far from, uh, us. Um,
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but anyway, so I, I can't really comment on the
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decor inside or whatever. I do know that it is
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not a place that most Americans hate. I also think that, uh, it's,
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it was a weird thing to say on so many
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levels just in the sense that, um, it does certainly
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communicate a level of, uh, liberal elitism and sort of
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disdain for the things that ordinary people like and do. Um,
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Evan Barker, who's this democratic consultant, um, who's written a book,
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she's sort of walked away from the party. And I
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think she announced she voted for Trump, even though I
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think she ran, um, um, who is the crazy lady
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from Texas who's in Congress, Jasmine Crockett. And she ran
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Jasmine Crockett's campaign. And now she's, Basically, you know, on
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the news circuit denouncing the Democratic Party, especially for being,
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you know, elitist and out of touch. And she was
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all over that remark. It's just, you know, this is
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a classic example of what I'm talking about. I think
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she came from humble circumstances herself and she just finds
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this stuff coming from the Democratic Party very offensive. So, yeah,
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there was that, you know, the elitist aspect of it.
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And then there's the issue of simply, you know, the
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issue question of Donald Trump's taste. I don't know. I mean, yes,
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there was some gaudy magazine spreads in the early 1990s
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that I seem to recall. But certainly since Trump has
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been married to Melania, who has unbelievably excellent taste, you know,
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say what you want about the Melania documentary being, you know,
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puffy or whatever. But if you actually watch it and
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it goes, there are several scenes where she goes through
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like how she selects clothing and stuff. Like that woman
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has impeccable taste. And, you know, if you've seen the
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Christmas decorations in the White House, another thing under her
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watch and how the White House generally looks, it's it's
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looked very good. So I just have a hard time
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imagining like that just sort of resonates with with reality.
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OK, I have many thoughts in response to this. And yes,
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I do think the 80s gold plated toilets or whatever
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it was that President Trump was bragging about are.
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Not.
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Particularly refined and his love of gold is a bit much.
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And then like the outside walkway where they have all
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of the pictures of the presidents with the auto pen
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for Joe Biden, these things are not refined and that
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doesn't look good. But in general, you actually do need
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to improve the White House facilities in part because the
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left is constantly trying to assassinate conservatives and Donald Trump
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and you need better facilities. And it's something that every president,
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including Barack Obama, for like the last 30 years should
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have been working on and they weren't working on it enough.
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And the idea that you would criticize that is, it's
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just kind of embarrassing. Also, if I were Barack Obama,
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and I had a personal chef, and my personal chef,
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or I have personal chefs, perhaps, I think there might
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be more than one personal chef. Wasn't the guy who
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died in a surfing accident one of his personal chefs?
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It was a paddleboarding accident. I think it was a
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personal chef, yes.
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But if I had a personal chef in a country
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where that is an extremely rare thing to have, I
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wouldn't be mocking people who go to the Cheesecake Factory.
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And then this reminds me of another thing that is
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not very appropriate, perhaps, but That biography of Obama that
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came out a few years ago, I remember we had
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a friend who actually... read the biography and was shocked
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that it hadn't made bigger waves. It's from a quite
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legitimate writer and included stories about the multiple times that
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President Obama wrote to women about about his fantasies about
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having sex with men. And I feel like that's a
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really interesting thing to have written about and not normal.
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And I'm surprised we don't talk about it every time
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that he crops back up in the news. Yeah.
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I mean, I don't know what to say about that.
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I mean, the other thing about, about Obama, you know,
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in terms of, you know, that there's all these things
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and it's just astonishing to me that he has this
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reputation that he does. I mean, The the the gay
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male fantasies is certainly one thing. The track record of
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like defending crazy anti-Semites in Chicago is also another. I mean,
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he had a girlfriend break up with him because he
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wouldn't stop defending like, you know, crazy nation of Islam people,
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you know, in their anti-Semitism. You know, the other issue
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with him is, of course, you know, his relationship with
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Bill Ayers. I'm at a time when we have, you know,
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in the last six or seven years, we've seen incredible
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amounts of. left-wing violence in the streets. And the French
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government just recently named Antifa as a major force in
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the recent riots. And they've certainly been wreaking havoc and
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killing police officers or threatening to kill police officers in
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the United States. And Obama was making excuses for domestic
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left-wing terrorism early in his career and would never renounce
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Bill Ayers and these other things. I mean, it's just
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astonishing to me that he has any sort of currency
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at all. I mean, I understand his unique role as
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a sort of the culmination of the civil rights movement.
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I mean, I certainly understand that and understand why people
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would revere him and appreciate him because of what he
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did in that respect. But beyond that, his legislative track.
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Record and his personal track record. Has anybody done worse
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for race relations in America than Barack Obama? I'm actually
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quite serious. And you were the person who told me that.
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Why are you even being this way?
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I am just saying I can understand on a very
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surface level why people would like look at him as
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a as a positive development in that regard. But it is. Yeah, no,
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it's true. Certainly, you know, Certainly spending eight years where
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any criticism of level that the president of the United
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States was being labeled casually racist did not help race relations.
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There's but anyway, just to bring this full circle, there's
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another issue, which is like, where does Barack Obama get
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off criticizing the taste of Donald Trump? I mean, his,
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you know, Death Star, you know, presidential library in Chicago
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is frankly just a hideous, brutalist monument. I mean, everyone
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hates it. Never mind that he like stiffed all the
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contractors and everything and did such a terrible job on
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the whole thing. And, you know, the whole the city
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of Chicago is going to be paying for it forever.
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And then remember the portrait that he commissioned from the
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for the National Gallery from some like crazy National Portrait
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Gallery from some crazy modern artist. I mean, again, it
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was like, what was he thinking? It was just undignified
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and stupid. And it does not. There's no real indication
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Barack Obama has great taste in anything. I'm not. He
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puts out these lists every year of the music he's
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listening to and the books he's listening to. And it
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was all just midwit slop. I mean, it was literally
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what tastemakers in New York tell you what you were
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supposed to like, rather than, you know, with having any
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sort of unique attributes or having any sort of timeless
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quality about it. He's just perennially midwit.
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Do you think he's our first gay inclined president? I
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think there were others that fantasized about having sex with men.
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I mean, what's funny is that, remember, you have this
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whole amount of unbelievable, you know, quote unquote scholarship trying
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to assert that Lincoln was gay because he slept in
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boarding houses where you had to share a bed with
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another man.
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Which was quite common at the time, right?
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Yeah. And all these other dumb things. And yet here
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we have Barack Obama on record and nobody wants to
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talk about it.
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Abraham Lincoln never was like, you know what? I really
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want the love of a man. Right.
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Right. Well, I don't know. Do the gays not want
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to claim Barack Obama?
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I wouldn't want him.
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I mean, because that would be devastating to his tastemaker status,
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wouldn't it not?
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Now, at the other end of things, we've got President
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Trump also out on the campaign trail saying that everybody
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should think of it as him being on the ballot
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because he wants to get his base motivated to vote.
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I did see on the note of first... fill in
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the blank president that he keeps on talking on the
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campaign trail about, Oh, actually he talks about how handsome
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various men are. So maybe he's also in this, in
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this group of people, but he also said something about
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Nicki Minaj's backside, I believe.
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Yes.
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And so I saw someone being like, okay, so he
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has three baby mamas cause he's been married three times
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and has children with three different women, Donald Trump. He
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loves talking about women's backsides. And he has been shot.
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And he is very much getting in the running for
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first black president, which is funny because he comes after Obama.
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Yes, that was funny. I will say that I think
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Trump did comment on some man's derriere recently or whatever.
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I don't normally do this. No homo, but I don't
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know what is in the water with this stuff right now,
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although I'm quite certain that Donald Trump is not gay
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in a way that I can't say I feel about
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Barack Obama.
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Okay, so... Also in the news this week, we had.
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By the way, I do recognize Barack Obama is married
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with children. I am not necessarily suggesting he's gay.
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Again, I'm just referring to his multiple fantasies that he
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wrote down to women.
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Are we sure it's multiple or is it just one letter?
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I can't remember. But he definitely said this explicitly.
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So there's there's a letter, but then there's like another
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woman who said the same. I need to read that
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biography so I can be more up to speed.
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All right. All right. I just just want to be clear.
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Oh, actually, that reminds me.
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As long as we're casting aspersions about people's personal lives.
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We want to be specific about precisely how many times
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Barack Obama put pen to paper to talk about his
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society with a man. I agree. We do.
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We're going to have to go to confession after this podcast,
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aren't we? Anyway.
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This is Molly Hemingway, encouraging you to listen to my
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favorite podcast, Issues Etc. Every day you get in-depth interviews
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with host Todd Wilkin asking expert guests substantive, thought-provoking questions
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on all of the important news and issues of our day.
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The expert guests are in culture, law, ethics, philosophy, theology,
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and apologetics. Expert guests, expansive topics, always extolling Christ, issues, etc. Okay, so...
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Jim Garrity had something that you put in the Federalist
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chat yesterday, where he went through Ilhan Omar's own book
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and noticed a discrepancy dealing with her date of birth.
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And this is significant because she needs to have been
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a minor when her dad allegedly falsified information to obtain citizenship.
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And if she were not a minor, that would be
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a major issue for her paperwork. In addition to how
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She may be going by falsified names. There are reports
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that she had her staff alter her date of birth,
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also related to this. And we care about this because
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there is a statute of limitations for stuff related to,
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it makes it more difficult to fight immigration fraud or
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marriage fraud when a number of years have passed. But
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if she's currently obtained a passport, Based on false information
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or she voted last week on a registration that was
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based on false information. It makes prosecuting her for any
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alleged wrongdoing much easier for people to do. We know
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that her house was raided and that documents were seized,
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including a passport. So this might be related to that.
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But any thoughts on Ilhan Omar or whatever her name is? Yeah,
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I guess.
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Well, so there's a whole bunch of stuff that has
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come out in recent days that is really interesting. Yeah.
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Jim Garrity of National Review and Washington Post posted a
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screenshot from her own book where she dates herself a
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certain age in. 1981 when the war breaks out um
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in somalia and if she dates herself at that age
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of that specific year then she would not i think
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she would have been 19 or 20 when her father
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became a citizen so um that would have not allowed
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her to become naturalized the way that she she got
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specifically got naturalized through her father um and so that
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you know is a huge problem and subsequently since then
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people have been on earth i've seen like i feel
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like four or five other profiles or other Things where,
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you know, snippets of things that documents that her staff
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filled out and other things that date her as being
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too old, like this has come up over and over. again.
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There's also another issue, which is there's a lot of
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speculation that and some evidence to back this up that,
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you know, she goes by different different names in the
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filing against her from the Justice Department. They referred to
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her by two different names like Nour Elmi or whatever.
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And then Omar, you know, suggesting that she was going
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by two different names that were not necessarily the same
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alleged the same person in terms of the paperwork. And
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so there's some speculation that her father, who was a.
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sort of powerful Somali general or whatever, somehow convinced another
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Somali person to let him jump the line or whatever
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by assuming their identity. And that was why he was
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only able to, you know, naturalize a couple of his
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children because it didn't match the paperwork. And some of
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her other siblings had to go to like London, as
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I recall. So the more we learn about this, like
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it's it seems like, you know, again, we got to
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wait for all the facts to emerge. But it seems
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like every crazy thing that was ever speculated about Omar
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might actually be much, much worse. I mean, this is like,
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you know, crazy immigration fraud. And, you know, she ends
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up in Congress. I mean, like the legal implications of
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this are just like staggering.
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Like what type of legislation was passed while she was
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falsifying this information? Allegedly.
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Right. And, you know, I mean, and honestly, if any
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legislation was passed by like one vote, I mean, I
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don't know if that has happened on her tenure. That
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could effectively nullify that legislation, I would think.
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I don't know. I think maybe they don't.
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Maybe they don't. But anyway, you know, people might bring
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legal challenges related to that or whatever. I mean, it's
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just a mess. I mean, it's really something.
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That just reminded me. Oh, there was this guy who
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followed me on Twitter. I'm not totally familiar with him,
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but he was deported or he's in custody right now
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for not having had proper papers while living in this
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country for many years. Named Samuel Say, I believe.
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Yes.
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And there are a lot of people who are friendly
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with him on Twitter and And he apparently had moved
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from Ghana to Canada. There may have been immigration paperwork
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issues there. And then he moves to the U.S., I think,
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to marry someone, but also may be claimed for different reasons.
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So there are all sorts of messy issues in play.
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And some people are like, but I like this guy,
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so he shouldn't be deported. And I'm just fascinated with
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the way people think at such a low level on
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some of this stuff, meaning That, A, if you have
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any family, as we do, who've gone through the difficult
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process of emigrating to the United States, you know it's
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a process that can be expensive. It takes many years.
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You have to do everything extremely properly. And you have
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to do everything properly and you have to be extremely
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diligent about it if you want to be following the law.
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And this idea that those who don't follow the law
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should just be given a whoopsie redo because you like them.
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is not how rule of law works. And further, it
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reminds me of this thing. Do you remember Rob Portman,
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the Senator from Ohio? Yes. He I'm sure is a
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very nice guy. Um, but he had opposed redefining marriage
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to include same-sex couples or other groupings. And then he
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explained that he had changed his position because his son
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was gay. And I'm like, wait, what? Why would that
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change your position on something like whether marriage is something
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to recognize the unique relationship that men and women have
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and how they how they when they are in sexual
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Congress have children? Like, why would having a son who's
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gay change that? And it actually kind of annoyed me
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when he said, you know, I hadn't really thought about
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how this efficient how this issue would affect people like
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my son. And I'm like, you didn't you never thought that.
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about how believing that marriage is the union of one
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man and one woman affects other people. Like that's almost
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more monstrous than changing just based on emotion. And that's
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what I feel about people criticizing the Samuel say deportations. Like, well,
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I didn't realize that they would get people I liked.
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It was like, well, everyone who's deported is probably a
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complicated figure in addition to lawbreaker. Right. Like I'm sure
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they have very good traits. The idea that you have
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citizenship requirements is, And that people are to follow the
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law if they want to come to this country. And that,
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in fact, that is the most important thing you can
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do when you are trying to join with the new
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people is to follow the law rigorously. Like that never
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occurred to people that people who are being deported might
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have families here or.
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Do you know what I mean? Yeah, well, yes, I do.
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And I think the fundamental problem we're having or one
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of the big fundamental problems we're having right now in
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this country is this question of rule of law, period.
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People are rightly frustrated that, you know, we have all
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these people at high levels that can, you know, through
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power or status or whatever, can skirt the law itself.
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You know, it's filtered down to the fact where, you know,
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we have entire classes of people, you know, that are
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just skirting the law altogether, you know. Yeah. because of
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political realities, people, Democrats in Minnesota were loathe to even
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think about prosecuting anyone in the solid community for Somali community,
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even though rampant fraud was, was, was occurring, you know, um,
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and that is no way to, to, you know, keep
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a stable and orderly society. Um, and immigration obviously plays
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a big, big part of this. Uh, I know the immigration, um,
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situation in terms of the legalities and everything involved is
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incredibly complicated and expensive and everything. And, I am willing
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to have a conversation about what we can do to
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legislatively and otherwise find a way to streamline that process
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and make it easier for the Samuel says of the world,
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who seems like a nice law abiding guy on the surface,
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who's married to an American, you know, to get his
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citizenship easier. What I am not willing to do is
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to say that we need to scrap the existing law
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and process and, because, you know, for certain people that
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I like, because that's what's been going on from about
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40 different directions for so long that it's made a
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mockery of the entire system. And consequently, we have a
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problem in this country where nobody respects even basic rules
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of law. And this is becoming a huge, huge problem.
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Okay, but I don't think we need to make anything
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easier per se. I think we've been dealing with mass
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uncontrolled migration, legal and illegal. And both things, you know,
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people sometimes they're like, but you were there when I
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was on this panel with Tom Davis, former Congressman, who
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we were talking about balance of powers. And, and so
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we were talking about the executive judicial and legislative branch.
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And he said something like immigration is the lifeblood of
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our country. And, and, I have, I just was kind
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of taken aback. Like, no, it's not. I mean, I
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think we have many wonderful immigrants, but that's not the
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lifeblood of our country. We are a people and we
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formed our government to preserve our way of life and
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our unique understanding of the world and to protect our people.
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And if someone wants to come, they can potentially do that,
477
00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:46.609
but there's no This idea that it's just like all good.
478
00:27:46.690 --> 00:27:48.809
And when I look around and I look in northern Virginia,
479
00:27:48.970 --> 00:27:51.250
where he was a member of Congress, I'm like, it's
480
00:27:51.289 --> 00:27:54.440
not really been a lifeblood issue for us. It's kind of, yes,
481
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:56.960
it's been very good for the economic bottom line of
482
00:27:57.039 --> 00:28:00.480
particularly wealthy people. But that doesn't mean that it's an
483
00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:06.329
unalloyed good with people who don't support our founding principles
484
00:28:06.630 --> 00:28:07.470
all over the place.
485
00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:10.980
There's a tendency to look very fondly back at certain
486
00:28:11.019 --> 00:28:14.529
levels of immigration. Oh, the Italian community or the Irish
487
00:28:14.569 --> 00:28:18.549
community or whatever, a hundred plus years ago. And, and certainly,
488
00:28:20.670 --> 00:28:24.250
you know, obviously those people have assimilated well for the
489
00:28:24.309 --> 00:28:28.769
most part, but people really forget how much drama and
490
00:28:28.849 --> 00:28:33.119
friction was created. Even violence as a result of, of
491
00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:35.839
mass immigration when it was happening in waves through the
492
00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:37.940
19th century and the early 20th century. I mean, it
493
00:28:38.119 --> 00:28:41.450
was a big problem. And we effectively froze immigration from
494
00:28:42.009 --> 00:28:45.890
the early 20th century through until when was the big
495
00:28:45.950 --> 00:28:50.789
immigration restriction lifted? Was it 64 or 65? I forget. So,
496
00:28:50.930 --> 00:28:52.609
you know, there have been problems and we've had to
497
00:28:52.650 --> 00:28:55.849
deal with it in the past. And similarly, you know,
498
00:28:56.450 --> 00:29:00.049
when the country is half of an untamed frontier, immigration
499
00:29:00.089 --> 00:29:04.970
has very different benefits than when it is already largely developed.
500
00:29:05.109 --> 00:29:07.869
And we already have, you know, 330 million people in
501
00:29:07.910 --> 00:29:13.569
this country and people's unwillingness to just return. to see
502
00:29:13.670 --> 00:29:18.150
immigration through a more modern practical lens, as opposed to
503
00:29:18.250 --> 00:29:23.559
like viewing it as a kind of like economic manifest destiny, um,
504
00:29:23.700 --> 00:29:27.059
is really bizarre to me. Um, there's, there's no like,
505
00:29:27.400 --> 00:29:29.900
and especially among, you know, the, the thing with liberals
506
00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:31.680
you hear constantly is, oh, well, I'm just, I don't
507
00:29:31.700 --> 00:29:34.809
have ideology. I'm just pragmatic about it or whatever. They're
508
00:29:34.829 --> 00:29:38.549
not thinking pragmatically at all about immigration, except maybe in
509
00:29:38.589 --> 00:29:42.880
terms of how it would have elections, which is the
510
00:29:42.890 --> 00:29:46.880
big tell. Right. You know, the only logical, pragmatic reason
511
00:29:46.940 --> 00:29:51.160
for mass immigration is that Democrats think that they can't buy,
512
00:29:51.579 --> 00:29:55.160
you know, abandoning the rules altogether. They're going to radically
513
00:29:55.200 --> 00:29:56.849
reshape the electorate to the point where they're going to
514
00:29:56.869 --> 00:30:00.029
hold power forever. Like that seems to be the only
515
00:30:00.170 --> 00:30:05.089
pragmatic and driving an inconsistent principle driving this.
516
00:30:07.190 --> 00:30:11.920
OK, so in your neck of the woods, your old
517
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:15.960
stomping grounds of Portland, There were some women and men
518
00:30:16.059 --> 00:30:22.569
who support female sports who were subjected to mob harassment
519
00:30:22.809 --> 00:30:24.930
at a Portland Thorns game.
520
00:30:25.329 --> 00:30:28.369
Yeah. That's a women's soccer league thing.
521
00:30:28.890 --> 00:30:31.730
Yes. And I assume it's Portland Thorns because Portland is
522
00:30:31.769 --> 00:30:33.130
the city of roses.
523
00:30:33.609 --> 00:30:33.869
Yes.
524
00:30:34.359 --> 00:30:37.660
Called Rose City. Every rose has its thorn. It's a
525
00:30:37.700 --> 00:30:38.119
great song.
526
00:30:38.140 --> 00:30:40.000
Also known as, you might be familiar with it from
527
00:30:40.079 --> 00:30:42.759
Rose City Antifa, which is literally the name of the.
528
00:30:43.299 --> 00:30:46.720
And was also probably the group instigating some pushback to
529
00:30:46.799 --> 00:30:50.500
women who were supporting female-only sports. But I know you're
530
00:30:50.519 --> 00:30:53.849
a huge women's sports fan, so maybe you can tell
531
00:30:53.930 --> 00:30:56.329
us what you think. Actually, I just have to say,
532
00:30:56.349 --> 00:30:58.470
because I'm not sure if you'll say it now, that
533
00:30:58.869 --> 00:31:01.390
when we were talking about this earlier, you said that
534
00:31:02.049 --> 00:31:04.779
these women's sports are run so poorly that this is
535
00:31:04.839 --> 00:31:06.400
why women shouldn't run things.
536
00:31:07.869 --> 00:31:11.230
I mean, it's pretty bad. I mean, it's not just me.
537
00:31:11.339 --> 00:31:13.059
I mean, like I was just so I think it's
538
00:31:13.099 --> 00:31:17.019
game seven of the WNBA finals. I'm not 100 percent
539
00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:20.069
sure that because why would I follow the WNBA that closely?
540
00:31:20.849 --> 00:31:24.960
But Bill Simmons was just ranting on Twitter about this because. Um,
541
00:31:25.339 --> 00:31:28.240
game seven, the WNBA finals due to some scheduling conflict,
542
00:31:28.279 --> 00:31:31.640
the Atlanta Hawks or something is being scheduled at 1230
543
00:31:31.640 --> 00:31:34.180
PM on a Thursday when it was supposed to be
544
00:31:34.220 --> 00:31:37.670
in prime time. Like, um, and Simmons was saying that like,
545
00:31:37.710 --> 00:31:41.990
he's never seen a professional sports league more poorly managed
546
00:31:42.009 --> 00:31:44.509
than the WNBA. It's like they're over 12 on like
547
00:31:44.569 --> 00:31:48.289
major decisions this year in terms of like screwing everything up. Um,
548
00:31:48.369 --> 00:31:52.200
I don't know as much about the women's professional soccer league, um,
549
00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:56.029
such that it is in America, but in, in it,
550
00:31:56.180 --> 00:31:59.180
it does have some big support in a few particularly
551
00:31:59.220 --> 00:32:02.420
blue cities, Portland being one of them. Um, Portland was
552
00:32:02.460 --> 00:32:04.819
also one of these places where, um, they had one
553
00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:09.359
of these women's sports bars, um, women only sports bars
554
00:32:09.460 --> 00:32:11.519
that cater to women's sports that also had a huge
555
00:32:11.579 --> 00:32:15.609
controversy because of, um, women who were, they, they tried
556
00:32:15.619 --> 00:32:17.710
to hold an event at the woman's sports bar for
557
00:32:17.809 --> 00:32:21.640
keeping men out of women's sports. And this, um, ruffled
558
00:32:21.900 --> 00:32:26.309
an amazing amount of feathers in the city. Um, and similarly,
559
00:32:26.329 --> 00:32:29.430
I know at least one of the women, uh, who
560
00:32:29.470 --> 00:32:32.849
was kicked out of the, um, the Portland Thorns game.
561
00:32:33.369 --> 00:32:35.009
I don't know her, know her. I mean, I've talked
562
00:32:35.029 --> 00:32:37.420
to her online a fair bit because she's a fairly
563
00:32:37.900 --> 00:32:41.880
activist in Portland, um, about trying to fix things in
564
00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:44.920
the city. I wouldn't say she's like some crazy radical,
565
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.089
but she's, done a lot to help the homeless population
566
00:32:49.289 --> 00:32:55.190
and try and document what's actually going on with them. And,
567
00:32:55.210 --> 00:32:58.490
you know, I know she's not like a bad person, but,
568
00:32:58.589 --> 00:33:00.509
you know, she was obviously trying to make a statement.
569
00:33:01.430 --> 00:33:05.230
But what I just don't understand is it's so insane.
570
00:33:05.259 --> 00:33:07.099
You could go to a Portland Thorns game with like
571
00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:11.039
about a zillion offensive slogans and that you wouldn't get
572
00:33:11.079 --> 00:33:14.279
kicked out. But saying something that, again, 80 percent of
573
00:33:14.339 --> 00:33:17.299
Americans believe about men being in women's sports is enough
574
00:33:17.339 --> 00:33:19.640
to get you kicked out. And it's just tells you
575
00:33:19.759 --> 00:33:23.109
exactly what these leagues are about and why they're never
576
00:33:23.140 --> 00:33:25.809
going to become big, profitable endeavors at a time when
577
00:33:25.869 --> 00:33:28.769
women's sports has grown leaps and bounds in the last
578
00:33:28.769 --> 00:33:31.250
10 or 20 years. If there were women's sports leagues
579
00:33:31.289 --> 00:33:34.809
that catered to actually normal women and not, you know,
580
00:33:36.049 --> 00:33:40.269
trans dudes and lesbians exclusively, they might be pretty successful.
581
00:33:40.930 --> 00:33:44.339
But instead, like they just won't broker any mainstream opinion
582
00:33:44.420 --> 00:33:48.240
on women's sports. And then you look at what's going
583
00:33:48.259 --> 00:33:50.960
on in the WNBA and like this league is essentially
584
00:33:51.099 --> 00:33:55.759
sanctioning physical violence and, you know, bullying against the league's
585
00:33:55.799 --> 00:33:59.319
best player, Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, the league's, you know,
586
00:33:59.359 --> 00:34:03.599
maybe second most popular player who for having, you know,
587
00:34:03.640 --> 00:34:05.900
the public opinion that men should stay out of women's sports.
588
00:34:07.299 --> 00:34:09.320
And it's just baffling to me. Baffling.
589
00:34:13.760 --> 00:34:18.480
Yeah, it's an interesting thing because it's not an issue
590
00:34:18.519 --> 00:34:21.800
where the left, like the voters on the left generally
591
00:34:21.880 --> 00:34:26.380
support trans insanity and the voters on the right generally
592
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:32.019
support reality. It's actually like an 80-20 issue on stuff
593
00:34:32.059 --> 00:34:36.179
like whether men should be in women's sports. And yet
594
00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:41.000
it does tell us something about how the left's institutions
595
00:34:41.199 --> 00:34:48.750
are completely captured by by that hard, extreme group that is...
596
00:34:48.630 --> 00:34:51.949
It's an issue. I was thinking about this related to
597
00:34:52.010 --> 00:34:55.389
Kamala Harris was being made fun of because she was
598
00:34:56.309 --> 00:35:00.789
doing her typical seemingly drunk word salad at various campaign stops.
599
00:35:00.809 --> 00:35:04.030
She's also out on the trail trying to help out Democrats.
600
00:35:04.829 --> 00:35:06.469
And I was thinking part of the problem is that
601
00:35:06.489 --> 00:35:13.019
about 20 years ago, when was Barack Obama elected? 2008.
602
00:35:13.019 --> 00:35:17.019
18 years ago. Around that time, the Democrat Party had
603
00:35:17.079 --> 00:35:20.929
a choice between Hillary Clinton, who has many problems, and
604
00:35:20.949 --> 00:35:24.489
Barack Obama. And they chose to go with Obama. He
605
00:35:24.550 --> 00:35:27.130
was doing that thing that so many Democrats do, where
606
00:35:27.170 --> 00:35:30.829
you are crazy left-wing, but you pretend to be moderate.
607
00:35:31.469 --> 00:35:34.559
But Hillary Clinton, for all of her many faults, really
608
00:35:34.639 --> 00:35:38.300
was closer to that Bill Clinton mold than the Barack
609
00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:48.239
Obama extreme... support of like DSA, terrorism, radical Islamists, like
610
00:35:48.260 --> 00:35:51.179
stuff like that. But the Democratic Party decides to go
611
00:35:51.219 --> 00:35:55.099
with Barack Obama. And in so doing, they never really
612
00:35:55.239 --> 00:35:57.320
litigated that issue of like, do we want to be
613
00:35:57.760 --> 00:35:59.360
Bill Clinton type people? Or do we want to be
614
00:35:59.380 --> 00:36:02.239
Barack Obama people? They kind of just went along with
615
00:36:02.260 --> 00:36:04.119
the Barack Obama thing. And now we're at the point
616
00:36:04.159 --> 00:36:08.059
where we have who's the guy who's the mayor, Mamdani,
617
00:36:08.099 --> 00:36:13.750
the mayor of New York City, and then Quite most dramatically,
618
00:36:13.909 --> 00:36:19.210
Abdul El-Sayed, who is someone who very much embodies that
619
00:36:19.349 --> 00:36:24.949
red-green alliance. His family has many ties to the Muslim Brotherhood,
620
00:36:24.969 --> 00:36:28.070
a terrorist organization based out of Egypt, where he's from.
621
00:36:28.590 --> 00:36:32.079
But he's also endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America,
622
00:36:32.099 --> 00:36:34.280
I believe, and has a lot of the ideas that
623
00:36:34.320 --> 00:36:38.460
they support. And then you have some people who are like,
624
00:36:38.599 --> 00:36:42.579
wait a minute, we don't like the Muslim Brotherhood. extremists
625
00:36:42.619 --> 00:36:46.039
taking over the Democratic Party, but they actually have this
626
00:36:46.079 --> 00:36:50.989
problem because that red-green alliance is where the lifeblood of
627
00:36:51.030 --> 00:36:53.469
the Democratic Party is. So I think part of the
628
00:36:53.489 --> 00:36:57.710
problem that Kamala Harris has in speaking in complete sentences
629
00:36:57.750 --> 00:37:03.449
and making sense is that she knows she can't get
630
00:37:03.489 --> 00:37:06.030
those people mad at her, but she also knows that
631
00:37:06.389 --> 00:37:11.929
the entire donor class isn't behind the radical people that
632
00:37:13.329 --> 00:37:14.530
have that excitement right now.
633
00:37:15.349 --> 00:37:19.820
Yes. I'm sure that factors in. I mean, Occam's razor
634
00:37:19.860 --> 00:37:22.300
would suggest that she actually just drinks too much wine
635
00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:26.639
and isn't very bright. But yeah, there's a tremendous amount
636
00:37:26.659 --> 00:37:32.079
of incoherence ideologically that's going on here. And a big
637
00:37:32.099 --> 00:37:36.039
part of the problem here, though, is just that the
638
00:37:36.059 --> 00:37:40.329
Democrat Party itself has been captured by various institutions and
639
00:37:40.369 --> 00:37:43.110
interest groups that are way to the left of the
640
00:37:43.170 --> 00:37:47.630
average Democratic voter. It's very strange. You know, I keep
641
00:37:47.750 --> 00:37:52.809
waiting necessarily for them to be officially punished for this.
642
00:37:52.869 --> 00:37:54.809
I mean, they kind of have. I mean, Trump was
643
00:37:54.869 --> 00:37:58.949
elected to a second term in part because of people
644
00:37:59.110 --> 00:38:02.619
were shocked by the incompetence of Joe Biden's presidency. And
645
00:38:02.659 --> 00:38:05.159
no small part of that was that it was, you know,
646
00:38:05.179 --> 00:38:06.760
a bit of a freak show. I mean, you had
647
00:38:07.219 --> 00:38:10.079
you know, major public health officials who are men in dresses,
648
00:38:10.719 --> 00:38:15.119
and people had a hard time reconciling that. And, you know,
649
00:38:15.239 --> 00:38:17.699
just the general sort of, you know, woke nonsense coming
650
00:38:17.739 --> 00:38:20.550
out of COVID. And to some extent, you know, Trump's
651
00:38:20.570 --> 00:38:23.949
first election was a referendum on Obama. But at the
652
00:38:23.989 --> 00:38:31.389
same time, nothing about the voter response to the Democratic
653
00:38:31.429 --> 00:38:35.010
Party has been definitive in terms of, you know, you've
654
00:38:35.150 --> 00:38:37.190
got to correct and go back to more of a
655
00:38:37.630 --> 00:38:43.079
sort of Clinton-esque moderation. What will be really interesting, and
656
00:38:43.119 --> 00:38:45.760
I keep sounding the alarm about this, is the 2020 census. Sorry,
657
00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:53.670
2030 census, excuse me. Um, the, um, the house districts
658
00:38:53.849 --> 00:38:57.250
are going to be, um, pretty dramatically reapportioned and along
659
00:38:57.289 --> 00:38:59.969
with it, the electoral college that are gonna make life very,
660
00:39:00.010 --> 00:39:03.389
very difficult for Democrats. The reality is, is that democratic governance,
661
00:39:03.409 --> 00:39:06.030
because it is so far left in particular in places
662
00:39:06.050 --> 00:39:09.579
like Portland, Oregon, I mean, Oregon has lost population in
663
00:39:09.619 --> 00:39:11.519
recent years, which is just shocking. If you know anything
664
00:39:11.539 --> 00:39:13.840
about the history of the state and how beautiful it
665
00:39:13.900 --> 00:39:15.840
is and how traditionally desirable place it's been to live.
666
00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:18.679
California has lost population in recent years. And all of
667
00:39:18.719 --> 00:39:22.320
them are going to, you know, redder states. So what
668
00:39:22.360 --> 00:39:24.199
this means is that structurally, it's going to be very
669
00:39:24.239 --> 00:39:28.070
hard for Democrats to win a national election. You know,
670
00:39:28.090 --> 00:39:31.320
the blue wall and the uproar. Midwest for Democrats is
671
00:39:31.340 --> 00:39:33.539
going to go away because a lot of they're going
672
00:39:33.559 --> 00:39:36.409
to be losing seats up there. And part of the
673
00:39:36.429 --> 00:39:40.130
Electoral College is going to be vanished. And so the
674
00:39:40.170 --> 00:39:42.650
big issue here is, is what are Democrats going to
675
00:39:42.690 --> 00:39:44.989
do about this? Are they going to actually moderate in
676
00:39:45.030 --> 00:39:47.460
response to The fact that people are voting with their
677
00:39:47.500 --> 00:39:50.449
feet in a way that is structurally affecting major changes
678
00:39:50.550 --> 00:39:52.429
to American politics, it makes it harder for them to
679
00:39:52.449 --> 00:39:55.429
get elected. Or is there going to be the nightmare
680
00:39:55.449 --> 00:39:59.929
scenario in 2028 where Democrats manage to capture both the Senate,
681
00:39:59.969 --> 00:40:03.019
the House and the presidency? And they realize they have
682
00:40:03.059 --> 00:40:05.239
two years to fix this structural problem or else they're
683
00:40:05.260 --> 00:40:07.250
going to be out of power for a generation. And
684
00:40:07.349 --> 00:40:11.329
they go about making Puerto Rico a state and nuking
685
00:40:11.349 --> 00:40:14.210
the filibuster and making D.C. a state and packing the
686
00:40:14.230 --> 00:40:19.090
Supreme Court and just, you know, rig the game for themselves. But,
687
00:40:19.989 --> 00:40:23.170
you know, as it stands, if we're having an actually
688
00:40:24.050 --> 00:40:28.920
actual fair assessment of where the voters are at right now,
689
00:40:28.980 --> 00:40:32.150
the Democrats should be getting up. punished a lot more
690
00:40:32.190 --> 00:40:36.969
than they appear to be.
691
00:40:36.989 --> 00:40:40.760
I had one other thought on the midterm elections. I've
692
00:40:40.780 --> 00:40:45.340
been expecting it to be a good night for Democrats
693
00:40:45.699 --> 00:40:49.820
for the entire campaign season. Just basically when the war
694
00:40:49.860 --> 00:40:53.019
in Iran got going, it seemed like that was going
695
00:40:53.039 --> 00:40:58.309
to change the situation for midterms in a material way.
696
00:40:59.079 --> 00:41:03.659
Democrats were always at an advantage because Republicans controlled the House,
697
00:41:03.739 --> 00:41:08.059
the Senate, the executive, and Republican voters were already quite
698
00:41:08.099 --> 00:41:11.260
discouraged by how little the Senate had done. But the
699
00:41:11.320 --> 00:41:15.039
war added pressures that made it even harder, a more
700
00:41:15.079 --> 00:41:18.840
difficult environment for Republicans. When the war was not over
701
00:41:18.860 --> 00:41:21.440
in a matter of weeks, but kept on dragging on,
702
00:41:21.480 --> 00:41:24.300
I mean, I think it's good that there's no hot
703
00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:29.070
action happening right now. But On the other hand, there's
704
00:41:29.170 --> 00:41:32.639
no actual end to it. So it's still kind of
705
00:41:32.679 --> 00:41:37.000
a lingering issue for a lot of voters. But what
706
00:41:37.019 --> 00:41:39.179
I think is funny is I've noticed people saying that
707
00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:41.079
they think it's going to be a bad night for
708
00:41:41.139 --> 00:41:44.280
Republicans now. Like they were very optimistic the whole time.
709
00:41:44.320 --> 00:41:45.760
And now they're like, oh, I think that's going to
710
00:41:45.800 --> 00:41:49.050
be bad. And I'm thinking, I actually sort of think
711
00:41:49.090 --> 00:41:52.349
things are looking a little less bad now than they
712
00:41:52.389 --> 00:41:56.070
were a month or so ago. And it's just funny
713
00:41:56.110 --> 00:41:58.539
to me that people are only now being like, oh,
714
00:41:58.559 --> 00:41:59.599
I think it's going to be a wipeout.
715
00:42:01.659 --> 00:42:04.420
That's my sense of it, too. I think people are
716
00:42:04.519 --> 00:42:07.420
way overconfident based on polls in Texas and Iowa and
717
00:42:07.460 --> 00:42:11.739
other places where, you know, the Republicans should be winning
718
00:42:11.760 --> 00:42:14.530
and isn't winning as much as they could because of
719
00:42:14.570 --> 00:42:16.789
candidate quality or something like that. But just, you know,
720
00:42:16.849 --> 00:42:19.050
states that win as much for Trump as they did,
721
00:42:19.250 --> 00:42:21.309
you know, just in 2024, I have a hard time
722
00:42:21.369 --> 00:42:24.809
imagining that Democrats have so thoroughly closed that gap.
723
00:42:24.889 --> 00:42:28.769
Well, I do want to point out me thinking it
724
00:42:28.809 --> 00:42:30.389
won't be as bad as I thought it would be
725
00:42:30.409 --> 00:42:32.590
a couple months ago is still not a very great
726
00:42:32.650 --> 00:42:35.599
scenario for Republicans. Oh, I agree with that. On the
727
00:42:35.639 --> 00:42:38.920
other hand, when we were younger, we had, you know,
728
00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:42.659
you'd see like switches of 40 or 60 seats, like
729
00:42:42.900 --> 00:42:47.210
massive changes in the House. And partly because of gerrymandering
730
00:42:47.409 --> 00:42:50.750
issues that are getting less salient. I just don't think
731
00:42:50.769 --> 00:42:54.190
it's going to be that level. I do think Democrats,
732
00:42:54.369 --> 00:42:56.849
you know, probably take a couple dozen, but it might
733
00:42:56.889 --> 00:42:59.909
be fewer than that. And compared to what people were
734
00:43:00.639 --> 00:43:04.980
used to for big wave elections, I think, you know,
735
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:06.699
and the fact that Republicans still have a shot at
736
00:43:06.739 --> 00:43:08.500
keeping the Senate and it's not going to be like
737
00:43:08.519 --> 00:43:12.000
what we saw again in our lifetime of 60 seats
738
00:43:12.099 --> 00:43:16.719
for the Democrats. Keep that in perspective.
739
00:43:16.940 --> 00:43:19.539
I think it's a function of polarization, too. And I
740
00:43:19.579 --> 00:43:22.599
think ultimately that's not working well for Democrats in the
741
00:43:22.659 --> 00:43:26.579
sense that Again, they've adopted so many extreme positions. I mean,
742
00:43:26.619 --> 00:43:30.579
you still can't get, you know, many Democrats on record
743
00:43:31.239 --> 00:43:34.280
to say, I don't think men should be playing in,
744
00:43:34.420 --> 00:43:37.039
you know, high school girls sports. I mean, it's just insane.
745
00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:41.050
But the party itself is so captured, they can't, you know,
746
00:43:41.130 --> 00:43:44.610
do all these things that would otherwise appeal to a
747
00:43:44.650 --> 00:43:48.170
majority of voters. And I think that's really holding them
748
00:43:48.210 --> 00:43:51.889
back from capturing more Republican voters in places like Iowa
749
00:43:51.909 --> 00:43:54.429
and Texas. Um, and if they were smart, they would
750
00:43:54.449 --> 00:43:56.030
realize this. I think there are people in the party,
751
00:43:56.070 --> 00:43:58.849
like Rahm Emanuel that are like eyeing some national ambitions
752
00:43:58.889 --> 00:44:01.329
and stuff that actually kind of do realize this. Um,
753
00:44:01.349 --> 00:44:05.030
but there's so few and far between that. Um, yeah, I,
754
00:44:05.110 --> 00:44:08.550
I agree you're, you're in, in, in, in a generation ago,
755
00:44:08.590 --> 00:44:10.860
this would have been some crazy wave election. I mean,
756
00:44:11.260 --> 00:44:14.300
people forget that the midterm in, um, 2012, no, 20, 2010, sorry,
757
00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:21.630
was the, worst wipeout of a major party since the
758
00:44:21.670 --> 00:44:24.750
end of World War II. It was just the Obamacare
759
00:44:24.789 --> 00:44:29.550
sentiment and Barack Obama's crazy tarp spending and all of that.
760
00:44:29.699 --> 00:44:33.460
It was just voters really reacted. And we haven't seen
761
00:44:33.519 --> 00:44:36.860
anything remotely like that since. We have not seen that
762
00:44:36.900 --> 00:44:38.980
kind of sea change. We've seen some bad elections for
763
00:44:39.039 --> 00:44:41.559
one party, but not like a big sea change election
764
00:44:41.599 --> 00:44:41.920
like that.
765
00:44:44.360 --> 00:44:45.739
OK, the last thing I wanted to ask you about
766
00:44:45.780 --> 00:44:48.539
before we talk about some pop culture was a study
767
00:44:48.559 --> 00:44:53.570
showing that fewer teens are driving than historically speaking. Do
768
00:44:53.590 --> 00:44:55.369
you have any thoughts on why that might be?
769
00:44:56.070 --> 00:44:59.989
Well, there's two reasons. One is social media. I mean,
770
00:45:00.309 --> 00:45:02.690
kids are obviously a lot more atomized and they're more
771
00:45:02.750 --> 00:45:06.929
comfortable socially socializing at a distance than socializing in person.
772
00:45:07.010 --> 00:45:09.260
You know, obviously, when we were, you know, in high school,
773
00:45:09.760 --> 00:45:12.349
and driving, the only way to socialize with people your
774
00:45:12.449 --> 00:45:14.769
age was to go out and meet them where they were.
775
00:45:16.489 --> 00:45:19.730
You know, the joke when we were growing up, or joke,
776
00:45:19.829 --> 00:45:22.530
or the actual ads they ran on television, because we're old,
777
00:45:22.590 --> 00:45:24.900
where on Friday nights, they'd run these ads, they'd say,
778
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:28.400
it's 10pm, do you know where your children are? These days,
779
00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:30.739
you know, it's 10pm, it's Friday night, and your children
780
00:45:30.780 --> 00:45:34.239
and your child is upstairs on Instagram, feeling anxiety, because
781
00:45:34.260 --> 00:45:37.809
he's not getting enough likes. Everybody knows that that's a problem.
782
00:45:37.869 --> 00:45:42.150
And I think that that socialization issues are making kids
783
00:45:42.210 --> 00:45:45.409
less inclined to be interested in having a vehicle as
784
00:45:45.489 --> 00:45:48.880
a tool for sort of personal freedom. The second issue
785
00:45:49.239 --> 00:45:53.260
is expense. You know, to lay this again at the
786
00:45:53.280 --> 00:45:58.550
foot of Barack Obama, the theme of today's podcast, the
787
00:45:59.159 --> 00:46:03.909
Clash for Clunkers program, it did a number on the
788
00:46:03.989 --> 00:46:06.989
used car market. I mean, they basically destroyed you know,
789
00:46:07.110 --> 00:46:12.210
every cheap vehicle in the country. And that, you know,
790
00:46:12.590 --> 00:46:14.869
put a lot of upward pressure on the bottom end
791
00:46:14.909 --> 00:46:17.679
of the used car market that's still working its way
792
00:46:17.719 --> 00:46:20.559
through the system today. Never mind what it did for
793
00:46:21.219 --> 00:46:24.139
parts as well in terms of, you know, making it
794
00:46:24.179 --> 00:46:27.539
affordable to keep your car on the road. And so,
795
00:46:27.739 --> 00:46:30.699
you know, when we were kids, you know, gosh, I
796
00:46:30.739 --> 00:46:33.099
knew I had friends who'd purchased a car for, you know,
797
00:46:33.099 --> 00:46:37.739
500 bucks or, you know, or less that drove. You know,
798
00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:39.800
even if you factor in inflation, that's probably a few
799
00:46:39.860 --> 00:46:43.429
thousand dollars, you know, and you could buy a car
800
00:46:43.469 --> 00:46:47.969
like that with an afterschool job. And, you know, with
801
00:46:48.010 --> 00:46:52.110
a little bit of, you know, know-how from an uncle
802
00:46:52.150 --> 00:46:53.989
or something, you could learn enough about, you know, the
803
00:46:54.050 --> 00:46:57.489
mechanics of it to keep it on the road. And
804
00:46:58.230 --> 00:47:03.659
related to that, cost issue is also insurance. Insurance premiums
805
00:47:03.699 --> 00:47:06.340
have gone up some like 30 or 40% since COVID.
806
00:47:07.260 --> 00:47:12.719
A huge factor that is the immigration situation. I hate to,
807
00:47:13.260 --> 00:47:15.679
without going into details, I know quite a bit about
808
00:47:15.719 --> 00:47:19.090
the fact that you're likely to get involved in an
809
00:47:19.179 --> 00:47:21.630
accident in the Northern Virginia area with someone who does
810
00:47:21.670 --> 00:47:24.989
not have insurance, let alone speak English. And this can be,
811
00:47:25.070 --> 00:47:27.969
you know, a very big problem. And it's a it's
812
00:47:28.030 --> 00:47:31.889
caused insurance rates. It's a major driver in insurance rates
813
00:47:31.929 --> 00:47:34.550
going up. The fact there are so many uninsured drivers
814
00:47:34.590 --> 00:47:36.590
on the road. The other thing is they just stopped,
815
00:47:36.750 --> 00:47:41.090
you know, enforcing a lot of, you know, basic rules
816
00:47:41.130 --> 00:47:42.510
of the road in terms of they used to pull
817
00:47:42.530 --> 00:47:44.449
you over if your tags were expired and other things
818
00:47:44.469 --> 00:47:47.050
like that. And they're basically letting a lot of bad
819
00:47:47.090 --> 00:47:49.860
drivers get away with murder. But, you know, insuring a
820
00:47:49.880 --> 00:47:51.780
teenager was always expensive. But I mean, I think it
821
00:47:51.800 --> 00:47:53.400
was like 40 or 50 bucks a month when I
822
00:47:53.420 --> 00:47:55.260
was a kid. And again, even with inflation, it was,
823
00:47:55.280 --> 00:48:00.300
you know, uh, you know, probably $ 150 or so a month.
824
00:48:00.380 --> 00:48:02.980
And again, you know, you could afford that. And now
825
00:48:03.059 --> 00:48:08.360
it's so, so much more. Um, uh, and, uh, it's, it's, it's,
826
00:48:08.489 --> 00:48:09.090
it's really hard.
827
00:48:10.929 --> 00:48:14.969
Okay. Have you watched any movies recently, Mark Hemingway?
828
00:48:14.989 --> 00:48:19.769
Uh, yes, yes, we have watched some movies.
829
00:48:19.989 --> 00:48:21.429
Okay. What did we watch? I'm so glad you're here
830
00:48:21.469 --> 00:48:23.579
because every time David and I do this, I can't
831
00:48:23.619 --> 00:48:26.440
remember the names of the movies that we've watched. But
832
00:48:26.480 --> 00:48:30.219
we watched one on Friday night that was really good.
833
00:48:30.619 --> 00:48:31.219
What was it called?
834
00:48:31.829 --> 00:48:34.489
I enjoyed it quite a bit. I remember it got
835
00:48:34.530 --> 00:48:36.449
some good reviews, but it kind of came and went
836
00:48:36.510 --> 00:48:40.909
without making much of a splash. It's called Tuner. It's
837
00:48:40.969 --> 00:48:44.829
about a piano tuner that gets sort of in a
838
00:48:44.889 --> 00:48:48.889
desperate situation and caught up in. some sort of criminal activity. Um,
839
00:48:48.949 --> 00:48:50.969
but it was, it had stars, Dustin Hoffman, who was
840
00:48:51.050 --> 00:48:54.139
excellent in it. It was a very, very Dustin Hoffman role,
841
00:48:54.199 --> 00:48:56.320
but I mean, he was really great in it. Um,
842
00:48:56.639 --> 00:48:59.960
and it was just paced and directed extremely well. It
843
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.380
wasn't like an overly ambitious movie. Um, but it was,
844
00:49:04.699 --> 00:49:07.440
it was just really well made. And also it was like,
845
00:49:07.480 --> 00:49:10.719
it wasn't over long for once. It had some fairly
846
00:49:10.800 --> 00:49:13.539
modest ambitions and it was just really well executed in
847
00:49:13.579 --> 00:49:16.159
terms of like the acting and the pacing, especially, um,
848
00:49:16.679 --> 00:49:19.340
you liked the characters and understood where they were coming
849
00:49:19.420 --> 00:49:23.360
from and, and other things, it just, if this film,
850
00:49:23.440 --> 00:49:24.880
it's kind of, it felt kind of like an indie
851
00:49:24.900 --> 00:49:26.699
film from the nineties. And I feel like it's one
852
00:49:26.719 --> 00:49:28.159
of these films, if it came out in the nineties,
853
00:49:28.199 --> 00:49:31.489
when people were still really excited about, um, you know, um,
854
00:49:32.150 --> 00:49:35.090
indie films, this, this movie would have become sort of
855
00:49:35.130 --> 00:49:40.510
a minor classic. But I highly recommend it. I really
856
00:49:40.570 --> 00:49:41.039
enjoyed it.
857
00:49:43.969 --> 00:49:47.460
What was the next movie we watched? Oh, my gosh.
858
00:49:48.039 --> 00:49:50.559
We watched a movie, one of these, like, I don't know,
859
00:49:50.599 --> 00:49:53.139
what are we going to watch? It's free on Amazon
860
00:49:53.179 --> 00:49:56.179
Prime or whatever. A movie called Chances Are.
861
00:49:56.199 --> 00:50:00.949
Oh, okay. And I wanted to like it so badly
862
00:50:01.010 --> 00:50:03.710
because I love Robert Downey Jr. And he was in it.
863
00:50:03.889 --> 00:50:06.489
And then there was Sybil Shepard and she's so pretty.
864
00:50:06.510 --> 00:50:08.710
And there were other people you would recognize.
865
00:50:08.769 --> 00:50:09.769
Ryan O'Neill.
866
00:50:09.989 --> 00:50:11.110
And yeah, Ryan O'Neill.
867
00:50:11.210 --> 00:50:12.900
Oh my gosh. What's her name? She was like a
868
00:50:13.320 --> 00:50:13.869
big 80s.
869
00:50:13.900 --> 00:50:15.280
Mary Stewart Masterson.
870
00:50:15.300 --> 00:50:19.619
Mary Stewart Masterson. So it had a good, very likable cast.
871
00:50:19.719 --> 00:50:25.519
It's about this guy that who's very much in love
872
00:50:25.539 --> 00:50:28.139
with his wife. It stars him. Oh, I forget his name.
873
00:50:28.440 --> 00:50:30.800
The guy that plays shooter McGavin in one of the
874
00:50:30.880 --> 00:50:33.579
few roles he's ever done where he's not like a
875
00:50:33.699 --> 00:50:39.960
flaming jerk. And he dies tragically, like a year after
876
00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:42.539
getting married to the love of his life. And he
877
00:50:42.579 --> 00:50:46.860
goes to heaven and he begs to be immediately reincarnated,
878
00:50:46.880 --> 00:50:48.820
get back down to his wife. And all they say
879
00:50:48.860 --> 00:50:51.650
is they can, we can only reincarnate you. And so
880
00:50:51.690 --> 00:50:57.090
he gets reincarnated as this young man who accidentally runs
881
00:50:57.170 --> 00:51:01.369
into his wife and has all these recovered memories from
882
00:51:01.789 --> 00:51:06.449
his past life all of a sudden. And hijinks ensue,
883
00:51:06.550 --> 00:51:09.739
except the whole thing is so bizarre because he meets
884
00:51:09.780 --> 00:51:13.860
his wife because he's flirting with his daughter who died.
885
00:51:13.880 --> 00:51:17.019
It was conceived right before he died. So that off
886
00:51:17.039 --> 00:51:20.599
the bat was like really, really strange and not handled
887
00:51:20.719 --> 00:51:24.960
for granted. comedic purposes particularly well. Um, and the whole
888
00:51:24.980 --> 00:51:28.449
movie was just a complete mess. Um, to the point
889
00:51:28.489 --> 00:51:31.230
where it was just sort of cringeworthy and like, why
890
00:51:31.289 --> 00:51:33.670
are we watching this now? I will say one weird
891
00:51:33.710 --> 00:51:36.750
thing about it. I don't know what it is. You know,
892
00:51:36.769 --> 00:51:40.239
there's that joke about, um, we can't, we don't know
893
00:51:40.280 --> 00:51:43.289
how to do it anymore or whatever. Even though the
894
00:51:43.329 --> 00:51:45.739
movie was a complete mess in terms of the screenplay
895
00:51:45.780 --> 00:51:48.159
and everything else like that, the way it was shot
896
00:51:48.199 --> 00:51:50.570
and the way it felt, it was just so quintessentially 80s.
897
00:51:50.559 --> 00:51:56.829
I think it was late 80s. It just had a...
898
00:51:57.619 --> 00:52:00.079
It was weird. It had an incredibly watchable vibe, even
899
00:52:00.099 --> 00:52:00.800
though it was awful.
900
00:52:01.380 --> 00:52:05.519
Well, and the opening scene takes place in Middleburg, Virginia,
901
00:52:05.559 --> 00:52:07.900
which I'd been in the previous weekend. Oh, we had
902
00:52:07.940 --> 00:52:09.519
a listener from Middleburg, which was great.
903
00:52:10.239 --> 00:52:10.380
And.
904
00:52:12.940 --> 00:52:16.219
It was taking place, the original scene is taking place
905
00:52:16.260 --> 00:52:18.079
in the 60s, but then the film is shot in
906
00:52:18.099 --> 00:52:20.780
the 80s. And so you get to see Washington, D.C.
907
00:52:21.050 --> 00:52:24.329
in the 80s. And I am having this thing that
908
00:52:24.349 --> 00:52:28.090
I think I talked about when I watched two hours
909
00:52:28.449 --> 00:52:32.449
of live television from 9-11. And I got a bit
910
00:52:32.489 --> 00:52:35.789
of culture shock just looking at who was in the
911
00:52:35.829 --> 00:52:40.019
TV audience or what the commercials looked like. the music
912
00:52:40.059 --> 00:52:42.900
that the commercials played, which was very smart, you know,
913
00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:47.849
jazz or classical. And I was like, oh, this is
914
00:52:47.929 --> 00:52:51.010
the most the past is a foreign country I've ever felt,
915
00:52:51.389 --> 00:52:55.070
except I mostly feel like the present is a foreign country.
916
00:52:55.360 --> 00:52:58.199
Because if you looked at Washington, D.C. now, I mean,
917
00:52:58.239 --> 00:53:01.380
Sybil Shepard wouldn't be living in Washington, D.C., probably. And
918
00:53:01.719 --> 00:53:02.360
it was just.
919
00:53:07.550 --> 00:53:08.849
I don't know. It was just, it was interesting to
920
00:53:08.929 --> 00:53:11.309
see what it looked like then and how different that
921
00:53:11.409 --> 00:53:14.789
is from what has been in DC since the late nineties.
922
00:53:15.170 --> 00:53:18.750
Well, I'm profoundly annoyed by so much of the revisionist
923
00:53:18.789 --> 00:53:22.929
history that, uh, occurs when, whenever pop culture issues come
924
00:53:23.010 --> 00:53:25.869
up or whatever. Um, I was reading this thing about
925
00:53:25.969 --> 00:53:31.280
John Hughes recently, the famous director of Ferris Bueller's day off. And, um, um,
926
00:53:32.300 --> 00:53:34.889
Some kind of wonderful with I believe Mary Stewart Masterson
927
00:53:34.909 --> 00:53:38.570
was in that as well. And, you know, you know,
928
00:53:38.610 --> 00:53:41.389
John Hughes, Breakfast Club, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, but
929
00:53:41.409 --> 00:53:44.369
there was always talk about how like John Hughes's films
930
00:53:44.429 --> 00:53:46.349
only had white people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
931
00:53:46.369 --> 00:53:48.090
It's like people have like no idea how much the
932
00:53:48.130 --> 00:53:51.650
demographics of the country have changed. When John Hughes started making,
933
00:53:52.710 --> 00:53:55.110
you know, films in 1980, the country was like 80
934
00:53:55.110 --> 00:54:00.190
plus percent white. You know, it was not necessarily a
935
00:54:00.230 --> 00:54:04.179
cultural imperative that you have a Benetton ad. Speaking of
936
00:54:04.440 --> 00:54:10.099
dated references, have a Benetton ad cast. You know, high
937
00:54:10.139 --> 00:54:14.019
schools in the northern suburbs of Chicago were overwhelmingly white
938
00:54:15.199 --> 00:54:16.960
and people just don't seem to realize it. They just
939
00:54:17.019 --> 00:54:18.840
assume that if there wasn't a Hispanic character in the
940
00:54:18.860 --> 00:54:21.230
breakfast club. It was because they were intentionally kept out,
941
00:54:21.309 --> 00:54:24.309
not that there just weren't any Hispanics in that part
942
00:54:24.329 --> 00:54:25.309
of the country at the time.
943
00:54:26.489 --> 00:54:28.269
Or not many would probably be a better way to
944
00:54:28.289 --> 00:54:28.429
say it.
945
00:54:28.429 --> 00:54:32.070
Right, right. Not many. Hardly any or whatever. But it's
946
00:54:32.309 --> 00:54:34.510
just very frustrating how there's revisionist history with pop culture
947
00:54:34.530 --> 00:54:34.849
like that.
948
00:54:35.030 --> 00:54:37.550
Yeah, it's not just about demographics. I'm just even saying
949
00:54:37.610 --> 00:54:40.260
more like there are other things that are probably related
950
00:54:40.280 --> 00:54:43.599
to demographics, but deal with things like cultural trust or
951
00:54:43.679 --> 00:54:46.619
things like. Before cell phones, people would talk to each
952
00:54:46.679 --> 00:54:49.750
other on the street or they knew how to behave
953
00:54:50.349 --> 00:54:52.849
in a shared cultural context in a way that we
954
00:54:52.889 --> 00:54:57.489
just don't with our atomized entertainment. On that note, we
955
00:54:57.650 --> 00:55:01.230
also saw You Can See Everything, which I tried to
956
00:55:01.269 --> 00:55:04.760
get David to see before we recorded the podcast last week,
957
00:55:04.820 --> 00:55:08.920
and he refused. But you saw it, and now it's
958
00:55:08.960 --> 00:55:11.219
a couple weeks out, so we should probably say at
959
00:55:11.239 --> 00:55:15.570
this point that the movie does rest heavily on spoilers.
960
00:55:15.989 --> 00:55:19.340
And so if you don't, the movie experience itself. So
961
00:55:19.400 --> 00:55:20.780
if you're going to go see it, you should just
962
00:55:20.820 --> 00:55:23.000
turn off now so that we can speak freely. Does
963
00:55:23.019 --> 00:55:23.880
that sound right?
964
00:55:25.179 --> 00:55:25.500
Sure.
965
00:55:26.030 --> 00:55:28.510
Okay. So now that you're a couple of weeks out,
966
00:55:28.889 --> 00:55:30.469
I know you really enjoyed it when we went to
967
00:55:30.550 --> 00:55:31.849
see it. What are your thoughts now?
968
00:55:32.710 --> 00:55:36.780
Well, I mean, it's not a perfect film by a
969
00:55:36.820 --> 00:55:39.619
long shot. First of all, it's a three hour documentary and, uh,
970
00:55:39.619 --> 00:55:41.780
you know, I could have stood it to be a
971
00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:45.230
half an hour, an hour less in some respects. Um,
972
00:55:45.989 --> 00:55:51.010
that said, you know, I was really impressed for what
973
00:55:51.050 --> 00:55:54.090
it was. There's been a lot of attempts in recent
974
00:55:54.110 --> 00:55:59.530
years to deconstruct the fun house, you know, um, hall
975
00:55:59.570 --> 00:56:02.940
of mirrors that is, you know, modernity in terms of
976
00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:08.239
like how we approach issues of truth. And this movie
977
00:56:08.280 --> 00:56:15.010
did a really good job of, of being shockingly objective
978
00:56:15.030 --> 00:56:17.289
for a film that was basically done by a comedian
979
00:56:18.230 --> 00:56:22.130
in terms of evaluating a lot of complex moral issues
980
00:56:22.190 --> 00:56:26.800
at play and not patently reducing a woman who has been,
981
00:56:27.460 --> 00:56:32.079
you know, perhaps rightly upheld as a villain and a fraudster, um, into, um,
982
00:56:33.079 --> 00:56:37.360
you know, a one dimensional bad person. Um, and the
983
00:56:37.409 --> 00:56:40.070
way it explored so many issues was actually sort of
984
00:56:40.110 --> 00:56:42.769
fascinating and was also interesting. The sort of the evolution
985
00:56:42.809 --> 00:56:44.989
over the course of the film, beginning of the film,
986
00:56:45.030 --> 00:56:47.170
Fielder is a comedian. You can tell he's trying, almost
987
00:56:47.230 --> 00:56:50.369
trying to like deliberately create moments where the audience laugh
988
00:56:50.469 --> 00:56:53.550
and you will, um, But over time, he takes this
989
00:56:53.590 --> 00:56:59.869
responsibility as a documentarian in the harbor of truth. increasingly seriously.
990
00:56:59.889 --> 00:57:02.909
I mean, again, I don't know how serious to put
991
00:57:02.989 --> 00:57:05.230
that on him. Like there's a lot of things about
992
00:57:05.250 --> 00:57:07.230
this film that may or may not be true to life,
993
00:57:07.849 --> 00:57:10.230
but it, he did a better job of being convincing
994
00:57:10.289 --> 00:57:12.969
about it than, you know, darn near anyone I've seen
995
00:57:12.989 --> 00:57:16.699
that is a serious documentarian in recent years. Um, at
996
00:57:16.760 --> 00:57:20.280
least admitting, you know, that frequently that he didn't know
997
00:57:20.400 --> 00:57:23.539
what was going on exactly. And that was very interesting.
998
00:57:25.400 --> 00:57:28.000
I enjoyed it a great deal. No, I didn't enjoy
999
00:57:28.019 --> 00:57:29.559
it a great deal. I mean, it's a really, it's
1000
00:57:29.599 --> 00:57:35.460
worthwhile to watch if you're interested in meta media criticism.
1001
00:57:35.480 --> 00:57:36.659
That's about where I'm at.
1002
00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:41.170
The first half is sort of a standard, you know,
1003
00:57:41.989 --> 00:57:44.469
if Nathan Fielder were to make a documentary, what that
1004
00:57:44.489 --> 00:57:47.969
would look like. So he actually moves in with Elizabeth
1005
00:57:48.010 --> 00:57:50.769
Holmes and her partner and their two kids. And he's
1006
00:57:51.329 --> 00:57:54.110
in close quarters and You're just kind of getting a
1007
00:57:54.199 --> 00:57:57.110
feel for the dynamic of the marriage and how interesting
1008
00:57:57.170 --> 00:58:00.110
Elizabeth Holmes is. And then the second half of the
1009
00:58:00.389 --> 00:58:03.610
film is sort of a film, like a sort of
1010
00:58:03.690 --> 00:58:07.230
a movie within a movie. And at the end of
1011
00:58:07.269 --> 00:58:11.730
the first half of the film, he shows Elizabeth Holmes
1012
00:58:12.070 --> 00:58:16.530
a Hulu show that was based on an accounting of
1013
00:58:16.590 --> 00:58:20.380
her life called The Dropout, where her character is played
1014
00:58:20.420 --> 00:58:25.440
by Amanda Seyfried. And it's a very painful thing for
1015
00:58:25.539 --> 00:58:28.940
Elizabeth Holmes to watch herself being portrayed this way. And
1016
00:58:28.960 --> 00:58:31.909
she feels it's very inaccurate. So the second half of
1017
00:58:31.949 --> 00:58:36.710
the film, Nathan Fielder goes to Amanda Seyfried and it
1018
00:58:36.769 --> 00:58:40.170
starts out, you're thinking that she's just participating in the documentary,
1019
00:58:40.690 --> 00:58:44.389
but then she ends up playing the part of Elizabeth
1020
00:58:44.429 --> 00:58:51.409
Holmes again, as Nathan Fielder recreates moments he had with
1021
00:58:51.449 --> 00:58:54.920
Elizabeth Holmes from memory and From either before the documentary
1022
00:58:54.960 --> 00:58:59.889
was filmed or from while she's in prison. And this
1023
00:58:59.949 --> 00:59:04.389
means there are four main characters in the film. Elizabeth Holmes,
1024
00:59:05.010 --> 00:59:09.300
as she prepares to go to prison, her partner, forget
1025
00:59:09.340 --> 00:59:13.739
his name. Nathan Fielding, who's making the documentary but appears
1026
00:59:13.800 --> 00:59:17.980
in it, and then Amanda Seyfried as the actress who
1027
00:59:18.019 --> 00:59:20.980
played Elizabeth and then plays her again. And so it's very,
1028
00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:23.659
you know, it's not what you would expect from a
1029
00:59:23.679 --> 00:59:27.199
film and it's very sort of exciting. I thought that
1030
00:59:27.340 --> 00:59:31.719
Amanda Seyfried was far and away the most evil of
1031
00:59:31.760 --> 00:59:34.239
the four characters. And I will remind you, it's a
1032
00:59:34.280 --> 00:59:38.949
film about Elizabeth Holmes. So I, you were with me
1033
00:59:39.010 --> 00:59:42.309
when I saw it. So I gasped when she tries to,
1034
00:59:42.469 --> 00:59:45.670
when she starts trying to break up the marriage or it's,
1035
00:59:45.690 --> 00:59:47.329
they keep on calling each other husband and wife, but
1036
00:59:47.349 --> 00:59:50.510
they're not legally married, presumably because if they were married,
1037
00:59:50.590 --> 00:59:52.880
then any money that he makes would have to go
1038
00:59:52.920 --> 00:59:57.760
to pay restitution for the But she starts to try
1039
00:59:57.780 --> 01:00:01.679
to break up their marriage. And it was just so diabolical.
1040
01:00:01.820 --> 01:00:05.380
And like, I just have never known anyone in real
1041
01:00:05.420 --> 01:00:06.420
life who's trying to break.
1042
01:00:06.300 --> 01:00:09.090
Up a marriage. To be fair, she just said that
1043
01:00:09.260 --> 01:00:11.739
they should break up and some other things.
1044
01:00:11.909 --> 01:00:13.110
And they have two kids together.
1045
01:00:13.289 --> 01:00:14.949
That is so evil.
1046
01:00:15.070 --> 01:00:17.849
I couldn't believe it. It was shocking to me.
1047
01:00:18.150 --> 01:00:21.489
I actually agree. Like setting aside what happened in real life,
1048
01:00:21.510 --> 01:00:24.650
which is a big caveat, mind you. Within the context
1049
01:00:24.710 --> 01:00:27.570
of the film, Amanda Seyfried probably comes off as the
1050
01:00:27.610 --> 01:00:32.989
worst person. Elizabeth Holmes and her husband are obviously crazy,
1051
01:00:33.329 --> 01:00:39.139
pathological people. But the film very much leaves you with
1052
01:00:39.360 --> 01:00:42.219
the impression that in spite of all of that, maybe
1053
01:00:42.260 --> 01:00:45.920
because of all that, they very deeply love and trust
1054
01:00:45.960 --> 01:00:51.880
each other. It's bizarre. They might be terrible people, but...
1055
01:00:52.239 --> 01:00:57.159
they are extremely committed to each other. Um, and that
1056
01:00:57.300 --> 01:01:02.119
is not nothing right. Um, Amanda Seyfried was like unbelievable.
1057
01:01:02.440 --> 01:01:04.340
Like on one hand, I don't know how much to
1058
01:01:04.360 --> 01:01:07.059
put on this is she's just simply not very intelligent.
1059
01:01:07.199 --> 01:01:09.219
I mean, I think that's a part of it, but
1060
01:01:09.320 --> 01:01:11.619
the other thing is, is like, it appears for an actress,
1061
01:01:12.400 --> 01:01:17.670
she has given zero thought to the ethics of of
1062
01:01:17.989 --> 01:01:20.389
an artistic portrayal of something that happened in real life
1063
01:01:20.489 --> 01:01:22.639
or a person that, you know, you're portraying as a
1064
01:01:22.659 --> 01:01:26.000
real person, as an actor. Like, it's just astonishing to me,
1065
01:01:26.039 --> 01:01:29.739
like how little thought that she has a 40 something,
1066
01:01:29.940 --> 01:01:36.420
you know, professional actress at a high level never thought about, well,
1067
01:01:36.480 --> 01:01:39.650
if I portray a person that's still living, what, how
1068
01:01:39.670 --> 01:01:42.909
would that affect their life? Like, it's just really incredible.
1069
01:01:44.309 --> 01:01:48.670
You could have stopped that. I think after, Amanda Seyfried
1070
01:01:48.710 --> 01:01:51.889
has given no thought. You could have just stopped there
1071
01:01:51.929 --> 01:01:54.869
because I think she's a really great actress. Like I
1072
01:01:54.909 --> 01:01:57.869
like her a lot as an, as an actress, but
1073
01:01:58.590 --> 01:02:08.150
she came off not bright at all. There's a funny
1074
01:02:08.190 --> 01:02:11.550
scene too, or not funny. It's actually awful where she's
1075
01:02:11.570 --> 01:02:14.210
trying to give social media advice to Billy. That's the
1076
01:02:14.230 --> 01:02:18.329
name of the husband ish character. And he says, no offense,
1077
01:02:18.349 --> 01:02:20.829
but I'm not going to take social media advice from
1078
01:02:20.949 --> 01:02:24.550
someone who is herself so bad at it that she
1079
01:02:24.570 --> 01:02:29.889
got attacked recently. And he was referencing how after Charlie
1080
01:02:29.929 --> 01:02:34.789
Kirk was assassinated by one of Amanda Seyfried's co-partisans, that
1081
01:02:34.909 --> 01:02:41.610
she said something mean about him. And she's trying to
1082
01:02:41.670 --> 01:02:44.769
defend herself in the film. And she said, I just
1083
01:02:44.789 --> 01:02:48.500
think he was performative. And Billy's like, you're a mother
1084
01:02:48.579 --> 01:02:52.179
bleeping actress. Like, what are you even talking about? You
1085
01:02:52.199 --> 01:02:55.050
know what I mean? Like, she doesn't see herself as
1086
01:02:55.329 --> 01:03:01.170
literally a performer. And she's disparaging someone who's engaging in
1087
01:03:01.510 --> 01:03:05.280
interactions in public in a thoughtful way, Charlie Kirk. And
1088
01:03:05.300 --> 01:03:07.860
it was just kind of funny to me how little
1089
01:03:07.880 --> 01:03:08.980
she thought about anything.
1090
01:03:10.280 --> 01:03:13.480
Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know what to say
1091
01:03:14.059 --> 01:03:16.860
about that. You know, part of the you know, it's
1092
01:03:16.880 --> 01:03:20.039
an old tale that part of the reason why people
1093
01:03:20.119 --> 01:03:24.739
end up becoming celebrities is because they have troubled childhoods
1094
01:03:24.800 --> 01:03:27.000
or whatever. I just I just don't know her story
1095
01:03:27.039 --> 01:03:29.239
or whatever. You know, maybe there's more to more there.
1096
01:03:29.300 --> 01:03:32.360
But but, yeah, she was very willing to say that,
1097
01:03:32.559 --> 01:03:36.500
you know, Charlie Kirk was some kind of bad human being.
1098
01:03:37.460 --> 01:03:40.780
And at the same time, it coming from someone who's
1099
01:03:40.800 --> 01:03:44.550
done so little self-reflection herself. It's just astonishing that she
1100
01:03:44.570 --> 01:03:48.550
thinks she has the platform, the obligation to make judgments
1101
01:03:48.610 --> 01:03:49.570
about somebody else.
1102
01:03:51.519 --> 01:03:55.000
I think also I've read that she might have a
1103
01:03:56.059 --> 01:03:59.099
troubled marriage or that she left her spouse. Maybe that
1104
01:03:59.139 --> 01:04:03.409
played a part in her desire to break up another marriage.
1105
01:04:03.469 --> 01:04:05.090
But I don't know. It was just it was interesting.
1106
01:04:05.130 --> 01:04:08.030
The other thing is that there's a subplot dealing with how.
1107
01:04:08.050 --> 01:04:08.190
Billy.
1108
01:04:09.650 --> 01:04:17.480
Billy. requests and receives initially payment for opening up his
1109
01:04:17.559 --> 01:04:23.639
home to this documentary and Nathan Fielder has this kind
1110
01:04:23.679 --> 01:04:27.659
of you know clown nose on clown nose off aspect
1111
01:04:27.679 --> 01:04:30.400
of what he's doing where he becomes deadly serious when
1112
01:04:30.420 --> 01:04:32.699
it when it might mean that some of his cut
1113
01:04:32.880 --> 01:04:35.960
some of his pay is taken by Billy and Elizabeth
1114
01:04:36.019 --> 01:04:39.639
for for their work on the film and so he's
1115
01:04:39.679 --> 01:04:43.360
like well that would that would tarnish the journalistic credibility
1116
01:04:43.400 --> 01:04:47.260
of this very journalistic documentary I'm doing. And of course,
1117
01:04:47.440 --> 01:04:49.679
the whole point of his film is that there's no
1118
01:04:49.719 --> 01:04:53.519
such thing as a documentary and there's no journalistic honesty.
1119
01:04:53.860 --> 01:04:57.090
And it becomes more clear as you work through the film,
1120
01:04:57.429 --> 01:04:59.969
how much he's saying that what he's doing is not
1121
01:05:00.289 --> 01:05:03.070
real and he can't be trusted as a narrator. But
1122
01:05:03.110 --> 01:05:05.369
when it comes to money, he's like, you know, you
1123
01:05:05.389 --> 01:05:06.969
actually shouldn't have the money, but they agree to do
1124
01:05:06.989 --> 01:05:08.289
it because they know they're going to make so much
1125
01:05:08.369 --> 01:05:16.610
money on this documentary. And so he gets paid probably
1126
01:05:17.170 --> 01:05:20.269
as an actor, according to SAG rules for his part
1127
01:05:20.469 --> 01:05:22.809
in the second part of the film where he's playing
1128
01:05:22.829 --> 01:05:25.630
the part of himself. And of course, Amanda Seyfried is
1129
01:05:25.650 --> 01:05:29.179
getting a lot of money, presumably for her role in
1130
01:05:29.219 --> 01:05:32.079
this second part of the film. So they get paid
1131
01:05:32.400 --> 01:05:37.260
for the film. But the people whose story is it's
1132
01:05:37.340 --> 01:05:40.849
based on do not get compensation for for the film.
1133
01:05:41.110 --> 01:05:42.719
And I thought that was just kind of interesting too.
1134
01:05:43.289 --> 01:05:45.030
Well, yeah, it is interesting to explore that. I mean,
1135
01:05:45.570 --> 01:05:48.559
it is true that had they done a quote unquote documentary, which,
1136
01:05:48.599 --> 01:05:50.639
you know, right off the bat, I don't know if you've,
1137
01:05:51.409 --> 01:05:54.699
paid attention to how many documentaries in recent years that
1138
01:05:54.719 --> 01:05:57.360
were like celebrated, even won Academy Awards that have had
1139
01:05:58.099 --> 01:06:00.619
major factual issues in terms of like- I assume 100%
1140
01:06:00.619 --> 01:06:04.659
of them because that's what documentaries do. Completely rearranging timelines and,
1141
01:06:04.719 --> 01:06:07.989
you know, putting talking heads on that are unqualified to,
1142
01:06:09.170 --> 01:06:11.190
you know, completely inventing stuff. I mean, there was a
1143
01:06:11.210 --> 01:06:15.150
big controversy, a very famous documentarian or whatever that like
1144
01:06:16.110 --> 01:06:19.860
There was a huge legal settlement because he was like
1145
01:06:19.880 --> 01:06:22.960
and was there in the room bribing when they were
1146
01:06:23.000 --> 01:06:26.239
bribing judges involving like oil leases in South America and
1147
01:06:26.260 --> 01:06:28.239
like didn't say anything about it. I mean, it's just
1148
01:06:28.420 --> 01:06:31.380
crazy stuff has happened in the documentary world. You know,
1149
01:06:31.420 --> 01:06:34.519
that said, it is totally true that like they would
1150
01:06:34.840 --> 01:06:36.820
if it had come out that they had paid the Holmeses,
1151
01:06:36.880 --> 01:06:40.019
that would have been, you know, a quote unquote ethical
1152
01:06:40.079 --> 01:06:42.320
death blow. But as you point out, I mean, like
1153
01:06:42.360 --> 01:06:45.610
there's so many other problems here. The fact that the
1154
01:06:45.650 --> 01:06:48.820
film does dwell on that so much, like the people
1155
01:06:48.860 --> 01:06:51.380
making the film are at all ethical. I mean, this
1156
01:06:51.420 --> 01:06:54.519
is Hollywood for crying out loud. It's an A24 film,
1157
01:06:55.000 --> 01:06:59.400
you know, are so concerned about this. If you know
1158
01:06:59.440 --> 01:07:02.239
anything about what's really going on, it's extremely manufactured.
1159
01:07:03.920 --> 01:07:06.489
OK, anything else we should talk about in the culture section?
1160
01:07:06.510 --> 01:07:08.570
I think I'm good.
1161
01:07:08.590 --> 01:07:11.949
I have something to tell you.
1162
01:07:12.500 --> 01:07:12.800
What?
1163
01:07:13.059 --> 01:07:16.000
Since I'm up in New York and you're in DC.
1164
01:07:16.360 --> 01:07:18.960
So I went to this rough trade record store.
1165
01:07:19.400 --> 01:07:19.699
Yes.
1166
01:07:21.250 --> 01:07:24.130
And I tried to call you to ask about the last,
1167
01:07:24.429 --> 01:07:25.750
another album that I got.
1168
01:07:26.150 --> 01:07:26.369
Yeah.
1169
01:07:26.730 --> 01:07:28.750
Dogs go through them really quickly. I'm literally pulling them
1170
01:07:28.849 --> 01:07:31.150
out of the bag. There were quite a few.
1171
01:07:31.210 --> 01:07:32.849
I got. How many did you get?
1172
01:07:33.650 --> 01:07:35.610
Well, I got this Christmas album.
1173
01:07:35.739 --> 01:07:37.460
It's a compilation.
1174
01:07:37.480 --> 01:07:43.809
It's awesome. Uh, Whitney Houston, Eurythmics, Run DMC, Christmas and Hollis.
1175
01:07:44.289 --> 01:07:44.630
Nice.
1176
01:07:46.050 --> 01:07:51.710
Unfortunately, it's got Madonna, Santa Baby. Brian Adams, Run Rudolph Run,
1177
01:07:52.010 --> 01:07:57.960
Bon Jovi, Back Door Santa. Okay, that's the one I'm
1178
01:07:58.000 --> 01:08:01.219
saving the one that you don't know about for last. Okay,
1179
01:08:01.260 --> 01:08:03.599
I got Suzy and the Banshees singles.
1180
01:08:04.079 --> 01:08:04.460
Great.
1181
01:08:05.159 --> 01:08:11.750
I got this Public Image Limited album. Album, which I
1182
01:08:11.769 --> 01:08:14.389
went to this show in Boulder, Colorado when I was
1183
01:08:14.389 --> 01:08:17.840
15 years old, and I have no idea why Reverend
1184
01:08:17.949 --> 01:08:20.840
and Mrs. Larry Ziegler let me go to a show
1185
01:08:20.880 --> 01:08:25.520
like this at that age. So many miles from home. Okay.
1186
01:08:26.739 --> 01:08:28.739
I got this Waterboys album.
1187
01:08:28.760 --> 01:08:29.640
Thank you.
1188
01:08:29.939 --> 01:08:31.020
That's the one you wanted, right?
1189
01:08:31.119 --> 01:08:33.779
Yeah, it is the one I wanted. We have the record.
1190
01:08:34.100 --> 01:08:37.020
It's like the Seminole Water Boys record with the hole
1191
01:08:37.039 --> 01:08:38.859
of the moon on it or whatever. But the whole
1192
01:08:38.920 --> 01:08:43.680
record is actually fantastic. But we had a problem with
1193
01:08:43.800 --> 01:08:46.189
an old turntable and it damaged the record. So it's
1194
01:08:46.310 --> 01:08:47.310
all messed up now.
1195
01:08:47.630 --> 01:08:49.770
So the hole of the moon. Have you heard Fiona
1196
01:08:49.869 --> 01:08:51.149
Apple's version of that?
1197
01:08:51.649 --> 01:08:52.250
I don't think so.
1198
01:08:52.270 --> 01:08:55.340
Oh, so good. I love it. She just really feels it. Okay,
1199
01:08:55.380 --> 01:08:56.600
then this Suede singles.
1200
01:08:56.859 --> 01:08:58.819
Suede, the first Brit pop band.
1201
01:08:59.500 --> 01:09:01.960
I got this. I love the B-52s, so help me.
1202
01:09:03.000 --> 01:09:08.430
And this is a Mesopotamia extended play record. And the
1203
01:09:08.489 --> 01:09:11.550
guy at Rough Trade said that there's a new mix
1204
01:09:11.729 --> 01:09:15.300
of this out that we should check out. Okay. Okay,
1205
01:09:15.600 --> 01:09:18.600
and then my sister turned me on to Brian Ferry
1206
01:09:18.680 --> 01:09:21.479
back in the day, so I have this Olympia.
1207
01:09:21.920 --> 01:09:23.420
It's one of his newer records. I think it's from 2010.
1208
01:09:23.420 --> 01:09:25.579
Okay, but he's so great. I love him.
1209
01:09:26.000 --> 01:09:28.000
Yeah, he is good. His solo stuff is underrated.
1210
01:09:28.020 --> 01:09:29.859
I don't know what I think about James, but we
1211
01:09:29.899 --> 01:09:31.300
got this compilation, too.
1212
01:09:31.439 --> 01:09:34.640
It's their early singles, right? It's like Sit Down and
1213
01:09:34.680 --> 01:09:35.060
all that.
1214
01:09:35.359 --> 01:09:35.520
Yeah.
1215
01:09:35.560 --> 01:09:36.600
That's all great stuff.
1216
01:09:36.960 --> 01:09:38.659
Okay, this is the one I also got.
1217
01:09:39.579 --> 01:09:43.340
Oh, I can't read it. Is that... What is it?
1218
01:09:43.510 --> 01:09:44.869
The Very Best. In Excess.
1219
01:09:44.930 --> 01:09:45.430
Oh, nice.
1220
01:09:45.470 --> 01:09:46.130
The Very Best.
1221
01:09:46.310 --> 01:09:47.720
Does that have not enough time on it?
1222
01:09:47.729 --> 01:09:48.090
It does.
1223
01:09:48.109 --> 01:09:51.130
Because some of their greatest hits collections don't have not
1224
01:09:51.149 --> 01:09:53.149
enough time. And that's like one of my favorite In
1225
01:09:53.189 --> 01:09:54.229
Excess songs. Yeah.
1226
01:09:54.729 --> 01:09:55.449
I checked that out.
1227
01:09:55.800 --> 01:10:00.800
Is it a double album? It is. Nice. We have
1228
01:10:00.819 --> 01:10:04.659
In Excess Kick and Shuba Shuba and Listen Like Thieves.
1229
01:10:04.699 --> 01:10:06.119
And we have a bunch of In Excess already, but
1230
01:10:06.520 --> 01:10:08.449
we don't have any of their... Like they were still
1231
01:10:08.489 --> 01:10:10.649
putting out great stuff in the early nineties. And we
1232
01:10:10.689 --> 01:10:12.180
don't have any of that stuff. Cause a lot of
1233
01:10:12.199 --> 01:10:13.420
that stuff didn't come out on vinyl.
1234
01:10:13.880 --> 01:10:15.399
No, it doesn't have not enough time.
1235
01:10:15.939 --> 01:10:21.279
Boo. How does it not have that? I, for whatever reason,
1236
01:10:21.380 --> 01:10:23.279
even though it was a single and kind of a hit,
1237
01:10:23.479 --> 01:10:25.789
a lot of greatest, a lot of, there's a, there's a,
1238
01:10:25.880 --> 01:10:28.039
there's like three or four in excess greatest hits collections.
1239
01:10:28.079 --> 01:10:30.539
I want to say. And for whatever reason, not all
1240
01:10:30.560 --> 01:10:31.819
of them have that. And I don't know.
1241
01:10:31.899 --> 01:10:34.359
I wonder if it's some kind of like issue or
1242
01:10:34.399 --> 01:10:39.130
dispute on the songwriting or something. So Rough Trade has
1243
01:10:39.409 --> 01:10:42.149
a new record store right by Fox News, like half
1244
01:10:42.170 --> 01:10:44.810
a block away. And it's all these new albums that
1245
01:10:44.840 --> 01:10:48.199
I don't care about. But I was at Under the Rock,
1246
01:10:48.239 --> 01:10:51.239
which is like this sort of food and shopping area
1247
01:10:51.420 --> 01:10:53.880
underneath 30 Rock. And I saw that they had a
1248
01:10:54.220 --> 01:10:57.600
used record store right near the subway. And it was
1249
01:10:57.640 --> 01:10:59.659
a good one. I mean, they had albums for like
1250
01:10:59.699 --> 01:11:00.199
five bucks.
1251
01:11:01.619 --> 01:11:06.140
So I was in Red Hook two weekends ago. visiting
1252
01:11:06.159 --> 01:11:08.359
my old high school buddy of mine. And they had
1253
01:11:08.390 --> 01:11:10.210
a record store right in the main Dragon Red Hook
1254
01:11:10.229 --> 01:11:13.270
there that not only were the prices fantastic, the guy
1255
01:11:13.310 --> 01:11:17.989
running the shop was super cool. And I really liked
1256
01:11:18.010 --> 01:11:19.590
that place. I bought a bunch of records there that
1257
01:11:19.609 --> 01:11:20.390
were pretty good.
1258
01:11:20.409 --> 01:11:23.090
Oh, this reminds me. Oh, yes. You went to see Sugar.
1259
01:11:23.109 --> 01:11:28.319
And then we saw Morrissey.
1260
01:11:29.939 --> 01:11:33.779
So Morrissey, the couple of days before I saw Sugar. Yes.
1261
01:11:34.569 --> 01:11:37.720
And last, but Sunday night we saw Beck. Yeah.
1262
01:11:38.189 --> 01:11:39.340
Yeah. And it was great.
1263
01:11:40.300 --> 01:11:43.180
That was a fantastic show. Beck has always, always put
1264
01:11:43.260 --> 01:11:46.000
on a great show. Um, it's weird. I wasn't always
1265
01:11:46.039 --> 01:11:47.979
the biggest fan of Beck. I like him more as
1266
01:11:48.000 --> 01:11:51.829
time has gone on, but, um, he is a much
1267
01:11:52.149 --> 01:11:56.390
better performer, um, than you might, you might assume. Um,
1268
01:11:56.689 --> 01:11:59.529
and he's got, he's always has a crack band. Roger
1269
01:11:59.569 --> 01:12:02.189
Manning of the band Jellyfish was on keyboards. I mean,
1270
01:12:02.229 --> 01:12:04.100
like he's just, I.
1271
01:12:04.039 --> 01:12:06.840
Was so proud of myself for identifying him as the
1272
01:12:06.920 --> 01:12:09.439
talent on stage before we knew who he was. Cause
1273
01:12:09.460 --> 01:12:12.199
I was like, this keyboardist is amazing. And then we
1274
01:12:12.880 --> 01:12:14.600
announced who it was. And I was like, Oh, okay.
1275
01:12:15.609 --> 01:12:17.529
Jellyfish is not like a super well-known band, but they're
1276
01:12:17.550 --> 01:12:19.649
one of these bands that you mentioned them to musicians
1277
01:12:19.710 --> 01:12:21.710
and people just follow her themselves. And they were way
1278
01:12:21.729 --> 01:12:23.210
ahead of their time in a lot of ways and
1279
01:12:23.649 --> 01:12:24.569
unbelievably talented.
1280
01:12:25.270 --> 01:12:28.300
And I saw Beck and Phoenix at Red Rocks a
1281
01:12:28.319 --> 01:12:30.579
couple of years back and it was one of the
1282
01:12:30.600 --> 01:12:32.960
best shows I've ever seen. So I would recommend it.
1283
01:12:33.789 --> 01:12:36.060
And this show was very different. He did play a
1284
01:12:36.069 --> 01:12:39.159
ton of hits, which he apparently wasn't doing earlier in
1285
01:12:39.180 --> 01:12:42.380
the tour. But he played from his album. It was
1286
01:12:42.420 --> 01:12:44.960
a bit too art school the way he was doing it.
1287
01:12:45.000 --> 01:12:49.979
Like they would literally change the set. The stage. Every
1288
01:12:50.220 --> 01:12:52.319
couple of songs. And it was like, oh, my gosh,
1289
01:12:52.350 --> 01:12:53.609
that's a bit much, buddy.
1290
01:12:53.630 --> 01:12:57.689
Yeah, but it was still great. I don't regret that
1291
01:12:57.710 --> 01:13:00.069
show at all. By the way, I think Rush was
1292
01:13:00.109 --> 01:13:01.649
playing in D.C. the same night.
1293
01:13:02.350 --> 01:13:02.470
Yeah.
1294
01:13:03.609 --> 01:13:05.619
Which I would have liked to have seen, but you know,
1295
01:13:05.659 --> 01:13:07.279
I do have a Y chromosome, so.
1296
01:13:08.520 --> 01:13:12.180
Okay, great. Well, thank you for filling in for the
1297
01:13:12.380 --> 01:13:16.739
jury duty stricken David Harsanyi. Can you imagine how he's
1298
01:13:16.760 --> 01:13:18.779
going to be on jury duty if he actually gets, like,
1299
01:13:18.819 --> 01:13:20.880
I don't know if he's picked because he's, he's AWOL
1300
01:13:20.920 --> 01:13:24.380
right now. So we'll see, but I just think it
1301
01:13:24.420 --> 01:13:26.319
would be hilarious. I think he had said that he
1302
01:13:26.340 --> 01:13:29.770
became a jury foreman once because a lady voted for
1303
01:13:29.789 --> 01:13:31.770
him because she, she thought he looked smart because he
1304
01:13:31.789 --> 01:13:36.159
was wearing glasses. I mean, it would be hilarious.
1305
01:13:36.199 --> 01:13:38.720
Given the composition of a lot of juries these days,
1306
01:13:38.739 --> 01:13:40.390
that's about as good a criteria as any.
1307
01:13:42.199 --> 01:13:44.250
OK, well, thanks for being with us once again. If
1308
01:13:44.270 --> 01:13:48.510
you have any questions, comments, insults, et cetera, send them
1309
01:13:48.590 --> 01:13:52.210
to radio at the Federalist dot com. Be lovers of
1310
01:13:52.270 --> 01:13:54.689
freedom and anxious for the fray. And we will see
1311
01:13:54.710 --> 01:13:55.670
you again next week.