'You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi, Ep. 208: The Fauci Diaries

Welcome back, everyone, to a new episode of Your Wrong with Molly Hemingway, editor-in-chief of the Federalist and David Harsani, senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Just as a reminder, if you'd like to email a show, please do so at Radio at the Federalist.com. Hi, Molly. I think the big news today and what we'll start with and probably spend a lot of time on is the legacy and of Anthony Fauci overall. More specifically, Rand Paul dropped. I would call it a document dump. There's a lot there of diary musings, which is, I think, weird to have electronically. And a lot of emails in there, too. Everyone's always talking about the diaries. You have something to say? It's not just a diary. It's a diary he kept on government time on government computers. Right. I would not have personally, if I was running that operation, put the things that he says down on in digital form. I would have written them in a little notebook, old style. But today we're recording Wednesday morning, which is before the congressional hearings or Senate hearings, where he will be grilled on all this. you know, by, by senators, but specifically I think everyone's interested in Rand Paul's questions. It hit me today reading a piece, I think, on Fox News site, that he had been pardoned by, I forgot he had been pardoned by Joe Biden. Right, along with virtually everyone, which I think the time I think now and then that it's an incredibly dangerous and corrosive precedent to offer blanket pardons to government officials in that way. But anyway, so the only way he can really get in any kind of legal trouble is by lying to Congress. I wonder if that will make him be more honest or will he take the fifth? I mean, like, what do you expect, I guess, to happen here? Well, I always try to keep my expectations extremely low when it comes to anything in Congress, but also anything related to accountability. But I'm still interested in how this will go, and I'm glad that it's happening. I know it's not the same thing, but even just exposing someone with the truth, there is good in that. Of course. I hate when people, oh, history won't look kind on you for being a Christian or whatever. I hate when people say stuff like that. But a pardon won't change how history will view Anthony Fauci and how he will be viewed does matter. for him and for future situations that the country goes through. And so I think it's very important that people keep fighting for the truth on this. I wanted to offer that maybe states could also hold him accountable. He's had a pardon from the president for federal crimes, but if there are crimes that can be dealt with at the state level, maybe he could be held accountable there.

Can I before, before we go forward, can I just quickly, I'm sorry to interrupt you one thing. I understand there's so much anger at Anthony Fauci, but I just want to quickly say this. He, it does bother me a little bit that he takes the brunt, not the brunt, he takes essentially all of the anger for what happened. But we shouldn't forget that tons of elected officials, bureaucrats and others, unsceptically or without any skepticism, just implemented whatever he told them to do, shut people out of churches. He's not the only one. There's no reckoning for all those mayors and governors and frankly presidents who. gave him and imbued him with this power over their decisions. Now, I'm not, listen, I think actually deserves everything he gets, but I don't, somehow I think we forget that other people who had real power, who didn't have to always listen to him, did these things, right? David, you will appreciate that Chris Bray, our wonderful California-based writer, has a piece today at the Federalist headlined. There were thousands of Anthony Fauci's. The subhead, Los Angeles County supervisor Sheila Kuhl voted to order the closure of all restaurants in the county, then left that very meeting and went to dinner at El Forno in Santa Monica. Imagine if we could read all their pandemic diaries. And it's such an important point. Yes, Anthony Fauci is evil. Absolutely evil beyond belief. But it's not just him. There were many. people who shut down the economy, who destroyed the way we vote, who shut down our churches, who caused so much emotional damage to a particular age cohort of young people that it enrages me. And I know they all want to move on and be like, well, we really didn't know what was going on. Well, when we at the Federalist were publishing things, like maybe we shouldn't handle it the way you're handling it. We got front page New York Times treatment. about how awful we were to question the pandemic response. We got censored by Twitter. We got censored by Facebook, violently censored by Facebook. And I don't feel like just moving on. Like, people have to hurt for what they did to those of us who were fighting their extreme non-scientific response. Well. So there's this idea where it, and I get it, you want to move on because that's old news. And frankly, who wants to relive those days? It's, it's, it's, it's, I get very angry. I think about, I wrote a column. I forgot. I was at National Review about how my neighbor couldn't go to the, or their son had committed suicide and no one could go and give them a hug at their funeral. You know, it was just this horrible thing. And that's the moment it broke. I broke and I wrote this column, you know, I went off on them. But anyway, the point is, that's what I think of when I, when I see this diary and I see him writing about how famous he is and luxuriating in the.

in flowers from Julia John Roberts and going out to eat with Jake Tapper and other journalists who were out there canonizing him and all of that. It's very upsetting. But here's the thing with the looking back. There was a Russia collusion hoax. I don't know if people remember. I hope they do, but it's the entire country or political world was just obsessed with this topic for years. It stopped the president, the government from doing their job. It was this thing. Then when we moved on, there was never any reckoning. People are like there was a reckoning. We were wrong. Well, we were wrong. Let's move on. Then they covered up the Biden. Then there was COVID. Then they covered up the Biden, you know, Biden presidency essentially. And there's never any reckoning for any of these things. We always just move on and until there is a reckoning. And each event destroys trust in institutions and our system and all of that. And we just keep moving on. And I think COVID was the worst. I hate using the phrase tipping point. I think it's kind of dumb. But if I have to pick a tipping point in American history or recent American history, it would be COVID. COVID destroyed trust. And there was a big vacuum. And now it's been filled by a bunch of nuts online and all of that. And I blame Anthony Fauci, that's his main legacy, you know? Like what happens tomorrow if we have another real pandemic or real problem? Is anyone going to trust public health officials? No one's going to trust them. Well, we already see this. Right. You know, there's a measles outbreak. You can't tell me, I don't know exactly the details of where the measles are coming up, but I'd say a decreased trust in vaccines has so much to do with how the COVID pandemic response was handled. I don't even think it's necessarily about how the vaccine was handled, although that was also a major part of it. Someone pointed out that Anthony Fauci's diaries didn't include him absolutely getting clowned on by a rando, D.C. resident who Anthony Fauci and Mayor Muriel Bowser were going door to door, encouraging black constituents to take the vaccine. And this one guy was just kind of talking about the speed with which the vaccine had been created, the way in which they were forcing it on people and trying to. pay people money, basically, to take it. And he's like, if it were so great, you wouldn't have to do this. And it was just funny. Like, it didn't get mentioned in this diary, but that rando person with probably very little scientific backing was doing more critical thinking. I'm not even saying, I'm not like some, I have, I think I have fairly nuanced views on the vaccine myself, but. It's just crazy things were. I think it was worthwhile to try to figure out a vaccine. I thought it was pretty impressive what they did. But I also don't believe the government should be forcing people to, you know, and that's what they did. They use the power of the state to compel people to take it. And they should never have done that. I do think there's a case for treating Anthony Fauci as worse.

Kind of being the model of that hypocrisy where he would tell everybody else not to be with their dying family members while hanging out with Jake Tapper and having a fun meal or going to a baseball game and keeping his mask down and then explaining why he did it and not making any sense and like all of that insanity that we were subjected to when we didn't have the power and he had all the power. I do think it's okay to hold him more responsible. Oh, yeah. I agree with that. Well, you mentioned a bunch of stuff there. So let's go, let's just go through some of the diary entries and how they show that he lied. So on February 8th, 2020, Anthony Fauci in his diary says that after he spoke to former CDC director, Tom Frieden, he believed that COVID-19's fatality rate was at 0.2% to 0.3%, not 2%. And was simply, and this is a quote, acting like a bad influenza. So essentially a bad outbreak of the flu. So I go and I look to see what did he say about this in the month after in March. Well, less than a month after, he was in front of the House Oversight Committee and Anthony Fauci said that COVID-19 was 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu. That is a quote, which is... obviously stoking fear to try to implement obedience, right? So like you mentioned, that he is more guilty. And here's why I think he's more guilty. Let's say I'm a mayor. It could happen, right? People may vote for me. And I would vote for you, David Harrison. Yeah, thank you. And there's a pandemic outbreak. I know nothing about science. I'm not a virologist. I don't know how dangerous it is. And someone like Anthony Fauci comes to me and what are politicians, but the most risk-averse people on the planet. So someone comes to me and says, if you don't shut down your schools, if you don't shut down your restaurants, you're going to have thousands of deaths on your hand. What am I going to do? I'm going to shut them down. That's why I think he deserves that kind of scrutiny. But here, on June 18, 2020, He emails Dr. Is it Burks or Bricks? I forgot what it is. But anyway, she was like the second in command, right? No one's mad at her. But anyway, he tells her, I have been obsessing about the increases in cases that do not seem to be related to openings or closings or massive crowds. Like he himself, right, says that he is unsure why. It's a frustration. He goes on and on. But yet, what does he do like weeks later? He goes after Ron DeSantis for opposing mask mandates and school lockdowns and pushing backs on some of, you know, the questionable science going on. He doesn't say, Anthony Fauci doesn't say, hey, you know, it's complicated. Maybe, you know, we're just trying to do the best we can. No, he was for shutting down schools. And like you said, he claimed later, like in 2022, he said that here's another quote, 2022. I should, we should realize and have realized that there will be, you know, collateral consequences when you do something like that, meaning shutting down schools. Then he said later in another interview with the New York Times, show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did that.

But then in these dire entries, he takes credit for convincing Bill de Blasio to shut down the schools in New York. He takes credit for shutting down bars and restaurants in all of California. No mention, by the way, of any negative collateral consequences. So do you know the poet? He's like on Twitter. He's great. He highlights great poetry from other people named A.M. Juster. No. Okay. Well, he's a worthy follow on Twitter, but he tweeted that today Anthony Fauci testifies before Congress. Anthony Fauci has a Biden pardon for past acts, but if he lies today, he can go to jail. I worked with him. His ego-drenched world is so detached from reality. He will probably keep lying. And he says his lawyer should tell him to take the fifth and not answer questions. I don't, I think the ego issue might come into play because he, do you remember when Rand Paul, who is such a wonderful senator and I really love him, when he had Anthony Fauci before him like five years ago, four years ago, Anthony Fauci, derided him and mocked him in a way that the media and other left-wing activists just loved. They were like, Anthony Fauci destroyed Rand Paul. Rand Paul would bring up factual things. And Anthony Fauci would usually say something like, with all due respect, you are completely and utterly, you know, just wrong in every way it's possible to be wrong. That's ego. Kind of the opposite of a Lindsey Graham. I think you know how he approached. proceedings in the Senate. And if you have ego issues like that, I do wonder if it'll be hard for him to plead the fifth. That also reminds me that Britt Hume the other night on special report prior to the panel that I was on said that he can't plead the fifth because of the pardon. And I was like, is that true? Because you could always get prosecuted for what you're saying in a current moment, right? There is definitely some legal question as to whether a person who receives a pardon loses the ability to plead the fifth because the assertion is predicated on shielding them from future crimes. And that's not what the Fifth Amendment is about. At least that's my understanding. You can't immunize yourself from future crimes using the fifth, I guess is the argument. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm unsure how that will work. I don't know. And certainly if you say, I've been pardoned for all of my crimes, my many, many crimes, and I'm going to refuse to be transparent with you about what those crimes were, that's very bad for his legacy as well, I think. I think taking the fifth is a completely legitimate. It's not just completely legitimate. It's constitutional right that people have, and it doesn't automatically mean they're guilty. But yet, the perception people have when you take the fifth is that you're definitely guilty. And in this case, I think they'd be right about that. But I don't know that that's always the case. You did mention something else about how the origins of COVID-19.

There is a diary entry from January 26th, 2020, where Anthony Fauci says, now we know the market, which he means the, I think it's the seafood market in Wuhan or whatever. The wet market is the wet market where gross things go on, I have to say. Some theorized that the virus had jumped from bats to humans there. But he says was not the source. It was the amplifier. Now we know it was not the source. It was the amplifier. So. If anyone said it was not the wet market, that it had come from the institute there, and that's a perfectly legitimate theory. They were banned from Facebook and so on. But I went back and read some of the fact checks of people who made that claim, and they were treated like racists and idiots. And many of those fact checks went back to an interview that Anthony Fauci did five months after this diary entry where he said it was probably the bats. But then I did more research in June 2021. So a year and a half later, he's talking to Kara Swisher, that woman on New York Times podcast. So I had to get the transcript. I love that the headline was America's chief immunologist claps back. And he said that people who had studied the virus, here are the words, absolutely, totally, oh, that the wet market theory was absolutely totally compatible with something that evolved from a bat virus because of the closeness to it. When he was asked, so absolutely totally compatible. When he was asked about the virus coming from a lab, quote, It is a very, very, very, very remote possibility. Four varies remote when he knew very well that that was not true at all. So even the most generous framing of a person who's looking at evolving science and all of that, it is perfectly clear that he was blatantly misleading the public about the origins. And then... Everyone who said, you know, I think Facebook banned talking about that. I remember Joe Biden said that Facebook was killing people, quote, killing people for allowing them. Then I remember that the government would lean on social media to kind of elevate certain people who said things they liked and suppress certain people who didn't. Twitter was suspending like tens of thousands of accounts who talked about this. And I don't know. Well. The theory behind the people who were pushing for massive lockdowns. I actually just want to step back and say, I remember a very early conversation with Marty Makary. I don't know how to say his last name because I always call him Marty, who was a contributor at Fox and then ended up working for Trump and then getting pushed out over some stupid politics reason. early on in the pandemic he was sounding the alarm very gently because it was a difficult environment in which to operate on television and otherwise a heavy censorship environment but he would say you know fouchy is not handling this the right way

He said, there could come a time where you're going to want to shut down schools. It's definitely not in the spring when the virus has just emerged. It would be more like the following spring or maybe that following fall when you start to have it happening in so many places. And he also worried, as a public health professional, that if you shut down schools in the spring at the first sign of any problem, that it will lead to... very bad effects of people not listening to what public health officials say when it might matter. He was talking about how in the flu of 1918, there were rolling school closures. Like as the flu would hit a certain area, they would shut down schools, but not like all schools across the nation for months at a time. So the whole theory behind shutting down the entire global economy was that you could contain this virus. I guess until you created a vaccine for it. I think that might have been the thinking. This is contrary to everything we've ever known about the spread of viruses. But if you said, We think we should instead try to do what we have always done since we learned how viruses spread, which is herd immunity, that the people who can handle the virus the most can get it until such a time that enough people have it so that you can protect the people who really can't get the virus like the really old or sick people. you got written about in the New York Times and you got banned from Facebook and Twitter. Now there is no question that the people who thought you could control the spread were just, they weren't just wrong. They were like as wrong as it's possible to be wrong as I was joking about how Anthony Fauci might put it. There was not, there was, they should have known early and even the diary confirms it, right? Like when Anthony Fauci is saying, it doesn't seem like this vaccine is keeping people from, from getting it, which is very late in the game, I realized, but they should have kind of figured it out much earlier. Instead of spending all their time trying to politically destroy those esteemed epidemiologists and others who were. saying we should go for herd immunity. That's what the scientists behind the Great Barrington Declaration did, Scott Atlas, Jay Batacharya, trying to use real science to guide public health response. And for that, they were mocked by, you know, you have all these diary entries showing Alyssa Farah, or not diary entries, emails between Alyssa Farah, the left-wing so-called Republican representative on The View, saying, We're doing our best. I'm doing my best here at the White House to destroy Scott Atlas. And I'm so sorry that he's critiquing you. And Anthony Fauci being like, how dare people question me? I am the science. Well, Scott Atlas was one billion percent correct. And Anthony Fauci was not. And that's the thing. I am, I represent science or whatever. He said, well, science, you know.

there was dissent. And whenever it popped up, like on October 14th, 2020, here's a diary entry. After noting that Julia John Roberts had sent him beautiful flowers, he says, I had a long talk with Jared Kushner, quote, asking him to help in getting rid of Scott Atlas, who was giving him a hard time in the herd immunity issue. But when there are, we already knew that the great Barrington declaration by. Incidentally, is not authored by some novices or anything. I mean, you have three people at, you know, top schools warning that lockdowns are going to have collateral consequences, the thing that he worried about in his own diary. And he wanted to, he plotted to take them down and to smear them with the media and other scientists and all that. That doesn't seem like the way science should work to me. So anyway, I think we knew. I thought from what I read of the diaries, I didn't read every single email. I read the highlights and I tried to go through a lot of it. It just confirmed and accentuated the things I already believed and knew about Anthony Fauci. I don't think that I think we knew he was lying to the extent of which he lied. And incidentally, like, when it's the flat and the curve idea is not new. You don't want everyone to get sick at the same time. It overwhelms hospitals. I get the thinking behind it, but it wasn't working. And my problem with, my first problem with all this is that he simply wouldn't allow anyone to discuss or debate that, which would have been very helpful for public policy. That's all, like, that's the first thing. And then we learned later that he lied. about these things to suppress debate. Then we learned that he literally suppressed debate by getting people to shut, you know, companies to shut down dissent. Like those are terrible things for a person who is imbued with this immense responsibility, right? So my lesson is we shouldn't imbue people with immense responsibility of this nature. Like we should create a system where there are, you know, separations of power, competing. competing voices so that we can get to the best kind of solutions. And another thing, by the way, is like, he would always smear people who, like, his main problem was he'd smear people who did things differently. The United States is huge. Places have, there are different infrastructures, there are different kinds of ways people interact in different states. Some people are spread out. Some people are dense. Like, Having a one-size-fits-all policy seems like a really big mistake when you have something like this happened to begin with. Now, I'm not an expert on it, but I'm sure other real experts on this would agree. And yet he would not allow for that anyway. And how about those entries talking about how famous he is? Here's my take on it. Like, it is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about a person in the country and one of the most recognizable persons in the world.

I get the mockery of that. But you know what? He was right. He was the most famous person. And he had a lot of responsibility. And he failed historically. I actually don't know. Has the left been out there or his old defenders? Are they still out there defending him? Like, do you know what's going on with that? I think so. I think the left. I was thinking about this how interesting it is that they're still white knighting for him. I think the Democrats today will continue to treat him as their Lord and Savior. And I could be wrong. We'll have to see. Why? Like, I don't even understand the, I don't understand the, the, the, the, the, the, what propels them ideologically or politically to want to do that. Like, I guess because of climate change and other issues that they pretend are settled science that they need. They like the top-down control of the economy and stuff so they don't want to decimate the idea maybe that it should be this way. I think that it's interesting that some Americans loved the government. control during COVID times, for real. They felt like it created a moment of unity for them, that they were at one with the government, that the government was taking care of them. And then there are people who think it was a dystopic hellhole. And this explains voting differences. And so for Democrats, they don't need to care about. the people who didn't love the COVID lockdowns, they just need to reframe the debate and suggest that somehow, like, I don't know, Donald Trump is to blame for kids' psychological problems because of the shutdowns. Yeah, I'm happy you mentioned that. I knew a lot of kids, including, frankly, my own, who couldn't go to school with their friends, couldn't have graduations, whose entire futures were thrown off course over this thing needlessly, in my view. I think that that's a big part of some of the problems we're having today, or at least part of those problems. I'd like to see other people. I guess when we started this conversation, I was talking about how he wasn't the only one. And I'd like to see some other people dragged up here. For me, it was very frightening to see that a government, you know, because we were scared or people were scared, the government could be like, yeah, your church is shut down. And without a vote, without even a vote shouldn't allow something like that to happen, frankly. But just unilaterally shutting down your business, shutting down all that. And. honestly not a lot of pushback it wasn't a ton of pushback people were scared and i get that but what happens when we have something that isn't a 0.2% fatality rate we get something with a 1% fatality rate what happens then you know so i hope we don't find out

I remember it was a one nice thing. I was just thinking about the media and their part in this. Like Paul Krugman's still out there writing. He wrote column after column. saying that Ron, and by the way, Ron DeSantis' stock has fallen and he ran against Trump, all everything that's happened since then. But at the time, he was one of the only people in this country, frankly, who stood up to this kind of tyranny. And he was part of a death cult. Remember that? He, I think Krugman said that he was on the side of coronavirus. He was allied with coronavirus. Like, there's a reckoning for all those people. Why haven't they explained themselves? I am not the world's biggest. Brian Kemp fan from Georgia, but he really also deserves quite a bit of credit. All right. Let's see what happens. Can I say one more thing about Julia John Roberts? If you must. It's not delayed, but someone was showing a video of her doing a Zoom with Anthony Fauci. I understand that Julia John Roberts is quite literally a pretty woman. Although I always remember that when she married Lyle Lovett and there were all these headlines at the time called like Beauty and the Beast, I did kind of, because I thought Lyle Lovett was very handsome. I mean, I know he's kind of weird looking, but I was like, which one's the beauty and which one's the beast? Anyway.

She overacts at the level of like 40 Meryl Streep's combined into one person. And when Anthony, she's waiting for Anthony Fauci to show up on the Zoom. And when he does, she is like orgasmic with joy. And I, this doesn't really have anything to do with public health, but. Is it just a function of getting older that you find actors who can't stop acting annoying beyond belief? Like I know, I have children in theater. I get that it's a type. I did theater growing up, but it's just like, could you just dial it down a few hundred notches and just be a normal person? And Anne Hathaway does this too. I would hate to know people like this in real life who just can't be normal ever. No? I don't know. No, I agree. I don't know. They don't live a normal life. They're not in a normalcy so they can't act normal. I don't know. She's a one. I mean, her acting is always the same. I don't think she has much range as far as I can remember. She's always kind of the same character. But I'm getting when I was a kid, I'd want to go see a movie and my dad would be like, no way that guy hates America. You know, that actor hates America. I'd be like, I can't see anything. But I'm getting the same way. Like I cannot go like they're like Mark Ruffalo or Javier Bardam. Like I cannot watch movies like for people who are pro terrorists, let's say. I just, there's going to be a certain level of leftism from every actor. I get it. But if you're going to be up there bashing America, I act, you know, like Julia John Roberts, I can't, I'm not saying she's out there bashing America, but after this reading this thing and what you, you know, her Anthony Fauci stuff and remembering it, I just, I can't with her. And we'll get to the culture section in a moment. I have other things to say about this. I have thoughts. I was just like, can we talk about the Odyssey right now? I didn't see it. So it's going to be a one cycle. Okay. Then can I just say something? Because I'll wait to talk in general. So I love Christopher Nolan. He is. easily my favorite director right now and has been for many years. And I did not hate The Odyssey or anything like that. And in fact, there were parts that I enjoyed it. I did not think it was that great. More than anything, it was his casting of the film that I found utterly distracting from whatever story he was trying to tell. And... Like Matt Damon is not who I would have cast as Odysseus, but he did great. It was great. Charlize Theron, perfect in her role, Persephone. And the rest were pretty bad. Not the rest, but a lot of them were. And I'm sorry.

I said Persephone. It's Calypso, and I knew that was wrong. Sorry. Did you know that that's the root for Apocalypse as well, the same word? Gosh, now I'm going to forget what it means. Oh, interesting. Oh, interesting. Okay. But the Ellen Page, who now goes by Elliott Page. It was so distracting. The hormones that she's been taking as part of her mental illness where she believed she's a man have destroyed her voice in a way. And acting involves not just what you do with the rest of your body, but also a big part of it is your voice. Or... Helen of Troy was so bizarrely cast. And I'm like, I don't really know Lupita Nyango that well. I don't have, I'm not, I actually don't have like the world's biggest problem with we live in a different world and we're just going to cast people who are the best for the part regardless of skin color. And we're just going to kind of pretend it's not a big deal. It's also, it's also mythology in a sense. I mean that this movie, but you know, going. I mean, it's not a historical epic. There are no Greek gods. And I think casting a beautiful woman of anything. That itself is a particular choice you're making, you know, an editorial choice. I'm saying if you, if there are ways that you could have done this where I don't think it would have been so distracting. The way this was done was absurd in some cases. And. really took you away from the movie. And I think it was the particular actors themselves just as much as this like, we're going to put a trans person in. We're going to make Helen be not just black, but like the blackest of black. Like it seemed like it was a low intelligence person trying to make a point instead of the brilliant director helping you get lost in a story. I have not seen this movie. I completely agree that a lot of times I'm watching a movie and I'm distracted by the need to put very famous people in all these roles. In fact, I can't like Zendaya or someone. Like the cast of this movie is like almost like the cast of the Dune movies. Like can we just at least vary and mix it? Like do I need Spider-Man in this movie? What a Tom Holland or whatever? Or do I need? I'm not even saying they did a bad job. I don't know. But I agree. Like I always think about apocalyptic by Mel Gibson. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie. It's just, I need to. An amazing. movie, right? Just very realistic. Seemingly, I wasn't there. And just well done. And literally, there's no one in there that you know. And it's still amazing. And sometimes I think casting very famous people in these roles is distracting. I should not be thinking about casting choices when I'm watching a movie. That's what I'm saying. I should just be thinking about the story. I should be immersed in it. I should not be thinking about the actors. And if they're overacting, if they're underacting, I'll notice. And if they're

Oh, look, here's another famous person making a came. Here's another famous. Like, it's annoying. I haven't seen this movie. I'm always for, I just want to say that I am for big epics. Like, I want more big epics. I want them well done. Like, I remember Gladiator 2 is just awful and had Denzel Washington. I don't even know how you mess up a movie with Denzel Washington. But I love big epics about the ancient world, and I wish we did more of them. Some generally in favor of it. I like Nolan, fine, but I don't love him in the way that seemingly you do and others do. I think I give him an A for effort. He wants to make smart movies. He wants to make big movies. I like that about him. It doesn't always work for me. Like, I'm not the biggest interstellar fan, you know? I think the Batman movies are fine, but they're a little nihilistic for me. And they're kind of like his movies don't have a lot of life in them. They seem very technical a lot of the times. I don't know. It does seem like he's been maybe on a decline of sorts. And as writers, I think we always need editors. Editors help us. And I think maybe he could use a little bit more, or I was thinking about this a lot about how when we place limits on ourselves, we can excel to a greater degree. And maybe he just needs some artificial limits put on him instead of everyone just saying, do whatever you want to do, buddy, you can do no wrong. Well, he can do wrong. He's been doing more wrong recently than is appropriate for a director of his stature. So maybe someone coming in and saying, yeah. No, I mean, on the other hand, he'll make a ton of money and that's all that. Yeah, I think once you're at the success level, he's at, no one can tell you to stop. Like, I did not like tenant. I didn't think it was cohesive. But I did love Dunkirk, Oppenheimer. My problem with Oppenheimer is that he was a Soviet spy and I don't like the whitewashing of that history at all. But, you know. very well-made movie, I thought. So I promise that I'm not, I don't want to keep saying too much, but I will also say that the movie, the Odyssey, I think if you appreciate it as something with only the loosest connection to this actual story helps. It's sort of like you took characters and you took the same things that happened to them and then you derived. a dramatically contrary meaning, which is, I don't, again, I don't have like a, I'm not saying, you can't do that to stories. You can. It's just kind of weird. You can't, I didn't see it. So I can't believe I'm having this conversation, but you cannot, you cannot end your version of the 2026, The Odyssey movie with the, with the massacre of the suitors and the hanging of the maidens. Yeah, you just can't. That's, it's just, I mean, you can, but I think it will be. Mel Gibson would have done it. That's true. Home, the, the, the, it's a pro. I mean, again.

I'm not some literary expert at all, but I know that the ancient Greeks did not view the world in the same way our modern Christian sensibilities. And that's exactly what we have, even when we're secular, would have viewed war and murder and executions and women in the way that we do. So you make a movie that appeals to the people's moral compass today, right? I think you're right, probably Melk, I mean, I've written, even when I was at the federalist, I think I wrote numerous times that I was begging Mel Gibson to make a Maccabee movie because he's the only person who could fix Hanukkah for us, you know, from this boring. Sanitized version. Yes, sanitized lighting the canals version to one of the incredibly, you know, important events, I think, in religious history, in history itself. But anyway. I know. I haven't been able to see because I've been working on a book and I just haven't found the time, but I will. Okay. It's funny, I say I haven't found the time, but my cultural list is not short. So I guess I've just been watching things at home when I can. Do we have anything else politically? What are we doing? Well, did you want to talk about Lindsey Graham at all? I think we mentioned, we talked about him last week a bit, didn't we? Two weeks ago, maybe. Yeah. It was nice to see everyone show up to his funeral. Again, character, I think we'll miss people like that. He wasn't so... You never felt like he was reading talking points, and I really admire that in almost any politician. And he was funny. I admire that and people as well. So I have to see him go. You see Mitch, your favorite Mitch. I just want to say one other thing about him, which is I think he did a good job of... Someone at the funeral or at the remarks before the funeral, I don't remember if it was like JD Vance or Trump or someone else said he was serious but didn't take himself too seriously. The generosity that he showed, the lack of ego, I would say, is remarkable for a Washington, D.C. politician. He. really was in it for love of the game. And I think it's kind of weird that the game for him was like go to war with every country on earth. That's not true. You might quibble with the wisdom of that. But he was not one of these people who enriched himself or abused. his power in a way in that way you know like so many people go to the senate kind of poor and leave extremely wealthy men he was not doing that he seemed to enjoy his job that's hard for me to contemplate enjoying in Washington but he seemed to enjoy it and uh And all that. I don't think he wanted to go to war with every country. I think he had a true neo-conservative view of the world in the sense that he believed America was a force for good and should implement good elsewhere, which I think sometimes can work in certain ways, but sometimes can be a devastating failure. And I don't think he really grappled enough with that. That's my only real.

knit to pick with him in general because he was pretty fiscally conservative i wouldn't call him like uh you know libertarian or anything on that but he was very pro-life as you've mentioned i see i saw online as well i think that legacy is underplayed by a lot of people and it seemed like a good guy anyway and most most senators don't seem like good people to me in the sense of people i'd want to ever meet or hang out with he seemed like one of the few people that i would want to hang out with Yeah, I do worry about the lack of leadership on pro-life issues with his absence. He was willing to do things that very few other senators were willing to do to push the agenda forward when a lot of these senators are very cowardly and weak on social conservative issues. And he was much better. Maybe this is a topic for another time, but it is interesting that the fight for Roe really. to overturn row really focused the pro-life movement in a way i think they've lost some of their focus i don't it's no longer i'm not saying it's no longer a national issue of importance i'm saying that there are many local fights that have to be had and i just don't Maybe I'm not that plugged in, but it just doesn't seem like the energy is there anymore in the same way. It seems like that a lot of people have lost their appetite for that fight, at least in the political sense. I think a huge issue is that the way people are, the two big life issues are very different than what they were even a few years ago and extremely difficult to combat. So number one is. like male order abortions where It's happening in such a way or can like even happen in states that have protected certain unborn children that is difficult to tackle. And then you have the Trump administration having zero desire to tackle it right now. And then the other thing being like surrogacy, IVF related issues, the number of children created through IBF is something nobody wants to think about. So like. grandparents will be like, oh, my daughter's having trouble conceiving. There's this magical solution, IVF. And then they don't want to think about what that actually means and how technological interventions have tradeoffs or downsides. And they're just like, and then she had little Emily and Emily's great. And I don't want to think about the 18 other embryos that were created. Or. On another hand, it'll be like, oh, my son is gay, which means I won't have any children. Oh, he can pay a woman in India to have a baby, so I still get to be a grandparent. And so the people who desperately want the children or even their extended families don't really want to think about what they're doing to commodify human beings.

you think about like, oh, how would have I been during slavery times or whatever? And we're always like, we would be on the right side. We would say slavery was wrong. But clearly like millions of people participated in it, even if they weren't participating directly. And I think we should always be challenging ourselves at all times to think through how are what we doing right now? How are we honoring life? How are we protecting human life? But it does make it for a much more challenging environment for the pro-life movement. Yes. I the second part of that I haven't never really thought through completely and I'm embarrassed to say I should I don't I don't really know where my feelings are exactly on all of that but anyway I don't know how we got here and how we're going to get back to what we were going to talk about oh I was just going to mention Mitch McConnell's been out he's he's very old and I know that a lot of people or critics of the geriatric senate we have and house frankly i don't know a lot of really old people there and i am not as angry about that because i don't have there's no i have no evidence that younger legislators are any better than older legislators. In fact, most of them, to me, are worse in many ways. But I think there comes a time where you can't perform your, you can do your duties. You shouldn't be there. But more than that, I don't understand why you'd want to be there. Don't you have grandchildren? Don't you have a life? You're in your 80s. You're not middle age. You will be dead soon. That's just how it works. Like, leave we don't need you there i will say the senate has got to be the cushiest job on the planet they work probably an average of half a day a year i mean why do you even want a job at all sorry half a day a week you know they're barely even when they're in session and they're rarely in session or real session. They're only there for, you know, a few hours and then they go home. And he lives, he doesn't live in Kentucky. He lives on Capitol Hill. So what would retirement mean other than he lost his stature? And he's, he's definitely in it for like he was born to be a senator. That's all he's ever wanted. He doesn't have kids. He doesn't have grandkids. I have not as many problems with him as you do in general. I'm just speaking in general. I don't understand what people have to be wheeled out of that place. It's funny, as you know, I'm not big on small D democracy. I think we too often turn to politics rather than communal, societal solutions to fix things. But when people do vote, I oppose most limitations on that. I think if you want to vote for an old guy because he's doing a good job or old woman because she's doing a good job, you should be able to do so. So I don't really like placing limits on voting. I would just like to defend myself again here that I interview him for my books and for other things. And after my last book, Samuel Alito, he thanked me for my treatment of him. So.

You always make a point that I don't like him, but he felt I treated him very fairly. When I say you don't like him, I don't mean in a personal way, A, because I don't know what your personal feelings are about him. I just have conflicted feelings about the job he does. And I'm just saying you're quite critical. You've been quite critical of him. That's all I'm saying. But also I can be quite, I probably quoted him more than any other person in Samuel Alito because he and his staff do a great job of talking about those issues. So, okay, moving on. Do you want to do culture? Culture. Yeah, go ahead. I wanted to quickly mention it's been weeks now, so I don't remember exactly why I hated this movie that I watched that you liked. The sheep detective was awful. How dare you? It was awful. Listeners, do not listen to David Harsani if he criticizes this film. This is the best film of 2026. Go on. Honestly, I can't remember why I didn't like it, but I had some reasons. I should take notes. I always think I'm going to remember these things when I'm getting older. I did not like it. I found it. I think I found it boring. And I don't think I found it funny. Do you think you watched a different film? No, it's one with the Australian guy. Hugh Jackman. Playing a shepherd who gets murdered and the crime is solved by the sheep that he took care of. Even your description is ridiculous. It makes it sounds ridiculous. It's like an all-star cast. Yeah, that's a good cast. The sheep are hilarious. I, when I was on my Rhine River cruise, on my Lutheran River cruise, we were sailing down the Rhine and there was a herd of sheep and there was a winter sheep, a black sheep in with the other sheep. And I was like, I just love that movie so much. I have to say, because I've been making everybody go see it, you are literally the first person to say you don't like it. I think it was more than just not liking it. I think I, like, really, I think it annoyed me. But I did learn what a winter sheep is. So that was a plus. Do you want me to go through it and then we'll go through your stuff or do you want to go back and forth? I just want to hear more about why you don't like a sheep detective. I think it was boring. I didn't think it was funny or charming, really.

I don't know. I guess I might be the only one. You know what? Letter writers should, if I'm wrong, let's send the emails. Maybe I'll rewatch it even though I don't really want to do that. Oh, what else did I do? Oh, I watched a documentary on Netflix about Hulk Hogan and his life, which I thought was pretty interesting, the first half at least. The second half I lived through, so I don't need that. But the first half about his upbringing, his life was pretty interesting. On that note, I want to say that when we were struggling to understand the Trump phenomenon in 2015 and thereabouts, I just remember Hans Feeney, one of our writers at the Federalist, writing things and putting it all in perspective of wrestling. And it gave me a big appreciation for the subtle art form of professional wrestling. Well, let me tell you something. I have it right in front of me. February 13, 2016, the Federalist, David Horsani wrote a piece, why debating Donald Trump is like fighting Thunderlips. And it's all about Rocky 3 and the opening scene in Rocky 3 where Hulk Hogan plays Thunderlips, fights. fights Rocky. So in this one, this was the big debate. I don't know if it was coming. I don't know if you remember where Marco Rubio was going to take on Donald Trump. And I predicted correctly that this was not going to work. And my the thesis is Thunderlips does not. play by the rules that you understand as a boxer. Marco Rubio was boxing in the, he was using the old rules, the rules of boxing, and Thunderlips would just pick him up and throw him out of the ring, like ring. He did not care about your rules. And so I too used professional. Sorry for not giving you the appropriate. It's okay. And it turned out that way because Ruby at the time, now everyone plays by different rules. Everyone's playing by Donald Trump's rules, I think. But yeah, I mean, you know, I was, I grew up at the time where wrestling really blew up and Hulk Hogan was this huge phenomenon. And, you know, I remember going to see Rocky 3 as a kid and all of that. So. Then I watched this movie called, there's this actor in the 80s. His name was William Peterson. I think he was around later like in CSI or one of those shows that I haven't watched. But he was in a movie called Manhunter. Have you ever seen this movie? No. It was directed by Michael Mann who did like Heat. I love Last of the Mohicans and movies like that. This was the first movie with Hannibal Lecter. It's kind of like a prequel to Silence of the Lambs, but it's not.

really in a way it's the same universe i guess and it is a great movie manhunter i would say better i like it better than science of the lambs great movie has that michael man kind of shiny 80s aesthetic which used in miami vice and elsewhere so then i'm like oh this william peterson guy who stars in that movie's really good i'm going to rewatch a movie i haven't seen in decades to live and die in l.a so i watched that That's a Friedkin movie. William Friedkin movie. Oh, yeah. I love William Friedkin. So I liked it okay. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be. I would say it's one of Friedkin's lesser movies at least. He had some, I think, even lesser ones moving forward. But anyway, that was somewhat of a disappointment. But it was okay. And then because I watched that, then I watched, I rewatched the French connection, which I love with Gene Hackman. Oh. You know what we forgot to talk about, Molly? I forgot to mention is Ross Dothat has been reportedly hired by 60 Minutes, the New York Times columnist. I think before that maybe. I mean, I know he writes for National Review movie reviews. I forget where he worked before that, but he's been at the New York Times for years. I would say a thoughtful commentator, social conservative, I wouldn't call him. a Trump fan at all, but, but he's definitely on the paleo side of things more than the Reaganite side of things, would you say? Is that a fair assessment? He wrote a book with, didn't he write a book? Am I confusing him with someone? Didn't he write something with Reihon Salam about sort of populist conservatism? Do you remember before Trump came around, there was this kind of big government conservative, movement driven by social conservatives called compassionate conservatism. I think he was part of that. Yeah, he wrote a book with Reihon called Grand New Party, How Republicans Can Win the Working Class. And it was all about moving beyond the Reagan legacy to focus more on things that would get voters, working class voters to vote Republican. So listen, I have nothing. I don't agree with him on a lot of things that I read, but I think he's a thoughtful guy. He's a good interviewer, a decent hire, though. I don't know. What do you think? I think it's. just huge for 60 minutes, which is a horrifically bad left-wing propaganda show that Bari Weiss is trying to improve somewhat. So for her, it's a huge coup and it's a huge loss for the New York Times. This means they, so they have zero people working at that publication who voted for Trump. And they did also have zero people before Ross. left. I'm pretty sure he didn't vote for Trump. This is a scandal. It's a joke. It's a complete like disaster. What American media.

are like these days. But Ross is wonderful. He's a great interviewer. He has a podcast. He does like a podcast interview. And he's just thoughtful. He'll interview people that he completely disagrees with. And sometimes I'll see people take clips from his show and they'll be like, oh, Ross destroyed this person. And I'll watch. And I'm like, no one was destroyed. It was actually great. You might disagree with the person he has on or you might disagree with Ross. But just having. nice conversations where people are able to say, I believe this. And oh, well, have you explored the contour of your position? Oh, well, here's my answer to that. You know, it doesn't have to be combative, but it's still very interesting. He asks really good questions and he's open-minded. So I think he's great. And I also think that the New York Times should hire as his replacement someone. This is my crazy idea. Hear me out here. In a country where Donald Trump has been elected twice, I think the New York Times should try to find someone who voted for Trump to join their editorial page. And I have an idea on who these people might be. Oh, do you? I actually don't know how these people voted, but I suspect, okay? Or at least, yeah. Dan McCarthy, I think, would be a brilliant replacement. He already writes for the Times a lot. And you know how they'll do the scatter plot of, you know, how did Donald Trump do in this speech or whatever? Every single person will be clustered together. sometimes including Ross. And then Dan will be like way out and like, I thought this was great or, you know, vice versa. He's an independent thinker who has the courage to say things that are true, even when everybody in his intellectual milieu is saying otherwise. And he's, he's just interesting in that way that Ross, like, was difficult to categorize, wasn't super conservative, but he was very pro-life, you know, wasn't. Maga and in fact warned about like the godlessness of some aspects of the Maga Coalition like just said things that were interesting and provocative Dan McCarthy would be like that too again you might not agree with him on everything but he's thoughtful and then I also thought maybe a Michael Brendan Doherty

similar thing, just like saying different things and also able to reach a left-wing audience in ways that other people might not. Or they could try George Willie, or not George, they could try, oh my gosh, Bill Crystal again, he had a disastrous run as a New York Times columnist. It is funny how everyone's like, how everyone's like, they need to hire someone who voted for Trump, which is fine by me, by the way. Two people you mentioned are fine. I mean, I would say they are both paleo-conservatives, and those are people who are more likely to vote for Trump. But the New York Times never had a columnist who voted for Ronald Reagan when Ronald Reagan was president either. William Sapphire, who I liked fine, he was a conservative there, maybe the only conservative for years, voted for Clinton. David Brooks came after, right? He was a columnist there. They've never really had someone who was in the, with the majority of conservatives, voting with the Republican Party writing for them because they're a left wing newspaper. I think that's a good choice. I don't even know why I came up with ideas because I don't care what the New York Times does. I have not read it in so long. Like you mentioned William Saffar. I loved reading him when I was much younger. And now I honestly don't remember it has been probably decades since I've read an actual New York Times. Maybe I did it on a plane or something once. I don't know. I recently resubscribe because I'm working on something and they're behind a paywall and I need to read older articles and this and that. But I think it matters to some extent. It's still a very popular newspaper. It still says something. You can still... It's product reviews and games. That's what the subscription base is. But... Wirecutter and... connections or whatever. I don't know what the games are. I refuse to give money to the New York Times, so I can't tell you. If someone like MBD or whoever is there, they would at least occasionally get through to people who never, ever are exposed to. anything a Trump voter really believes in or, you know, so that matters to some extent. I try. I think we all fight. I probably you do the same to try to understand what the other side saying, right, occasionally. And it's sometimes difficult you get into a bubble. So those two are fine. I'm sure there are other good choices as well. We were talking about culture. Oh. You, your turn. I don't really have much. I got some complaints from listeners that I didn't really give due amount of time or discussion to my trip down the Rhine. But I will start by saying that I watched one movie and it was the fugitive. With Harrison Ford? Mm-hmm.

I have you ever seen that movie? Yep, it's not when it came out. I think I was maybe in high school or maybe, yeah, I think it was in high school. Yeah, I like that movie. It's fine. It held up well. I like movies like that and I liked that era of kind of like action detective basic movie. There were a lot of those kind of thrillers going about. And Harrison Ford was in a few, you know, a number of them that were pretty good, presumed innocent was one. I forget the others. Oh, and the Jack Ryan movies that he made. It's a good era for him. This does remind me that a friend of mine from church was insisting that the family go see Hades Town. They're doing, it might be over now, but might not. A. this thing they do sometimes, which is like they record the Broadway production and then they show it in theaters. Are you familiar with the story of Hades Town? I'm going to tell you a very interesting story. Years ago, my kids wanted to go to a Broadway show. I grew up in New York and never went to a Broadway show in my life because I have zero interest in that. And the only show I've ever seen on Broadway ever is Hades Town. Oh, did you like it? I don't remember much about the plot or anything, but I did enjoy the experience and I thought the music was fine. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I guess it blends to myths, Orpheus and Eurytese and Hades and Persephone. And the music is supposedly, you know, it's loved by musical types. So we were not able to go see it, but we did allow one of the kids to go see it. And it was enjoyed. So I can't tell you more about it at this point, but unless I get a chance to see it before it leaves the theaters. Okay, so back to- Are you a big Broadway play person? Like, have you gone to Broadway a lot? No. I have gone, and I am not a big Broadway person. I did see Little Shop of Horrors. Hmm. Wait, is that the one? Yeah, that's what it's called. And I loved it. I think I mentioned that, didn't I? I don't remember. So, yeah, it's a little shop of horrors off Broadway last year with one of the kids. And it's so funny because I think making fun of puppetry is a time-honored thing to do. But I actually do like puppetry in theater. And the Bible Museum was doing the lion witch and wardrobe, or I should say C.S. Lewis, all those stories. And it involved in the puppetry, which was awesome puppetry. Narnia, yeah. And I've always wanted to see the Lion King, which supposedly has great puppetry. And then this had just. wonderful as the plant grows you know it gets more and more puppeteers involved and it was really well done and i i thought i would i would encourage people to go see it i've seen both movie versions one with steve martin one with jack nicholson in the 60s i think i've seen neither maybe i should check that out okay uh it's not like my favorite story or anything but the acting in this case was very good okay so

Maybe I should think about what else to share about my one friend was like, you talk about culture. You just had a heavy cultural experience going down the Rhine through Germany and you barely touched on it. So. Let me think about it a little bit, and then I will talk about it more next week, some of the highlights, which I do want to pull out, including a story about, this is probably not what my friend has in mind, but a story about a record that I didn't buy, but then did buy later. So I'll tell that next week. Yeah, I look forward to that. I want to hear more about the historic places you went. I love stuff like that. Well, that was a rag tag episode. We went all over. I hope people stuck it out. And we'll be back next week with Molly's stories about her trip and more news. Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the friend. Followed that dollar for a long way down. Far away from the poor house door, you either get the hell or the haters time.