'You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi, Ep. 205: Obama's Radical Legacy

Welcome back 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 the show, please do so at radio at the Federalist.com. We love to hear from you. Molly, you know, numerous people have asked me, someone actually asked me this on the radio the other day, if you and I were okay, because we kind of yelled at each other last week over the Iran thing. And I told them I thought we were. I hope we are. And I told them that you probably have to be friends with someone before you do that, right? like it would be difficult to have that kind of passionate argument with someone you didn't know that well and get and be okay I actually think our bigger problem is that we don't fight enough the whole idea of this was that you and I like each other but we disagree with each other a lot

and then we tend to agree so much that I think that's the bigger problem but I don't know if it's about being friends before you disagree so much as that we're both very gen X and we have very we're just so used to having ideas shared by very few other people that the idea that we would take offense with each other for not agreeing that's just so foreign to me and I know it's foreign to you we're okay yeah it works both ways in the real world where people think they've offended me sometimes where I'm not really that offended even if they annoy me and I'm not that nice to them but also that they think that I am working worried about offending them, which I'm not. Do you know what I mean? It's never or very rarely

ad hominem. And if it's not ad hominem, I'm usually, unless you're some kind of psycho who's like hates Jews or is a big it or something like that. I'm not going to really take it that personally. You know, anyway, we are okay for everyone out there, I think, I hope. And let's get into it. So I think we should just start on a lighter note and talk about the Obama presidential library that is opening in Chicago. Someone called it the Obama-Lisk, which I think is great, like an obelisk, but the Obama-Lisk. It's 225-foot-tall, brutalist, I would say architecture, I guess. I'm not an expert on architecture.

It looks like a tomb, maybe, maybe America's tomb in Chicago. And it is like this monument to self-glorification for Obama. exactly the sort of thing. Did you, I should ask you, did you know, did you see the inside and all the pictures and everything like that? I've definitely been seeing the pictures, mostly of the outside, but a little bit of the inside. And I do think it's less bad on the inside than it is on the outside. It is brutal to see from the outside. It's very dark, blocky. There's not, you do not think beauty or truth when you see this. I'm surprised to see that there's Nick Cave Art commissioned inside by Nick Cave, which was weird. But there's kind of like a fake

stained glass window. But there was this area and it's very difficult to describe it. It's not a room as much as just this auditorium, I guess, or maybe this lobby where the words from his speeches are up on the ceiling so people can look up and read them. I was wondering if they had the words, the name of Allah shall not. What did he say? Like, Muhammad's name shall not be. belongs to those who... The future should not belong to those who slandered the name of Islam or something of that nature was. And anyway, aesthetically unpleasing.

And I'm actually not... I like weird-looking buildings. Like, I like the library or the museum, the art museum in Denver, for instance. I like when you have kind of modernistic architecture thrown in with more traditional buildings and things like that. But this looks pretty ugly. Maybe one day I'll visit. Have you ever been to a presidential library?

Oh, sure. Been to quite a few. Well, I love the Nixon Library, for example. Reagan Library. Okay. It's the Truman Home, which I think must be a library there, too. I guess I've been to the George W. Bush Presidential Center. I think it's just a good way to learn about the different presidents.

The Nixon Library is fantastic. It's very much a research institution. and I think because Nixon had such a difficult end to his presidency, it has less of the hagiography that you tend to see at presidential libraries. Interesting. They're more realistic. Like, yeah, this ended with his resignation. But in so doing, you get a much, the honesty helps make you more impressed by the man.

Right. And I certainly have a lot of, well, there are a lot of things I agree with Nixon on and a lot of things I disagree with him on. And I like that you have that freedom in that space. They just kind of say, here's what he did on economic policy or here's what he did on foreign policy. But it also has the home that he grew up in right there. In fact, that's the location of the library. That's interesting. I would like to visit that.

I was supposed to give a speech for the reopening of the Warren G. Harding, Presidential Library and Museum in Marion, Ohio years ago. I think I'm the only one that could find who likes maybe or cares about Warren Harding. But COVID ruined that. So I didn't get to do it. Maybe they'll invite me back one day. In any way, it's interesting. I see all the presidents were there and everyone's celebrating Obama. No, that's not true. Not all the presidents, all but the one in who's the president today.

The current and former president, Donald Trump, was not invited, which is fine, but it was notable. It's actually not fine. I mean, it seems to me that over 10 years ago to not invite the president of the United States to an opening of a presidential library would have been unheard of. is just a Donald Trump thing, right? Sure. Yeah. But, you know, you see someone like a George W. Bush there and the Obama family, the meaning the people around Obama, and we're just horrible toward George W. Bush.

And I don't, again, all's fair in politics. But when you see everybody make nice afterward and just act like it's no big deal, you start to think it's all a little bit of a game. And then the fight between Trump and Obama, that's not a game. that's real. These aren't people pretending to disagree with each other for short-term political advantage. It's to the core. Yeah, it's hard for me to tell. The Obama movement, not him personally always, essentially characterized Bush as a Nazi basically over and over again as a warmonger, bloodthirsty, all of that. So for him to just now pretend like there would be best buds with this guy,

it's just, we just spoke about how we're Gen Xers and we're not insulted. I mean, but these are ad hom and impersonal insults that are lies. So I think that's something you are allowed to be mad about and you shouldn't just dismiss. And it degraded our politics. I think a lot of our problems go back to Obama. But just on the building itself. I do wish that I know it was the finest architectural firms involved in the creation of the building. But it is sad how much we've lost a sense of beauty being important or honesty being important to a building.

and that it's in Chicago, which always had such beautiful architectural emphasis. The skyscrapers there are amazing. But also Frank Lloyd Wright, who was so, you know, 100 years ahead of his time, that prairie style. I know that Obama was going to make a joke about him not being from America, but then I fear that people will think I'm serious. But, you know, he's not from Chicago. He moved there for political reasons. And he's from Hawaii. I wonder if that's related to, his inability to get into the culture of Chicago. It's like they thought, oh, we have skyscrapers here, so we'll do a tall tower, which isn't really the point of the skyscraper in Chicago. And then just the real lack of beauty or symmetry or there's something being pretty to look at. That makes me sad

because Chicago is one of the most beautiful cities we have. Having a modern building makes sense for Obama, in my view, having some kind of modernist architecture. But even then, it should be something nice to look at, right? This reminds me. I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago for that issues at Center at Conference. And in Oak Park, where we were, which is also where Frank Lloyd Wright operated from, there were all these tranny flags up. And I was thinking about how interesting it is that the gay rights movement starts with co-opting the rainbow. And we talked a little, wait, did I say this last week? I feel like maybe I said this to you last week. But, you know,

it starts with a beautiful image, which is the image of the rainbow. And then it, then they start adding in all these dissonant colors. What's the word for doesn't go well? It doesn't harmonize visually. I don't know what that. Dissinance is a good discordant maybe. Yeah. And it's just ugly. And I think about how there's a truth to the ugliness of the trans. And similarly, there's a truth to the ugliness of the Obama building. Okay, I wanted to say one more thing about the room with his words. I just paid a visit to the Lincoln Memorial. And there's, I think they're only, there are probably so many more words on this than I can think of, but I'm thinking about it has the emancipate, or it has words from the Gettysburg address and words from his second inaugural,

right? And there are long passages that are there, but man, was he a good writer? Whereas I know people always said that President Obama was this amazing speech writer. And I'm not one of those people who says, like, I only like speeches from the partisans I agree with or the politicians I agree with. I used to love listening to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, for instance. I just thought he was an incredible speechgiver. I never felt that way about President Obama. I would zone out all the time. Like I zone out even, you know, I'd zone out with Trump speeches. I'm not saying he doesn't have capacity. He does. Clearly, he's a great communicator. But I can't remember much of anything that Obama said other than things that annoyed me or his Red America, Blue America speech at the 2004 Democratic

Convention. But that wasn't really what he was known for over the long haul. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think it had a lot to do with delivering cadence. When you read them, they weren't very good. A lot of straw men, a lot of just vacuous sloganeering and stuff. Listen, that's most politicians, I guess. But I don't know. I don't love any. There are statues of Obama at this place. And I even link. who I think is an American hero, I don't think it's in the Republican mold to have statues of people around. It actually, it's always kind of disconcerting to me. I know you're making the face. I just... There's this aspect of this in Christianity. You know, some people really oppose icons or icon. But I think it's a great way to remember great people. And I love, for instance, the Lincoln Memorial.

I love thinking about what a great president Lincoln was. I don't think everybody was. I just, I don't think Washington or Lincoln would want statues of themselves. I just bought a pillow with George Washington's face on it. I'll buy George Washington anything. I have for Independence Day, I've got decorations out, old-timey pictures, little statues of presidents, including Calvin Coolidge. I'm so excited. I went to a museum not that long ago, and there were paintings from the 1800s, and they

have Washington basically depicted as a saint in heaven. and I was like, whoa, I just don't think Washington wanted that sort of thing in America. I know it's old-fashioned. Listen, it's not a big deal. But by the way, I get to go to Mount Vernon. Heritage Foundation is doing an event on July 2nd, and I get to go to Mount Vernon. And I'm so excited. Which is like 10 minutes from where you live, no?

So you can always go if you want. Sure. Sure, I can. But to be there for that occasion, aren't you excited at all about the 250th, David? I am very excited and very concerned, which we'll talk about in a minute. Since where we brought up the Lincoln Memorial, let's talk just for a moment about the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, which is a topic that is that the media is very concerned about. There are so many stories about this going on, and I barely read any of them. So maybe I'm going to get something wrong here.

So I'm going to let you know. You'll let me know. Trump's like, this pool is not reflecting anymore. We're going to renovate it, right? I think it costs like 18 million bucks. We're going to take the water out. We're going to paint it. And it will reflect again because it is called the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

They refurbished. They did it all, $60 million. And now everything has gone green again. There are people vandalizing it. Like, what is happening here? I think that might be fake news. And I only say that because I went this morning. I was speaking at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, which is a State Department

building right across from the reflecting pool. And I was with my friend who's visiting from out of town. So we just said, why don't we hop over there to see it? And it was gorgeous. Now, there were, they saw like a machine there. I'm going to show you, not that, not that people can see it. But do you see that? Oh, yeah, it's reflecting.

It was beautiful. I mean, it looked really blue and it just looked clean. Yeah, maybe this is a better picture, not that our listeners, again, can hear it. Oh, it's beautiful, yeah. So I was happy to see it. I don't know exactly what the details are on cleaning, not cleaning, but we also drove by Union Station last night, and it was crystal clear. The water was just so clear coming out of the fountains, not just the main central fountain, but the two fountains on the side. And I have lived in D.C. for 30 years almost. And I don't know if I've ever seen that. So I hope that this is something that could have bipartisan consensus that. that having a capital city with clean buildings, clean streets, that the monuments be taking care of, that's all important about, we see how so many people who are citizens of this country don't care about this country. They reject its founding principles. And part of that is that you

need to keep telling and retelling the story and having a pride about your buildings, your monuments, your memorials. What if political disagreement didn't have to become political warfare? That's the idea behind the Future of Freedom podcast. Each week, two liberty-minded thinkers tackle a major issue from different perspectives. One conversation, two viewpoints, no yelling, no dunking, no debate-stage theatrics. Just thoughtful arguments present. presented in good faith, giving listeners the chance to weigh the evidence and reach their own conclusions.

In a media environment built for outrage, future of freedom is built for curiosity. Listen to Future of Freedom, wherever you get your podcast. Well, last week we spoke about some polling. We saw that people aren't proud of this country. They don't even like this country very much anymore. I think we saw that in action last night in New York City, in New York State, actually, where Zohran Mamdani-backed candidates swept the Democratic primaries. And if you win in the Democratic primaries in New York, you're going to be winning the seat.

The people are going to be going to be the most radical people in all of Congress. I mean more radical than Ilhan Omar, more radical than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is started, I noticed this morning I'm reading about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I'm like, She's kind of like the moderate now. She's going to be the moderate soon. She's going to be the center, the centrist Democrats very soon. So let's just go through some of this. You have, unless you have something to say about that.

No, I'll let you. I have a, I'm not sure if I agree with you that she's the centrist, but I'll, but I'll hold that thought you keep going. So not only did they win, but they knocked off some, some incumbents that have, you know, that were in, you perched in some powerful positions in a Democratic Party, including Dan Goldman, who everyone knows is terrible, right? I mean, the guy is such a slimy partisan that you couldn't be more of a partisan than this guy. And yet, he lost to a guy named Brad Lander, who is this quizzling Jewish person, whose whole campaign was kind of focused on APEC and Jewish money and politics.

And he's just a complete socialist. Now, I mean, he's a complete socialist. He was literally a member of the socialist party. and he is the most moderate of the people who won, right? Dan Goldman was always on TV. He must have been part of all impeachments and leading that. I forget, isn't he a lawyer or something? So he got his start.

I think, I mean, first off, his grandmother was an heir to a denim fortune or something like that. He's very rich, yeah. Not only does he have unearned wealth, his parents did too. And it kind of shows. So he was this radical left-winger MSNBC contributor who was a big proponent of the Russia collusion hoax, who was also a big defender of censoring free speech and debate when it came to the Hunter Biden laptop. He was a staffer for, I want to say Adam Schiff during one of the impeachments. He was running the questioning and then he gets elected.

But he's a total Russia collusion hoaxer. His defeat last night should have been one of the more beautiful things. I mean, it was an embarrassing 30-point defeat. He thought that with his money, with his grandmother's money, and with his constant presence on TV, and his incumbency, that he would be in it to win it, or he would be a shoe-in. And instead, he lost horribly. But it's a little difficult to celebrate because it appears that opposition to his Jewishness was one of the drivers of that defeat.

And so not a great situation. His great grandfather was one of the people who started Levi Strauss Company, jeans, which is obviously a huge concern. Yeah, I mean, you saw he was banned. Well, he is a leftist. He's not really what I would consider very pro-Hamas, but he's not pro-Hamas, let's put it that way. He's not unhinged about these things. And that wasn't good enough.

Did you see that story about a New York bagel place that is, inclusive bagel place and i think it was brooklyn i forget where banned him from coming like just insane his office was graffitied with all kinds of you know pro hamas stuff so he's gone and we have uh Brad Lander who's a socialist then there was another uh democratic socialist claire valdez who won she was on not long ago a twitch interviews for a big streamer there and the guy said that he described jews as the demon a demonic ethnicity. This is the kind of person and people she's with. And by the way, these aren't even the worst people who were elected yesterday. Here's the name that I love to say of another person who was elected. Darya Liza Avila Chevalier was elected. I believe she's a convert to Islam.

She's absolutely the, she will be the most unhinged person in Congress. And let me put this way, She will be the most unhinged person probably who has ever served in Congress. She wants to abolish prisons. She is completely anti-American pro-Hamas. And when I say anti-American, I don't mean it in some abstract way. She has literally spoken about America as an evil empire and things like that. She is a complete communist. And these are the people who New York will be sending.

and they're doubling up the squad. So I guess my question is what is happening here? Is this reflective of the Democratic Party as a whole? Is this where we're headed everywhere in every urban area? Is it just New York? Thank God. Zohran Mamdani wasn't born in the United States, so he came around from president. But this point, I think that the love he's shown by MS now or whatever it's called and every kind of left-wing outlet, he would be the leading presidential candidate for these people if he could be. I mean, Bernie's too old. And they really don't have anyone else, I think, that can lead the socialist wing, it would be Zohran Mamdani. And I wouldn't be surprised if he was born in America if he was running for president and that he would have a decent

chance at winning at this point. Am I wrong? I don't think you're wrong. One of the things that worries me is that people treat this as if it's a fringe sector of the Democrat Party instead of basically what the Democrat Party is. So that's why when you said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the moderate, not really. I mean, And she also believes in prison abolition, defunding a police stopping ICE in any way. I guess the rhetoric is less outrageous, maybe. Yes. And that's, okay, so this relates to what I really think, which is all of these people are children of Barack Obama. And I do not mean literal children.

But actually, I just have to do a little tangent here. My husband was talking with one of the kids about how weird it is that President Obama wrote to multiple girlfriends about his desire to have sex with a man. And I do just want to say, that's a really weird thing. And I don't think we talk about it enough. That's not normal, right? Not among the men I know. But, you know, I can't speak for others.

It's like not just the desire, but the desire so strong that you're writing a bunch of ladies about it. Just so weird. Anyway. I would say that's the last thing I would write a lady about probably. Hopefully, like, if there's a list of stuff, that would be the last thing. Everyone's just kind of like, yep, our former president desires sex with men. He didn't say he'd had it, but he certainly desired it.

Okay. Anyway, everyone says, like, oh, these people are really radical. They're not that much more radical than Obama. He did a very good job like Democrats always do of presenting one way and governing another. And if you view his two terms in office plus his third term, which was Biden, you see how they governed extremely radically, including a complete opening of the borders. But usually they would say stuff like, you got to have borders, but you got to have love. And everybody would say, see, they want borders. And then they would just get rid of any regulation or border.

You'll even hear it on other issues now with Democrats will say, well, of course you should have an ID to vote. or of course you should be a citizen to vote. But then anytime anyone tries to do anything to make sure that someone's a citizen or that their ID matches, they work to stop that. I care more about the policies than the rhetoric. And the policies proposed by these people who won in New York, they're being more honest about their socialism, but it's the same thing that we've been experiencing since the Obama era. Prison abolition, defunding police, refusal to deport even murderers. I think that was that Dario Liza lady who's asked, like, do you think if you murder and rape people, you should be deported? And she's like, no, I don't believe in deportation period, meaning she doesn't believe in borders, period. But of course, neither did Obama or Biden, really. They just said they did, but then they wouldn't govern that way. They believe America is to blame for 9-11. So did Obama and Michelle, right? For sure. Remember the first time she's been proud of her country and their pastor saying it was the chickens coming home to roost. They believe capitalism

is evil and Israel is evil. I'm sorry, but so did Obama. Oh, yeah. And then they want to eliminate private health insurance. Who did a better job with that than Obama? And I think it's important for people to just recognize this is not fringe. This is mainstream Obama-led Democrat Party. They don't disagree with him. They agree with him. And the Democrats who used to have a choice between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. They went with Barack Obama and now, to quote his pastor, the chickens are coming home to roost. This is what the Democrat Party chose. And it actually is a huge threat. And they mean to rule. These people mean to rule. And they mean to change the country, to transform the country. And so people should take it very, very seriously. There was a massive misconception about

Obama in some sense, I think, by especially among centrist Democrats. Is that his policies were often not as totally unhinged far left, but he took the Democratic Party as far left as was plausible. He did whatever he could to take it as far left as was available to him. He was far more, he was far to the left of the policies that he instituted. But I think that the organic evolution of Obama are these people because he made the argument to untether American policy from the constitutional order. I mean, that's just what he did. He's the one who attacked the Supreme Court for the first time in that kind of way, where he personally attacked justices for defending free speech. He's the one who changed our foreign policy where we treated our

enemies like we did our allies. And you're right. He's the one who blamed America first. I mean, you had a president when he was asked if he believed that America was exceptional. He couldn't say yes to it. It's just a bunch of gobbly gook. He's really one of the, he is in many ways the worst present we've ever had. Maybe other than Wilson.

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Check out the Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. There was a really interesting piece in The Examiner, actually, by someone, I forget the name of the person, but it was about how Democrats made a fatal error by going with Obama instead of continuing the Clinton dynasty in 2008. and then again in 2016 and how Clinton was a better political path forward. I don't know if that's true in a high mass uncontrolled immigration state like we're in. It's not surprising to me that these radicals are being elected in New York City. Yeah, but by, I'm sorry to interrupt you. In the districts, I was looking at the maps yesterday.

You have a lot of white, upper, they think they're poor, but they're actually. extremely rich to live in Manhattan and pay exorbitant rents and so forth. White neighborhoods in Brooklyn and in Upper East Side and Upper West Side. You have people here who are socialists. They're the worst kind of progressives. You know who they are in your mind right now, right? And I'm not saying that it's not partly because you have people coming from other countries and Islamic countries especially. That is certainly part of it. I mean, let's face it, these candidates are all third world candidate. It's not because of their race. Brad Lander is a third world candidate. I I don't care where he comes from because they're importing bad ideologies for sure.

But it's not just the immigration that's the problem. Young people are socialist on the Democrats. Right now, when you look at polls, they have a higher regard for socialism than capitalism. And that's a huge problem. It's not just an immigration problem. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I'm not saying that you're saying it's only that. But I'm not saying that I'm not saying just about the ethnicity of the voters or.

the candidates. Although it is interesting that some of these candidates are themselves not native and have come to this country from other countries. And I think there are some issues with some voters who have become American, but from other countries where they're willing to tolerate a higher level of third world corruption because it's still not as bad as the places that they came from. But I'm thinking more generally about the changes to a country over time with uncontrolled immigration. Things like what you're taught in schools and what you're taught about multiculturalism versus your own country's heritage, those kind of bigger picture ideas about what does it mean to be American? What do we teach our kids about what's important about being American?

You mentioned that the young kids, like even like the young, I think you were saying white kids, are fans of socialism. Well, just overall Democrat. That's whatever color they are, fans of socialists. Yes, okay. But I would say the same thing about key issues like freedom of speech, freedom of the press. They also tend to have very low views of things that are foundational. And this is just a breakdown. They've been taught that the white colonialist founders have antiquated ideas about freedom.

And they don't even care about freedom. This freedom ever really come up, or liberty or, personal liberty ever come up with any Democrat ever? I think for the for the left, they really care about sexual. They care about license, not liberty. Yeah, I mean, yeah, libertinism. They're communists. I don't know why we can't, we have to keep pretending otherwise.

The communists want to destroy the family. They failed, but they wanted to destroy the family initially. And these people want to destroy the traditional family. These people want to destroy individual liberty. And I, they frame it and a lot, unfortunately, some people on the right frame that idea as selfishness when it is not. The individual matters, I mean, that's a Christian idea in many ways. And they hate that. They hate Christianity. They hate Jews. And once they're done with Jews, they're going to go after Christians. It's just how it goes. There is not a single person.

This is actually one of the things that really annoys me about Democrats. It's like today they woke up and said, oh, we just elected a bunch of, or nominated a bunch of bigots. Yeah, you did. And you've been nominating bigots for years. It's just that they didn't care if they were anti-white or anti-Christian. Now that you've got open anti-Semites, now that Dan Goldman lost his office, they're like, oh, we got a problem here. It's like, yeah, we got a problem that you guys were tolerating and feeding for years. The racism of a Barack Obama was celebrated, not just like not dealt with. People loved it. And now they're like, oh, I think this is a problem. Yeah, it's a big problem, in part because you all didn't do anything, Democrats. I mean, I think that's right. I think

that's right. But, you know, the stigma of being anti-Jewish is gone essentially on the left. And I just feel like Christians who are religious have always been under attack or for a long time by Democrats, but it's going to get worse once we move forward. I will disagree with myself on one thing, which is, I earlier said, how is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez more moderate than these people? But even she has decried anti-Semitism, right? When there was no cost to it. She decried it because the Democrats literally had a candidate said, I'm going to put Zinus into camps, and I forgot what she was going to do to them. And she said that was anti-Semitic. But she only said that because this was a primary, and there was another leftist candidate

who didn't say something that at Ridge. Got it. I said something pretty bad. I wouldn't say that she decries it, but I wouldn't say that she has ever said anything anti-Semitic. I don't think that I try my hardest to make a distinction between people who are saying things like, I think Israel is an apartheid state, which isn't true, but you can say it. And people who talk about APAC in a sense that American Jews aren't allowed to involve themselves in politics or that they control the country or they control Donald Trump, as we see, simply untrue.

And all these people are anti-Semites that I just mentioned before. And don't tell me that Brad Lander is Jewish. I don't care. Self-hating Jews are not a new thing and he's one of them. Or maybe he's so soulless that he would do anything for power, which is that's nothing new either, right? But I don't know. I guess my question is, what I'm wondering about is, is this now the way of every urban area? To me, I'm thinking about Graham Platner, like that maybe is a more important race in telling me what the future of this country really holds.

Someone asked me today whether there was going to, you know, there's a lot of our, you know, there's a lot of debate on the right about certain issues and certain people. But how about the left? Is there going to be a civil war there? And have you seen any century other than a handful? a gaggle. Anyone on the left, any major voice speaking out against the Zohran Mamdani faction, I haven't. I don't think there's going to be a civil war. I think they're going to be fun together. It's just going to be finding the right candidate. I think someone like Gavin Newsom, who is aesthetically seems presidential, but is pretty far left wing, or left wing enough for these people to run and they'll be fine.

What do you think? I don't know. I mean, that's been the game all along here in Virginia. Abigail Spanberger, crazy left winger, but presents, thanks to media help, as not as left wing as a mom dany. In some ways, I think that makes her more dangerous than a mom dany, but... I didn't think she would be this far left wing. I have to be honest with you. I just, she had a congressional record that wasn't this far left. And then she just gave in, she's just like mom d'ani, basically. So I don't even know, you can't even vote for a centrist Democrat anymore. I do wonder, you know, we've, we had that era where we were rooting out on American activities and organizations.

And that touched a lot of people on the left, and the left responded with fury and rage. But I do wonder if that's the only way to deal with some of this. You mentioned the, it's Darya Lizza, Dara Liza, the Chevalier later. Darya Liza Avelia Chavaray. So she is a founder of a group that has, as its mission statement, to underwold, and eradicate America through the use of violence in America. CUAD, right? Columbia, I think she was one of the founders of that movement. And so my point being, do you believe that if your goal is to undermine and eradicate America

and you're running for Congress and you are elected to be a member of Congress, is Congress obligated to seat a sworn enemy of the United States? I would say no. It's a precarious thing. but the vow you take, you swear in, you swear to uphold the Constitution. You don't swear anything else. You don't even swear that you're going to represent your district or the people there. You swear that you're going to uphold the Constitution.

And her statements contradict that. So, yes, I think that there is a case to be made there. But you have to think about the consequences of doing things like that. What does that mean? Does that mean that in the future Democrats who call everyone a fascist are going to say, we're not going to see your people, you know, in the future? Where does that end? I do worry about what door that opens, though, like you say, they will never worry about using power. They will never worry about the constitutionality of what they're doing, really. They're just looking for ways

to circumvent it. So what are we supposed to do on this side? Just sit around and let them destroy this country? I don't know. I don't know. Well, there was a situation in the 60s where the House refused to seat someone who was being investigated for personal and financial misconduct, someone from New York. And the Supreme Court did rule that that exceeded their power because he had met age, citizenship, and residency requirements. So I wonder what that would mean for someone who's trying to destroy the country, whether you have to seat her. Think about culture. When we were growing up, or I was growing up, it was movie after movie and book after book about McCarthyism and how evil it was and how it was the word. Well, you know what? McCarthy was,

he had the right idea in the sense of calling out communists within our institutions. That was true. Like he, he overdid it, I think, in a big way. But he was right. And you would think when I was growing up, you'd think that McCarthyism was the worst thing that ever happened to this country. You would think it was the worst thing that ever happened in the world that some screenwriter couldn't, you know, couldn't work or something, some commie screenwriter couldn't work. But it turned out that most of the things that McCarthy's alleged McCarthyists were saying were actually true. Nixon was right, you know. Who's that conservative who wrote the witness, I forget his name off hand, but he was right about

Aligham. Whitaker Chambers. Yeah, he was right about Alger Hiss. And we're right about these people, but I just, I don't know. It's sometimes interesting to think about how much of what we know is just due to marketing and PR, like the Federalist faced unbelievable. state-sponsored censorship. And most media don't even write about it, even when we say win a lawsuit against the

State Department for their role in that censorship. But as you note, have a bunch of communists trying to undermine the country and getting asked questions about it. Oh, dear. Worst thing in the history of mankind. It's like Nick Christoph had a column about the dog rapists, this little fiction he put up there. And the other week, there was a report. a deep dive, a real report that showed that there were, I don't know if the number is right,

honestly, because it's extrapolated, but I'll just say many, many, many people in Britain, many women were raped by gangs of immigrants and Pakistanis, a lot of them. I don't think a major, I don't think a major newspaper has even reported on that report, which is a good segue to another thing, you know. I started out of Boston. It was a middle school. The principal sends out a letter. the principal's name it's at the school is the william diamond middle school and the principal's name is johnny cole and he sent out a letter to the parents because the muslim children were upset when learning about the holocaust they weren't upset about the the holocaust itself they were upset because they felt insulted by this lesson here's just a line from the letter some of you felt unseen some of you felt like

your own history your identity and your community was left out of or erased. Some of you left that session feeling less safe, not more. I don't even know how to process something so stupid. When I learn about some tragedy somewhere that happened to other people, let's say the Armenian genocide by the Turkish, I don't sit there and go, wow, I feel unseen about the my Holocaust or something bad that happened to me. I mean, what kind of nonsense is this? I just, I can't even believe this is happening in America. Well, in Boulder, Colorado, the ADL filed a federal complaint against the Boulder School District because of their failure to protect a Jewish student there. So various areas.

Here's the problem with that. The ADL spent 20 years being a mouthpiece for the hard left, being a social justice site, smearing people who said things about George Soros and others. So now no one's going to trust them, really, right? So they've helped create this terrible situation for Jewish Americans, the ADL. Jewish Americans need better organizations, nonpartisan organizations to help them. And they're not going to be helped by trying to appeal to people's sympathies either. They have to be aggressive in different ways and fight back against this Islamism and this

wokeism. This is a red-green alliance. Can you imagine being in a Muslim country and telling the students, Oh, we're sorry you felt unseen. We're sorry we hurt your feelings. I mean, it is just incredible how they've mesh these two almost diametrically opposed ideologies to be one, but they've been doing it for a long time. It's just, it's, I'm so 250th anniversary.

It's amazing. I love America. It's the greatest thing that's ever happened to the world. I mean, on a secular sense, I'm sure you disagree. Theologically, but, uh, I just, I think we're in big trouble. Well, yeah, I am, I'm nervous, but we're not in as much. as Europe is. We still can course correct and we have better tools at the hand than they have. So I'm worried but not quite despairing yet. But also just separately from that, I'm just celebrating America

250 right now. I love it. I have flags everywhere in my house. I have purchased red, white, and blue dishes on the theory that I can use them every summer for Independence Day. I'm planning out like what I get to go do for the week of. Got people coming in for the Great American State Fair. I'm just very excited. They're going to be flyovers this week. Oh, nice. Nation's Capital. I know where I'm going to be watching the fireworks. I mentioned I'll be up Mount Vernon on July 2nd. I'll be watching the fireworks from a friend's condo overlooking Iwo Jima on Independence Day. I love fireworks. I think they're great. So I live in an area now where I Why are my neighbors or many of them have American flags up and patriotic stuff?

But when I lived in Maryland or outside of D.C., I used to put the flag out, and I think I was the only one of my entire neighborhood who did it. We had someone coming over to look at our roof, and he said, and we had our American flag out. He's like, I thought y'all would have a gay pride flag out in this neighborhood. We bonded over our shared love of America. And that should not be controversial at all. Should not be controversial. Anyway, culture? Yes, I don't have much.

Well, I have a friend in town and we have been having fun. And I should say, this weekend, we had fun. On Saturday, we went over to the Eastern Shore. Oh, speaking of, Eastern Shore. St. Michael's, Maryland, have you ever been there? Oh, yeah, I love that place. I think they literally had a contest in town to see who could be the most America loving in their decorations. Houses were decorated, businesses were decorated.

It was amazing. Everything looked so beautiful. So that was fun. And we were wearing our America loving clothes. So that was my big culture for the weekend. And then on Sunday, I watched the Michael Jackson movie. Oh, you did? Yes.

I think I could be wrong. I actually need to ask Eddie Scary about this here at the Federalist. I feel like he kept talking about it in a way that made me think that he was saying that it was good to see. but it was like a lifetime movie. It was fine. And the kid playing Michael is an actual family member, and he did a great job. He crushed it.

But it was just not that exciting. And if you know anything about the story, there's nothing new. And then also... I was going to say that they whitewash, and I don't mean his skin, did they whitewash the allegations of sexual, you know, child molestation and all that?

Well, it ended with the bad tour beginning. And it was like more. to come. I'm like, really, we couldn't have gotten the whole movie done in a single movie. So I also want to say, I get that Joseph Jackson was a world-class child abuser. I get that. But I also get annoyed at just making that the central point of the Michael Jackson story. And I also feel like people don't give enough credit. Yes, he was a tough dad in a way that you shouldn't be. And also, the whole reason you know who Michael Jackson is is because of Joseph of Jackson, right? I was in New York last weekend and I saw that on Long Island, I was on

next to the beach and the Jackson's were coming to play for the 20, 250th anniversary. I think maybe on July 4th, I forget. I was like, oh, the Jackson's, Tito and I don't know the others. Germain, yeah. Are they still around? I don't even know. But anyway, they're still playing. Some outfit called the Jackson's is still touring. I know, but I love Janet. Jackson, too. I love her music. She doesn't do much anymore, but she was great. She was great on good times. Do you watch good times? So what about you for culture, David? Not much. I've been working on something, but I did because James Burroughs died. Do you know who that is? Yeah, yeah. He had a lot of shows and movies he did. But so I guess for that reason, I was on one of my streaming services and they had front and center

stuff that he had done. So I started watching Cheers, which I never really got into when it was on. I was young. It was a little, maybe it was like had like an older vibe than my, you know, at the time. So I was watching that and it's pretty, it's pretty funny. I actually quite, I actually quite like it. Did you ever watch Cheers? I've seen every episode of Cheers. Really?

One to three times minimum. Wow. Interesting. As a teenager, I was just like, this is not for me. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. It's pretty good. I love Cheers. And also it was in that sitcom replay zone. where I lived, where every night after the news. Oh, because you were out west. Yeah. And I just, oh, man, I love the writing on there.

Rob Long, noted conservative. Did he write for Cheers? Very much that. Including, Mark and I were talking to him once about one of our very favorite Cheers episodes, which is the one that deals with arcane differences in confessional Lutheranism. And he said that he had to go to the library and look everything up because Woody Harrelson is marrying a fellow Lutheran, but they are slightly, you know, they're different

denominations. I can't remember exactly which one it is. So he had to look up to Concord and all that. I'm not up to that yet. I'm on the first season with Coach. Oh, I love Coach so much. He's the best character in my mind. I mean, he's so funny on that show. I mean, this first season, at least. I'm just a, I'm a fan of his. He died relatively young. Then I just want to quickly say I was watching. One of my kids was watching this, so I sat down and watched it. It's called Picard, right? It's a Star Trek show. And in this, in one of the seasons of the show, they go back in time to 2024, which has been done in other Star Trek vehicles. But anyway, so they go back in time, and they're in our time, contemporary times, walking around. And it was the most woke thing I have ever

seen. The bad guys are ice agents. They're complaining about how people with hoods have traded them in for suits. So it's all BLM. I couldn't even believe how bad it was. And I, you know, I'm so sick of it. So please, please make science fiction shows that we can all enjoy. All right. I think that's it. If you'd like to reach the show, you can do so at Radio at the Federalist.com. We've gotten some good mail lately. We have. Yeah. And we'll be back next week.

Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.

It was a creed. It declared the destiny of the nation. Yes, we came.

Thank you.