‘You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 202: Scott Pelley

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Now back to your podcast. Welcome back, everyone, to a new episode of You're 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 Federal. We'd love to hear from you. So, Molly, are you as broken up as I am about Scott Pelly of 60 Minutes being fired? I don't know what I'm going to do. What am I going to do next week?

For listeners, I think we should explain who Scott Pelley is because I'm not entirely sure he's as much of a household name as he seems to believe he is. He worked at 60 minutes. Is that correct? Yeah. Actually, I think he was in anchor a while back. for CBS News but was kind of fired, as my understanding is. And then he became a 60 Minutes correspondent. He's a, I think he's older, right?

He may even be 70 or something like that. I'm not sure. I actually don't know. I do want to talk about how he handled his departure, but I first want to say that it absolutely cracks me up how in this country, every day many people get fired. I myself have been fired. I'm not saying it's an enjoyable experience, but it has happened.

And nothing, like, makes you realize how self-absorbed corporate media are as the news they devote to the firing of one unimportant individual. It wasn't unimportant. He was one of their chief propagandists. And CBS News's 60 Minutes program was their chief was one of their chief propaganda. vehicles. But the reason why we're talking about all this is that CBS was bought by someone who was not a leftist and who thought that the left wing propaganda was actually causing problems for the product that he had just bought. And he installed Bari Weiss, who's a center-left journalist who does not believe people on the right should be murdered. So she's viewed as a

right-wing extremist by the left to run the show and she's been facing nothing but straight-up rebellion from the left-wing propagandist she's supposed to be in charge of. Is that an accurate way to put it? I would say so. I think we should stop just for a second and point out that even the mildest form of non-leftism is met with institutional like freakouts, right? You can't even have someone who is, in my view, Barry White, I like Bari Weiss. I think Free Press is good, you know, but she's not some crazy conservative right-winger. She's going to probably continue to have left-leaning stuff on the show. For sure, she will.

And I think she just wants some better journalism done or some more even-handed journalism done. That's all. It's not some takeover by Rupert Murdoch or anything like that. You know what I mean? Well, even Rupert Murdoch is not particularly. right wing relative to where like much of the right portion of the country is and he's treated like he's you know this apocalyptic uh right wing zealot but yeah uh Bari Weiss is someone who left the new york times after i believe she left after the freak out over the Tom Cotton op ed this was when

an editor at the new york times solicited a piece of from Tom Cotton arguing that out of control, murderous violent riots maybe should be responded to with force by deploying the National Guard or something like that. That's part of it. That was a majority of the country supports, and yet the New York Times nearly imploded over it. That was the beginning. And then I think she also faced some frustration with the pro-Palestin, side of things at the New York Times.

Is that right? I'm just going to say moving forward in my life, so everyone knows if anyone cares. I no longer I'm going to say pro-Palestine. I'm going to say pro-Hamas, which is what the editorial board of New York, the New York Times is. But she was pro-Israel, yes,

which, as you can imagine, would be very hard to survive there. But she was also against kind of the, where she wasn't, she didn't embrace the kind of racial identitarianism that the 1619, is that what is 1619 project pushed and stuff like that. Again, I'm not pretending she's some kind of like movement conservative or anything like that. She's just kind of an old-fashioned liberal, really.

She's gay, right? And not just right. She also has, you know, procured children with this in this arrangement. So it's not like she's a social conservative to. So she's a culturally a very, you know, she's. culture left wing as well. Anyway, so, but the reaction has been insane. And I guess we should say that they did fire some people at 60 minutes, right?

Sharon Alfancy was her name, I believe. Now, do you know about her? I think from what I've heard, she's been terrible. All I remember about her was something that she should have been fired for many years ago. She created a propaganda piece around the idea that Ron DeSantis was corrupt because Publix was distributing some of the vaccine. And she put out this propaganda through malicious deceptive editing that was, there was no way she could have been confused about the real story because she asked him a question. in a press conference. He absolutely went to town on her about how wrong she was with her framing, and she deceptively

edited to reinforce her false framing. So as everyone who knows anything about Florida knows, Publix is the beloved grocery store chain down there. And yes, Publix had given money to the Ron DeSantis campaign. It's also the main grocery store in Florida. So the way that the Ron DeSantis administration. handled distribution of the Vax was that certain high-risk people got it through like CBS or Walgreens and then like a general distribution went through Publix.

And so she asks a question and it was a clown town question. Can you respond to the reality that you are a corrupt, evil person who hands out favors to friends like giving the vaccine for sole distribution at Publix? and it was that kind of question. He's like, oh, wow, I'm happy to tell you how wrong you are about everything you just said. And so he explains it all. And then she deceptively edited it to make it seem like he was confirming her false framing. No journalistic outlet should continue to exist that does not immediately fire someone engaged in that level of, you know, overtly, of overt line.

And yet, she continued to work there. I mean, how many years ago was this? That was 2020 or possibly 2021. And she continued to work there. And then when Bari Weiss takes over and she starts saying, Real journalism is about to be destroyed. Everybody in the left wing media, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post is like, oh, esteemed award-winning journalist, Sharon Al Bonzi is having trouble,

which makes it clear that Bari Weiss is the problem. because they're also a bunch of left-wing hacks and propagandists. I believe she was, her contract was not renewed recently, which is a little different than Scott Pelly, actually getting fired for cause for his attempt to overtake Bari Weiss and the people she had put in place to run the show. So she hired a guy named Nick Bilton to be the new producer. Again, not some Molly Hemingway or David Harsani here.

This is a person who's a tech journalist at all kinds of left-wing outlets. Scott Pelley just rips into this guy, says Bari Weiss was brought in to destroy 60 minutes, that he, that this person had no, didn't have enough experience to run the show. So I thought that this guy, Nick Bilton, who I know nothing about, tried his best to calm the situation. Like from what I've read, he's just tried to calm him down, say, let's meet in person, tell me what the problem is. Trying to diffuse this situation is probably incredibly difficult for him, honestly. But Pelley keeps going on. So when I read this story, I mean, I don't know how you felt.

I'm like, you have to fire this guy. You can't have someone on the staff. I don't care how long he's been there. Demeaning the boss publicly, probably leaking it. He's in no position to be lecturing anyone. 60 minutes when we were young or when I was young was the news magazine show, like very highly respected, broke a lot of big stories. I always thought it was biased. And over the last 10 years, I think it's been terrible.

Its ratings have gone down, down, down. It's lost prestige. No one ever gets fired. Like just in a capitalistic sense, shouldn't you be looking for ways to improve your program? This is not a government agency. this is a this is a television show and these people think they have some kind of god-given right never to be let go of it from their jobs never to have to change skypelli was making seven million dollars a year can you believe that holy shmolly holy does it make sort of make you want to sell out a little bit and become one of those evil people like that's a lot of money honestly i think i'd be really bad at it yeah i actually think you have to be

a certain level of stupid and evil that, you know, not saying we're the smartest people on planet earth, but we're not, we're not, you can't be super smart and, and. You know that guy John Harwood? Is that his name? Oh, my goodness. So, you know, they remind me in Diehard, there's that scene where the newsmen says, like, Stockholm, Finland and gets like the city's wrong or Helsinki, Sweden or whatever he says. And he looks like he has authority. He looks like a smart guy.

but really is just an airhead. That's what this guy reminds me of and Harwood remind me of. John Harwood was selected by the, you know, presidential debate commission or some group like that. I don't even remember to moderate one of the debates in 2016. And I was so appalled by this. I wrote a piece about how biased and corrupt he was. And everyone was said, John Harwood, the financial journalist.

If you go to his Twitter hole now, every, I mean, he's not even pretending. He's like, the monster Donald Trump must be destroyed, you know. But at that time, he was kind of in that news speak realm where people didn't realize it. I do want to just go through a few things about Scott Pelly because we'd written about him a few times at the Federalist. One of the stories that we published was in just two years ago. And he had interviewed the Moms for Liberty co-founders, Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovic. and they had been criticized by left-wing activists for book banning.

This was where they would take books that taught young children about, you know, sex acts that no children should be taught about. And they would request that they'd be moved from like the young children's section to a non-young children's section. So this is in modern parlance called book banning. And so as he interviewed them, it was clear he had his crazy left-wing framing. So they were reading from the books in question, the sex books in question. And he, again, deceptively edited their video.

The full transcript was released later, and it showed that he had deceptively edited his video to make it seem like they were truly just women who loved banning books and who, they didn't care at all about the content. They were just, you know, evil ladies. Pellie twice accused the mothers of evading the question, said he caught them flat-footed when asking what ideology was present in these books, and asserted that Moms for Liberty was an anti-mask organization. In truth, the books in question were really bad.

Leftist indoctrination in schools really does have. happen. Students' reading skills truly are declining, and Moms for Liberty was an important voice at a time when propaganda outlets like CBS News were pushing some crazy COVID issues. He also, a couple years earlier, interviewed Merrick Garland for 60 minutes. He asks Merrick Garland a question. Merrick Garland says, we do not have one rule. for Republicans and another rule for Democrats. In no way does Scott Pelley push back on the arrests of people outside of abortion clinics, the over-prosecution of J6 rioters relative to all the other rioters on the left at the same time period. It was this complete Puff piece interview.

Okay. In just last year, Scott Pelley wanted to do. to talk about this Trump executive order that was aimed at curtailing frivolous political lawsuits. But he says, I can't get anyone on air to talk about this because of this horrific political climate. So then he brings on Mark Elias, Mark Elias, who paid for the Russia collusion hooks. He actually signed the checks to Fusion GPS when he was the council to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. By the way, Mark Elias lied to reporters about whether he and Hillary Clinton were behind the Russia collusion hoax. In a real journalism society, the moment a source lies to you at that level, he should be exposed and he should be never, ever quoted again for anything, much less brought

on as the sole person to interview for an anti-Trump hit piece. Mark Elias is also the person who orchestrated the campaign to destabilize the 2020 election, which caused so many problems for the country. And he's also behind the lawfare. He's involved heavily in the organizations doing lawfare to fight political outcomes that they loathebox rather than working to win the next election. They go for lawfare, shopping for judges,

who will thwart the will of the people through the actions taken by the people that they elect. he has refused to concede almost every election that he's been part of. And he brings on Mark Elias to say, Donald Trump is the walking embodiment of everything that is wrong with the American political system. You might remember also that Scott Pelley last year gave this ridiculous, sickening, self-important speech about how awesome journalism is. and he called it a moment of crisis that we were in and that we were fighting fascism and that our country was in peril

because Republicans had won elections. He also blamed everybody but the media for the declining trust in journalism. He said, we're all experiencing trouble getting people to appear on our broadcast because of the fear that has spread across the country. No, the reason why six

60 Minutes was having trouble getting people to appear on their broadcasts is because they were known for deceptively editing videos up to and including the sitting president of the United States in order to push their left-wing propaganda. But he never took any responsibility for it. So people should know that Scott Pelly is a very, very bad person. This is Lelipons from Sweet 305 with Lillipons. Sweet 305 with Lelps is brought to you by Durosell. Game day at my house, it's chaos, but the fun kind. The TV's ready, the remotes are ready, the kids' toys are going off,

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and Walmart or on Amazon. This morning, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live.

Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. know the road and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA. Now back to your podcast. It should be said that despite all his terrible journalism, most of these segments on 60 Minutes aren't real journalism at all.

I mean, there's no investigation into anything. They're just regurgitating what they're told. But even after all this, it's not like he was fired. He wasn't fired for that. He thinks he can publicly berate his boss. Listen, if a normal person goes, at a staff meeting and starts calling his boss names and saying he stinks, he's going to get fired. But now, because it's a journalist, it's covered as retaliation. Like he has a guy

given right to be sitting in that seat. One more thing. He also wrote a piece going after Trump for cutting the funding for coronavirus researcher Peter Dajak, claiming that Trump was standing in the way of a cure for COVID, thereby not doing that real journalist. that you just referenced that wasn't being done, of discovering that DASHAC was involved in gain of function research that led to the coronavirus pandemic. But we haven't even talked, by the way, about what Scott Pelly said when he was fired.

Did you see this, David? I was going to read it, but if you want to read it, you can. Go for it. Well, can I just say, I want to just, I know I've mentioned him twice now, But I want to just mention what Nick Bilton said for why he fired the guy. And tell me if this is reasonable or not. Yesterday, this is a letter to Pelley. Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualification, my intentions, with remarkable insolidity and contempt.

I welcome diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was not that sort of thing. Completely reasonable. Here's how Pelley responds to that. I have been in combat in Afghanistan. I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone and Ukraine multiple times risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast. He has been in combat? No, I'm not even putting him down.

You've been in a combat zone. Great. But please don't make it sound like you have a gun in your hand and you're fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, right? he wasn't just claiming to be in combat he claims to have been in combat in multiple theaters right he says I have been in combat in Afghanistan I have been in combat in Iraq I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times risking my life and the happiness of my family I mean it is true Fox News knows this better than anyone that doing this kind of reporting can be deadly. It can lead to loss of life.

It can lead to loss of limbs. Our people have suffered in their coverage of most recently the Ukraine war. So I'm not belittling that. But to compare reading lines on television with being in actual combat is disgusting beyond belief. This man is delusion. someone with this level of delusion should be nowhere near the media business. And he wasn't. He was in the propaganda business.

And he was one of the highest paid propagandists that the left used in their war against the American people. And I should say we're only talking about Scott Pelley because I think it's a reflection of the kind of attitude a lot of the people in established media have about their role, which is no longer the role of a journalist, but something more akin to a political, you know, saviors or political entities and they act accordingly. I think Bari Weiss and everyone else there is going to have an uphill battle here. Trying to salvage what's there now.

I think if you replace what's there now with real journalists, you have a chance of doing something good. But trying to salvage what exists, it's going to be very difficult to me, it seems, at CBS. Yes. It to me seemed, it just reminded me of Brian Williams a little bit, who is now back on air hosting some program for some left-wing network. But do you remember when he got fired from NBC because he had lied about being forced down during the invasion of Iraq in a helicopter after being hit by an RPG?

He claimed he flew into Baghdad with SEAL Team 6 at the start of the war. he claimed that he was at the Brandenburg gate when the wall came down. I mean, he, there is something wrong with these people. They are unable to separate reality from fiction. And yes, people like this should not be allowed to destroy your company. And if you're trying to fix your company, if anything, the problem with Bari Weiss and her team is that they didn't fire these people immediately. I don't think most people even know who Scott Pelly is.

And I don't think most people would be or would really be in a worst place of 60 minutes didn't exist anymore. I just, I don't think it's that big a deal, you know? I also like, I'm like, that's funny. We have great ratings. It is true that you're on after the NFL Sunday show and that that lead in does give you some great ratings. But let's not pretend that any ratings in television are that hot right now. Yeah, their ratings have been going down.

I think they're up a little bit lately. In fact, I think they're up since Bari Weiss took over a little bit, maybe because of just some interest. Anyway.

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There was a lot going on. Don't even know, you know, we had some elections the other day, primaries. Did we? Oh, yeah, we didn't. We taped on Tuesday. So Ken Paxton won his race in Texas, which I think people expected. Immediately he was kind of framed as this corrupt and immoral person.

And frankly, I think he is a pretty corrupt person. I'm not going to lie. But I don't think Democrats are in any position to be talking about anyone's corruption or immorality. when they have now lined up behind Graham Platner, who won, who is going to win his, if he stays in, his race in Maine, who had a Nazi tattoo for 20 years that he very well knew was a Nazi tattoo. And you know how we know, Molly, because now another story just broke that he was on an app called kick with a shirt off in a picture. I guess it's a hookup site. I don't know, really.

I mean, or, you know, but he was speaking to up to six women. I love when politicians say up to six women. That means six women, probably more. But did you notice in that picture with his phone that was out there while he was married early in his marriage, which is, I think he got married in 2023, covers his little Nazi tattoo that he had no idea, had anything to do with the SS. Everyone still backs him other than John Fetterman and maybe another, I think there's a Democrat up somewhere in New England in the House who said something. Ken Paxton, you like him or not, he's a mainstream conservative, right? His positions on policy are mainstream. And he's running against James Talarico, who is just far off leftist who has appropriated Christianity and inverted it and uses it to, listen, I'm not Christian, so I don't know.

You guys can believe what you want, but it seems to me like he's appropriated faith and retrofitted it with all kinds of. insane, woke ideas. That's the choice. In Maine, Susan Collins is the choice. The most moderate milk, didn't she vote to convict Donald Trump? Like, she is the most moderate senator in the whole institution. I don't mean the most moderate Republican. I mean the most moderate person in the whole place, probably, right? The most centrist person there is. That's the choice. So please, it's not the same. I noticed when some of the fans of Graham Platner were trying to defend him over the most recent accusations that are coming out, they said, it doesn't matter because you have to beat

this Nazi or like radical right-wing person, Susan Collins. And this left-wing Democrat group called Republicans for Trump, which sprung, it was one of these, again, propaganda out against Trump. candid type places where they claimed they were Republican who were fighting Trump. Usually people who have been professional Republicans for insert left wing thing for their whole careers. You can, Scott Pelly loves these groups, as does every other member of the corporate media. Oh, even Republicans oppose this person. So Republicans for Trump always claimed, we are Republican. We just can't have someone like Donald Trump. We care about integrity. They've got Graham Platner.

And then they've got Susan Collins, as you note, truly the most moderate member of the Senate. And by that, I mean, actually, she is moderate. She's also a very liberal Republican. She's pro-abortion. You know, she does not share social conservative values or really many other conservative values. She is a very good senator for the state of Maine. and I've covered her for nearly 30 years now. She's a very thoughtful person, but very moderate.

And quote unquote, Republicans against Trump says, you've got to be with Graham Platner. This again should mean that they are never quoted in any other, or that you have to be, sorry, that you have to be against Susan Collins, is what I should have said, because they're trying to get the current governor of Maine to reactivate her campaign. That is the only thing I will point out here. When we have bad things come out about a Democrat candidate, such as Eric Swalwell or Graham Platner, it is not because

journalists are doing their jobs. It is because Democrats want to eliminate that person from contention. It was so obvious that both of these revelations about these men, which were easily found probably by someone with the tremendous resources of a CBS news or a New York Times really was coming out not because they report impartially, but because they were worried Graham Platner would not beat Susan Collins and they needed him out of the race to get that main governor back in the race. I've made this argument numerous times. Democrats will never turn on a candidate unless there's no real price to pay. Turning on Eric Swalwell didn't matter. or Democrats going to win that district.

Democrats probably going to be governor. It did matter. It ensured that Democrats would do better. Right, exactly. It wasn't because they took a stand. So there was this woman was running in Texas. Her name was Maureen Galindo, right? And she said that she wanted to put American sinus concentration camps and castrate them.

And all the Democrats came out and say, boy, that's anti-Semitic. They did that because they knew they wanted the other. Democrat to win. As you say, they'll have a better chance to win. You have a guy with a Nazi tattoo. They had a big meeting. Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer, who wrote a book about anti-Semitism last year in America, endorsed him. No one has stepped off the endorsement because there's a serious price to pay if they do. I know you're saying that Janet Mills might get back in, but I think it is, it's a mess, right? It's a mess now if he's running. This is one of the war. candidates I've ever seen.

Here's another thing about him. He's a fraud, right? It's this whole populist idea that you want working class people running for office. I'm not really against it. I want a working, you know, working class people who are successful, have different skills and understand how things work in different areas of America that matter and they should be represented. But this Graham Platner guy's not, you know, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's

comes from a rich family, went to a boarding school and all that. But this I read really blew my mind. You know how he's always saying is an oyster farmer? Yes. Okay. So his business partner is a super rich New England boarding school person as well who went to Dartmouth. That's his partner in this. And they, he bought a farm on an island in Maine.

the primary purchaser, almost the only purchaser of those oysters, is a casual fine dining restaurant owned by Graham Platner's mother. That's his only customer. So does that sound like a working class oyster farmer who's just hardscrabble life, got him to that point and he lifted himself up? He's also harbor master. He's always talking about that. Have you seen this story?

No. It means nothing. He does nothing. It's not a real. position. He never does harbor masters. People do it for themselves. It's a small town, which is fine. You can live your life. I don't care if your, you know, your mom's buying your oysters or if you're a fake harbor master. But what I do care about is when you portray yourself as a man in the people. This is the norm for commies doing this all the time,

you know? Hasan Piker, Nepo baby. Bernie Sanders, three houses. In any event. no one's backed off him podcast bros Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Chuck Schumer so what do you think is going to happen here I don't know I do think he's done and I think he's done because the Democratic Party wants him to be done

as far as how the race goes I'm not sure I do think you know Susan Collins is effective I'd previously said I believe on this show that I thought Graham Platner had a very good shot at winning. This was before most of this came out, but it just seemed he had this energy of that. He had the energy in support of the left wing base, but I do not think he will be able to survive this. I could be wrong. How do how do the whole point of hating one of the big points of the

never trumpers, the bulwark or whatever, was the degradation of our morality as far as our political leaders go and so forth. They're all out there. they are saying. I'm not sure. I wish I had the quotes in front of me saying like it doesn't even matter if he's enough. I don't care what he did because beating Trump is more important than all that. And I am actually going to say that if your position is that we taking the Senate's more important than any one candidate, I get that. That is actually a position I can embrace. I get what you're saying. But stop lecturing me about Ken Paxton. Stop lecturing me about Donald Trump's marital problems in the past or whatever. Stop talking about that because you don't actually.

actually care about that just in the same way that Republicans aren't going to care about it because that's just the norm of politics. The difference here, of course, is that you're dealing with candidate Susan Collins, who's a very, like you say, thoughtful, she represents Maine well. I think she actually is a good representation of where that state is in a lot of ways, seems to me. I'm no expert. Wait, so you do think he survives this? I don't know. He might. I don't know that people care anymore.

I don't know. I think about this a lot because I actually don't like it when people who are adulterers run for office or are elected. And we certainly have a lot of people with these bad moral problems and failings. It's almost like the profession attracts people with some of these problems.

This is Lelipons from Sweet Thurie. 305 with Llepons. Sweet 305 with Llepons is brought to you by DuraSel. Game Day at my house, it's chaos, but the fun kind. The TV's ready, the remotes are ready, the kids' toys are going off, somebody's blasting music in the kitchen, and suddenly everybody needs batteries at the exact same time. That's why I keep my DuraCol batteries stocked.

They keep for 12 years in storage, so you know they're really good whenever you need them. And Duraso just released limited edition Durosol and messy battery packs. The design is inspired by Messi's iconic left-leg tattoo. So every battery feels like it comes with an extra kick, the messy level power for all your everyday devices. From the TV remote to automatic corkscrew, Dressel keeps us game day ready.

Dressel double and triple A batteries are the only ones built different with power boost ingredients for long-lasting performance. So whether you're hosting the whole crew or just trying to survive the halftime chaos, power your devices with the battery brand trusted, for all of it, Duracel. Find the limited addition Duracel and messy batteries

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But I do think there's a difference between, first of all, I think there's a difference between what you might call normal adultery and some of what's being alleged in the case with Graham Platner. And I also think... Normal adultery. What happened to just cheating with your secretary once in a while? What's What's going on here? And I also think that a lot hinges on what are people, like I think about the average Texas voter. I don't think the average Texas voter loves voting for someone who's alleged to have cheated on their wife like Ken Paxton. And say what you want about John Cornyn.

And they do find excitement with Graham Platner. They do think that he's just unabashed in his support for socialism. And they are looking for that in a candidate. And so they're willing to overlook some of these other things. I just can't help but think there are too many of these things now. That if it if the, and that he hasn't done enough. He hasn't shown like, again, say what you want about Ken Paxton. As attorney general of the state of Texas, he's been a monster.

Like, he's been great. He's advanced the issues that Texans care about, and he's shown that he's able to do it in a competent way. Graham Platner can't even run an oyster farm. Here's the thing, though. I don't know that he would have won anyway, right? I don't know that he beats Susan Collins, even if he has nothing going on. We didn't even mention all the terrible things he said about, you know, Marines and women and everything else on his Reddit post. he even without all that he's a crazed socialist a pro hamas crazed socialist a person who i think

hates the american system who's going to help destroy the supreme court who's going to vote for everything that Bernie Sanders wants to do and when you look at polling and again we always talk about how polling is not very you know i don't specifically believe all the numbers but progressive ideas are not popular he just looks like an every man but he doesn't have every man believes or anything like that. It's just this aesthetic thing. What I found really disturbing, I'm not surprised by anything that guy does. He pushes his first thing he does when this comes out is he pushes his wife out on video to say what a great man he is rather than defending himself.

I found that really gross. But and then the first tweet he puts out is all about how there's so much too much, you know, Jewish money coming after him through Susan Collins. Like that's the first thing he did. big text on APAC and he lied. He said a third of the money came from APAC, which was a lie. Speaking of the Supreme Court, did you hear what happened with Amy Coney Barrett's family? I heard there was a potential swatting incident going on, which is very dangerous. Someone tried to get her swatted and reported like some extreme violence in the home. So what happens with swatting is that you spoof a call as coming from a certain number and you claim.

that someone shot his wife or there's someone's got a gun and they're they're acting crazy and that gets the police to the police swap team to come to the house guns blazing and confront the situation but because it wasn't a real call the people inside the house aren't aware that the people entering their house with guns are police and so it can lead to violent confrontations and has led to violent confrontations in the way that any time the police enter a house that they're not supposed to, it can cause problems. So someone tried to do this. And it's a reminder of the, what is happening on the left with attacks on the court, that they aren't just about packing to achieve a certain outcome, but also violent threats, which the justices face regularly.

I wrote about it in my book, Samuel Alito, some of what these justices have been going through, Amy Coney Barrett having to wear a bulletproof vest, you know, put that on in front of her children. She does still have young children at home, as do other justices. And of course, they have spouses and family members and neighbors. And not much has been done to combat the left-wing violence, the coordinated efforts to attack these people. You know, when they riot or protest outside the homes of Supreme Court justices, there's coordination from actual groups for that. funding, coordination, planning, you know, logistics of getting everybody involved. They're willing to pay people to say where they spot a Supreme Court justice so they can

disrupt their dinner. And this has led to this complete disparity in treatment of the justices. Left-wing justices can go on fancy trips with the finest wines and the greatest accommodations and they can go to law schools and be celebrated. And then the Republican appointed justices frequently cannot go out to dinner. And this is one of the ways that you can attack rule of law. Because you need really high quality people, which we have on the court right now with one or two exceptions.

And if you know that if you are nominated and appointed by, you know, nominated by a Republican and appointed to the Supreme Court, that your children and wife might be. killed. It's one thing to say we should have good men who are willing to face all. It's kind of another step when it's the facing all includes attacks on children and spouses. Do you think generally does seem to me like we had a higher standard, certainly of knowledge and intellect and debating skills and all of that, but also maybe as we had a higher higher standard for for morality from politicians than we do now. Do you think that's true or now?

I don't know. I do truly believe that the country is getting, the quality of our education has diminished. I don't know what percentage of people were getting a high quality of education before. I also think the openness of the immorality is a big problem. There's something to be said for hiding or shame,

which I think we did use. to do in at least some in at least some way. Well, I didn't mean that we were dumber as a society. I actually don't believe that's true. I meant do you think like you mentioned with the court that people who are good people who are smarter people feel like politics is not for them, they can accomplish more in the real world. They don't want to be involved in it.

It seems like we have dumber and dumber politicians to me or that maybe dumber and dumber, the dumber you are, the more successful you can be. like just compare what the debates are like to what they were in the past it's just not it's not the same I'm not saying that the people in the past were saints or that you know they were all intellectuals but they just I don't know

it seems to be maybe more issue driven than personal attacks maybe we're just so far apart on what we believe in that we really have nothing to debate anymore I don't know what it is but it seems to be like dumber people in politics than there you used to be. I will say, at least as it comes to the Supreme Court, it used to be that we put people on there for political reasons. For sure. And they're not that way now. I mean, they really are

quite academic, quite intellectual, again, with one or two exceptions. And so at least in that, in that sector, I agree. I agree. I said many times, I think the court's the only properly functioning institution in America. Though I do worry, who's going to want to become a Supreme Court justice. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. After seeing what Brett Kavanaugh went through, for instance, recently or having to worry about swatting. Yeah, I mean, that is, that is something to definitely think about. There's always some brave people, hopefully, who will do it, and I do respect that. All right, there were some other elections that went on yesterday. I just quickly want to mention there was a guy named Adam Hamawi, I think, is his name. I'm unsure exactly. I had a

pronounce it. He won his New Jersey district in the primary, which is near New York. It's like Patterson, New Jersey, I think. This guy was friends with the blind sheik who tried to bring them the towers in the 90s. He literally defended the guy afterwards. I believe in court, right? And that's not why the blind cheek went to jail. The blind she went to jail because he was sentenced for a seditious conspiracy for a planned day of terror in New York in 1995. But anyway, then the guy joined a al-Qaeda front, volunteered for an al-Qaeda front in Europe. Wow. And he is now, he is now the Democratic Party candidate in, I forget what district in New

Jersey, just mind-boggling 20-something years after 9-11, right near ground zero. Another race I thought was interesting was in Los Angeles. They have kind of a runoff election. so Karen Bass, I think, was in the lead. But the two others, though I'm not sure that they know. Like, how could they not have it figured out in one night? It's just Los Angeles. We have the whole country figured out in a night.

But anyway, Spencer Pratt and another candidate named Nithya Raman. This is Lelipons from Suite 305 with Lillipons. Suite 305 with Lelopons is brought to you by DuraSel. Game Day at my house, it's chaos, but the fun kind. The TV's right. ready, the remotes are ready, the kids' toys are going off, somebody's blasting music in the kitchen, and suddenly everybody needs batteries at the exact same time. That's why I keep my Durasol batteries stocked. They keep for 12 years in storage, so you know they're really good whenever you

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and it does decrease trust in. the results. When Florida has an election and they have extensive mail-out balloting, they know the results with certainty within the hour of the polls closing. That's how they run their elections. In California, they have extensive ballot harvesting operations. They have lots of overseas voters. I think they allow illegal people to vote in certain jurisdictions for certain races. I mean, there's just so much going on and it takes forever. But it seemed like the polling for Los Angeles had the three candidates, the two left wing candidates and Spencer Pratt, the three main candidates, each getting, you know, around 30% of the vote or more. So whichever two win the runoff,

I don't know how much it matters for Spencer Pratt because he would need to win like half or more of the next person or the other person who. So I'm sorry. Even if he gets the runoff. Do you know what I'm saying? Like if like, if two thirds of the of Los Angeles is voting Democrat or socialist no matter what and a third are like, I'll vote for Spencer Pratt. He seems to care about the homeless problem, the drug problem, the fire problems, the administration of government problems. Even if he wins that runoff by getting by coming in second.

Right. First. It would be such a huge. lift for him to defeat in the general. However, it's possible. He does seem to have an interesting and exciting campaign if he makes it that far. So, yeah, so let me just clarify something I said before. So Karen Bass moves forward.

Media, media organizations can project these things even before. Obviously, California says they happen. So now those other two I mentioned, Pratt and the other one. So whoever wins between them, it's a one-on-one runoff. I believe so. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so that seems unlikely. If you had a three-way race, some progressive running,

maybe you can sift enough votes off to win, just happened elsewhere in politics. But if it's one-on-one, it seems very highly unlikely. Hey, or these urban areas keep voting for people who are destroying their cities and they just want more. They'll give me more. I want more. I want more Karen Bass.

I want Zohran Mamdani. So you get what you get. All right. I want to talk about culture? Sure. I don't have a lot at all. I've been working on a book. I say this every week.

But I guess I'll go first. I did watch the show that I mentioned a few weeks ago. That was an older show that I watched, the new season dropped. It's called The Four Seasons. It was originally an Alan Alder movie. Has Tina Faye and the original series had Steve Correll, has Will Forte.

who I kind of lie. You know Will Forte is? I do. I've also watched the first season and now have started the second season. Oh, okay. Will Forte is funny. But I think the way he speaks

in a more serious role is very hard to digest for me. It's too cartoonish. I struggle. This is a well-written show. So if you care about that, this is a good show to watch. I struggle with a few things.

One, I hate his awkwardness with his character. I don't enjoy that. I don't know why so many shows and movies and they put people like that in. I don't like that type of man. I don't like to encounter it. I find the women in this show to be hilarious. The woman who was in Reno 911,

she plays the role of Anne. She's delightful. And then Tina Fey is also very good, and I think she's the director. of the show or at least some of the... She was like the writer and creator, yeah. She might have directed one episode or something, but I actually did not like the show.

I did not like the second season at all. Okay, I'm only two in. I didn't love the first season, but it's so well written that I'm like, I'll keep going. I have some issues with the gayness of the show, too. It's really gay. Like the first season had a subplot where the two people, you know, it's four, three couples.

Is that right? Three couples. One, two, two, four couples, right? The gay couple, the couple where the person, Steve Correll was part of. Oh, yeah, three, three couples. So the gay couple is inserted into this show in a way that is not true to the original, right? there was no gay couple in the original and the whole idea is we're all just couples doing a doing couple things but the gay couple there jokes about how non-monogamous they are now in one

sense this is very true to the typical gay experience that monogamy is not a norm associated with quote unquote gay marriage monogamy as a norm for marriage is because when you have sex with other people, babies can happen. And so we encourage throughout all societies and all times and, you know, place in history, monogamy or some type of orderly fashion to your sexual coupling because children are a natural product of the sexual union. And sexual union means man and woman in sexual Congress. And so other entities having sex don't create this. situation. So they're openly talking about bringing other people into their quote unquote marriage or into their, you know, they have sex with other people. And then season two starts and they're like,

should we have a baby? It's like, no, no, baby should not come into this environment. That is definitely not a healthy or safe thing. And yet we're all supposed to just forget that the previous season, they were engaging in this type of sexual behavior. I agree generally, but I have to say, I think that that couple, those are the two best actors on the show. Oh, I mean, the Italian guy. He's great. When he, in the season two, it involves a situation where they have to keep scaling the same mountain. And he was like, I am not a funicular.

I cannot be expected to keep climbing this. And I'm just, I mean, just great lines like that. He's great. He really is. And so I overlook some of the kind of stuff. But let me ask you this without giving the show away. You have a man who cheats on his wife and has a mistress. The man dies.

And the mistress is pregnant, but they have not yet been divorced a couple. Does the wife in that relationship become best friends with the mistress who has a child of her husband? Do you think that that's a plausible relationship? I would not find that plausible. No. Right. Thank you. The first season had a lot of, they brought in a younger person, so there was a lot of that tension between Gen Xers and Gen Z, I guess. I don't think the second season, you haven't watched the whole thing, has that dynamic and it sort of was wallowing for me a bit. Anyway.

So what do you have? I don't really have anything else. I didn't see anything else. I had a very dear friend who I've known for a long time come out to visit this past weekend. And so we did a lot of just stuff around town. We went to the Bible Museum where I'm a member. Have you ever been there? No.

And they have a very cool Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. And so checked that out. It was nicely done. Bible Museum is great. It's, you know, they go through everything. So the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, and it's very interactive, which I appreciate. It's good for all ages. If you're visiting Washington, D.C., I would recommend this museum.

Every time I take someone there, young or old, they love it. And some of their permanent exhibits are things, like they do an interactive walk through what they call the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. And it tells the basic story of Old Testament. scriptures. I think they're redoing their New Testament. I like their New Testament thing, which was actually a video told from the perspective of John. But they also have some quasi-ride type situation where you can be on something where you see where scripture is quoted in Washington, D.C. You like zoom around the city, or it seems like you're zooming around the city, seeing those things.

They have good art exhibits. But the Dead Sea Scrolls one was really, about, you know, how these were located, how they were authenticated, what they tell us about the, what they tell us about the people who wrote and hid them or put them in the caves, what they tell us, yeah, about Jewish life around that time, how they match with other scriptures, some of what's there that isn't in other places. And, you know, it was just, it was really interesting and well done. And you get to see them. And then they also have, you know, a facsimile of what. what they would look like all rolled out. Very cool stuff.

Yeah, the Detsy Scroll story is an amazing one for sure. All right. Well, that's nice. Okay. If you'd like to reach the show, please do so at Radio at theFederalist.com. Love to hear from you, and we'll be back next week.

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