‘You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 190: The Warpath

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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 a show, please do so at Radio at the Federalist.com. We'd love to hear from you. Molly, there's a war on. A lot of negativity out there. Have you noticed that about the war, or am I misreading what's going on? No, I think that we are taping this on day like 11 or something of the war. It's in the early days. It seems that there are debates about the war, but the war itself seems to be going fairly well, as you might expect, given our overwhelming military might. What are you hearing, though? You're hearing negativity? Yeah. I mean, maybe I have the, I mean, maybe I'm on Twitter or X too much because I think that's a place where negativity thrives. But people are already kind of wringing their hands over how long it's taking over, you know, the, the, the oil prices, legitimate concern, right, especially oil prices, even though they've dropped today. significantly from the other day. But you don't know, I can't predict what's going to happen there and neither can anyone else. But I think the war is going spectacularly well, far better than perhaps any military conflict we've engaged in in the sense that we have decapitated the enemy. We are meticulously destroying their entire military infrastructure. We have gone after their leadership, the Revolutionary Guard within the country. I, you know, I don't know exactly because we don't know exactly what all the aims are as far as getting to certain kinds of nuclear material or whatever. No war is perfect. War is always going to have unintended consequences like we discussed, but I think it's going incredibly well. The messaging hasn't been great always, but. Even if we picked up and left today, we would have accomplished a lot against a sworn enemy of the United States that has been after us for 47 years in different ways. Well, I was looking at there was a major effort to put forth polling showing that Republican voters love the war. And by and large, you do see very strong support among Republicans for the war. And then you see much softer support among Democrats, but even independents who are much. closer to Democrats than they are Republicans on this issue. I think if you look at that another way, though, these polls are showing basically what do you think of Trump? And even the way the questions will be asked, do you support President Trump's war in Iran? You know, do you support President Trump?

handling of the war in Iran. And so people are just answering, do you support President Trump or not? And it's hard to get a really good analysis of what those numbers mean. Particularly this early in, if things continue to go as well for the Americans, as that's us, as they have thus far, I think you will see even you know, you will continue to see those high numbers from Republicans. It is also true that if it goes on for a long time, if it's very disruptive to oil markets, if... If it's where you're starting to see a supplemental have to be put forth for a lot of money, you will maybe see more diversity of thought among each group of those polled. But thus far, people trust Donald Trump to engage in war fighting better than his predecessors. But part of that does mean that you're not going to do a big nation building war that continues, I believe, to not be as popular even among Republicans. What do you think? You make a very good point about polling because when you dive into those polls, it's not just absolutely a lot of them tie it to Donald Trump, which is both a positive probably and a negative depending if you're a Democrat or Republican, but they also, the sequences of questions. So essentially they'll say like Donald Trump has started a war with Iran, you know, and the next question will. So it'll be connected to Donald Trump in some way. And so you see the normal splits that usually happen. So I don't really trust those polls. But again, I don't know. I am out of touch with the American people in that way. I don't, you know, I, for me, this seems like a very good thing to do, but I understand why other people wouldn't feel the same way. I get it. Do you think if it was a different president that the polls would look completely different? Would more people be for it? Were more people be against it? Like, is it just because it's Donald Trump that everyone's staking out these positions? Or is there an American? You know, is there some kind of, do Americans have some kind of belief in how we should use the military? I mean, I think it would be wildly different, but it's impossible to separate the two things right now. If Joe Biden were doing this, it would be prosecuted in a very different way. If George W. Bush were doing this, it would be done in a very different way. Who is leading the effort? has everything to do with whether you support it or not, both good and bad. So I don't even know how you would ask the question without having, you know, if you're saying like, if this were a generic person prosecuting this war, would it look differently? But it's never a generic person. It's always someone in particular. I totally get that who leads a war is part of why you would feel more secure in it or not. My point is that the argument that it's, we're all.

Donald Trump is doing this, so don't worry. Trust the plan, all of that. I don't love that. I mean, you have to have some kind of idea. Do you think it's right to eliminate Iran as a threat to the United States? Do you think it's right to go in and take away their nukes? I get that I don't think, you know. On that, I would be more curious to see how it breaks down. More by age than anything else. You notice that people who remember 1979, which at this point is people who are, you know. The olds. Yeah, I get it. I don't remember 1979. I do. So, yeah, people who are older are going to have had a longer history of disliking Iran, much like people who are older are going to have natural distrust of the Soviet unions. you know, major state, which is Russia. That plays in. I do not think younger people in any way have the same idea about this war as older people do. I'm sure you agree with that, right? No, overall, yeah. I mean, obviously your background and your history in the world and what you've seen plays a part in that. Do you think that when people get older, they become? more open to this sort of thing or less open? I feel like when you get older, you have a longer term view of history and you sort of change maybe this is maybe this wishful thinking on my part. I don't know if it's that so much as you are a product of the era in which you grew up. And if you are an older person coming out of World War II, which was a dramatic success for Americans working with allies. you will have a different belief about what's possible with use of the military than if your only experiences are the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, Libya. You know what I mean? It's different. Now we have a little bit of a different situation. Donald Trump has had very successful military interventions and he's done them in a way different than those other conflicts. Usually it's very quick. It doesn't have... democracy building aspects to it that we saw in some recent efforts, not just under Bush, but Obama and Clinton. And so I don't think it's that you get smarter or wiser as you get older, although we tend to do that, even so much as how deeply do you understand the success that's possible with the military?

We finally found a point to argue maybe. I completely disagree about World War II. World War II, if we had the same kind of, if we had the internet during World War II and people saw the massive casualties that the Americans took just to take a hill or just to move forward by a few miles, I'm not sure that they would view it the same way. And World War II is the biggest democracy building regime change war that has ever existed in the history of mankind. We literally demanded unconditionally. surrender of Japan and of Germany and instituted democratic governments in those countries and rebuilt them. They were huge successes in that regard. We're talking about completely separate things right now. I was talking about if you were a product of the World War II generation, you saw success with your military. If you were a product of the Gulf War. Afghanistan war era, you're going to have a different view of it. I'm not talking about whether any of those wars were right or wrong or justified or not justified, but simply people who grew up in the post-World War II era were in a period of great optimism, great patriotism. It's just different for different generations. And I think it's worth contemplating that. Well, for sure, I agree with you on the aspect that we are prosecuting this war to win and for American interests and not for the interests of other people. Even on that point, I actually think that's always been a real unifying theme for Americans. They're not super jazzed about having our military everywhere. But if we do have our military somewhere, they want to win. They want people's lives and money to be treated respectfully. Yeah, they want it to also have like a strategy for success. And so this is where we go back to those poll numbers for Trump. If you don't trust Trump already. You might be more anxious about what are we doing there? What are the goals? Why have they not been communicated more clearly? If you do trust Trump, you just think those questions are silly. It's like, trust the plan. He's always done it. Well, thus far, it's going to work out fine. Or if you have been wanting to bomb Iran for a long time, you're just happy about it. You know, like this is something Lindsey Graham has really wanted for a long time. He's very happy. Gosh, the isolationist right? I'm not throwing you in there. They are so lucky Lindsey Graham's around because he says ridiculous things all the time. He pretends he's king of America and you could punish the Saudis, punish the Syrians. I saw him on TV for not helping out. But yet he's literally the only real neocon out there. I have literally not heard a single person talk about nation building or talk about this in the way that he has. He's a lone voice here. I'm not a fan of him, but I don't think we should undersell how important he is, right? You know, the Wall Street Journal reported that he had personally been involved in crafting.

the conversation with Israel about how they would convince Trump to get involved. I mean, he's not an uninfluential figure. He's someone who President Trump definitely talks to. And you could like him or dislike him, but I think it's okay to acknowledge that he has played a role in this conflict. I don't believe that story for a second, but I will say this. Yes, he has a voice. I can tell you this. He's definitely telling people that he played that role. Yes, this administration has the Marco Rubio's and on the edge, the Lindsey Graham's, but also has the JD Vance's and other people in the administration who are probably much more, you know, who are far less inclined to do that. You should hear both sides. Anyway, I guess. I think Marco Rubio, from what I've heard from my reporting, probably was pretty similar in his perspective. In fact, I would say there hasn't been a huge diversity within the administration. on whether to do this or not. This plan really is a Donald Trump plan more than a Pete Hegseth or Marco Rubio or a JD Bans plan. Yeah. Like they're serving him, they're supporting him and they're serving him well, I think, but they're not the originators of this based on my reporting. I have no reporting. I trust your reporting, but I just don't believe that JD Vance would ever do this, ever. And I'm not sure that Mark. What do you think he's, like, what does that have to do with what I said, though? Well, you're saying that everyone's on the same page and it's just Donald Trump's plan. Don't you think that Mark or Marco Rubio? Okay. Listen to what I'm saying. They're not, they were not the originators of this plan, even as they are supporting Trump, which I do believe each one is quite publicly supportive of Trump. But they didn't, this plan did not come from a Pete Hegseth or a Marco Rubio or a JD Vance. This was. more in Donald Trump plan than theirs. I get that. But I'm just saying that I could see a president Marco Rubio militarily acting against Iran if it would not agree to limit its nuclear program or whatever. I just don't see that happening with a lot of the other people in that administration. That's all I'm saying. I don't, I don't. Well, like, I mean, I think with the Venezuela situation, that was that was something that originated out of the Pentagon, I believe. So it was very successful. And it was very successful, yeah. And they worked very hard on coming up with a plan that would be achieved with. I mean, it's just so remarkable. That whole thing was done under in under a day, just a few hours. I mean, it's really impressive. There are people who are comparing that operation to the Iranian thing, which is, it's just very different. Iran is of far superior military power in a way. It's far away. There are other intricate things that dealt with. Culturally. Yeah. Very different geographically. We'll see. You could accomplish a lot in Venezuela just by going in there and grabbing Maduro. You don't do that with this entrenched IRGC.

It doesn't really matter if you take out the head. There are many layers below it. They're not rational actors in the way. They believe they're rational in how they view the world, but they don't view the world as someone who is trying to hold on to power in Venezuela, right? Who is going to be more apt to work with Donald Trump not to lose power, hopefully moderate that country. Maybe Cuba's next. I mean, you hear a lot about that. I think I just don't think countries like that should exist in our hemisphere, frankly, who are our enemies. And but we'll see what happens. I saw some people when I think it was Lindsey Graham maybe, but maybe someone else who said, and Cuba's next. And some people were like, oh my gosh, really? But I think Cuba is a much greater or much easier to understand problem, not a greater problem than Iran. But it is insane that they have just been allowed to pose problems from such a close proximity to our country. They're right there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to see an invasion and a regime change. Iran style. I would like to see what happened in Venezuela, happened to them, or maybe not even happened to them. Maybe just threaten them and see what they're amenable to some sort of agreement to reform in some way. We'll see. You want to move on? Maybe. I just, I was going to ask. There was something you said that. made me want to ask a question about you're not entirely sure what all the goals of this war are. But also you said that you think it has been so successful that even just with what's been accomplished thus far, you could kind of call that a day or say, you know, take the win and move on. What are your thoughts on that going forward? Do you want them to articulate more clearly specific goals? Do you want them to just kind of wrap it up and get out? Do you want to, does that make sense what I'm asking? Yeah, I think they need to clean up the messaging. I think it should be simpler. I think it's been better lately, but still not great. I think like I said last time, there are an array of possibilities. The best case scenario is regime change. I went back to see what Donald Trump said about that. And listen, I'm not here to defend Donald Trump's rhetoric. I think it's very messy. But he didn't. When he was talking about regime change, he was talking about the people rising. We, because of what we're doing for ourselves, have allowed and given the opportunity for Iranians to rise up against their regime. I think that's a long shot regime change is incredibly hard through just an air war. So I don't know if that's going to happen. I think that's the best case scenario and that's what they're hoping for it. The idea that Donald Trump has to go out there while a war is raging and let everyone know exactly what he wants to do and let the enemy know exactly wants to do is not the norm. He, they have, I'm sure, operations that are are happening right now to procure, for instance, the nuclear.

you know, the enriched uranium. I'm sure they know what they're going after. I'm sure there's a plan. People who pretend there's no plan don't understand how military works. And we've shown that we're a very competent military right now. So I hope, I think we've weakened them tremendously. It will probably take them decades. But if we have allowed their nuclear program to survive in some way, I think that's a big problem because then you have to go back again. And I hope that we never have to go back again. So. I don't exactly know when I said I don't know is because I don't know what these operations entail. But it's still a victory for us to weaken them tremendously in their military and their ability to undermine American interests. I think there's still work to be done because they could still obviously create problems in the Straits of Harmuz and, you know, in oil delivery for the whole world, which matters. It's a fungible commodity. It's not that simple. Though we. use very little Gulf oil, frankly. I mean, we get most of our oil from Canada, Mexico, and we make it ourselves. So I don't know. I don't know. Hold on a tangent. Yeah. On that point, though, it's true that we don't get much oil through the streets of promos, but Europe does. A lot of their products are, are. able to be made because of that oil coming through there. And this is why we were targeting the putis in Yemen because they were making shipping difficult in the straight supremac. So. So we are clearly doing this war in conjunction with Israel. And I have thought that Israel isn't giving away what they're doing there, but they've done a pretty good job of messaging. Part of that I think is because Iran is an existential threat to Israel. Everyone understands in that country, you know, even you see it in the support that. Benjamin Netanyahu has in his country for what he's doing with this war. Everyone understands Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map. And they seem to have a clarity of explaining that that would be good, I think, for the Americans to follow in explaining why they're doing this, what the general plan is. Getting that messaging out to people is important because part of, you know, this is using our money and our boys. And so you do want to have broad buy-in from the public. You do have a lot of that among Republican voters already. They're enthusiastic about this war, or at the very least supportive. And I would just even understand that we have different interests than Israel. We should be communicating in a way similar to what they're doing in terms of just getting that message to the people.

Does that make sense? Yeah, but it's very difficult because we have a far more complex case to make to voters about the long-term problems that a nuclear Iran would pose to us. And though I think we share many of the same interests as Israel, we also have broader interests that include China, where Israel's interests are more narrowly focused on proxy armies that are literally bombing their people. So it's easier case to make. You know what I mean? But if the Iranian regime. I agree. It's still good to do that kind of communication. They have done a lot better military planning than messaging planning, I think, in the White House. I think Marco Rubio has been the best, but even his words can be taken out of context sometimes and have been. So they should clean it up. But it is a tough, it's tough to explain a lot of it. It's tough to explain a preemptive war that maybe saves, you know, it's tough like the line of immunity where Iran has these ballistic missiles and it makes it into a far more dangerous war. That's difficult to explain. Maybe it's not difficult. Maybe they don't give the American people enough credit. I don't know. But it is to message that in a soundbite when you're on Fox News or wherever you are making the case, super, super difficult, I think. And then the other thing I would just say, and I mentioned this on Fox News Sunday, was that Republicans are supportive of President Trump, pretty much across the board, whatever the issue is, they tend to be supportive. It's also true that there are a lot of things that need to be done to fix America, and a lot of people voted for Trump. believing that he alone could really fix some of these problems in America. A lot of work has been done, closing the border, beginning the deportations. But the Trump administration should not neglect that domestic policy agenda if they want to have any shot at some wins in the midterm elections. Yeah, well. I almost think it's, no, I don't make predictions anymore, but that the midterms were going to be very difficult no matter what, in my opinion. And even with the win, once we talked about this last week, once you win, everyone's moved forward to something else. It's incredibly difficult in this environment, especially where I don't know, I was thinking about this the other day. I don't know this ever going to be a popular president again. Like we're so divided on partisan lines that's difficult for me to think that there's going to be a president with like 60, 70% approval rate, even in the midst of a war like we're in. Usually you get that bump for like a week or two. Trump wasn't even given that bump. And like you say, if Biden did this, I don't think he would have been given that bump either. Maybe it's those personalities. I don't know. Also, from Fox News Sunday, Senator Mark Warner was there and he's on the Senate Intel Committee. He had some critiques of Trump with the war, but they were all procedural. He didn't disagree.

that Iran was a very serious threat that needed to be taken seriously. I just thought that was interesting. He didn't like that he didn't come and get approval before the war. He didn't believe that that was the right way to do things. And he said, because it. was a you know he chose to go to war rather than doing it because there was some imminent threat even though the trump administration says there was an imminent threat whereas Tom Cotton says they have been an imminent threat since 1979 uh can i say something about that but warner was i'm just saying warner was supportive and he's a big democrat so i just thought that was interesting well Did you see the George Will column about how he argued that Trump doesn't need any congressional approval for this war? It was quite interesting. I might agree with it. But what was his, I don't think the War Powers Act is very good. But go on. What was George Will's argument? that you'd have to go read it. I mean, I don't know if I agree with it, but essentially he argued that the founders never envisioned having to go and ask Congress for, you know, to engage in military action in when the... when you need the surprise to do it, when you need to move very, very quickly and all of that. I don't know if I agree, but it was interesting and unexpected for me to read him defending Donald Trump, but also saying that. So something to think about, right? Oh, so surprising. All the people who suddenly support Donald Trump worked very hard to get him out in 2016, including some publications that. did some pretty dramatic stuff to try to thwart Trump now being very supportive. George Will was not a big, he's not a big neocon type though. He did initially support Iraq, but he quickly worked columns saying it was a mistake and stuff like that. I just, if Congress wants to say something, they control a lot through the budget and that's where they should show their power. And they will have an opportunity to do that here fairly soon if the reports that this is costing $1 to $2 billion a day are true. We shall see.

1800 companies are in the amazing tariff refund race. The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. $130 billion was taken in tariffs. Because those tariffs were called off, companies want their money back. Will they get it? Whether it's happening in D.C. or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdog on Wall Street podcast with Chris Lisa Murkowski on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. We'd like to move on? Yeah. Speaking of midterms, did you follow the Texas situation? I did follow the Texas situation. You're speaking of the Democrat James Talarico winning against Jasmine Crockett. Yeah. In the primaries there. I am obviously not a Christian, but I... He said, I wrote a column on this, but to me he sounds like he speaks with the moral authority of the 1980s like televangelist, but he has the intellectual depth of a freshman like gender studies major at Oberlin. That's, that's basically how I think of him. When you listen to him speak, it's it's vapid, right? And. Because I know many social conservatives, and I can say not all of them are perfect and this or that. But I think that their views are informed by their faith. Like their political views are informed by their faith, which is completely normal and expected. This guy's faith is informed by his politics. Like I feel like the whole thing's inverse. Like he comes up, starts talking about trans kids. And he flips through, you know, Paul's. you know, St. Apostle Paul's letters or whatever and comes up with some sentence that allows him to rationalize some kind of insane view of abortion or whatever it is, right? So I cannot, I find the guy just insufferable. Let me ask you, what are your thoughts on him? Well, again, I'm thinking back to some stuff from. Fox on Sunday. A Wall Street Journal reporter, Amy Linsky, was saying that Democrats were in a very good situation in Texas because they had been able to dominate this moderate James Talarico over Jasmine Crockett. Who said this? I think her name is Amy Linsky. Okay. Did I just make that out? In fact, that is the general consensus, right? You saw it with the Stephen Colbert conspiring with James Talarico to not help out Jasmine Crockett and make a big production out of it so it would gain money and recognition for James Talarico. The Democrats were very focused on that and they did consider it a big thing that they could run him instead of Jasmine Crockett. In part because the big Democrat operation now is to take the most left-wing person who presents the least left-wing as your ideal candidate. And so they think Talariko is their most left-wing but presents as not left-wing, in part because the media keeper saying that he's moderate. There is, it reminds me of when the media were saying that Democrats had cracked the code with Pete Buttigieg and Tim Walz. These are the men that they vote for.

Beto O'Rourke. And it's just clear that Democrats aren't talking to any actual men. These men are very effeminate and do not appeal to men or many women. And yet the media keep going with this line. So James Talarico is, his views are radical. He led the effort to trans children. at the state legislature. And he said that God wanted you to do that. He said that he wanted abortuaries in every federal courthouse in America and that abortionists should be federal employees. He said that there were six genders that God is non-binary. This is a guy who would come off like a cuck in Portland. Well, maybe not Portland. He would have trouble getting elected in California. The idea that he's going to be this like miracle candidate in Texas, I don't really buy at all. He proves, yeah, he proves that they're trying to prove that progressivism is compatible with traditional notions of faith. But what they're proving is that modern progressives are bigger quacks than average social conservatives have ever been, that they are willing to believe anything, that they are willing to believe there are six. genders you can choose from that they're willing to believe how you didn't even talk about his racial stuff during black lives matters or maybe he did but he talks about how your skin is white it's a virus it's like he speaks like a clansman from the 30s but in reverse right like he thinks being white is is that does he really believe that christianity that that that don't speak for Jesus, but that Jesus believes that your skin color defines you, that you don't have any kind of free will that you're a hater because of who you were born to. I mean, this kind of stuff is radical. And using faith to hide it and to justify it, I think is really just gross in a way. And I can't imagine voters won't see through it. I don't know. Well, I think that many voters will see through it. It is also true that this kind of schick does work on a certain type of individual. And we saw this. The New York Times has... You know, they are engaged constantly in propaganda operations. And so one of their long-running propaganda operations is to have David French as their in-house, like, anti-Christian critic, basically. But again, much like James Talarico, under the guise that he is actually the most Christian of them all. And so every Sunday, he does a sermon column. And I think it was this Sunday, he did a column praising James Talarico as the best. Christian in America vis-a-vis other Christians. And did you read it? Yeah. What'd you think of it?

Christians are involved in debates that are none of my business, you know, just overall. I'm just going to say. But it seems like he puts a lot of importance on tone, you know, how you sound, not what you do, like a non-judgmentalism. But of course, it's just judgmentalism a different way. But I'm, you know, so, and he likes the tonal value of someone like this who. who says that, you know, abortion and gay marriage are not the most important things in the Bibles. But he, but David French then doesn't care that he uses the Bible to justify having an abortion mill in every federal building. So is, he like is, he only is seeing half of the equation. I don't know. I, that's what it seems like to me. Like to him, the tone is more important than the substance of this sort of candidate. I don't know. What'd you think? I don't read David French, but I have enjoyed some of the anti-David French pieces that have come out in reaction to his column. And Chris Bray, who's very similar to you in like not the most religious person or doesn't come off that way, although he is Christian. The James Talarico guy annoys him like any red-blooded American man. And also David French's little schick that he does annoys him quite a bit. He did a great takedown of all of the logical fallacies in the David French column, including how he rewrites Maga and Trump as Christian leaders and as a Christian movement, which is just not. accurate, right? Donald Trump does not purport to be a Christian leader. Maga is a political movement, not a religious movement, even if it contains quite a few Christians. It also contains people who aren't, you know. But he rewrites these things so that he can compare. Albert Mueller had a response to David French, where he was saying, In his column, David French states that James Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the U.S. who acts like a Christian. And by acting like a Christian, he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the Maga Christian movement that's dominated American political life for 10 years. A few paragraphs later, he cited Talariko as saying, I'm tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I'm tired of being told to hate my neighbor. and then muller writes who told him such a vile thing to state my frustration clearly i am tired of being told about people who told him to hate his neighbor who told him that to be even more clear We know what he is doing here. He is a talented politician who is running as a faith forward candidate while condemning conservatives for running as faith forward candidates. And he condemns evangelical Christians for attempting to influence politics while he seeks to establish his own religious liberalism as law. Talariko wants to divide voters just as much as Donald Trump, but on different grounds and along different lines. I thought that was a good point.

That's a great point. Of course he does. And what about the hypocrisy of secular urban liberals who are constantly, you know, yelling at social conservatives not to bring God into politics and so forth. But when a candidate comes like this comes along, you know, he's on Stephen Colbert. He'll be on the cover of GQ for all I know, like Beto O'Rourke. It's a massive hypocrisy. I have no problem with people bringing God into politics because those are the... Those are the beliefs that help dictate our choices in life. But he's a hypocrite. Yeah. He's a talented politician. People say, I guess so. I am not, I think I'm immune from those charms in general, but I don't, you know, especially with him. But we'll see. I don't buy it. I don't buy that he's going to beat either of the Republicans who move forward. I don't understand why. I mean, David French mentions John Cornyn, but he, you know, if you're that put off by Ken Paxton, is that his name Ken Paxton, then. You have a candidate there, a milk toast Republican you could support, right? Why put your, who I'm fine with, but why do you have to put your support behind the person who is attacking other Christians in essence, right? He's constantly telling other Christians how to think, but other Christians aren't allowed to say anything. I don't know. I don't know why I'm going off on this. This isn't my business. All of our business. It is my business that a guy who thinks it's okay to mutilate young children in schools is going to be in the U.S. Senate. That's my business. I'm against that. A guy who thinks your skin color dictates that you're going to be a racist. I'm against that. And you know that people who believe those two things believe a whole menu of crazy things too. And the guy is super motivated. about trans children. I saw this clip where he was asked, who's someone you care about other than family and friends? And he's like, trans children. He really wants children trans. Again, do you see this as being a winning message in Texas? Even Abigail Spanberger was running away from the transing of children when she was pretending to be moderate. But this guy's on video. Way too online. Way too much video. We don't mention her name. We don't mention that woman's name in this house. Oh, sorry. In this house we're trying to. Yeah, they could put out a sign. They're trying. She's trying to know, or Democrats are trying to pass a AR ban in Virginia right now. Let's talk about the media. Usually, I think you're the media critic, right? But I have a beef. I have three, three beefs. First one is, did you see the story of Zohran Mamdani's wife, Rama Diwaji, who liked on October 7th, liked a bunch of... posts on Instagram celebrating the mass murder of 1,200 innocent civilians in Israel and then liked an Instagram post calling the rape of women that day a hoax well she is now and that's bad enough I would say that that's one of the least surprising things I've ever read in my life just to be honest about that but

People make fun of them. The New York Times said that when Samuel Alito, who anyone who knows him knows, he's not a flag person, when he said, those are my wife's flag, she's her own person, she has First Amendment rights, they said, this is despicable. This is, he is using his wife so that he could protect his career. There were other media outlets that said their marriage is probably in trouble because he's throwing his wife under the bus. But none of this for Zohran Mamdani. Hmm. Interesting. The, uh, I mean, she's the title to her opinion. I don't want to stop her from saying what she wants to say. But if you, Zohran Mamdani said that she's a private person. Well, if you pose for magazine photos, you give interviews to New York magazine, to the New York Times to one of the, I think it was vanity fair or whatever it was, you offer your political opinions on social media. Then your positions are fair game for public to scrutinize A. But. I looked up how many stories the New York Times did on this private person before. And just like last week, there was a story called the complete, here's the headline, the complicated politics of Rama Dawaji's style, celebrating the New York ladies sent into the spotlight. You know what complicated is a euphemism for in the New York Times. It means that you have. I was cursed. You have insane positions that it's a, you know, that an extremist views that they, that are too nuanced for you proles to understand. We're going to layer it with tons of context, what she really means when she's like, yeah, people weren't raped. You know, rape, it was a rape hoax. And, and that's what they do. And I believe this is driven not only because she's a so, the wife of a socialist, because people, it. They have internalized the idea of Islamophobia, these young reporters and these people at the New York Times, and they simply can't get themselves to ever be honest or say anything about someone who is Muslim. It's part of it for sure for me because there are two other stories that the New York Times participated in that show this. I was about to mention there was an event where two ISIS-inspired terrorists through homemade, bombs. They were duds, but they were packed with like nails and things like that. At a peaceful protest, some anti-Muslim protesters and want to kick all the Muslims out of the country, whatever, they were peaceful. These people threw bombs at them. Here's the New York Times headline, smoking jars of metal and fuses thrown at protests near mayor's house. Now, if you read that headline, would you know who was involved in throwing those bombs? You wouldn't even know. The subhead says six people were arrested after anti-Islamic protesters led by the right-wing activist Jake Lang clash with counter protesters near Gracie Mansion. You could read the subhead and you wouldn't know who actually threw the bomb. You have to go pretty deep into that story. You know what smoking jars and metal fuses are? They're called bombs. You could have just said bombs, right? And... In journalism, they always tell you, use 14 words that obscure the truth when a single word that would say it clearly should not be used. I'm happy you brought that up because this is anti-journalism. Journalism is supposed to synthesize information, bring it clearly and as truth to people who read it or see it.

I mean, that's like the core job, I think, of a journalist. This literally leads you away from the truth on purpose. Like, that's anti-journalism. It's propaganda. I don't know what you want to call it. Can I read you CNN's lead from that day, from their story on that? Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what. could have been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather. Their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside Mayor Zohran Mamdani's home. That is insane. It reminds me the cover of Rolling Stone when they put the Boston Marathon bomber on and made him into like, um, What was that teen magazine idol or something? These people are insane. Something wrong with them. You're just not in your head. You know it. I don't know what's horrible. I mean, I saw some funny parodies of this where they were rewriting, you know, that Ted Kaczynski as a promising Harvard student or MIT student, whatever he was, who had some interesting ideas about technology and writing skills. Then his life took a turn. But. It's not funny because it's so bad. And you just said, I don't know anything about this group that was protesting. So I literally don't know what they're called or who they are. The name of the individual didn't match for me. But it does concern me that we are whistling past the, in some cases, literal graveyard when it comes to... difficulties having a pluralistic society with people who support killing those they don't agree with and we're not answering those because they're very difficult and we are importing massive numbers of people who don't necessarily have a problem with this type of violence, who have religious justification for it. And because it's a difficult conversation to have, we just don't have it. And you see this on left, bright media we can make fun of. But, you know, I keep on thinking about how after 9-11, the big mantra from Republicans was that Islam is a religion of peace. How the worst thing would be if there was any like blowback on Muslims for the Muslim terrorism that had killed so many thousands of Americans. And I would like to see better conversations there, acknowledging that there are varieties in Islam and also acknowledging that the percentage of Muslims globally who support violence as a means to accomplishing political and religious ends is way too high.

That's all fair enough. I mean, someone made the joke that there was a protest to say that Muslim Islam was incompatible with Western society and a couple of people showed up and threw bombs to prove them wrong. But I think it's important to note. It's not the most important thing, honestly. But it's important to note that there are many Muslim people who are peaceful and all of that. And they live in America and their citizens. And we should want to secularize them and bring them into the fold. But it's also not, we shouldn't obscure the truth that there are Islamic people who cannot abide by someone disagreeing with them or saying something they don't like. And this is that. And I just want to say CNN retracted that lead. Not really. They didn't. I mean, they took away the tweet. Then the story stayed basically the same. They tweet, tweet the lead. But also the New York Times changed one of its headlines. There are still, I think, some older leftist editors in these places who will rain in this craziness. But at some point soon, the nuts are going to be in charge. And I wonder what's going to happen then. I think it's going to be a lot worse. The last story on this, I could quickly say, is that there was also a obituary in the economist, which was once kind of like the House magazine of neoliberalism in the world, right, in the Western world. It was a serious concern. It has become a joke, you know. There are no... There were no bylines on it, so you don't even know who writes this stuff. But they decided to write an obit about Ali Khamenei, who is dead. told to the prism of his own eyes with a downplay that he is basically was some kind of Nazi in essence to his own people, the misogyny, the murder, the destitution and, you know, the executions, and talks about how he believed he had divine right on his side and had countless reasons to hate the West, especially the United States. States, the tip of a phalanx of morally corrupt countries. I mean, this is just outrageous. It would be like writing an obit of Hitler through his own eyes. He had good reason to hate the Jews who blah, blah, blah, right? Like, it's just unbearable. But then I thought about it. We've been seeing this forever. You remember the infamous Washington Post, a little bit on al-Baghdadi, where they called him, they led with calling him an austere religious scholar. not a person who brought back white slavery or, you know, buried people, you know, by the thousands. It's just something is wrong here. The New York Times had started responding to critics of its favorable obituaries for dictators and murderers. And they said, you know, we try to present people in all of their complexity. And I don't.

hate that idea at a time of death to just describe their importance and put the best construction on it except for two things one if you're a conservative they lead with the worst thing they can say about you and it's in the headline and they take things that they took out of context when you are alive and they lead with that at the time of your death so No offense, but screw these people. They're not painting a, you know, picture of their full life. And then secondly, there is a difference. You know, if you are angrier at a cartoonist who supported Trump than a guy responsible for untold bloodshed and calamities, there's something wrong with you. You're... To quote George W. Bush, you know, remember how he was like, if you're a critic of the Iraq war, he said, you're either with us or you're with the terrorists. But I just think the New York Times is basically with bad people. They write positive or, you know, the economist or the Washington Post. They write these positive things about these people because they agree with them in their fight against America. What do you think? I think that's harsh and true sometimes. I think, you know, a less, less harsh way to put it was that they sympathize with them more than a normal person should maybe. But, you know, you mentioned, you're talking about Scott Adams in that a little bit, right? But I think Rush Limbaugh, I think this was in New York Times. It might have been the Washington Post. Like it led with like radio personality who weaponized AM radio against Democrats. Like they always pick the worst. where they put the worst formulation on it i don't i think what rush limbaugh doing that was good actually for america but i understand that it has a negative connotation for them um yeah something's wrong with these people there is something wrong like you could i was thinking about um mrs Zohran Mamdani you could stake out a position that you think that is immoral in the way they acted towards gaza and not celebrate the wanton murder the taping the laughter of mass murder, but they have a problem doing this. There's something wrong with these people. And I just, I think, I think there's an evil there. I'm sorry, there's a bloodlust when you are liking something like that that is not normal for a person in Western society to do. I don't know where this all goes, but it's not great. You want to talk about culture? It's so funny when we turn to culture after talking about such horrible things. I just wanted to add one I just wanted to add one more thing about the Zohran Mamdani wife, which is I definitely judge people by their wives. And I think that if you want to know if you've got a good, like, justice or judge, just look at who their wife is. That will tell you more than more than a lot of questionnaires. And Zohran Mamdani, having this woman as his wife, I think it's just, it's informative. It tells you a lot about.

Who he's trying to please when he goes home at night. It's not like a perfect metric, but something I like to do. But yes, for culture, I have two things. First off is there's this documentary on Mel Brooks. Have you talked about this previously? I have not watched it, but I won't do. Okay. So it's called 99-year-old man and a riff on his 200-year-old man comic record. And it's actually really well done. I'm watching just like a little bit at a time. Yeah. So I've only made it through one episode. And then I also say on Mel Brooks, like I like Mel Brooks as a person. I think he's funny. I like interviews with him. But I'm not as big a fan of his movies as a lot of people are. I've always found them too slapsticky for me, especially, you know, I think some of them are better than others. But I just don't think he's this great talent that other people do. Not trying to put him down. He's still alive so I could say some bad stuff about him. Are you a fan? Like, do you love Blazing Saddles? Do you love Spaceballs? I do love Blazing Saddles. I think the rest of his movie output is pretty bad. I think he's interesting because comedians, I like, love him. I want to know more about why do they love him so much. But for me personally... Yeah, I mean, I should say I like the producers as well quite a bit. I like blazing saddles, but that's it. I revealed to Mark, I hadn't seen that and he was mortified. So cue all the letters from people angry when I say that I haven't seen something. I am working on it. But it's, I don't know if people understand how radical that movie kind of is because it was only 20 something years after World War II where there's a story of two Jewish people putting on a place celebrating Hitler because they wanted to go bankrupt. It's a hilarious. premise and the songs are funny and the movie's very good and jean g wilders who's who's wonderful always in my opinion yeah okay so the other thing i watched which i loved is tron legacy the 20 wow on movie have you seen that i have not which one is this the latest one or earlier one okay came out in 2010 it's the first sequel to tron i think there are several now Mark thought that it lacked a plot, a coherent plot. And I would agree that it struggled a little bit in that area. But I loved the soundtrack. I thought the concepts that it introduced were great. Lots of Christian allegory. And it looked beautiful. So I enjoyed all of those things. I love that you see Christian allegory in all movies. Like I remember, you're like, girls, is the most Christian show ever. It's like what they were talking about. No, I said, I didn't say it was Christian, but I did think that it was a morality play, you know, tale of like what goes wrong when you would accept feminism. And I still think that. I'm just kidding. It's just truth. A good, good art is truthful. And so sometimes people who don't want to reveal truth still do it accidentally. No, I agree with that, actually, quite a bit. Did you, I know as we discussed, I think before the show, I am older than you, but did you see Tron the original when it came out?

It did. I liked it a lot. What did you think? I loved it when I was a kid. I thought it was it was kind of innovative for its time. It had kind of a cartoonish quality to it that I liked and a video game quality, obviously. I might have seen that one. I'll rewatch it because I'm into Tron. So wow. That's a strong recommend for you on Tron. I didn't think that, you know, you're not real sci-fi type. So. I just also need to reiterate that Mark didn't think it was as good as I did. And he's pretty good at movie reviews. I forgot that I also rewatched L.A. Confidential. Oh, I love that movie. Yeah. I like it, too. It's funny. You know the guy who plays the model who is like the gay hustler who has killed the blonde guy? I was watching a show with him called The Mentalist. That was not terrible for a few episodes. I think he's Australian, Simon something or other. I'll just point out too that Jerry Goldsmith did the score for LA Confidential and I really like him. If you can't get John Williams, you get him. Like he does like every movie. Prefer Jerry Goldsmith, but go on. That's an insane thing to say. Oh, my lord. John Williams, the guy who did Raiders of the Lost Ark, you think that Jerry Goldsmith is a better composer than he is? So I'm not, I just said I would prefer. I, some of my favorite things have been done by Jerry Goldsmith, including one of my very favorite movie soundtracks ever, which is the Russia House. Whenever I'm in a I'm in a record store, I'm always, I always go to the soundtracks to look if they see that to surprise you because you have mentioned it so often. And I'm starting to think maybe it never came out on vinyl. I've never seen it in any form. Ms. Coggs does have it, but they're so expensive. And they're only in foreign countries. So thank you for looking though. I appreciate it. I'll keep at it. I have a strong recommend. Okay. And it's. It's topical in a way. It's called Tehran. It's a show on Apple Plus about a Mossad woman, a spy, who is a younger, not a young woman, maybe youngish woman, young to me, 30, let's say, who. who has parents from Iran, who speaks the language, all of that. And she is dropped there and gets stuck in Iran. And it's being chased by the person who is the head of the Revolutionary Guard, you know, anti-Mossad squad. It's very well done. It's an Israeli show. But the second season has Glenn Close. The third season has Hugh Lorry, like. really well made. It's not cartoonish and how it portrays human beings. They're complicated. I liked it a lot until the last episode of the first season.

has has something that I think is quite implausible in the real world. But overall, I don't want to spoil it, but overall, it's a really good show. I think it's a really good show if that's your thing. And I would recommend it. Okay, great. The other show I watched was Young Sherlock I started watching, which is a, uh, Guy Ritchie show on Amazon, I think. And I don't know, it has all the markings of a Guy Ritchie directed show. It's fun. I like that. I like Guy Ritchie. Yeah, I do too. It's nothing deep, but it's fun. I would say it's fun. It's crackling. It's alive. The way he films, the dialogue, all that. Pretty good show. I've only watched a little bit of it. That's all I have. Okay. Oh, I did. I did want to. I'm, I am, I have an event coming up where I'll be speaking. So I wanted to mention it in case people want it to come. It's in Virginia. If you live near Richmond, even if you don't, you want to come to it, you can. It's at the Virginia Forum on April 1. I'll be talking about the history of American guns. I think we called it forged in freedom. So if you're interested in that, you can go online to Virginia Forum.com, I think it is, and scroll to the bottom. You'll see events. I hope you talk about ammunition. I was going to talk more about kind of the most, the biggest innovators and industrialists who did a lot. I think people don't know, or maybe they do, but many people might not, how innovative gunmakers were in the larger context of like mass. producing things and manufacturing and other mechanical innovations. But yeah, I can mention ammunition too. I'm into ammunition. Should I mention that I did, you remember I mentioned that I was going to get a concealed carry gun and people had a lot of suggestions and I went with the Springfield Hellcat Pro. And when I went to pick it up at the local, what's it called, Bass Pro shop? The guy made fun of me and laughed at me. He said it was a terrible gun. I've never experienced something like this. Gun people are so opinionated that they will, when you're buying from them in the store that they are managing the area of, will mock you for your selection. I think it's a great little gun. I got an extended mag, so my hand fits around it really well. Why did he mock it? He thinks it's a bad gun. I don't know. I'm not that friendly. So once he mocked me, I sort of like stopped paying attention to him. I didn't appreciate that at all. If Abigail Spanberger and the other Democrats successfully ban the AR weaponry, what happens to people who already have, say, an AR-15? I think they keep it.

I believe the law. It's kind of like, if you have it, it's grandfathered in or whatever. I mean, I'm loading up like the Soviets are about to invade Red Dawn style. Like I think people should buy as many guns as possible in Virginia because I don't know what's going to happen. That's just me. All right. Yeah. Okay, great. If you want to make fun of my gun, you can email us at Radio at thefederalist.com. We look to hear from you. And we'll be back next week. And until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.