‘You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 184: Snow And ICE

Welcome back, everyone, to a new episode of You're Wrong with Molly Hemingway, editor-in-treat for the Federalist, and David Harsani, senior writer at the Washington Examiner. If you'd like to email the show, please do so at radio at thefederalist.com. We love to hear from you. Tell you what, I don't love, Molly. I do not love the ice and snow that surrounds me. right now. Yeah, this has been, I am a lifelong person who's been in snow and I'm very used to snowstorms. I even love snowstorms. What we're dealing with now is unlike anything I've ever experienced, which is a tremendous amount of ice. And that is much more difficult to move than snow. I live south of where you are. It should not be this way. I moved here to get away from cold winters. And I can't. Well, yeah, you did not go south enough to manage that. But we, so where we are in northern Virginia, the snow came on Saturday night into Sunday morning. And we were able to get out just fine, not just fine, but we were able to get out and go to church. And normally we have about 250, 255 people on a given Sunday. And we had 41 people show up. And it was, it was great. Pastor, our head pastor was wearing jeans, which happens like three times in his life and under his, under his robes. And the organist was unable to make it. So. a different family came where the woman is very musically talented. And her husband said, Pastor, do you want her to play the organ? And she did. She just literally went right up there and just played the organ site reading and did a fantastic job. And she's not really an organist. And then, oh, we had a baptism, which was also very exciting. And I think that the girl who got baptized should, her memoir should be called baptized in a blizzard. if she has a life that matches that and it was just a beautiful day we get home we shovel and our whole goal was just to stay ahead of everything and we did throughout sunday and on monday morning we realized we'd made a horrible horrible mistake our neighbors who had not shoveled were able to clear their sidewalks because they still had snow on the bottom, whereas we had no snow, just ice. So we couldn't even like walk down our stairs because they were rounded ice. And...

Mark had to be out there doing like chain gang, hitting it with a hammer, shovel. It took him a really long time yesterday to clear enough of a path. Did he watch the Kathy Hochul? Is that her name? The New York governor's video on how to properly shovel. Did you see this? What did she say? Well, she just showed people had a shovel like a complete nanny. And I was impressed. I also wanted to make my wife go out and shovel, but, you know. I like shoveling, but it was, it was. You have to be careful. Apparently, if you're over, well, I, because I'm older, have to be careful because I could get a heart attack. That's what she said. The Capitol Weather Gang was like, some doctors say that everyone over 50, no one over 50 should shovel. And I was like, hey, now, calm down here. It's okay. My dad, who's currently in the ICU, but is the strongest person I know, he would be out shoveling with like a t-shirt and a vest, like a puffy vest and shorts. But he'd be out there like shoveling. And, you know, when you are getting that level of workout, it's actually kind of okay. But we are also dealing with frigid temperatures here. We knew this storm was coming. We even knew that it would be an ice storm. And I have to say that the Democrat-run cities that I'm encountering, both Alexandria and Washington, D.C., are not operating at their best potential. And my left-wing neighbors are like, oh, you know, you can't expect them to know how to do snow removal. But... When you don't do snow removal, you can't operate your other functions like schools. And, you know, we have a far drive to a high school. And I don't think my kid who does the driving, I don't think they've ever driven on the snow. And I'm not comfortable with them going now, you know, like in under stressful conditions. It's not just snow. There's a lot of ice. That's a lot more dangerous. And I would love to teach how to drive, but we're in such a narrow neighborhood. You know, the neighborhood has. It takes real skill that you can't get until, you know, you have to learn how to do it to navigate between, like on a single lane with cars on either side of you and ice that you could possibly be rolling into. So, and then DC, like right in front of the Fox building, there is a fairly major thoroughfare of E Street that just has not been properly plowed at all. And it's weird. It was weird. earlier this week, but now, you know, here we are in the middle of the week and it's still not plowed and it's very difficult to get in and out.

It's just not a ton of competence. Don't they preemptively throw down like they used to do salt, but now they do some kind of liquid and that should melt the ice, but it hasn't been melting it for us. I think the problem might be what I talked about, that the snowpack followed by the ice. So if they did pre-treatment, it's actually worse in this case. But there's a lot of money going to my taxes. And Alexandria has the best. radical environmental and trans and DEI programs in the world. I would like for my taxes to go toward snow removal and proper trash removal and police work, you know? Well, in the old days, a good snowstorm and a lack of, you know, removal would bring down mayors. Like this was like the main thing you had to do, like in the northeast, for instance. But you know what's scary down here in the south is that people panic with even a little snow. So, you know, D.C. is everyone panics. I mean, I went to the supermarket, like an idiot, a day before the snowstorm was here. It was like nothing for us to buy. So I'm a little more worried about other drivers than I am I am about my driving or the ice. So on that note, I had a very busy week last week. And so I was also delayed on some of my prep. But we have a bakery in our neighborhood that has been targeted by left-wing authoritarians because they posted a – it's like one of these bakeries where you can just put up neighborhood signs about things, yard sale or quilting club or whatever. And someone put up a sign for a new – TPSA chapter. And so all of the left-wing authoritarians who dominate my neighborhood announced a boycott of the store. So anyone who's sane has been like going to this bakery to make sure that the left-wing authorities don't destroy it. But I got there so late that they were cleaned out of everything. I managed to get some cinnamon bread, which I didn't need. But I was like, we might need it. You know, we might be trapped in our house for days. The other day, I was reading about the, a bill in Virginia about how they're going to start banning magazine sizes to like eight or seven or something like that, which is ridiculous. And I was thinking about your neighbors and how much I hate them for moving into Virginia and ruining the state. Me too. And Mark has been saying. that the changes proposed by Abigail Spanberger and her colleagues are probably going to make it so that we have to move. I was thinking about that. There's a reason for, you know, one of the problems with media is that it's located, the vast majority of media are in New York City and Washington, D.C. And if you think about the type of women in particular who work in media, these are women who are, I mean, there's a.

stereotype here of a childless or maybe like one or two children kind of woman, not a woman who represents the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the vast majority of women in this country. And then all the really good women are thinking, I don't want to live in New York City or D.C. And I understand that what I've been doing here is important in representing you know, the vast majority of women in this country who have no voice in the media. But it's getting so hostile that I don't know how much longer I can continue. Well, the landscape's changed a bit, right? Technologically, you can live anywhere more than it used to be before, no? Yes, you can definitely live away and still have... and still work in media, but you can't do it at the level that you need to do it to have a powerful voice. If you are not right there when news breaks, or if you're not available for the in-person shows, or if you can't just set up an interview with a senator and make it there in 20 minutes, you know, that does affect your... Career for sure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, for over 10 years, I've worked remotely and it does hamper your ability to like be part of kind of the community, unfortunately, in D.C., which is a good thing, but I should say, but also not great if you want to be on TV and stuff like that. Not that I do, but you're good at it. I don't like a face for podcasting already. All right. Ice. Another ice shooting. You know, another tragedy, I would say, like, whatever you think of what happened. I mean, this is how I view it at least. I think these things are tragic. The guy's name was Alex Preti. I've not done a forensic look at all the videos. I don't know the legalities or justifications are good or not. It seemed to me like the administration has kind of stepped back on that a little. They're going to investigate it. This is how they should do it. I mean, if it was a good shoot, it's a good shoot. I just want to preface all this by saying that, there's a misconception it seems to me at least on social media that if this was a bad shoot that that means that the entire purpose of ice and what they're trying to do is somehow wrong and i don't see that as a connection at all there are bad police shoots in other you know instances in other situations and that doesn't mean that you get to break the law tomorrow just because the police acted poorly or whatever i mean and i'm not saying they did i don't know but Yeah, I'm waiting for you. I don't know where to go. There are a lot of facets to this, right? Right, right. I totally agree with you. You can never delight in, you know, watching the killing of a human being. And. With the first instance, with Renee Good, she, like Alex Prettie, was part of an activist network that is designed to interfere with law enforcement. That's what they do. They're not protesters who are peacefully protesting the democratically passed immigration laws that ICE and Border Patrol are enforcing.

That would be a legitimate thing to do, and that would be a First Amendment protected activity. But they are part of well-funded, well- orchestrated networks of agitators trying to thwart the enforcement of democratically passed laws, which is not a First Amendment protected activity in general. In the case of Renee Good, who, how did the New York Times put it, she wasn't aiming for the policeman when she hit him with her car. is I believe how they tried to make that into a big thing. First they said that there was no evidence that she had even hit him. And then it kind of changed his story. And then not aiming for him when she hit him. And there just has been horrifically evil propaganda press coverage of this as opposed to actual reporting of what's going on. But it's still sad. It's still sad to see. a woman get shot and killed on video. I mean, it's a life lost. And her life was not, you know, she was not doing good things with her life to begin with in terms of her efforts to interfere with law enforcement. But very sad. And then this Alex Pretty thing. near as I can tell. Like I love how on Twitter the moment something happens, everyone becomes an expert in that thing that just happened. And for me, the videos were a little hard to decipher. But I think what it, like what it looked like to me is a known belligerent. He had previously broken a rib as part of an altercation and part of his activities as an anti-law enforcement activist and agitator. A known belligerent was being disarmed. He had a particular type of SIG that is known for accidental firing, right? That while he was being disarmed, that accidental firing happened, that two policemen shot him thinking he was firing. the weapon that they knew he had on him because they didn't know that he had already been like that he had just a moment prior been disarmed or they thought he had multiple multiple weapons on him and it looks like he was holding a magazine not a gun but he'd yeah he'd brought a gun to his uh efforts to interfere with law enforcement and we were talking to the kids last night and explaining Not getting shot by police is actually a pretty easy thing to achieve. Right? The media make it out like the police are out there just shooting people. And we just went over basics too. If a policeman tells you to get out of the car, you get out of the car. Like you actually are supposed to follow what they say. They might be, there might be all sorts of problems. They might be very confused about a situation. There might be a bad cop, you know, but like you still in a society that is governed by rule of law, yes, they do have.

you know the government does have some kind of monopoly on force and to not get shot you you don't shoot at them or fail to follow orders or you know what i mean like i'm not saying in any way that either of these people should have been shot but their actions were irresponsible too Yeah, there are two sides to it. One is that cops have or all law enforcement have license. to use deadly force. And because they have that, they have a special responsibility because they're trained to make sure they use it responsibly, right? So I think anything shooting of a civilian, no matter what he's doing, needs an investigation. We can't, you know, I don't think Stephen Miller should have gone out there and said that he was going, it was a would-be assassin. We don't know that kind of thing and that rhetoric's not right. I want to talk about the gun rhetoric in a minute from the administration initially. But. He had, this guy had a concealed carry license. But any responsible gun owner, any concealed carry instructor will tell you. And he had a broken rib CNN reported last week with being, you know, getting into a scuffle or whatever with ICE agents. So potentially tragic situation can happen if you bring a gun to a volatile situation, especially with people who have other people who have guns and especially with police officers. And he probably knew that. And he acted recklessly at the very least. And we shouldn't pretend otherwise. He was obviously part of kind of an organized, like you say, an organized effort to. an inorganic effort to stop ICE agents from doing from enforcing the law that doesn't mean it should be shot like you said and I I really I found a lot of the initial comments distasteful not because I didn't think the shoot was good but because administration officials started saying that you're not allowed to bring a gun to a protest what they should say is you're not allowed to bring a gun and then obstruct police, not that you can't ever bring, you know, I saw Scott Bessent saying, semi-automatic, like all these scaremongering language for people who don't understand guns, loaded, extra magazines. You can, every, not every, virtually every concealed carrier has a loaded weapon. That's the point of the weapon. In fact, they probably have one in the chamber, which is maybe why this went, you know, the SIG went off. Because that's the point. But if you're going there to and you know you're going to have interactions with police in this way, and you bring a gun, you're asking for deadly trouble, right? And we have to admit that as well. The level of coordination and funding and central control over the insurgency in Minnesota is like off the charts relative to the cluelessness of the J6 rioters who had, you know, who just were like in a.

They were not planning on a riot. They found themselves in a riot through bad decisions. Well, one of these things is a riot and one of these things is organized undermining of the law purposefully. So the idea. Civil disobedience, there's a role for that in society, honestly, but there are also consequences to that, especially if you're going to start bringing guns, right? Yes. And the idea behind these. agitators is that if they can bring enough chaos to ICE operations, it will mean that they can thwart the will of the people, the people who elected the president. And they know that Donald Trump ran on a campaign to deport illegal aliens following an open borders policy of Biden and the rest of the Democrat Party. They know that a majority, like the vast, vast, vast majority of Americans definitely want criminal illegal aliens, meaning those illegal aliens who rape, murder, rob. They want those people deported. like almost every American does. But even a majority of American, but even for just normal people who broke the law to come or stay in this country, a majority of Americans want them deported as well. And so what do you do when you have laws that you disagree with and a majority of the people disagree with you? You can't go to change those laws. democratically because you're not going to win. So you use insurgency tactics, apparently. And so that's what they're doing with the idea that if enough chaos happens, first of all, that will emboldened your elected leaders to... fight for an open borders regime, but it will also get weak Republicans to side with you as well. And that is what was beginning to happen due to the chaos operations that were well financed and well coordinated in Minnesota. I think JD Vance made this point that... ICE is operating in all 50 states, and the vast majority of interactions are happening without any incident whatsoever, because like most of these deportations are happening in Texas, in Florida, in Tennessee, with people who are not running an insurgency against the federal government. So in places like Florida, you are a criminal illegal alien, the elected or the, um, police in Florida notify the federal government, hey, we got one of the people that you were trying to deport. You can come get him at this jail. And you know what I mean? Like they work with them. And so.

What we're seeing in Minnesota is what happens when you are trying to insurrect against the federal government with the help of Jacob Frey, who openly tweeted that he was trying to run an insurrection against the federal government. And Tim Walz. And what I'm very, the governor who asked people to help out the agitators against law enforcement, rather than saying, don't forget that you are supposed to not agitate against law enforcement. And what I'm very confused by... Okay, so you mentioned that the Trump administration had used some rhetoric that was... unwise and overstated following the killing of petty. Well, also was factually wrong about the Second Amendment. I very much agree with that because when you're in a war like this, it's also an information war. And nearly the entire corporate media are just as, if not more radical than the people who are out there on the streets. And so they're not going to be honest about what's going on. They're not going to be truthful about what's going on. They're going to be part of that activist network. So you have to be like perfect in your counter countering of that information operation, not saying reckless things that are unsupported by facts. And that's one problem. And then another problem is why, you know, like yesterday I was I was on standby on TV. for a show that was where Will Kane was interviewing President Trump. And President Trump was talking about what a nice conversation he had with Tim Walz and how it was weird that he sounds so crazy when he's on Twitter, but he's actually a nice guy to have a conversation with. And it was making me laugh on the one hand because that's a very good way to describe Donald Trump, who has said horrible things about Tim Walz but then is apparently having a nice conversation with him. But I'm thinking, why are we playing nice with a governor who's openly challenging the federal government and the enforcement of its laws? Why are we being nice to someone who's, you know, and he also said he had a nice conversation with Jacob Frey. Frey, how ever you say it. Why are we being nice to people who are overseeing the theft of my money through Somalian fraud? operations. Like, I don't want him to be nice to those people. I want him to come down and say, you don't actually have the right to thwart democratically elect democratically passed laws that are constitutional. You do not have that right. You can't do that. Like, we already debated this during the civil rights era. And over and over and over again, the federal government is deemed to have the right to enforce immigration law, right? I mean, if you're being nice to reach your goal, I have no problem with it. And it seems to me like it was walls who gave in here where ice.

where local officials were now almost after immediately after that conversation, it seemed to me helping federal authorities do what they needed to do. So that is the outcome of a nice conversation. That's fine with me. I don't really, doesn't really matter to me. As you know, a lot of the Twitter stuff is performative. I think it's dangerously performative in the sense that there are credulous activists and all of that who believe what you're saying and then go out and put themselves an incredibly dangerous situation. So you bear some responsibility. But. I hate saying this, it sounds so squishy, but lowering the temperature when people are actually dying, I think that's okay, right? Every president until very recently, none of them ever said it was okay to be here illegally. Never. I mean, there was never the position of the Democratic Party until recently, even if they were lying about what they believed, right? Like it was never their position. I did want to say one quick thing. I wrote a column last week about how I think protest culture is annoying and un-American because a lot of young people and people we see who unfortunately died here confuse. activism with good, good citizenry and patriotism. But it now is stepping further and further where they have convinced themselves that that, that ISIS fascist, that Republicans are fascist. And you keep saying that to people, they're going to act like I wouldn't want to act if people were actually fascist. But that is not the case. So there are legal avenues to stop ICE. There are democratic institutions that can change laws to stop. You are not, they act like they're in Iran or they're in Tianan Square or something. You're not there. There are avenues for you in a democracy or our democratic system to do something. So this, I don't know what to call it. I think we've convinced a lot of people that they're absolutely helpless and that there's a Nazi regime rising and you see it all over Twitter from people behind in their rooms. You know, not people are actually going to be out there. convincing other people to put themselves in danger. I just think it's just so reckless. Do not believe government numbers. 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. It's not just about the CPI inflation numbers. Government is now saying health insurance is down by 19% over the last five years. Does anybody believe that? 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, or wherever you get your podcast.

Yeah, I was, I'm very frustrated by people not understanding the difference between protest and illegal obstruction of law enforcement. And I was thinking about this on Friday. We had the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. This has been going on every year since Roe v. Wade was passed. And. We had a divine service at my church ahead of the march. And the people that I was talking to there, many of them had, this was their very first march. When I got down to the march, I also talked to a bunch of people who it was their very first march. I thought it was interesting that, you know, on Twitter, you get a certain idea about what people are thinking or how they've moved on from the abortion issue. It's too difficult to fight. And then you go down to... this largest continued, like of all the human rights issues in the world, this is, I think, the longest continuous march. You know, people have marched, have, like, lived, died, and their children and grandchildren are marching for this cause of ending the scourge of abortion. And they were very motivated. They were very positive. It was like a wonderful march. It was interesting. There were a ton of police there, including, like, a ton of people from Fairfax County police. It's just weird because I was, you know, having also been in D.C. on the January 6th time, which was a rally at the White House and then the, you know, protest slash riot at the capital a couple miles away, there were no police there out on the streets that day. And here for the pro-lifers who are like, arguably the most peaceful group of people known to mankind. There were just police every few feet, a different set of police. But my point being here, peaceful, large, massive protest and very little media coverage, whereas you have these organized obstruction efforts that are called protests and they get very favorable coverage from the media. Well, can I talk just a little bit about the rhetoric they used? I just want to say the Republicans should never be out there scaremongering about loaded weapons, semi-automatics, extra magazines, and things like that. Because the left, I have already seen, like Gavin Newsom and others, gravitate towards this, grab it and say, look, they don't really, the Trump administration doesn't really support the Second Amendment, which I think they have. That's why you're right about careful language. We wouldn't talk about the First Amendment this way. I hope not. We shouldn't talk about the Second Amendment this way either. Yeah. So there was something happened. Ilhan Omar, who's a woman who came from Somalia. Her father apparently was not the greatest guy in Somalia and has risen to. being a prominent member of Congress, but also someone who.

Someone was pointing out that it's happening on both sides of violence and we have to cool it. Fine. That's a fine message. And another woman, so one of the instances he mentioned was that Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking out. And this woman says, well, that was just right wing on right wing violence. The president thing was just right wing on. Like they won't even accept that left wingers who in my estimation, my historical estimation are far more inclined towards violence than the right wing in this country, they can't even admit that the assassination of the president or the assassination of Charlie Kirk by some left wing nut. reflects poorly on them, but then we're not allowed to talk about Ilhan Omar, who incidentally is a Hamas boosting conspiracy theorist and terrible all-around person. I don't want anyone to ever touch her. We're in the United States. We're not a third world country here, but I am allowed to point those things out. Do you want to switch topics? Okay. Let's talk about third world repression of speech and let's talk about Iran. Obviously, there's a, again, I would call it a revolution in a way. It seems like we know that it was just more than just some protests in the street. There are very big numbers being thrown around of estimates of how many people have been killed by the regime there. I don't know if they're true or not, but I do know it's a repressive regime that shuts down Twitter and ways for people to communicate outside of the country and to see news, has religious police that beat women, you know, and does all these terrible things and once nuclear weapons. So today, Trump... confirmed that the USS Abraham Lincoln and a strike group have been deployed to the area. He's what he tweeted out. A massive armada is headed to Iran. It is moving quickly with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose. It is a larger fleet headed by the great aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln. then was sent to Venezuela. Like with Venezuela, it is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission with speed and violence if necessary. What do you make of all that? I mean, he did a few, well, maybe a month ago now or a few weeks ago, say that keep protesting, we're on our way to help you, right? Do you think this is connected to that or something else? Yes. So a few weeks ago, everyone seemed to be ready for strikes to happen within 24 or 48 hours to assist the protesters, the domestic protesters who were standing up against their government. And then it didn't happen. And there were a lot of questions about why it didn't happen. And what you just read is the reason why.

People like to say, oh, the regime is falling. It's about done. And it is true that it is not at its highest point of strength right now, but there's a lot of destruction they can do in the meantime. And one of the things they can do is try to annihilate Israel. And you might remember when there were all of those strikes that the iron... dome repelled? Yep. Most of the strikes were repelled. It was a great success for the Iron Dome, which is a U.S.-Israeli project. It went really well, except that Israel depleted most of its missiles there, so that if Iran were to do it again, they weren't quite ready to repel at the same level. So if we had struck... without getting our people in place, it would not have been, you know, it could have been a very, very bad situation if they decided to respond by trying to destroy Israel. So. this seems like a smart move. You know, at the time that everyone was like, I think he's going after Iran right now, everything was still over doing the Venezuela Armada. Like it takes time to move these, to move things into place. And so now that they're in place, that's interesting, that he's being public about it is interesting. He tends to be pretty open about what his plans are. I would take it very seriously if I were Iran. And the domestic protests are because people are starving and cold. Their situation is bad. And so you just have to kind of monitor, but also be ready for all eventualities. A lot of people... who are anti-Israel are, you know, want to cut off the Iron Dome funding and all that. But what I don't think they understand, maybe they don't care, is that the Iron Dome, yes, it secures Israel in many ways. But it also saves a lot of Iranian lives and a lot of lives, Palestinian lives, because if Israel is going to be attacked without an Iron Dome, it needs to react in using tremendous force. I assume this is Trump. Actually, let me read you more. Trump goes on, and he says, hopefully Iran will quickly, quote, open quote, come to the table, close, quote, and negotiate a fair and equitable deal. All caps coming. No nuclear weapons. One that is good for all parties, time is running out, is truly of the essence, as I told Iran once before, make a deal, et cetera. I would love a great deal with Iran, but I, you know, I was listening to a... podcast called The Restis History, which I quite like. And they have a series on the Iranian Revolution. And if you're interested in that, I think, you know, listeners should give that a listen to because it really lets you get into the mind of the clerics there and the mullahs. This is not, you're not dealing with a rational country or, or Western country here. You're dealing with apocalyptic Shia 12ers who.

constantly see the end of days coming. And they will not, like you said, just relinquish power because we're threatening them or because they're protests. They really don't value life in the same way that we do or others do or Israelis do. So it's something to think about. My question to you is, If Joe Biden was doing this or if someone else was doing this, is this? This seems like something that a lot of people would have called neocon policy years ago because we are, in essence, either trying to, we're threatening some. The same thing with Venezuela. It seems Trump is instead of boots on the ground regime change, he's going to try to control the regimes from outside. I don't know if that's a good long, there's good long term prospects for that kind of policy because there'll be a new president and won't do that. But it seems like he wants change from the outside and he will threaten them with military strikes to do it. What do you think of that policy? Is it neocon? I think that it would have been better for you to say, what would you think if George W. Bush were doing this rather than Joe Biden because Joe Biden and his leader, Barack Obama. of course, are partly responsible for this horrible situation because of how they have tried to lift up Iran in that region and make them the country that controls everything and helps them with their path to nuclear power and all that. But yes, like if George W. Bush were moving an armada to the region, I do think you'd see people. strongly concerned about what he was about to do, but not because it's the move of the armada to the region that makes neocon policy, but it's really completely about mindset. I've, you know, when people were worried about the strike on Iran's nuclear capabilities, I think a lot of that was PTSD from, that's I hate using a legitimate illness to describe just the... anguish you feel about how your leaders are being. But for a long time, Republicans had been taken over by this like Wilsonian progressive foreign policy of, you know, we're going to turn every country into a democracy and we're going to do it by invading and setting up shop and occupying a country for decades. That's the neocon thing. Asserting your interests abroad is not necessarily a problem. Assuming You know, assuming you do it smartly. And the thing that I have grown to really love about Trump foreign policy is, you know, he just goes in and strikes and then is out. Or, you know, even in Venezuela, where we are ostensibly running the government with very, like, we're not even really totally there. And it is these long, drawn out, decades-long occupations and trying to change people into having like girls' schools. I still don't understand the neocon obsession with like, we're going to make sure girls are educated in Afghanistan. It was a total failure. And also, things just go better when you assert your own interest. And

do it efficiently or do it like in whatever is the best way for you possible. Iran is a threat to the United States working with Venezuela, working with Russia, and there are reasons why you would want to further constrain them, you know, as part of your global agenda. But I'm not, you know, I love that that also this is happening in response to a domestic outpouring in Iran, not, you know, like us coming in and, you know, like in Venezuela. That was an illegitimately, quote unquote, elected because he wasn't elected dictator. who the people had tried to oust through democratic means, and he just rigged the election results to make it seem like he had won in cartoonish fashion that was just not true. And likewise in Iran, you have mass protests, even with our limited information window, we see that there is a real desire for help here that's different than us. It's not just our... It's not just that. Obviously, it's mostly that this is in our interest to not have them have nuclear weapons. Yeah, I mean, I just want to say I couldn't care less if the Venezuelan dictator was elected or not. Hitler was elected. Doesn't matter to us. If you're an enemy of the United States. Yeah, but I'm just saying when people say, oh, he wasn't properly elected, even if people loved him in Venezuela, he's in the Western Hemisphere. He's undermining American interests. And we have a right to protect our interests. Yes, but when you're talking about regime change, to do it over and against, to do it over and against the will of the people is a completely different animal than to help out the people. Do you know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying. Like the problem with Germany wasn't just Hitler. It's that the people elected him, right? It wasn't just him. It was a national problem. No, my only, my point only is that I agree that Venezuelan elections are fake or, you know, that the leadership of the country isn't truly elected. But I don't, that to me is not the most important thing. But I just want to say one thing. I get your point. I am skeptical that this kind of policy is going to work with Iran, frankly, because without any enforcement mechanisms that are real and long term, I just don't see how the Iranians. I don't see how we can trust the Iranians. And moreover, they'll just weigh Trump out. But more than that, I mean, this is not what Trump really promised them, right? This is not really a regime change. I mean, you're essentially going to lift them up and give them credibility if you do this. But that's, you know.

Honestly, I just don't think it's very hard to overturn this regime. So I don't really know what other answers there are. But I will defend. I think George Bush's nation building was a failure. I am not a neo-conservative. But it's always going to be easier. But Trump gets to live in a post-9-11 post-Trust-Bush world where he knows that those were failures. I think at the time we look back at what happened in Japan, what happened to Germany, and these people thought that we can do the same thing. If we're going to wage war, halfway across the world, we can try to help people. I think they overestimated the desire of other people to be free, certainly the desire of or the ability of Islamic people sometimes to embrace democracy. And that was a huge failure. But that doesn't mean that regime change is always bad or always a failure. I do want to just point out. The George W. Bush philosophy is widely considered to have best been articulated by Charles Crouthammer in his, I think, 2003 speech at AEI that I heckled in real time, which I love because I later became, you know, friends with Charles. I heckled it because I disagreed with it at the time. And so you say like, oh, he has the benefit of living in this post era. There were people who were saying this was not a good idea at the time. And if you reread that Charles Crowdhammer speech, he says, okay, maybe the realists will eventually be proven right and this will be a disaster. But shouldn't we give it a try? It's a real funny line to have in there that he's like going after the realists even then. And he's like, maybe, maybe they'll be proven right. It's like, yeah, well, we were. And thank you. And we could have saved a lot of money and lives. Well, I'll exclude you from this comment that I'm going to make. But a lot of the people who were most vehemently against that are still. Some of them aren't alive. Many of them are vehemently against any. anything that we do. It reminds me of the guy who's constantly saying that the market's going to crash. And when it finally crashes, everyone treats them like a profit. It's easy to say, let's be realist and completely, you know, let's be able to be Henry Kissinger and just look at our interest only, which is important. But I think American people are very generous, honestly, even though, you know, that's not how we're depicted. and that there needs to be some level of idealism to sell it to the American people, that we're going to help some. We're going to help these protesters. We're going to make life better for the people in Venezuela and not just take their oil and et cetera. All right. We want to talk about culture? Let's do it. What did I have? Oh, I watched two things. Do you want to go first? No, I want you to go first. I watched a show, which I did not think I would like at all on Apple called Hijack. Huh. It stars Idris Alba. I love it. I love him. And it is what you think it is. It's just there's a plane that's hijacked. And it's not reinventing the wheel here.

But for some reason, it was just really tense the whole way in a good kind of way. It's just a thriller and interesting. And I binge watch it. Like I couldn't stop watching. There's a second season. So obviously this character is having bad luck with his transportation. But I would watch that. I think it is a good one if that's your deal. The other thing I watch was. One Battle After the Next, is that what's called? Oh, the Academy Award nominated. Yeah, one battle after another. I am a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson. You know, there will be Blood, Boogie Nights, his early movie, I forget the name right now. I mean, I think I've liked all of them. And... I was weirded out by this movie. I don't exactly know if I liked it or not. A lot of it is political or there's a political backdrop. There are people helping illegal aliens. They're blowing up things. There's a cartoonish kind of star chamber of, um, uh, what you call it, white supremacists who want to bring America back to it. And then all that's kind of dumb, even though it is kind of cartoony. But having watched it, I would say, I think that is overdone. I don't really feel like this is because the hippie terrorists in this movie look like idiots too. You know what I mean? I just don't think anyone comes off really well or anything that way. well-acted Benicio del Toro's in it. He's great. Everyone's good in it, all of that. But I just, you know, he's really good in it. Who I don't usually like is Sean Pan. He's the villain. I actually think he does a really good job. So it's Paul Thomas Anderson. So it's a well-made movie. It just didn't grab me. Like, I wouldn't watch it again. I didn't get the why it exists. It's based, it's not based. I guess it's based on Vineland. Is that the name of the book of Thomas Pinchone, who I'm not a fan of, you know, I read gravity's rainbow. I still don't get it, you know. I'm so glad you said that because Mark is always making me. read various pension and I sort of like it. And then I'm like, I don't really know what's going on here. Yeah, it's like fun to read, but it's just abstract. Like maybe that's what this movie is like. You know, there's no real need for this story. You're not really saying anything, but it's kind of fun to dip in and out of it and see it. But anyway, that was me this week. Those are the two things I did. Okay. I have a lot because we've been snowed in and also. So I already mentioned that I did the March for Life last week. A friend came in for that. So I got to spend some time with her. And I have also been doing a ton of organizing. I have a fairly small house. I have an office that is also my closet. And I, you know, I have a large shoe collection.

And that I also want to turn into a like a little home studio so that we can maybe do this on video. You're already set, David. But it's going to take some time and effort and like reconfiguring. And it's requiring me to get rid of so much stuff. So I've been just spending. hours each day just throwing stuff out or organizing or filing whatever you don't keep a lot of notes but i do i still take notes by hand and you know i have notebooks it'll say off the record and so i need to shred those things and but not but i can throw away other pages i don't need to shred everything and it takes a long time to shred everything um so It's just been quite the ordeal. And also really fun to go through weird things I wrote when I was younger. I keep cards from friends and my sister writes great cards. You know, it's just like a lot to go through. So if anyone has any tips, I also apparently have a stationary problem where I like to collect stationary but then not send it. So I'm working on that. I need to do a better job with that. But I've also watched a lot of movies. Last night, I watched half of the new West Side Story because I was done organizing and the rest of the family was watching it. Have you seen the new, by which I mean five years ago, West Side Story? I have not. I have not even seen the original really. So are you serious? Hold off. I think I've seen like the numbers, like the snapping number. And I know the songs like I'm happy to be in America or whatever that song. But I've never like sat down and watched what's that story now. So this whoever was the cinematographer was just great, beautifully composed shots. It didn't grab me. But I don't know if that's because I came in halfway through. as opposed to I was having trouble connecting with the characters. And it's compounded by the lead, Maria, being played by that Rachel Zegler girl. Oh, well, she does. Handedly destroyed Snow White through idiocy and support. Okay. And I just don't. One of the kids was so angry at me for saying this, but I don't think she's pretty. And I think that the lead in a musical should be really beautiful. I'm not a particularly beautiful person, and I understand that means I would never do the lead in a musical. And... Do you don't, I just think you should pick really handsome, beautiful people. I like looking at interesting people, interested faces. She does have a very interesting face, but she kind of looks like a little scrunchy. Yeah, I don't, I don't have much. I was like incorporating my own dislike of her selfishness and narcissism. I mean, there are people that I just, you know.

are in movies and I just can't I don't like them something about them I don't know them but something about their mannerisms or even their face to give you a person right off the bat Tom Hanks I just can't do it with that voice and the way he talks and everything I don't like it Yeah, I get that. So then I, there's another movie I only watched part of, but that's because I had to turn it off because it was so immoral. And it was PG-13 and it was called Definitely Maybe. And it's about a dad, the guy who's married to Blake lively, one of the Ryan's, but I always get them confused. Ryan. Reynolds? Reynolds? Yes, yes. And so he's. playing the part of a dad who's explaining to his very young child who her mother is. But she knows her mother, so it's more like he's telling a story and then she's going to guess which of the women he slept with is her mom. And I'm like, this is so inappropriate. It's so over the top inappropriate that I just had to turn it off. So we've done two movies that I didn't watch fully. And then there's a new, 10 years later, a new year season of The Night Manager. Oh, yeah. Did you watch that? I, the first one had the house guy in it, right? Yes, yes. Hugh Lorry. Does this one, I didn't think this one did. Maybe he died in the first, I don't know. He dies in the first one. So he's like. The Sean La Cray book, the Nightman, which I think, yeah. And I have, no, I did not watch this, yeah. One of them, but it looks like it's good. And I don't remember. Mark says we watched the other one together, but I don't remember that. It's like I was watching, what was I watching? And I saw that the next season's coming out in 2028 or something like that. I'm like, I can't, you can't have three years. The last one of these came out in 2016. I can't even remember a thing. You know, I have to binge shows now. I just let them kind of run out and then watch them when they're over. And then. Anyway, so did you like that or? Night manager? Yeah. I only saw the first episode, but it was good. Yes. And then this one came. at the recommendation of one of the kids, but also from viewers, and I think maybe you watched it two years ago, which is a little mini-series called North and South. Have you seen it? I think so, like in the 90s, maybe? No, it's North and South of England. Oh, oh, oh, oh. That's from the 80s. That's from like even before that, right? Yeah, and it's kind of like a pride and prejudice with a slightly different scenario. Who's in it? Anyone famous? I don't think so. I did not recognize any of the people, I don't think. But yeah, it's a minister's daughter who gets who the family moves to an industrial town and she's very prideful. 2004. Yeah, but it was, I hated her. I mean, I.

hated her. She really thought she was hot stuff and she wasn't. Meaning like she was like getting involved in labor disputes that she had no idea what she was talking about, but she had like never been told she was stupid. So she just kept doing it. Anyway, the man in the story is is very much Mr. Darcy likes. And I do like that type. So I enjoyed it. And he's the actor who played Thorin Oaken Shield in The Hobbit. Oh. I don't think I've seen The Hobbit. I've read The Hobbit, but I haven't seen it. Yeah. It's okay. I don't think they're as good at the original thing. The book is so exciting. The spiders still get every time. And then I've been playing a lot of banana grams with one of the kids. So that's my cultural. I have a lot of cultural stuff from March for Life to BananaGrams. It was a very active and diverse week you had culturally, which is good. Again, is that it? We have anything else? I want you to talk to Mark about the movie that you saw the Paul Thomas Anderson one because he's seen it. And I think he'll be on next week. So you should talk to about that then because he had really interesting thoughts about it along with yours. Yeah. We'll see. Actually, David, of the things I was throwing out, I had taken like 25 pages of notes during a subsequent viewing of Magnolia in the theater. And I was like, these are really interesting notes. Clearly, I thought I would write something and send it into Sinist or something like that. But I... I was deeply moved by that movie and the themes of law and gospel in there. I could not watch it a second time because it was so sad and affecting. Right. I don't even know the actress's name who plays the abused woman. She is fantastic in that, right? And she smiles at the very end and you're like, this is just a bittersweet, amazing movie. I usually don't like kind of anthology movies, even though they're well, interconnected, but I did like that movie very much. Yeah. Okay. It's funny with your papers. Like, you know how writers, I'm not saying this lover happened to me, but like Harvard will take the papers of this writer or that writer. I literally have no papers. Like I just throw out everything. I'm the opposite of a hoarder, you know, except for books, which I have a few thousand of in records and stuff like that. But as far as like papers go or cards, very, I don't know. So I don't like having around. I know you're trying to get out of here, but just one last thing on this. I was talking to Mark about being a daily journalist like we are and how not long lasting that work is. And I was telling him that I'm okay with this. And the way that I view it.

So I have all these books of theology, which are really interesting, and I love reading and studying and thinking about. But when you think about the life of an average Christian, like 99.9% of their spiritual life is probably related in terms of what they're getting from scholars is coming from their own pastor who's preaching to them each Sunday about the meaning of the word. And I recognize that all my stuff is literally getting thrown in the trash. And in fact, the only things I'm like keeping might be related to particular things of books I've written. or stories I'm still working on. And I'm okay with that because I think that in a similar way, the person who writes the long-term history of a current era, that will be important. But making sense of the world day-to-day is of vital importance as well. And you just have to get comfortable with the fact that you have no quote-unquote legacy that you're just trying to help people like in a day-to-day fashion. But that that's it, but that's really important. I think that's fascinating and I agree. I like to read good writing because it inspires me to try to write better. So I'll go back and read columnists from, you know, the 20s or 30s or whatever. And it's interesting to read to some extent, even Mencken or someone like that. But. You're like, this is pretty disposable, right? Like, this is about something that I, that doesn't concern us anymore. So it's interesting. And I certainly don't think anything I've written is, is, you know, going to, you know, no one will be reading it a century from now. Maybe, maybe my relatives or something. So I agree. That's why I don't feel. And also, I hate looking at anything I've written after it's published. Like, I almost never read it. So why do I need things? Like if a whole part was edited out and I didn't use it, like why am I saving the notes on that? I don't really need it. It wasn't good enough to be published. So I don't know. That's how I think about it does read it. I'm not saying I, like you say, it's I don't think writing about what's going on in our life. It's like I'm always telling people life is actually much better than it was in 1800s, whatever. I'm always telling. But we all live in our own world, right? And we have to make sense of what we're living in. So I get that. And I think it is in a sense, I don't know how important. it is, but certainly interesting, I think, but not, yeah, pretty disposable. Well, that's pretty, actually, that's a downer, Molly. What do you mean? Well, you, everyone likes to think they'll leave somewhat of a legacy, no? My legacy is my children and maybe real lives. All right. If you'd like to email the show, please do so at Radio at the Federalist.com. We love to hear from you. And we will be back next week with Mark Hemingway, right, Molly? I hope so. And until I'm recording my audio book next week. Yeah, we talked about that last week. We're very excited to hear. I have your book. I got a copy, so I'll be reading it. I hear enough of you, so I'm not going to listen to it. I'm just joking.

Anyway, we'll be back next week. Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.