Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 710 | Trump 2024? & The Disrespect for Marriage Act | Guest: Josh Hammer

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

Starting point is 00:00:19 We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Well, Trump is running in 2024. It is official. What do we think about this? Also, the Senate moves to redefine marriage at the expense of religious liberty and the future of our country.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Also, what really happened in the midterms? Was it abortion, Trump, culture wars that turned. the wave into the trickle. We will be analyzing all of this and more with our friend Josh Hammer from Newsweek. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com slash alley. That's good ranchers.com slash alley. Okay, Josh, before we talk about 2024, I just want to hear your take on 2022. Obviously, as we've heard over and over again, the red wave, the red tsunami did not really materialize. I've already talked about that. You've already talked about that. But from your perspective, what exactly happened? Because there's a lot of different competing

Starting point is 00:01:46 analysis from the right about what really kind of caused us to not have the outcomes that we thought we would have. So I kind of taken all of the above approach to answering this question. And you know, we're barely a week removed from the 2022 midterm elections. And it was devastating. I mean, there's no reason to try to, you know, try to make a turd sandwich taste any better than it should taste. I mean, this is a very devastating, extremely frustrating midterm. And, you know, one number that I always come back to, Allie, and I'm still trying to kind of wrap my head around this fully, Republicans actually won the national straight up popular vote for U.S. Congress by about four and a half points, 51.5 to 47 percent. That simply did not end up translating. So that number right there

Starting point is 00:02:32 should give Republicans at least a modicum of solace. It should give them at least a monocum of solace that, that's not quite that toxic. But obviously, race by race and play in the sheer numbers game that ended up not really translating. And there's a lot of blame to go around. And there's really no reason why I think we need to kind of pin that blame in any one particular party. So kind of just trying to go through all the parties, I guess that should be blamed for this. Well, one obvious thing is that the Republican Party has a monumental fundraising disadvantage.

Starting point is 00:02:59 And many of us are kind of sounding the alarm on this for months and Mons Blake Masters was getting destroyed on the airwaves out in Arizona, Herschel Walker, in Georgia. Really, every possible kind of close contest you looked at this cycle for Senate, for governor mansions, things of that nature, Republicans were just getting destroyed. So the R&C clearly is failing, frankly. It's just straight up failing. We should just say that when it comes to the fundraising game, the NRC, the U.S. House wing of the NRC is clearly failing in that respect as well.

Starting point is 00:03:30 You know, Senate leadership fund, and with Mitch. McConnell, you know, query whether they were picking all the right fights. I mean, Mitch McConnell is dumping a lot of money to boost Lisa Murkowski, who, to my knowledge, is not even a registered Republican. Perhaps that money should have been better allocated to races like Adam Laxalt in Nevada, Blake Masters in Arizona, place, Dr. Oz, perhaps, in Pennsylvania, places like that. And, you know, one other thing that we can't ignore, obviously, is the elephant in the room. And I suspect that you and I are going to get there a little later in this conversation, which, of course, is President Trump himself. It seems to me like President Trump did not do.

Starting point is 00:04:02 do the Republican Party any favors whatsoever in this election. We should probably just be pretty explicit about that and say it like that. Many of his endorsed candidates ran considerably further behind other candidates. And, you know, there are some competing data points to be sure. Joe Odea in Colorado, who was very anti-Trump. He got demolished. So, again, I'm not trying to pin all the blame on President Trump by any means whatsoever. But at least when you kind of get to certain candidates, like Doug Maastriano is a good example,

Starting point is 00:04:28 running statewide in Pennsylvania, just got utterly destroyed by Josh Shapiro. Maastriana was always, frankly, a terrible fit for that particular electorate, but he was Trump endorsed. Even Don Baldock, who I'll be honest with you, I thought might actually pull it off of the end in New Hampshire against Maggie Hassan. He lost by a massive margin. That's a Trump endorsement that query whether it could have gone the other direction there. And, you know, Republicans lost the independent vote, Allie. And that is a really, really sobering thing with historically low approval ratings for President Joe Biden. You know, that first presidential term, the midterm election, the opposition party really should always make gains.

Starting point is 00:05:02 let alone when you have 40-year high inflation and an economy that is recently as a month or two ago is formally in a recession. So, you know, if we're turning off independence by that margin and then the unmarried women kind of element you add into this, losing unmarried women by like 38 percent or whatever it was there, there's a lot of blame to go around here. But I think those are kind of the broader buckets, I guess, of where I would start at least to pinpoint the problem. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:27 I mean, it's hard for me to understand how President Biden could have such low approval ratings. Crime is up in many of these cities. Obviously, as you said, inflation at an all-time high, just the past couple of years of just draconian policies that have hurt people's lives and livelihoods, looking at how our education system has been run by the teachers' unions who then are part of the Democratic Party. It's really hard for me to understand how independence could look at those policies and how, especially in every major city in the United States, have only led to destruction. You can't look at a city that's been run by Democrats for any amount of time and see any improvements. You only see negative outcomes.

Starting point is 00:06:08 It's hard for me to understand how independence could break for Democrats in this midterm election, considering all of those things. And some people's theory is that we just had bad candidates. It's candidate quality. A lot of people are pinning it exclusively on Donald Trump. I just don't know. I don't know if that's true. One of the toughest losses for me was Blake Masters. had them on the show about a year ago.

Starting point is 00:06:32 And I was like, yeah, I really like him. I like JD Vance. They're different. They're interesting to me. I kind of like this new crop of Republicans that I think is more appealing, maybe to young voters. And yeah, I read something in the New York Times. So, you know, take that for what it was.

Starting point is 00:06:49 Also, this was from someone who works for Mitch McConnell. Take that for what it was. They said that the reason that they were not funding Blake Masters campaign, but instead they were directing more fun. to people like J.D. Vance was because Blake Masters in the focus groups had the worst scores that they had ever seen any candidate have in a focus group. Now, that to me is hard for me to believe. But then I ask myself, okay, is he like a commentator's candidate? Is he the candidate of people like you and me who are really online? Or do we have a disconnect from what the non-online

Starting point is 00:07:27 people are thinking, I think apparently so if we're losing independence and we're losing a lot of the people who just are not voting for the candidates that we think are awesome. It's a heck of a question. I mean, it's one of the million dollar questions that I think folks like you and I should be grappling with and our peers in this industry in this talking headspace. Look, I mean, I guess like full disclosure, I mean, I've said this publicly. I mean, you know, I've gone to know Blake a little bit. I mean, I got dinner with him last February in Arizona and I had a nice chat with him. And I do think very highly of him on a personal level. Having said that I have a lot of friends in Arizona, actually. And what I heard from the ground from even very right-wing friends in Arizona was that

Starting point is 00:08:08 the master's campaign, besides just being totally outspent, I mean, just utterly demolished on the airways by Mark Kelly, who had the power of incumbency. He has this kind of personal story where he's the astronaut. His wife, Gabby Giffords, was shot famously a decade ago or so. So he has got a very personal story that tends to resonate with the media in Arizona, and despite his kind of pro-Joe Biden voting record, even holding all. All of that aside, the Masters campaign, it seems to me, from the outside, probably could have done a few things basically better. And what I've heard anecdotally from some friends throughout the state, you know, Blake, who's obviously, he's an Arizona native. He was born and raised in Tucson, but he's kind of a Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley guy, spent a lot of time out in the Bay Area, Stanford Law School, all that stuff.

Starting point is 00:08:49 He didn't really necessarily take his back home, his back roots, you might say, his back to his roots, Arizona approach to the Kansas. campaign trail. And to kind of put like a very fine point on that, I heard anecdotes from some folks who would say that he might kind of walk into a room full of ranchers who are wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots wearing kind of like a t-shirt and like tech bro sneakers, which is the kind of thing that like I personally don't mind. You know, living here living here in Florida, I become kind of like a sneakers guy myself. But I mean, you know, if you're running for a statewide office in the state of Arizona, you've got to at least play the part. And, you know, some of that really matters. I mean, something like that, like, really kind of local retail politician stuff actually really matters.

Starting point is 00:09:29 But I think the basic thrust, the basic thrust of the past two, three years of the so-called New Right movement, the national conservatism movement, of which I'm very much apart, the basic arguments that kind of laissez-faire dogmatism, free trade absolutism, that a lot of these policies are not the future of the Republican Party. I think that totally sticks. I mean, I think I see no reason looking at the data here to necessarily move away from any. of what we have said from the past few years. You know, the abortion issue, which is a huge issue on a substantive policy perspective for both you and I, Alley, that is a thorny issue. And we're going to have to have some like very serious kind of candid, kind of within the pro-life family discussions about the best path forward for that.

Starting point is 00:10:12 But looking at the results in Kentucky, Kansas now, two very kind of red state data points over the past few months, you know, we probably should stop putting kind of straight abortion bans, constitutional referenda on the ballot before the people at a bare. minimum, we should probably be focusing more within state legislatures, trying to pass actual policy as opposed to kind of putting it before the people. I mean, at least kind of small stuff like that. But there is really a, there's a lot of blame to go around here. And the one thing that we haven't discussed yet is obviously one of the other elephants in the room here and what I see a lot of people thankfully talking about, but we really cannot talk about it enough because it is that,

Starting point is 00:10:49 that important is the extent to which the Republican Party is just getting demolished when comes to the mail-in-vote, vote-by-mail absentee balloting, ballot-harvesting regime. And unfortunately, that is the current paradigm that we live in. What the left and the Democratic Party have done is they have seized upon kind of the once-a-century COVID stuff from 2020 that sorted summer of the lockdowns and the George Floyd riots and all that and all the mail-in voting that became kind of the new normal. And they have now made that exactly the new normal. And in the long run, Republicans have to ultimately do away with that because it kind of defeats the purpose of an election. It really kind of undermines sovereignty in many kind of crucial and important ways there.

Starting point is 00:11:30 But at least in the short term, we would be foolish to unilaterally abandon that game. And, you know, as I saw Christina Pusha tweet on Monday morning, she, I think it was, she noted that California Republicans in certain districts there on the Los Angeles and Orange County area, at least seem to have actually used ballot harvesting to their advantage to get elected. So there's at least some element of that though. Republicans must be better on as well. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country

Starting point is 00:12:03 aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular.

Starting point is 00:12:22 This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. I want to talk a little bit more about that specifically in the state of Arizona and what you think went on there and some of the claims about what went on there. But I want to hit the abortion point quickly because I want to make sure that people understand you're not saying to do away with the abortion conversation or that Republican candidates shouldn't talk about abortion. you're talking about a difference between the effectiveness of a measure like the amendments that we saw in several states trying to protect the rights of unborn children versus legislation that is passed by the representatives and the state senators that you elect, that that is probably more of an effective thing to do. And I would agree because if you look at the state of Texas, even the state of Florida, to a lesser extent, passed abortion legislation. and obviously Ron DeSantis won, obviously Greg Abbott won. If you look at the state of Georgia, same thing, heartbeat bill, and Governor Kemp won. And so this is not such a polarizing issue. I mean, DeWine in Ohio also won after passing pro-life legislation. So this is not an issue I think that Republicans need to run away from. I don't think it's impossible for a Republican in most states to sign a bill into law that protects the life of unborn children and then get reelected. It is a little bit more difficult. I do think,

Starting point is 00:14:03 as you said, to put a ballot measure before people because, I mean, you are just going to have so much propaganda from Planned Parenthood and elsewhere, you know, giving people misinformation about what it actually stands for. So I still think abortion can be a winning issue. I certainly, I mean, I'm just glad I'm not a politician. If it weren't a winning issue, I still wouldn't be able to not talk about it because I think it's that fundamental. But I agree that there are obviously like we've got to do a better job of massaging or campaigning on it. And I don't know exactly what that looks like because I happen to think we have a lot of

Starting point is 00:14:45 pro-lifers on our side who do a really, really good job. I mean, maybe we're just outspent. I'm not sure. Well, we do have a lot of pro-lifers on our side who do a good job. And I'll kind of name one example of that. I think she's a mutual friend of ours who's Lila Rose. live action. So back in early August, I flew out the Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was participating in kind of a state lawmakers summit for live action. There was kind of 50 strategically taken state

Starting point is 00:15:08 lawmakers, basically trying to kind of hear from various panels, a couple of which I participated on about what to do in this post Dobbs world. And one thing that Lila Rose and live action do so well on the pro-life advocacy side is they have these videos. They talk about what actually happens during the course of an abortion. They actually break it down to human biology, to embryology. At six weeks, the unborn child has X, Y, Z, physical, biological, verifiable traits. You know, at 12 weeks, you know, you'd have to, like, literally strip off fingers and arms, things of that nature, right? Very graphic things.

Starting point is 00:15:41 And I guess it kind of gets to the broader point here is that pro-lifers have to actually make the pro-life argument. They can't just kind of make this kind of blanket assertion. Abortion is bad. Yeah. Yeah, you can't just say abortion is bad. You can't just say life begins a conception. Both those two things are true, by the way. But you have to actually make the argument to get in there, in the weeds there.

Starting point is 00:16:02 That is what I'm still waiting for a lot of our most articulate advocates, you know, folks like Josh Holly. I mean, it would be really nice that we had some of these incredibly bright pro-lifers really kind of get in there and start leading with some of these hard-hitting biologically grounded arguments. You know, I think someone who actually does a good job, Senator Lankford from Oklahoma. Like he is one of the most consistently and unapologetically, I would say, pro-life advocates. And I appreciate that. And he does it in a way that I think is compelling. But I agree with you. I mean, like Republicans do in so many ways, whether it's about marriage or whether it's

Starting point is 00:16:34 about abortion, they run away from the substance of it. Like they will get on the most fringe part of the issue and will say, well, it's really about religious liberty when it comes to marriage. Or it's really about not wanting taxpayers to fund it. when it comes to abortion. Well, no, it is about the fact that abortion kills a human being and human beings should have human rights and they should be protected in that way. And then, of course, I want to talk a little bit about the so-called respect for marriage

Starting point is 00:17:04 act in just a little bit. But I do see Republicans are just scared. But I think that if you look at the state of Florida, if you look at a lot of the wins that we did have, that really Republicans should not be running away from. from the so-called culture war issues, what are really moral issues. Actually, I would say in a lot of cases, the culture war wins elections. You're talking about a purple state, what was a purple state in Florida being completely transformed by someone who was primarily, I think, a culture warrior. Obviously, he did other great things too. But he was one of the only, it is probably

Starting point is 00:17:44 one of the only Republicans willing to go against the LGBTQ lobby, and he won. So I don't know, what do you think about that? What do you think about the whole Republican instinct to retreat from the culture wars? Actually, before I let you answer that, there's one thing that I just remember that I wanted to say, because I'm not sure that I agree with it. So you can lump this in with your answer to that question. So two people that I respect a lot, that I get a lot of information from that I, you know, I really like. Jack Posobic, Charlie Kirk. One of the the things that they said was maybe one of the reasons why we did so poorly in the midterms was because Lindsay Graham put forward that ban on abortion after 15 weeks. And I just don't

Starting point is 00:18:26 think I agree with that. I think a lot of people didn't even know that that happened. And secondly, I'm not sure if that's how we should be thinking about abortion legislation. I think, I mean, I'm not like an unconditional defender of Lindsey Graham, but he probably put it forward thinking, oh, this will show how radical Democrats are on abortion, that they won't even restrict abortion when the baby we know is capable of feeling pain. So I don't really want to blame Lindsay Graham for putting forward what we should consider an improvement on current legislation when it comes to abortion. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:19:07 You can tell me what you make of all of that. Yes, I'll take the ladder first and then go back to Florida and DeSantis and all that. So when it comes to the Lindsay Graham legislation, I was kind of a mixed thoughts on it. I don't recall particularly strongly tweeting one way or the other arguing against it. Obviously, the ideal policy is that, you know, and frankly, I've argued that this is the proper interpretation of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. The ideal policy is ultimately a full-on national abortion ban, and we should not mince words in saying that, you know, the analogs between the abortion issue and the slavery issue are myriad. I mean, they both involve kind of the willful deprivation of humanity of human beings. They both involve doctrinal constitutional issues of so-called substantive due process.

Starting point is 00:19:51 The parallels are remarkable. And, you know, Justice Abraham Lincoln famously said that this country cannot long survive half free and half slave. So too can America ultimately in the long term not survive where unborn children are free to live in some states and will be snuffed out of the womb in other states. So that very clearly is the long-term goal. you know, the only thing that we're talking about here on this show and this kind of post-2020 midterm elections conversations that many of us are having is how slowly we need to kind of plod to move forward. And, you know, it's worth bearing in mind, obviously, that Roe versus Wade tragically, of course, took 49 years to be overturned. And these victories are not ultimately won overnight. On the specific merits of Lindsay Graham's 15-week abortion ban, one thing that's worth noting is that Marco Rubio, who actually was one of the most vocal, perhaps the single most vocal proponents.

Starting point is 00:20:40 kind of the co-sponsor of Lindsay Graham's 15-week national abortion ban bill. He demolished Val Demings here in Florida, won statewide by 16 points. Val Demings in their, I think we've only had one debate in her one debate against Senator Rubio really tried to pin him down on the abortion issue. And the voters of Florida clearly were just simply not having it. I think I saw some polling out of Arizona that kind of indicated that Blake Masters' abortion polling specifically, that Arizona's felt more comfortable with him as their candidate, given the fact that this 15, week ban was going to be the party norm. But, you know, to go back to what we were just saying about kind of pro-lifers have to make the argument, here's what I would like to hear pro-lifers say,

Starting point is 00:21:19 Republicans say, when it comes to the 15-week issue. They should say that 15 weeks is literally still a longer gestational period than the abortion regime in no less secular a country than France. France literally has a 12-week abortion cap. All those European countries are typically in the 12-to-15-week range. America, at least in the Roe era, is a very important. a legitimate outlier or was a legitimate outlier up there with China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, the worst of the worst human rights offenders there. So these are the kind of arguments talking about kind of fetal harpie, kind of what happens to the unborn child comparing to kind of other countries around the world. These are the kind of arguments that I really just think pro-lifers

Starting point is 00:22:00 need to make a little more often. I didn't really hear any of that when it got to the 15-week ban. But all that to say, that I don't think that that issue particular, or that specific legislation, I should say, particularly hurt Republicans. I just don't. really buy that, to be honest with you. Yeah, and Florida just went from 24 weeks to 15 weeks. It's still 15 weeks in the state of Florida, right? It is 15 weeks right now. We'll see what the legislature does when they get back into session. I'm costly optimistic, especially now that Florida has supermajorities, actually Republicans supermajorities in both houses. I'm costly optimistic that we'll get a

Starting point is 00:22:30 better law, but we'll see. And, you know, on the question of Florida, which was the other part of your question there, Allie, I agree with the framing of your question. I wrote multiple columns over the past year or so, one in the aftermath of Glenn Yonkin's victory in Virginia, one kind of in the midst of Ron DeSantis' fight against the Walt Disney Company, basically saying that Republicans, you know, seize upon these so-called culture war issues and crews to victory. And what's interesting, actually, Allie, this is a point that I have that I've seen very few talking heads on our side make, actually. If you look at the issues that Republicans actually ran on in the 2022 midterms to the

Starting point is 00:23:05 extent they ran on issues at all, it really was not the culture war issues at all, was it? I mean, there was a little bit about abortion, but they were really kind of just shoohing that away. There was a lot of talk about the economy, jobs, inflation, things like that. Crime, I guess, to the extent that that's a cultural issue. But you really didn't hear a whole lot about the threat of wokeism in general. You know who was the one candidate this past cycle who talked about the threat of wokeism. We'll fight the woke on the beach.

Starting point is 00:23:31 We'll fight the woke here. Well, that was Ron DeSantis, the guy who just won the once purple, now bright red state of Florida by 20 points. So I totally agree. framing of your question. If there's one policy issue that I think we would most closely associate with Governor DeSantis, it is the COVID issue. But even the COVID issue itself, holding aside all of his various cultural war fights against Disney, critical race theory, LGBT, all of that. Even COVID was, and I guess to a lesser extent, kind of remains somewhat of a culture war issue.

Starting point is 00:23:59 It's not simply an individual liberty issue. The key insight about COVID since day one was that the ruling class, kind of the uniparty neoliberal elites in both parties seized upon the back vaccine mandates, the passports, the COVID lockdowns, all of that, to kind of enact a de facto class war of sorts against the deplorables, against the people who have to work in person, who have to go to their jobs if they were kind of crap out of luck, if they even had jobs at that point. You know, the laptop class, the professional managerial class, never had an issue with COVID. They could just work from home from the get-go. So I think Governor DeSantis realized from the get-go, along with a handful of other shrewd politicians throughout the country,

Starting point is 00:24:35 that COVID was also kind of a culture war issue to an extent there. And that was why he was so passionate, actually, about using state power in Florida to override even private sector companies that would implement these COVID vaccine mandates because he understood that that was an extension of this anti kind of deplorable pro ruling class culture war element. Yes. Yes. And obviously, you and I are on the same page there. There was some debate within conservatism when the whole Disney showdown went down about whether or not the state should use its power to kind of go against corporation. obviously you and I agree that that is within the purview of the state. And actually, it's really, they're really the only people or the only entity that can. And I don't know what a Republicans or a conservatives role is if it is not to protect the rights of its people against all kinds of institutions that seek to infringe upon them. All right. Speaking of Culture Wars, Trump last night,

Starting point is 00:25:49 announced his presidency, hit all kinds of culture war buttons. Let's play a quick clip of him saying that he is running in 2024. In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States. All right, Josh. I am having deja vu, not just in the announcement, but also just in the conversations that are happening on Twitter. I'm like, oh my gosh, we are talking about the exact same things and the exact same way that we were in 2015 and 2016.

Starting point is 00:26:29 I mean, what's your thought on this? Well, Ali, I'll be very candid with you. I did not watch this at all last night. I do live here in Florida. I was actually at the Florida Panthers First Washington Capitals hockey game with a friend. So I was kind of following on Twitter a little bit. I saw some clips this morning. What I heard from any number of friends who did watch it is that the former president really just didn't.

Starting point is 00:26:52 look or feel particularly inspired, that he was kind of, you know, he was reading off a script, he was reading up a teleprompter, that he was kind of trying to like recapture some of the old magic, but it didn't necessarily feel like it was fully there. Ivanka and Jared obviously were not there. I heard that Don Jr. actually, was not there, which is really interesting in and of itself. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that. And, you know, what I heard from some friends even actually who were there at Mar-a-Lago who texted me was that there were many in the crowd, actually, who seemed like they

Starting point is 00:27:22 getting bored that the speech tended to kind of drone on and on a little bit. What another friend texted me this morning was that she kind of compared this announcement to the Tom Brady presidential announcement. You know, it's like coming back for one more year, trying to put the band back together a little bit. Look, I personally at this point, have no small dose of Trump fatigue. And I say that as someone who thinks that Donald Trump was the greatest president of my lifetime, and it's not a particularly close call. And I would gladly, I would gladly pull the lever for him in 2024 if he ends up being the Republican presidential nominee. But right now, especially in the aftermath of the bloodbath that was the 2022 midterms with the Georgia Senate race still on the line

Starting point is 00:28:02 here, I mean, we should look at the serious possibility that Donald Trump could be indirectly responsible for costing Republicans, not one, not two, but potentially three U.S. Senate races just in the state of Georgia. As far as kind of his timing and his various antics are concerned going back to January 21, of course, and now this upcoming runoff between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock. So I'm not sure what else there is to say about it. I mean, based on what I read about his speech last night, as far as kind of the bucket of issues are concerned, it seems to be kind of a focus in many ways in kind of the 2016 issues,

Starting point is 00:28:38 a large focus on immigration and build the wall. And to be clear, I'm a staunch border hawk. I've never understood the argument that there should not be a wall. It's really just common sense to me. I totally support that. But there's been a lot of new issues that have emerged onto the scene since then. I mean, was he talking about critical race theory? Was he talking about woke capital? Was he talking about ESG and the threat that poses? I didn't really hear any of that, to be honest with you, or at least what I read when I was reading my recap articles this morning. So I don't know. But I definitely have Trump fatigue right now to an extent. And I suspect that I'm not the only one out there who has it. Yeah, he did talk a little bit about CRT. One thing that I did like that I saw that he said, I saw it on Twitter afterwards because I like you, it's not watching this live. He said that he would put, and we're going to play the clip, he would put not just drug dealers in jail, but he would actually give them the death penalty. So here he is making his case for that. But we're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts because it's the only way.

Starting point is 00:29:50 Okay, so this to me kind of reminds me of when he first started talking about building the wall and not allowing certain people in from certain Muslim majority countries. When he first started saying that, everyone was like, are you kidding me? that's so racist and xenophobic. And then when it came to the wall thing, a lot of people kind of started seeing the logic in that and that it made a lot of sense. And I think initially when people hear that drug dealers should get the death penalty, they kind of shrink back and say, oh, no, I don't like that. But then when you think about it, okay, we're not talking about weed dealers, but if you're talking about someone who has been dealing fentanyl, who is responsible, especially like these kingpin drug dealers responsible for the deaths of thousands of people,

Starting point is 00:30:35 people, especially like accidental overdoses when it comes to fentanyl and things like that. I mean, I actually don't really know what the argument is against the death penalty. And that's one thing I kind of like about Donald Trump is that he's willing to say things like this that I have not heard, at least recently, any Republicans say, I don't know. What do you think about it? I mean, I will be the first say that I'm an enthusiastic supporter of the death penalty for a drug dealer. So, I mean, you know, Ali, if I can kind of just open up to your listeners and your viewers on a personal level, One of my cousins with whom I was very close, about five years ago now, December 2017, tragically overdosed from fentanyl.

Starting point is 00:31:13 And, you know, I have any number of stories from friends, tragically, who have similar tales to tell. And, you know, you bet that I would prefer that for a modicum of justice, that the person who killed, who, who, who, did not be swearance here, who killed my cousin, be executed. So this is exactly the kind of policy that I, for years have thought is the kind of thing the Republicans should run on. But, you know, it's worth noting that as president of the United States, you know, President Trump passed two major pieces of legislation into law. There was a 2017 tax cut and there was a 2018 First Step Act. Well, the First Step Act was really kind of brainchild of Jared and Ivanka and to a lesser extent, maybe Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. This was a jailbreak.

Starting point is 00:31:56 I mean, this is kind of an anti-law and order bill. In fact, there were very few people, actually, in kind of the conservative commentary who came out of post this. It passed the U.S. by a margin of 88 to 12, actually. President Trump signed them into law. I was one of those handful of people that said this is a very bad idea. Some of your Blaze TV colleagues, I remember folks like Daniel Horowitz, and if I recall, Steve Days, were big critics of this legislation. So, you know, at least prior to the very bloody summer of George Floyd in 2020, where he kind of took a slightly different tone, Trump's presidency didn't necessarily reflect this, did not necessarily reflect this, extremely tough kind of law and order sentiment that, you know, I and others have been.

Starting point is 00:32:34 in pushing for many, many, many years now. But I agree with you that Trump, in many ways, has this unique ability to say things that may seem kind of superficially to be kind of outray or outlandish. But if you actually think about it a little more, really do have a lot of heft and a lot of kind of robitas going for them. And I guess more generally speaking, you know, the issue with President Trump never was necessarily the actual things that he was talking about. I mean, in many ways, his approach to immigration, his approach to China. I mean, he was more transformative on China than any president since Richard Nixon went to visit Chairman Madden in the early 1970s. He fundamentally reset the U.S.-China relationship, and I would argue for the better.

Starting point is 00:33:16 He obviously was an incredibly dynamic president when it comes to the Middle East. I mean, once a generation peacemaker, who would have thought President Trump peacemaker? Well, he literally proved that to be the case. So there's so much to applaud in general, really, about the various kind of policy initiatives that I think he stood for. as we saw in that clip right there in many ways that he is still kind of pushing. Rather, the criticism, I guess, is twofold, at least that I can immediately think of. One is, can he actually execute on this? And that's kind of why I mentioned the First Step Act.

Starting point is 00:33:45 You know, when it comes to President Trump, there were a lot of criticisms about his personnel decisions. He oftentimes was not hiring the best people. He oftentimes was not firing the worst people. He oftentimes was letting people, such as, you know, Kanye West on the First Step Act, have way more influence over policy than they probably should have had. hat. And I have no indication that he has necessarily learned any of these lessons from his last go-round. And I guess the other criticism of President Trump and kind of directly implicating his potential ability to actually execute these policies to actually implement this vision, the other bucket of

Starting point is 00:34:17 criticism is can he actually get over? Can he get over the 2020 election? And, you know, I have publicly said many times. I have used the word stolen. I refer to the 2020 election is stolen when you combine all the dubiously legal mail-in balladeting initiatives in states like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and so forth when you talk about kind of the New York Post, Hunter Biden's story, the one in six Joe Biden voters saying they would have voted for Trump if they known of that. If you combine all of these issues above, I have no problem referring to the election is stolen when the actual margin was 40,000 votes trickled across four very key states.

Starting point is 00:34:51 But here's the key point. Can Trump actually learn from that and then chart a path forward to implement. kind of the relevant kind of election-related reforms that we were talking about a little earlier to actually prevent this from happening again rather than just kind of beating the drums about stolen election, Brad Rappensberger in Georgia and all of that. And I have very little in the way of evidence that he has learned those relevant lessons in a way that would allow him to implement even those kind of election-related measures as well. Yeah. And one thing that I think proves your point that he either can't get over that or just can't get over himself is he,

Starting point is 00:35:28 his reaction to the re-election of Ron DeSantis. Everyone talking about Ron DeSantis being the 2024 pick for Republicans, I think probably rubbed Trump the wrong way because he sees himself as a shoe in. He sees himself as the Republican Party, which he did transform the Republican Party in a lot of ways. But I think he overestimates the cohesiveness of the Republican Party behind him and just how important he is now. So he released these statements, multiple statements, very strange statements on truth social about Ron DeSantis, basically how he made Ron DeSantis, also made comments about Casey DeSantis, really being the one who runs his campaign, saying he said previously that there were some things that he would reveal about Ron DeSantis. If he runs,

Starting point is 00:36:21 there was a Trump lawyer. We played it on this show last week who said, you know, it'd be basically be career suicide for Ronda Santis to run. And then also Trump said some weird things about Glenn Yonkin. What? That was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen where he separated Yonkin's last name, Yonkin, and said sounds Chinese. What? What are you doing, dude? What are you doing? So I do wonder if his kind of calm demeanor last night, which a lot of people saw as uninspired and boring, was his attempt to be disciplined. His attempt to reel it in and to say, oh, okay, people like Ron DeSantis because they, you know, he pushes good policies, wages the culture war, but isn't quite as bombastic and

Starting point is 00:37:09 unpredictable as Trump is. Maybe that was Trump trying to say, oh, you know what, I can be like that too. I can take off my downsides, whatever it is. But I don't know. I mean, what do you think about this fight? And this is kind of what brings. me back to 2015-2016 because I already have people, I really haven't said anything about it. Definitely not before the election because I actually thought that, you know, I didn't want to do anything that could even potentially hurt DeSantis. And I just felt like putting them against each other that's just not helpful before DeSantis's election. But I haven't really said anything about it at all. And yet I'm getting messages in my Instagram inbox from people saying,

Starting point is 00:37:48 why haven't you overtly supported President Trump yet? Why haven't you said anything about this? You know, I always knew that you were a closet anti-Trumper, whatever it is. This is the MAGA movement. This is America First. And they're already kind of saying, okay, here's the system on this side, which now includes like national review. And then here's Trump over here.

Starting point is 00:38:11 Trump is our underdog yet again. We have to support him. And people saying to Santis is a part of the establishment. I'm like, oh my gosh. I am so not ready for this conversation yet. I'm just not ready for it. What do you think? Well, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts about all of that, I guess, is where I would start.

Starting point is 00:38:29 So, look, I mean, this effort to paints Ronda Sanders as some sort of kind of like rhino establishment lackey. I mean, it's laughable on its face. I mean, when he was in U.S. Congress, he joined the House Freedom Caucus on day one. He was always one of the most conservative members in Congress. You know, if I remember correctly, he was actually even kind of an early advocate for winding down the Afghanistan operation. There have been some questions raised about his foreign policy, Bonifides, is he actually just going to be kind of an old school gun toting? Lindsay Graham, John McCain-style neocon. Well, I mean, if I remember correctly, that's actually really not actually where he comes down to foreign policy, which I think is actually quite encouraging.

Starting point is 00:39:07 And, you know, more generally speaking, I mean, the Disney fight is so indicative. I mean, when a Chamber of Commerce corporate tax cut fetishizing style, you know, supply side of a Republican ever take on one of the largest employers in the state? Never. Never in a million years. Are you kidding me? I mean, it's ludicrous on his face. So this effort is going to fail. Now, having said that, having said that, Ali, I am a little concerned, if I'm being candid with you, about the extent to which you see a lot of establishing forces, Wall Street Journal, National Review. AEI think tank types, some folks like that that are rallying to DeSantis' side in what they perceive to be this mono-a-mono Trump versus DeSantis matchup. In fact, I'm probably going to write my column this week actually trying to kind of push back against that and basically say, no, you guys are not going to co-opted Governor DeSantis

Starting point is 00:40:00 for your kind of outmoded supply side corporate chamber of Congress vision because that's not who he is. That is not the politician who he is. And I think for a lot of kind of culture war-centric, you know, New Right, Natcom, whatever you want to call us, style conservatives, we have to kind of get out in front of that before that ball kind of gets a little, you know, further down the field. A friend of mine who works at one of those kind of more establishment-leaning conservative organizations, but who himself, I think, is more kind of new right leaning. He actually texted me last night. And he said, Descantis has to do something soon that will piss off National Review and the American Enterprise Institute. again. He should pick another Disney fight. Maybe it'll be the transgender issue. I'm not sure. But

Starting point is 00:40:43 this effort to kind of paint Governor Zantis as an establishment chamber of commerce, Rino, lackey, it's not going to take hold. It is just absurd on its face there. And I guess the other thing that's worth pointing out here is Trump indisputably started a movement. He indisputably started the America First movement, kind of this more populist-oriented strand of conservatism, you know, national sovereignty, immigration, trade realism, all the above, right? I mean, kind of a rebuke of moralistic foreign policy interventionism. And effectively, all of those policies, I think, were for the better. I mean, I really do think that American conservatism substantively is now in a better place

Starting point is 00:41:24 because of Trump. That doesn't necessarily mean that Trump is necessarily, that it doesn't necessarily mean that he is the best person to take it home from here. So he was an earthquake. He was a wrecking ball. He exposed a lot of sclerosis. He exposed a lot of intellectual rot. That doesn't necessarily mean because of some of the reason that we've already talked about

Starting point is 00:41:44 on the show that he is the best person to build. He was amazing at destroying and exposing rot. But we have to start building here. And part of what you have to do to build, I would submit, is to actually advocate and articulate a positive, affirmative vision of governance and what it means to live as a sovereign person living in a free state and ultimately a free state. and ultimately a free country. And I think that's actually what Governor Sanders has really done here in Florida.

Starting point is 00:42:09 And in so doing, he has transformed this state into a red state. The Hispanic vote in Florida went for him by a massive margin. He won Miami-Dade County, 70-plus percent Hispanic County by double-digit margins here. I mean, first time a Republican had won the woman's vote, I think, in, what, 20 years? So there's that too. And if we're worried, as we said earlier about losing independence, I mean, maybe it's, I understand what you're saying about not wanting to be seen as the establishment candidate and he is not, but these organizations that are establishment supporting him might

Starting point is 00:42:45 make people think that he is. I understand what you're saying about wanting to piss them off. But at the same time, there are a lot of independents that take their cues from the Wall Street Journal and who do read NRO and who would probably be persuaded that waging the culture wars, the way that Ron DeSantis does is actually a good thing. So I'm not so sure that, yeah, maybe to you and me who were anti-establishment in a lot of ways, but we have to remember, you and I are very online. And we like, you know, things that are very online. And our normal friends just aren't thinking the same way. They're not reading the same things. And so I don't think it's so bad, at least in my opinion, that he does have some advocates.

Starting point is 00:43:31 in those arenas. We'll see. We'll see. It'll be an interesting thing to watch play out. Oh, also, another huge benefit. Another huge benefit is that we would greatly appreciate, I think, as a country and benefit from having a president who is under 80 years old. Like, is that so much to ask? He's under 50 years old. I think he's 40 something. I think that that is a very normal and good age to run for president, not trying to be rude or anything, but I mean, there are fewer and fewer things that you can do well, the older that you get. That's just true for all of us. I think that Trump is a very young age, however old he is, 80, whatever.

Starting point is 00:44:21 He, I mean, he's way younger, I think, mentally than Joe Biden is. But still, can't we get someone who is, you know, not part of the silent generation? I don't know. That's just my opinion. Yeah, I mean, when can America finally move on from the boomers? I mean, the boomers have frankly done a lot of damage to America. They've done some good things as well. Helen Andrews of the American Conservative has a whole book that you wrote over the past year or so about.

Starting point is 00:44:46 Yeah. But Ellen's wonderful. So, yeah, I mean, her book speaks for itself. I mean, the boomers have done a lot of harm. But nonetheless, America is still a gerontocracy at this point. It is a country governed by old people who happen to be boomers, whether it's Chuck Schumer, whether it's Mitch McConnell, whether it's Joe Biden, whether it's Donald Trump. Joe Biden, by the way, is not a baby boomer. I was just looking this up.

Starting point is 00:45:07 He's not a baby boomer. He is actually a part of the silent generation. He is only six years older than my grandmother who died a couple years ago. And even Donald Trump, he is right on the cusp. I think Baby Boomer actually starts in 1946. And that is when he was born. So we're not even talking about baby boomers. We were talking literally about the people who were born right after the Great Depression.

Starting point is 00:45:30 Which, nothing wrong with him. Nothing wrong with that. We love that generation. But, yeah, there are benefits to youth. Well, the silent generation in many ways was actually one of the Great American generations. Yes. Those are the folks who stormed the beaches of Normandy.

Starting point is 00:45:44 I mean, those were kind of the true heroes, obviously, right? Well, that was the greatest generation. So there's the, there's greatest generation, silent generation, baby boomers. But still, silent generation still one of the greatest because they were raised in large part by the greatest generation. And so like, yes, some of the greatest Americans, they tend to be more conservative. That's great. But man, when you're thinking about like what we need is you said to build the future, I do

Starting point is 00:46:09 think that youth can help? No, totally. I mean, I mean, but by sheer dint of being a younger family, and the DeSantis is, are a younger family. I think Governor DeSantis just recently turned 43 or 44. I think 44, I'm not mistaken. His wife, Casey, I think is like right around the age of 40, who actually wouldn't shock me if she's 39 even. They have three kids that are age like one, three and five, or maybe they're two, four, and six, something like that. So they are a very young family. And, you know, I think Governor Santis and the First Lady of Florida, Casey, they very much do have their kind of thumb on the pulse of the issues that are resonating. That's kind of what I was saying earlier. I mean, I'm happy to hear that Trump mentioned critical race theory.

Starting point is 00:46:50 But I mean, like, what about woke capital? I mean, the metastasis of private sector America, whether it's big tech, whether it's the Fortune 500, Silicon Valley, Hollywood. I mean, the transformation of the private sector from a one-time ally of the American right to an effective enemy of the American right is, one of the most important issues of our time. And it kind of gets to kind of this this fusing of state and corporate power, this public private sector fusion than I think only kind of a more kind of muscular, frankly, authoritative brand of conservatism is capable possibly of breaking that dynamic up. This is the kind of thing that you, I think you have to have your thumb on the pulse of what is happening to be able to see it. And again, at least here in Florida, I'm literally all those issues

Starting point is 00:47:33 that I just mentioned, whether it's the big tech issue, Florida has passed an effective law, whether it's the woke capital issue. Florida has passed an excellent law called the Stop Woke Act. So really just wherever you look, you know, I think Governor Zantis has it, and that's due in no small part of the fact that he is younger. And there's no, you know, there's no harm in saying that a country that in many ways, this is our country, the United States, that in many ways seems to be pretty decadence, that potentially seems to be starting kind of a Rome-esque decline, lest I sound a little too black people at the moment. you know, we really need some youthful energy to kind of steer this ship in the right direction to turn this thing around here. And doubling down on kind of the personalities of the past, let alone those who are kind of very preoccupied with kind of fighting literally yesterday's war or last year's war. It doesn't necessarily strike me as the best path forward.

Starting point is 00:48:27 Yeah. All right. There's a couple more things that I just want to get your thoughts on. Up for a vote soon. Is the Respect for Marriage Act so-called in the Senate, past the House, and they're saying that this is just basically solidifying, codifying Abughey-Wel. Obviously, it goes past that, just like codifying Roe v. Wadewood. Alliance defending freedom says this. The Respect for Marriage Act threatens religious freedom in the institution of marriage in multiple ways. It further embeds a false definition of marriage in the American legal fabric. Of course, that's the most important, in my opinion, the definition of marriage between a man and a woman is pre-civilizational.

Starting point is 00:49:06 It opens the door to federal recognition of polygamous relationships. It jeopardizes the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that exercise their belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. It endangers faith-based social service organizations by threatening litigation and liability risk if they follow their views on marriage when working with the governments. Now, there has to be 60 votes. So there needs to be 10 Republicans that vote in favor of bringing it to the floor. and then it will actually be voted on and decided whether it will be sent to Joe Biden. What do you think?

Starting point is 00:49:40 You think there will be 10 Republicans that vote in favor of bringing this to the floor? Well, let me first just stipulate that this is a very bad law. And what you read from ADF is accurate. In fact, just before I joined you for this recording alley, I was watching a video that the Heritage Foundation put out from my friend's Rabbi Yaakov Manchin, who's the I think the managing director is his title

Starting point is 00:50:02 of an Orthodox Jewish organization called the Coalition for Jewish Values, where Rabbi Manking kind of explains, even from a Jewish perspective, why this bill is so profoundly harmful. Obviously, from a Christian perspective, it is profoundly harmful as well. And, you know, one key point to make, and you just got at this, Allie, is this isn't just about religious liberty. I mean, that is a massive, massive, massive concern. But by bestowing an imprimatur of legitimacy upon this legislation, any Republican who was complicit in it will also be, stamping his or her seal of approval to codifying under U.S. law an erroneous definition of what marriage actually is, a definition of marriage that is directly contrary to the tenets of biblical Judaism or biblical Christianity, and frankly is directly inimical to any concept of marriage that

Starting point is 00:50:49 anyone in human civilization would have conceived of prior to roughly 15, 20 years ago. So it is a very bad law. What you said about kind of a cause of action and kind of opening the floodgates of litigation is absolutely true as well. And I really hope that it will be defeated. As far as the votes are concerns, you know, look, I mean, we're coming, we're now by definition in a lame duck Congress. You have a new Congress coming in come January. Lame duck congresses are famously hard to predict the incentive structures and not necessarily aligned properly. You know, will you have folks like Rob Portman and Pat Toomey? I guess Rob Portman was always going to support this. You know, it's going to be

Starting point is 00:51:24 close. I mean, I think you'll probably get, I can literally think out loud here, I can literally think at least five to seven Republicans we're going to join? Will they get the full 10? I guess I'm cautiously optimistic that they will not, but we've obviously been let down before. So it's going to be a close call, but if I had to make a prediction on your show, I predict that they probably will fall just short. Man, I don't want to seem blackfield either. And I mean, I guess I'm not because I'm always going to be a hopeful person. And especially as a Christian, there's a doctrine or an idea that we say that our citizenship is ultimately in heaven. And of course, we believe that Jesus is king ultimately. And so there is hope outside of politics. But because I care about the country

Starting point is 00:52:17 and which I've been placed, I care about the state of it. I care. I have an interest in preserving marriage and the family as someone who wants my country to survive and thrive. And you cannot. You cannot survive and thrive without the family as the building block. And if you redefine family outside of what is the natural nuclear family, it disintegrates. It causes chaos, especially when you're talking about opening up the door to polygiveness marriage and, or marriage, so called. I know a lot of people say, oh, you know, that's a slippery slope. That'll never happen. I don't even think that you can logically call anything a slippery slope. We were not only right about what would happen after Obergefell was decided by the Supreme Court, but we actually, underwerex,

Starting point is 00:53:04 estimated what would become normal as a consequence of the sexual revolution that has been sanctioned in the United States. I don't think anyone would have ever had the imagination in 2015 to talk about Drag Queen Story Hour and here we are. So, I mean, we already know it's going to open up the door to polygamy. No one ever seems to ask the question, well, where do children fall in all of this? It's always about adult's wishes and our desires. And I guess the state just doesn't think that they have an interest in protecting the family and children. And that is not only to our shame, but also to our intense detriment. And we will continue to see the chickens come home to roost for years and years to come. I mean, we're already seeing the polygamy issue to an extent, right?

Starting point is 00:53:45 I mean, there was a court in New York State. I came out if it was a New York City. I think it was in the Bronx, if I recall, that gratuitously and superfluously started opining on the legitimacy of polyamorous or however you pronounce that word, polyamorous, whatever it is. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the more recent thing, even since kind of the slow, but steady onset of the polygmy discussion, the more recent thing is kind of the mainstreaming of what they call it, a MAP's minor attracted person, which, you know, once upon a time would just been called the pedophile. Um, like, like, that is like, that's the newest thing. We're starting to see large swats of the cultural left, you know, the intersectionality, LGBTQ, lobby. whatever, talk about kind of, you know, the inherent human dignity of minor attracted people, which is just disgusting. I mean, like, let's just call it what it is. That is awful, awful, awful stuff. You know, a friend of mine, glad and pap him, a very theological conservative, a Catholic friend of mine, he has jokingly referred to the so-called slippery slow fallacy as the

Starting point is 00:54:53 the ironclad rule of the slippery slope with like a little trademark symbol, because it never fails. I mean, basically everything that social conservatives have said, time and time again since the 50s, virtually all of it has come true. And, you know, Ross Duthat, actually, the New York Times columnist, he had a very, very, very good blog post about this years ago.

Starting point is 00:55:13 It was back when I was in law school. I think it was in the year 2015. It was kind of the Supreme Court was building up to the Obergefeld litigation, potentially right after that, but it was right around there. If I recall, Crowthie, the title of his blog post was the wild ideas

Starting point is 00:55:26 of social conservatives. And he does exactly the legislature. He goes back to the 1960s and basically shows that time and time again, when the cultural left, when elites, when elite institutions dismiss cultural conservatives, social conservatives as talking about the slippery slope, time and time again, it comes true. And they're increasingly just out in the open about it, whether it's the polygamy thing, whether it's the minor retracted persons thing there. So, you know, all that's to say that I strongly agree with you there. But, you know, one thing that I would like to see at least some elected

Starting point is 00:55:57 Republicans do, some of the conservative think tanks to their credit, you know, ADF, heritage, folks of that, to their credit, what they are doing. But it'll be nice to see at least one Republican when this bill gets up there on the floor for debate, whatever, to actually make a speech about what the definition of marriage is. I mean, wouldn't that be nice? It kind of gets to what we were saying earlier on the pro-life issue. You have to make the arguments. You can't just hand-wave it away. And this is why I very gently pushed back against kind of this over-focus on religious liberty, which is obviously important there. But to an extent, religious liberty is almost like a dodge from the actual debate, which is what is the definition

Starting point is 00:56:33 of a marriage here, right? So we have to have at least one person, hopefully, and there are a Senate Republican caucus who can get on the floor and actually make that case. Honestly, I would be shocked if we did. I would actually kind of be surprised if there were a senator who was willing to go up there and defend marriage substantively. I mean, if we had more senators doing that, then this probably wouldn't be a debate. But Republicans, love to retreat. And so, I mean, maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. We'll see what happens on that. Obviously, I don't believe that the government has the authority to redefine something that is pre-America, pre-civilizational. You can call it marriage, but it is essentially

Starting point is 00:57:14 definitionally not. All right. One thing, one last thing, I just want to get your thoughts on because I wanted to make sure that we covered it today. So have you been following this whole Poland missile, Russia, Ukraine, Poland was hit apparently by a missile. We initially thought it was Russia. Zelensky, president of Ukraine, came out and said, yeah, see, look, Russia is attacking NATO ally, Poland. Please send us more stuff. But apparently it was Ukrainian missile that hit Poland, not on purpose, but trying to defend itself against Russia. And so it seems like more and more people are realizing, maybe Zelensky isn't like this hero that we should be lionizing. And I don't know.

Starting point is 00:58:03 What do you think about this? Allie, there are a few issues over the past year that I think I've pissed more people off than on the Ukraine issue. Because basically since day one, I have been saying let's slow down here. Let's pause. Let's actually look soberly at the parties here. And let's most important, from an American perspective, to figure out what the U.S. national interest is in this particular conflict. I wrote numerous columns back in March and June, basically kind of questioning the all-out

Starting point is 00:58:29 absolutist Zelensky narrative. I had a piece, I called about about a month ago or so, I was saying that the U.S. needs to shift course immediately when it comes to Ukraine. And just last week, actually, my friend Jonathan Brunitsky and I co-authored a piece for the federalist saying that Vladimir Zelensky is no Jewish hero because, you know, as a traditional Jew, it frankly pisses me off to Noem that this guy gets there and tries to play the Jew card when it comes to shaming Israel to provide them extra munitions. And so Zelensky since day one has struck me as a profoundly cynical figure.

Starting point is 00:59:01 And, you know, I should stipulate that when it comes to his perspective from a Ukrainian national perspective, it makes all the sense in the world to play fast and loose with the facts to try to draw in NATO. I mean, he has a vested interest in drawing NATO into this conflict. It makes all the sense in the world. then it didn't take a genius to see that coming since day one there. And none of this is to say the Vlamour Poon is a bad guy. His invasion since day one was unjustified.

Starting point is 00:59:25 The West probably could have avoided it that they were a little more shrewd when it comes to NATO and EU. Sorry. Thank you for the fruit. No, I think you might have said that. I just wanted to clarify because it like almost sounded like is and I knew you sad or meant isn't. So just wanted to clarify. No, no. I mean, I mean, Vlamer Poon is a thug.

Starting point is 00:59:44 I mean, we should be very clear about that. I mean, Vladimir Putin is not a good person. He obviously does not have the American national interest at heart here. But the point that I have made over and over and over again is that not every conflict can be easily reducible to a World War II paradigm, where you have all-out absolutist genocidal Nazi evil on one side and all-out absolutist red, white, and blue, ra-rah, American patriotism on the other. Not every conflict is 100% evil versus 100% good. it is possible that there are some conflicts that are actually quite complicated and a little more nuanced and more to the point where the U.S. national interest in the conflict is not necessarily

Starting point is 01:00:23 as clear as it should be. So, you know, it seems to me like Vymer Zelensky has yet again gotten caught with his pants down. And if you look at the polls of Republicans who tell pollsters that were doing too much to support Ukraine, that number has shot up over the past few months as I think more Republicans kind of sober up to that fact as well. And I'm, I'm, I'm I'm happy to see that. You know, I think that some folks are going to probably try to rush through some sort of lame duck massive aid package to Ukraine in this lame duck Congress. I, you know, I hope that Republicans try their best to slow that down. We, you know, we'll see what happens.

Starting point is 01:00:59 Mitch McConnell is very much part of kind of Zelensky absolutist school of thought, you might say. But, you know, it does appear to be the case that this tragedy that happened on the Polish-Ukrainian border. was due to a Ukrainian missile, effectively misfiring. It seems like NATO has now said that. The president of Poland, Duda, has now said that. So hopefully people can just calm down a little bit at this point. And, you know, for the love of God, I just hope that this conflict ends sooner rather than later for not just the U.S. national interest, but also for Ukrainians and Russians themselves. Yeah. I was glad to hear that it wasn't Russia because people were already talking about World War III, which they've been talking about for a while. Not that it's a good thing

Starting point is 01:01:40 at all that Poland was hit. I think two people died, which is tragic. But obviously, if it had been intentional by Russia, I mean, who knows what U.S. response would have been. So, wow, there's a lot more to talk about. There are a few other questions that I have, but I think that's all we have time for today. And as always, I appreciate your insight. And just a reminder for everyone where they can find you, how they can follow you. Yeah, anytime, Mali, thanks for having me. So I run the Newsweek op-ed sections. You can go to Newsweek.com slash opinion for our Daily output of op-eds. I'm on Twitter at Josh underscore Hammer, and you know, you can go ahead and subscribe to my show, which is just called The Josh Hammer Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

Starting point is 01:02:19 or wherever you get your podcast. Awesome. Thanks so much, Josh. I really appreciate it. Anytime, Allie. Thank you. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos.

Starting point is 01:02:58 If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

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