The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Common Sense Politics with Ruy Texeira

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Ruy Teixeira is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on the transformation of party coalitions and the future of American electoral politics. Before joining AEI, he was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress from 2003 to 2022. A political demographer and commentator, Dr. Teixeira is the author of numerous books, reports, and articles. He is the coauthor of The Emerging Democratic Majority (Scribner, 2002), one of his most influential books, which was selected as one of the best books of the year by the Economist.

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of New York's world-famous comedy cellar, coming at you on Sirius XM 99, Raw Dog, and wherever podcasts are available. This is Dan Natterman. I'm here with Noam Dorman, the owner of the world-famous comedy cellar, and newly famous political pundit as well, Noam. In the house, in the house, Dan, in the house. We got Pera Lashenbrand here, who's our producer, and she is an on-airit as well, Noam. In the house, in the house. We got Peral Ashenbrand here, who's our producer, and she

is an on-air personality as well. That's just sort of how things evolved. We got Dov Davidoff, who is a recurring friend and fan of the show, but we were talking before... Can't we afford some decent headphones? What the fuck? The show about Noam's newfound fame.

Noam, just to recap, interviewed Philip Bump from the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. Dan, we got a comment that your comment that you were the best thing about last week's podcast. You did the McLaughlin group thing. Okay. Well, for those who actually know the McLaughlin group. In any case, Noam grilled Mr. Bump about Hunter Biden and his involvement with barisma and uh the main street i mean people might be sick of this but let me just say let me just say that um uh two two things that made me happy first of all that uh the new york times apparently has changed their

verbiage on the way they discuss this they no longer say there's no evidence they say there's no hard evidence and i'm taking full and that's been credited to you on Twitter. Well, yeah. People have. Which is a tacit acknowledgement that something untold happened. It's just no hard evidence. People have speculated that I had some impact on the national debate, which I think I think I think he did because. But but then this dude, Phil Bump.

Yes. He's still. Now, listen, after he was here, you know me. I was like, let's get together. Let's have a drink. I'm not – because I have a lot of friends actually that I've met through Have It Out, whatever it is. But anyway. So he takes to the – what is all the activity?

He takes to the – Twitter? He takes to the Washington Post. Now those headphones are – you got to tell the boss to just lift the budget out a little bit. I believe we've told him that. And I believe I've said, get whatever you need. No. Because your head's a funny shape, Perry.

Okay, let's just go. He self-generated a conspiracy theory about there being a setup? He said two things here. And I tweeted at him today. Of course, he doesn't answer. But I demand, I demand, ladies and gentlemen, I demand a retraction from the Washington Post because this is reckless disregard for the truth. As we know, this is the standard.

Yes. He wrote the following. In the post, he wrote. In the Washington Post, he wrote the following. Dun, dun, dun. He says, then a snippet of the interview was taken out of context to suggest that I've been so flummoxed,

that means like bewildered, so flummoxed that I'd walked out of the interview something that I didn't do, as the YouTube page for the interview admits, but I understand the appeal. Instead of acknowledging that 75 minutes into a 45 minute interview, I was disinterested in speculating on something that was outside the purview of what I was there to talk about.

It was much more appealing to suggest that the mainstream media was very scared of hard questions. So, first of all, he was not there for 75 minutes. He was there for 61 minutes and something seconds, maybe almost 62 minutes. And at 58 minutes, well, earlier on he said, but 58 minutes, he was already freaking out. We told him, I posted it, the interview will be about 45 minutes. Now, we've had hundreds of guests on this podcast, Perrielle. We certainly have. Not one has ever objected to an hour not being about 45 minutes or they've said

i'm sorry i need to leave at like i've got hard out if they had a hard like nobody's being held hostage they warn us of the heart no what i'm saying is that but this has nothing to among grown-ups who are used to podcasts and political exchanges you know that almost always or or a visit to the doctor or anywhere else in the world that runs 14 minutes later than you thought it would. What do you mean? Are you an adult? Are you 12 years old? But facts matter. He cannot write, I was there for 75 minutes when there was hard video evidence.

Or facts don't matter to him. Which is a point. So now I feel like the Washington—I know it's a trivial matter, but if it's worth writing about, it's worth getting it right. Why not put, I was there for two hours. I was there for a hundred hours. I spent the night in Nome's house. I mean, the obvious answer is, well, if you can actually ascertain how long you were there, that's what it should be. And by the way, years ago when the New Yorker wrote an article about the moving of the table, that's how I met Perry L., they busted my balls about inches.

I said, I think it's – I think they moved it a foot. And they said, is it exactly a foot? And I'm like, I don't know, 11 inches, 13 inches. They said, would you please go measure it for us? So I went and actually measured because they wanted the exact number. It was a trivial difference. But this is not so trivial because an hour is kind of about 45, and 75 minutes might actually be pushing it, right?

So that's why he says – so that's not true. The second thing that's not true is that it was outside the purview of what I was there to talk about. It was – It was precisely within the purview of what you were there for. It was the Devin Archer interview and as it pertains to Hunter Biden and blah, blah, blah. And I even looked up the word purview, and I asked ChatGPT. Yes. And I even looked up the word purview. And I asked ChatGPT, is, you know, are related topics considered the purview? And ChatGPT's like, what, are you an idiot?

And I said, yes, of course. It's natural for conversations to take turns and get. So, yes, related topics certainly would be the purview and and why is this related because how you interpret what archer was saying and the hunter biden thing this is a relevant piece of other information which would make you more or less likely to think that archer meant this or that so if there was text messages saying, you know, dad has never, ever, I've never, ever given a dime to dad and you know, blah, blah, blah. Then of course, Philip Bump would say, well,

why would you think Archer meant that? Haven't you seen the private text messages where it's been, where they talk about very clearly that there's no, his father's never involved. So obviously this is, this is evidence. So anyway, it's callow. You know what callow means, Pearl? I know what asshole means. That's good.

It's a callow thing for a professional in journalism. Also to suggest that you were being disingenuous, you know, or that there was some conspiratorial. He wasn't aiming that at me. Oh, and then the other thing is, I did say on the YouTube page that he didn't walk out

because he didn't technically walk out. He did ask for leave with manners. I don't want to walk out. You know, are you going to force me to walk out? So he didn't walk out. But what he did do was weaponize the clock. He was like, hey, I got to go. I got to go.

You know, when that really wasn't it. Well, he'd been saying that for a while. I mean, I left at, you know, minute 35. Does he have anything to say about his performance? No. And that's what I said. You know, if I were him, what I would do. Great.

Roy Tushara is here. Tushara. Two seconds. Two seconds, okay. So, two seconds. Two seconds, Rory. Hello. What I would do if I were him, and we've all had to do things like this, I'd write a column. I'd say, listen, you know what? I lost my shit a little bit.

That's never a good look. But let me answer these questions and tell you what it is that I should have said. And then proceed to... If he had that level of self--awareness it probably wouldn't have been such a contentious interview because what you said was reasonable so maybe and then proceed to explain why you know i think that this is probably exaggerator i don't know what to make of it or god forbid you know he he does have a point maybe somebody should ask you could instead he's still not dealing with it he's just in my opinion digging is all deeper now he's saying not dealing with it. He's just, in my opinion, his digging is all deeper. Now he's saying things that aren't true.

But the psyche that precedes that observation is the one that argued unreasonable points when faced with the kind of specificity that you communicated. Well, you say they're unreasonable. They're inseparable. But he actually, the part that he got really hoisted on, and we didn't make that clip, to be fair. I've said before, I chose not to make any clips. I didn't want to use that. Was simply, he just wouldn't answer.

He didn't make any points. He wouldn't answer. Anyway, so come on, let's get to it. All right, we got with us Rui Tejera. Am I pronouncing that right? Or roughly? Tejera. Tejera.

I told you, listen, I told him to share it like five i just said to share what are you gonna do this is why philip and this is why he okay rui tashara is a non-resident senior fellow at the american enterprise institute where he focuses on the transformation of party coalitions and the future of american electoral politics welcome rui to our podcast now just before we get started you you quote harry enton a lot correct i do yes indeed uh harry is one of my dearest friends yeah you know harry's an excellent analyst i i religiously read his stuff he's he's uh harry is one of these people you know, you might not believe it if you didn't know him.

He really doesn't care about the politics. He doesn't care about partisanship. He's he's like computer like focused on just making sure that he's analyzing it correctly. Let's just fall where they may. I've seen him in a suit jacket and shorts just to make an exclamation point on that. Yes, that's what he was wearing. We all love harry so anyway so um uh so you i'm on your list but i don't you know i get i'm on a lot of lists and i don't read every thing that comes across but i did read your um post about

the i think it was called but about all the various things that like 75 to 85 percent of the country agrees with that neither political party will actually put up a candidate who says these things. Right. And this struck a chord with me because I've felt this way for a long time and I've discovered by saying things on the podcast to people on the left and the right that most people are pretty reasonable about things. So I want to talk about this. Maybe the way to jump into it is I can read some of them and then we can use it as a jumping off point. But before I do, is there anything that you want to say to frame this discussion? No, not really. I mean, I think what we're talking about here is, you know,

common sense to the American people. It exists. It's not catered to by either political party, really, but it's there, and it's close to consensual, and it's really too bad we don't hear more about it because, you know, people aren't as crazy as folks think. No, they're not. So anyway, go ahead, Doug. Do you want to say something? Yeah, to substantiate the point you're both making is that I believe the number is 6% of... 75% of the tweets are generated by 6% of the people,

which would suggest that there is a relative minority hollering and that a lot of people in the middle with common sense are not hollering. But we spend time talking about people that are hollering. No, Mr. Tushara? Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. The people who tweet extensively are completely unrepresentative. Yes. The American electorate. And, you know, they tend to be more people on the left than the right so you get a particular you know slice of very left-wing very online people pronouncing with great authority and everything all the time but it really has almost nothing to do with what ordinary people think loud vitriol and it's very confusing for people and and i guess i would say that the uh what i've called in the past the wizard of odd effect wizard

wizard of oz effect pay no attention to that man behind the curtain of Twitter where this small number of people really appears as all great and powerful. And I've experienced it. This keeps a lot of people in line in a way that they just don't realize that the wizard's a little guy behind the curtain. It's like an Australian cattle dog running around 200 sheep, but they don't realize that all the barking is coming from one little hound.

How long have you been holding that analogy? Six years I've been working on that one. I'm the Philip Rump of that analogy. You want to say something, Rui? No, no. I was just complimenting on him. It was his trope there. You can use that, by the way.

OK, number one, equality of opportunity is a fundamental American principle. Equality of outcome is not. Seventy three percent of Americans agree. So what's going on there? Well, what's going on is, you know, equality of opportunity as close to a true consensus among American voters as you can get. We're talking about 90 plus percent. But the idea that people should, you know, as you divide them up into buckets, all have equal outcomes is is actually pretty foreign to most people in the United States. And now this is this has become, you know, part of the standard talking points of the Democratic Party and particularly the left of the Democratic Party. Really, I think we can't just talk about equality of opportunity. We have to make sure everything turns out like everybody gets all the same stuff. And that is just count. You know, this is not it's not the American way. And it's not what most people

think. They think you should be rewarded for achievement and hard work. Everyone should have a good opportunity. I think where there is a great deal of disagreement is when you have inequality of outcome, what's the reason for it? And I think that's where you get into very, very sharp differences of opinion. Absolutely. And that's the crux of the matter, because I think you're right. Everybody would say equality of outcome is not important. What's important is equality of opportunity. But when we have inequality of outcome, what do we attribute that to?

And that's where we run into an enormous, enormous... Sure. I mean, for example, you know, one way to interpret inequality of outcome might be that, you know, people didn't have true equality of opportunity. Therefore, we should try to fix that. Another way to interpret it is it's a reflection of fundamental flaws in American society, discrimination, racism, whatever, that essentially can't be fixed, will never never be fixed so we just have to distribute equal outcomes to make up from that otherwise right dismantle meritocracy which if extrapolated out in the long term is unsustainable as a country is america ready to just let the chips fall where they may if we

don't have as many women in the hard sciences, are we ready to say, well, maybe women aren't interested in the hard sciences, and maybe they're not as good at it? Send your letters to Dan now. Personally, I think, you know, that you have to face up to the facts that there are some differences in, you know, for example, between women and men that may orient women toward being interested in certain subjects more than others. I mean, the idea at this point there's discrimination against women in STEM is completely ludicrous at this point. If anything, there's a slight advantage to women in most of these fields who would attain the desired credentials, right? I mean, there's a desire to promote them.

The idea that we held back is ridiculous at this point. Well, Periel disagrees with her facial expression. Her facial expression is the most convincing she is. Let me throw something that's related here, because I have feelings about this. No one is completely without bias,

except me, no one is completely without bias, but calling all white people racists who benefit from white privilege in American society a white supremacist. I'm sorry. Let me read it again. But calling all white people racists who benefit from white privilege and American society, a white supremacist society is not right or fair. Seventy seven percent agree. Fifteen percent disagree. Now, that's a good one, because I think it does represent this sort of vast disjuncture between what has become a talking point of the great and good and the people who sort of set the cultural tone for the country, particularly people on the left. We're all supposed to nod appreciatively in certain sectors of society when these kinds of things are said. Of course, yes, we're all racist. Of course, America is a white supremacist society.

But most people think that's crazy because they think, yeah, there's some racism in society. But to characterize things in that way is neither right nor fair. Most people are racist. Most people do try to not see color. Most people are willing to give everyone a break. I mean, the idea that, you know, and calling it a white supremacist society is particularly ridiculous. So we're not in the 1860s anymore. We're not South Africa. I mean, this is just, I think for the standard of the meat, from the viewpoint of the median voter, that's just insane. But this is the sort of thing,

again, you're supposed to insert circles, not appreciatively when this is said, and to even, and to even argue that that might not be true would probably get you targeted as a racist in a lot of venues. Can I add in my, my current little spiel on this that I was thinking about and where I,

where I have sensed a kind of resentment from people I know who are as left wing as people who might write for Mother Jones and people to the right of that. That people of

I don't know, 40 and older we were raised on the idea that Martin Luther King's judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, was an irrefutable, elegant, EMC square type argument. So powerful was this argument, in my opinion, that even hardened racists had to kind of cop to it. Even if they didn't believe it, they didn't dare deny it. In the same way, it reminded me of like North Korea will probably have the word the Democratic Republic of North Korea.

Like, you know, these hardened dictators will use the word democracy in the names of their country because everybody knows that democracy is something you have to pay lip service to and what happened is on the left they introduced this virus which is just wreaking havoc and the virus is that you should judge everybody by the content of their character except white people and when if it's somebody white you're perfectly free to say we've heard enough white people talking about this and I yeah she's like I would argue it goes further than that and that to judge people by the content of the character is unfair if they come from an environment where they weren't able to develop character by way of structural and efficient fine but you know this but

there's more merit that my point is that they've they've upended the entire intellectual basis of what it is we were taught, which was everybody's an individual. And unless you have some reason, some context, well, this person came from a very hardscrabble life. And of course, then you have to bring that into account. But the idea that our most respected and supposedly intellectual leaders will get away with saying, I think we've heard enough from white people. I don't want to read anything from white people. This makes people crazy. Yeah, judging arguments and ideas, views, accomplishments, whatever, by virtue of the color of someone's skin is like a really bad idea.

And that's something that was rejected widely in our society, you know, 60, 70 years ago. And that's a great thing. I mean, universalist humanism, right, that we are all, in fact, equal fundamentally, and we all should be judged by what we actually do, not what we look like, is a great world historic advance in human understanding. And the left used to embrace that they were the ones who were pushing that forward and arguing and you know very compellingly that if you stand in the way of that you you really are in the wrong side of history but now this kind of weird as you

say virus has taken over where we can't say that i mean you know if martin luther king said that today and nobody knew who he was some people would probably call him a racist. I think it's worth mentioning again, Mr. Tushara, that it's only a virus that seems to have taken hold of that 6%. We talk about it a lot, but I don't think anybody shares that experience of reality with the exception of those 6% and my mother. You know, I certainly meet a lot of people that will agree with the point that they don't feel white people have a right to talk about issues affecting black people. They don't feel straight people have a right to talk about issues affecting gay people.

They don't feel men have a right to talk about issues affecting women. I think that's a lot more than 6% of people that do have that point of view. Well, but we don't hear just about affecting black people. You hear about when Kavanaugh, let's say, we don't need to hear from white men about

sex, you know, Kavanaugh. They literally bring race into it. It speaks for itself. No, I don't think it's more than 6%. I mean, empirically, I think the number of people who had subscribed, a view that's at least adjacent to that is significantly larger than 6%. On the other hand, it ain't 40% either.

Maybe it's basically we're talking about very liberal, educated people, particularly whites. OK, and that is, you know, we're talking about maybe 20% of the population. And there's a subsection of that are on Twitter who are even more influential. But these people do not represent the views of even, you know, other Democrats, really. I mean, they represent the views of people who live in cities like you guys are in, who are educated and liberal, liberally inclined in some way. So, yeah, I mean, it's weird. I mean, basically people like you guys and me, I suppose, we control the commanding heights of cultural production. And so this is what people hear about all the time.

They hear views that reinforce these what I would call anti-humanist, anti-universalist views that used to be the currency of the left. It's all very bizarre. And it's really taken off in the last, I'd say, 15 years or so, peaking in 2020. Do you think it could have taken off without social media? That's a good question. I wrestle with that. I think social media has clearly been an accelerant. Whether we would have what we have now in some form anyway, I guess I tend to think that, but it's a little bit hard to say. I mean, I would hate to put it all at the door of social media, but I do think social media has amplified this trend considerably. It keeps people in line. That's the thing. I mean,

everybody I know who feels the way we're all seeming to agree on, most of them are afraid of anybody catching wind of the fact they feel this way. And the reason they're afraid of that is because the wrath of social media not only can just, you know, reduce them to tears, but people get fired for this stuff, you know. Yeah, I mean, social media plays a key role, but I do think we should not underestimate the role of institutional structures in pushing this stuff. If you're in academia, if you're in a corporation, if you're in a nonprofit agency or whatever, there are people around, whether they're on social media or not, the HR department, the people, the administrators who run the place and are terrified of any kind of blow up. They will come down on you like a ton of bricks potentially if you are viewed in a certain way. So again, social media is part of

the equation, but there are actual human beings and structures, I think, that are at this point have a big influence on how people are treated. And it produces a lot of the fear you're talking about. Absolutely, it's based on fear. People weren't afraid of being hit upside the head with a two by four, so to speak. They would say say things a lot differently than they frequently do. Yeah. I mean, obviously, when 80 percent of the country feels a particular way and we don't and it's not readily obvious to us that 80 percent feel this way, something is going on. OK, this let's add another log on this fire. America benefits from the presence of immigrants and no immigrant, even if illegal, should be mistreated.

But border security is still important, as is an enforceable system that fairly decides who can enter the country. Did Eric Adams say that? He did now. Well, this is such a deep issue. First of all, for years, you know, anybody who listens to this podcast, I used to say, I used to defend people in these border towns. I'm like, do you really think that you understand what it's like to live in a border town? People just assume that people in border towns that are complaining and complaining,

it could only be racism. It could never be that. I mean, it might be some racism, but it could never be that, you know, this taxing of resources and changing. It's an actual real problem. I mean, yeah, this is like their lived experience. And, you know, this inability to put yourself in someone else's shoes is a huge problem throughout our politics. And all of a sudden now, in a sanctuary city, we're feeling the pinch of, what is it? What's the number of how many? A hundred thousand, I believe. A month or a week, a lot of, you know. And the guy said, you've got to stop this.

New York will end. It's the end of life for New York. And now it's not racism anymore. Now it's, right? So this is absurd. I do think there's some misunderstanding as to the economic consequences of immigration. I think most economists think that it's a net positive

on the economy. You know, I don't know what. Well, you know, net statistics are very, very fraught. We're talking about aggregate welfare here. There are sectors of society, low income, low wage workers in particular, who are definitely affected by it. But OK, so immigration is an interesting issue for me. I grew up in a home of immigrants. Both my parents were immigrants.

Tremendous respect for immigrants. We were involved in things like, you know, hooking up illegal immigrants, being involved in people to when you actually when somebody's flesh and blood, you know, and you don't have the heart to imagine something. And but you can't you can't make policy by just allowing everybody's hypocrisy. You have to know somehow. Listen, I know I've done these things, but I certainly do understand that the United States of America might have to make tough decisions. And then what I've noticed, and this began to disturb me, is that the immigrants that I knew growing up, these were the most patriotic people. These were people who were raising the fucking American flag every day. There's a famous documentary by Jascha Heifetz, the violinist. Every morning he hoists this American flag.

Tremendous, tremendous appreciation for the fact that America was there. They kissed the ground of this country never to return. Right. And that has changed. I began to perceive it in my employees and I would ask them, well, do you see yourself as, you know, as a descendant of thomas jefferson and george roshan look at me like what are you crazy no of course not there's racists and yeah and um yeah right right and you know and and i embrace that fiction for some reason you know my my grandparents are from the shtetl but i still think of these you know the founding of america

philosophically you're all riding on the shoulders of what's been produced by but i feel deep within my bone my father who wasn't born here could be reduced to tears by a patriotic scene in the movie you know so and i began to think wonder like what's going on could is it because some of these cultures have been taught to be wary of america is it because the the parting is no longer as drastic as it was? We have cell phones and cheap travel and whatever it is. Once my family left Russia, they were never

going back. And then to add to the other thing that rattles around in my brain about this, how dangerous it is to have all this going on. Mosaics don't work, is what you're saying.

When we are preaching the idea that identity is the most important thing. It's no longer like e pluribus unum. It's like, what happens if unum doesn't want to be, or pluribus doesn't want to be unum anymore? And that becomes the highest ideal, to keep your identity, keep your identity. And then all of a sudden you can begin to look at immigration as this is going to ruin us. Not out of any animosity towards any immigrant, God forbid. But that the mixture of so many different people who may not even agree on patriotic feelings for better being encouraged to see themselves as different this is this is how

nations come apart no am i in so far as you're scary to me yeah you know your your uh belief that the founding fathers are your spiritual ancestors not the slaveholders but the rest of well they were all most of them were i think except joe okay fair enough um i would think for somebody that's not white somebody that's indian um certainly for somebody that's african-american but even somebody that's indian japanese chinese uh what have you would be hard for them to feel a connection with the founding fathers because i think they know that the founding fathers probably wouldn't have appreciated them being here i don't think that's true but let being here. I don't think that's true, but let Roy answer.

Yeah, I don't think that's true. I think actually, if you look at the actual views of most of the people in these buckets, if you certainly look at the history of the United States, about how immigrants sort of absorbed the history of the United States, I mean, there's typically an understanding that, yeah, they weren't exactly like we are today, and they didn't have exactly the attitudes we have today, but by God, they founded America, and I like America. I am patriotic.

I think on net, it's really a great country. And I think that's what you find among the most recent immigrants to this country today. If you talk to Asians, you talk to especially Hispanics. I find that. They're extremely patriotic and are actually, that's one of the things that's pushing them away from the Democratic Party. Speaking specifically to a connection to the founding fathers that Noam was talking about. One could be patriotic and still not feel that kind of deep connection to the founding fathers. It's more of a metaphor, but I will tell.

Yeah, metaphor. I would tell a story that moved me. I had a, nobody told my wife i spoke about this on the podcast please i had a korean girlfriend first generation off the boat korean her parents were and uh i present even speak much english and it was november and she said you want to come over to my parents house for thanksgiving dinner i was later disinvited by the way but anyway do you want to come to your parents house for Thanksgiving dinner? I said, they have Thanksgiving dinner. And she's like, yes, the first thing my parents did when they came to America was to make sure

that they embraced these traditions. And I said, wow, that that that kind of spirit is is can overwhelm even a racist. You know, that that me, that this Korean family would be celebrating Thanksgiving. As far as the racial thing, I think there is one group of people, obviously, African Americans in this country, who we have to understand have ambivalence, and will always have some ambivalence to our history, and that's as human as as anything

can be although many of them are quite patriotic most of them probably quite patriotic but of course that's that has to enter into their psyche but other than that i don't see why any indian people or asian people or anything like that would would have have that. The most unpatriotic group in America are heavily college educated liberal group called the progressive activists. That's the one. It's like eight or nine percent of the population. They're the only ones who are not proud to be an American. Everybody else proud to be American, black, Hispanic, Korean, you know, you name it.

They're all proud to be American. But progressive activists. Why? This country is, you know you name it uh they're all proud to be american but progressive activists why this country is is you know benign why is that because why is that because they basically concentrate on all the negatives about american history from slavery to imperialism why do they do whatever the problems are today because they're they're pretty radical they're deracinated they believe in identity politics they don't believe in real politics which is actually the process of building real coalition they just want to witness right they want to morally witness against the evil that is america right and that's their politics but it's that's that's non-politics

that's uh it's also without any consideration of human nature and what the conditions are like in almost every other country on planet Earth. It just seems to remove the paradigm of global consideration and reduce it to something that's, you know, as if human nature hasn't been human nature for thousands of years. Anyway. Yeah, no, look, if you look at our country and world historic context, it's pretty good. Yeah, no, precisely on net balance. Pretty good. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's shocking that people, there's some graphs like on stat news or whatever it is,.com.

It shows like the freedom in the world. And it's like flat. And, it shows freedom in the world. It's like flat and then 1776, the entire world. All sorts of things that just you can see it's America that's moving the needle for the entire planet. That everybody who has these things

on planet Earth owes it to America. We saw this in Hong Kong where they're carrying American flags. They get it. Some white liberals they probably were shocked like why are they carrying an american flag the flag of fascism the only consideration is a relative consideration right i mean muslim made the point about the british empire being on on balance uh reasonably humane relative to other imperialists. That's a difficult issue. Careful, careful.

I think there's some truth to that, but it's definitely a tough issue. Let me just reiterate, I was not questioning the patriotism of any group. I was questioning whether they feel a connection to the founding fathers and how long we can expect to see these men on our currency. Okay, so let's take some other issues here. And by the way, I fantasize about what, like,

if Bill Clinton had the opportunity to be president right at the moment that Joe Biden became president, I really feel like he would have done some things differently. He would have been, he would have triangulated much more

than Biden. And I was sure Biden was going to do that on some of these issues, but instead he seemed to dig in my wrong. He's a, he's a prisoner of the party as it's currently constituted. He's a, what I'm sorry. Yeah. Prisoner of some presidents put their imprint on the party, other presidents, the party puts their imprint on him. And I think he's the latter. So did you, you did you and the bubble is not helping us did you see this video going around yesterday of uh john kennedy is that uh is is he from louisiana kennedy the senator you know who he is anyway he's there's a hearing running for

president and it's about it's about banning books no and uh And he starts – I should have prepared better. Give me two seconds. Actually, you know what? Nicole, look up Kennedy – He's from Louisiana. From Louisiana? Yes. And so were they banning books in Louisiana?

So they're hearing there. And he starts reading from the books, horrors. They ban books. And he starts reading from the books that are going that children were able to access in the library and it's it's porn yeah this is like pretty well established i mean do you want gender queer in your uh kids elementary school library probably not but i mean it's all become sort of transformed into this apocalyptic culture i don't know what you mean they just want to like prevent you from reading mouse or something you know and it's like that's the true outlier things

like gender queer are like the norm of what people want to get rid of and i say good for them yeah well so it was it was horrifying stuff and then he spread my butt i mean i don't want to say anything i know exactly what you're talking about and and the senator reads it, and he was – I mean, this guy is a good performer. He read it slowly and matter-of-factly. He was a good boy. And then he says to the guy – well, and he knew the guy wasn't going to answer him, so he tried to reign him in, but the guy still didn't answer him. He says, now, what is it that you advocate here? Is your position that you want a librarian to be able to choose whether kids can or can't read this and that the rest of us, us parents or whatever, should have no say in this?

What exactly do you want? And, of course, the guy wouldn't answer him. But then – Harmony, harmony, harmony, yeah. And getting between parents and kids is something i want to go to next but then it occurred to me that only fox news is going to play that video and and conservative twitter i'm saying why wouldn't this be a video that would be shown even on a liberal network what's so i mean he's making a solid point. And what are you afraid of? Maybe you have

an answer on the liberal network. Maybe you want to bring somebody to say, yeah, of course, that's exactly what we want. We want the librarian. But the fact that, of course, both sides do it, that they no longer answer the tough issues that the other side is throwing up. They hide under the table and they don't cover them at all yeah i call that the fox news fallacy which is that if anything is being mentioned on fox news then there's obviously it's a made-up meretricious deceptive awful hateful bigot type story we cannot cover it uh in our regular media and we should just deny the problem even exists so i think that contributes a lot to the

bubble you're talking about that a lot of Democrats and liberals have inserted themselves in. I mean, these are the kinds of things they talk about in Fox News. Because they talk about it on Fox News, there's absolutely nothing to it. And good people will stick their fingers in their ears and pay no attention. It's crazy. And this issue of getting between... I'm a parent. Ariel's a parent. Dove is a parent. I don't know if Dan will ever be a parent. It's not in the card, Tramp. This doesn't look like it,

no. But I do have opinions. This issue of the state... He's a great uncle. This issue of the state getting in between the parent and the child. Are you referring to the California... Well, it's all over. On various things, like this book thing, or like trans issues, or getting in between the parent and the child. Are you referring to the California? Well, it's all over. On various things like this book thing or like trans issues or basically any issue

is so upsetting to me. I know there are terrible, horrible parents out there who if you give me the details, I would say, yes, the state has to relieve that parent of duty because that's a terrible parent. But then I would say, but don't you dare use as an excuse to then decide that I should no longer be the main deciding factor in how I'm going to handle my issues for my child. I can't believe they think they are not going to step on a landmine if they once Trump passes from the picture and all the

diamagnetic forces I look that word up which is tremendous when you put two magnets up and they once the diamagnetic force of Trump is gone and there's some reasonable face of the Republican Party right I think they've left themselves open to a tremendous return to reasonable people because of these crazy positions like this well what what what give me an example of where uh the people are trying to get in between the parents the idea that that the school could keep a secret from you that your child is transitioning to another gender what does that have to do no that is absolutely true there's like i think there's 12 or 14 states now where that is part of law that if your child decides

you know they're a boy and they decide they're a girl they change their pronouns and they change their name you are not allowed as a school to tell the parents and you must treat the child within the school by their new gender pronouns and name. And I think that is, you know, that's, that's, I think that's frigging crazy, but that's, that's the deal in a lot of places now. And of course, California is a famous example of this, where there's a district that tried to opt out of that. And now the attorney general of California is suing the district to get them to get back in line.

Should we also talk about all the parents who are moving their children and their families to different states because of trans rights and they feel like their children aren't safe in those states? That's another issue. That's fine. I will say that. The parents get to decide. I will say that when I was in therapy as a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old.

As a 12-year-old girl? Go ahead. No. As a 12-year-old cisgendered male. We didn't have that term then. But, you know, the therapist said to me, everything in this office is a secret unless you're planning to kill yourself or somebody else. So it ended up not. Who took you to the therapist?

My parents. Well, there you go. But anything I... As my parents took me to school, but anything I said in therapy, my parents were not entitled to know. Okay, look... So there are...

Well, is that the same thing as your local elementary school? There are situations where that kind of secrecy is appropriate. Yeah, but this is not one of them. This is not one of them. I don't know what these laws are specifically. First of all, let me say this. What if the child doesn't want the parent to know because the home is not a safe

place for them to be transgender? You do know that there are children that going to school is the only place where they feel safe being trans. While you were sleeping, I actually made a nod to that argument. I do understand there's some parents who are so horrible. Well, it should be investigated. If there is reason to believe that that child is

in danger, then okay, that should be considered. You should not be assumed automatically that we cannot tell the parents. We cannot. We will not. I think that's wrong. And I don't think parents are going to be into that. I want to add another point to this. You also have to understand that the people who are making these decisions in these school systems are the most mediocre bureaucrats. Not that there is even actually good science that the geniuses of the world can agree on about these issues. But these people, we know them. They're like guidance counselors with a degree from a community college, and they are now empowered to make the most consequential decisions.

And by the way, I've made this joke on the air. I'm building a new comedy club around the corner. And it's impossible to do anything. If I want to pull some tables and chairs out from the previous restaurant, I have to literally get six or eight weeks just to... If I wanted to make really consequential decisions about changing the gender of my seven-year-old,

I would face no regulation. Like, right this way, Mr. Dorman, whatever you say. But don't you want to... No, no, it's fine. I'm sure it's fine. The juxtaposition of the crazy amount of regulation, which, by the way, bogs the Democrats down in their own programs, I believe, in terms of what they want to get done because the regulation is everywhere. But this idea that anything that risky, like pulling out banquets, requires such oversight. And then this kind of like, no, no, if the guidance counselor says she's a woman, your child, that's fine. It's incredibly ironic. I don't know quite what the laws are.

I don't know if it's just as simple as the guidance counselors, but maybe. I would say this. My guess is you said that there are some parents that are bad. I would think most parents, just like most comedians, suck. However, they're better than, I guess, than anybody else as far as raising your child is concerned. But one point that people have made on social media quite a bit is if your child doesn't want you to know, there's a problem.

And your child knows perhaps better than anyone what's safe and what's not safe for the child at home. There's some merit to that argument. I don't know if it's a perfect argument. But your children would know, Noam, that it's okay to talk about these things with you. Not with their mother. I wasn't sleeping. I heard what you said.

The problem is that the parents that you're talking about, most of whom are not quote unquote horrific parents, maybe they're just religious. is is that the parents that you're talking about most of whom are not quote-unquote horrific parents maybe they're just religious maybe they just have different views that in many cases are in direct opposition okay so so what's wrong with that they're entitled to their view about whether their kid who's decided you know yesterday they're a boy instead of a girl, is that a good idea? That's fine. That's fine. Well, Perriell, there's two issues.

Sure, it's fine. They're entitled to their opinion. They're entitled to their opinion, but are they entitled to their opinion to what extent? To the extent of ruining their child's life? How are they going to ruin their child's life? Simply by knowing what they are proposing to do and perhaps having a discussion with it about it? Maybe getting some therapy about why they're gender dysphoric as opposed to like throwing

puberty blockers at them. I mean, come on. Well, that's fine. What is the harm here? Are they going to like, you know, sort of crucify him or are they going to, what are they going to do? Do you have kids? I have kids.

Absolutely. So if your kid was like, whatever you do, don't tell my father, wouldn't that be like a red flag? Would that be concerning to you? Look, any kid who's, I mean, anybody can say, you know, it's not safe to talk to my parents. So don't talk to them. They're abusive. That's one thing. What if they're not abusive?

We got to move well if they're not abusive then why should there be a school policy that says we never never tell parents what's going on we gotta move past it but i would only make the point that there is the merits that you're arguing and then there's a question whether it's smart politics for the democrats i think that you may be in most parents as the as the state seems to more more more boldly feel like they should be the main decider what's in the better for our kids i think they're going to find themselves on the wrong side of of elections but we'll we'll see what goes on so um we're going to run out of time so let me let's bring up a an issue here which is uh interesting to me the biden age issue um we're seeing all of a sudden it's perfect timing uh um what's his name in the washington post the the the uh the national

affairs correspondent who wrote the column today short guy david ignatius oh yeah Ignatius. Oh, yeah, Ignatius, right. He said Biden shouldn't run. Wrote a column yesterday about how Biden should drop out. Andrew Sullivan wrote a column how Biden should drop out. Joe Scarborough, who's very influential, said on the air that every single person he speaks to, not 99%, he said 100% of the Democrats he speaks to think that Biden should drop out. There is a kind of what I think is a little bit of a shallow thing that goes around saying, well, everybody knows when Kennedy ran against Carter, that was the end of Carter that caused Carter to lose. So this is on a sample size of one. This would be a mistake for anybody to challenge Biden. But I think that, well, I have a lot of thoughts, but I'm going to let you, you're the expert. So what are your thoughts

on all this? Well, my sort of judgment on whether this thing is going to come to pass is no. I think Biden is not going to step aside. He is too old. He is a weak candidate in many ways, but he is not going to step aside. Democrats are stuck with him. And unless he does a face plan or two, he's going to be running in 2024. I mean, it's a huge liability for him. There was just a poll that came out a day or two ago. They asked both respondents both about Trump and Biden. They thought they were too old. Biden, it was like 80% said he's too old to be president, really, effectively. And then for Trump, you know, it was not exactly the reverse, but most people said, no, he's not too old to be president. You know, he's okay. So you have

one candidate who's running and everybody thinks he's too old to be an effective president, running against another candidate who most people think is, you know, vigorous enough to be an effective president, running against another candidate who most people think is, you know, vigorous enough to be president, right? So this is a real liability. And if I had my druthers, yes, I would put another candidate in place of Biden. I just think given the political realities of the Democratic Party today, that's not going to happen. Nobody's going to step forward. And whether they should or not is really another question. Right. I mean, if somebody stepped forward to just ensure that Biden loses, I don't know. But I don't think anyone's even going to try. And what if William Shatner wanted to run?

Now, he's 92, but he's no normal 92 year old. He went into space. So I think that I'm I think Biden will not be the nominee. I'm not going to say. Really? Wow. OK. And the reason I think it is the five. First of all, these polls that you're citing, these are already he's already carrying the damage that John that Ted Kennedy did to President Carter. Also, at that time, when Carter ran, I'm old enough to remember, I would imagine way more of the country could say, you know, I could see myself voting for

Reagan or Carter or Republican or a Democrat. So, you know, if I get turned off to this guy, yeah, maybe I'll vote for the other guy. Now, there's fewer and fewer people who are even persuadable, really, and turnout is a big thing. But Trump, it would be better for both parties to get rid of their candidates, but the Republicans are saddled with the fact that

Trump is tremendously popular. But Biden is not popular among the Democrats. And I feel like just the way things normally work out, that force of gravity of the fact that we have a candidate, we don't think he's good for us. Sooner or later, that will overcome. And if it may not overcome in the fact that somebody actually challenges him. Right. But there have to be rules that specify what happens when a candidate dies, is gets the nomination, and then he succumbs to the obvious pressures and is able to essentially choose his successor. And I know people say, well, then he'd have to choose Kamala Harris. Otherwise, it's all over. Well, that is a reasonable point.

I think my feeling is that the outrage, and we've seen things like this happen, the outrage of passing over Kamala Harris will dissipate in three days because I don't think there's actually any real constituency that doesn't get that she's – I think it's all before her. You are an optimistic cuss, I must say. Yeah, that's what I think. Okay. So President Whitmer or whoever – Klobuchar, Whitmer, Newsom. I don't know.

I don't know. Newsom, I don't know. Actually, I think Newsom would probably lose. I think he would lose. I don't know. I don't know. Newsom, I don't know. Actually, I think Newsom would probably lose. I don't know enough about these people, but I know they're not saddled by their age and I know that they're not saddled by the growing scandal. And by the way, do you remember, and it's really something I went back and reread it, All the articles in the Atlantic and stat about how we're so worried that Donald Trump has cognitive decline, serious cognitive decline, because he doesn't speak as well as he did 20 years ago. Those were the days. Yeah. All right. Now we have this massively articulate older gentleman in charge. Not a single article, not a single article, not a single, you know, and you're not even supposed to do it. It was unethical for these doctors to even speculate, but they threw it all to the wind. This exposes, and this is why the right hates the left so think, where are the editors? Isn't the person in charge

of the Atlantic or the Times or whatever it is, don't they have some shame where they say to themselves, you know what, we did run this article. So it's only proper if we do the same article now. They can't bring themselves to do it. Yeah, it's moral clarity, baby. The journalism has been going downhill for a while, but I think it took a big turn in the George Floyd summer with the popularity of, you know, we must have journalism that has moral clarity. It doesn't have a lot to do with journalism. Then you're basically talking about advocacy. I think that's what a lot of journalism now is. Did you hear Noam eviscerate Philip Bump a couple of episodes ago?

I don't know if you listened to it. Oh, I heard about it though. I did not want, but I, yes, it was covered in it. It sounded delightful. Yeah.

I, I, I, I still, I still actually feel bad about it because the last thing I want to do it. And then he gets, I like a good fight. I like a good argument.

I like, of course I like to win a good argument. And the last thing I want is anybody to become all, you know, kind of a laughing stock or whatever. I don't even know what the right way to describe it. He's got a perch. Don't worry about him. He writes regularly in the post. He cashes his paychecks. He's got a big audience. You know, I mean, he may be a laughingstock to you, but I assure you, for most of the people who religiously

read him and believe his analysis, he's probably as solid or ever. In fact, it was probably a badge of honor that you went after him. Maybe. The ratio on Twitter was... Certainly on Twitter, it doesn't... Twitter, where it all happens. And on YouTube. I mean, everywhere it was, it was... And no one defended him. Now, that doesn't mean that you're not correct,

that he has plenty of people that are on his side. Yeah, and I also don't want it to turn off future guests, so it looked like we were going to get Vivek Ramaswamy. And then as soon as this Philip Bump thing came out, we never heard from him again. Oh, come on. Vivek, I thought he liked to mix it up.

We don't know that that was the cause of it. We don't know, but it's the most likely. He would have done his rap for you guys. It would have been awesome. Well, I thought that the reason he'd want to do this show is because of the bump interview, because the bump interview, he was probably rooting for you during that interview. Well, he's very vulnerable, I think. Although I reread it yesterday, I might have tempered my position a little bit.

But that transcript where he seems to think that there are some open questions about nine 11 that haven't been answered. That was pretty weird. He wouldn't, I mean, I would, I would just want to be straying into RFK junior territory. The problem with Noam and this show in general is we don't,

we're not necessarily on the right. We're not necessarily on the left. It sort of depends on the issue. So anybody is subject to a skewering. Nobody can be perfectly safe. We better not, people, have to stick together. Maybe this is the last thing. There was an awful lot.

You know, when we were kids, they'd have the Times and the reliable papers and Newsweek and Time magazine. And then in the supermarket, you'd have the National Enquirer. And we all kind of knew this was the crazy talk. And it would have, you know, you buy it maybe for fun. But there's an awful lot of National Enquirer type takes now, which are being spouted out by people who are quite influential. And we don't realize the supermarket also, like Vivek and the nonsense

he's saying, like Tucker Carlson saying, well, you know, we have alien spaceship and the United States is studying them for their weapons program. I've been talking to those people. Those aliens are nice. They're good people. They mean well.

They want to help us. And RFK Jr. And it's upsetting to me and disillusioning, actually, to realize that there are huge numbers of people who are prone to these not just conspiracy theories, but outlandish conspiracy theories. Do you have any thoughts about that? Well, my main thought about that would be, I mean, I think people have always been somewhat susceptible to that. But I think when the mainstream media becomes less trusted, right, though people don't think there are very many venues where you can be relied upon to like describe things as they really are without an agenda.

I think just that pushes people in the direction of believing all kinds of crazy stuff because, you know, they can't rely on what they used to. So sort of after a while, everything sounds plausible, right? That's a good point. And I think that's a problem. Yeah, I mean, after COVID and, listen, a lot of what went wrong in COVID, I think, was not in bad faith in terms of, you know, very unreliable data, moving target, things that appeared to be

one way would turn out to be another way. But there was also clearly a lot of noble lying going on and maybe even some money making in terms of covering for pharmaceutical companies. I don't know. But now that it's all come out and the fact that Sweden was in a disaster, all sorts of little things, masks. A lot of people really don't believe anything they read anymore. Exactly. I mean, the faith in the public health authorities has has been severely eroded. And that's a really bad thing. That's a very bad thing. How do we how do we it may not be fixable. Only time. Well, they could. I mean, if they started like just playing it straight, you know, and developed a little bit of a track record and not basically trying to, you know, sort of pull the wool over people's eyes or pretend they know more than they do, do more randomized controlled trials.

I think that would be helpful. It'll take a while, but I think you start being a straight talker about this stuff and don't hide stuff from people. And after all, people will trust you more, but it has to be built back up. Well, there was an article in an MIT publication and also Tyler Cowen picked it up on marginal revolution and endorsed it, if I'm remembering his post correctly. And the argument was that they held up the vaccine until after the election in order to uh to assure that trump wouldn't benefit from it um and that that i mean the article is pretty convincing and the fact that tyler callum believes it is also convincing to me because he's not a guy who's

easily led by the nose uh and that art that that issue hasn't even been fully aired yet and it and it may end up being and that's a tremendous that's a terrible thing if that's true because people died it means yeah yeah no it was i think there is uh you know there's some there there and in addition i mean you could also argue that one thing that also happened is that one of the most successful policies the United States ever had in terms of industrial and technological development was Operation Warp Speed. How much credit does Trump get for that? It's a brilliant success. But, you know, things are so polarized now that people are not willing to give credit to the other side for anything, even when they do a great frigate job, you know? So what does this say about the future, right? If history is any

indicator, then the pendulum is going to swing back as far in the other direction as it did in the current one. So where does that leave us in time? Well, what do you mean by the pendulum? Do you mean like back toward common sense? You know, whatever's taking place in terms of defining what's becoming an increasing, you know, more of a mosaic than a melting pot. Does this lend itself towards a future where patriotism becomes more consolidated and more real for a higher percentage of the population or do we just disintegrate yeah i mean i you know i wish i knew but i don't i mean i don't think the potential is there for us to move back toward a more you know out of out of many one kind of thing a more you

know sort of standard democratic small liberal approach to the country uh you know sort of get rid of cancel culture listen to both sides you know non-crazy republican party in a non-crazy democratic party i think it's all possible i just think it's also possible for a number of you know some considerable period of time forward it'll just continue to be a big frigging mess. I mean, I don't want to be pessimistic here, but I don't see either party really changing too much in the near future. And of course, that's going to determine what our politics look like. But I do think among the masses of honest workers and peasants in America, people are getting mighty sick of a lot of this stuff.

And I think that will eventually move things back in a, probably in a better direction if we don't, as you say, completely fall apart. All right, sir. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure to speak to you and to not have a contentious interview. I had another contentious interview with Dan Dresner. You know who Dan Dresner is? Yes, yes, I do. He just laughed at me. You have to go? You want to hear the laugh? Do you have a second? Okay, sure.

So, you know, this was on the issue of, you know, David Brooks wrote that column kind of complaining about the way the elites look down on the deplorables, as it were. And I thought Brooks had a good column you probably it was a great column yeah and dresner or something i wrote dresner thought it was ridiculous and he said that can you play it uh on the call yeah why is it that so many people support a guy who by any objective standard was a a bad president and b was really good at criming

no no he was not he was not a bad president by any objective standard that's that's not oh what you see now see now this is a thing now now listen listen you're actually make keep laughing because you're making my point and I proceeded to just rattle off accomplishments that the guy had. Right, right. Yeah. Well, that's I mean, that's a perfect example of the utter cluelessness. Yes. Of the sort of liberal educated elite on American politics. They have no understanding of what normal people think and feel about the world. And as far as they're concerned, they're all a bunch of troglodytes who deserve to be laughed at. And that's why he was laughing. And Dresner also would shock me. He rattled off a bunch of troglodytes who deserve to be laughed at. And that's why he was

laughing. And Dresner also, which shocked me, he rattled off a bunch of things that weren't true. Like he said, you know, manufacturing is up because of the Inflation Reduction Act. And I'm like, that can't be true because the Inflation Reduction Act was just passed like, you know, 10 months ago. And you can't do anything that fast. You can't build a factory and start manufacturing in 10 months. And manufacturing construction has been up. Earmarks. Earmarks for me.

You're throwing money at it and they're building stuff. But it misses the forest for the trees. The forest for the trees is what the great Tushara just communicated, which is this sort of the default laughter associated with what could otherwise be critical thinking about the issue. There are objective standards like employment and wage growth. The problem was that laugh. It was the pick. Well, he wasn't laughing at

Trump supporters. Maybe he was, but ostensibly he was laughing at the notion that Trump wasn't a bad president. He said by any objective standard. And what are objective standards? You know, controlling the border. Well, maybe that's not objective. Maybe that's some people don't want border control. That left was a caricature. It was not. Economic indicators are certainly objective. Operation Warp Speed is certainly. The way that income growth is much better under Trump than it has been under Biden. They just released new income data, the census yesterday.

And if you look at the growth in income, the family and household income under Trump, it was great. And it's down like four or five percent since Biden took office. So, I mean, is that all his fault? Who knows? Was that all to Trump's credit? Who knows? But the question is, there are objective indicators that would lead you to think, well, maybe he wasn't all bad.

I mean, some good stuff didn't happen. And here are the two really powerful tells of what Dresner said that really upset me. Number one, I said, and look, even the middle, even the tax cuts, they didn't repeal them when they had the chance. He said, they didn't have the votes. I said, no, no, they had the votes. And when they did talk about repealing them, they only talked about repealing the SALT tax, which is the tax for the rich people. And he got that 100% wrong.

And then what was the other thing? This is the ultimate, I think the most intellectually dishonest thing. My 10-year-old in a half a second would have called this out he says trump was the only president to leave office with fewer people working than when he came in as if there wasn't a lockdown in a pandemic which by the way i'm sure dresdner supported and i supported you know what kind of professor has the nerve to make an argument as utterly dishonest as blaming Trump for the fact that there were fewer jobs when he left office? A blindly partisan.

Is there some way to achieve a lockdown? He's just being an advocate, not an analyst. And that just drives me crazy. You know, an advocate should be like an advocate. Better. Not even, an advocate should be like an advocate. Better. Not even a good advocate. Yeah. It's a kind of advocate.

You're not even advocating. You're just you're literally just preaching to the people who already agree with you. Any objective person. Listen, I'm interested in this. Give me the arguments about Trump. They say, wait a second. But there was a lockdown. Anyway.

OK, we have we have to go. Have our next. Right. Yeah, we're was a lockdown. Anyway, okay, we have to go. We have our next guest. Right, right. Yeah, we're doing a double. So if you come to New York sometime, we'll get together with you and Harry, and I'll listen to you guys argue. Yeah, yeah, it'd be fun.

I'll be up there, I guess, in November for an event. Oh, fantastic. Because I have a book coming out. Let me plug my book, Where Have All the Democrats Gone with John Judas, coming out November 7th, pre-order today. Now, John Judas, you also wrote the emerging Democratic majority with him? That's right. Yes, yes.

So maybe when the book is out, maybe you want to come on again and talk about the book. I'll read it. Cool. That sounds great. Okay. Pleasure, sir. Thank you, Roy. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Podcasts at commieshow.com.