The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - The Twitter Feud Continues: Nick Gillespie and Kat Rosenfield

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

Nick Gillespie is an editor at large at Reason, the libertarian magazine of "free minds and free markets," and host of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. Kat Rosenfield is the author of five books and a columnist at the Free Press.

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy seller coming at you on Sirius XM 99 Raw Comedy. Raw Comedy. Not Raw Dog. Formerly Raw Dog, now Raw Comedy. Also available as a podcast, available on YouTube, where you get a multimedia experience. This is Dan Natterman. Obviously, I'm a comedy seller semi-regular. I'm here with Noam Dorman, the owner of the comedy seller. And Perel Ashenbrand is with us. We have

not one but two special guests we had that both have been on the show in recent months but couldn't get enough. We have Nick Gillespie, libertarian journalist, editor at large of Reason magazine, author of Choice, the Best of Reason, and we have Kat Rosenfield. She is an American culture writer, columnist, and novelist, and was a reporter for MTV News back in the day. Long time ago. Oh, wow. That's a deep cut.

It's just you guys have in common. It's like that old rock music. What was this, in the 80s, 90s? When I was a reporter for MTV News. No, 2000. Take that back. I don't remember MTV past. MTV faded quickly.

What was it? 2000s? From 2010 to 2016. My sense of time is completely different. Well, anyway, I'm not exactly sure why Noam invited these two, but I think it's to do with the feud that they were having on Twitter. Feud. Yeah. I don't know if it was a playful feud or it was a real it's in a feud if like if somebody jumps out like leaps out of your closet you didn't even

know they were in there and uh and all of a sudden they're mad at you and and uh yeah well so what was this this was about this guy uh harrison butker is his name? Yeah. I'm so stupid about that. I didn't know anything about it. You don't know the championship place kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs? No. What's wrong with you? Yeah, I used to know that kind of thing. Go back to Poland.

By the way, so I did clip out the speech. So maybe because I'm probably not the only one who doesn't understand it, should we play a little three- or four-minute excerpt of the speech so that we can set the scene for what it is that you guys argued about? It'll also make anything we say seem a lot better. Yes, yes. Bad policies and poor leadership have negatively impacted major life issues, things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, as well as a growing

support for degenerate cultural values and media all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder. Our own nation is led by a man who publicly and proudly proclaims his Catholic faith. He has been so vocal in his support for the murder of innocent babies that I'm sure to many people, it appears that you can be both Catholic and pro-choice. He is not alone. From the man behind the COVID lockdowns to the people pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America, they all have a glaring thing in common. They are Catholic. Our Catholic faith has always been countercultural. Our Lord, along with countless followers, were all put to death for their adherence to her teachings. The world around us says that we should keep our beliefs to ourselves whenever they go against the tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Congress just passed a bill restating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail. For the ladies present today, I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly

started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I'm on this stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith,

become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all, hallmaker. Oh, my God. Now, there's 18 seconds of applause. See, these people liked this. I mean, he is... Keep it going, Max.

This is diabolical. That's really all... No, a little bit more, a little bit more. Get the whole applause. Homemaker, homemaker. They would tough her out. I mean, he is giving a commencement speech at a Catholic college.

She's the one who ensures I never let football or my business become a distraction from that of a husband and father. She is the person that knows me best at my core and it is through our marriage that Lord willing we will both attain salvation. I say all of this to you because I have seen it firsthand how much happier someone can be when they disregard the outside noise and move closer and closer to God's will in their life.

Isabelle's dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud without hesitation and say, heck no. Heterodox ideas abound even within Catholic circles, for let's be honest, there is nothing good about playing God with having children, whether that be your ideal number or the perfect time to conceive. No matter how you spin it, there is nothing natural about Catholic birth control. To the gentleman here today, part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities.

This absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation. Okay, that's it. That's it.'s it it's important to note i think for those who are not watching this video that this man uh looks like the cover model from metrosexual lumberjack monthly magazine a very groomed beard yeah so i'm glad he's just grooming his beard not altar boys so kat you defended him i defended his right to to say what he's saying yeah well i'm a free speech guy like how did the spat start you you came in her first no she wrote a piece for the free press where you're now a columnist i am which is great i've written for the free press we all love the free press i think they're doing uh some of the just best journalism currently agreed uh

but um she would she wrote a piece uh about the backlash to this and i guess if it was a backlash of people saying like this guy should just shut the fuck up um i don't i don't join in in that i absolutely you know think he has a right to believe what he wants and to live that way. And if his wife is actually consenting, more power to them. But that's why I'm a libertarian, because I don't want people like that, anti-choice, anti-surrogacy, anti-IVF, anti-Semitic, actually, because, you know, that, I mean, when he said there are those who are keeping us from being able to tell the truth about who killed Christ, like, I got to tell you, Noam, you know who killed Christ, right? I thought it was Pontius Pilate.

Well, it was, you know, the Jews always get the Italians to be the muscle. But, you know, he's... That was a reference to that new, that bill that the House passed, the Senate even passed it. I thought it was in Texas. Oh, is that the bill? Well, the anti-Semitism, yeah, it was like an anti-Semitism act, which... I thought it was that, yeah. Yeah, the Free Press wrote or hosted op-eds about how this was, in fact, a bad idea. Yeah, and Tablet magazine also had, like, a not-in-our-name,

which is the proper response. So I was merely, I jumped in on Twitter to say, oh, come on, Kat, like, we have a right to mock this guy and make fun of him. Is it still Twitter, or are you just hanging on too tight? Yeah, I don't know. You also probably still say the Tappan Zee Bridge. Yes. So let's take it step by step here because I have to say,

I have a certain sympathy for some of what he says. Oh, God, Noam. Where's Mrs. Noam? She would throw him out the window for saying that, Mrs. Noam. I bet that unlike anybody else at this table, I think I'm probably the only one who has actually listened to the wife on a podcast. Has anybody else listened? I have not.

No, what'd she say? She's all in. Yeah, I'm sure she is. More power to her. She embraced this faith. She had an experience. She had an epiphany that it was her calling to become a catholic and she talks about this not and you know she's not the most

articulate person but you know she talks about it in a way that's clearly very heartfelt and uh this was this was the genesis of her marriage to this guy i think if she had not wanted to convert they would not be together but you know you know, for what it's worth, it seems that her commitment to her faith and to her way of life, which he articulates in that speech, is legitimate and authentic. Okay, so, but what happens if she changes her mind?

Like, he's not going to tolerate that? She's not allowed to change her mind? I don't think that we need to project. No. Well, i'm not projecting you could say that about any marriage no what what what if what if norm's wife becomes anti-semitic what no no no you know anybody can change anybody can anybody can natural outgrowth anybody can change in a way that dooms the marriage no that's not the same first question first question is it anti-Semitic if Christians believe

that the Jews killed Christ, as opposed to Christians blaming Jews today? The Jews or certain Jews? If they say the Jews and implicate all of us, then that's anti-Semitic. Or Jews killing Christ. But if they say there was some number of Jews involved in the death of Christ?

I mean, you know, I also, I've kind of gleaned that Christians believe that unless you're baptized, you can't go to heaven. Is that anti-Semitic? I mean, that's what they believe. Well, I mean, first off, until relatively recently, the big battles were not between Catholics and Jews. In America, it was between Catholics and other Protestants. But even the Catholic Church, I mean, the Pope some years ago

apologized for pushing the idea that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ because it's implicated in a thousand-year history of organized anti-Semitism in Europe. Tom Lehrer, I think, had that song, we're free, we're free, the Vatican says we're free. Well, historically, what's the reality i mean assuming of course that the biblical christ was actually real uh to the best of our knowledge what is a historic the historian to say about who killed jesus i know i just you know i i don't know

that it's we're getting off i guess what i'm asking is that if I hear a guy speaking like that, should I properly assume he has attitudes about me, or should I not properly assume that? I mean, it's a serious question. I actually don't know how to interpret that. If that's what he feels about what happened and what the Bible says, does that mean he probably has certain attitudes about me as a Jewish person? There's a good chance of it.

Yeah, I'm guessing, but I don't know. Treat him as an individual. Again I you know and I this is a serious question I think for me as like you know a professional libertarian I absolutely you know think he and his family and Catholics I was raised Catholic which is probably one of the reasons I'm you know this kind of stuff you know gets under my skin a little bit more than it might other people he totally has a right to live the way he wants and to espouse those beliefs he got his wife to convert

Catholicism is the single most successful religion in terms of bringing people in on the planet but it's also like we have a right or I think people have a right to critique it, that's also like we have a right, or I think people have a right to critique it. That's all. And it is, you know, I don't know.

Like, I grew up in a world where Charles Barkley, you know, said I'm not a role model, and I kind of like the idea of, generally speaking, not always, but, you know, mocking celebrities and athletes who tell us how to live. Sometimes they have insight, a lot of times they don't. But we should be free to kind of engage them and make fun of them. Now, there's no question that Mel Gibson's brand of that, based on that book like the Dolores Christ, I don't know if you have the name,

it really talks about how the Jews killed Christ. And then there's some verse in the Bible, and your descendants shall be punished and pay the price for forever pretty much every verse of the bible so there were other jews of course jews are always on both sides with it of everything the mensheviks versus the bolsheviks the the christ killers versus the apostles capitalists and the communists it's true jesus was a jew you know that's right it's very confusing but wait a second can we just say that there's something different about him feeling that way and living that way? And the fact that, to me, it feels like he's saying that if you're not living that way, then there's something.

Let's get to the women thing. Let's get to the women. Well, I think it's important to know that this is a very context-dependent speech. This took place at a tiny Catholic university in Kansas called Benedictine College. He was speaking to an audience who was there to hear what he had to say, who appreciated what he had to say, as you can tell from the 18 seconds of applause

that ensued after he broke down in tears talking about how much he loves his wife and her commitment to the faith. And so to me, this is kind of the crux of why respond to it. A guy standing on a stage saying things about, you know, articulating his faith as he understands it and how he wants to live as he understands it and being applauded for that by an audience of like-minded people.

Is this always the kind of speech that requires response or that it is... I mean, of course, you can mock it. You're always allowed to mock it, but is it necessary to mock it? Like, what do you accomplish by mocking it? And this is the thing that I thought was interesting and, you know, and somewhat troubling

about the response to this, because what happened after he gave this speech is there was a very kind of coordinated, organized effort within the mainstream media to make him infamous and to kind of, like, levy all of this opprobrium in his direction. And I don't know, there's something about the fact that this was being done to a person who doesn't have power,

who is a member of, like, for all intents and purposes, a margin- marginalized ideological group, speaking in a faith-based setting, the idea of a bunch of writers at Rolling Stone and People magazine and whatever kicking open the door and being like, excuse me, but I don't like what you're saying in here, it just doesn't sit entirely right with me.

I basically agree with that, although where I would differ is the Catholic Church is the single largest religious institution in the United States. And increasingly, not his theology, which, you know, can go one way or the other, but we are in a moment now where a lot of people, you know, of various things are trying to do things like ban surrogacy, ban IVF, ban abortion, criminalize speech they don't like and promote. You know, so I, you know, I agree with you. I probably would have not noticed this unless, you know, because I read you and I read the free press. I saw the piece. But, you know, I think it's worth kind of, you know,

pushing back on because, like, you know, this, and I'll totally accept, like, there's a paradox of what I'm talking about here of, like, I, you know, I think as long as people are being peaceful, you know, and they're not inciting people to imminent harm, you know, or, you know, criminal behavior and fighting and stuff like that, they should be allowed to say whatever they want. But I also feel like, you know, we need to

engage that because that's how you come to, you know, a better understanding. You want to push back that societal influence to try to keep society where you'd like it to be. The world that he's describing as you know wonderful and great um you know we we had that world you know 30 years ago 40 years ago yeah certainly 50 years ago america great again and we don't you know we don't have it anymore for a lot of reasons but i think a primary one is because people don't want it men and women and and that doesn't mean like he should shut up and you know get with the with the program and, you know, have like, you know, 40 embryos and then abort them or something or, you know. But it's kind of likeores why things have changed and why

women have more rights and more power, both legal and kind of cultural. I wish we would talk more about that. And like, do we want to go back to a world where gay people are ashamed or not allowed to actually function in public and things like that? No, just Jews. Of course not. Okay. Well, then I'm in. So let me tell you what I hear when I hear, when I said I had some sympathy. You know, I'm my own boss, and I think being your own boss is just like the greatest thing in the world.

You're kind of like your own boss. You're kind of like your own boss. You also, guys, all of us here, you do a profession, like the cliche says, you know, that if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life or whatever it is. You're doing something you love.

Yeah. I'm really in the wrong business because I kind of hate getting up in the morning. But you love to engage in ideas. You love to be influential. You love to – and so – but most people, and I say most people, I don't know, 98% of the world, something like that. They have horrible jobs. They just, they live for the weekend. My father used to tell me, everybody lives for the weekend. Don't ever be one of those people who can't wait for the weekend.

I love to get up for work every day. And one of the things I've always felt about women, and it really struck me after I had children, and I was filled with this joy of having children. And I found that getting up and, and taking care of my children and being with my children was the first thing that rivaled my love for my work. I kind of felt bad that so many women seem to be, um, almost brainwashed that they should be working, but not working to pursue their talent, but crappy, crappy jobs that they hate.

They're living for the weekend. I said, is there some pressure here that they're not actually understanding that it's a joy, maybe, if you're so lucky that you don't have to do that crappy job and you can actually spend time as a mom, just with your kids. And,

and that probably is a nice way for kids to grow up because, you know, so many people grow up that way for generations. Um, I have, I think it is, is that shocking? Is that,

is that whole concept getting short shrift because it's considered so reactionary. Let me just add to that. Every woman should do whatever the hell she wants. I am not advocating some sort of pressure for women not to work. God forbid I have a daughter. I want her to do whatever she wants to do. But if she did say, you know, I have a husband who can provide for us and I would like to stay home and raise the kids. And then, of course, if they get older, I'll find other things to do. But people will look down on me in some ways.

Is that all crazy talk? I think you are overestimating. Can we let the women answer? No. Kat? Well, I wrote about the burgeoning trad wife influencer movement for Reason Magazine, actually. What's that? What'd you call it?

Trad wives. Oh,, actually. Yeah. What's that? What'd you call it? Tradwives. Oh, tradwives. Yeah. Yeah. They're these women who are, you know, usually wives, sometimes girlfriends, but living a lifestyle based on traditional gender roles. And they are masters of the domestic. Their husbands earn an income, and they stay home.

And this is a really popular brand of content. And one of the things that I learned when I was looking into it that I think is very interesting is that the people who consume this content tend not to be women who are in the home they are women who work who are living a different kind of life but who find something kind of cozy and interesting and maybe a little bit aspirational about videos of a woman in her kitchen baking bread from scratch or hanging out with her children. And I think that the reason this content

captivates people to a certain extent is that, like you were saying, feminism is great. It's great that women were able to join the workforce, but there has been a devaluation of the role of women as wives, mothers, as masters of the domestic. And here is a group of people who are very unabashedly taking part in that type of work who are showing, like, who are saying, I think this work has value. My husband thinks this work has value,

and so he supports me while I do it. And I don't know, I think this work has value. My husband thinks this work has value. And so he supports me while I do it. And I don't know, I think it speaks to a certain amount of yearning that women experience to have a different kind of life. You know, one of the hallmarks of Kat's work is, I mean, that you look at the way people receive or use culture as opposed to, you know, just kind of like, you know, talking over it. So I find that really interesting. And I find the trad wife, you know, kind of phenomenon really interesting as and also the men who are into it and things like that. One thing, Noam, that, you know, I would push back on what you were saying.

And, you know know I have two kids I'm getting married in September I'm hoping to have more kids so I'm like very pro-child I'm basically at replacement rate so I'm doing my job you know and all of this kind of stuff but that you know the the discussion that women in particular can't be fulfilled if they don't have children You know, I you know that I don't think I said that but I mean you're kind of getting there right where you know I'm like this or that Here's the problem. I don't think I was about children. I didn't get a chance to respond I feel like guys are talking and she's wearing a girl's girl's girl. She is actually her Role is is primarily as a producer. Go ahead, go ahead.

The problem here is that no one ever says this about men, that if men would like to stay home and raise the kids so that their wives can go out and pursue their dreams and their careers. Are you crazy? Right, exactly. No, but that's legitimately. I know a number of couples that have done that. I do too. A number. And it sounds to me like no one would kind of like

nothing more than to stay home more. Can I add something else to the equation? Yeah. So we know because really my wife and I are so fortunate in so many ways and we get to spend so much time at home with our kids and we have an au pair. We know a lot of other au pairs. A lot of the au pairs come to our house to hang out, and they tell us stories of these successful families that basically never see their kids. The father is out all day. The mother is out all day. They're professionals. They come home 7, 8 o'clock. They're exhausted. They're irritable, And the au pairs are raising the kids. And you hear these stories where the child falls, and they run to the au pair rather than to the mother.

This is a real tradeoff of these types of lives. And let's not pretend it's not. I'm not talking about that, though. I'm saying that in that, though. I'm saying... Max hasn't spoken yet. I'm saying that in all of this narrative, it's like it's always the woman who is the primary person who has to sacrifice her career. If you want to stay home and be a mom

and you can afford to do that, that's great. That's awesome awesome i only said it because most careers are so crappy but i think i want to push sorry well but i haven't been able to get go ahead somebody's throwing me the ball i gotta i gotta grab it go ahead dan what i wanted to say earlier is i i'm i think you exaggerate the extent to which people are miserable at their jobs no doubt there are many people that are that's just not what i'm hearing when i talk to people when i'm out there in the world that everybody's like oh fuck i get it i think a lot of people do

find fulfillment even if it's a legal secretary something that you might not think is all that interesting i do think you're exaggerating the extent of what people that people hate the jobs anybody else have a feeling uh if i may uh may, my Irish grandmother, who's an immigrant from Ireland, was a domestic, like a lot of Irish immigrants who she came over in the 19-teens. She had four kids, but her job mostly was cooking and raising rich people's kids. And they were poor. And that's, you know, part of what's going on with a lot of these conversations, I think, is, you know, we have fetishized the period in early post-war America when, for the first time, women left the job market. There was a 100-year run-up where women were more and more going into the job market.

After World War II, they retreated from the job, from the workplace, and they stayed home. And like the fifth, you know, the baby boom is atypical in many ways, and partly that people moved into single family homes and that the nuclear family, as we know, where the mom, you know, stays at home and is the mistress of the domestic space. And the father, you know, goes, takes the train into the city or whatever, and comes back at night and is kind of grumbly and, you know the football around with the kids that's actually pretty atypical and i think it's worth keeping you know keeping that in mind i you know i'm divorced uh my ex-wife is a is a full professor of english and there's no question it was super stressful to have two, you know, hardcore careers. And, you know, we both compromised, like, you know, we traded off. I saw my kids growing up much more than my parents, my father,

and later my mother also worked. And, you know, and I did. And that was a choice. And it was great. It is very stressful, you know, but it's also stressful going the other way. But I guess what I'm getting at is, you you know we should be careful about freezing in time and pretending that this was the way it always was a period of time which was actually a historically non-representative uh you guys know way more about this than i do perry all you want to add anything but but you spend a lot of time at home. Yeah, I'm very fortunate, though. I'm very lucky, and I work. I mean, I'm able to work from home, and I'm able to. Well, let me ask you a question.

If I could wave a magic wand and make you an MD, would you then prefer to be going out every day now and working full-time as a doctor to the freedom that you have now to stay home with your child? No, but I don't want to be a doctor to to the to the freedom that you have now to stay home with your child no but i don't want to be a doctor i mean i'm what i'm saying is is that i like i'm very fortunate and i recognize that that i'm able to stop what i'm doing and go pick my son up from school like i feel very lucky and i'm aware that i'm very lucky that i can do that But that doesn't mean that my dream has always been to work in comedy and be on the radio and be a writer. And I can do that. And I happen to have that flexibility.

I think that there are a lot of women who want to stay home with their kids, and that's great. But I think that what I don't like about what that fucking guy was saying is that this is what you're supposed to do. If only you women would all wake up and realize that the best thing in life that you can do is to give up your dreams to stay home. Take care of my beard. Yeah, and make me apple pie

and raise the kids. That incenses me because it's insane. You expect more from a 26-year-old place kicker. That's right. Well, I think we can all agree that we should not denigrate being a homemaker.

It can be a wonderful choice. I'm not denigrating it, though. I'm not saying you are. I'm saying that the part of that place kicker's speech, I guess, that resonated with the home is, if we can take a little bit of kernel of truth or whatever out of it, is that homemaking can be fulfilling and it shouldn't be denigrated for those who choose it. But that's not what he's saying. He's saying that all women, if they wake up. He also connects it to the problem of, well, he said fatherless homes, actually, so it's

not really. But in some way, in his mind, he was connecting it to social problems that we have. And then, of course, Nick alluded to the fact that we're also having a replacement problem where population is in decline. Of course, Nick hopes that we're going to have open borders and that'll solve everything. But the entire Western world is kind of facing a population decline. And all these issues are somehow interconnected. Which, of course, was, you know, 50 years ago, we were worried about overpopulation. The current thing is the main thing to remember is we should always be freaking

out over whatever is happening. Absolutely. How many people do we need? What's the right number for a world population for maximum whatever? That's something. Maybe ask a linebacker or a quarterback. Can I ask?

I'm really sorry. I hate that you guys are making me defend Harrison Butker. But I feel compelled to point out that one of the other elements of that speech is he talks about how his wife keeps him grounded and reminds him every day that his most important role is not being a football player or making money. It's that it's to be a husband and father. And so, I think that what he's talking about, ultimately, is the importance of home life, of homemaking, and the role of both, you know, man and woman,

which are, you know, not the same role, but each important in cultivating that. And again, he's saying this to an audience of people who agrees with him. So I don't think that the intended audience for this was a bunch, I don't think it was us, basically. But it's gone, but it's on, but now it is us. Because he still gets to play football.

I mean, nobody's telling him stop playing football and go sit at home and raise the kids. I mean, if he were saying that, it would be a different conversation. Let's move on to. Can I just. Yes, please. Because I'm curious what Kat feels about this. I actually, you know, there maybe there's a denigration of, you know, being a good housewife and a master of the domestic sphere but it seems to me that part of the the worst deal that women have

gotten over the i don't you know like the past 30 years or so is that yeah they have to have a career like and not just a job they have to have a career and they have to be really good at all of the domestic arts like you know you got to be good at crocheting and you got to be a really good cook and it seems to me that is you know that's like an extra thing thrown on women um you know lisa sullen davis right who recently wrote a book uh called housewife which is kind of it's a history uh you know a kind of cultural history of the concept of housewife particularly in the uh post-war era and i i mean do you feel that there's any truth to that? That it's one of the weird pressures that women are under now is like, you know, what is the perfume?

The Anjali woman or whatever, you know, who... Bring home the bacon fried up in a pan. Never let him believe, you know, never let him forget he's a man. Like, you've got to be everything all the time. And that seems like that's an added stress for women. This does not track with my experience of womanhood. You know, nobody ever told me I needed to get good at crochet. And I don't know.

I mean, I think about this from the perspective of I was raised by a woman who has a master's degree in public health and was nevertheless a housewife. That's what she wanted to do. She found fulfillment in raising her children, in keeping the house, in having a beautiful garden and being a good cook.

She made our home a wonderful place to be. Why did you wait till now to tell us that? So, I mean, it seems to me some of your defensiveness... Why were you hiding that? Is that because this reflects your mother? No, I mean, but, you me some of your defensiveness. Why were you hiding that? Is that because this reflects your mother? No, I mean, but, you know. That's a nice thing.

I don't think I'm defensive about it. I mean, I obviously like. You have a firsthand experience with this and you have a pleasant memory of it. Do you think your mother was happy and your family was happy? I mean, I know that she was happy. She and I have talked about this. And you were happy growing up in that atmosphere? For sure. And, you know, I mean, she could...

That's kind of what I've been saying. She could have done things differently. She could have gotten a job, you know, and it would have required that she commuted, like, probably 30 to 45 minutes to the nearest city. It would have made our house a certainly a much less well-kept place. And you hire a housekeeper. She would have been less involved in, yeah, my mom's got great

taste. Like, you know, and it was, everything was made with love. You understand? It's like, you know, there, there, there is something to be said for making a home versus hiring somebody to make a home for you. It's not quite the same experience, i also you know i don't live that way i have a career i did not end up having children and i think one of the things that this speech gets at is that women are told oh you can have it all and also you should have it all and he he refers to uh diabolical lies which a lot of people took exception to. And I agree that it's a very sort of an overwrought way of stating it. But one of the things that women of my generation, I'm an elder millennial, one of the things we're experiencing now is this sort of rude awakening to the fact that if you spent your 20s and 30s in pursuit of a career,

that your window of opportunity to have children can end up closing and you and you can't have it all and you maybe never paused to think about whether you wanted different things because you were just kind of on this particular track and I don't think there's anything wrong with talking about the fact that there's maybe something to be gained in considering alternate paths earlier than too late, basically. So you're saying you're expressing regret about not having... I don't feel that at all. Oh. I don't have regrets.

And there's still time, I would think. This is getting a little personal, but no, I can't have them. I find it much more... Good going, Dan. I would think. This is getting a little personal, but no, I can't have them. I find it much more palatable. I'm sure they're coming from her. No, no, no, really. I think that when you put it like that, it's like, yeah, of course. It's almost exactly what I said.

But it sounds very different from what the- Out of a woman's mouth, I understand. No, but it also sounds very different than from the video we just watched. It's sort, but it sounds very different from what the- Out of a woman's mouth, I understand. But no, but it also sounds very different than from the video we just watched. It's a moralistic- Maybe that's it. I agree with everything you just said. And I have some of my closest friends are housewives.

They're the most brilliant women I know. They don't have careers by choice. And they're exactly like your mom. I wonder how much of this is generational, or some of it's generational, because I'm like a late boomer. And when I think about my ex-wife, she wanted a career,

but she also was a really involved mother, and being an academic meant you could work but also be at home. I worked from home almost all of all of the time that my i had kids and that's really different because my father had a job where he would get up you know he'd be gone in the morning and then would come home at night and um i didn't want that for me or for my kids but it was you know it might have been that in the baby boom era, maybe Gen X, like you didn't think as much about the tradeoffs. And you just, you took advantage for the first time, really, of a lot of different choices, both men and women.

And it might be that millennials, you know, are, you're reckoning more with like that you were sold a bill of goods. Like you really can have it all and like you're good at everything and the world is going to be perfect for you and i mean i know a lot of millennials who especially if you you know if you graduated college into you know after 2008 it's like what the fuck like i did everything right and now the you know i've just been told the economy is shit and i'm fucked and there's a lot of anger out there because and not not at the the range of choices but the lack of discussion that all choices mean trade-offs and then we should get past this but then the other thing i saw it debated

on twitter this week in some way x it's this x it's this um perennial issue of whether having children makes people happier whether they find it fulfilling um and i sent you that i sent you some you have in the past and i've seen other people yeah i mean it's a debate but jordan peterson you know pitched a fit when about somebody saying some article about uh people that without children are happier it was a meme that was sourced to instagram facts okay well that was you know it's really a top journal but but part of me has this belief not founded on any data that just biologically it just makes sense to me that having children is profoundly fulfilling to us because it it it makes sense and i i notice that very few things can make me tear up instantly without any kind of conscious thought as anything that strikes a subconscious chord about parenthood children

you know whatever i find myself crying all the time now you know every time i reason today my son did something. So I say, well, how could this be this source of such profound, immediate emotional reaction within our human psyche? And say, oh, that's not really important. That's not people. You don't ever need to awaken that in your lifetime. It's meaningless. So I just feel like having children on the whole is something that people should want to do and will be fulfilling in most cases. On the other hand, there are certain children that are just so difficult.

We see them that people regret ever having them because they're a lifelong burden for their parents. Which one of your kids is that? You know, I understand that having children in the old days met number one you you could they could kill you because a lot of women died in childbirth and you were probably going to lose two or three of them yeah it was a horror show yeah so um i guess what i'm saying is uh i don't know what am i saying all right so um i i? I could see why not having kids in those days might have been a benefit. But there are still people who just simply

do not want to have children. My aunt never had kids by design intentionally, and she never regretted that decision one. There's some of everything, and that's always a complication when you want to talk about anything is that there's always some subset of the population. I'm very...

Maybe less than minuscule. That doesn't... Maybe to an extreme degree. I'm cautious about linking things to kind of like biology or evolution in the sense of like, oh, well, we are evolved to have kids, so it must be fulfilling, that type of thing.

I will, you know, without question will you know without question you know having kids becoming a parent becoming a father is the most transformative experience of my life um you think that's not a result of your wiring you know probably has to but more than i was but is it is it well that you know you work to rewire you know you get in there and start mixing the red and the blue and cutting the green cable. But, you know, is it fulfilling? I know a lot of people who are kind of unhappy that they had kids. I know people who are very happy they didn't and people who are very sad that they didn't.

And I just, you know, I think it's a profound experience. But I, you know, when you start becoming prescriptive about stuff, I, you little bit nervous about that. I'm not being prescriptive. I'm just trying to, it's where I started that. I think a lot of this stuff is so stigmatized that you're not supposed to say certain things. And these are the things that I feel. Do we feel like we live in a world where it's been stigmatized to say, like, I you, you know, it's been stigmatized to say like, I am, you know, it's profound. You know, my children are a huge part of my life or that. No, if I,

if I say to a woman, listen, if I, I really think you should have children, it's the most profound thing you can do. And I, I, on a whole, I think it's much better since you can have children. You ought to have children. What's the matter with you? How can you talk to her? She's nodding her head. But let me tell you my analogy to it, and then we'll move on. You know how, have you ever been there when a dog, I probably said this before, when a dog, the first time you throw a dog into water,

and the dog immediately starts to do a doggy paddle? Okay. You ever seen that? No. I did that with my kids, though. It worked half the time. Every dog can swim. And immediately when you put a dog in water.

Are we the dog in this? Immediately when you put a dog in water, well, yeah, we all are. It immediately starts to do the doggy paddle. This is in its wiring. And if that dog never gets thrown in water, it will never know it knows how to swim. It will never exhibit that behavior and will never activate. This is what having children, I felt, was for me. The minute that I had a child, I felt things come online, as it were, in my psyche that I didn't ever know

were there in a certain way. And that was part of the profound experience for me. I don't know why you guys are all laughing at this. I think it makes actual sense. We have a part of our brain which is devoted to these instincts, and it doesn't actually get triggered, perhaps, until you have the child. So if someone doesn't have the children, they don't understand that it's there, and it can be a joy.

Okay, Perry, I'll put it in a sense you can understand. Before you ever had an orgasm, okay? There's no way to... You never knew that neurologically you had this capacity. I always knew. And I said, listen, trust me, you should, because it's there. It's just, you have to activate it.

I want to explain why I was laughing, just so you don't think that I'm wildly insensitive. Because when you started talking about the dog swimming, I remembered vividly the moment when I was maybe like, I don't know, 13 years old. And my father believed what you did about dogs being able to swim just innately. And he tossed our Dalmatian into a lake. No, not Dalmatian.

And the Dalmatian sank to the bottom of the lake. Like, just... My father stood there for a moment, and I was like, oh, shit. And I just jumped after him, and pulled the dog back up to the top. Like I said, it's some of everything. You can't talk about anything.

I've never heard a story like that. I know. Had I not witnessed it myself, I would not have believed it. That is hysterical. We threw our poodles into the pool. They both swam immediately. Let's get on to Brianna Joy Gray.

Okay. Speaking of poodles. Speaking of drowning, right? Speaking of what? Of drowning. Speaking of drowning, yes of what of drowning speaking of drowning yes so i i'll let you guys talk about i i think it was terrible terrible that they fired her if they fired her for what it seems like they fired her for which which is what which is rolling her eyes at this uh tamar is that what named tamar the woman who was the sister of the hostage. Just to be clear, I'm on my phone.

It's related to this. I'm looking up the name of the hostage. I cannot just kind of create a framework. Is there any reason that she could be fired that you would be okay with, other than the content of her commentary yes misstating facts in a sloppy way okay um all you know basic if like if i were her her professor and she handed in a paper that was you know incompetent and uh misreporting things and, you know, unprofessional in those ways. Of course you should be fired for that.

But she's not simply a journalist. She's someone who was hired because she had this point of view. And now she goes on TV and, or whatever you call it, and she is the perfect representative, a generic representative of exactly that point of view that she was hired to represent and then people said oh no we don't want we don't want the real version of that point of view we want some watered down version that's palatable to us and i think that's ridiculous you wrote a really good Twitter essay about that thing. It's called an X essay now.

It will always be Twitter to me. I can't let it go. But I appreciated the point that you just articulated, that she is the kind of mask-off representative of exactly what's happening ideologically, you know, within this group of people and how they feel and what they believe. And it's important for us to see that. But I felt two ways about it because I was also, like,

almost, like, scandalized by how unprofessional it was. Like, it's not... I don't know. I mean, if she's hired to be specifically sneeringly contemptuous of everybody that she encounters, including, you know, non... It's one thing to abuse Robbie Suave on, you know, on air. Like, everyone loves watching that. But it's another thing to be interviewing somebody

who's not a member of the media, who's not your sparring partner, and to behave in that way like i found that really i found that really unprofessional and i was shocked that people thought that it was kind of specifically her job to be that way to that person well let me speak up for by the way she did something today that was more of a fireable type thing she tweeted out uh part of that was the London Times story that threw cold water on the rape accusations. And in that story, some people were quoted. First of all, she got the quotes wrong. She couldn't even read the article right.

But at the same time, those people quoted in the article released a statement saying that what's in that London Times story doesn't represent our point of view. They took us point of view. They took us out of context. We disassociate ourselves from their representation of what we said. She didn't mention, as she's reporting it, that the very people she referred to were on record saying this is not an accurate representation of what we said. That is fireable because that's dishonest it's a basic uh element or incompetent yeah or incompetent yeah so because that's deceptive or incompetent either one so that's the kind of thing i'd fire for her fire her for what seemed to me to be happening in that interview and i've been in this situation a little bit was that she wanted to ask this woman, Tamar, because the hostage families

are a political force in Israel, and they're pushing a point of view, and they're pushing arguments. And she wanted to ask this woman certain pointed political valid questions. And every time she tried to do that, Tamar tried to turn the tables. Well, you know, as a woman, Joy, I want you to believe women. And Brianna was getting... Yarden. Her name's Yarden. You said Tamar. Oh, Yarden. I thought you said Yarden. Stop talking. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Yarden. Her sister's Romy. Her sister's the hostage, Romy Garnet. Okay. Okay, whatever. So, Yarden, and Brianna began to get a little annoyed by this because she was kind of, it was a little bit below the belt. I'm trying to ask you actual political questions, and you're trying to put me in an awkward situation where I have to show that I'm heartless in order to get past

this. And she reacted brittly, which, you know, she could have had more grace. But I also felt her frustration, to be perfectly honest, as much as I repulsed by her point of view, I could see the tables turned where I would be trying to interview, you know, somebody from the other point of view. And they kept trying to shame me into saying something. I said, listen, I want to talk about the politics of it. So that's how I feel about it. And, of course, from the pro-Israeli point of view, it doesn't help us, A, to look like we control the media,

and, B, she was a good look for the other side. It was helpful to the Israeli side for the other side like it doesn't it was helpful to the israeli side for the other side to look so heartless that's really not why i say it but just i have to wouldn't be decided i would i would like to see somebody who i guess represents her broad point of view that is not dismissive of you know know, like the eye roll and stuff. I don't know. You know, somebody like Glenn Greenwald, I... He's very dismissive. Yeah, but I think he actually engages in debate and argument

without rolling eyes. But he interviewed... Did you see his interview with Brianna? I don't know. I interviewed him, like, a couple weeks ago, and I disagree with him about certain things. I agree with him on a lot of stuff. But, you know, to your point, point like if you like having brianna there because she is bad like

the mask slips and you realize like oh if you are critical of israel then you're actually anti-semitic or there's some weird shit going on i would rather hear somebody who you can't immediately dish off and say okay you know what there's something really I there's something loose up there I would too and that's why I said I think this is fair she's actually a quite a generic version of that point of view if if I just what I wrote on the Twitter thing if the pro Palestinian camp were saying no no she doesn't represent us. We disassociate ourselves from her. She's not the way we want to be seen.

If anybody was saying that, I'd say, oh, yeah, fire her, because it's not fair to them that they have to be represented by Breonna, because clearly they don't want to be represented by Breonna. But they rally behind her. They're happy with her. Well, you also, you never know what goes into, you know, personnel decisions. I mean, I have no insight into this particular circumstance. And I only saw after she got canned, somebody saying she replaced Katie Halper, I think, a couple of years ago or whatever, over, you know, Israel criticism or something.

I don't know. You know, and that's a bad look for the Hill. But it's also like a lot of the times people get fired and it's like it is straw upon straw. On the camelback, which I guess is a good metaphor if we're talking about the Middle East. Because everybody there drives camels

which can swim, but not all of them. Not the spotted one. Hold on. If CNN were trying to have some back and forth type show revolved largely around Israel, and they hired some Ben-Gavir type to represent the Israeli position. He was on there every night.

Jews would be screaming bloody murder. If you want to be fair to the Israel position, you do not put Ben-Gavir up there. This does not represent the mainstream of the pro-Israel opinion. And I say, yeah, that's right. They shouldn't have Ben-Gavir up there. This does not represent the mainstream of the pro-Israel opinion. And I say, yeah, that's right. They shouldn't have Ben-Gavir. But that's not what's going on here. She may represent the mirror image of a Ben-Gavir, but they are happy with her. And that's really. But I don't think she got fired for being, quote unquote,

critical of Israel. I think she got fired because I mean, I really do agree with Kat, and it's not, this isn't having anything to do with my personal political opinions. It is extraordinarily unprofessional to, I mean, this woman, Yarden Gunen, is in crisis. Whether or not she has a political agenda or not, her sister is legitimately being held hostage by Hamas. That she shouldn't go on a political talk show. Well, I mean, I don't agree with that. Of course she's going to take any opportunity she can. If, God forbid, one of your family members had been kidnapped or held hostage, you would go anywhere.

Terri, if, God forbid, some poor... I think this podcast should be called God Forbid. If some poor Palestinian mother who lost their child or the child was maimed in an attack in Gaza and she was representing some political movement and she wanted to come on to discuss the Gaza war and the journalists wanted to say, well, okay, let me ask you some questions.

What should Israel do? And started asking pointed questions. We'd say, yeah yeah they have to ask her how could you ask this mother who lost their child well then don't go on the show no no no

but wait a second then do not go on the show if this woman came on our show we would never in a million years roll our eyes at her

alright yes I wouldn't roll my eyes but that's yes she shouldn't roll her eyes but she rolled but did you watch the whole interview yeah I. So she rolled her eyes because it was like the third time that she was in this position. And listen, it got the better of her. And she has a history of rabid anti-Semitism. OK. I just think that, you know, you get frustrated. That's fine. You know, journalists are only human. But it behooves you to express your frustration in a productive way. And there are ways to do it that don't involve doing what she did. Yes.

It got the better of her. She was frustrated. But I would, I think they should have let it go. Really? Just completely let it go? No. Not even like a reprimand, not even like a, we're going to give you a moment,

or we're going to send you to the museum. Listen, I'm pretty harsh about this stuff. I feel like, listen, everybody has to know, my heart is with this poor woman in the house. It's like, extremely. But I do feel like if you go on a show to discuss an issue, you can't hide behind your personal story. If you want to go and discuss the politics of this stuff,

then she has the right to cross-examine you. Otherwise, it's not fair. Otherwise, it's just a soapbox. It's just the eye-rolling to me. It's like, you know, absolutely absolutely it's your job to be uh an interlocutor it's your job to press people as a journalist and to take them to uncomfortable places but there's a way to do that that is uh you know that keeps the discourse at a certain level and you know the idea that like something wrong with me i mean if she'd like there is like thrown

a chair or something you know it'd be like oh it got the better of her you. No, no. I felt like if somebody was trying to make a point to me and said, come on, no, I'm Jew to Jew, I could see myself immediately just reflexively rolling my eyes. Like, don't give me this Jew to Jew stuff. And you have to understand, they have imbibed the idea that this entire sexual abuse rape story is a fabrication. This is ideological for them at this point. Don't you find that disturbing and kind of unprofessional? Unprofessional?

I find it disturbing. What's problematic about it is that some of the things that they have uncovered were correct, that some of the stories didn't pan out, that some of the testimony was unreliable or fabricated. And if not for them, we would have never heard that stuff. And because of that, I hold my fire because I know, you know, it's all one package. They are extremely skeptical. And they've got they've gotten too many things. They pointed out too many things that my side missed for me to feel comfortable fully inhabiting the position you're describing that's just i maybe i'm being i you know i mean this is one of the things i find impressive about you is that that kind of

self-criticism is rare regardless of the you know of the point of view and things like that and uh i you know i would like to and this might be a way to get to a new topic, is ask why do people feel comfortable mocking Robbie Suave, but not Brianna Joy Gray? And I work with Robbie. I actually hired him at Reason. Well, I mean, I really was kidding. I know. But why do they feel comfortable mocking him? Because he's super handsome. He seems like he's never...

He's like Johnny Bravo or something. he's like johnny bravo or something it's like it's like okay stop it already yeah uh what was the other thing i told you to say i wanted to discuss when we get up here brianna joy no there's something else i told you in the olive tree i said i'll discuss something else all right let's so let's let's talk about immigration since uh this is uh yeah and i'm currently uh but we could this ties in with with children too because yeah well you can't uh steve king the disgraced former representative from iowa said you can't oh hunter biden save civilization with other people's babies uh you remember he said that a couple years ago and he got stripped of all of his positions in the Republican Congress. And it was funny because I've always been very pro-immigrant,

but I didn't realize until he had said that, and this is something I choke up over, my parents and my aunts and uncles were all other people's children. They were all the children of immigrants from shithole countries that fought World War II in Korea and built America after after world war ii and he was like yeah those are those were the problem and um i don't know you know so where

were your people from uh eastern ire uh ireland and italy okay nick what do you make of it when you hear the vicious anti-Americanism and the vicious bigotry? And recently, you've seen some of the protests just in the last week, the anti-Jewish protests, anti-Israel protests, whatever you want to call them. That could resemble Klan. I mean, people in costumes, you know, it could just as well be pointy hat. I haven't looked at the fuller context, which is the first thing that I should do before talking about it, but when, you know,

that footage of people on a subway car and people saying, like, who are the Zionists? You know, get off. Yeah, that's fucked up. And that is deeply anti-American, not because it's pro-Palestinian, because we've had long bouts of that in America where you are, you know, trying to kick out certain types of immigrants from, you know, spaces. So is there, we talked about this last time we were on this, you know,

when empirical facts have to temper your ideological wishes, should we be worrying about deep-felt ideologies, religious ideologies, which are not really compatible in some way or at least don't support the kind of country that we want to be you know i i want to rush so when i say open borders uh you know the the libertarian party presidential nominee chase oliver has called for a return to ellis island style immigration where it's you know you just process lots of people you do a check to see if you know they have a

criminal history and if they have some kind of communicable disease. Otherwise, the default is to let more people in. You build a wall around the welfare state, not around the United States. All of that kind of stuff is backdrop. It's not clear to me that the people who are espousing this kind of nativism are, you know, it's because they're Muslim or they're Arab or whatever you might be talking about. Not clear to me either what it is. You know, I mean, they, you know, most of the people who are camping out at Columbia are not, you know, they're not Middle Eastern, right? They're, you know, kids from, you know, the wealthiest enclaves around America.

And on the right, and I had written something in defense of, you know, more open immigration than we have recently, and I'm getting slammed on Twitter. It's not from people who are like, oh, we need to have more Islam in America. It's people who are saying against, I think, obvious truth that we're letting too many Venezuelans in here and they're just gonna bring the socialism that they're fleeing you know and it's like moronic that's right-wing insanity and it's just nativism and xenophobia there is a precedent for this and you know this was Catholics it was a obvious fact in the 1920s when they passed laws banning European immigration which was mostly targeted at Jews and Catholics, you know, Catholics and Jews could not assimilate into America

because they had fucked up religions and they talked to their gods in secret languages and they drank wine during, you know, the religious ceremonies. They would never assimilate and they were anti-American. And, you know, those are the people who, you know, now we talk about are, you know, as great Americans, right? Well, the Jews, they had a point, you know know because we do tend to we are very clicky and then you go to colleges and they got like zbt their own frat they you know it is or sammy or

whatever so the jews are the jews are clumpy and now little by little there's more and more intermarriage but um well i just hope it comes out in the wash, as we say, and over generations, everything's okay. I'm more worried about the ideology. We talked about it before. When our parents came here, they were probably in the highest patriotic, measurable cohort of Americans.

They were so happy to leave the old country and be Americans. And that's not typical of immigrants today. Maybe it's just because of technology, because they're still texting from home, because they came here for different reasons, because the world is so small for whatever reason. And I just hope that it works out because it was nice to have a country that loved itself. I don't think it's immigrants who are the problem in terms of being critical towards america i i think overwhelmingly people who come here to live and work whether they become citizens or not are very pro-america um and um you know i think it's people in america

immigration is kind of a projection screen and And when people have anxiety because of the economy or the future or all sorts of things, they scapegoat, you know, immigrants are a scapegoat for that. And what we need to do, and I don't know exactly how to do it, is to create a meaningful but flexible identity of what it means to be American. And that's a commitment to, you know, I think basic things like individualism

and being able to maximize your potential and to live the way you want, to go back to Harrison Bucker, like where this is a big country and you can live like that or you can live, you know, like in an Islamic majority community in, you know, Hamtramck, Michigan

or something like that. Well, let me ask you this question. I'm dying here with cats. As a hypothetical, after 9-11, you might have been too young. I'm 42. After 9-11,

am I getting older? Does she look a lot younger than 42? Or maybe it's just my age that makes her look young. After 9-11, we saw tremendous unity in the country. If people had to go off and enlist, we would have seen tremendous numbers of people going off and enlisting. And as a thought experiment, what if 9-11 were to happen today? And this is not just limited to immigration.

I do not think we'd see nearly the amount of unity that we saw just 20-something years ago, 23 years ago. I think you're probably right about that. What strikes me is that 9-11 was kind of an inflection point after which it eventually became untrendy on the left and amongst people who were highly educated, who were members of the kind of cultural elite, coastal coastal liberals it became untrendy to be patriotic the big thing now is like you know if you're a ivy league educated young person with a six-figure job

things to be like no i hate america we suck i wish we were norway um the six-figure job is that still a thing i mean your teachers make six i-figures. I don't know, allegedly. I don't know, I'm a writer. It's like the word millionaire. Millionaires, does that have any... Anyway, go ahead. Yes. So, what was I saying?

He does that. Oh, yeah, just that, you know, it has become untrendy to be patriotic. And this is one of the areas in which I often find myself differing from my fellow, like, liberals, is that I'm super patriotic. And this is one of the areas in which I often find myself differing from my fellow, like, liberals is that I'm super patriotic. I think there's no better place to live

than the United States. And one of the things I really love about this country is that we have this experiment happening that's founded on welcoming people from all different walks of life, all different backgrounds, faiths, ideologies, people who have very, very diverse ideas about how to live and how best to live.

And we say, like, welcome, we're so glad you're here. Just... live your life like you want. Leave other people alone. Like, just be tolerant. And for, like, the most part, it's worked. And it's kind of amazing. And this kind of gets back to the Harrison-Bucker thing also, is that for the experiment to continue to function, we need to have a lot of leaving each other alone.

We need to have a lot of leeway for a guy to be standing on a stage saying things that you profoundly disagree with, and you're like, you know what? That's fine. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Like, if he starts running for office, then yeah, call me. But in the meantime, like, it's fine if this guy wants to tell 500 people I feel this way and all 500 of them are like, yeah, us too.

The thing that kind of worries me, and I think it's... Because I think it really lives in, like, direct opposition to the success of the American experiment is that you now have people who are empowered to come into public spaces with masks on and to try to intimidate people who don't believe the way they do, who don't want to live the way they do

out of those public spaces, and that they feel empowered to do that, that strikes me as dark. That strikes me as worrisome. How much of this is due to the fact that we see everything because 9-11 took place not only before X, but before Twitter. And so now we now we now we it's any dissension is clearly visible. And people doing what they did, Zionists off the train were probably just trying to go viral, which, you know, people weren't trying to do after 9-11.

So is it that Americans are thinking differently, or is it that social media has changed? Well, we also have the experience of how the government responded to 9-11, which was with mass paranoia and with a disastrous foreign policy that we really haven't accounted for. And the goddamn TSA. Yeah. No, I mean, that's, you know, it's all part of it. And, you know, and it became weaponized politically in order to advance certain types of agendas. So we're right to be kind of skeptical and cynical about a lot of things. I actually, you know, I think that the belief in America is still really strong. When you look at things like Gallup, they ask people, you know, are immigrants generally on balance, good or bad for the country? And, you know, we're still in like the high 60s or low 70s

for that. It is true that people are now saying that they want less immigration at levels that aren't quite as high as they were in the mid 90s. And this is something we talk a lot about at Reason. In 1996, Bill Clinton, this was a big part of the democratic platform he was talking about finding all those illegal immigrants and kicking them out of the country and that got you know standing ovations at the democratic convention so this some of this is cyclical what is disturbing is that you usually if the left is pushing nativism the right is kind of like no we want to welcome people right now you have people on the left andism, the right is kind of like, no, we want to welcome people. Right now you have people on the left and people on the right who are kind of xenophobic or very kind of paranoid

about America. And I mean, that concept of like, you know, it's an ongoing experiment. It's certainly not perfect, but it's pretty good. That's at a low bid point right now. Well, it's something about my personality. And then we want to just one more topic real quick. It's something about my personality. It's related to what you described about you before. Everything you're saying is what I'm predisposed to. The pro-immigration point of view, my immigrant employees are,

I mean, one of my immigrant employees, I mean, each one of them is probably worth three homegrown employees. I can't say enough positive things. And yet you pay them less. And but there is something

in me that just can't overlook certain danger signs that perhaps I'm too sanguine, that I'm wrong. And the steady stream of attitudes that I've heard over the last 10 years, 15 years from my immigrant employees. Jarred me, I can't they you know, and I've asked them pointed questions, how do you feel about the country? How would you feel if your children had to fight for the country? Do you feel connected to the founding fathers? Do you like just like do you feel America is a force for good in the world? And all the answers are not the answers you would want to hear. And it's not just a few cases. It's become like a thing that I do all the time.

And that's unprecedented. And we just don't really know how that will work out. I'm not predicting disaster. I think most likely the next generation kind of, like I said, it kind of just is a half-life to it and dissipates. Let's hope it does, because it needs to. For good or for bad, I think the founding fathers,

they don't got much longer. But let me say, but it's not nativist. It's practical. It's pragmatic to say, well, if we're going to take immigrants from all over the world, it's really in our interest to make sure they don't come here with a bad opinion about the country. It's really in our interest to make sure they don't come from places where America has been the villain in their lives, in their homes all the time, but they just know they can make a buck here and send it. That's not a recipe for success. So these are just, again, I'm not predicting it. These are just, I'm just, it gnaws at me. There's something about it that worries me.

And then when I see a video like I see on Twitter, I'm like, oh shit, you know? And the kind of lack of revulsion at it. Like there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, that's okay that they're doing that. I don't see anything that terrible about that. Can we talk about Hunter Biden real quick? Sure.

We have a seven o'clock show just FYI. Hunter Biden. So hot. How do you feel about him getting convicted on this gun charge? I don't really have super strong feelings about it. I was surprised, though, that he was convicted. So, yeah, I guess, you know, that would be my one-word answer.

I was surprised. Especially because I think there was maybe this narrative in the air, and maybe, you know, I'm revealing my bias or my idiocy by admitting that I kind of bought into it, that Trump was going to get convicted for his thing, but Hunter Biden was not going to get convicted for his, and this was going to illustrate something about how the system is currently working and in whose favor, but that does not appear to have been the case.

No. What do you think? I don't think Trump should have been tried. I don't think Hunter Biden probably would have been tried if he was not Hunter Biden. But he also made a lot of money because he's Hunter Biden. So it gets complicated. I'm in favor of a robust Second Amendment and very limited gun laws. But he also clearly lied on his application. Hopefully what the Trump and Biden convictions will point to is the idea that we criminalize so many things

that really shouldn't be criminalized. Harvey Silverglade, who's one of the founders of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote a book years ago called Three Felonies a Day, and it basically is just talking about how ago called Three Felonies a Day. And it basically is just talking about how, you know, the criminal codes in the U.S. have just expanded so much that we're all committing like three felonies a day. And, you know, that's wrong, and we should be paring that back.

It's very hard to be sympathetic to Hunter Biden. He seems like a real piece of shit. I'm sympathetic to him. Well, his, you know, he was in the car accident. a real piece of shit. I'm sympathetic to him. Well, his, you know, he was in it. Was he in the car accident? Was he the guy? I think he survived the car accident. Yeah, well, first of all, that could be very traumatic,

not just physiologically, but psychologically. Yeah, I think the nation is with me. Even the keffiyeh-wearing, you know, anti-Americans are with me when they say it's hard to be sympathetic to Hunter Biden. But that also doesn't mean that he should go to jail for something that really is probably a victimless crime. Yes. Well, do you have anything else?

I don't have much to say about Hunter Biden. I would love to talk. I want to hear more about your opinion on gun control, but I guess we're done. Well, it's related. So this is really quick, my opinion about, first of all, the Trump case is ridiculous. If you polled America, based on my anecdotal conversations, I think you would find that most people think he got in trouble because he used campaign funds to pay his mistress. Most people, I'm speaking to informed people, think that, well, he shouldn't have paid his mistress

from campaign funds. But actually, it's exactly the opposite. He got in trouble because he didn't pay his mistress from campaign funds, who was, by the way, extorting him in a layman's sense. So that's ridiculous. But Hunter Biden, we're all against incarceration. This guy was a-

For this type of thing. Yeah, for, yeah. It's kind of like a cash 22. we're all against incarceration this guy was for this type of thing yeah for yeah he it's kind of like a cash 22 he's a drug addict so of course he lied because drug addicts are out of their minds on drugs that you know and then i i can't you know and just put a spotlight on the gun laws and you know this isn't something that's like in my top three issues. But, you know, basically now if you say that you're a marijuana user, you can't legally qualify for a gun under federal laws because that means you're an addict and you're using illegal drugs. And it's stupid. Right. You know, it has no – there's no rationale behind it that makes the world a safer place now there is the valid kind of snarky point

which is that the liberals who scream background checks every time there's a shooting say these laws are are fundamentally important and now he's violent another so but i'm going to give them a pass on that because somehow a system of justice has to be able to discern that he was not a threat of a mass shooting. He was just a guy who bought a pistol at a drug guy. So to put him in jail would be crazy to me. Even to prosecute him seems excessive. The real scandal is the tax evasion. Corruption is that the prosecutor, the attorney general, the Justice Department, let the statute of limitations lapse on a major amount of money of tax back taxes owed, knowing there was no con. Everybody knew he owed it.

That was obviously corrupt. I spoke to a former prosecutor. They said that never happens. There's no such thing. They always know when the statute of limitations is up and they never let it lapse by accident. So that's really the charge that he is properly tried on. And the lowest class thing that they, to me in all this, is that, you know, there's some other years that he is being, that didn't lapse. He's paid the back taxes on that. You're worried.

What he didn't do was pay the back taxes that he owed for the years that the statute of limitations lapsed. Mr. Talk about the father. Now, Mr. Fair share, you know,

taxes. He knows his son owes these back taxes. He knows he only got off on a technicality. Hey, this frigging back taxes, even on the years that they're not coming after you for, because you owe them. That's the only thing about this entire thing that bothers me. And obviously that they had to have two whistleblowers come forward to get them to admit that they were giving him a pass is annoying.

But the poor guy, I have people, I've known people who have terrible drug problems. It's I mean, the guys suffer enough. Well, and this is someplace where I'm very sympathetic to Joe Biden as a father dealing with a son who screwed up. And you can, you know, figure, you know, a portion blame and responsibility and stuff like that but i wrote something years ago um when hunter biden has gotten off on a variety of drug charges where other people who are not connected would go to jail or really be put through the uh put in the barrel and you know it would be nice like all you know all drug addicts or people who intersect with the legal system because of drug problems should be treated as leniently as Hunter Biden. I agree. Anything else? No, no, no. I think that's it for me.

I would really want to hear what he has to say about gun control, but I guess we don't have time. If he has time, we have time. Go ahead. Well, you want very liberal gun laws. The Second Amendment applied, I guess literally, would be your position. Shall not be infringed.

Yeah. Who would he do about all this gun violence? Well, I mean, this is my main, again, gun stuff is not like really something I, you know, I wake up thinking about or go to bed worrying about. And it's partly just on an empirical basis. If you go back to the mid-90s, crime was peaking, violent crime and gun-related crime was going up, and everybody was saying,

okay, this is just the way it's going to be. It's just going to keep getting worse and worse. At the same time, at the state level, states and localities were legalizing or liberalizing gun laws so that more people could carry more guns in more circumstances. And gun crime has declined massively, and it continues to. So, you know, without getting into any philosophical, you know, founding fathers arguments and all of that, it's just like, you know, the fact is, is that, you know, we have fewer gun laws on the books compared to, you know, 30 or 40 years years ago and we have less gun crime so um you know whatever

you can say about you know gun laws is that they're not the thing that's standing between people shooting things up or not i agree so that just on an empirical basis um you know i think people have to deal with that all right we got to wrap it up you know one of the classic signs of onset of dementia is that you lose track of time, of years and stuff. And it still cracks what she said works for MTV report. I'm like, was that the 80s or 90s? Because that's the only time I can immediately think of MTV news. She was on Herd Loader. Exactly. I didn't even know it existed after that. I'm like, wait a second, she can't be from that time.

But when you're older, you'll understand that it all collapses, right? Like the 80s, 90s. She's not that young, but albeit looks young. No, you can tell me the 90s or 2010s and to me, it's just like... It looks like Pat Benatar.

It whizzes past me, but I know... Pat Benatar is like 80 years No, a younger Pat Benatar, like from the Love is a Battlefield video. I met Kurt Loder at a Reason event,

and I said, I used to watch you on television. And he said, oh, my God. Wait, he's English, Kurt Loder? Yeah. All right. Well, you guys didn't fight enough from my taste. We're going to brawl in the street after this.

Yeah. We'll have a cat pimp on, and they can really go at it. And I'm very happy to hear that you're getting married and that you're going to have more children. I'm going to try. I've met your fiance, and she's absolutely delightful and wonderful. She obviously has some errors in judgment. Is she an elder millennial?

No. She's a millennial, though. Oh, okay. Okay. And I'm very bullish on all these things. All right. All right. Well, thank you guys very, very much.

Good night, everybody.