The Dispatch Podcast - Escaping the Victim Pyramid | Interview: AG Hamilton

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Pseudonymous commentator and writer AG Hamilton joins Jamie to discuss the cultural issues in the Republican Party and the media-hungry politicians making everything worse. The Agenda: -In memoriam of Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid -Left-wing agendas -Media bias -What would AG do to fix everything -Worst pundits -AG’s favorite author is Jonah Goldberg Show Notes: -AG Hamilton on X (formerly known as Twitter) -AG Hamilton on Substack -RNC Moving to Declare Trump Its Presumptive Nominee -Trump Backs Off ‘Presumptive Nominee’ RNC Pressure Campaign Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is one of my favorite follows on Twitter. That is at A.G. Hamilton 29. I call him A.G. in the podcast. He's anonymous Twitter account. A.G. Hamilton is a pseudonym is a pseudonyms on either their podcasts or writing for the dispatch. But we make an exception this time. A.G. is a fantastic follow on Twitter if you do not follow him. I encourage you. you to do that. He explains in the beginning why he maintains a pseudonym and is anonymous. And then we get into all sorts of subjects from the media to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the 2024 election. This is a little different than some of the interviews I've done recently, but I think you're really going to enjoy it. So without further ado, I give you A.G. Hamilton. A.G. Welcome to the dispatch podcast. Hey, Jamie. Thanks for having me. It's a real honor to have you. You're one of my favorite Twitter followers for a long time. So much so a favorite that we've kind of broken one of the rules of the dispatch that we don't have people, pseudonyms come on. But maybe let's just start there. Why do you use a pseudonym? What can you tell us about yourself? And what is the purpose of your pseudonym? Sure, absolutely. So I can tell you, um, I graduated from law school. I don't work in politics full time.

And that's pretty much why I don't like to use my real name on social media. Obviously, a lot of people do know who I am. But in the past, between trolls and some hateful people and some threats, et cetera, I've tried to avoid making it easy for those kinds of people. Just a corollary to that, I follow a Twitter person in real estate, strip mall guy, one of the most famous. people on Twitter. He recently, after several years of anonymity, decided to come out, he thinks that there's a benefit to that. Do you weigh kind of the cost-benefit analysis, the cost on one side,

your privacy is gone. Some of these trolls might be able to attack you directly. Whereas on the benefit side, you know, you become more of a public figure, perhaps go to conferences and engage in public debates. Sure, there's a consideration there. But to be honest, I still talk to people. people as myself. And I tweet mostly as a hobby. I don't view it as missing out on too much because I still feel like people trust me and trust the content I put out. And I think I've earned that trust. So I don't think it bothers the people that pay attention to me as much. Well, I certainly trust you. And I think the content you put out is quite spectacular and I encourage everyone listening to follow you at AG Hamilton on Twitter. Let's just start with a 2024 primary.

You recently wrote a long postmortem on, I guess on your substack on why you thought Ron DeSantis failed in his presidential candidacy, from what I can tell you, were a supporter of Ron DeSantis, not officially on the campaign, but a supporter on Twitter. In short, can you explain your diagnosis? What was problem with that campaign? And one thing, I wrote that postmortem back in August, actually. I just didn't publish it because, publicly anyways, because I didn't feel it was, fair to DeSantis who was still running or the people supporting him who still wanted to push for him. But yeah, I definitely supported him. I thought he was the best option from both. I think he was the most successful governor that Republicans have had in a long time. And on paper, he was really an ideal candidate, especially with where the GOP base is right now, where it's much harder for a traditional candidate. But what I thought the GOP base was looking for and what made

DeSanta's successful in Florida, and I mentioned this in the post-mortem, was two things, really. One, his identity as a fighter really inspired the base, whether on COVID, where he was targeted excessively, especially by the press, for all of his decisions, which many of which turned out correct, and the way he fought back against the press, et cetera. And two, competence. I think that's what allowed him to have a 20-point win in Florida, which should be a much closer state, is he demonstrated consistent competence responding to natural disasters on the economy, limiting deficits in Florida, et cetera. And so what I think happened in Florida is a lot of independent and even Democrat voters looked at that and said,

you know what, I might not agree with DeSantis on some of the CRT stuff on the flight with Disney, etc. But I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt because he's done such a good job governing the main issues I care about on the economy, on responding to COVID, et cetera. And I think part of the problem with the campaign was they kind of abandoned that. Their central message wasn't on the economy at first. They avoided going to the mainstream press when they needed media attention completely.

Because they couldn't show competence because of how the campaign was being run, especially campaign-related process stories, the Twitter launch, which was a complete failure, and the failures that sort of followed, that took away the confidence. confidence angle. So outside of Florida, that thing that all the independent voters knew him for, they no longer viewed him that way. And then you go to the base, which wanted a fighter.

They wanted the DeSantis that even now, you see some of his social media posts coming out, are coming off as aggressive. I'm taking on, including Trump the other day, the bill from the other day that suggested that Florida taxpayers would pay Trump's legal fees, which is ludicrous. And DeSantis came out aggressively against that. People were looking for that. And I think he was very shy about taking Trump on at first because poll numbers obviously showed the Republican base likes Trump. And I think the combination of those two failures with what was already happening in the race, obviously Trump got a huge boost from the brag indictment. And just the fact that the Republican voters felt like they needed to defend him from unfair prosecution. those two things combined to sort of take the Santis out of the race. And just to be clear, you don't think, or do you think all the prosecutions are unfair? No, no, no, no, no. Well, let me clarify there.

The Bragg prosecution is purely political for that one. And I think the problem is that one went first. And because that one went first and everybody agreed, then everybody was on the same page that that doesn't make sense. I think the Florida charges the documents case, there are. are very legitimate charges there. I think the D.C. case is a little tougher, and I think the Georgia case is kind of in between. I think there are legitimate arguments to be made on some of the other cases, where at least prosecution seems plausible. I think the brag indictment was the one that was purely political, but the problem is that set the narrative. After that, that's how

Republican-based voters viewed all the prosecutions because it went first. I don't disagree with almost anything you said in your post-mortem, I particularly think the media thing was, it's insane how he avoided going on some of the mainstream media shows when he was invited. He's very good in that type of setting and seems to always have his facts at hand. It can create a viral moment. But isn't it possible, and this is my view, and I know you'd get annoyed sometimes when people said this is a fate of complete for Donald Trump, isn't it possible that there was nothing that could be done, no matter how perfect a campaign that Ron DeSantis ran or any of the other candidates ran that Donald Trump is just so strong as the former president who even some of his

opponents running against him called him the greatest president who's ever lived and all of a sudden they're running against him. I mean, isn't it possible that there was no one? There's nothing that could have been done to stop Donald Trump from winning the primary. The primary, maybe. No, I do think that's a possibility. I think he ran as an incumbent. Essentially, within the Republican Party, he's an incumbent. And incumbents aren't easy to beat. So I think you needed the right set of circumstances. But I think that those were in existence when you look back after the 2022 election. You had the circumstances that could have convinced voters to move on. And when I look at the brag indictment, I know there was internal polling that showed a 23

point net bump for Trump from that indictment. 23 points is huge in a primary where you haven't even entered the race. So after that, 100% I can see the argument that it didn't matter how well DeSantis ran. It might have not mattered. But I do think the opportunity was there before that. After that, it was a huge uphill climb. And I think that was obvious to everybody. I can bring up one more issue, perhaps. I mean, oftentimes you had in 2016, in 2016, I thought, you know, you had this one of the most amazing fields of Republicans running. And Donald Trump comes in. And on stage, he makes them all look small. I mean, he really does. They all try to go after him. And whatever he has, he's able to make them look small. Did DeSantis have that star power that

you need in a certain sense on the national stage to overcome, you know, the attacks from Trump? And so far, I haven't seen many people be able to do that. He absolutely was not the entertainer, right? And what Trump benefited from in 2016 is he got on state, like, you look at the debates. I think, I forget which comedian has a funny bit where he talks about Trump got on stage. You just said, your wife is ugly. And nobody knew how to respond to that because they were talking about the economy. And so it became pure entertainment, but people laughed. And it is fun.

Like, you can't say that there's no comedy involved because it is funny, but it's just not what you should be looking for in a president. And what DeSantis needed to convince voters of is funny is funny. And that's fine when you want to watch a TV show. But look at where Trump failed as a president. You look at the fact that he lost to Biden. Funny, obviously, didn't work in a general election, a re-election. So we need to move on from that.

That's not what you guys should be focused on. I don't think he managed to do that completely. But I think that was the message that you needed to sell voters on. Well, let me ask you one other thing. I mean, I tell you what I thought, DeSantis was a pretty good governor. Certainly on some issues, I think he took quite a strong stand and showed some pretty significant political courage. But some of the stuff he did in order to ingratiate himself when he was decided he was running for president. And the one thing that comes to mind,

it's in a way a small issue, but it affected real people, which was when he, you know, pretended this election fraud panel and went off like, went after 20 random people in Florida who, you know, may have accidentally committed an election fraud. They didn't know they couldn't vote. Even the police officers in the camera and the videos were almost apologizing to them as they arrest them. Don't you think that shows a type of character that is not suited to the presidency? Yeah, I mean, my

view of that, I'm not going to defend everything, every policy that Santa's had and everything he did. I think that we have a problem right now in the United States and politics in general where people are looking for those who really appeal

to them despite the facts, if you will. At the end of the day, politicians are politicians. And you shouldn't put all your, you shouldn't look to a politician to be your perfect role model and to, you should use them when you can. And then when they're no longer useful, you should move on, is my view. And I think the scientist was a very successful, has been a very successful governor because like I said, he's competent and he's good on the big issues and the things that matter. Does that mean that he doesn't sometimes pander, that he doesn't sometimes go off or take on issues

where he probably shouldn't? No, he does that, just like every politician does that. I think it depends on the individual voter where your line is, and I think everybody has to ask themselves, hey, I know this is probably not DeSantis doing the right thing, or this might be too much pandering, but is this crossing the line enough where I don't feel like voting for him or I don't feel like voting at all.

And I think that's a harder, that's a more personal decision that everybody has to look at. Well put, one more quote from your piece here and we'll move on to other issues. There was also very little Ron DeSantis could have done about the media's open support for Trump. The press is generally supportive of Biden relative to Republicans

and they saw DeSantis as the biggest threat to Biden's reelection. Their coverage was reflective of that reality. You know, look, I think I'm going to share some of your press criticisms as we get on in this interview. you. But do you really think in the Washington Post in the New York Times, they saw DeSantis as a threat and that's why they were tougher on DeSantis? Because that is probably not the way I saw, as it would see how a lot of these reporters were covering it. Right. I think that they viewed Trump as Biden's best chance at reelection. I think they view Republicans in general as a threat. And for them, because of that, I think even now you're noticing a shift in coverage where there's a lot of stuff about. about Trump, that you can, a lot of negative stories you can do that just aren't being covered on a consistent basis that I think you're going to see a big uptick of that. And I think

for somebody who pays attention to the press consistently, it's noticeable. It's noticeable that they downplayed some of the Trump criticism and some of the Trump stories, some of the craziness that he puts on true social that didn't get covered, that I promise you will get covered in the general election. And on the DeSantis side, I think they really disliked him. going back to the COVID years and have never really treated him fairly. And I think part of that was because he became popular despite their criticism, despite them not liking him. DeSantis gained a lot of popularity.

And I think there were people in the press for sure that resented that. But how about at the highest levels? I'm thinking at the New York Times, my friend Jonathan Swan, who's one of the leading political coverages of Maggie Haberman, even at the post, which we'll get to their Israel coverage. But on their political coverage, you have some pretty. good reporters there. Do you think they are weighing in on the scales on the side of who they want to win? So Jonathan's a great reporter as an example. I will say that. I think Jonathan's a really good reporter. I think you have really good reporters at times, but I think from the

from the side of what they choose to cover and what they choose not to cover. And Jonathan and Maggie cover the Trump team much more as an example than they covered the other teams. They give them more press and they give what that team is thinking and at the same time they also take information from the Trump team about their opponents and publish it and it's so I don't think it's a thing where they sit down and say we're going to help Trump but I think Trump gives them a lot of access and because of that there's coverage ends up the political coverage in general I'm not going to say just those two specific reporters but the political coverage in general ends up skewing in that direction.

Let me just throw out a theory here and have you respond to it. The way I view the issue where kind of media malfeasance or media failed is really not a deliberate campaign in most cases to get one side or the other elected. I mean, DeSantis, A, he was happy to pick fights with the media and usually did well when they would come at him and he would go back and forth, which created some bad blood between him and some of the media. And then there are left-wing groups that created some narratives around. him, which reporters sometimes took without actually researching, the banning books and things

like that. And they were able to define the laws that, you know, the don't say gay. Yeah. Yeah. And that becomes a narrative. And I don't believe it's an intentional bias, but because the press generally comes from left of center, ethos, schools, all the same schools, they're more willing to buy that narrative than the counter narrative. And that just naturally seeps in and there's not really malicious motives. What do you think of that theory? I actually think you're correct. I don't think it's malicious for most.

Now, there are reporters out there who clearly are clear activists and intend to skew the scales. But I don't think it's malicious. I think a lot of it is just that newsrooms are filled with people who are very like-minded. And like you said, when they get stuff from people they agree with, left-wing groups, et cetera, they don't double-check it. It's just a reality a lot of times, right? And they're not interested in getting similar types of information from right-wing groups a lot of times. And so that's where I agree with you that it's not an intentional. We're going to sit down and we're going to do everything we can to help Democrats or help this person or hurt this person.

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of a website or domain. David Drucker at the dispatch, I guess just has a scoop out. We're speaking on Thursday, this will be published on Monday, that the RNC supposedly has a draft resolution before it declaring Trump the nominee. I don't actually even understand how that works, considering there's rules to how you become the nominee. But it leads to my question. I know that you used to get upset when some people would say the polls show this race is over as being unfair to someone like DeSantis. And I kind of disagreed with that. I thought that if you're a commentator and you did believe that the race was all but over. there's nothing wrong with saying that's what your belief was and you could be hoped to be proven wrong.

But now that Trump has won Iowa and New Hampshire, do you give Nikki Haley a chance? Do you think she has a chance to upend this and actually win the nomination? Or do you believe the race is all but over? No, I mean, if you take the direction of the race, something drastic has to happen for Nikki Haley to have a chance, right? Something drastic has to change the direction of the race. The way the race is going right now, Trump has this secure. There's no doubt about that. With that said, my problem is people need to have, like especially organizations like the R&C,

the press, et cetera, they need to have some respect for voters, and you need to actually let people go to the polls and vote. And I don't see the purpose of the R&C doing this other than to alienate, let's say, 20% of Republican primary voters currently support Nikki Haley. What is the point of alienating those 20% who you're doing? desperately going to need in November before they've had a chance to vote because all you're telling them is you don't value their opinion or their vote at all. And they might take that to heart. And in November, they might decide, okay, Republicans don't value my vote. I'll either sit at home

or I'll over Joe Biden. And then the same exact people who were pushing this just to sort of appease Trump's ego, because that's all that resolution is about, are going to be complaining, how could Trump have lost. How could that have happened? It must have been stolen. They're going to be sending that same exact message when November comes around and they did it to themselves by alienating voters consistently. With this kind of established, I mean, and this is a purely establishment push, you have the R&C putting out that's going to put out a statement declaring a candidate that's a presumptive nominee when only two states have voted. What's the point of that? Who does that help? I don't get it. Well, as you said, I think it soothes someone's ego.

How great of the threat, in your opinion? Obviously, there's people on all sides of this to our system, to our way of government, to our democracy, our Democratic Republic, if Donald Trump wins in November. The truth is, I don't know, and I don't think anybody really knows. Here's my thing about Trump. Trump doesn't care about the rules or the Constitution. He doesn't. It's just the reality of it. But he does care about being liked by a certain segment.

He does care about media reactions. there's stuff that he does care about that sort of holds him in line. My thing with Trump is in his first term, he was very constrained by having a lot of professional, very good people around him that did a good job doing all the actual substantive work. Trump focused on, I'm going to do these press conferences, I'm going to look at my media attention, et cetera. I think a lot of those people have left. I think the people around him right now are a lot more reckless and a lot less responsible. So what does that mean in practical terms if he's elected president? I have no idea because it depends who he decides to listen to and how he decides to act and how everybody else reacts to it.

Yeah, I think you nailed what probably is the one constraining factor here and that he likes to be seen as a winner. And if he picks some of the most lunatic people that are kind of surrounding him, he might not be able to say the economy's winning if he appoints some bozo to the treasury or something like that. So hopefully that is a constraining force. But as you say, no one knows. Speaking of media coverage, which we just discussed, one of the big issues that you have been focused on and I think focused on and doing a service to everybody is media coverage post the terror tax. in Israel on October 7th. What do you think the primary issue is with the media and how they cover, I guess the Israel Arab-Palestinian conflict generally and in the current Israel-Gaza conflict specific? Sure, absolutely. Now, I think there's variation, right? I think a lot of major

publications have completely dropped their standards when it comes to covering Israel and the conflict. I think their presumption, the way they, many of these outlets approach the issue is they presume everything Israel tells them needs to be challenged, is you can't believe it, you need to double, triple check it, you need concrete evidence and not just Israel say so. And then when they look at the opposition, which is Hamas, an actual terrorist group that has murdered Americans, that has murdered thousands of people, they say, all right, but they're opposed to Israel. so we should take what they say at face value. And it makes no sense. That's a completely backwards reality where the group that constantly lies and commits terrible, horrendous atrocities

becomes the group they want to take at face value. And then only if you disprove them, then maybe they reconsider. And the democratic country that, okay, nobody's saying they're perfect. But again, a democracy that has Arab citizens, Jewish citizens, Christian citizens living together, that is actually seeking peace and that was attacked on 10-7

becomes your villain that you can never trust and the one that you have to question all the time. And that's the approach a lot of news organizations have taken and it's led to a complete abandonment of journalists standards for several of, like the Washington Post. I've said it for about a month. I will not link to them anymore. And I know that seems extreme and that seems like,

oh, but that's my personal. They've crossed the line so far. far that I do not feel comfortable promoting them. And that's just a personal view that I have where I feel like they've abandoned their standards to such an extent that promoting them is rewarding that behavior. We've seen on college campuses and, you know, my personal opinion, they are in effect a lot of times pro homas rallies, pro homas petitions on these campuses. These are the students that go into journalism, a lot of them. Do you think that is partly what's influencing coverage. You have people coming from the campus with this worldview going into

newsrooms and adopting this, you know, oppressor, oppressee mentality. 100%. It's oppressor oppressed, right? It's the very same mentality. The reason that I've been speaking out against intersectionality and the way it's taught at universities for years as a way to normalize anti-Semitism. I've been saying that for years because the way the victim pyramid works, if you're low enough on that pyramid and the people at the top are the ones attacking you and you're considered the oppressor. You're too rich. You're too successful, et cetera. Then suddenly it doesn't matter what the facts are. It doesn't matter what the truth is. You're in the wrong. And those same people that have taken that on for years, this isn't like this isn't just come about a year ago, right? It

doesn't just come out on October 7th. This has been tall for 20 plus years, if not longer. And those same people ended up at newsrooms, ended up at corporations. And that mentality has allowed them to skew the way they approach these subjects. And they absolutely view Israel as the oppressor. They view Jews as oppressors in general. I'm not even going to limit it to Israel. And they view Palestinians as the victims. And because of that, doesn't matter. Palestinians have no agency. Doesn't matter what they're doing. Doesn't matter what their opinions are. Doesn't matter if they support a two-state solution. Doesn't matter if they support terrorism. all that matters is how Israel responds, and that's the story.

Well, AJ, here's the crucial question and pose it to you, and if you can solve it, that would probably make you somewhat of a hero, which is these kids didn't come into university. Well, actually, I think they did come into university with this mindset partly already in place. I mean, I see this a little bit. I've very young children, and I'm starting to look at these private schools, and we had some of one of our oldest sons go to an early learning school pre-K. and you're seeing some of this kind of ideology, not necessarily particularly on the Middle East, but some of this ideology already seep in. How do you correct that if these elite schools

starting at pre-K are indoctrating kids with kind of an ideological framework? How does that change? How do you fix that? Or are we just going to get two more or three more generations of worse and worse in terms of this ideological outlook? Jamie, to be honest, I think it's one of the biggest threats we face. And I know that sounds like, oh, this is just education. We have nuclear war. But it really, for me, internally, you look at the United States as powerful of a country as we are, the only thing that can undermine us is ourselves and direction that we choose to go in. When I look at education, that you're exactly right. That's where we're leading ourselves.

And the way you shift it is you need to wake up parents and you need to get parents involved to push these schools to change. And you need to disincentivize that behavior. the way to do that school choice give parents a choice on which schools to send their kids get parents involved in what is in the curriculum allow parents to challenge the curriculum like i know that was a big thing with florida and they call banning books but parents should have the ability to have an input they should be they should know what school boards are deciding to do and as you go up at the university level you have to disincentivize like the only reason universities are able to afford of these huge DEI structures is because they've raised skyrocketed tuition costs, right?

And they've skyrocketed the tuition costs to support that very idea while devaluing the degrees that they're handing out. So you need to start making that part of the conversation. And you know what? Student loans, universities need to start becoming responsible for them, which might contain those tuition costs and might make them start making cuts in areas that aren't contributing to the value of their degrees. So now you just, you fix the education system, although I have to tell you I, I'm a little skeptical

that the parents will be as involved as they need to be in the situation. I see in many cases where I am, they just want to get into the elite school to have the elite name next to their child, thinking that's going to lead them getting into Harvard. And it's usually the most elite schools that are teaching the most ideological framework. Once they get in there, they're not paying attention what the school is teaching them. But the next agenda to fix AG is the media. How would you fix the media if you were in control? What would you do to fix what you see as this bias problem in the media?

You know, we were just talking about DEI, but for me, one of the biggest things that would make a huge impact in newsrooms is ideological diversity, which I just don't think exists in newsrooms right now. And I think simply having those conversations between reporters and editors, et cetera, that have access to the other side to talk to the other side would make a huge difference in how they choose to cover issues because then they get challenged and they hear what the other side is thinking and have to represent it in their coverage. It's hard for them to come when everybody's saying the same thing and you have an explosion in competition among the media and you have people with substacks, have people online. You have people just on social media tweeting, right? They're competing against all those people. And it's hard for them to compete against those people when people don't trust them. And the lack of trust is from those blinders. So I think expanding the ideological scope of those organizations and making a real effort to do that would make be a big step. We've seen, as you mentioned, D.E.I. being in many ways a cover for anti-Semitism,

certainly not something that's combating anti-Semitism on the left. But on the right, I think you've tweeted recently, and I've noted it as well. Of all places, the Blaze had Jason Whitlock, the host had basically a Nazi guy on. And he's agreeing with him about all these comments he's making about the Jews. How is that happening at a place like the Blaze where I have a lot of faults with Glenn Beck, but he was never accused of being anti-Jewish or anti-Israel. He's been pretty pro-Israel all his whole career. And I'll say Glenn Beck is pro-Israel, if anything, but that doesn't excuse the fact I think what's going on is there's clicks that come with that, right? There's viewers that come with that, especially in this moment, anti-Semitism is very popular.

Like, it's getting a lot of clicks, it's getting a lot of views, open support for white supremacists, for neo-Nazis, for Nick Fuentes, etc. That whole crowd, right now, that's getting clicks and views. and I think that some organizations have decided they're okay with at least flirting with that. Do you think the blaze? I mean, I don't know and I know that you don't know for sure either, but just your best guess, do you think that they are okay with it for the clicks, that there is no line that cannot be crossed as long as it gets clicks? I will say, I think there's a thing on the right that I've been talking about a little bit.

I don't know what the discussion between Tyler and Glenn, et cetera. I don't know what the discussion was. reaction to that incident or they have another host that's promoted, Fuentes, et cetera. I don't know if they just decided they want to stay out of it, but they've clearly not come out and come out against it. But for me, on the right, there's a problem here where people are starting to confuse free speech with a right to associate with people and a right to, despite bigotry, despite et cetera, and a right to have a platform.

Those are not the same things. Just because you believe in free speech doesn't mean you have to platform neo-Nazis and then nod your head and say, hey, he's making, he's speaking truth and he's making great points. I mean, that's just dumb. And people need to, I do think some people on the right are falling for that idea that, oh, we're being more pro-free speech by hosting neo-Nazis by making Jake Shields a normal figure by, et cetera. I mean, it's silly, but I think some people have fallen into that trap. For those listening and who may not know, Jake Shields is a former UFC fighter who has become a virulent anti-Semite on Twitter and not a particularly smart one, if there are any smart anti-Semites. Let me ask you a few questions in closing. They're a little bit broader to get your views on these. Is there an issue that you think is undercovered by the press? An issue that's undercovered by the press. I would say there's a lot of issues that are undercovered by the press. I think the skew makes them focus on issues that.

that people around them care about more. But immigration is getting a lot more coverage now. I think it was undercover. The crisis at the border was undercover for years. I think the way they cover abortion is sometimes questionable. I think foreign policy is generally undercovered. Obviously, there's a lot of coverage of Israel, Gaza, but a lot of what's going on abroad gets undercovered a lot of times.

So I think the press coverage tends to focus on what they see immediately and what people are reacting to. could snap your fingers and put a politician, a political figure in the Oval Office. Who would that be? Myself? Like I said, politicians are useful at times. There's not one politician where I would say that person's perfect. So there's lots of politicians that I think do a good job. Like I said, I think the Sanchez has been a great governor in Florida and done a great job from that perspective. But I don't trust anybody's judgment more than myself. If you were dictator for a day, what three policy changes would you make to ensure that the United States leads the 21st century? Dictator for a day? Well, I don't know that anybody would want to trust me with that power. But I'm not sure I'd have to think about it. But I definitely think the issues that are priorities, one are education reform, which we talked about, finding a way to reform that system to immigration, finding a way to get our border secure and that's asylum process to work much. better, et cetera. And then three, foreign policy, but I'd have to think about what exactly

that would mean to get it done. If you're putting together a Sunday show panel, you're the host, who would your four panelists be? Four panelists. Ramesh Pinuru, one, two, I'm trying to do a more diverse panel, to get the other side of the right, maybe Ben Shapiro on the left. I'd really have to think about it, but I don't know, maybe Kristen Power, maybe Will Salatin from Slate, I think would be a good pick. Now the bulwark, I believe. Oh, that's right. Who do you think is the worst pundit out there? I know that you go after a lot of pundits on Twitter. I like to think of things by issue. So it's hard for me to just like think of this guy's the worst overall. But there's some pretty bad ones. I mean, when I think about like on Israel,

et cetera. Mejee Hassan has been pretty bad. Who is that? Mecci. Oh, Medi Hassan, yes. Yeah, has been pretty bad from more mainstream pundits. I mean, on domestic politics, you know, somebody who's in the media who's not necessarily, Chris Sezilla has, I forget how to pronounce his last name, but I think he has one of the

worst records on commenting on stuff I've ever seen. But, yeah, there's a wide array of people. people tend to get things wrong and it continue to be promoted in the press. What historical leader do you most admire? It's a good question. George Washington, obviously, for me, Reagan, in terms of recent presidents, I admire a lot. If we're talking about foreign leaders, Golda Meir, if we're talking Israel, Thatcher, Winston Churchill. There's a wide array, right?

And I think all of them have certain lessons learned that I really think are important. And finally, are there three books that you can point to that help shape your worldview? Three books. I think Jonah Goldberg's, I don't know about shaping my worldview because I think I developed that over time myself. But liberal fascism and honestly, his most recent book, I think, might have been his most important work, even though it didn't get the same type of readership. So liberal fascism is definitely one. A lot of Thomas O'L's early works, I would say, contributed to my thought process.

And the Federalist papers obviously aren't books, but in terms of how to think about government and governance and good governance, I think it's still hold up over time. And AG, finally, if someone's listening to this and wants to follow your, I know you put out a, I think it's a substack, on the media where can they go and find that sure uh it's in my bio on uh x slash twitter uh so a g hamilton 29 um is my username and if you click on the bio you'll see the subset link in the bio a g thank you uh for joining the dispatch podcast jamie really appreciate it that was fun

Thank you.