The Dispatch Podcast - Horseshoe Theory in Minnesota | Roundtable

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Steve Hayes is joined by Jonah Goldberg, Mike Warren, and Sarah Isgur to discuss the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal, the $160 million AI chip smuggling operation, and pull-up bars in the airport. The Agenda:—Immigrant welfare fraud—1990s throwback—Woke intimidation—China and AI chip smuggling—Clientelism in Trump's administration—Airport gyms Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of The Dispatch podcast is brought to you by Pacific Legal Foundation. Since they were founded in 1973, PLF has won 18 Supreme Court cases defending the rights of ordinary Americans from government overreach nationwide, including landmark environmental law cases like Sackett v. EPA. Now, PLF is doubling down and launching a new environment and natural resources practice. They're on a mission to make more of America's land and resources available for productive use and to make sure freedom drives our environmental and natural resource policy, not fear. To learn more, visit pacificlegal.org slash flagship.

Hey, everyone, Steve Hayes with some big news from the dispatch. I want to tell you about dispatch hoontoes. Dispatch what? Hoonto, though some people pronounce it junto, is the name Ben Franklin gave to the small gatherings he organized in Philadelphia taverns, starting in the 1720s. Franklin's Huntoes, Spanish. for Assembly or Council, consisted of 12 members, each of whom was required to pledge that he,

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your junto your way. And if your gatherings grow large enough, we'll prioritize your town or city as we plan our next regional event or live podcast taping. So if you're a member of the dispatch and you're interested in leading a local hoonto, head to the dispatch.com slash hoonto. That's J-U-N-T-O. The dispatch.com slash hoonto. And if you're not yet a dispatch member, this is a great reason to join at the dispatch.com slash join. We can't wait to build this with you. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On this week's roundtable, we'll discuss the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal, then China, chips, and AI. And finally, for not worth your time, would you work out in a mini gym at an airport?

I'm joined today by my dispatch colleague Jonah Goldberg, Sarah Isger. and Michael Warren. Let's dive right in. Morning, everybody. I want to start today with a story that has been years in the making. It's a story about the failures of the welfare state, about the challenges of assimilation, about culture and stereotypes and resistance and racism. In response to the challenges of the COVID pandemic, the state of Minnesota developed a number of programs designed to ease the crisis, including some efforts to step up the provision of food and ease access to housing. But what started as a series of well-intentioned efforts has become one of the largest state-level examples of fraud in U.S. history. According to our friend Matt Contennetti at the Wall Street

Journal, quote, three separate plots to bilk welfare programs, 59 federal convictions, more than $1 billion stolen from taxpayers, 86 people charged so far with many more likely to come. Mike, I'll start with you. There's a lot to discuss here, many different angles. Let me begin with the big question. How does something like this happen? That is kind of the question that investigators and prosecutors and the media are increasingly asking, you know, there's, there's something here that reminds me of, you know,

every single, you know, story about a small, you know, insular community, a lot of times, immigrant communities that where, whether you want to call it sort of the racketeering that happens in organized crime or this is sort of a different version of that same thing. But I think what you have is you have a small number of people who are insulated by being a part of a community, an immigrant community, who take advantage and take advantage in a big way of a very generous in Minnesota, a very generous social welfare program. So that's like one part of it, right? It's that people will find ways to try to bilk a system, try to fraudulently steal. money that's up for grabs and try to get away with it. That's, that's crime. The other part of

this is the looking the other way that was going on by officials in Minnesota. And I think that's, that's the bigger scandal. I mean, okay, maybe I'm being a little too cute here. The stealing of a billion dollars is. Pretty big scandal. Is the big scandal. Yes. Okay. So, maybe I've overstated that. But if you, if you understand and follow the way that these prosecutions have gone. These prosecutions started at the federal level in 2022, I believe. And there's already been convictions, some convictions. It's that increasingly there's another example, another program, another organization

that we're learning about that was doing the same thing, right? It started with this feeding kids, you know, money that was put aside for feeding children, during the pandemic and some fraud going on with that. And it's expanded now to autism programs, programs that are there to help kids who are autistic. And you had folks who were in the Somali community who were essentially signing up kids who were not autistic and saying that they were in order to get money and funnel money.

It's getting bigger and bigger. And the only way that that happens is if the officials whose job it is to audit, these things to keep track of this money, to make sure that the system is doing what it should be, the money is going into the right places. They weren't, they weren't unable to do those jobs. And I think that's, that's the thing when we get beyond prosecuting the criminals who stole the money. You know, I guess the second step at this point is, and it's already being asked is what who was asleep or or looked the other way in Minnesota and what can be done

about that. That's where I'm most interested in. And why did they look the other way? Yeah, Sir, do you have a thought on that? I mean, it's certainly been suggested that they looked the other way because they were afraid of being accused of being racist, which goes to a different problem, as Mike has said, but I do want to stay on the welfare problem for a second. because this has been, I mean, gosh, it feels so quaint, and I'm kind of just excited to feel like I'm in 1995 again. So, like, let's do it. The size and scope and role of government, right versus left,

huh, what a treat. You know, I thought Continenti put this well, you know, this is what happens when welfare isn't limited, temporary, and conditional, but omnipresent and unreserved. Now, that was the fight we were having in 1995. I think what's changed is how immigration has factored into that fight because when we, you know, look back at waves of immigration in the United States,

and I mean the big ones, there wasn't the current welfare state. And I think what has changed the vibe of the immigration debates in 2025 versus, you know, 1870 or 1910, there was plenty of pushback and backlash to those immigration waves. And a lot of it didn't sound that different than some of it sounds today. They're not assimilating. They're not like us. They don't share our values. All of those things you would have heard from the no-nothing party about the German Catholics. But one thing that is different is this sense that not only are people coming here and they're not like us, but they're coming here, they're not like us, and they're demanding more of our money.

And then because they're not like us, by which I mean Mike's point about sort of insular communities, again, nothing new about that in immigration waves of the United States. But when those communities then steal from the generosity of America's welfare programs, I think it undermines both the welfare programs, as Contonetti's point is making in a very 1995 way, but it also undermines our immigration system because we don't have a merit-based immigration system like so many other countries. We have a different immigration system. Even our intended immigration system probably isn't compatible with a huge, as Contonetti said, omnipresent welfare state. but this immigration system reminds me of the on-ramp when you're on the George Washington

Parkway trying to get on $3.95. When the lane backs up so much, people cheat and move into the other lanes, skip the line, it backs up the whole freeway or, you know, highway to get onto the freeway, and everyone hates each other. And so not only does the illegal wave of immigration cause people who are waiting in line in the legal immigration line to like throw up their hands, they might as well enter illegally because the illegal line backs up the legal line at some point, but it also causes ill will from everyone toward everyone that they're the ones who have caused the problem. And I just don't think you can separate any of that mess from the current fights that we have that aren't

1995. Right. And the community that we're talking about here, the Somali, Somali-American community in Minneapolis, St. Paul in Minnesota, estimated between 80,000 and 100,000 members, has become sort of a core part of the community in some ways, but there have been challenges and difficulties with respect to assimilation, and I think importantly to this story, they have become a key part of the democratic constituency. So when these complaints were first brought forward, they were brought to bureaucrats in the Minnesota Department of Education, which was running this food program. And immediately, when questions were raised, raised the groups that were alleged to have been defrauding people, or at least, you know,

submitting questionable invoices, unable to explain how they're providing the food they're allegedly providing, responded with threats via email, saying that they were going to call the administrators racist and that they were going to go public with it and it was going to be ugly. And Mike, to your point about how challenging it is to get people to be responsive, I think this was to remember 2020, 2021, 2022, Minnesota in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, where everybody was particularly sensitive about questions of race. And nobody wanted to be thought of as racist. The lead prosecutor on the case, said about racism this was a huge part of the problem he told the new york times allegations of

racism can be a reputation or a career killer so these people in governor democratic governor tim waltz's administration were afraid of being accused by this and the Somali americans who were at sort of the core of these these fraud cases knew well how sensitive people would be about this jona how much of this is a discussion of racism how much of this is a problem of our broken welfare system as i mean our broken immigration system as sarah says and how much of this is just old school big government fraud let's put it this way rather than put it into portions let's just say it's all of the above um because i i hate the cliche perfect storm and all that kind of stuff I hate everything about this story because every complaint is true and almost every complaint

is kind of bad faith. First of all, it is not shocking at all to me that Somali activists in Minnesota after George Floyd had figured out ways to mao-mow this, right, is to sort of intimidate and scare people. That is, it's like they have training seminars in the Democratic Party to teach people how to make these kinds of accusations, right? And they are not unique to Somalis. They are not unique to African Americans.

They are part of the grievance culture more broadly. Second, look, I've seen a lot of stuff about how, you know, as someone put it, how can you have a creedal nation if people don't agree to the creed? And I think that is a perfectly legitimate rhetorical question to ask. I think it's kind of creepy and weird to ask it as if Somali Americans. Americans are the only people for whom that question can apply, given that, first of all, we have an administration that doesn't really believe in the American creed either, and they're supposed to be the super patriots. But second of all, I'm not a big fan. So one of these things,

so from one perspective, this reminds me a little bit of what's happened in parts of Europe, where you get very large numbers of Muslim immigrants, particularly like weird towns in Belgium, sort of second second third tier cities in belgium and sweden and they hit a critical mass and then you get this um red green sort of popular front thing that happens where the Muslim communities and the hardcore left join forces and control local government in these places and this is one of things that causes people to freak out about creeping sharia law and all these kinds of things and i'm I'm not saying that's what's happening, you know, in Minneapolis. But there's a similar dynamic where you get the ideological identity politics stuff

married to old-fashioned ethnic politics, and there are a really gross mix, particularly in an age where a lot of higher education and a lot of elite conversation is embarrassed by the idea of actually buying into the American creed. On the flip side, we're talking on Thursday, December 11th in the morning. Two nights ago, Donald Trump gave a speech in which he talked about how he doesn't, you know, how he, first of all, he admitted that he did say shithole countries in 2018 and then went on a long rant about all these shithole countries. Sorry, we'll bleep if necessary. And then he went on this riff about how come we can't just get some from, you know, Norway or Sweden. or Sweden or at some point I thought just as a rule of politics he would mention some non-blond country

and instead he just listed all the Scandinavian countries for non-blonds was a great band fair fair great is overstating it if I can say totally but you're overstated Steve they had maybe a good song I mean maybe a good song overplayed too but the last point and so that the reason that I bring that up is because he's also talked about how we just need to get rid of all the Somali Americans. We need to make out of our country. They don't contribute. They're 88% on welfare, all these kinds of things. So

he's leaning into the right wing caricatures the way a lot of the left wingers who gave permission to this thing to happen leaned into the left wing caricatures. And to listen to some people, you would think this was the first ethnic

group or immigrant group in America to defraud local government. And I'm not saying the whole group by any stretch, right? But there are networks and clusters of organized crime that emerge in among Somalis. And I don't want to say that everyone is a part of it, right? And I don't want to say they all want to believe in Sharia. But like there are these activist hardcore people and they're also these criminal hardcore people. And it's like, has no one ever watched the Sopranos or ever heard of Tammany Hall?

The Irish built in today's dollars billions. And I always, again, when I say the Irish, I mean. a crinnell set in conjunction with corrupt government officials, not all Irish people. Although, you know, there were times where my dad might have said otherwise. I kid, I kid, but the Irish beat him up in high school. And this is a very common thing, not just in America, but around the world for a bajillion years.

You get insider, outsider dynamics. People think, you know, this is basically the culture of gypsies. I'm sorry, the Romance or whatever I was supposed to call them, and send your angry letters elsewhere. And so anyway, I think just everything about this story has a kernel of truth to it, and everything about this story lends aid in comfort and oxygen to people who want to run away with it. The story that somehow Minnesota taxpayers are funding al-Shabaab, which is one of the things that started this latest round on this,

there's been zero indictments on that front, to my knowledge. No, they're funding usual grift. You know, nice vacations, fancy cars. Yeah. And it's, and they should all go to jail. And all of the politicians who provided any aid and comfort to this or refused to do their due diligence should all be fired or voted out of office. Everyone should be ashamed of themselves.

Taxpayers in Minnesota should get their act together and elect competent people. Tim Waltz should probably lose election because of this. We can just go down a very long list of people who have not, behaved properly I would throw Elon Omar out of office too just get rid of the whole bunch but like it is it is not the end of Western civilization

that people are turning it into in some quarters I want to go I want to pick up on that and go back to the point that Sarah made and leave it to Jonah I figured we'd have a nice long meandering conversation exploring all of the different aspects of this problem and then end up where Jonah

just took us which was everybody's playing the caricature here I mean, it's, you know, you've got the people who perpetrated the fraud, threatening to go public if there was heightened scrutiny on minority-owned businesses. They said that any delays in approving applications for minority-owned businesses would result in public accusations of bias and would be sprawled across the news. That, again, according to the prosecutor, paralyzed. the people and the bureaucracies who were afraid of being committed. So they know that they can exploit these fears and these concerns and the sense that there's nothing worse than being called racist.

However true or untrue, the claim may be, nobody wants to be called racist. And then on the other hand, you have Donald Trump's outburst in the Oval Office the other day, where he said that Ilhano Omar and her friends are garbage. and then broadened it and suggested that all Somalis go back to Somalia, which is a hell country. They have their own problems, as Jonah said, sort of revived the shithole, the shi-hole country's epithet that he used several years ago.

He denied it back then. He confirmed it in a speech earlier this week. So everybody's playing their role, which I guess my concern is that keeps – these are real issues. They're real, I think, sensitive, but necessary, difficult conversations to have. And it seems pretty likely we're not going to have them because of these caricatures. Am I wrong, Sarah? As usual, like, of course, we can't have nice things, including nice conversations. I guess, so nobody on this podcast is going to defend Donald Trump.

Sort of we could add the sentence there. But I guess I'm more curious about why what he has been. been saying and continues to say in various iterations is so effective politically now in a way that again, if it were 2005 or 1995, it wouldn't be effective. And I think that's a more interesting question in a lot of ways. You know, we have more foreign-born residents and a higher share of immigrants in the United States and in any other time in U.S. history, including those previous waves that I mentioned before. And I just think we're going to look back for so many reasons and see Donald Trump as a

symptom of a lot of things that we're going on and not as the cause. Some of the causes, I mean, I've said before, right, you cannot say that Donald Trump, you cannot look for reasons for Donald Trump and only look to American things because the phenomenon has replicated in so many other. countries. So the 2008 financial crisis seems like an obvious one. The introduction of the iPhone actually, to me, is becoming an increasingly important causal link. But immigration, I think, is going to be one of them too. And the U.S., again, basically giving up on having a functioning immigration system, a functioning border, making a distinction between illegal immigration

and not that becoming a political football where one side, you know, maybe open borders isn't the right term, but boy, it's pretty close, you know, unwilling to enforce immigration laws and to make that distinction between legal and illegal immigration, except in the most sort of like, well, of course we don't want people coming here illegally, but we're unwilling to do anything about it, to stop them or to make them leave when they get here, or to limit their resources when they're here, or anything else. And while I think the political moment has turned against Democrats on this, and Donald Trump has been very successful in doing that, we are still seeing the remnants of that. This is one of those examples. Still, the refusal to enforce immigration in a lot of these cities

that are run by those who think that it will be politically popular for their side to say that they don't enforce immigration laws in their city. And so you see Donald Trump, I think, still trying to squeeze more juice out of this fruit. And the question is, it was successful in 2016, it was successful in 2024. Will it still be successful in 2026 when it does feel like there's been a pretty big shift toward Donald Trump, by the way, toward his side? will it still then be the political issue where Donald Trump can stoke people from, you know, to say like, yeah, he's the only one willing to say this.

He's the only one, you know, who's able to do anything about this. If it feels like everyone is kind of already saying, look, Democrats have just lost this issue, the permanent majority thing that they thought they were building in 2008, that's clearly not happening. or in 2026, are we going to see, you know, these second, third generation Hispanic Americans refuse to vote Republican anymore? And then the whole thing comes back? I don't know. But isn't it the case that Trump can be both a symptom and a cause?

I mean, I think that's what he's done here. He's sort of created permission, or as Jonah likes to say, permission structure for people who might have harbored some of the feelings that they've had towards immigrants or towards minorities or whatever. And he just says it now and says it in ways that are, I think, really gross as often as not. And while it's true that he's, you know, expressing deep-seated concerns that people have had about immigration, frustrations they've had with Democrats who, as you point out, not only are refusing to enforce the laws, but are chest thumping about it and going out and bragging about it and being aggressive about it,

which I think has people should be frustrated about that. But some of the stuff that he says, you know, goes so far beyond. It's easy for people of goodwill, not just his political opponents, not people who don't like, to look at the kinds of things he says when he calls, you know, people from an entire country, garbage, and say, eh, he seems less concerned here about immigration reform and changing the way that we do this than he does about just slagging folks who are different. Let me just say one thing.

Time and again, Donald Trump has proven to be the mirror of the electorate, not the leader of the electorate. I don't know if I agree with that, actually, Sarah. Because, well, I think what you've described is, I could probably sum up as sort of like all these sort of systemic or kind of big epochal forces that are at work here, right, within our political system. And I think all of that is true. And yet, I think another hallmark of our moment here is the lack of individual leadership

and people sort of setting aside the sort of base political motivations. I know those politicians have always been driven by that. But I also think there is a – and this is what I think the never-Trump Republican were arguing from from 2015 is that sort of the morality of leadership matters and in this story this is this to me seems to be the bigger problem because yes Donald Trump is I believe immoral to say the things that he says about Somalis and as Somali Americans and to dismiss an entire group of people many of which most of which in Minneapolis in the Minnesota area are American citizens either naturalized or actually born here. So he is, he is their president. It should be,

it should be noted. But again, going back to the leaders in Minnesota, this is a system that was set up. We should underscore this too. Minnesota has a much more generous, you know, social welfare program than the, than the average U.S. state. This goes back to its sort of Scandinavian heritage and all of the sort of things that they've done. But this has been a sort of a decision by Minnesota voters and leaders to pursue this for decades. And if you have that, and you are in a position of power, leadership, and executive execution of those programs, you have a responsibility to make sure that those programs are being executed properly and fairly. And to not be cowed by threats, again, I,

I know I'm asking a lot for people in government and elected politics to not be cowed by threats from a large, loud constituency. But that is the issue here. If people had stepped up and said, you know what, I don't care if you accuse me or my office of racism, the numbers don't lie. And this needs to be dealt with for the sake of the taxpayers of Minnesota, for the sake of the Somali American community, by the way. This is not good for them to have a small number. of people stealing money. To me, you can't separate the leadership vacuum that's going on in states, in the parties, in the White House as well, from the story as well. Donald Trump and the Democratic, excuse me, the DFL, the Democrat Farmer Labor Party officials in Minnesota,

they can't just be a mirror reflection of their constituents or a loud part of their constituency. They've They've got to be more than that, and maybe we shouldn't expect that from elected officials. But I say, why not? It's good to have high expectations, however unrealistic they might be. Very high expectations. Jonah, going back to Sarah's original point about this feeling like a 1990s-era debate about the size and scope of government, Kim Strassel and the Wall Street Journal wrote a column in which she encouraged Republicans to make this at that, to say, hey, she said, you know, in effect, this is, yes, it's about immigration, yes, it's about

this, but really it's about the kind of fraud that you have to expect if you have these kinds of massive government programs and Republicans would be wise to make this about that and to make that argument, go back to sort of small government, a case for limited government. Look, I mean, that, I would love Republicans to be able to do that. Those are the cases, those are the arguments I get most fired up about. Isn't it a challenge for this current Republican party, spending the way that it's spending, showing maybe some occasional rhetorical interest in limiting government, but not much real interest in limiting government, to suddenly now pivot on the revelations here in Minnesota and say, yeah, you know what, we're really going to go.

back and do that. I mean, it's the same party that right now is, is debating with support from prominent Republicans, including reportedly the president, expanding Obamacare subsidies. Isn't it a hard thing for them at this point to say, yeah, we're the small government party? It's impossible from the state of the small government party. I mean, like, we don't want to do horseshoe stuff. We can do horseshoe stuff. I'm sorry, we don't want to do it again. But, you know, it's very difficult for me to take. take seriously people screaming about how the Democrats are socialists in the wake of like taking equity stakes in in all these major businesses and public private partnerships. It's also hard for me

to take seriously people, which is not to say that the Democrats don't have a problem with socialism. The problem is the Republicans have a problem with socialism too. Similarly, like it's very hard given the fire sale on pardons, for example, for just one example, that we're seeing in this White House and the fact that the Trump family is getting rich off of the government in all sorts of ways. Trump has never divested

or put his stuff in a blind trust. His net worth has increased dramatically since he's become president. It's very hard for me to take seriously the moral outrage about other people getting rich inappropriately off of the government. So, like, I think

it does not surprise me that the Wall Street Journal wants to make this about a fight from the golden age of the Wall Street Journal. That's how they want to talk about taxes. That's why they want to talk about a lot of things. I don't disagree with Kim either that this is a good line of attack. I think what's been missing in our conversation, though, is this story in particular comes out of the COVID period.

And you had a lot of people working remote. You had a lot of new programs being stood up really. quickly and a lot of money being thrown at problems indiscriminately you know I don't think the American the AFT the teachers unions are monolithically Somali American and I think they ripped off the government of a lot of money too they may have done it more legally you know there was this famous book by this guy named Plunkett called honest graft I think we are living in an era of honest graft where lots of people are figuring out a way

to gain the system to make money off of government from the White House on down. I would love to have an argument about that. I just think this is not the GOP to have it. And just the last point, on the mild disagreement between Sarah and Mike and whatever about Trump, I think it's a both and not an either-or thing.

I think there's some areas where it's obvious that Trump is a symptom of our problems rather than the cause of them. I mean, at National Review, we were saying for 20-plus years, if responsible politicians don't deal with immigration, irresponsible politicians

will take the issue, right? And win with it. And I think Trump is proof of that. So, like, Trump didn't create the immigration problem. He's made it worse. And that's where I think is the connective tissue on the both hand is, you know, one of my favorite quotes is from Orwell

where at the beginning of the politics of politics in the English language, he says, a man can take to drink because he thinks he's a failure and become all the more of a failure because he drinks. We took to Trump as a country because of our problems, and Trump made a lot of those problems worse. And to his credit, or like to the credit of the Republicans or whatever, they dealt with some of the problems too. I mean, it's not an all failure on all fronts kind of thing. but the cost of it was to radically change the way we talk about politics to move again the

overton friggin window to make it acceptable to talk about ethnic groups in vicious grotesque and deceitful terms you know the person who's supposed to be the heir apparent to the president to the republican nomination is the guy who just admittedly lied about Haitians eating rounding up cats and dogs um and when pressed on it he said it was necessary to call attention to the problem, which is just the, it's a right-wing version of left-wing concept of lying for justice, you know, which I've been writing about since Tijuana Brawley. So I'm in full, I'm in full frigging, you know, horseshoe mode on, on all of this stuff. Sarah, all I heard was Jonah said we were both right.

Yeah, I guess so. Wait, I want to push Jonah on the Trump. Sorry. I want to push Jonah on the Trump has made immigration worse. Uh-huh. Because if you just look at the numbers, the numbers at the southern border sure look a whole heck of a lot better. Like, crazy better. Sure.

That's exactly the thing that came into my mind when I said we should also say he did deal with some of the problems in productive ways, right? So I think that's— So what about the immigration part has he made worse? Well, I don't know. First of all, it depends on what prism you're looking through. if you're looking it through sort of a moral prism that they're one set of issues if you're looking through a Republican partisan prism

they're another set of issues they had just gotten in 2024 let's do the Republican prism first because it's the easiest one like trying to get a squirrel to eat out of your hand that we've been trying Republicans have been trying for generations to get Hispanics to vote Republican come here little squirrel

come here and they finally come across in significant numbers and vote Republican and they did so on issues like inflation, right, and costs, affordability. And Trump turns around and start, and originally said, and they all gave themselves permission to vote for Trump because they believed Trump when he talked about just going after criminal gangs and, you know, rapists and drug dealers and all that kind of stuff. And then they start, you know, arresting moms who are in the system with court dates picking up their kids from daycare

and scaring the bejesus out of people one of the stories I've talked to Mike about this a few times one of the stories I'm fascinated to be with is the Modelo the Mexican beer industry in the United States has plummeted far beyond all other beers because Hispanic Americans

are not gathering in large groups anymore because they're terrified of either being falsely picked up or that somebody in their midst with bad papers is going to be deported. And so from a Republican point of view, Republicans got a winning hand on immigration, and then they handed the policy off to Steve Miller,

who has gone far beyond what a lot of, forget Hispanic voters, Republicans wanted. On a moral issue, we're going around asking people for their, rounding up people basically, and asking for their papers in ways that I find kind of gross. We now have a vice president and a couple senators, like that, what's the guy from Missouri, Schmidt, who are opening up a lane in the Republican Party for an argument for quote-unquote heritage Americans, that somehow if your ancestors go back to the 1850s or earlier, or that if you're, I love how I harp on this, but Vance said not too long ago that if you have an ancestor who fought in the Civil War, you, you deserve. a lot more say about the future of this country than somebody who just got here.

And first of all, screw that noise, that's grotesque. Second of all, he didn't say if you have an ancestor who fought for the union, you could have an ancestor who fought for the frickin confederacy and you're supposed to have, you know, more say about the future of this country than say my father-in-law did. Screw it. It's a way of talking about things that I think is a moral catastrophe for conservatism, for free market economics, for the Republican Party long term. And I think it was good to shut down the border.

I was one of those people who thought he needed Congress to do it. He didn't. That's a good thing. Shame on Biden for creating a problem that gave people permission to vote for Trump and an opportunity for it. But I don't think you can say that subject of immigration is just a long column of unalloyed wins for the right or for Republicans. We're for the country.

Yeah. I don't disagree. I just wanted to hear your thoughts. Yeah, that's fun. I get, some of this stuff makes me very, very cross. Directed at Steve. I mean, I don't know why. Because that's your default, and it's Jonah's default, too.

Yeah. Literally, Jonah has that in his bio. Have you ever noticed that at the dispatch? The last line of his bio is something like yelling at Steve Hayes for something or other. So I think people have come to expect it. I think this is a perfect sign of Steve's parano. is that he read that into a bio that does not exist. But anyway, go on.

That's an actual bio. We dwell, we work in facts here, Jonah. These things matter. Blaming Steve Hayes for various things. Steve wrote it himself because he just wants to think that you think about him a lot. Totally. Just so Jonah doesn't try to do a Trump sort of shit whole country on this thing and pretend it didn't exist. What does it actually say, Mike?

This is the last sentence of Jonah's bio. When he is not writing the G-file or hosting the Remnet podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. All right, fair enough. I mean, think about what he's put me on parallel with. Blaming me on parallel with family time and his dogs and cats. That's the sign of a sick mind, actually. Yeah, the worst thing is now Sarah's going to go and ask to put that in her bio.

She'll probably try to one-up him on that. Wait a second. Can we all get in on this? This is unbelievable. We're going to take a break, but we'll be back shortly. Every holiday, there's one gift that quietly steals the show. This year, as in past years, I'm confident that will be an aura frame. The hidden gem that becomes a favorite long after the wrapping paper is gone.

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Limited time offer, upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months plan required, $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only, greater than 35 gigabytes, may be slow when network is busy. Capable device required, availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Hey, everyone, Steve Hayes with some big news from the dispatch. I want to tell you about dispatch hoonto's. Dispatch what? Honto, though some people pronounce it Junto, is the name Ben Franklin gave to the small gatherings he organized in Philadelphia taverns, starting in the 1720s. Franklin's Hounthos, Spanish for assembly or council, consisted of 12 members, each of whom was required to pledge that he, quote, loved truth for the

truth's sake, unquote, and that he was dedicated to personal growth for himself and improving his community. These discussions at those junto meetings would contribute to the ideas that built our great country. We launched dispatch hoontos without quite the same ambition, but with a deep conviction about the need for a place where people can get together for civil and sane conversations about the issues of the day, without the kind of nastiness and posturing that's so prevalent on social media and elsewhere in our polarized politics. The dispatch has hosted events across the country and I've attended many of them. I've been blown away by the turnout and the enthusiasm. I've enjoyed having a beer or two with our members at each of these gatherings,

and I think the real value for them has been the opportunity to meet one another. I remember Nashville lingering at the bar at a great wing joint called Party Fowl, with dispatch members after our hour-long program ended. Our group talked for another hour at least, and they were so happy to have met one another, nobody even noticed when I slipped out. I can't tell you how many times I heard something like, it's so great to be reminded that there are other sane, normal people out here. We're looking for dedicated dispatch members to organize regular meetups in their communities at a local happy hour, restaurant, or coffee shop. We'll help promote and convene the group, but you'll run your hoonto your way. And if your gatherings grow large enough, we'll

prioritize your town or city as we plan our next regional event or live podcast taping. So if you're a member of the dispatch and you're interested in leading a local hoonto, head to the dispatch.com slash Honto. That's J-U-N-T-O. Thedispatch.com slash honto. And if you're not yet a dispatch member, this is a great reason to join at the dispatch.com slash join. We can't wait to bill this with you. Before we return to the roundtable, I want to let you know what's going on elsewhere here at the dispatch. This week on advisory opinions, Sarah Isger and David French kicked things off by revisiting the slaughter case and responding to an insightful access to justice question. from a listener. Then they break down the Supreme Court's latest GVR grant vacated remand on school

vaccine mandates before diving into two fresh oral arguments. Plus, the brief return of Gryfter Sarah. Search for advisory opinions in your podcast app and hit the follow button. Now let's jump back into our conversation. I mean, there's so much news this week. There's so much news every week. It's often almost always a chore to figure out what two or three topics we're going to talk about this week. But I thought the second topic we should spend some time on arose both in a Department of Justice announcement and an announcement from the White House, which happened actually on the same day at close to the same time. On Monday, the Department of Justice, where Sarah used to work, announced it had busted a smuggling ring that had been secreting very powerful H-200 chips into China

for use in China's AI sector. Export of these chips and the equipment that makes them had been a key part of the Biden administration's effort to out-compete China on AI and enjoyed, I would say, pretty widespread bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. The idea was that China's behind the United States in growing its AI infrastructure

and an AI more broadly, depending on which expert you believe, six months, 12 months, 18 months, maybe more, and that these chips were the things that could bring them closer to the United States in that race. So here is how the DOJ described the importance of its actions, importance of busting, of breaking up this smuggling effort, and how it describes the AI fight more broadly. DoJ statement here, quote, these chips are the building blocks of AI superiority and are integral to modern military applications. The country that controls these chips will control AI technology.

The country that controls AI technology will control the future. And that, they said, is why their actions were so significant. Well, apparently Donald Trump wants China to control the future or at least be on a more even footing with the United States because across town, President Trump put out a statement on social media expressing a very different view. He announced that he had decided the U.S. would allow NVIDIA to sell these advanced chips to China with the U.S. government taking a 25% cut. There was, in the aftermath of the president's announcement, I would say, bipartisan concern. Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina, said the announcement caused alarms to go off.

The House Select Committee on China, a bipartisan committee in the House of Representatives released a statement of warning saying publicly available analysis indicates that the H200 provides 32% more processing power and 50% more memory bandwidth than China's best chip. The CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, will use these highly advanced chips to strengthen its military capabilities and totalitarian. surveillance. Sarah, what did you think when we saw this announcement from your old employers at the DOJ and the president at the same time? So first of all, I just am having this flashback to my DOJ days when I instructed my office that all Lacey Act related press releases were to get the highest billing. The Lacey Act is about illegal wildlife trafficking. And There was an Operation Broken Glass that was incredibly successful. So shout out to my broken glass prosecutors out there for the illegal trafficking of glass elvers.

These are juvenile American eels. Huge problem in the United States, the illegal trafficking of juvenile elvers. One of the biggest. But, yeah, the word for juvenile eels, by the way, is elvers. And glass eels are very popular for this. And elver harvesting is prohibited in the United States in all but two states, Maine and South Carolina. It was like a really happy memory. So thank you for that little personal lockdown memory lane.

But fine, I'll come back to today. You know, it's funny. I heard from someone the other day having a little bit of a debate about the tariffs. And this was a person who was trying to defend Trump's tariff policy. and they said, you know, this was part of Trump's effort to push back on China as one of our chief adversaries. And I was like, that makes no sense because of, A, his own tariff policy. If you were actually trying to isolate China, the tariffs would be solely targeted, or at least primarily targeted at China and other ways to move around China instead of what we've seen.

which are, in fact, the opposite. It's countries that we're pushing toward China by putting tariffs on them. We would do more to combat China's presence in South America, in Africa, all things we're not doing. This is yet another example of it's really hard to say that Donald Trump's policies are somehow meant to isolate, target, combat, compete with the rise of China as a global adversary. so I'm confused why that sort of talking point keeps making its way around, except that we should have a president that's doing that. But there's just not a lot of evidence for it. The times when he's pushing back against China fit into a much larger narrative of

Trump wanting to be a dealmaker on the world stage and China being a country that also makes deals. But it's not about seeing China as a rising adversary, a chief antagonist to American values. Yeah, I mean, this is exactly where I was hoping we could take this part of the conversation. The Elvers? Yeah, I know. I wanted more detail on the Elvers, but we're going to have to wait. Maybe we can dedicate an entire segment to the Elvers next time.

But I think that you sort of jumped to the real question at the heart of this. Donald Trump has cultivated a reputation of being a China hawk. Certainly I think if you ask the American people, if Donald Trump is tough on China, he talks tough on China. He is constantly saying, you know, China's ripped us off. We have to have these tariffs. They, you know, we have trade deficits with China. They're stealing our money. And yet, I think at important times over the course of his first term and now his second, when he has an opportunity to

really isolate China, really do something that would significantly set China back in its competition with the United States, whether we're talking about technology or military or China's economy. He does and he doesn't. The trade war on China, we can debate its merits, but whatever his original intent, he certainly seems to be sort of walking back from some of those things now. And then you look at this move, and it at the very least sends conflicting messages, I would say, is a big present to Chinese President Xi. The interesting thing in Donald Trump's social media posting about this, this is something that China has been clamoring for for years. They have wanted access to these chips. They've wanted to buy them. That's why there is this

effort to smuggle them into the country. They understand how important they are. to advancing their AI efforts. And in his social media post about this, Trump with an exclamation, Mark, said something along the lines of, and China is happy about this or China is very excited to have access to these chips. Well, no kidding.

They've been pushing for it for a long time. Mike, what's, have you heard, have you talked to Republicans who have given you more reaction to this? I looked at Lindsay Graham. I looked at all of the statements I saw coming out of Capitol Hill on this. Lindsay Graham's was the most aggressive that this caused alarms to go off. You had from other Republicans who almost uniformly opposed what Donald Trump has just announced.

You know, expressions of concern, general, the kind of stuff you've come to expect from Capitol Hill Republicans on this. Is there any reason to think that their concerns will grow into actual outright operations? position. This is, if you talk to people who are experts in this area, you know, I hate the cliche a game changer, but really potentially a game changer. I mean, let's hope so. I'm cautiously skeptical. I don't know if that makes any sense. I'm skeptical with the possibility that maybe it could be, right? This could be something because it's so blatant because it's there, I mean, There is a, the opposition, whether we hear about it publicly or not, is great among Republicans, particularly Republicans in the Senate.

There was a, we're going to bring up our friend Matt Contenetti again. He was interviewing Dave McCormick, new senator from Pennsylvania, Republican, about this. And I would say Dave McCormick gave what we would expect Republicans, to give when they're really concerned about something, where they really hate something that Donald Trump has done. He said in sort of halting language, you know, like he was trying to figure out the right way to step through this without stepping on a landmine.

Eventually, he's asked, Matt Continent, he asks Dave McCormick, what his reaction is to this decision. And McCormick says, I'm concerned, I'm not clear on why that is the right path for us. I mean, on this scale, of speaking out against the administration on something, that's a lot. Just blowing it up, yeah. I mean, it's something.

Look, I think the thing, the other thing to keep in mind in all of this, and it maybe explains why Republicans are so timid about going after Trump is this administration, as opposed to the first administration, has the clientelism has been, has ramped up to a degree. I think whether it's foreign countries or CEOs, and in this case, we've got both in this story. What do you mean by clientelism? Can you just define that quickly? Right. So a politician gets some kind of personal benefit in exchange for some kind of public favor for a person, for a company, for a country.

It is a special kind of, I guess, political graft. and it's, you know, patronage, whatever you want to call it. So when I look at this story, for instance, it's so blatant that you can't believe that it really happened, but Jensen Huang is the CEO of NVIDIA, and he has essentially just been personally lobbying in terms of in-person conversations, as well as talking about this in any sort of media environment that he goes into, about how great Trump is, about how transformative a president he is. And, oh, by the way, can we sell our chips in China? We'd really be great. It would benefit you, Mr. President, who are so great and so wonderful.

It's been blatant, and it's the way these, all these people have figured out how to get what they want from the president. It's by going to him, telling him he's great and he's wonderful, and he would be even more great and more wonderful if they did what he wanted to do. And he's, and he does it. And so we just can't we can't deny the power that that kind of, you know, approach has in Trump's second administration. And it's concerning it. I don't really know what Republicans in Congress could do about it except to speak out about it and make, hey, and maybe try to do a little more personal diplomacy on this, on this front. Maybe they're doing it. It's, I don't know, I'm skeptical that it's going to do anything significant.

Well, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, Sarah can correct me with their legal eldritch powers. But when you say, I don't know what Republicans can do about it, you mean politically because politically, I'm sorry. Legally, Congress could pass a law saying you can't sell these kinds of chips to China. And my guess is a lot of Democrats. They tried that with TikTok, Jonah. I understand, but. Sorry, they didn't just try it.

They did it. They did it. signed by a president and two presidents have refused to enforce that law. Fair. That is a fair point. And that's why the last two presidents, the current president and the previous ones, both should be impeached and removed from office. But it would still be clarifying.

It would be something. Right. It would be, and so, like, I think one of the... It would give me something to be upset about, like more things to be upset about. And that's pretty important in this holiday season. It is. It is. And I understand, like, one of the...

One of the superpowers this administration has is in nurturing and encouraging and fueling the flames of law, nothing matters, right? It's been 325 days since the TikTok law was supposed to go into effect. We have been told, I think, four times, in fairness, I've lost count, that a sale is just around the corner and therefore we're going to unlawfully, just a lawfully extend delaying the enforcement of that law. And here we are. In fairness, they want to wait until they unveil their alternative to Obamacare. But I mean, TikTok, I mean, that also makes the point about Trump and she in the broader sense, right? I mean, on the one hand, the president is pushing this tariff war, this trade war. He announced this week, and I want Jonah, I want you to weigh in on this, a $12 billion bailout for U.S. farmers

because in particular those who have been affected by the China's refusal to buy soybeans from American farmers, part of this tariff war. So on the one hand, he's quote unquote tough on that. He's using taxpayer money. He's saying he's using tariff proceeds to bail out the people he's hurting, although the effects of the tariffs will be much. longer than a simple one-time payout to farmers. The market is going to collapse, and China's now buying soybeans from Brazil and other places, so the effects will be much longer than a one-time bailout. But he's simultaneously trying to look tough with China on that front, but caving on

things like TikTok, which he had opposed, then he was in favor of on these chips. How do you explain Donald Trump's approach to China, Jonah. Can you give it to us in a paragraph? All right, well, the easiest answer is to go back to what Mike was just talking about and say he's incredibly susceptible to flattery, and flattery can trump any ideological or other considerations except, you know, essentially de facto bribery. But he's a personalist in the way he conceives of these things, and he considers consistency to be unfair and unjust and illegitimate constraint on his sphere of

apparations. I think the place to put this... So does my two-year-old. Exactly. Well, remember that? It used to be that regular feature called the toddler in chief about how he was like a toddler. I mean, there's a lot of that. But I think if you want to do it in a serious way, I think this national security strategy document that came out, which we can all agree, these things don't necessarily matter, but they are interesting for criminology purposes, and we should also say that Trump himself kind of gave sounds and signals that he hadn't even read it, certainly wouldn't be bound by it. But one of the explanations

that has come out of the administration for its softer tones towards China is that Trump really, really, really, really wants a summit with Xi in April. And they don't want to do anything that prevents that from happening. Trump loves these big summits, and he's willing to make concessions on policy to get them. And so the Nvidia sale might be part of that, to the extent it is not just Jensen Wing buttering them up. But I also think that these guys, either by default

or for other reasons that are too complicated to get into now, they are settling into this spheres of influence, foreign policy. If you read this national security strategy document in the most unfavorable light, which if you're a national security expert, you know, official in Europe, you kind of have to. Your job is to consider the worst plausible scenario. This administration is basically saying that Europe is part of Russia's sphere of influence and that the Americas are our sphere of influence. Hence the Trump corollary to the monroe doctrine that comes out of this thing. And I've been saying on here for like a year now that Trump sees the world sort of like the way mafia bosses see

the world, you know, like that you, you treat your allies like crap because they're your underbosses and your button men and your henchmen and they're supposed to pay up to you. But you treat rival bosses with respect because they have the same status and stature as you and you respect their territory so long as they respect yours. And that's basically what this Carl Schmidian kind of spheres of influence thing. There's a reason why Russia said about the National Security Document strategy that it largely aligns with their values and their views of the world. It's because that's how Russia sees the world.

And in that case, if you're really not thinking about being the unipolar superpower and the hegemon and all of that, who cares about sending you know there's just some more chips to china that you get a cut of and um and that i think that attitude it's difficult for me to figure out who actually thinks that way in there and who just basically and sort of like sarah's point about the ticot bill eventually like why even bother doing the right thing since you're not going to win um and even if you win not the right no one will do the right thing even when they're supposed to i think there are a lot of people in this administration that are just found that blowing up drugboats

and saying we're the boss of the Americas is just easier and more fun and gets Jesse Waters is all too messent in excitement about how manly you are than actually taking foreign policy seriously and that's sort of, so that's the context I see this in is that Trump's going to do what Trump's going to do

we can sound like we actually have a doctrine if we just sort of work with his instincts and blowing up boats in the Caribbean and making great deals with China suits him and writing big checks to bail out farmers. Who cares? It's just another few billion dollars, and Trump likes doing that too

so long as he gets to sign the checks. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast. Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season, with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's Kindest Community,

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I want to close with a discussion about a bizarre press conference that took place at an airport this week, featuring Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, a fitness guru doctor guy, and Secretary Duffy's daughter. You may have seen clips of this online, or if you're a big Fox News watcher, they've covered this extensively. And what Duffy was hoping to publicize is a $1 billion fund, that billion with a B to improve airports that airports can apply for funding through, including many gyms and workout facilities in airports. Because as the secretary and the doctor argued, flying is a sedentary thing. shouldn't just sit around, they should really work out when they're at the airport. So they are talking about installing gyms in the airport, pull-up bars, and to demonstrate the possibilities

of greatness here, the men participated in a pull-up contest, and Secretary Duffy's daughter, Paloma, also did several pull-ups, truly impressive, actually. So my question to you is, if we start to see gyms across the country in airports, Sarah, will you do airport workouts at these gyms? In fairness, I don't do workouts without those gyms. I work out by chasing after children, giving boosties up and down the stairs and back up again, and then we forgot the stuffy and around and around we go. When they run into traffic, I run into traffic. Like, that's the kind of workout that I get.

So, no, absolutely not. I also think it contradicts the video from Thanksgiving that said, like, let's dress up for the airport. Which is it? You can do pull-ups in your suit. Really? I mean, RFK does it in his jeans, so... They all did it in their dress clothes, actually. Let me just tell you as a woman.

No, you can't. For many reasons, yeah, I mean, if you've ever seen a woman have to wear like a mic pack for TV or anything, like those dresses are not very forgiving. Though, we'll say, I think this is actually a great idea. Like, I don't think there need to be like treadmills and stuff. But the idea that there's, you know, a space to go move around when you're in between long flights or about to get on a long flight and you've got time to kill, like versus just sitting on your phone, I am basically for anything that provides people something to do that is not sit and stare at that device in your hand.

There are treadmills that's called the moving walkway. Just go the wrong way on the moving walkway. There you go. Or just walking without the moving walkway. Just walking in the airport. No? This is what about the party of, I mean, we just talked in our discussion about welfare abuse and fraud. about the Republicans reclaiming the mantle of the small government party,

how, Mike, do you fit a $1 billion fund to put gyms and other things in airports with the party of Doge? Because it's not about small government. It's about imposing preferences, the preferences of decision makers, and like getting pretty small. in terms of, like, vision here onto the government and making other people do... So, like, first of all, I think it's something like 45% of American adults fly commercially at least once a year. So, again, I think I've mentioned this before on this podcast. Like, we're not talking about a ton of people who will be benefiting from this because you're talking about a small percentage of the American people who are even going, to airports on a regular basis.

And, I mean, some people get to their flights right when the gates open so they can get on. They sort of figured out and game the system. So it's not like there's a lot of time. I don't know. I mean, I've certainly had long layovers and delays. I had one just this week, a long delay. But, like, for the most part, I'm not spending a ton of time when I'm at the airport just, like, sitting because it's time to get on the plane and go. So, but I don't know, like, I know Sean Duffy likes to work out.

I know RFK Jr. likes to work out. So, like, they're trying to impose what they want to do, what they want to have at an airport. But, like, why can't we have, you know, more bars at airports? That's what I like to do, you know, when I'm at the airport, is have a drink. Just not pull up, not pull up bars, but bar bars? Yeah, introduce a little bit more competition. I mean, it's like, it's kind of ridiculous, you know, like $18 for a martini at the airport bar. So, you know, just like if we're imposing our own preferences here, that's where I'm going.

Jonah, unlike Sarah, you are, you're constantly looking for these mini workouts, like during our editorial meetings, you're doing those tricep pushups, you know, on the back of your chair. And I imagine that you look at this favorably, even if you're not enthusiastic about the additional government spending. So I'm somewhat shocked and appalled here. the dispatch has not claimed a great many policy victories in the last decade, I think that's fair to say. But this idea was first incepted into public consciousness, was first bandied about by Mike Gallagher, former congressman, on the remnant in our very first half-baked ideas episode, where he literally talked about pull-up bars in airports for these various. reasons he went if memory serves he may have gone a little farther with like getting better seating

on planes the more pull-ups you can do which i think is uh but i don't want to i don't want to state that outright because i could just be misremembering but um the second this came out my twitter feed filled up with people saying score one for the remnant and half-baked ideas um uh it was also the first place that I'm aware of that episode was the first place I'm aware of where um the idea of in Mike Gallagher's case um in my case peacefully annexing Greenland um so if if you don't want to take credit for the dispatch I'll take credit for the remnant for putting these really important ideas in as a matter of detail and I think this matters um I believe that conversation took place in 2018. So it was technically pre-dispatch. So we don't have to defend this. Fair, fair. And won't.

That's fair. And Mike Gallagher's had a lot of good ideas. It would be great to get Mike Gallagher's thoughts on Trump's China reversal, many other things. I saw him. I saw him recently. He said he would welcome the opportunity to come back and do another half-baked ideas session with you. I think you should take him up on that. But I think this is a bad idea from Mike Gallagher, particularly with a billion dollars of government funding. I don't think the federal government should really be doing anything of the sort necessarily. I think it'd be perfectly fine for airports to do this. I think this is the kind of thing that airports, which let's be honest, airports are weird in terms of their legal economic status. They're a little bit like Major League Baseball's exemption

to antitrust, just in terms of like how much public, private, weird economics go on there. And so I don't see anything wrong with airports doing this on their own. I don't know that there's a law that says airports should have those bacteria germ fraps, which are the kids play area. This would fund more of those. Part of the funding here is to have more playgrounds for kids so you can exhaust them before you put them on the Yeah. So I think those are good. I don't know that the federal government needs to get into it. I also don't know that it's a horrible waste of federal money given the other things that we're wasting federal money on. But given the fact that we're $38 trillion in debt, I would rather see the private sector take the lead on this and they get a little plaque in front of the playground where you get, you know, you get botulism or a cold for even getting near. I mean, that's the thing. This idea would I work out at the airport if I started working out again, maybe?

But like the problem with it for me is I just don't like touching stuff in public gyms that other people have touched and all that. That's one of the things I don't like about airports in general is like whenever I get sick, I say half the time it's when I've been traveling a lot. And like being exposed to people, a lot of people sweat both at the airport. but then also on the plane? Like, imagine sitting next to somebody just dripping with sweat, not because they raced to the plane, but because they just had a great workout

like right before they got on the plane and they still got the towel. I mean, airplanes often smell anyway, like before this. I mean, what are we going to do? Then we could have government provided, you know, uh, deodorant at these things. But I, you know what?

I wouldn't mind because I often, I'm a, and this is kind of a not worth your time. kind of subject um i'm in a mixed marriage in the sense that my wife likes to get to the airport like literally when they're yelling last call and i like to get to the airport with lots of time to spare and uh it causes marital friction but when i'm there early i wouldn't mind of one of the seats if they had some of those like treadmill you know sort of unicycally kind of stationary bike kind of things like just a instead of walking around the boring airport.

Oh, look, another Hudson News. This is interesting. The problem with the pull-up thing is that, I'll defer to you guys. What percentage of Americans do you think can successfully do a pull-up, a real pull-up? 10?

I would guess maybe 0% of this podcast. I could probably do one. I'll tell you when my shoulder's better. No. I could do one or two. Yeah. And so, like, there are, the attractiveness of the pull-up bars

is they're really inexpensive, right, for exercise. But if you're actually trying to get people to do entry level, you know, get them started with exercise, it's the wrong equipment. A stationary bike thing would be much, much better. I don't think they were serious about the pull-up bars. I think they were proposing pull-up bars, one, because they're easy to put in.

And two, because it allowed them to do a press conference where they could do pull-ups and be on camera doing pull-ups in showing how fit. That is totally fair. Look, I mean, actually impressive. Each of them, the doctor, Secretary Duffy's secretary, Kennedy and Duffy's daughter, each, if I recall correctly, did more than 10. I mean, that's, it's pretty impressive. It's genuinely impressive, but I don't think that that's the best case. I kind of like Mike's idea about more regular bars rather than pull-up bars, except I'm not sure that we want to add to that problem, right? I mean, we've seen, as Secretary Duffy has pointed out, increased episodes of belligerents in the

airport. Many of those are fueled by alcohol. I am blown away every time I go to the airport for an early morning flight at the number of people at the bars at airports at six in the morning who are drinking some actual drink, like some real drink or a beer. I mean, I'm a Wisconsin guy, So, you know, beer can have. We used to do kegs and eggs. It doesn't count at the airport. But 6 a.m. beers before you jump on a plane? You think people need more opportunities for that?

It's a little much. No, I don't. If you're serious, I ask me, no. Not that serious. Jonah's thinking about it. Jonas's actually thinking about it. I just want a cheaper drink. That's all I'm asking.

I want, you know what I want is, I don't, they used to be, you know, those weird product, you know, those as seen on TV, weird products, that would have infomercials were. I go to bed too early to catch those anymore. I don't know if they still have them. But there used to be these products, which I will tell you this, if they worked, I would use,

which were like these things where you would attach electrodes to various muscle groups and it would electrically stimulate them. That would work you out while you're watching TV. Like, if those worked, I would sign, I would like hitch myself up to that stuff. at the airport while I'm watching that one is going to have a six back that would be awesome that that is how you really could work out during our editorial meetings so I have used those and this this is not worth your time is going way it is truly not worth your time it's going way too long I have used those to rehab my knee after one of my many knee surgeries and they put them on the muscle and they just stimulate the muscle to contract yeah I would say they're not good for building muscle but if your muscle is otherwise completely atrophied, which can happen after multiple knee surgeries, it does do something good to sort of give you a running start as you start your physical therapy. I would love to have you run a long-term experiment and then write about it. Maybe this could be a Monday essay where

you hook those things up to your belly for a year and see if you come away with a six-pack. No sit-ups and push-ups, no other working out, just that. and if at the end of the year I didn't? It'd be a short piece. In the second paragraph. It'd be a short piece. We could just take a picture of it.

No, just do it for every editorial meeting every Monday, 45 minutes. See if that works. All right. It's done. Glad you agreed to it. Thanks to all of you for joining us today as we push the limits of not worth your time.

And we will see you next time. If you like what we're doing here, there are a few easy ways to support us. You can rate, review, and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us. And we hope you'll consider becoming a member of the dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up at the dispatch.com slash join. And if you use my promo code Roundtable, you'll get one month free and help me win the ongoing, deeply scientific internal debate over which dispatch podcast is the true flagship.

And if ads aren't your thing, you can upgrade to a premium membership, no ads, early access to all episodes, two free memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders and more. Shout out to a few folks who recently joined his premium members, Sabasam Davor, Mark Patton, and Marissa Gonzalez-Martino. We're glad to have you aboard. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns, or corrections, you can email us at roundtable at the dispatch.com. We read everything, even the ones from people who stink because they work out before flying. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in.

And a big thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible. Max Miller, Victoria Holmes, and Noah Hickey. We couldn't do it without you. Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time. Hey, everyone, Steve Hayes with some big news from the dispatch. I want to tell you about dispatch hoontoes. Dispatch what? Hoonto, though some people pronounce it, Junto, is the name Ben Franklin gave to the

small gatherings he organized in Philadelphia taverns, starting in the 1720s. Franklin's Huntoes, Spanish for assembly or council, consisted of 12 members, each of whom was required to pledge that he, quote, loved truth for the truth's sake, unquote, and that he was dedicated to personal growth for himself and improving his community. These discussions at those junto meetings would contribute to the ideas that built our great country. We launched dispatch hoontos without quite the same ambition, but with a deep conviction about the need for a place where people can get together for civil and sane conversations about the issues of the day, without the kind of national, nastiness and posturing that's so prevalent on social media and elsewhere in our polarized politics. The dispatch has hosted events across the country and I've attended many of them. I've been blown away by the turnout and the enthusiasm.

I've enjoyed having a beer or two with our members at each of these gatherings, and I think the real value for them has been the opportunity to meet one another. I remember Nashville lingering at the bar at a great wing joint called Party Fowl with dispatch members after our hour-long program ended. Our group talked for another hour at least, and they were so happy to have met one another, nobody even noticed when I slipped out. I can't tell you how many times I heard something like, it's so great to be reminded that there are other sane, normal people out here. We're looking for dedicated dispatch members to organize regular meetups in their communities at a local happy hour, restaurant, or coffee shop. We'll help promote and convene the group, but you'll run your junto your way. and if your gatherings grow large enough, we'll prioritize your town or city as we plan our next

regional event or live podcast taping. So if you're a member of the dispatch and you're interested in leading a local hoonto, head to the dispatch.com slash hoonto, that's j-un-t-o, the dispatch.com slash hoonto. And if you're not yet a dispatch member, this is a great reason to join at the dispatch.com slash join. We can't wait to build this with you.