The Dispatch Podcast - Self-Abasing Gestures and Canine Loyalties

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

It’s the never-ending story with Trump’s ongoing legal battles, but how exactly will the latest investigation impact Trump’s 2024 campaign? Kevin Williamson and Mike Warren join Sarah Isgur to break down the latest in MAGA land and: -Kevin McCarthy’s lack of self-respect -Ron DeSantis, so hot right now? -The trouble with RE-words -Nerds throwing punches -Barbie’s CCP map Show Notes: -Sarah and Mike's joint project Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web.

Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit TELUS.com. Total Security to learn more. Conditions apply. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isger, joined by Kevin Williamson and Mike Warren.

And it's going to be a fun day, I think, guys. We've got a lot to talk about Donald Trump back in the news. Did he ever really leave the news? Ah, sigh. And then the Ron DeSantis reset. Do resets work? Will this one work? And then some not worth your time.

question mark about the blockbuster movies coming out this summer. It might be the first summer in what five years to actually have blockbuster movies to talk about. So I don't know. These guys tell me they have opinions about movies they haven't seen. I'm curious. I'll bite. Let's go. into this latest Trump news. Mike, do you want to set the stage for us a little on the week in the news of Trump's legal troubles? Where do we start? I guess we have to start with the news that he broke, right, that Donald Trump himself broke on truth social, which, by the way, as an aside, I'm sort of surprised that Trump has yet to make the jump to Twitter, the new Elon Musk.

Twitter, that he's still posting these updates on his proprietary social media site, although there may be some sort of contractual reason why he's doing that. I should know about that. But he's famous for honoring those. Right, exactly. So Trump announced that he received a letter from the Department of Justice this week, informing him that he's the target of an investigation. And these letters are helpfully called target letters, or are known as target letters.

right, and that Jack Smith's special counsel office is informing him that he's being investigated as part of their investigation of the run-up and activities on January 6, 2021, and that he expects to be indicted soon. And on the same day that he announced this, Jack Smith was spotted grabbing a sandwich from Subway in Washington, D.C. I'm so glad you included that. That was obviously incredibly relevant to, I think, what will be the long-term narrative around this story is the Subway Sandwich Visit.

It was kind of interesting. It makes his order. Right, nobody knows. Yeah, nobody got that information. Nobody knows what he got. I actually know, I'm very good friends with the journalist who saw him there, but my friend said that he did not walk. He thought he thought he should at least let him order in peace.

but um you salad guy definitely yeah you think maybe i thought the italian bmt perhaps but but you know what's strange for those who are not intimately familiar with all of your eateries in a one and a half block radius around the department of justice this is not the obvious choice uh there are closer places an au bomb pan is closer um a chopped salad location is closer there's many there's a good like um i don't know it's like a meat place. It's literally like a butcher meat place that's closer. There's a teaism. Tism is like a place here that does, yeah, like sandwiches.

He's such an elitist. I'm just saying like subway you have to like really want. He didn't just stumble into subway. He had to make a decision to go to subway. But it does make, it does sort of raise the question of what relevance does this have at all to Trump's letter. But look, we haven't we haven't heard as of recording this podcast with that Smith after finishing that sandwich is ready to announce an indictment, but it appears to be possibly coming. And so we played the waiting game, right? That's where we start, Sarah. Am I, am I correct?

What are we missing from this discussion? No, I think that's right. And Kevin, I think some of Mike and I's frustration, Mike and I are doing a joint project here that will be launching. we've put our first version on the website of Mike and I just covering all of the Trump legal stuff coming down the pike, both from a legal perspective and a political perspective. We haven't actually named it yet. We don't have artwork for it yet, but it's in our heads. Don't worry about the details. Yeah, yeah. And the thing.

So I think part of our frustration is there's a whole lot of speculation over what exactly Trump will be charged with. And I find that speculation really boring when we'll know for sure in a few days, most likely. I'd be shocked if we make it to the end of next week without seeing an indictment at this point. So I don't really want to speculate on like, well, what if it's this charge or what if it's this charge? But at the same time, we do know it's going to be around January 6th because the special counsel had three buckets that he was assigned. There was the classified documents at Marilago, obstruction related to the retention of those documents, and Donald Trump's culpability around January 6, which is actually pretty broad in itself, because, I mean, January 6 had a few things going on that day.

But I am curious what your overall thoughts are, both legally and politically, about this and how it will compare to the New York original indictment, some of these civil cases that we've seen, the other, the Mar-a-Lago classified documents stuff. the Georgia thing we're waiting on. Where does this rank for you in terms of importance, bombshelliness? I don't know. You name it. Well, I have no legal thoughts when I'm in a conversation with you.

I try to stay away from those. Do you know what really annoys me is when I read something that Kevin's written and it's about the law and it's so, so good? And then he says something like humble braggy like that. It's not even a humble brag. You're just like actually being humble and it's so annoying. Kevin's a great legal writer. I have in my mind this scene that plays out.

it's a really good scene in a movie where I take a time machine back to the 1980s and I'm walking around Times Square talking to people. And I say, I've just come here from 2023 and you want to hear the news. And they say, yeah, what's going on? I say, well, you know, Donald Trump is in all sorts of trouble. He's been indicted. Really, what are the charges? Well, like, you know, there's some business fraud stuff and some forgery and maybe some went. And they're like, yeah, okay, I get that. That sounds like Donald Trump. I mean, it took that long to get him indicted. What's he up to? Well, then he also tried to overthrow the government. And their face should just kind of get kind of weird. And they said, what was going on with that? Well, he used to be the president. The casino guy.

The casino guy used to be president. Yeah. He was president. And according to some people, he still is. He didn't get reelected. And Joe Biden beat him. Really, Joe Biden running again still. How old was that guy? He's 90 years old. And then it turns into some like, you know, Watchman alternative 1980s scenario where Nixon and suddenly as president again. That's a different sort of scene. One of the nice things about this for Trump is that if you're basically a carny at heart, then the more of a circus environment

you can create around the campaign, the better you're going to do. You know, Trump has been enormously successful in transforming politics into the thing he's good at, which is a reality television show. And his connection with his particular voters is such that for the committed Trump voters, this stuff is going to either be a net gain for him

or make no difference at all. I don't think he's going to lose any of his really most committed partisans. I know I'm kind of a broken record about this, but if you look at it through the dynamics of the dynamics of the political campaign, it makes more sense. You know, the idea of the savior who is suffering on behalf of his chosen people at the hands of the unbelievers, you know, it's basic David Koresh stuff. It's all pretty familiar. So I kind of weirdly think that it's strange and impossible it is to say, I'm not sure it's going to have much an effect on the primary. I think the primary is going to be what it is. And I think that, you know, the Republican Party essentially ceased to exist as it had been in 2016 and became

something else. And in that something else, Donald Trump is the most popular figure and the one that the largest number of people would like to see have the nomination. Mike, let's talk about the other part of the special counsel's investigation that actually has been indicted, so we know what the charges are, and that's the retention of classified documents at Mara Lago and obstruction related to such. There was a hearing of that this week, too. Right. And I guess peek behind the curtain enlisted should know that everything I'm about to say is thanks to you because we were talking on the phone last week. about this topic.

And I asked you to explain what exactly is going on in terms of motions that are being made by Trump's legal team. And that's what this hearing this week by Judge Eileen Cannon down in Florida was about. They essentially asked the court to delay the trial. And the reason they asked the court to delay the trial is because Donald Trump is running for president. and having a trial, say, in starting a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses, which is what the Justice Department had moved to set the trial date start to, or really any time during the 2024 presidential cycle, would essentially be all kinds of problematic,

that it would not give their team enough time. sorts of classification issues, if the defense team is going to be able to prepare well for the trial, they're going to need to get their security clearances and be able to go through all the documents. That's going to take a long time. And by the way, the former president is going to be very distracted by the fact that he's running for president. And so we really just can, we'd like to delay this trial until after, after what? after he is elected just after presumably yeah just some time after um and and so that's what uh that's what's happening and that's what's uh being requested of the court and the judges uh heard those

arguments in this hearing and now once again sarah we're playing the waiting game to hear what exactly uh how exactly she's going to decide uh on those on both of those motions i suppose um and i don't know i mean can we read any Tilees from any of the reporting that came out of that hearing? Is she going to grant something to someone? I mean, what do you think? It seemed like she was skeptical of the idea that you could actually start this trial in December as the government had requested, but also the idea of just putting this off intentionally and saying right now that we were going to put this off until after the election was a non-starter.

I have to say this, the other indictment looming in terms of who the big winner is. I think Kevin makes a great point that in a lot of ways Donald Trump is the big winner anytime we're talking about Donald Trump being indicted, which says more about our current politics than maybe anything else. But the big winner might be Judge Cannon in the sense that, you know, there were all of these eyes sort of waiting for her to like, I don't know, take off her robe and reveal a giant MAGA shirt underneath. something. And in fact, it's looking, not surprisingly, like she's a regular federal judge who's

like, on the one hand, on the other hand, we're trying to do this, but also this. I kind of expect a boring ruling, frankly, that's something like, you know, we're going to do this as expeditiously as possible, but I understand there's going to be a lot of motions. Let's see how it goes. But I'd really like to, you know, start this trial as soon as possible. Whether she sets an exact date or not, it doesn't matter because she can set whatever date she wants if the motions practice meaning you know a motion on attorney client privilege that then needs to be you know she rules on and then gets appeal to the circuit court there down in florida and then maybe there's an emergency appeal even to the supreme court on that question if that's pending you don't start

the trial so set whatever date you want some of this is out of her control Kevin? I have one little question, and this is going to sound like I'm just being snarky, but I kind of mean this seriously. So I understand that there's an issue with getting security clearances for Trump's people to review these materials before they go out. But kind of isn't the fact that someone's a lawyer for Donald Trump a reason not to give them a security clearance.

I mean, I know, again, it sounds like I'm just kind of being a smart ass, but that's not what I mean, that you're dealing with people who are working for a guy who's got a record for handling this stuff irresponsibly, at least that's what the case is about, And there's certainly some reason to think that. And Trump's legal team has included some people, you know, in the past who are probably not people you'd want to give, you know, security clearances to you in a lot of ways. If I were the guy who were making these decisions, like I would give these applications really the hairy eyeball, even though understanding that at some level, you've got to figure out a way to let them have it. Is Harry eyeball a phrase? Is that a thing we say?

It's an old thing. Okay. Sure. Sure it is. Google it. But not from your work. What the hell are? A, the security clearances for the lawyers are actually going to be some of the quickest part of all of this. Because just because someone hands you a security clearance means nothing.

You don't like get a packet of classified information or some piece of paper that's like you can frame on your wall of like here's your TSS security clearance. It just means that now when you request things, you'll be able to, to read them without that as the barrier, but there still could be other barriers. So, for instance, so fine, they'll get a relatively low-level security clearance, and then they're going to ask to read something

that's in a specialized program that's being held by a different intelligence agency, and that intelligence agency is going to exactly what you said, Kevin, say absolutely not. The document in question contains information on sources and methods, people who are still currently out in the field. The threat to national security is too high. And this is how you get into something we call gray mail in cases like this, where basically

the defense can gray mail, like blackmail, the government into dropping the charges because they're basically threatening to hurt national security because they need it for their defense. So that's where you're going to have Judge Cannon then have to review individual documents, hear from the security agencies about why it's a threat, hear from the lawyers about who have not seen it yet, to be clear. They will not have seen the document in question. to explain why they need the document in question. And it's an interesting clash because in every other criminal law situation,

the defense gets what they want. The whole point is to let the defense put on the strongest bend over backwards. Let's make sure you can make every possible argument, for the most part. There's always exceptions. That's not the case of these classified document things. So getting the clearance,

the least of anyone's problems. That's not what's going to take forever. And that's why this is not going to start in December. That's right. Or it's certainly not next month, which was the initial trial date. Like less than a month from now. Exactly. But see, but I had a question because something you brought up in our discussions, Sarah, last week, about this was the order in which the sort of cart before the horse game that Trump's legal team was making, but sort of making a blanket motion that said essentially, but the election.

the election, sort of before all of the minor, not minor, sorry, I mean the more individual motions addressing kind of each of the potential roadblocks or reasons to delay, they sort of offered this blanket motion that said, there's all this stuff and there's this election coming up. And so we got to delay the trial that way. Usually that would sort of, as I understood our conversation, that would come sort of when all other options to delay the trial were exhausted. You don't want to sort of want to show your hand here at the beginning of it, which it's sort of raised to me, and we didn't actually get into this in our piece too much, but it's sort of raised question to me about, is there a political strategy behind this motion, you know, or at least

there's some sort of influence, which is to sort of send a signal to the public, uh, the Trump's team to send a signal to the public that, look, reminder, there is an election coming up. All of these prosecutions are very political. They're going after your president. They're, they're going after you and they're, and I'm standing in the way. I mean, there does seem to be, and that's what is so fascinating about this moment is the, the, the sort of melding and mixing and the amalgam of like legal and political strategy, like all mixing together in a way that's, I've just never seen before. So I don't know.

What are your thoughts on that? So they had six different arguments. And I want to give an example from each bucket, the buckets that I thought were stupid and the buckets that I thought were not stupid as to why this overall motion was pointless. So in the stupid bucket, for instance, one of their arguments, was we're going to file motions that will get this case dismissed, so don't set a trial date. What? So just to be clear, again, let's assume the trial date was August 14th, as it was originally set. And you file a motion tomorrow. It's like, you should dismiss this indictment because Donald Trump isn't the Donald Trump in question.

This is a different Donald Trump that you've indicted. And the motion that, sorry, the indictment does get dismissed. we didn't need to move the trial date. The trial's just not going to happen. That's what dismissing the indictment means. So, like, saying that you're going to have a motion that will get the indictment dismissed is pretty pointless. Just do the motion, do the thing, get it dismissed.

That will solve all of your problems about when this trial is. So that's an example from my stupid bucket. But there's two that fell into my smarter bucket, or at least my trickier bucket. One's the classified documents, Kevin, that we just talked about, and that that really is going to take a long time. And so set whatever trial date you want. But, you know, in talking to federal prosecutors who really specialize

in these types of cases, a normal classified documents case is going to take 18 months, two years, and that's without complications. And that's without it being Donald Trump. And that's, frankly, probably without a defendant who really, really, really wants to delay it to a very specific time. But the other one, and Mike, you and I talked about this a lot, is the jury selection problem. So assume for a second that, you know, this thing goes at pretty lightning speed in terms of the classified documents. And so a year from now or so, we're finally ready to start a trial, to set a trial date. Okay. Well, now we need to pick a jury. So we're heading into August slash, you know, the trial would actually start then in September of

of 2024 of a presidential election. And you're asking 12 people if they can be, quote, fair and impartial in weighing evidence on the guilt of someone who they're also having to weigh whether to vote for to run the free world. That's weird. And, you know, I talked to you, Mike, about how a lot of the times we're dealing with publicity, pre-trial publicity issues. And there's plenty of case law on pretrial publicity problems.

There's a famous Supreme Court case from the 1960s about a guy who was tried for and convicted of murdering his wife. People say the fugitive was based off of it. The fugitive people say it wasn't based off of it, whatever. But like, it wasn't a one-armed man, but it's sort of the same idea. You know, and that actually conviction was thrown out because of pretrial publicity all the way to the Boston bombing and whether you should get a change of venue because the jury pool is so tainted by the trauma of what happened to their city. that lost. But here it's something a little bit different because it's not about the pre-trial publicity. It's actually sort of about the defendant himself and the relationship of the jurors to the defendant because they're all voters. By definition, that's where jurors come from.

So I do think that that's messy. But again, just in terms of timing, wait until you're actually there. If it's August of 2024, now make your motion. and say, look, it just, we can't, we cannot find a fair and impartial jury at this point when they're also being asked to consider whether to vote for the person. So overall, the motion didn't make a lot of sense to me. I thought it was strange to tell a judge, we're going to do everything we can to delay this trial until after the election so that every time you file a motion that will have the effect of delaying the trial and the judge says, I think you're just doing this to delay the trial.

And you have to say like, no, no, we definitely don't want to delay. delay the trial, obviously, except for that motion we filed that was just a blanket let's delay this thing. That's strategically, legally a weird choice. But that's why I raise this issue that is this in many ways or in one particular way as much a political strategy or as much a way of sort of signaling to voters that that this prosecution is political. I mean, they're trying every which way they can to make that case, and this just seemed to me like another way.

Can I tell you one of their biggest barriers to that? Because, Kevin, I want to get your reaction to this. One of the biggest barriers to why this is not all some political, you know, banana republic stuff is that there's a belief that Judge Cannon is rooting for Donald Trump in this thing. So why not file a motion in front of Judge Cannon that forces her to rule against you so that you can actually then sort of complete your narrative that they've gotten to Judge Cannon.

It got to her, yeah. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is, the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain, on top of everything else, is why life insurance indeed matters. Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy to protect your family's future in minutes, not months.

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get all this stuff just resolved tomorrow with an acquittal, right? Are they drop charges and, you know, slap on the wrist? But politically, it's better for him, I think, if it gets drawn out. Agreed. You know, his best case scenario, I think, is if this stuff keeps going until he gets nominated or elected, and then, you know, it gets resolved in his favor. I mean, assuming that's what would happen, although I don't think that is what would happen, but that would be from his point to be the best outcome. I was also thinking, well, two things. I'm not sure you're right about,

that's where jurors come from, because I got cold for jury service a couple of months ago, and I'm not a registered voter. So they have some other sources. And secondly, you've got to the eligibility. Eligibility? Yes, the eligibility to be a voter is almost identical to the eligibility to be a juror. But remember, there were 100 million people in 2020 adults who did not, in America, who did not vote. So that's a huge pool of people. Yeah, there you go. But also there's a problem of, you know, Trump has to be tried by a jury of his peers, right? So you've got to get Bill Clinton, you know, on the jury because he's an impeached former president. You have to have like some bail casino owners. Probably like Ryan C. Press needs to be on the jury.

Kevin, I have a question along those lines. So we've now seen. some reporting, albeit anonymous sources, Kevin McCarthy denies it. So grain of salt, but I mostly want to talk about sort of the hypothetical side of this, where rumor has it that Kevin McCarthy is going to go to his caucus and try to push to expunge Donald Trump's two impeachments from the congressional record with a vote of Republicans in the House. Why? What does this do? Huh?

Well, if Kevin McCarthy says it's not true, then, you know, I accept that on the face because no one's ever questioned the word of Kevin McCarthy about anything. A man of unimpeachable character and good judgment. By the way, to be clear, it's actually not that Kevin McCarthy denies it. Kevin McCarthy denies that he promised Trump that he would get it done. I see. Kevin McCarthy's office sort of acknowledges that he would bring it to the caucus, that it's, that it was discussed. How about that? I see. Yeah, I'm not sure what the good would be in that other than as a, you know, self-abasing gesture of dog-like loyalty to one's master, which, of course, is what I guess Kevin McCarthy's in it for these days. But like if you're Donald Trump, you were still impeached. You don't actually have a time machine. Expunging it doesn't do anything. Well, you know, a slightly more serious

point here. And, you know, people, people like Trump who are, you know, sort of committed liars. And they, you know, they tell these stories knowing that the people they're lying to know that they're lying and that everyone knows everything about everyone else. But they have this weird kind of, you know, psychological need to fit themselves into a particular kind of narrative. You know, if you've heard Trump talk about how he was never really ever gone through a bankruptcy, he tells this story all the time, well, there's never really ever bankruptcies, you I mean, not involving me anyway. I mean, yeah, if you've got a company, put it into a chapter, he would say,

which chapter would that be? Would that be the chapter of the bankruptcy code dealing with your businesses? Which chapter? Yeah, put it into a chapter. Like, chapter one, call me Ishmael. So the storytelling, you know, serves a particular function, I think, not only for, you know, how these people kind of understand themselves and think of themselves in the world, but it also, it gives their following a, you know, a message.

that they can pick up and take on. It doesn't matter that it's not true. In fact, sometimes it helps that it isn't true because forcing people to go along with a narrative that everyone knows untrue is a kind of display of power. And that is something that is very useful for an autocratic figure like Trump. So, you know, if McCarthy did promise him this,

I wouldn't be surprised if he did because it's the sort of thing that sounds exactly like the kind of thing that Donald Trump would ask for. And I can't see Kevin McCarthy standing up for himself like a human being with self-respect and integrity and saying no. All right.

Mike, I want to pivot a little to the politics. You know, Ron DeSantis, sort of the preeminent challenger to Donald Trump, hasn't made, you know, a headway here. You know, you can argue of whether he's gone down, whether Donald Trump's gone down also, weaker or stronger and all of that. But the point is, if you're the challenger, you have to actually overtake the frontrunner. That has not happened since Ron DeSantis has announced. There's been some questions about his burn rate, quote unquote.

this is very easy. It's how much money you take in versus how much money is going out the door and exactly where that money is coming from, how refillable those coffers are, things like that. In the midst of all of these conversations, the DeSantis team announces a bit of a reset. Now, it's not a reset in strategy.

It's not even that much of a reset in personnel. It's a reset in media choices. So Ron DeSanza's team had said that they were not going to engage in the mainstream media and unfriendly interviews, that's the change. He did an interview with Jake Tapper, says they're going to engage in that. My initial take is this is what made Ron DeSantis a favorite on the right to begin with. You go get attacked by people on the left and then the right comes to your defense and

thinks you did a great job. And that's how Ron DeSantis became Ron DeSantis, a national figure beyond just the governor of Florida and became pretty beloved in Florida too. a guy wins by 19 points in his re-election. I'm curious what you think about why they didn't do that in the first place, like why they didn't see that as one of their core strengths. And as, you know, other political reporters have raised, has a reset ever worked for a candidate?

Worked for a few. Worked for John McCain in 2008. That was... John Kerry, too, maybe. Sure. A reset that was... The resets that are sort of where your hand is forced because, yeah, don't have any money or you just had a complete tailspin downward, which is what really John McCain was at that point in the 2008 cycle when it was just him and I think one or two other AIDS. And Ronda Santis is not at that point yet.

But let me first address the issue of the media strategy, the communication to media strategy for Ronda Santis. because my understanding from some conversations I've had with people over the last six, eight months, as Rod DeSantis was on his way to winning that 19-point re-election bidded as governor, preparing the road for running for president a few months later, there seemed to have been a bit of a conflict internally within DeSantis world between those who were essentially – Seeking this kind of engagement with the mainstream media, for lack of a better term, seeking a kind of, you know, flood the zone approach. Yeah, you go to battle against some of the MSM, but you engage because guess what? There are other people who vote and everybody sit down for this one, people who vote in Republican primaries who do not watch Fox News or Newsmax. And so I think there was a, there were a group of people, advisors, pushing them on that point. And there was a group of advisors who were saying the opposite, saying they screwed us on Publix. And just for a little background, 60 Minutes had done this piece going after Ron DeSantis because Publix, the Florida-based grocery chain executives had donated to his campaign.

and there was a deal being made to provide the vaccine of all things at Publix's in Florida. It was suggested in the 60 Minutes piece that there was something untoward about this, and 60 Minutes had gotten some basic facts incorrect and really kind of embarrassed themselves over it, and there was apologies and all that. But essentially, it was at that moment that, the DeSantis political operation, said, screw you guys, we're going home, and we're going home to Fox News, which had a good relationship with Ron DeSantis and other conservative media outlets. And the side that was saying, essentially, let's stick to our folks, because we have these

good relationships. I mean, in 2021, 2020, 2020, 2021, 2022, if Ron DeSantis wanted to make a big splash about something, Fox News always seemed to get the exclusive. They would have these moments on Fox and Friends, where it was, you know, now we go live to Tallahassee for some bill signing that Ronda Sanchez was doing. He had some really good relationships. And so that side that was saying, let's keep that going, let's keep the MSM out, essentially won the arguments. They won that battle.

They seemed to not have won the war. And that is what's going on here. There are a lot of people outside and inside DeSantis world urging him to do this. He's finally done it. He seems to have been forced a little bit by the big burn rate, by the fact that he's not really made any headway, as you said, Sarah. And the reaction I got from Republicans after this week's interview with Jake Tapper, Jake Tapper is neither a pushover. He's certainly not a conservative. And he's not a, and he is not attack unduly, you know, Republican candidates.

It was a fair sort of adversarial, but friendly interview. I heard from a lot of Republicans who said, DeSantis did great. He should keep doing this. He was sort of the best they've seen DeSantis in a long time. The question is, is this a temporary pivot, or are they really going to try? to get him in front of people. I talked to Kevin Madden, who's a veteran of the Romney campaign in 2012,

he told me they should be doing this all the time, three times a day, talking to every local affiliate in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, all the time every single day and getting their guy out there and talking to as many people and many news outlets as possible.

So we shall see. Here's my reaction to this. first, there is such a thing as doing this too late. You already sort of let the shine come off and it's going to be hard to put the shine back on. If this had been a strategy all along when he came in so hot, Ron DeSantis is so hot right now, I think this would have looked like a very different strategy

than we're struggling and so now we're going to do this. That's A. B, this has been a long-time complaint of mine in talking to and trying to train younger, communications professionals in the political world, there's a misunderstanding that their power comes from saying no, that the more interviews you turn down, the more people want you, and that sort of constant being chased by reporters

and Jake Tapper emailing you and asking for an interview, that that makes you a commodity, and then that makes you matter and somehow shows your worth. And it couldn't be further from the truth. your value comes from saying yes, and maybe more specifically, if we're getting super into it, your value comes from understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your candidate. If your candidate is Ron DeSantis, someone who has a higher IQ than basically anyone who will be interviewing him, for better or worse, by the way, that's not always the best thing

in interviews. You don't, it's not being scored by, you know, the Oxford debating team. But certainly, you're not sending him in where he's going to be like, what's a weager? That's not going to be Ron DeSantis's problem. And so you constantly saying no to interviews isn't a strength. It's not making you a commodity. It's making people wonder what the hell you're doing out there. So I'm glad they came around to this.

I think it was very weird though when the thing you're selling is Ron DeSantis, the guy who's really good at interviews, knows all the issues, doesn't need a lot of prep for all of these things. Why would that not have been your strategy from day one? What did you think you were dealing with? And it comes back to this operative problem of, well, I run campaigns. I'm the barrier between you and my candidate and otherwise, what's my value at? It's like, no, no, no.

That's a total misunderstanding of how you add value to a campaign as an operative. And it can be very frustrating for those of us who used to be in the game and aren't anymore to watch people do that. The old agent-in-in-in-in-sensible problem. Yep. Right. Kevin, I don't want to, I don't mean to box you out here, but there was one of other thought on this, which is that media strategy is not simply getting the candidate in front of an interviewer on camera or even, you know, a print reporter and doing gaggles and

stuff. It's also the back channeling. It's also the way a campaign talks with reporters. And this was another place where the DeSantis team was not engaging with not just mainstream media, but with even, you know, even potentially friendly outlets, not as much as as they could have. That was another point of contention. And I think the effect of that has really, it is much, the lateness problem is much greater on that side of things than on the interview side of things, which is to say that DeSantis was getting pilloried by Donald Trump, even before he was a candidate.

A candidate and a campaign that is constantly, or a political operation before. he was officially a candidate, that is engaging constantly with the mainstream media saying, yeah, I know Trump is saying that, but you should really look into this. Or think about this angle for a story about Trump going after Ron DeSantis. One that is giving reporters some inside information. Yeah, I mean, to give an example here, Mike, I think you had two sit downs with Carly Fiorina when I was running that campaign. And I think I talk to you every day. oh yeah constantly and and and shaped my understanding of what you guys were doing i didn't always agree with it or think that like what i mean is like you know how easy was mike to manipulate

exactly but but it does it does i mean we can only report on what we're being told what we learn and what we kind of ask questions about and so you do you you you can see an alternative of the universe where rather than stories after story at CBS and NBCNews.com and CNN and the New York Times and the Washington Post for weeks about Trump tries to bury DeSantis over and over again, you could see those stories reading differently if the DeSantis political operation had better relationships with those reporters. I don't mean to say they had no relationships. I don't think that was the case. I know working at CNN that that was not the case they had no relationships. but the relationships were not as strong.

And that is where DeSantis has, is trying to play ketchup maybe a little too late on, because, as you say, the cake's already baked. People already have an idea that DeSantis was buried by Trump. And now he's playing ketchup. And that is, you can't spin that away because that's the reality that we're dealing with now. You could maybe have tried to spin, and I don't mean that in a negative context, you could have influenced the stories differently a few months ago if you're the DeSantis operation now, not so much. Kevin, this is my sweep, my curling metaphor, right? The operatives

are there to like sit with that broom and just furiously sweep, but the stone is going down the ice the way that it's going. What do you, what do you think? You know, there's trouble when you're dealing with words that begin with RE, I think, like reset is one of those words. It's like rethinking or reshuffling. Resign. It's like making, making, a resolution or going to rehab, none of these things are ever a sign that something's going right in your life or your campaign. You know, it's... Rehashing something with your spouse.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Or refusing to do so. Marriage advice from the dispatch pod. Yeah, I'm good at that. But I don't think that the DeSantis people are listening to me, obviously, but I think that this has caused me to rethink some. bad advice I gave to political campaigns unsolicited in my column from time to time,

which was about that very thing of only talking to sort of friendly media and conservative media. Because I've often thought, you know, if I were a Republican running for president, why would I talk to the New York Times? I mean, just nothing good is going to come out of it, right? I mean, it's a good newspaper in lots of ways, but you're not going to get good treatment or fair treatment even or even decent, accurate journalism, if it's a presidential campaign. They just got a blind spot. Good newspaper that can't cover presidential campaign.

It's got an issue. But as it turns out, a couple of things, I think, are relevant there. One is that people, as you alluded to, want to see them play in the game and doing the combat and being in confrontation, particularly with kind of lefty or mainstream-looking media outlets that they have sort of strong cultural feelings about. The other is that, you know, I think Fox News is well past its peak in terms of being an influential voice among Republican primary voter types. You know, it's the kind of MAGA thing

is a little like the woke thing in the sense that you're never pure enough and the sort of, you know, newsmax and the rest of the crazy, even crazier than Fox Media, has done a pretty good job, I think, of sowing seeds of doubt about whether Fox is actually really all that loyal to the cause and to Trump.

And when people only see you going there, they're not really getting everything they want. And also, I just don't think that they are paying as much attention to that as they were, say, 10 years ago when Fox could really, really be a kingmaker in a situation like that. So, yeah, I think that what Mike was saying about going to local affiliates and things like that, of course, is really, I think, you know, a smart way to do that because if you're giving, you know, some local yokel news program in the middle of nowhere, airtime and FaceTime with even a second-tier a third-tier candidate, you're going to get really good play out of that.

But you're also not going to have to go through all the filter of, you know, what you would go through with an interview at the Washington Post or something like that. And so that seems like it would be a smart thing to do. So I rescind my earlier advice to only talk to, you know, the people you like. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, you're writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design

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October 29th to November 2nd. Details and tickets at festivalofauthors.ca. all right we're going to put a pen in this because we've got a lot of not worth your times to do here one Kevin you missed last week it was um well there were mixed reactions to last week's podcast I'll just leave it at that but I wasn't supposed to be on last week no okay sorry that's only funny because actually Kevin like does make that mistake that twice yeah he has a new baby y'all his brain is as Don Lemon would say

are you having mommy brain a little bit yeah but one of the things we talked about was the Musk versus Zuckerberg like

cage fight oh yeah I wrote about that yeah so I actually got an email from a long time listener and former classmate of mine who he had a lot to say on this

and I just wanted to read some and Kevin get you into this conversation because obviously only about half of our listeners enjoyed this whatsoever. This basically his attention was drawn to my quote, wretched take on the very important subject of the impending Musk versus Zuckerberg MMA bout. While true that all else being equal must size and reach advantage would be telling, the apparently total asymmetry and skill strongly favors Zuckerberg. you are greatly underestim

of jiu-jitsu training would have here, especially since Musk is a total neophyte. Not only is Zuckerberg likely to win this fight, if he has any competence, and his recent amateur wins demonstrate legitimate competence, if not a UFC killer, he will win the fight within a few minutes, likely by a submission or choke.

Now, I wrote back and said, okay, but let's assume you meet in a street corner and it's just go-at-e-e-other rules. Is jiu-jitsu really going to help, or is this only an advantage with certain jiu-jitsu rules? He writes back and says, absolutely, jiu-jitsu would help on a street corner, as most fights in bars, streets, and baseball games end up on the ground eventually.

Aside from weapons, jiu-jitsu is what you would want if the worst came to worst. If you study the history of USC, grappling has tended to win over pure striking or kickboxing. There are exceptions, blah, blah, blah. Basically, most men know more or less how to throw a punch. most men do not know anything about kicking or they think it is a sissy move almost no one knows what to do on the ground Zuckerberg has a life

slithering frame with relatively long limbs for a guy of average height while Musk could maybe land a lucky haymaker two computer nerds are unlikely to have the sort of punching power necessary to knock a man out without breaking their hands this is definitely going to be a quick victory for the jiu jitsu guy

he also wanted me to give I'm embarrassed by how much expertise I'm going to bring to this answer, by the way. Oh, and I forgot. He actually said this could be on the record. So this is Wallace DeWitt Senior Counsel at Allen Overy, karate, blue belt, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu White Belt. And he trains at Testudo Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Alexandria, Virginia. Great business. Worthy of free advertising, he says. All right. Well, he's given one point, I think, to start with, which is that most men don't know how to throw a punch. Almost nobody who hasn't been taught how to throw a punch really knows how to

decently throw a punch? Wait, this is an important question. Kevin and Mike, have you ever punched someone? Oh, yeah. Not, not since I was a kid. Wait, how are you defining kid? Just minor, like under 18? Yeah, but even young. I mean, to like my brother. Okay. I've not gotten into a fight since I've become like, since I've gone through puberty. I was at a slumber party in eighth grade and I was wanting to go to sleep, but all these girls were being mean to me or whatever. And so I pretended to be asleep. And then they said they were going to get scissors and they were going to come cut my hair and I was only pretending to be asleep and I had the covers over my face. So when one of the girls came close to me with what I assumed were scissors, I pulled the sheet

down really quick and punched, having no idea where she was and unfortunately landed a lucky blow right in her eye and she had to go to school with a black eye and tell her parents that she ran into a door, which looking back is like the worst, like that's something you say when It was really bad. An abusive friend, basically. So that's the first and last punch that I've ever thrown. So I'm not a jujitsu guy, but I did have one undefeated wrestling season. And in my wrestling season, I actually, life was different then.

And I was one class below heavyweights, but I wrestled in a heavyweight class because you can wrestle up one class. And my experience there was exactly what your guy was saying, which is having some knowledge and skill will make up a pretty good difference in, in the, size and weight. I met Zuckerberg once. He seems pretty fit. If he's actually pretty reasonably well trained, I would think that, yeah, I would put my money, money on him. Mike, does this change your opinion at all? No, it reinforces it. I believe I said last week that the skill and knowledge that Zuck brought to it would benefit him and overcome the size difference. And I feel, I feel vindicated and justified. He ended his email with one other thing that I've learned, the places a man's mind goes when fighting in this way are bizarre, intense, and primal,

it spikes your heart rate in ways you cannot imagine in any other activity. Musk is a fat old dude like me. The Zuckerberg cardio advantage would be absolutely huge. I think Sarah would take Jonah in a fight, man. Jonah's a lot bigger than Sarah is. There is no way I would take Jonah in a fight. The next dispatch event, actually. All right.

I'm actually saying that because a little revenge on Jonah who's talking about. talked a lot about his zombie apocalypse plans, but he's never once mentioned me as a potential team member. And I'm pretty sure I'm like the best shot at the dispatch. I'm almost, almost 100% sure. You know, so I had some postpartum anxiety after Nate was born. And one of the things you do is keep like reliving bad things that are happening and how you're going to get out of those bad things. And you just like can't get your mind to stop running that. And so absolutely one of my scenarios is winding up wandering around Franklin, Tennessee, looking for David French's house. I have no idea where it is in Franklin, Tennessee. It would just be me and a

baby going, David! And that's my big plan in one of these scenarios. Okay. We have maybe our like a blockbuster movie season that we haven't had since the 90s. These aren't reboots. They're not superhero movies. You have Oppenheimer and Barbie coming out this week going head to head. There's been so much publicity, a lot of it driven by a huge marketing budget for Barbie. They have a Barbie dream house that you can rent, or I don't know, it's some Airbnb thing. The right is already sort of chitter-chattering about various boycotts. You have Ted Cruz saying that there's some cowtowing to China going on, and you have Patel putting out this actually pretty great statement. It's like, are you effing kidding me? This is a cartoonish childlike drawing of the world.

there's entire continents that aren't really even on it and there's a dotted line like it's not real can i can i can i break in on that and say that may be the case but it's also a movie studio that is trying to uh make sure that its movies get play in china uh is going to be very sensitive and particular about even things like that in the background, right? This was a map that supposedly showed the Chinese conception of what was of the South China Sea and what's part. And like it seems silly and ridiculous to us Westerners. I can tell you there are sensors in China who are paying attention to that kind of stuff. So that's just my interjection.

Well, I mean, now I think they're totally screwed. you certainly can't remove the line, but like, this is like a dotted line in the shape of a backwards, like a mirror image S. And they're saying it looks like the so-called nine dash line about the contested ownership of the South China Sea. But like, again, if you look at this map, like, I don't know how that's the shape of Africa. It's an inkblot test. It's an inkblot test.

All right, fine. So you have maps of Kashmir, maps of China about whether, you know, Taiwan's going to be that are on there, and maps of Israel and the Palestinian territories, people will fight over, even if it's in a bargaining movie. This is not me arguing, by the way, that these movie studios do not cowtow to China. Of course they do. We know they do. Whether this was an example of that, I'm a little less sure of.

But it doesn't matter because, again, they're not going to take it out because now China would be upset if they took it out. They're certainly not going to lose that market. Also, on the right, you have complaints that this is sort of a woke movie that's like about feminism and not in a good way. The review in the Wall Street Journal was pretty negative on that front. But, you know, I don't know, we've got two movies coming out and you guys haven't seen either of them.

Neither have I. And yet you said you had opinions on them. So I'm curious. I was just thinking that, you know, the news being what it is and in the summer having been what it is that, you know, some dark semi-dispopian movie about things that threatened to destroy the human race is not probably what I really want to see. So I'll go check out Oppenheimer over Barbie, I think. It's just, it's going to be a little lighter, I think, a little less disturbing.

I wanted to bring the kids to, I think. You what the first movie my parents ever took me to, by the way, it was? It was a drive-in theater, and it was one flew over the cuckoo's nest. And I would have been three, I guess. Yeah, I had great parents. See, this feels like a total Gen X experience. Yeah, it was. Not to bring in the genital.

It's like, hey, we're going to the drive-in. You brought it up two times in the last two conversations we've had. We have a little generational thing going on here, you and me. I know, but I'm obsessed with this, the idea that, hey, we're just going to go see a movie. And it's the 70s. So, of course, it's going to be something, you know, dismal and depressing. And, hey, one flu of the cuckus nest. Great movie.

Yeah. Okay, Sarah, I have not seen either of these. I'm planning on seeing Oppenheimer on Friday. I'm very excited. I'm a Nolan head. I love Christopher Nolan's movies. I think he is a serious adult, you know, grown-up filmmaker. And I just appreciate- You can't say adult filmmaker. I know. That's why I stop myself, Kevin, and got grown up instead. The Barbie movie, I'm more interested in this from a business perspective, which is people I know. who follow this stuff very closely say that Barbie was actually the studio Warner Brothers was not very confident in it at a certain point a few months ago. There was a sense that people, you know, were kind of aware that a Barbie movie was coming

out, but they weren't that excited or interested in it, which is like terrible news for a big movie that they hope to make a lot of money that people know about it and kind of don't want to see it. And there was, speaking of a media strategy change, there seemed to have been a change in the marketing approach to this movie that I was a little skeptical of. It seemed to be, there was an ad for Barbie that said, if you like Barbie, if you love Barbie, you'll love this movie. If you hate Barbie, you'll love this movie. A sort of throw the kitchen sink at the wall and see, to mix all my metaphors, see what sticks. and but they spent a lot of money and Barbie is everywhere people everybody knows about this movie

and it they probably helped themselves quite a bit um even the controversy has to be helping them because people are interested they're talking about they want to see it uh and this was the studio was worried that nobody was interested in it at all so um i do wonder though all of that money spent on marketing that's a lot they're going to have to recoup um so that's more of the question of what I'm interested in. Does this, really, I said this on Slack history, but there was no pun intended. Does Barbie have legs? Does it will be a big, it will be a big movie in this opening week.

And it will outperform Oppenheimer because, frankly, a three and a half hour movie about, you know, the psychological toll taken on the man who's credited with the hydrogen bomb is not like going to make a toll ton of money compared to. to the Barbie movie, but will it continue to get around word of mouthwise, say, hey, go out and see the Barbie movie this summer? That's the question that I have. It's a little hard to pin down these numbers, but at least from, you know, reporters who cover this kind of thing. The rumor for the production budget for the Barbie movie was about $145 million. It's expected at this point to get about 70 to 80 million in opening weekend, but the PR budget may have also been about $100 million.

If not more, by the way. I mean, you could almost always double a production budget for a movie like this. And the promotional budget is the same as the production budget for a big movie like this. Forgive my being naive here, but is $145 million a lot to make a movie now? No, I mean, it's actually not when you compare. it to the big tent pole, you know, superhero movies. And a big story going on right now in Hollywood. You're saying Barbie is not a superhero movie. Only when she puts on that outfit.

She's got so many of them. She can be a superhero, but she can also be a doctor. She can also be president. By the way, one of the best stories that there's no evidence that it's actually true as far as I can tell, but it was so brilliant with the studio to put it out, was that they had to use so much pink paint for the set that there was a worldwide shortage in pink paint. There's just no reason to think that that is accurate whatsoever.

That's not really how paint is made. It's not like they're just pink paint sitting around. You mix paint. Everyone knows that. So I don't believe for a second there was a shortage of pink paint, but brilliant story. It's in every new story about Barbie. That's the kind of stuff Rhonda Santis' team should have been doing months before. They should have had their own pink paint story.

But really quickly, can I say about the feminist gloss on this movie? I mean, it is. It's the plot of the movie, by the way, that Barbie is living in this Barbie dream world or whatever. She ends up sort of getting sucked into the vortex of the real world, only to find out that men run the real world, and it's this super awful depressing place. And it has sort of a legally blonde, clueless type vibe to it where like sort of a hapless girl who everyone's underestimating turns out to be brilliant in her own hyperfeminine way and not to underestimate girl power type idea. Again, clueless, an incredibly popular cult movie, legally blonde, is probably way more of the reason I went to law school than one should admit. So I'm very open to that plot, and I'm a little confused in the current political iterations, which are hard to follow. So Republicans used to be against feminism, qua political feminism, but now they've sort of been for it in the trans conversation, but now they're going to be against it again.

I'm confused on where that's supposed to fall. I mean, are we surprised that sort of on culture observatives are confused and not quite consistent in what they're doing and saying? I mean, I think so much of this is, you know, you do have this idea that the whole Barbie thing is interesting to me. And I say this as somebody who I grew up with a brother. You've got boys? I have three boys myself. I don't understand. Barbie. For women.

But as, as, as, as, as, I did not say that, Sarah. I thought that's what you were going to say. No, no, no, no, no, no. And now, no, no, no, no. And now those kids by accident. Yeah, exactly. I married. I married. I married a woman. So. He says defensively. Right. Exactly. But, but, but Barbie seems to have gone through this, like, like, every, everything that I've read from, from women talking about this movie, like, everybody has

some very complicated views about Barbie. Some people, like, defend her and defend the doll. And some people are sort of like virally anti-Barby. And some of this maybe go back to generations. Like, maybe it's generational. It has to do with what, you know, or maybe it's the type of, you know, a kid you were. But everybody has, like, all these odd investments in Barbie and what she means.

And should this movie subvert what Barbie means? or should it support. And, you know, Mattel, I mean, this is a big advertisement for Mattel and Barbie. It's all very confused. And I, that's why I thought Barbie would kind of struggle, actually, because it didn't seem to know what kind of movie it was or who it was for. And maybe it's not going to just because there's so much pink and you can't escape it. But that seems to me something I don't quite understand.

Is Barbie, like, does Barbie need to be subverted because it's too traditional? I always thought Barbie was kind of, was kind of a feminist product, but in a sort of soft way, like, hey, you can do anything, you can be anything, you can put on the clothes and go out into the world and be a doctor, be an astronaut. And Ken, by the way, who cares about Ken? Like, he's kind of, he's kind of a nobody. And that seems to be what the movie is kind of embracing. So we'll say, I don't know. So if I understand the plot of this movie, you've got this person sort of drifting around aimlessly, presumably in Malibu. And the real world comes along and shakes her out of the trance and says, you have to go get a job. I don't know what kind

of conservative you are. But to me, this sounds like exactly the conservative message that America needs right now. All you people out there walking around in Maladu, Maladu, Malibu, in your mindless trances of, you know, compulsive consumption, shake them by the head, get a job. Next week, that will be the mantra when this movie comes out. And that's exactly what it, what it espouses, from conservatives. So they'll switch. Whereas the other movie's about a guy in a big government project. I do want to know the demographic of the people who are going to do the back-to-back movie viewing.

Barbieheimer. Barbieheimer, because I'm in that demographic. Like, I'm not going to do it on Friday. My in-laws are in town. Can't get around to it. But, like, I absolutely wish that I could. Who else is in this group with me? People with a lot of time on their hands.

which is why I don't get to do it, I guess. But the fact that, like, mentally I'd like to, like, that has to mean something. Yeah, I mean, there was a great, somebody should find this on YouTube. There was somebody had done a mashup where they used the audio from the Barbie trailer in the Oppenheim, in the Oppenheimer trailer, and then vice versa. And there was a crazy to become death. Yeah, exactly, exactly, as with a big smile in Barbie world. And it kind of, there was a kind of, it kind of worked. And so in that sphere, I wish, just there's something, there's something about what I just

described in terms of my lack of knowledge and really care about Barbie that I just feel like it's, time is precious for me. I'm going to, I'm going to just have to stick to Oppenheimer. And, but I'll, if, if it is the greatest movie ever made, uh, then maybe. maybe I will feel compelled to go to go see Bart. You know, McKay Coppins raised this in reference to another movie that had come out, the name of which I'm going to get wrong, but that movie that's doing well with conservatives about child sex trafficking, I guess.

But the overall point is, like book publishers realized, whatever that was now, 15, 20 years ago, that having conservative imprints was actually brilliant as a business move and that conservatives do buy books, they just weren't buying your liberal books. Movie studios really don't seem to have figured out a few things. A, the conservative market and actually just making conservative-y movies for conservatives and B, female movies, not movies that have females, but like movies about women that are good.

Like... Sound of Freedom, by the way, is the name of the... Thank you. And I do think that's interesting and I wonder, you know, on the one hand, you'd think that the business model alone would be enough to push more conservative movies. You're just going to be making money. Is ideology that strong or that's much stronger in Hollywood versus the book publishing industry that it's not worth it? Because we're not talking about like, hit you over the head. Donald Trump's the greatest movies. He's talking about like 13 hours. You know, what was the movie about Jesus? The Passion of the Christ. movies that have done very, very well. What's that Jesus movie? Yeah, the left behind books, which are terrible. I read them for some of them for a project,

are said to have sold 100 million copies. That is literally tons of books. That is, you know, you order books by the trailer. Who's the guy, I'm blanking on his name and on the name of his movies. He's a black guy who made a bunch of movies where he's dressed up as an old woman. Oh, yeah, Tyler Perry. Probably Perry, yeah. It's blanked on his name. Yeah, I love his story so much that I can't remember his name apparently. But, you know, he went to Hollywood, couldn't do what he wanted to do, went back home and sort of self-finance. Now he owns his gigantic empire. It wasn't because I think there's, you know, some sort of, you know, racism in Hollywood. I mean, there's racism in Hollywood, obviously, but I don't think that's the reason why he was unable to succeed there. But there are kind of cultural blind spots of people who have certain sorts of backgrounds and look at a movie and say, not because I don't want to make movies about black people or not because I don't want to make movies about. about conservatives, but I look at this particular movie or this model of filmmaking, and I think it

won't succeed. And they're wrong because they just don't know the sorts of people who are in that audience. They've got the same problem in Hollywood and book publishing that you have in the policymaking world that you have in journalism, which is that you've got a relatively narrow socioeconomic slice of people making most of the big decisions. And for all the talk we have about diversity. We don't really have all that much of it in this kind of world. I should joke about my neighborhood in Dallas that we've got, you know, rich white people with Audi's, rich black people with Audis, rich Asian people with Aussies, rich Hispanic people with Audis, rich gay people with Saudis. And it's a very, very diverse neighborhood. And Hollywood's a bit like that. You know,

you've got people who've got very, very similar backgrounds, interests, aspirations, and cultural associations. And it's, you know, those blind spots matter from time to time. Yeah, I mean, And my friend Sunny Bunch likes to quote William Goldman's line that, you know, about Hollywood, which is nobody knows anything, which is, I think, apt here and particularly your discussion of Tyler Perry, who it's an incredible story and it's, it is essentially serving audiences and serving a product that Hollywood didn't understand. The problem I have, though, Sarah, is the idea that Hollywood doesn't make conservative movies is that really true i mean they don't make didactic conservative movies no for

instance i think the uh christopher nolan batman is actually a very conservative movie absolutely particularly the dark night that's the one i mean wait there's another one absolutely there's a trilogy uh batman begins the dark night and the dark night rises yes okay um i meant the dark night i was you talking about couple of blind spots damn right exactly right uh But look at what was one of the biggest movies last year? It was Top Gun Maverick. Now, Top Gun Maverick, everybody loved Top Gun Maverick. It was a great, I think it was actually better than the original Top Gun.

And it wasn't explicitly conservative, but it was a movie that sort of celebrated the American military. It was about good guys going after the bad guys over there. and it, you know, it was, it was, again, not a didactic conservative movie, but it was just enough simple-minded jingoism to appeal to us. Exactly. That's what I love. But look, but look how well it did. Hollywood is trying to appeal to a wide audience, and they know that there are people in

that audience who voted for Donald Trump or who vote Republican, and maybe it's not their all, everything. But they've got to make movies that appeal to, you know, Peoria, as they say. And I think they do that. I think the problem when you start getting more didactic conservative movies is you kind of create a conservative film ghetto. That's not this similar from, for instance, the Christian film ghetto. And so that's, I think, that's, I think something that this movie about the, that I've now forgotten the name of it that I just said about the child sex trafficking.

There is Sound of Freedom. There's some questions about the ticket sales being sort of bulk ticket sales where people buy the tickets and to sort of buy out the theaters, but the theaters aren't necessarily full when the film actually plays. I don't know about the specifics of that, but, you know, it's about broad markets. They make great conservative movies unintentionally, and that's how they should be made, right? because, you know, great, great art is conservative in lots of ways. If you look at a film like Coriolanus or a film like No Country for Old Men,

these are deeply conservative works of art, not made by people who are getting up in the morning trying to make sort of right-wing entertainment. Can I tell you the movie that I was re-watching a portion of last night? What's that? 1997's Amistad by Steven Spielberg. A deeply conservative movie in a million, billion different ways and so good. Oh, my God, that cast.

Matthew McConaughey was in that. Whoa. Yeah, so, you know, remember some years ago there was an attempt to make like a conservative version of The Daily Show. Yes. And that was just not good. And I think often when you go out and try to make these, you know, self-consciously conservative works of art or entertainment, they're going to fail for that reason.

Because also I think a lot of the great left-wing stuff is not really made by someone who got up in the morning and said, let's go make a real great left-wing movie. It's made by people who are trying to make, you know, good films and have particular points of view, and that's what gets communicated. Unless you're watching the Sex and the City reboot called, and I don't know, then there was that or whatever, that's, it's been so bad. Just like that. Why am I still watching this?

Yeah, any stuff. I don't know if that's worth our time. It's not. The Sex and the City. I just want to tell you. It's not. All right. Actually, it is worth our time, but for reasons I will have to tell you about office.

What the? Which sounds weird, but I'm going to tell you something just kind of funny afterwards. It's a privacy issue involving someone who isn't me. Got it. Kevin, by the way, shaved his beard, y'all. So if you see Kevin out in the wild, you're not going to recognize him. It's going to be weird. It'll be back.

It comes and goes. All right. With that, thank you, Mike. Thank you, Kevin, for joining. Thank you, listeners for, I don't know, if you've made it this far. I probably tuned out about 10 minutes ago. Maybe 15? We'll see.

I hope you enjoy your weekend and you might be going to see movies. Hop in the comment section. Tell us what you think of either of these two movies because, frankly, I'm not going to get to see either of them for another couple weeks. So it'd be really helpful if people can weigh in and tell me whether to go see both, which one to go see. To save my... Which order to see them in? Which order? Save my 20 bucks and stay home.

Let me know. My husband's a Nolan head like Mike, so probably not getting out of Oppenheimer. but who knows. I mean, I could send him with someone else, maybe with Mike. And with that, thanks so much. Simons celebrates freedom of expression with a daily ritual of getting dressed.

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