The Ricochet Podcast - A Blast From The Past

Episode Date: January 24, 2020

You asked for more face time with The Founders®, and here it is: our first Question Time show of 2020 (there will be more!). We cover some Ricochet history, get into a feisty debate about abortion, take a brief break with Henry Olsen, host of our new Horse Race podcast to make some hay (see what we did there?) on impeachment and some key Senate races. Also, Lileks opines on the new Star Trek... Source

Can I ask you a question? What? Can I ask you a question? What? Can I ask you a question? Shoot. Can I ask you a question? No questions, got it?

Got it. And no questions asked. I'm reported to say I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston Telephone Directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University. As government expands, liberty contracts. It's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. First of all, I think you missed his time.

Please clap. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lownix. Today we take your questions. A little chat with Henry Olsen about his new podcast as well. So let's start. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 480. I'm James Lilex, here with Rob Long and Peter Robinson.

And today is question, question, question, time, time, time, time. And as people have said, why do you guys just ramble on at the start of this for 20 minutes and never get to our questions? So we're going to get to write to the questions. My first one for Rob and Peter. Order, order, questions to the Prime Minister. We call that being blindsided by a Blue Yeti actuality. Thank you. Rob, Peter, my first question. How are you guys? Well, I don't know. I'm in the mood to talk for 20 minutes before getting to anybody's questions. I'm shocked by mood to talk for 20 minutes before getting to anybody's

questions. I'm shocked by that. What was that? That was just question time from question time from the former speaker, John Burko or Burko or however it's pronounced. I'm fine. I'm fine. Thank you, James. Thank you for asking. I'm doing very well. I see. We all feel the impulse to wrestle Yeti to the ground before he inserts another of those. Well, I don't know. Now I'm terrified that we're chatting too much. Me too. So, Peter, we'll just take it that you're fine and get on to the questions. Yes, please.

So we're going to blow through them all, including Gary Robbins' 47 questions, which I intend to get to in the speed round. Jeff Petrasca asks, Ricochet has been around for 10 years now. Has it developed differently than your initial vision for it? In what ways is it better than you anticipated? I can tell you how it's developed differently. It hasn't made Rob Long or Peter Robinson a single red dime. It used to be. It's a cost It's a, it's a cost sink. We, we had enough to drink when we were hatching this thing, 10, 11 years ago that we actually convinced ourselves that it could make us rich,

rich, nothing, nothing, nothing doing. Um, I, uh, I think that what's different is that we thought there'd be more members. To be honest with you,

we just thought more people would join that more people would want to join to join, that more people would say, oh, you know, this is sort of interesting experiment on the web where people aren't screaming at each other. I suspect there are a good portion of people who like the screaming on the web, and even though they say they don't, they somehow are attracted to it. And then I think part of it is just that we've sort of haven't done as good a job as we should as of letting other people know and letting people around the, you know, it's sort of on our side of the fence to know that this ricochet exists. So that was one thing that's different. And then in many ways it's better because I think podcasts happen. Podcasts didn't exist when we started.

I mean, anything more meaningfully than just kind of a bunch of people getting together. And now they do. And I think that's a really good thing. And I'd add this. In what ways is it better than you anticipated? We don't have 50,000 members, but we have 4,000 or 5,000 members.

The number bounces around a little bit. The member feed. Over a course of a decade now, I feel as though I've made new friends, many of whom, most of whom I haven't even met, but who's thinking I find interesting and from whom I have learned over and over and over again. And I simply, I enjoy hearing, I guess Rob and I, I wouldn't want to speak for you in this department, Rob, but I think maybe we have a certain touch of professional vanity and we sort of assume people want to hear from us. What has just been blown me away again and again is the sheer pleasure and interest in hearing from our members. The member feed is just fascinating, endlessly educational and engrossing. So we can put you down as a lurker then,

because you lurk more than you post. Next question from Belt is for Peter Robinson. Yes. How have past presidents interfaced with their speech writing teams to craft a message and support their goals? Do you have any insight or knowledge as to how this has worked with Trump? And do you think he's been effective with it? Or has there been a disconnect between speeches and administration activity? I would almost say a disconnect between the rhetoric of the speeches and the rhetoric of the man, which we always sort of assume. It seems there's been a little bit more seamless state between the two in the past. I mean, Trump unplugged is not the Trump who speaks. Nevertheless, we sort of assume, don't we, that the Trump who reads the speech is saying something that he believes, if not perhaps in his heart, for perhaps political expediency, or it is an accurate reflection of what he actually believes, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, how have presidents done this with their speech writing teams?

You've got a couple of different – it varies enormously from one man to the other. On the one hand, you've got Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, who worked with their speechwriters. Nixon would have Sapphire and Buchanan and Ray Price into the Oval Office, and he would think aloud, and he would write something on a yellow legal pad. And Sapphire was the pragmatist, the centrist. Buchanan was the conservative. Ray Price was the sort of liberal Republican when there still was a very vibrant liberal wing to the Republican Party, the Rockefeller wing and Ray Price. And so Nixon would assign these guys trying to hear which voice the policy would sound best. And he would think with and through his writers, George W. Bush, for different reasons, Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon liked thinking he liked playing with words. George W. Bush just didn't have as much experience with it, didn't feel as

comfortable with it. So he would have the speech writers in and again, they talk things through and go through draft after draft after draft. And that was George W. Bush working his way toward feeling comfortable with the text. Then you've got Ronald Reagan, who knew what he wanted to say and knew how to do it. And so we speechwriters would have occasional meetings with him. But the real action with Ronald Reagan and a speech took place in the residence in the early evening when he would go over a speech by himself. He was a solitary figure in all kinds of ways to begin with. So we would draft. The drafts would go to the – and occasionally, every so often, we'd discuss the speech beforehand.

But even then, he tended to give quite general direction. It was sort of our job to come up with the first draft. And then the president would edit it. And things would come back to us the next morning. Sometimes he would edit and he would rewrite some speeches. I can recall what the Westminster address, this is June of 82 maybe, he rewrote between a third and a half of that address. Others, he would just change a word here or there, but you were conscious that he was establishing a standard toward which you had to work. But he didn't think aloud with us. He knew the game of speech writing much more. James makes the central point here. With Ronald

Reagan, there was no distance between him and the text. The writers knew what he wanted to say. He knew what he wanted to say. He wouldn't give a speech until he'd reworked it and edited it and made it his. With Trump, there is one very important Reagan writer, Tony Dolan, who helps with the major Trump speeches. Donald Trump has a good speech writing office. I've met the guys. I've met some of them, I should say. But nobody believes that a full-dress speech has the same relationship to Donald Trump himself as a full-dress speech had to Ronald Reagan. So I'm going on and on about this. But he has given,

including his speech at Davos the other day. Trump is capable of giving really powerful, beautifully written, pretty darned well-delivered speeches. And then he starts tweeting the following day about something entirely different. You just don't get the feeling that the speeches are an integral part of the man's own thinking and the administration's policy formation, which is, in my humble opinion, a pity because the big speeches he's given have been wonderful. Well, Rob, let me ask you, the Trump skeptic, whether or not it matters. A lot of

people are saying today, I was reading on Twitter, that the president's going to be speaking at the March for Life rally and that don't be fooled by this evangelicals. He doesn't mean a word of it. It simply transactionally needs your vote. And I would look at this and say, maybe so, but A, it is important to speak, and B, he is making the points that need to be made, given some weight by presidential speechifying. It's not a bad thing, and maybe that's all that people can really expect at this point. I mean, I think when people are mystified as to why evangelicals would support him, I would say, I think that they would support somebody who's probably paid for an abortion in his life if in office he does everything he can to keep it from becoming more prevalent in the future. And that's better than a guy who will give you lip service and do nothing because he doesn't want hard looks from people who say that Planned Parenthood is actually all about cancer screening, et cetera. So do you think it really matters whether or not, I can't believe I'm asking this,

that Trump believes these things? It's just important for them to be made and said in the forum. And it's great that somebody says what he says in Davos because nobody else would? Well, no, I mean, the problem with Trump is that he's so erratic and his Trump administration policy is so nonexistent or inconsistent that the speeches he gives, even the good ones, are meaningless. Because a speech is supposed to convey resolve and thoughtful policy decision and a roadmap for the future and a way to predict what a president or administration will do in the future. And there is literally no way to do that with this president. Well, hold on. Let me push back for the sake of devil's advocating here. Do you think that the president at any point in the future is going to rejoin the Paris Accords? No, no, I don't think so.

All right. So isn't that consistent, though? I mean, look, yes, you can find bits and that consistent, though? I mean, isn't that— Look, yes, you can find bits and pieces where he's going to behave in a way that I think is very Trumpian. But traditionally, a presidential speech is designed to map out—that's why it is in a tweet—designed to map out a method of thinking and a method of assessing current—assessing and describing a current situation, a future situation, so that our allies and our enemies and his political allies and his political enemies domestically can kind of predict what he thinks. That's one of the ways that that's why you give speeches in the first place. The reason he's giving a speech to the Right to Life group, I mean, that's slightly different. I mean, on the one hand, the cynical reason is because they're the only people left who

he really knows are behind him and will vote for him. So that is the base that he needs to shore up as he approaches the general election. That's a cynical view. I mean, I'm not sure I know why it's so shocking. I mean, the way you you the way you describe the logic of the pro-life movement, I think is right. I don't think it's so shocking that they support Donald Trump. He he supports them. I mean, he supports their position. I'm not sure there's much a president can do other than appointing certain judges. But that's a lot. Which he's doing.

I mean, that's sort of a lot. Look, just to be realistic, if I mean, if you think that Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned by the Supreme Court, I mean, I think that's fantastical, magical thinking. I think that even the pro-life judges on the Supreme Court will find a way to not overturn Roe v. Wade. But the struggle for the pro-life movement is in the homes and schools and communities and neighborhoods in this country, persuading Americans that it is that not just to check the box that says they're pro-life, but that it is an urgent issue.

And that is something they have failed to do. You know, you say that and I let you get away with it quite often because they succeeded. But well, I'll tell you where they've succeeded. Roe versus Wade. I just think I'm now I'm now in the mood to go contrarian on you on that one issue. Because the reason I've let you get away with it is that in my own mind, I thought, yeah, Rob is, he may not be 100% right, but he's got a very good point there. I'm not so sure. Roe versus Wade was handed down in 1973. And the clear expectation on the court,

those who signed that decision, and in the media at the time, was that the pro-life thing would fade away. It was generational. The few remaining pro-lifers would die out. The country would recognize that the pro-choice regime was here to stay. It was part of law and custom, and the pro-life voice would just go away. And here we are all these years later, and tens of thousands of people are marching on the Mall in Washington this very day. And the polling shows that the rising generation of Americans are more inclined to be pro-life rather than pro-choice. Somebody made sure that issue didn't die. It didn't go away. It is still very much alive. And that represents, I think that represents a triumph.

Well, okay. If that's a triumph, then I'll accept that that's a triumph. 48 years later, our argument isn't whether the third trimester is too late. Our argument isn't whether the second trimester is too late. Our argument is whether the first hours of birth is too late. So the argument that we're making, there are people marching about a lot of things. That's if you listen to MSNBC. Oh, that's fine. That's fine. I mean, politically, that's... State legislature has enacted, has encroached and narrowed. Can you, I mean, the idea that that represents a success, that our debate is now that a partial birth abortion is legal, which is something that was inconceivable in 1972. The irony, I'm not even arguing the pro-life or pro-choice position.

I'm simply saying that the methods that the pro-life movement has used for 48 years have been mostly a failure, and that the idea that it is now up to unelected judges to save us from this is a sign that they are losing, not winning. Oh, I disagree completely. Because we have Donald Trump appointing judges who are going to interpret the Constitution more strictly. You have one state legislature after another, after another, after another, pushing against the pro-choice regime in law. And you've got polling indicating that younger Americans are moving toward the pro-life position, not away from it. But enough on this. We're looking at the same set of facts, and you're saying that's a failure. And I'm saying, you know, I actually think that's a triumph.

It's a heroic triumph that they refuse to buckle under. They refuse to give in to the culture. My argument is that the future will resemble the past. The future will not be different. It will resemble the past in the sense that our arguments about abortion will become more and more about the moments after birth as they are now and not the moment of conception. That is a completely lost cause. Oh, my argument is that a century from now, people will look back on this time and wonder what could they possibly have been? How could they possibly have failed to cherish human life? I do not disagree with you, Peter. I will only say

that if that does come to pass, it won't be because of Supreme Court judges. It will be because the hearts and minds of the American people were changed, which is not happening. The Supreme Court judges come last. For their, their, that's all we talked about. That's your central point. I will agree that, in a sense, it's gone backwards. It'll be because the kids are watching on the mall today. That's what it'll be because of. And how their actions affect what they do.

Because there was a point where a presidential candidate, a president himself, could get up and say that abortion should be safe, legal and rare and was applauded for such or at least given lip service. Now, of course, we've moved beyond that. We've moved far beyond that. with T-shirts that say, shout your abortion and clapping the fact that they've had nine. When that becomes anathema to the culture, then, you know, then then we'll see that the rhetoric and the work of the pro-life movement has worked. But I think Rob's, you know, Rob's got a great point. But all this says is that the left is insatiable. And when it takes it gets a little, it'll take more and more and more and keep moving that old Overton window over to the point where we no longer can look at it and recognize our country. Next question. This is from Al Sparks.

I'll give this to, I'll throw this up in the air here. Andrew Klavan was asked this today, who was the best Democrat president? Do we know what Drew said? What was his answer? Do we know? I don't know what Drew said. I guess it guess the question is, depends on what you want. I mean, Grover Cleveland was the last Democratic president who believed in, who had a constitutional understanding of the limited federal government. Grover Cleveland is the last Democratic president. I'm almost sure this is true. It's true in general.

There may be some veto I'm overlooked, but he was the last one who vetoed legislation because he thought it was unconstitutional because he thought the federal government was overreaching. But Harry Truman is the one who has my heart because he was such a tough, plucky bastard. And he stood up to the Soviet union. He understood what they were doing, understood the need to create NATO, Marshall Plan, stand up to the Soviets. His domestic policy was incoherent, but his foreign policy was just right. He was a tough, tough, patriotic son of a bitch. And I love the guy. Rob? Yeah, Harry Truman's sort of interesting. Part of the domestic politics that were such a zany mishmash under Truman was because there was this giant post-war convulsion. Nobody

knew what the government or even society should look like now. It had already been in crisis since 1929, 1930. That's right. That's right. So that was a hard thing. I'd have to say, if it's policy, I mean, I don't know. I mean, in terms of, I think the most effective president, the most sort of

presidential Democratic president, I think it has to be Roosevelt, FDR. I mean, you know, coming in in crisis, an economic crisis, trying a lot of different things, trying a lot of different things that I, you know,

roll my eyes at and don't like, but trying, but, trying a lot of different things, trying a lot of different things that I, you know, roll my eyes at and don't like, but also trying a lot of things that were best practices at the time, now trying a lot of things that our current Republican president, everybody says is a conservative, ran on never changing. So, you know, we've had legislative failure after legislative failure of smart Republican presidents trying to reform Social Security. Now we finally have one saying i'm not even going to touch it um yeah so i have to say fdr is that the for best consequential it's consequential i i still i would say politically in terms of pure political skill and dexterity it has to be lBJ, who was just a master. I mean, to read how he got things done is is is to marvel. You got to put you put the book down. You think, wow, that was a guy who just kind of knew how to work people and how to work the presidency. It always shocked me.

It didn't shock me at the end, but it shocked me at the beginning that the single most effective Democratic president in half a century was LBJ. And Barack Obama, who had a big list of things he wanted to accomplish as a Democratic president, had not the slightest bit of interest in the Johnson presidency, not a whit. Somebody once asked him if he'd ever read a biography of LBJ, and he was like, no. Almost like, why would I do that? Well, LBJ accomplished all this stuff in a much more conservative country, and Obama basically passed socialized medicine and just got undermined, has been chipped away at for the past two years, thank God. I just recorded an episode of Uncommon Knowledge last week with Amity Shlaes, whose new book, Great Society, A New History, is wonderful on all of this. I would draw one distinction. LBJ, this is the point Rob often makes, that the 1964 election was a catastrophe for Republicans.

We Reaganites often say, well, Barry Goldwater held up the flag and then along came Ronald Reagan a few years later and got elected. And Rob says, no, no, no. Barry Goldwater carried, what was it, six states. And because his failure was so catastrophic, Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress. And it was the most liberal Congress since 1936. And that is true. And so the distinction I would draw is that LBJ passed a lot of legislation. And if you want to call that getting things done, and some of it's certainly commendable, the civil rights stuff, for sure. He did enact John Kennedy's tax cut, helped make the economy stronger than it would have been. But he claimed that we were going to defeat poverty and we lost the legislation,

which is now, Amity makes this point, the Great Society legislation, entitlement legislation of LBJ now costs us more each year than does the New Deal legislation of FDR. He put in place an enormous number of programs that just didn't do what they claimed they would do and that we're paying for to this day. And he lost the war in Vietnam. So she has this wonderful quotation from Joe Califano, who was a close aide to Johnson and later became secretary of whatever it was called at the time, Health and Education and Welfare, I guess. In any event, Califano said, Lyndon Johnson enacts legislation the way other men eat chocolate chip cookies compulsively. And so much of it is still with us.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And what are the what are the intellectual underpinnings for that? I'm tired of the hagiography of FDR. I mean, all I get tired of it. It's sort of the obligatory thing that conservatives are supposed to say. Well, he did come in at a difficult time. He tried some things. He got it.

He won the war, et cetera. I get that. I get that. Yeah. Well, it's true in a bit. If he'd stuck to only relief efforts, if he'd just given us the CCC and the TVA and the WPA and put some people back to work at the depth of the Depression. Yeah, that might have worked. Then, yes, we would say good on you, FDR, if you were an Aussie. But instead, we also had to

have this massive expansion of the state into places that had never been before that opened up this whole ideological landscape for rampaging about and fixing prices and making sure everybody does this and does that and inserting the state into every single aspect of your life. The propaganda that went with the NRA was nationwide. It was constant. You couldn't buy a freaking candy bar without having the government seal on it because the manufacturers of that thing wanted the government to say, hey, don't come after us. We're doing our part. We've got the logo right here. And that set that changed the relationship between the citizen and the government in a way that every single other progressive who came along is exploited. And that's why, yes, FDR kept us from going fascist by doing a lot of things

completely consistent with the fascist concept of the state, none of which is in the Constitution, none of which can be found in the Constitution. Yeah, but I just have to say, before we put it all on FDR, all of it was hilarious, incredibly, incredibly popular with the American people and remains popular. I mean, the hard part for Republicans to wrap their heads around is that for years we've said, well, the country's basically, you know, economically conservative, but it's not. It's basically economically liberal and socially conservative, but economically liberal. They let, you know, American people like a pretty big government. That's a problem for people like a small government, but you can't wish it away. To me, the FDR thing comes down to one example, Social Security, which was sold on the notion. All the records make this very clear.

They understood what they were doing, that they wanted it to apply to all people, not just those in need. And they wanted Americans to think that they were contributing to Social Security and that they would be taking out of the system what was due to them because they had put money into the system. Right. And that is not true. And they knew it wasn't true at the time. And FDR is the first time you get the federal government intentionally, persistently lying to the American people. And that is a big change in the relationship between the government and the people.

On the other hand, as my friend here at Stanford often points out, David Kennedy, marvelous historian, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were a problem for the United States, not just for the Soviet Union, but for the United States. And during his conduct of the war, you can argue this action, that action. But the Russians lost at least 20 million dead. And the United States lost a little under half a million. So David Kennedy says, you argue anything you want, but the United States came out of that war pretty nearly intact. And FDR had a lot to do with that. Yeah, I'll give FDR credit for not shooting his officer, Corey, a year before the war began. Well, there's that. There's the other argument, you know, sending troops into battle with no gun and the instructions to pick up the

one of the guy in front of you when he gets shot. I mean, yeah, I get all that. There's a lot of a lot to be said in FDR's favor. I'm just like I say, the reflexive hagiography and worship gets. Yes, yes. But if you want to if my choice for the best Democrat president would be Woodrow Wilson. Why? Because what was appealing about him? Woodrow Wilson attempted to get us involved in some pointless international organization that would have accomplished nothing but tied our hands. He was out and out a racist who saw people in terms of their skin color and resegregated the armed forces and the postal service and the rest of it. He was an intellectual man who looked down on the rest of the country, believed the Constitution

was a malleable thing that had to be shaped and formed to fit the progressive agenda. In other words, when you want to talk about a modern-day Democrat, he's the best. He's just the best. Leave it to james except for woodward wilson can i just there is something that connects both or i mean my both fdr and harry truman john f kennedy for sure and i even think lyndon johnson and i'll even go so far as to say maybe jimmy carter um and that is that they loved america they really were patriots yes there's no doubt no i i understand and that's and you know that's that's not i don't know which which which current candidates for the presidency of the united states in the democratic party

do you know really do love america the way that john f kennedy loved america or the way that John F. Kennedy loved America or the way that LBJ loved or that was, God forbid, Harry Truman loved America. Well, a lot of these guys loved America because they saw it as a vehicle for their own personal success. Obviously, if you're in politics, you've got to be a little bit of a narcissist and a sociopath. But you're right. When Barack Obama said that we're going to fundamentally transform the country, it seemed to indicate that his love for it was conditional upon what it could become. And now that love has shifted to something else. Instead of love of country, people are asking for authenticity. Joe Rogan likes Bernie Sanders. A lot of people admire Bernie Sanders

because he may be a crazy old red, but he believes it. He's authentic. Listen, I'm here to tell you that just because you're earnest about something doesn't mean you're a good person at all. However, you should be earnest about your finances, especially when it comes down to loans. But then again, when you start talking about lending, borrowing, and earnest money and the rest of it, you can get yourself in the hole pretty, pretty quickly. I mean, for decades, credit cards have been telling us, you know, buy it now, pay for it later with interest. And despite your best intentions, that interest can get out of control fast. Well, with Lending Club, you can consolidate your debt or pay off your credit cards with one fixed monthly payment. Since 2007, Lending Club has helped millions of people regain control of their finances with affordable fixed-rate personal loans. No trips to the bank.

No high-interest credit cards. No. Just go to LendingClub.com. Tell them about yourself, how much you want to borrow. Pick the terms that are right for you. And if you're approved, your loan is automatically deposited into your bank account in as little as a few days. LendingClub is the number one peer-to-peer lending platform with over $35 billion in loans issued. So go to LendingClub.com slash Ricochet.

Check your rate in minutes. Borrow up to $40,000. That's LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. Check your rating minutes, borrow up to $40,000. That's LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. All loans made by Henry Olson, Washington Post columnist, senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Henry began his career as a political consultant in California, and he's got a new podcast, The Horse Race. It's just debuted where? Why? On this very network, and it's available wherever fine podcasts may be downloaded. Everyone should listen to it. Start now, after this one, of course. Henry, welcome. Thanks for having me on. So, the Washington Post newsroom, your brand new spanking quarters after the oldest, bestest, laden place was demolished. Is everyone clustered around the television set watching the impeachment hearings, you know, panting, salivating? Where I work at the newspaper, it's on and nobody's looking at it.

That's pretty much what it is at the Post, is that it's on all the time, but everyone's got their own work to do. So they're staring ahead at their computers or having meetings just like anywhere else. Doesn't mean that we're not talking about it, but we're not obsessing about it. Henry Peter here. By the way, congratulations on your own podcast.

You have long deserved one. You have the talking to you about politics is like talking to somebody, I don't know, over a cup of coffee at the local Starbucks. If that person were the smartest political analyst, imagine. Okay. So here's the obvious question. Is this impeachment thing? And at this stage, it is a thing. I'm just so sick of headlines called the historic. It's not historic. It is a thing. I'm just so sick of headlines called the historic. It's not historic. It's a bore. Is this going to have any effect on the campaign? Is keeping the senators, Elizabeth Warren and Klobuchar and Sanders in the Senate instead of on the ground in Iowa, does it matter to the presidential game at all? I don't think it's going to matter in the

general election at all, because people are viewing this like they view everything else through very heavily tinted partisan lenses. You know, if you hate Trump, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and everyone who opposes you is a traitor or worse. And if you love Trump, then everybody who's doing this is a traitor or worse. And there's no minds being changed. But with respect to Iowa, you know, not being able to be in the field can matter, you know, that Biden can get some local news that the people who are sitting in the Senate can't. And that's one reason why I wouldn't be surprised if next week some senators decide to call this a stamina test and start flying out and doing late night or early morning events just because the stakes are so high that even a percent or two that might be lost could be the difference between first, second or third.

And we know that Iowa is incredibly complicated. You've got several thousand caucus sites spread across the state. And if your candidate falls below a certain threshold, you get to vote for a different—very, very hard to game out. But that's why you're who you are, Henry. How's it look to you? Can you handicap Iowa? I can handicap Iowa, but one caveat is that Iowa tends to have people who rise suddenly and late, and we don't have very much poll data from the last week, which is when you technically see somebody catch fire. From what the poll data we've got right now, what it suggests is that we're going to have three candidates who consistently

get above what's the viability threshold, which is 15 percent, and somebody, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, who will largely but oftentimes fall below, which would mean that when it comes to allocating delegates, the first three will get more than the bottom two because there'll be a lot of precincts where Buttigieg or Klobuchar supporters won't reach the viability thresholds, and they'll have to decide which of the other three do we like the least or do we like the most. So we could very well have three winners in Iowa, the person who wins the first preference vote, the person who wins the reallocated preference vote, and the person who gets the most delegates. It's incredibly confusing. And Bernie would still be the odds-on favor to win in New Hampshire, though, right? Yeah. The thing is, there's a couple of things going on in New Hampshire.

One, New Hampshire always leans a little bit to the left in the Democratic Party primary. Two, he comes from a neighboring state, Vermont, and that means that there's been some parts of New Hampshire that get free Vermont media, as opposed to the Boston media, and that are the areas of the state that both tend to go left and also tend to get Vermont media. So then we've got the fact that he's run before. He's a familiar name, and so he doesn't, he may, he's not going to get 40 percent of the vote in New Hampshire unless he stomps to a victory in Iowa and has unstoppable momentum, but I got to think he's the favorite in New Hampshire to get at least a quarter to 30% of the vote. Henry, thank you for joining us. And this is

going to be a great podcast. We're very excited. If you're listening to the Rick Shay podcast and you want to subscribe to the horse race, you just got to go to the network and subscribe or join, subscribe to our super feed and you'll get it. It will keep you up to date on all of the really good stuff. All right. So here's my question. What evidence is there that the Democratic primary voter is thinking about electability and to what extent and who benefits from that? And to what extent is the Democratic primary voter just saying, I can't believe everybody doesn't hate Trump as much as I do. And I believe that the people who hate him will want to move sharply left. Is there, because usually, look, these parties usually end up nominating the

most reasonable, electable guy, right? That's right. The polls all show that the number one thing that Democrats are thinking about is who's going to beat Trump. But of course, people will see that through different lenses, that the progressive activists will say, yeah, I want to beat Trump. And the only way to beat Trump is to have somebody like me, because that'll energize the voters who have been turned off by the centrist Democrats. So yes, they want to beat Trump, but moderates and progressives will see it in different ways. And then you've got that hardcore that's just vote with their heart. They want the country to move left.

They've always wanted the country to move left. And Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the people who have been saying, if you want to turn left, you want to vote for me. And if one of them can combine a good electability argument that appeals to moderates with that, they easily become the favorite, at least in states dominated by white voters. African-American voters are just a different ball of wax. They tend to be much more moderate and not appeal to that same sort of heart argument. Henry, this is my last question, and it's an act of discipline on my part because I love talking to you about this stuff. I just love it. So here's the question. And it's a little bit of a flaky question, but I don't know how to frame it better. My theory is that it's not Joe Biden who's leading

in the national polls among Democrats. It's the idea of Joe Biden. It's the idea of a centrist, someone who will return us to some kind of normalcy, someone who's closely associated with Barack Obama. But the actual Joe Biden is really quite creaky and having trouble getting stringing sentences together and demonstrating a certain lack of stamina to put him on a debate stage next to Donald Trump. And one man, Trump, exudes sheer animal energy and Joe Biden won't exactly. And that if I'm right about that and who knows where I am, but if I'm right about that, at some point, the real Joe Biden will begin to dawn on Democratic voters.

What do you make of that argument? Well, I think you're absolutely right. Oh, look at that. Put that right. That down, Rob. Henry said I'm right. Oh, look at that. Put that, write that down, Rob. Henry said I'm right. Carry on, Henry. You didn't sound convinced, though.

It sounded more polite. Go ahead, Henry. No, I mean, I've thought, I was actually thinking about this last night, that I think that what we're, the idea of Joe Biden is more appealing than Joe Biden. And that's the angle that somebody, that gives somebody like a Buttigieg or Klobuchar the chance to rise very rapidly, is that now that people have to decide, okay, I don't want to be on the left. I want to be in the sensible center. I want somebody who's going to return to normalcy. Who do I think can do that?

There's a lot of reasons not to pick Joe Biden. And that's why I'm waiting for these polls, because that sort of person will be making up their mind now. And the polls that happened two, three weeks ago aren't valid anymore. So I'm looking to see whether or not that phenomena takes hold. And if it does, you'll start to see Biden dropping. You'll start to see Buttigieg or Klobuchar sore. Henry, if you want to put that in your next column, you don't have to credit me, but just don't get confused and credit Rob. OK, I will make sure that the correct attribution goes if I put it in my column. And then I think it's better that you don't put it in your column. I'm all right. that you don't put it in your column.

Everybody who's listening, thank you for joining. But also, if you subscribe to the Superfeed, you'll get your podcast. Otherwise, go to your podcast place and subscribe to The Horse Race. It's going to be great. Well, thanks for chatting. Thank you, Henry. Yes, listen to that podcast.

But, of course, right now you're listening to this podcast, and we are continuing with the questions from Lily B. Why, this one's for me. I feel like it's Christmas time and I've been handed a package here. For James Lalex, I've always remembered your line from the AEI panel on the daddy virtues about what it would be feeling like to send your daughter to college. Apparently, this is something I said, quote, she will go to college and when she does, I will regard it as sending her off to an enormous electrical outlet. And I just borrowed sixty thousand dollars to give her a knife. I like that. I wonder if I came up with that on the spot.

Since I think your daughter is a freshman now, how's it going? Do you have any words of reassurance for those of us who fear that we'll be financing the leftist indoctrination of our children if we send them to a typical American university. She is in her first year now. She took a year off to go to Brazil, which was great. Seasoned her, gave her some international exposure and gave her a little maturity that perhaps coming right out of high school doesn't give you. And she's in Boston. And so far, so good. Really good professors.

One of the first classes that she took was the media and liberalism, and it was down the road. Really? Yes. Really? And it was not all about how we can get our point across through the means of the information. It was studying the various types of liberalism of the 20th century and how they were manifested in the press. It was, I mean, she would call me up and we'd have conversations about this and it would be, she was not in any way coming back like I did, full of nonsense from a college teacher saying, oh, my dad knows nothing. I've got to argue with him and tell him how wrong he is. It's really been great. And there's been meat. I mean,

I remember once I got a little text from her as I was walking outside the building having a little cigar, and it was something of the effect of whether or not Augustus relied more on PR or the military to reform Rome in his image after he consolidated power or something like that. And so we're having this conversation back and forth about Rome, which was great. So she's getting history and cosmology and literature, and she's got good journalism professors who actually wrote books and worked in newspapers. So far, so good. And when she came back for a month on the break, we had lots of conversations. And I can tell she's got better arguments and better ways of thinking. And the college has given her a place to really intellectually flourish in a way that high school didn't.

So, like I say, so far, whew, so good. We'll see. Now one from – Go to the Cloak – the Cloak Guy Gene has another question for you. Oh, he does. To you as a Minnesotan. Let me – I'll read it. The Cloak Guy Jean. I'd ask James the percentage chance that Ilhan Omar is reelected

this year and the percentage chance she'll still be in Congress after another five or 10 years. There's a Minnesota question for you, James. Right. With national implications. I think the first one is pretty good, but it's different this year if the Republicans run this woman who is, who is Muslim and it comes from the community and has a different perspective, shall we say. The community is Senegalese? The resettled Senegalese? Is that right? The Somali. Somali, sorry, sorry, sorry. Which is hardly monolithic and is prone to all sorts of internal politics, as immigrant communities are. It'll be interesting to see because there's going to be a lot of people who may not like the way Omar turned out in office because he doesn't seem to be a particularly pleasant person and would like to be insulated from the charge of Islamophobia by voting for somebody who's Muslim.

On the other hand, it's such a Democratic district that, you know, a Tupperware container of slightly melted jello would win a Democratic nomination. Now, as to whether or not she'll be in Congress in five to ten years, I haven't the faintest idea. If you read David Steinberg and follow his Twitter feed, he's been unearthing things that are peculiar and might result in her not being here, if you take what he says to its logical conclusions um so i don't know i think she'll win again but it's a little bit more dicey this year but i think she'll win again and after that my crystal ball turns into a black bowling ball from which i can take no insight whatsoever um let's see where should we go next umad, boxers or briefs? Stad. Boxers or briefs? That's a good question.

Actually, it is a good question. It is? What sort of binary is this when we don't even include the thong option? That's right. To say nothing of commando. I mean, come on. Think outside the box. I will say that we did once have an advertiser, podcast advertiser. It was Tommy John, I think. Neither boxer nor briefs, but those kind of boxer briefs are actually what I prefer. I think they actually call them boxer briefs. They're great. They're great. Well, I've heard some answers.

My undies, I guess. So, so we hadn't, do we have my undies? Was that a thing? Okay. So I think it's very difficult. I think it's very difficult to sell men anything called undies that they're going to wear themselves. Yeah. Yeah. But they're great by the way. It's a great product. I mean, and they're not, they no longer an advertiser. But if anyone from the my undies or the Tommy John company is listening, I am telling you, I am making a testimonial to your product and you're not even paying me. two podcasts based on Fox News and Roger Ailes. Do you think they'll do anything with the problems that occurred in other networks? This is from Glenn Armagas, by the way. NBC, Matt Lauer, the rest of it, withholding the Weinstein report. Wait, there's a second one? I know they did one where Russell Crowe played Roger Ailes, right? Right. And nobody, apparently nobody watched. I misspoke. Hollywood produced two movies about this, about Fox News and Roger Ailes, right? And apparently nobody watched. I misspoke. Hollywood produced two movies

about this, about Fox News and Roger Ailes. Okay, so one was the Russell Crowe one. What was the other one? The other one was the one with Nicole Kidman, and it was just out. It's called Bombshell. Oh, right, right, right. Apparently that one's good. I haven't seen it. I have a screener for it, but I haven't looked at it.

They actually have done a show, but it's essentially the Matt Lauer story, which is the, it's called The Morning Show. It's on Apple TV. It's a huge, huge, huge production with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell basically playing Matt Lauer. And, you know, look, whether you think it's, I mean, I watched a couple, a couple episodes of The Morning Show and I just found it boring, and so I didn't finish it. And I think in general, Apple Plus, whatever they're calling it, is having sort of a sputter start. No, I don't think – I mean, look, there is – there's always talk about doing a Weinstein kind of a movie or a Weinstein Netflix show, and I think there's one in development.

To me, the whole – the Weinstein report, holding it back, doesn't seem that interesting or that compelling. It seems like a lot of TikTok, you know, a lot of shoe leather, which is never that interesting to see. But I also think Hollywood has a very, very complicated relationship to this. I think Hollywood has a complicated relationship to the umbrella issue of how you treat people who work for you. Right. And so it's this, you know, I've had I've heard very stirring, stirring condemnations from certain people about the the sexual harassment that's gone on in Hollywood. That this must stop. And this is an aberration or a blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.

And I know that they personally are absolute monsters to their assistants. Maybe they're not assaulting them, but man, that's it. They're pretty bad. So I think I think, as usual, Hollywood is better and can can actually get on its high horse in a way that is entertaining and funny and gripping and terrific. As long as everybody remembers that the people making those movies and, and, and acting in them and writing them and directing them and paying for them

are themselves deeply flawed individuals. Could I, could I, excuse me, question here. Why? This may be a question about human nature and not a question about Hollywood. And this is for both of you.

So to me personally, Roger was not a saint at, that is for both of you. So to me, personally, Roger was not a saint at that is the weakest possible formulation. Let's stipulate that Roger got up to some no good. Yeah. Nevertheless, to me, I have to say what's really fascinating is that in 1996, he and Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News and it worked. It's hard to do something like that. And furthermore, Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News and it worked. It's hard to do something like that. And furthermore, Rupert Murdoch had hired, I believe, three other people to try Fox News out, including Van Gorton Sauter, who had a very distinguished career. Where was it, NBC or CBS? And they couldn't make it work. And to me, the business question, how do you make that thing work, is far more interesting than what—well, I shouldn't—I don't want to put this—or forget about Roger Ailes.

Old Joe Kennedy, the founder of the Kennedy dynasty. The books about him talk about his many dalliances with Gloria Swanson and how unfaithful he was to Rose Kennedy and so forth. The man went from very modest Irish Boston beginnings to assembling a fortune that in today's dollars would be multiple billions. And I have yet to find an account of quite how he did it. Why aren't we more interested? Why aren't we more interested in business stories? That stuff is, that's kind of fresh. It's the Joe Kennedy's business story is different from Roger Ailes, but the sexual stuff is, it's bad, but it's not, it's not as interesting to me.

Am I making, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not trying to make a point about my, my, my libido. I'm just, why are we interested in the wrong things? They're not the wrong things. They're people things. It's like the way people treat other people. That's what you want to see. Every movie is about relationships. Every TV show is about relationships. It's really not about the subject.

People like to see people with other people. And they like to see other people get mean to other people and also be kind to other people and they, you know, they like to see other people's, you know, get, uh, mean to other people and also be kind to other people. It's like, so that's the promise. That's why there's no great movies about writers because they're not around people. They just sit in rooms and stare at pieces of paper, which brings us to the next question by hair forces. We have that right here. No, I'm sorry. Hair force one. And it's for Peter Robinson. Basically, how's that Cold War book coming? Oh, jeepers creepers. I put away the book about the Cold War, and now I'm writing a briefer book about one episode in the Cold War.

And that is all that I will say. Because I have learned through long and bitter experience that God gives you a choice each day. You may either write your story or talk your story, but not both. I'm done. That's very wise. Anyway, so, but I will tell, this year we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And it turned out that this younger, there's a whole generation of kids who don't remember the Cold War, let alone Ronald Reagan, let alone the Berlin Wall. And I suddenly realized that how that Berlin Wall speech came to be and how it almost got suppressed by the State

Department. There's a lot, a brief book about that. That's what I'm working on. Just to leave behind a document about a speech that turns out to have worked its way into a sense of American history and German history, too, for that matter. We'll get back to question time in just a second here. But right now, well, the great thing about the questions I'm looking at here is that each one of them for both of you guys and for me, it's just raw meat. There's one for me that's just beautiful raw meat. And you know, the great thing about raw meat is it can come right to your door. You don't have to go to the store for it.

That was beautiful. It was cheap, but I had to do it. Hey, listen, this year, did you make a resolution like I'm going to eat better, really? And maybe I'm going to spend less time and money at the grocery store? Well, you can eat better and you can spend less time and money at the grocery store thanks to ButcherBox.

Now, every month, ButcherBox ships a curated selection of high-quality meat right to your house. All meat free of antibiotics and added hormones. Each box has 9 to 11 pounds of meat. That's enough for 24 individual meals. It's packed fresh, shipped frozen, vacuum sealed, so it stays that way. You can customize your box, or you can go with one of theirs. Either way, you get exactly what you want. ButcherBox, it is a no-brainer.

It's the best meat shipped right to your door, which means one less trip to the grocers, right? Options like 100% grass-fed and finished beef, free-ranged organic chicken, heritage pork, wild-caught Alaskan salmon, and sugar nitrate-free bacon. It's the way meat should be. Now, right now, you can get two pounds of salmon absolutely free. Two pounds of salmon absolutely free, plus $20 off your first box. Just go to ButcherBox.com slash Ricochet or use the promo code Ricochet at your checkout. That's ButcherBox.com slash Ricochet or use the promo code Ricochet at your checkout. That's ButcherBox.com slash

Ricochet, or use the promo code Ricochet at checkout. And our thanks to ButcherBox for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. All right, next one has to do essentially with sort of, you know, we're kind of, we're adjacent to national review. So people kind of see us in that same umbrella. And Stad asked a question. do you think that Rich Lowry made a mistake with the against Trump issue? Why or why not? That's a really good question. I don't think you make a, I don't think it was a mistake because I don't think the magazine should be taking a magazine, certainly like national review should be advocating for a candidate or not. That's right. It feels to me like there was a preponderance.

That was a feeling that a huge number of editors felt at the time. Some of them have since made their peace with it. I don't think anybody thinks that what they wrote there isn't true, even today. But, you know, like when you're president of the United States, things happen and he's the only president we got. So and I think he's probably done a lot to reassure their fears. So, you know, look, I think I mean, I'm speaking out of school now, so probably I shouldn't. But I think that there's always when you're a nonprofit trying to raise money, there's always the fear that if you say something your donors won't like, you'll get into trouble. But I think Rich and the writers are smart and thoughtful, and I think that was a smart and thoughtful issue that even if you support Trump, you can disagree with and about is the fact that our side is getting to the point where if you disagree with me, you aren't the thing you say you are or I cannot respect you.

And I think that's that's going to be a bigger problem even years later after Trump. It was the second presidential cover mistake in National Review, in my opinion. The first one took place four years earlier when National Review endorsed Mitt Romney. Unless I'm mistaken, if I'm mistaken, I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about this, that National Review had never before endorsed a particular candidate. National Review had always stayed at the level of underlying philosophy, political aims. It had kept a distance between itself, the brain of the Republican Party, so to speak, the brain of conservatism. That's the point.

It wasn't a party operation. It was conservatism, one removed from actual practical politics. So to me, I'd rather they had not endorsed Romney, even as I'd rather they had not come out against Trump. It was the same kind of, the arguments may have been valid, but it was the same kind of error. It was an insertion of an intellectual magazine, of what in my judgment properly and at its best is an intellectual principled magazine, an insertion into practical politics i hear that i hear you i get you i i just thought it was it was interesting to read and it'll be interesting

to read i think it'd be interesting to read to dig it out read it again um i i think that if you're running a magazine you make this just cases i my if i were in an editorial meeting at the national review which i've never been in and would never want to be in, I would advocate strongly for a, uh, a recon, uh, all of every single one of those authors to read, to write a piece. Now, uh, you know, reconsider, um, I, I wasn't wrong, but it turns out I would, everything I predicted didn't happen. I don't know what it would be. You just come up or I was wrong. It doesn't matter that that to me, be very interesting document. And to, and to me, the job of a magazine is to be interesting. The people who are the least interesting are the people who just haven't moved off the dime

at all, despite evidence in this direction or that direction, haven't modified one. Yes. That's a very important insight, James, right there. Yes. Things have changed. Right. Because it reflects well on me and that's why I made it. I've got one for both of you. It's sort of a stumper. You have to think about it, and I'm going to give it to you, and then I'm going to answer a question to me, and you don't have to listen to what I have to say at all. As a matter of fact, Peter, I think you'll probably prefer that I don't. But here's the question you can concentrate upon whilst I blather.

It's from Happily Unoriginal. Yes. And the question is, Ricochet membership has skyrocketed, giving you enough cash to afford one trip in a time machine. Which historical moment do you travel to witness and why? So think about that. Let the Jeopardy clock play while I answer a question from Dennis A. Garcia, who asked,

James, what did you think of the Star Trek Picard premiere? And this is interesting because a few days ago, a week ago, Patrick Stewart, and we all love because he's a great guy, wonderful and winsome and cheerful and the rest of it, a great actor, came on and said that the new Star Trek Picard show was going to be about Brexit and Trump and all the BS that is happening in the world. And instantly just hearts fell all over the place because we don't really need to know what any of these people think about those things because we can pretty much guess it. And the last thing that we want is some really ridiculous distillation of modern politics forced into the template of Star Trek. Now you can say

Star Trek has always been about reflecting the templates of the politics of the moment. That's true. It hasn't done a very good job of it a lot. But yes, there's always some cultural relationship between what's going on now and how the show is presented. That's why Deep Space Nine was a post-Soviet Empire show. That's why Voyager was a Clinton-era show. I mean you can find the culture in each one of these things. What we didn't want was the fear that we're going to have some Trump type bombastic character wandering through Star Trek saying things wink wink that let everybody know we're the good people. So I felt better about that. And then I read a review popped up in my feet, didn't read the review, just saw the headline said, oh, can can Picard come back from its bafflingly bad premiere?

And I guess I'm no, I'm really not looking forward to it. can Picard come back from its bafflingly bad premiere? And I get it. So, no, I'm really not looking forward to it. I sit down last night. And remember, this is something that I've loved all my life. I watched the very first airing of the very first Star Trek show on a color TV in the farm back in Harwood, North Dakota. And so I've been with it for a while. And it starts out with a beautiful shot of the Enterprise, the D. I think it's the E.

And blue sky is playing. And I just, oh, my God. I understand what they're doing there. That's how the last movie ended. But I'm just kind of tired of these guys. I was going back to the well of middle 20th century as their touchstone for politics and cultural and the rest of it. And then the show begins. And there's not a moment in it really that I'm not impressed by for a variety of reasons. It was really good. And I can see where the stuff is going to come out. You're going to gnash your teeth about this and about that, but it's not that yet. It might not be.

Stewart is fantastic. The show had a pace that let it breathe. Unlike every one of these shows that has to set up a world, and here's all these characters with their individual quirks by which you shall know them. Here's the new ship. No, none of that. It was a story at the human level, right down to the point of Picard getting out of bed and looking at his vines and calling his dog, who he has named, number one, which was perfect.

So, yes, that's my verdict. I liked it. I can't wait for more. In the end, the way the show ended was fantastic. What a setup. All right. Enough money. Time machine.

Rob, where do you go? Oh, man. I was actually listening to you do the Star Trek thing. I really, honestly, I don't know. I think part of me would like to be in the room in Annapolis, I think, where they – wasn't it Annapolis where they had the constitutional convention? That was Philadelphia, I'm almost sure. Was it Philadelphia? For some reason I thought it was Annapolis. Well, I'd like to be there. I'd like to watch that.

I'd like to hang out there. I'd like to go have a little Madeira with the dudes afterwards and hear them argue. I would just like to hear their thoughts. And it would be really hard because what you'd want to tell them is, you have no idea how long to get this later. But I'd just love to hear these guys really think about, or if they did, really grapple with the size and the scale of the decisions and ramifications of the decisions they were making. I suspect they didn't. I don't know how you could and just still get up in the morning without.

I can just see you there, Rob. When they vote on the article that defines impeachment as for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. And Rob jumps up from his desk and says, fellas, fellas, what do you mean by other high crimes? Yeah, let's define it or strike it. Peter, what's your place to go? The one that came to mind, Unbidden, is a little too serious, maybe, but I'll say it anyway. I have always been fascinated, drawn to one scene in the Gospels, and that is where Jesus talks to the woman at the well. We know from the Gospel that it takes place at midday. She's a disreputable person, which is why she goes to the well at midday, so she won't encounter anybody else.

Meaning the traditional time would be in the cool of morning or the cool of dusk. There she is at the drawing water at midday, and Jesus talks to her. And she admits that she has led a dissolute life, five husbands, I think it is. And then later, she goes and runs and tells the townspeople, come see this man. He told me everything I ever did. And I think, who was the source for the gospel writer? Did the woman talk? Were they just at the edge? Were they close enough to overhear, to see it?

It just seems to me a fantastic moment in its stillness. Anyway, so that's... I didn't know you could say Bible stuff. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Sorry. We will change. Okay. The other one, my in-laws left Cuba in 1959. I would love to have witnessed the Cuban Revolution, and I would love to have read what they read and talked to the people that they talked to and seen the rudimentary black and white television images that they saw. Because the decision to leave everything, they were able to sew a few jewels into the hem of my mother-in-law's dress. But other than that, they left everything behind. And I know from talking about my father-in-law that they talked about this. And there were priests, Jesuit priests, who said, no, no, no, the revolution will be good for the country. You need to stay here. You owe it

to the revolution. It was a complicated, dramatic moment. And I would love just to, I'd love to see what they saw and hear what they heard and experience what they experienced to lead them to make such a dramatic and wrenching decision. I'm done. Interesting. Well, I, obviously I think if I had the money and the time, good time travel, I'd go back to that spot where Rob and Peter were sitting down having a few beers coming up with the ricochet. No, that's not true. I wouldn't spend it on that. Say don't. I wouldn't spend it on that.

I almost would like to do something like, because this is always historical moments, right? Big thing. And it's a giveaway to who you are, kind of a little show off to do which one you would. Would you go back and see the Hindenburg? Because that would be spectacular. Would you go back to the Titanic if you knew you could get off? That'd be incredible. Fire of London. I have a fascination with ancient Rome. So maybe I would like to go back to the Senate and see Cicero during the Catiline conspiracy, denounce the senators and have them led away right there to go be executed. That was a pivotal moment in Roman history. And to be there and to hear the speechifying, I'd love to hear the

sound of his voice. I'd love to watch him. All of that stuff would be very fascinating. But still, that isn't what I would do. Because, you know, at the end of it, you've been there, you've seen the speeches, you got out of speeches, you got out of that, what you got out of it. What's the one thing I could do that would give me the most widest ranges of satisfaction and interest and fascination. I would go back to New York city, June 1st, 1926. Okay. You've got our attention going. I give up. What did happen on June 1st, 1926 in New York? Nothing. I would go back.

I would like to wake early in the morning in New York City on the first day of June and just spend the entire day walking the island, going into the cafes, buying some gum, going to the movies, picking up a paper, sitting in the park and end it, you know, in a speakeasy, maybe somewhere late at night and then vanish at three o'clock in the morning. That would be it. I'm fascinated by the twenties and all of these aspects of culture that we can recreate from newspapers and television, novel stories, songs, whatever. Still, there's all the little quotidian details of life are gone. What the cafe smelled like.

When you bought the cologne at the drugstore, what it smelled like, what the gum tasted like, what was dirty, how the streets, whether it was clean, the sounds of construction, the vernacular that we've met. All of that stuff would be just fascinating. Hey, fella, get out of my way.

Yeah, all that stuff. You'd love it. I can see my way yeah all that stuff you'd love it you i can see you're standing there listening to people what are you staring at fella come on get something you're being and you're like i just love everything you're saying right right i love your i love your your plus fours yes like i can just see you like eventually that you know here's how this this this twilight zone episode ends james you're carted off to bellevue right because they're staring at me He's a nut job. Well, it'd be funny if you had to equip yourself for dress based on what you thought was appropriate and you ended up looking like Harold Lloyd with the straw boater and the black glasses

and the smile and all the rest of it, only to find out that you'd shown up looking like it's like somebody going back to New York in 1979 and dressing like Woody Allen as a schlub. I mean, you'd fit in, but it would be a recognizable archetype. Anyway, that's my selection. And, you know, we're almost at the end of the podcast here, and we didn't get to all of them. I did not get to Gary Robinson's 47 questions, so I have to go off to Question Time post on Ricochet.com and answer them.

And you guys should too people love it when you pitch in right so where where is it i'm good okay so as long as you may you don't know no no i mean where are the 47 questions that's what i got them you want us to can we get answer that really quickly if you want um do you want to read you want to read them and we'll and we'll go uh the gary robbins one if you have them in front of we'll go? The Gary Robbins one? If you have them in front of you. I do. Gary Robbins asks, who owns Ricochet?

Are there owners other than Robin Peter? Is Ricochet a partnership, a corporation, or an LLC? Who is the CEO? These appeal to my lawyer side, and it may not be helpful to Rick Shea for public dissemination, but we're transparent. Who thought up the mods? How do you get them to serve without pay? I'll do the last stuff first. who thought up the mods how do you get them to serve without pay i'll do the last stuff first who thought up the mods well i mean we i guess we realized we needed them all along and we didn't really know how to do it and how do we get them to serve without pay

it's like well because they're members of the club and we want you to be a member of the club too if you're not a member and people who are members of a club want to make sure that the club stays kind of true to its initial goal, which was civil, fun, interesting conversation between and among members of the center right. So the mods serve without pay, but they serve the membership. They serve their fellow members, of which we hope you join. Who owns Ricochet? A complicated array of investors, some of whom are incredibly warm-hearted and love the mission, some of whom thought they were going to get a return. So are there owners other than Rob and Peter? There are many owners.

Many, many. Many, many, and many more than we imagined because we've had to raise investment money a fair amount. All of our owners or partners we're grateful for and to, and they are helpful in many ways. So it's a corporation. Maybe it's an LLC. I can't remember. I can't remember either. I can't remember either.

It's an LLC officially, and the CEO whose voice you either heard now or can't remember. What are we? I can't remember either. I can't remember either. It's an LLC officially, and the CEO, whose voice you either heard now or didn't hear, is the well-known Blue Yeti Scott. He is the CEO, the absolutely, absolutely beleaguered And underappreciated and often unfairly abused by some of us, CEO of Ricochet. And yet and yet, he is the heroic figure who has figured out how to raise a little money here, how to raise a little money there, how to sell ads and make it such that we pretty much just about cover our expenses. And that is, for this operation, just huge. I believe in the past fiscal year, I don't want to give away too much info, that the ricochet losses were kept to the four figures. Six if you count pennies, but still. Six if you count pennies, which we do. And we used to. Yeah, we used to, which is pretty good, but not that good.

So not really enough to grow and to reach out and to make sure that we're here for not only the next four years of the Trump administration, but the subsequent four years of God only knows. So please join. And that was the last four years of God only knows. So please join. And that was the last question I didn't get to. I miss Rob's member pitches. When are they coming back? Really?

No one said that. No one said that. No one said that ever. No one said that ever. Hey, before we go, I got to remind you, the podcast was brought to you by ButcherBox and by Lending Club. Support them for supporting us. Everybody wins in that transaction. Take a minute, if you will, to leave.

I'm not even going to pretend that you will, but you might. Some sudden philanthropy blooms in your breast. You go to Apple Podcasts and give us a five-star review. That'd be just great because the more people who get the podcast, the more people contribute to Ricochet, and the more people realize the benefits and joys of the member feed. And yeah, it's a great place to go. And we need you. We always need you. And so go do all those things. Get somebody else to join. So you too can get a personalized message from Rob and Peter saying, hi, I'm not able to take your phone call right now, but if you leave a message at the sound of the beep, I'll get back to you when I can. That's right. That's our new 2020 gimmick, personalized answer. I'm kidding. Man, I was scared for a minute, but I'll get back to you when I can. That's right. That's our new 2020 gimmick, personalized answer.

I'm kidding. Man, I was scared for a minute, but I thought I agreed to it. Right, because you'll be all day doing the little cameos. Peter, Rob, it's been a pleasure. Like I said, there's more questions waiting in the member feed. I'm going to head off this afternoon and do some cleanup, and you might too. And what else can I say except we'll do this again next week. Next week, boys. Next week, boys.

Next week, fellas. Bye. Bye. ¶¶ Ricochet. Join the conversation.