The Ricochet Podcast - A Clickbait Christmas

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

For the last podcast of the year, Steve, Charles and Rob pull out all the stops to grab the attention of podcast listeners worldwide: some theology here, a little healthcare debate there, a few notes on Congress' gargantuan Christmas list. Plus, there's the WSJ write-up on the efforts to conceal Joe Biden's decline, Kirsten Gillibrand's ERA absurdity, and some insights from Rob on how show-biz will be forced to come to its senses.Sound clip from today's open: Nancy Mace sifts through the CR bill.

We're just getting a couple of scratchy notes when you're especially emphatic or loud. I promise not to be emphatic this entire podcast. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Steve Hayward sitting in for James Lilac, joined by Charles C.W. Cook and Rob Long. And we're going to kick around the news ahead of Christmas week.

Let's have ourselves a podcast. There are 500 plus pages related to health care policy, which doesn't have anything to do with keeping the government open. There is $100 billion of disaster relief in here, which is desperately needed, by the way, but should be its own standalone bill. Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, I'm in the final weeks of my presidency. You don't have to clap for that.

You can if you want. It's the Ricochet Podcast, episode 721. This is Steve Hayward substituting for the usual dulcet tones of James Lilacs, who's not with us today. But I'm joined by Charles C.W. Cook and some wandering stranger named Rob Long. I had that name in the past, right? Wandering mendicant. So welcome, gentlemen. We don't have a guest today. It's just going to be us kicking around some holiday thoughts, going over some news of the day. But I do, I think, want to start by saying, Rob, you have just finished your first semester in seminary on

your way to taking holy orders. And I'm interested in this venture, this quest of yours in general terms. But also, I sort of remember my first semester in graduate school a long time ago now and how much more intense it was than being an undergraduate. i don't know how's it gone well are you are you done yet uh are you learning aramaic what are the highlights for us i have learned here's what i've learned i've learned uh it's been a lesson in humility right which is good right because that's the sort of uh especially on advent it's good to remember that um and the humility comes from um two things one the humility of of uh stepping away from politics for a while and then being humbled by the fact that i had to shell out a thousand dollars from a bet i made two years ago saying there's no way trump's gonna win um was that with

ann coulter uh no i think ann coulter actually i think she actually agreed with me two years ago and it's like it is constant cycles. Anne is like always iterating. She's like a, you know, kind of a web app. She's always getting better. I just thought, ah, it's just not going to happen. And also just that I discovered that, you know, I'm a man of a certain age. And at a certain point, your brain, the human brain, my brain anyway, cannot understand how to memorize biblical Greek. Oh.

I just can't do it. And I'm old enough to know I can't do it. And I'm old enough also to be mad about it. Not at myself, but at the idea that I'm supposed to. Because I can't do it. I mean, it's been a giant disaster for me. And I kind of feel like, wait a minute. I have a book.

Just give me a class where you teach me how to look this crap up. I'll look it up. That and Hebrew. Just give me cocktail party Greek and cocktail party Hebrew and I'm set. There's always a book. I'm old enough to remember when people said to me in math in math class well you're not always going to have a calculator well no i get i literally always have a calculator there's always a my god there's an app for biblical greek is an app for hebrew i don't need to memorize anything i can't memorize anyway so

that that is the that that has been very humbling on the other hand what i discovered is that it's really fun that um that i recommend it to people if you've ever had this sort of sense that wouldn't it be great if i my job today was to read do it oh don't let anybody tell you you're too old because you're not too old you're too old probably to memorize greek but you're not too old to do a lot of other great things. So that's my message. Well, you know, they're still saying that youth is wasted on the young. And I've long ago concluded that education is wasted on the young in many cases, too. I agree.

And, you know, well, so you're, I'm guessing, probably the oldest person in your graduate class. Excuse me. Back off, buddy. I am one of them. Okay. But I don't know. I mean, I think my observation as an undergraduate, and I had a lot of older Vietnam War vets who had come back to college. They were always, this is in the 70s, they were always the most interesting people in class. Always the best at drawing things out of both the faculty and us fellow students who are just right out of high school and

stupid. And then, you know, now that I'm a classroom teacher again myself, I observe the same thing. The older students are always the ones who have it together more. Just a little bit of real-world experience makes a ton of difference in a serious educational venture. One quick question, then I'll see if Charlie has any theological inquiries for you. I'm available, Charlie, to has any theological inquiries for you. I'm available, Charlie, to be your spiritual guide.

Thank you. Is there any one particular aspect of—this is too broad. I wish I could do more specific, Rob, but is there any one particular thing that has caught your attention you weren't anticipating, or that's a surprise? You mean in the studies or just the idea of being a student? No, in the studies studies in the actual subject matter as a christian um there's just a tendency you know obviously it's a you know come you could get you come to it in good faith but there's a tendency to read the hebrew bible as like a preview of coming attractions ah right like okay this is a spoiler alert it's a giant drum roll

and anytime i'm confused or i am reacting in a weird way to something in the Hebrew Bible, I can say, well, you know, here's the problem. You all need Jesus. That's the problem. And he's on his way. And I think that's a mistake. And, you know, luckily I have two professors in Old Testament exegesis who are, you know, fairly devout Christians. One is, in fact, a practicing minister. And I'm going to say this can sound horrible and racist.

It's one of those Korean churches that I just can never keep straight. Right. And they've both been really great about never doing that. And it's amazing when you never do that and you just, that's the thing. That's a tendency you always fight. How much the whole thing kind of explodes. There's a reason. I know I'm going on and on and on, although it's Advent.

There is no reason in Western political social thought that can explain the persistence of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and their persistence. There is no reason for it. There should be no Jews in the world if we believe in the patterns of history. Crushed by empires to the Egyptian empire and the Assyrian empire and the Babylonian empire and the Persian empire, then the Greeks, and then the Romans, and nobody's going to worship Ra or Jupiter or Zeus or Zoroaster or anybody like that. Well, Zoroaster will be few. Well, yeah.

There are a few. There are a few. Very few. And how come? There's got to be a reason. And I think the reason is, you know, that's why the Hebrew Bible is so fascinating. The reasons why. Well think the reason is you know that's what why the hebrew bible is so fascinating the reasons well funny story for you on that rob i remember marking some years ago now that the florida 2000 election was so close that any group could claim to have

been the swing vote that put bush over the top why the zoroastrian the zoroastrian vote and the young lady i was telling this to says well actually, actually, I'm Zoroastrian. It turned out I met the only Zoroastrian. She was from that part of Iran. And there's now a federal judge, by the way, appointed by President Trump. I'll just add that little detail for the fun of it. Charlie, do you have any theological curiosities you want to draw out of Rob? Yeah, we got to win back the fire worshiping. You know, if he's going to find the grail for, uh, for,

for us or something. Well, the first thing I would say is I would strongly advise Harry against using the pull quote from your last, there should be no Jews in the world. You paused after you said it. And I thought, Oh dear,

where's this one guy? Yeah. I get accused of two positions on religion that i don't hold it's a strange existence one is i'm reflexively accused of being an evangelical because i'm pro-life the other is that i'm accused of hating religion or being annoyed by it or opposed to it in some way which just isn't true i just don't have it i'm a very literal atheist I'm married to a devout Catholic. My children are being raised Catholic. I like religion. I wish I had it, but I don't. And I'm not going to say I do until I do out of respect for myself and others. I was raised culturally Christian. I'm pleased about that.

I had a guy on my podcast, Catholic priest, and we talked about the existence of God a few months ago. It was very good. And someone said to my podcast, Catholic priest, and we talked about the existence of God a few months ago. It was very good. And someone said to me recently, you know, there was a good conversation because you didn't scoff. And I said, well, I didn't feel tempted to scoff. I'd have to scoff at my own wife. I think that would be bizarre.

And most of my colleagues. So I don't know if I have questions, but I'm certainly interested. And also you can't escape and I don't use that word to imply that I want to you can't escape the poll of this time of year even if you don't

believe in the metaphysical parts of it if you were raised with it which I was and the schools I went to were Christian and the culture was Christian you just can't escape the power of it. So I just wanted to throw that in there because even though I don't believe that it is true, at least not yet, as my friends keep telling me, the power of the story is extraordinary.

Well, I'll just, two quick observations and then we'll press on to some of the story is extraordinary. Well, I'll just, two quick observations, and then we'll press on to some of the current headlines. One is, Charlie, you mentioned that people assume you must be a religious fanatic because you're pro-life. You know, someone who was strongly pro-life, although it didn't seem to come up that often in discussions, was Christopher Hitchens, who's not just an atheist, but very hostile to organized or even disorganized religion, right? He was very strongly, he's not just an atheist, but very hostile to organized or even

disorganized religion, right? He was very strongly, he's not the only one. I believe the late Nat Hentoff was also pro-life. I think so too, yeah. Yeah. So, and by the way, they both said it on logical grounds. Human life has to begin somewhere. Well, the most logical place is at or near conception. Okay. And Hitchens was blunt about that whenever it came up, as he was on all things. Second, you know, I think I'm with you on, you know, organized religion maybe is an oxymoron. Maybe not. But I do sometimes like to draw people's attention to something C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, Surprised by Joy, which tells about him becoming a Christian. And in there, he really does confess that, gosh, I really don't like organized religion.

I don't often like going to church. I find it sort of stuffy and clunky. And so even someone as pious and metaphysically inclined as Lewis has some of your disposition about that. So you're not so much of an outlier. I'll just, I don't know. Can I make a pastoral note, Charlie? Sure. I go to church because of something that I need, not something that I have.

So you don't have to have it to go. What do you mean by that? I mean, I feel like there's something there that I need, and I probably need it more than once a week. And that's why I go. I don't go as a... There a there's a whole it's an argument now sort of a big debate and i'm sure we don't have to get into this theological debate here because there's like there's important politics to talk about there's a department of the secretary of the interior or whatever um but uh the big debate is sort of who gets to who gets to receive the eucharist at the church and the traditional word is you you have to be baptized and confirmed, or baptized and confirmed in some way.

So you'd have to be not in that church, but sort of very conservative. I'm specifically talking about the American Episcopal Church, Anglican slice. I don't really know any other denomination. The argument is, well, okay, well, if you haven't been confirmed, maybe at least you have to have been baptized and they say the phrase they use is font to table baptism font to the altar table to the eucharist table that's the direction you're supposed to go in and um there's a bunch of other like loosey-goosey progressive weirdos like me who think

no anybody can come and receive because it's not our feast it's not our table it's not our invitation um we're just the caterers um and the invitation doesn't come from us um and the the person the invitation comes from um famously had a open door policy um so sometimes you go and sometimes I go and I feel absolutely nothing and I simply sit there in the pew and I organize my week. And sometimes I go and I think,

why am I here? I had a bunch of reading to do and I'm tired. I'm going home to take a nap or I'm hungry or whatever. I wish I had had that third glass of wine last night. And sometimes I go and I get close to experiencing

what I'm supposed to experience or what it's what it's been what has what i've been invited there to experience whether i've been there or not um so you know that's why i go i go for something i don't go be as an expression of of faith i go because i i need so i go with my wife and kids and then there are parts of it that are not canonical if you will but are nevertheless powerful for example the music and i grew up with that too so that's partly a matter of reminiscence the thing that really matters to me is whether or not i believe the claim at the heart of it and you mentioned c.s lewis he is pretty big on that so i can do what you just, although I don't get the experience that you described,

unless I'm confusing it for music sometimes, I suppose. But it matters to me that I don't believe the core claim that is being made in the sermon or in the texts. Does it matter too much? Do you think I'm over thinking it? No, I think a lot of people feel that way. I think that's legitimate. I mean, these are hard things to believe, right?

I mean, it's filled with miracles and weird events, right? So, yeah, that should be very hard to believe. I don't think that's a problem. I went to Israel a little while ago, a couple years ago,, before, before October 7th, but I went, it was in Jerusalem. And I spent the first few days doing this kind of thing where I looked around and I was like, okay, well, you had a guide and the guide was like, okay, here, around here is probably where this or that happened.

And so I spent the, I spent at least three of the days that I was there just doing this kind of like CSI Jesus, right? Is there any evidence? Of course there's no evidence right because it's like what happened 20 feet below whatever you know happened you know jerusalem's been destroyed and rebuilt many times um and then i stopped doing that and i said okay what if I just didn't worry about that part? And what is the faith that this, what is this faith actually asking me to do? And I think we are stuck sometimes in the idea that the faith is asking us to believe a set of principles. We have a Nicene Creed, we have

Apostles' Creed. It's interesting, the Nicene Creed, it lists the very, very specific aspects of Christ's birth, the very specific aspects of his death, the very specific aspects of his death the very specific aspects of christology which people have been fighting over for years it doesn't really say anything about the stuff he did or said or taught it's like you're getting a sandwich with just the pieces of bread and no meat inside and i think it's kind of easy actually not easy but it's easier to um believe or convince yourself or convince others or believe, even truly believe, in all of those events. It's much easier to do that than it is to actually live the way he told you to live. Which is one of the reasons why we focus on that.

Well, there's a reason it's called faith, Charlie. And Rob and I, some other time, you and I can argue about salvation by grace alone or other aspects of it. And for the listeners who haven't chased away who came here great no no we're just big very big right now steve don't you know it's very hot no well i'm going to extend the uh the metaphor divine intervention uh because maybe the house republicans could use some divine intervention right now having completely flubbed the continuing resolution to keep the government open. And, I mean, there's a whole lot to be said about this.

The usual people in the chattering classes are aghast that Elon Musk and Twitter may have whipped up the mob to prevent the House from passing a resolution. Other people in the grassroots are pointing to a lot of, I think the technical term is, crap that was in the bill. We could list some, and Charlie may want to list a few of these. I don't know. What do we make about this, Charlie? I'm sure you're following this probably more closely than I am. I have a big problem with the tactic that we're now seeing, which is to wait until the end of the year,

throw everything into one bill against a deadline, then focus in on one part of it that you think is the most politically popular and claim that those who don't want to pass the bill as is are opposed to that. They do this every time. They push it and push it and push it. And then they come up with this behemoth of a bill, one section of which is the Saving Kittens Act. And then you say, I don't think we should do this because of all of the other things that are in the bill. And they say, Representative Cook opposes the Saving Kittens Act or is blocking the Saving Kittens Act or is blocking the Saving

Kittens Act. And now they've added on to this blame for Elon Musk. Now it's Donald Trump's billionaire friends are blocking the Saving Kittens Act. Well, you know, Congress could right now, literally right now,

on Thursday, December 19th, take that part of the bill bring it to the floor and vote on it the argument here is that there are portions of this continuing resolution that have overwhelming bipartisan support that would never be filibustered that wouldn't even need a full chamber in either part of the legislature. So do it. If it is imperative that we have disaster aid, which is this year's Saving Kittens Act, I think there's a lot of pork in there and a lot of problems with the way that it's been structured. But if that is imperative right now for North Carolina, for Florida, for elsewhere, go do it. Just pull it out, do it, and then keep arguing about the rest of the stuff. But of course, they don't want to do it. Now, you are going to have some degree of that in any democratic system, because people horse trade, and they should. You can't have politics

without it. I would love it if every single part of every bill were voted on separately, so we could see who voted for what. But you're never going to get that. You are going to get quid pro quo. But this, I mean, there has to be some space, right, between every part of every bill being voted on independently and yes or no at the end of the year. So I really object to this tactic. And I think it is a good thing, irrespective of the motivations or whether or not there's a plan. I think it is a good thing that someone has finally said no, just to make the argument against it. Even if we end up with a bill that looks very much like this continuing resolution. And then we have to have the same fight next year.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gosh. I could go on all day about the incompetence of this whole scene. The fact that it doesn't follow the law, which is now almost 50 years old, about how Congress is supposed to pass budgets every year. Right. Right. almost 50 years old about how Congress is supposed to pass budgets every year. And then second, I mean, but even if you say, oh gosh, we've once again frittered away an entire year and we have to do a continuing resolution to keep the government going, it seems to me that if

you had any wit about you, you would pass a budget resolution that reduced spending by even a small amount, spread the pain around. Second, I don't understand why somebody isn't alert to all the things being snuck into this bill. So, or another one, take some hostages. What I've said was, is look, if I was a member of the House and unhappy about things, you can have my vote if you gave me five budget cuts. Cut funding to Planned Parenthood, cut funding to NPR, cut the State Department grants to leftist NGOs around the world that are essentially subsidies for left-wing activism. It wouldn't amount to much money. But you take it this time, then you go and do it again the next time.

And that would be some progress. Oh, there's also some definitional changes. Some people have flagged this on Twitter, where the language in the bill says, for like the appropriation for the Justice Department, they want to change the definition of defendant to justice-involved individuals. It's all these, you know, woke euphemisms. Currently justice-involved individuals. I mean, how in the world, how do Republicans who run the House let this slip through? No one's reading this. No one's paying attention.

I have theories about why the capacities to do that even mentally have atrophied to almost nothing. But no, I'm with you, Charlie. I'm delighted they're turning it down. And by the way, last point, government shutdown, we always hear. Well, as we know, if you pay attention, Social Security checks still go out. Medicare and Medicaid still get paid. The military is still on watch and getting paid. Oh, by the way, is your local police department still patrolling the streets? How about your local public schools? Is Governor Newsom, sadly, still on the job in California? We have something like 30,000 governmental units in this country, and only one is partially interrupting its business for a couple of weeks. This is Washington media theater is what's going on. And, you know,

I think most people wouldn't notice, I don't think. Maybe in some small ways, you know, the mails, but even the mail gets delivered. So this whole government shutdown, oh, it's the end of the world, has become a real farce. And I can't believe we haven't figured that out by now. Well, I think that's the feature of it, right? I mean, if I just sort of cut out the date of the newspaper and just started reading articles about the imminent government shutdown and the budget ceiling debate, you wouldn't know what year we were in. You wouldn't know we were in 2024. You might think that we were in 1995, for that matter matter because we had this conversation in 1995 this is actually the way it gets done and it's the worst way possible and we sort of can't bestir ourselves to fix it i mean this is what you do when you you know you put everything off the last minute you then can't be blamed for the fact that it's all crap because of course it's crap we did it in 48 hours before we all went for Christmas. The downside of a government shutdown isn't the shutdown.

The downside is when they eventually turn it back on. And when they turn it back on, they pay everybody in the arrears. Everybody gets paid and they get paid even more. It costs more to shut the government down. That's the problem. The other problem I think is that we don't have a real sense of what it is we want this

federal government to do and it is was much easier when we thought we here's what we want them to do we want them to make sure the soviets know we're going to obliterate the soviet union if they try to obliterate the united states that was the goal and without that then we're kind of adrift and so i i'm always i'm always surprised when i read the america first crowd which is by the way a philosophy that i find very compelling in a lot of ways but also arguing to make the military bigger it's like well wait a minute we're not going to have those wars so we're not going to fight them or let other people fight them we should just be protecting our borders we it's a much smaller we need a much smaller military if we're going to do that so

there's all sorts of big decisions we just don't want to make not notwithstanding the fact that um it still is about entitlements it's still about medicare and social security and it's not it's not going to change until we have a big i mean it may it may end up that we all look at each other and say you know that president that we didn't really like very much that got us into a stupid war in iraq george w bush turns out he was right about social security and if we pass social security reform when we had a chance we would be in a much different fiscal place than we are now so can i give you the devil's advocate on that because i agree with you so i just want to still man this i agree with you if you think about where we would be now if social security had been privatized if you look at the gains of the stock market over the last 20 years it would have fixed the problem

here's the one worry that i have with the counterfactual 2008 we know this now yeah but in 2008 when all the markets crashed bush would have gone from approval rating 28% to 2%. The Republicans would have been wiped out in greater numbers than they were. And the Democrats would have renationalized Social Security. I just can't see any other outcome. They would have looked at it and said, not only do we have all the problems that we had in 2005, which is when they would have changed this, we're now in the hole.

The outlook for it is impossible. That's the problem I've got. I just don't think it can sustain. Maybe now it could because you'd have had 20 years of games, but COVID would have been another one. You remember that day in the stock market where it went down 10%? But I mean, there were solutions to that and it may may may have been a danger zone in the early days of it but the idea what look if you if you can if you can convince

the lenders all the lenders not just worldwide but in markets every day that in 30 years in 40 years this won't be a problem you will feel the effects today in the economy positive effects we're talking about 15 30 year notes right um so there's there are ways around it the problem is you just you you you nobody really wants to do it because everybody likes big government even people who say they don't like the government they just don't like your big government they like their big government not you i remember that great i saw what once this is million billion years ago i was uh driving through a town small town in california in central valley and it was a tea party rally this is before the tea parties became sort of basically a political grift based

in washington when it was still a bunch of old people marching around with signs and one of the signs said say no to socialism hands off my medicare my medicare right okay well i'm not sure these are all right i'm gonna defend that too yeah i'm serious no i get to try to go yeah i agree that there is a complete paradox in the way a lot of people think about big government i agree that we have big government because we want it i agree that nobody wants to fix it it hasn't gone amiss on me that the republican who has won the last two times has explicitly run against fixing entitlements. So, totally agree. Here's why I'll defend that sign. The Obamacare debate was in full flow. Obamacare took money out of Medicare,

which annoyed people. The Democratic Party, since Social Security was passed, and then 30 years later, Medicare was passed, has told people, erroneously and had to admit that it was not, in fact, an insurance program, that it was a welfare program. The reason that I have some sympathy for the person who held up that sign and thought some of the mockery was unfair was that that person has been told over and over and over and over again that they have paid in yes that's true an insurance program for their retirement fund and for their retirement health care that is their money that they're not getting out anything they didn't put in and that it's

unreasonable for people to take it away and they believed it and what bothered me about that incident was that those people who have been told this at that point for 70 80 90 years then turned around to the democrats who were trying to change this with obamacare and said hands off my medicare i paid into it's an insurance program and the democrats started mocking them for it right i just thought that was sort of deeply unfair of course it is silly but for the democrats not you rob for the democrats to do what they did when they saw that sign, I just thought it was like, come on. Well, the important thing is, I think the case you're referring to, Charlie, if I remember right, is Helvering v. Davis from a long time ago. And what it means is, you know, we talk about Social Security and Medicare as

entitlements. That case means it's not an entitlement, strictly speaking. It can be taken away from you by the legislature. You don't own anything. Now, I think an additional difficulty is an awful lot of people, probably a majority of Americans, are risk-averse. If you tell them, we will guarantee you, quote-unquote guarantee you, $2,000 a month, or we can have this private account system where you have a 75% chance of having $3,500 a month, or we can have this private account system where you have a 75% chance of having $3,500 a month when you retire. A lot of people are going to opt for the first one because it's certain, and the other one has. And then add in, as Rob points out, a couple of crashes. Now, I'm a contrarian. Every time the market tanks, like it did this week, not so much

this week, but the two previous ones, I get, and I buy like crazy hand over fist. Yes, but see, if you're a contrarian thinker about these things, you do very well on markets like that. You bought the day, if you bought on October 20, 1987, you did really, really well. And I think, okay, I'm not going to brag about my, I mean, I'm not Warren Buffett, but I've done very well. You got a nice house on the coast there. I do. I'm looking out the ocean right now out my window. So there's that problem.

And I do think that even if you have some shock absorbers, and Rob suggested you could solve this problem by sort of reinsurance in a certain way. You could absolutely solve it, Bob. I still think the mass psychology of a crash and the uncertainty would make it politically fraught to try and maintain it. Or the government would regulate it to death. I would also say that probably our, and I think, Charlie, that's a very good distinction, because I think even our language of calling them entitlements is wrong. Right.

Because there's a retirement savings, old age savings, rainy day fund, which is sort of what social security is in general it's a rainy day fund for some people it's got disability insurance associated with it it has early retirement has like uh you know dependent and orphan widow stuff and it also has retirement fund all wrapped up and that's that's a financial instrument essentially or more than about three different financial instruments and then there's health insurance which is medicare which is not a financial instrument by any means and isn't really insurance in any meaningful way. It is simply a, an account with which we as a culture and a country fund each other's health in some ways. And we often, and this always bugs me when people say things that, well, you know,

Americans spend X percent of this on that and they shouldn't spend that much. Like, well, what on earth are you spending your money on? If you're not spending your money on your health, actually, what are you spending it on? Well, we don't have the same outcomes. We have worse outcomes than they do. That's because we do more. And maybe we do too much.

Maybe people are going to the doctor too often, or maybe they're taking antibiotics when they shouldn't, and that may be another problem. But we actually have a very, very, very aggressive and innovative and incredibly flexible health system in this country. And if you'd said 10 years ago that I would be able to go on my Zoom and go to a doctor and get my toe looked at and get a prescription, and the CVS around the corner would send me a push alert telling me that the prescription's ready for me within 10 minutes. That's an amazing thing. You don't have that in any other country.

And so I always think of like, well, maybe we're not spending enough on health. Maybe we don't need to keep the cost of health insurance down. What are we, what are you going to spend it on if you're not going to spend it on that one reason that we spend so much is that americans simply won't put up with the outcomes that you get in say britain my parents are experiencing this at the moment my dad had a knee operation recently before they had a hip replacement get to go private because the hip replacement would have taken three and a half years. Americans won't accept that. And so both within the government spending and the private spending, we don't have the rationing that we have in other systems,

which means we spend more money. We're also a lot richer. And as you say, when you're rich, you spend money on healthcare because why wouldn't you? Yeah. No, I think that's absolutely true. But I think also just in terms of how we, just the accounting for outcomes,

you don't have a bad outcome for a hip replacement you didn't get. And you don't have a bad outcome for a procedure that you wouldn't get somewhere else. So in France, you don't have these bad outcomes because you don't have a bad outcome for a procedure that you wouldn't get somewhere else so in france you don't have these bad outcomes because they don't you don't get it same thing in britain or in canada you're in line you don't get it when you come to america if you're really sick yeah yeah come to america yeah and you get inferior yeah and you may and that outcome you know like spending more on on health health insurance or health care doesn't mean that you're not going to die of a disease. It just means that we're going to probably spend a whole lot of money making sure that, trying to make sure that doesn't happen.

And that's going to mean your outcomes aren't as good. But I still say, like, I hate it when people say, well, we should not be spending as much as we spend on health care. And I don't know, well, what else are you going to spend it on well we might be able to spend it better but that that's uh well i'd be two things here at least one is i thought obamacare fixed all this right and this has been uh conspicuously missing uh almost for gun control out of this terrible episode of of assassinating the head of United Healthcare. And then the second one is, you still hear people like AOC, I guess, saying, we ought to have Britain's National Health Service here. But Charlie, my understanding is,

I mean, you and I know, and people who are informed know that it's dreadful service, but I understand it's widely unpopular in Britain right now. People are mad about it. It's a huge political issue for whatever parties in government. Yeah, well, a couple of things on the health service. First off, the British have a very odd relationship with the National Health Service, which is that they hate it, but also it's a national treasure. And those two things. It's a very British response, by the way. Yeah. So if you're an American and you criticize it, they will immediately get their backs up and say, no, it's the enemy of the world. world but between themselves they will accept that it's not good the american left's love for the british national health service is and i think many americans don't understand this it is extreme even in world terms because the national health service is unusual within europe in that it is a government organization that is run directly by the

government. Every single hospital is owned by the government. All the doctors and nurses work for the government. It is quite literally a nationalized health care system. Both the funding and the provision are the government. That's not how most systems, even those with single payer, work. France does not work like that. France has a system of private health insurance and private hospitals and doctors and so forth that is mostly, although not all, funded by the government. The same is true of Germany. The same is true in most prosperous countries in the East. The British model was contrived in 1948, and I will try not to go on here, but I think this matters, when the Labour Party that had won after World War II, had a huge mandate and mistook the public's desire for much more equality economically for a desire for nationalization. If you look back at the

election of 1945, it is true that people wanted a National Health Service. There's no point pretending otherwise. What they mostly wanted was 2 million new houses built because we've just been bombed to smithereens by the Nazis. That was the main thing that got that government elected. But the National Health Service was popular. But the popular part was the payment. People said, I don't want to go broke if I get sick. I don't want to pay to go to the doctor. I don't want to pay if my children need an operation.

That was the principle that people liked. No one cared how it was done. They didn't say, I need the government to run all of this. But because the Labour Party of 1945 was extremely left-wing, was quasi-Marxist, patriotic, that was a good thing about that party, patriotic, but quasi-Marxist, it said, we have a mandate to nationalize everything. And so when Winston Churchill comes back in in 1950-51,

the conservatives reprivatized quite a lot of industry. They just can't do it with the National Health Service for a couple of reasons. First off, the footprint of the NHS in the 50s was actually quite small. It really was covering doctor's appointments and glasses and that sort of thing second by that point you had a whole bunch of infrastructure that had been placed into the government that had its own interest groups and it was very very difficult but i just wanted to point out that when aoc says this what i always think is no you want france's system that's what you want you don't want brit Britain's system where the government literally runs everything,

or at least I assume not. Well, I mean, and we have, we do have templates for this. I mean, not that we want to recreate this, but the government issues food stamps. They didn't go out and start a lot of farms. They didn't go into the food-making business. They said, here, use these little stamps and go, you buy food. You can go to the supermarket. They didn't go into the food-making business. They said, here, use these little stamps and go. You buy food. You can go to the supermarket. They didn't open a

supermarket. There's ways to do this. And I just kind of, my general point about healthcare, just separate it from retirement and other financial instruments, is that what are you going to spend it on? I think it's great that rich

people are spending a lot of money on health care. It's fantastic. This is good. Innovation trickles down to everybody. It makes it cheaper. That's good. The first adopters always make it cheaper for everybody else. We should encourage that.

But what does it matter to us that a hospital – I mean, it doesn't matter to me at all. I mean, I think this is something that we should be encouraging. And I don't think the expenditure on health care is by definition something that we need to stop. So, you know, Charlie, I'm going to file away Rob's argument here, which I understand, but I think it could also be misinterpreted along with his remark on Jews earlier. He's just, you're back two for two here today, Charlie, right? But look, this is, you know, now for the listeners, we didn't lose with theology and now haven't lost with healthcare. We're hitting all the hits today. Aren't you

glad I'm back? Look, the other, I mean, this is all absurd, not the theology part. But the other thing that happened this week that I think a lot of people might have missed, because it went by really fast, was Kirsten Gillibrand, a senator from New York, demanding that President Biden direct the Archivists of the United States to enroll the Equal Rights Amendment defeated 40 years ago by the states. But for those quirky reasons, demand that the Archivists enroll the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution and deem it ratified. And this is a backdoor way of trying to revive Roe v. Wade without having to pass it through Congress or a constitutional amendment. And the archivist, to her credit, it's a woman now, said, we can't do that. Sorry, the law, this is very clear. Legal opinions are very clear, and we're not going to do that. Charlie, I know you've been following this and related matters. Do you want to add to that my narrative, which is very brief and whatever gloss you want because i have a few of my own but

well as you say it's illegal that's why the archivist said no this is yet another attempt to circumvent the constitution the era is in a strange way that as well because as you say the aim of it is to resuscitate row it always has been which is why ruth bader ginsburg liked it so much she thought that if you could get the era in there even though it doesn't explicitly mention abortion then the court could say well we have this equal rights amendment men and women have to be equal women can't be like men unless they have abortions therefore but this irrespective of whether or not that would happen is just an attempt to circumvent the rules and the original rules for the ratification process were that the ratification had to succeed by 1979 or 1982

depending on which version of the rules you uh pick up but either way, I mean, the nearest one is 42 years ago. Then it died. If it wasn't done by then, it died. And it's just a fact that not enough states ratified it. In fact, since then, although others have ratified it outside of the timeframe, other states have rescinded their ratification. The thing that I find the most instructive about this

is that no one in 1983 said aha we can keep going it was universally understood by the advocates of the era by the opponents of the era by the senate by the states by neutral observers by everyone that this was dead so what this this is now is lawfare, but this time the Constitution is the victim. Yeah, it's another lesson to me that when the progressives want something, they'll get it by any means necessary. But by the way, I mean, I was surprised I didn't see people commenting on is there seems a flaw in their logic that the ERA would revive abortion because we now know that men can have babies, right? The Biden administration now refers to birthing persons. And so it seems to me that

the ERA would be no bar to prohibiting abortion since it apply to all 57 genders equally. Okay. I mean, we laugh at this, but this is what the left also thinks at the same time, right? Yeah, but that went out of the window when roe was overturned do you remember the day before roe was overturned men could have babies the day after roe was overturned if men could get pregnant the day before roe was overturned men and women are interchangeable everyone is on some fluid spectrum the day after roe v wade this is an attack on women which we can now conveniently define yeah suddenly well that's why yeah i think that always happens after these watershed political events suddenly um suddenly everything's recalibrated and it sounds a lot like the argument that we were making all

along i was saying this before that if you ever want to know what's really happening in america just read the newspaper two weeks after a Republican's been elected because that's when they print the news. I used to write in my head the New York Times news reports, the Associated Press news reports about inflation if the president were a Republican because you could see them in front of your eyes. Literally, you know, Manny Hernandez is a construction worker in the Bronx. All he wanted is to live the American dream, but inflation has been killing his family.

I can't afford cornflakes, Manny said. But they didn't run it. They didn't run it. Instead, they pretended it wasn't happening. Could you imagine it? Am I jumping the gun, Steve? Because today, in the Wall Street Journal, there is this riveting and astonishing article about everything that you knew already, which was that Joe Biden was an addled, out-of-it president, surrounded by a bunch of sort of palace guards who kept his own cabinet from calling him directly, who reshaped and rescheduled crucial national security meetings during a time in which there's a war with half a million casualties

raging in Europe and a war with, I don't know how many thousand casualties raging in the Middle East. And some days, it was a bad day for him. Can we reschedule to tomorrow? And it's something that we all knew was happening and they and they probably knew was happening and they just didn't want to print it and they're at there it seems to be no sense of of the lack of of the lack of surprise in the part of most Americans. Well, can I add, Rob, that maybe the most startling thing of that story was the clear implication.

It's worded very softly, but the lead of that story in the opening made clear that the problem of Biden was apparent to the people around him during the 2020 campaign. This didn't start in 2022. And then one of the telling details was, I forget the name of the House Democrat, but he was the chair of the Foreign Relations or Intelligence Committee. Yeah, I read that one. And he said, I tried to call the president. This is before the bug out in Afghanistan.

I tried to call to express my concerns about what they were saying they thought was going to happen and why I thought there were things they weren't thinking about. He said he could not get through to Biden. They wouldn't let him talk to the president. And he said, I've always was able to talk to Obama. It was easy to get a hold of him. I can talk to George W. Bush Jr.

When he was not the chairman of the House Armed Forces Committee. Yeah. Now, this is this is ought to be a scandal for the media. By the way, we're now being told that the lie of the year is Trump and J.D. Vance saying dogs and cats are getting eaten in Springfield, Ohio. Okay, that's sort of a ridiculous exaggeration, I suppose. But it seems to me the lie of the year is the media covering up what they had to have known was true about Biden in the White House. So this is my hypothesis I want to spring on Charlie to see what he thinks. I actually think a sycophantic media is the worst enemy of the Democratic Party. They want to blame Biden for sticking around too long and not getting out of

the way. But if the media had done its job and reported on this, Biden would have dropped out a year sooner than he did, and they would have been a whole different circumstance. And, oh, I'll add one other thing. Chris Silliza, formerly of CNN and The Washington Post, today he posted on X an apology. Just one sentence. As a journalist, I should have pushed harder on the very real questions about Joe Biden's physical and mental health as president. Well, I would like to ask you, why didn't you? Is it because you're a coward or an idiot?

Because the implicit question from that administration would have been to any reporter who asked that question who wasn't already aligned with a conservative outlet, would have been like, hey, whose side are you on? Right. Yeah. Well, it was that. it wasn't even yeah but charlie i i i pitched a question to you and then rambled on pitched rob but you know is it the

media the democrats worst enemy and when are they going to figure that out probably never i think it is and it isn't there's clearly a problem for the Democrats here in that they lost the last election in part because of the media, as you say. Their ability to debate the Constitution has atrophied because of the media. Conservatives got busy building the Federalist Society, and the Democrats and the media just talked about consequences and outcomes, and they're now absolutely outmatched where it matters and i think much of the failure of the biden administration was attributable to the media in that the press absolutely loved that american rescue plan so-called we've spent

two trillion dollars and it led to the worst inflation in 40 years and biden never recovered from it where i think the media is not good for conservatives or not bad for democrats is that on the average issue i think it's probably responsible for three to five points to the left i think it's timothy gross close has written about this that's it yes, his work is terrific. Yes, it is very good. Ricochet member Timothy Grosklos was a contributor for a long time. Oh, he was interesting. Well, his book on this is fantastic.

I think, for example, about the first presidential debate where Trump ended up arguing not only against Kamala Harris, but the media. Now, you could say, well, he won. He did. But because you could say, well, he won. He did. But because the press behaves like that, it makes it quite difficult to make progress on issues in a way that I wish were not the case.

All issue debates seem to get corrupted and waylaid by a press that is invested in helping the Democrats or the progressive side of it. And if the point of politics is to advance issues and policies and not to win elections, that's got to matter. Yes, when you put people in the sanctity of the voting booth, they will say, screw it, I'm voting for who I want to. But does that happen in quite the same way at work? Does it happen in quite the same way at work? Does it happen in quite the same way in social situations? If people are constantly being

told only weirdos think that, that's a minority position. You're, insert ist here. I worry that the press corrupts our society in that sense. So I'm a half yes, I suppose. Yeah, you know, I agree with all that. And I've actually been meaning to reach out to Tim grows close to See if he's updated his his estimates of these matters in light of the way The media is fragmented in the rise of social media and Twitter and musk and so forth And maybe you should do that sometime. I made okay last subject since we have Rob here a couple of Things from the Hollywood world and though even though you may not be following it day to day You know, you'll have obviously some insights on this. One, a quick story, and then the two news items.

It's a couple or three years ago now, I was talking to a young screenwriter I know, a closet conservative in Hollywood. It's actually written for National Review Online a couple times under his pseudonym. And he said, it's a little like you hear about New York Times editors. Everybody in Hollywood, all the suits, are terrified of the young wokesters they've hired. But everybody really wants to get back to writing stories with pretty women in short skirts and boy meets girl. Because that's what people want. And I know this guy has sold a few scripts for shows here and there.

But then the news items out in the last few days is that Disney apparently has a disaster on its hand with the remake of Snow White. There have been extensive reshoots. The budget has ballooned to $250 million. And then on top of that, I don't know if you saw this, but Justine Bateman, everyone remembers from Family Ties in the 80s, has come out as a very ferocious anti-wokester.

I'm saying maybe she's going to be our first woman president elected someday. I don't know. Do you get the sense that Hollywood, like some other precincts, are starting to I'm saying maybe she's going to be our first woman president elected someday. I don't know. But I don't know. Do you get the sense that Hollywood, like some other precincts, are starting to shake off their torpor and say, boy, we really made a mistake with all the wokeism? What do you hear? What do you think? What are your instincts on this?

Well, I mean, there's two separate tracks for Hollywood, right? There's their own HR problem. Yeah. And then there's the content problem. And the content, they were linked in this case, but I think the tide is turning slightly, mostly because there are fewer people working at these studios. They've had massive layoffs.

They're going to continue to have, I mean, 2024 was actually not as bad as 2023, but 2025 I think is going to be worse than 2023. And that is actually a as bad as 2023, but 2025, I think is going to be, it was going to be worse than 2023. And that is actually a good thing. I mean, I hate to be, I hate to be a total free market conservative or a libertarian, but the truth is that Hollywood is never better than when it's broke, when it's broke and against the wall and fallen apart, which it does to itself about every 30, 40, 50 years for the 40 years,

at least it gets good. It figures it out, figures out what the problem is. And usually what it figures out is, Oh, Oh, Oh, 40, 50 years, for the 40 years at least, it gets good. It figures it out. It figures out what the problem is. And usually what it figures out is, oh, oh, oh, right, right, I forgot. People like movies where the bad guys are clear and they get taken care of and then the people, the romance gets together

and I can project myself onto one of those two people on screen. I'm either Cary Grant or I'm, you know, even ReSaint. Yeah, okay. When they figure that out, you know, what the research says, like, do not attempt to grow a brain. This is Hollywood. you don't need a

roadmap this is what just a simple movie like a simple show we need a beginning middle and end and the end's got to be something somewhat satisfying it's what people like uh and it'll get back to that what what needs to happen is what's kind of happening what needs to happen in wall street is that wall street needs to start having you know tough earnings calls with these studios and say you're in big trouble uh what needs to happen is a lot of private equity people need to go broke which is going to happen probably next year who have invested a whole lot of money in these ridiculous valuations of these ridiculous uh production companies that have done nothing that's going to collapse and then there's

going to be no money and when there's no money you got to fire people when you fire people you get smaller when you get smaller then there's not enough not not enough people to start overthinking whether in fact we should have whether one of the kids can't can't one of the kids be trans like you that's a conversation you have only when you have plenty of time to think about it um so i suspect that that's all gonna that's all gonna change because what people are gonna want to see is revenue and um and revenue which does not matter it has not mattered in hollywood for years, but interest rates at zero and everybody trying to spend money just to build up this, their streaming library.

Um, that's gonna, it's like going broke is a bracing mind focusing back to basics, kind of zesty feeling for Hollywood. It's a good thing. Last time Hollywood really, really, really went broke was in the late, was in the 60s, late 60s, and ushered in one of the greatest years in entertainment, in American entertainment ever, which is the 70s, which are incredible, incredible box office years,

TV years, amazing. That could happen. Yeah, I mean, one little data point on this that I noticed and just recalled is I've been watching this Netflix series with Keri Russell called The Diplomat, and it's very lavishly produced and very well shot, and Keri Russell is compulsively watchable. She plays these sort of hard-edged roles, so that's all fine. But the first season,

they had a conspicuous trans character who was only there to plant the rainbow flag, had no real plot point, and conspicuously missing, if you're paying attention, from the season which just wrapped so that was quietly dropped from the uh from the production so you know maybe that's one i will tell one story and i and i won't tell you who said it to me because he eventually then had me to trouble so that you know i'm already deep in the hole here in this podcast by my uh by easily misconstrued comments. We were casting a show. It was the head of the network. We were casting a show. And there were two actresses we're testing. Usually they come and they test in front of all of us. So we would do all the additions

and we'd bring two choices to the network and the studio. We'd say, look, here's where we are. Here's kind of who we like. Here's who we, you know, here's who you like. But we've got to decide in this room together. And it was an actress. She's really good. She went on to do great stuff. was incredibly good she's very talented and um and she was just a little prettier than the other one

and um and there's silence in the room and like nobody wants to say that and because it's like yeah it's like it's you, you don't want to say that. So I, but I said, I don't know. I kind of like her. I just feel like she's more, she's more appealing in some way. You know, it's got a weasel word during it, you know, she feels like she's, I don't know. I could kind of like feel it. I kind of feel this vulnerability. It was just nonsense word salad. Just did not.

And the head of the network was sort of an old style guy he was alone at that point a rare character then he said yeah you know it's never a bad idea to put a pretty girl on TV Rob I'm like yeah that's really true you said it let's go

I think I can guess who that was it seems very simple and everybody watching it knows but people making it don't often know that. Yeah, right. All right, we've got about maybe two minutes of Slack time to see if either one of you want to say anything about ABC News' settlement with Donald Trump over the libel case, which I think is hysterically funny, but also significant in a number of ways. Charlie? I think that there was a conversation that was probably recorded in some way, likely over email, that would have come out during discovery. ABC was told by its insurance company, settle this now or the jury will give

Trump more. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you went through discovery in the Fox News Dominion lawsuit, and that settlement ended up costing $780 million. So ABC got off easy. But you do hear these stories that there's mayhem inside of ABC. Stephanopoulos is very upset and so forth. There was a little tidbit. This gets the legal geek in me. There was a little tidbit in the Wall Street Journal account of the dissension in ABC saying Disney's lawyers, remember Disney owns ABC, Disney's lawyers were worried that with the current Supreme Court, this might reopen the New York Times versus Sullivan libel standards. And they were afraid this might happen and be open season on the media. But, you know, Trump is not putting everybody else

in sight. By the way, a little slight tangent here. This talk of investigating Liz Cheney, I think, is a psy-op or trolling operation. I think what Trump wants to do is provoke Biden into giving a pardon to Liz Cheney and Fauci and everybody else. And then Trump can say, well, they need pardons for it. They didn't do anything wrong. Clearly, they're guilty. You know how this is going to play out, right? that is that the storyline you're right rob yeah i mean i don't i mean i would like i'm a as you know i'm an optimistic pessimist right i would like the

house republicans and the president and the house and the senate republicans to to get clear on how american politics works which is that you really don't have a big window at this moment you really don't it doesn't work that way there's going to be another election give me a midterm someone's going to mess up there's going to be trouble you got a moment you have some runway here pick five important things just do those five things, right? Do not attempt to boil the ocean. Just do five things. Do not get distracted with all of your little Twitter MAGA stuff.

We're going to get Liz Cheney in prison and all that stuff. Just do the five big things you need to do and live to fight another day. What often happens with these sort of moments is that the republicans go to all different directions and decide what they really want to do is they want to have fights on twitter and on hannity and on tucker and that those never get you what you want and then you end up after four years of a trump administration in 2016 without a wall and with a lot a lot of a lot of the stuff that he promised because you spent a lot of time just talking nonsense and um you want to put liz cheney in prison go right ahead but but make that number 197 on your agenda you don't have that much time well well there's there's the there's

the rob long of hope and forgiveness at the advent season uh charlie i don't forgive charlie uh you are not politically agnostic certainly uh I'll give you the last word before we have to get out for the day. Well, I will say Merry Christmas, which I celebrate with my family and love. Oh, excellent. All right. Well, this podcast was brought to you by Ricochet.com. And as James likes to say, and I will try to do it as well as he does and will fail at it, please keep the podcast going in 2025 by joining Ricochet, the best place for civil center-right conversation. See, we don't even make fun of Rob for being the rhino squish that he is. Yeah, I'm diversity. I'm the DEI hire here. That's right. And as always, please, if you have a minute, leave a five-star

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