The Ricochet Podcast - Before the Deluge

Episode Date: February 2, 2018

First, let it be known that we recorded this podcast before The Memo® was released. We’ll dissect that (assuming there’s anything left to dissect) on next week’s show. Instead, we’ve got the great Bari Weiss from the New York Times to discuss the shaming of Nikki Haley, Aziz Ansari, and other cultural touchstones. Then, our old friend and consummate insider Haley Barbour talks immigration... Source

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I'm sorry, this is awkward. You're here on the set with us, but we're done. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson. I'm James Lilacs, and today we talk to Barry Weiss of the New York Times and Haley Barber. What about that gun? Welcome, everybody, to the Ricochet Podcast. It's number 388, brought to you by the fine people at SaneBox. Welcome back. If you've been meaning to get your email organized now, it's the perfect time to get it done. SaneBox is offering Ricochet listeners $25 credit

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I could go on and on and on and on and drone in the mouth until I foam and fall over backwards, but I'll let Peter tell you why you should join because Peter is one of the founders of this August enterprise. You should join Ricochet because, well, because it's very interesting and because it's fun. Ricochet, center right conversation. For $5 a month, you get the right to post on Ricochet, talk back to people, join the conversation. That $5 a month turns out to be very important because that enables us, we had this all heavily lawyered when we set Ricochet up,

the $5 a month membership means that we are allowed to construct a code of conduct, which means no trolling, which means the conversation is civil. Every so often, we have to send somebody a note saying, watch yourself, please. And once in a blue moon, we actually have to kick somebody off. So we do actually enforce the code of conduct, which means that for everybody else, Ricochet represents one of the few places on the entire internet where the conversation is civil and fun and interesting. Not to say people don't disagree with each other. They do vigorously but intelligently. Ricochet.com.

And for $2.50, for those of you who are listening to the podcast but don't actually care to comment on the web, we've discovered there are people like that. For $2.50, that will absolve you of any pangs of conscience you may have felt. And frankly, I hope you have felt some if you've been listening to Ricochet Podcasts without ponying up. The $2.50 membership, the absolve your conscience membership for podcast listeners only ricochet james wow that was a good ad peter you're getting good at this i've been studying i've been studying up on my friend lilacs or what i when we talk about a code of conduct i mean it's not as though if somebody says oh bloody heck that monocles splash into cups of tea and you know the no i mean it's it's still vigorous.

It's still interesting. So we don't want people to think that it's just some sort of hand-holding kumbaya exercise, which it isn't. And join, because Ricochet needs you. And we love it, and I would hate to ever see it go away. I was posting something last night at 1 o'clock about Newsweek and their ad bot story.

One of those things that frustrates me because it was a great BuzzFeed news story and I hate linking to BuzzFeed. But they're sort of bifurcated. They've got a legitimate long read section and then they've got this nonsense and this BS on the front door for millennials. I guess we have to learn with that sort of high and low matched in one package. And that brings us into the State of the Union, which was all high, according to at least the people who watched it and enjoyed it. If they were expecting trolling and divisiveness

and nastiness and racism and all the rest of it, hmm, they didn't get it, did they, Peter? You know what? I'm not going to go first on this one, James, because I posted some comments on Ricochet. The world knows what I think. I would like to know in a little bit of detail, as a professional, as a performer, James, what did you make of the State of the Union address?

Well, I thought it was good, and I thought that there were theatrical moments that only he could get away with. I think lifting his hands up in this gesture to encompass the house, the Congress, was a sort of really obvious theatricality that would have rung horribly false if Marco Rubio had done it, cloyingly theatrical if Ted Cruz had done it, insincere if Mitt Romney had done it, because it would have said in the script enable program C4 raise arms. It depends. But Trump can a reality TV guy who's used to dealing with audiences can get away with a gesture like that.

I always say I wish he'd smiled more. If there's one physical manifestation I can't stand, it's the chin up and the corner of the mouth down and the nodding. It just bugs me. But these are really small details. I mean, these are carpish things. And as a long time, you know, somebody who's been upfront about his skepticism and dislike of Trump, for me to find that speech to work on a number of levels personal and political is an indication of a good team that's writing a good script and a man who is willing to you know to conform and control

himself to deliver a good performance now you know at the end of it that he just was massively thrilled about the fact that it went over well and took credit for that for himself and that's fine he can do that i expect no more or no less however do you honestly think that oran hatch said that he was a better president than lincoln or washington oh who was it was it oran hatch who said that it was newt gingrich newt gingrich newt gingrich newt gingrich said that donald trump had given a better state of the union address than ronald reagan ever had which is you know when newt is good, he's very good. But when he's bad, he's ludicrous. That was a ridiculous comment.

But it shows, I suppose, it shows something that Newt thought he could get away with a comment like that. There was that feeling of elation among Trump supporters. Wow. He actually, what is it? It's expectations, right? Expectations. We just wanted to get through this without an explosion.

Not only did he get through it, but he actually did a pretty darn good job. By the way, one thing I wanted to throw out to you, James, see how you respond to this. I have to be careful because I don't – I'm in camp of, I disapprove of Donald Trump, but I want him to succeed, right? That's the kind of thing we all have. But, uh, there's one sense, one sense in which I'm actually starting to admire the guy and it is the following. He is as tough as nails. The idea that he's been subjected, I shouldn't say subjected, but that he's been subjected i shouldn't say subjected but that he has been the subject of so much hostility he's not been subjected to it entirely because he's created he's brought much of it on himself but still the hostility in front of the entire nation day after day hour by hour

minute by minute on the internet news cycle and he goes into that chamber and commands the place for over an hour and more than that he gave a speech that in a number of ways was actually aggressive that line the american people are dreamers too was just throwing down the glove in front of the democrats pick it up if you want to let's rumble and the sheer willingness to fight of this guy uh as long as he's fighting for things that are more conservative than not i guess i'm willing to sort of admire that am i losing it james no you're not losing it and and this is what i always people have liked the rhetorical pugnaciousness um you know and i i i i understand what you're saying. I'm always hesitant when I hear the phrase,

I'm going to fight for you. The word fight in a political context to me just basically means I'm going to say the things you want me to say in a public context without reservations. Elizabeth Warren is fighting for these things. Hillary Clinton would have fought for these things.

Not to say that it isn't great to have somebody who takes the rhetorical wood to them. I mean that's fine. The interesting thing about that whole speech was watching what they did not stand to applaud. Oh, yes. I agree. Yes. Watching what kept them glued to their seat. That's instructive and i think that's one of the reasons that it got good reviews um from people who call themselves independent because they wanted to be on the side of the

people who stood and applauded for the flag or right and were not in favor of of gang members from other countries killing people and were not appalled by the sight of a korea of a korean man standing up and waving his clutchutches, which somebody, one of the blue check verified people on Twitter referred to as, you know, Trump even brought his own tiny Tim. I know. I know. Awful people.

And by the way, so on the Democrats and the lines through which they sat, I have to say I was astounded. You can just sit through a line and pout the way Nancy Pelosi did much of the evening, or you can sit at the beginning of the line, let the Republicans stand up first, and then you can stand up and applaud and show that you're sort of with the president, which is what I expected when Donald Trump said black unemployment is at the lowest rate ever recorded, the Republicans, of course, jumped to their feet. And I thought the Republicans would – they might wait a half a beat and then they'd – they sat there. The members of the black caucus sat there.

They refused to applaud economic growth that is benefiting African-Americans. I just thought that was astounding. Yes, you can just see them sitting there with their hands crossed saying, well, we'll just see what Polifact says about that tomorrow. But the impression is we don't care if this is true. What matters is that the wrong means was used to achieve it. And I should note here also before anybody sends me the email, apparently Hatch's office is saying, no, he didn't say he was the greatest president since Lincoln in Washington.

He was saying that he could be and that Trump enjoyed the fact that he possibly could be. And that's how that got spun up. It is. I don't care what the guy does. He's not going to be better than George Washington. It just isn't. So don't send me an email. And if you did, it's quite possible that the email might be sent in a SaneBox later. There's a little slot there so I can get to it at my leisure.

Because I've got SaneBox, and you will enjoy it if you have it, too. If you're anything like me, just making time to manage your emails is the last thing you want to do, right? Sifting through all the junk just to keep up with the important stuff, it's tedious. And that's why SaneBox is a lifesaver. SaneBox is the easiest way to automatically organize your inbox and keep it that way forever. SaneBox sorts your emails for you, keeping an important email out of your inbox so you can focus on what matters. Without SaneBox, you can spend hours every week going through hundreds of emails, and if you're like me, you can be worried that you might miss something important. It's such a waste of time.

But with SaneBox, the junk is out of sight. So you only see the essential stuff. It saves you time and energy so you can get back to doing more important things like, well, like listening to this show. It takes less than five minutes to get SaneBox set up. And after that, keeping your email and organized takes minutes, not hours. With SaneBox, you can snooze the emails you want to come back to. You can set reminders for the messages you want to reply to later. You can see who hasn't replied to something you've sent.

Oh, that's nice. And so much more. Look, if you've been meaning to get your email organized, now is the perfect time to get it done. SaneBox is offering Ricochet listeners a $25 credit on top of their two-week free trial. Just go to SaneBox.com slash Ricochet to start your trial. No credit card required. That's S-A-N-E-B-O-X.com slash ricochet. One more time,

SaneBox.com slash ricochet. And before we go, let me tell you this. I recently changed a password on my email accounts. And so SaneBox stopped working for a while. And they sent me an email saying, hey, can't get it. We're not working. The tsunami of drivel that went into my mailbox almost instantaneously was just stunning. And I couldn't wait for SaneBox to help me, save me, and get it out of my way again. SaneBox.com. We thank them for sponsoring the Ricochet podcast, and you'll thank them for making your life easier. And now we welcome to the show Barry Weiss.

She's a staff editor and writer for the New York Times Opinion section. And we're here to talk about, oh, how do we put this? You know, the culture these days when it comes to matters of sex and feminism and the rest of it, it's slightly confused. Is that a fair estimation? Are you asking me? Yes. Yes.

I would say we're going through a major reckoning, and some of it should be celebrated. I certainly celebrate lots of it, and I think other parts of it leave people confused and certainly confused about what the rules are and where the lines should be drawn. Because every instance seems to bring up a different set of rules and a different set of lines. For example, we have empowerment, we have sex positive, then we have slut shaming. Let's look at the most recent example of the slut shaming of Nikki Haley, which is one of those things that seems to prove an adage. The left can say whatever they want about women on the right and get away with it because they're on the left. Right. So should we review for people what happened?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. OK. So, you know, Michael Wolff, who, you know, has been I don't even know how to describe him. I mean, certainly a sleazy character. He's the author of Fire and Fury. He's the author of the book that was. Yes. Yes. He's the author of the number one book in the country. Right. OK. Yes. Right. Matt Labash had a great piece called The Book That Ate Washington about it. I recommend it in the Weekly Standard. Anyway, he has this book, huge book about the Trump administration, and his line on it has sort of been like, if it rings true, it is true. So he sort of admitted that the book was pretty sloppily put together, But there's a lot of salacious allegations in there

and it's very fun to read. And the book has been hyped by... FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks. Or for the freelance beatbox department. FBD stands for support. We support businesses and communities across Ireland. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD stands for support. We support businesses and communities across Ireland. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD insurance team and see how we can support your business.

FBD Insurance. Support. It's what we do. FBD Insurance Group Limited, trading as FBD Insurance, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. All of the A-listers, including last Sunday night at the Grammys, where in a bit that James Corden set up, a lot of various music celebrities were reading the book out loud, including Hillary Clinton. Now, that came after a week in which Michael Wolff went on Bill Maher, and Bill Maher said, is there anything that you couldn't put in the book that you wished you had? And Michael Wolff basically said, yes, I just didn't have the blue dress.

But I know that Donald Trump is having a sexual, is having an affair with a member of his administration. If you turn to the last bit of the book, you know, the name will pop out of you. You know, you'll know exactly who I'm talking about. And everyone assumed because they all that we all turned to the back of the book, that that person was Nikki Haley, the UN ambassador. Now, Nikki Haley did not take that smear lying down. In an interview with Politico, she pushed back. She called it violent, disgusting. And she said, you know, all her life, there have just been people who are deeply uncomfortable with, you know, competent, confident women in power.

And so after she pushed back, which I thought was great, she also tweeted after she saw Fire and Fury being read at the Grammys, you know, that she wished that the Grammys had left the politics out, that she tuned in to watch the music. So anyway, this led to, you know, a bunch of people, me included, pushing back on Michael Wolf and pushing back, frankly, on people on the left who are so sensitive and I think maybe rightly sensitive to women in power getting shamed. Or in this case, you know, he was basically claiming that she was sleeping her way to the position of secretary of state as, you know, he was basically claiming that she was sleeping her way to the position of Secretary of State. As you know, that's disgusting and that the left, if they're sensitive to those issues, should call it out,

even if the woman in question is a conservative like Nikki Haley. And so I wrote this piece for The Times called The Slut Shaming of Nikki Haley. Barry, let me just pursue one bit of the Grammys. Hillary Clinton is reading the book. You mentioned that Hillary Clinton disappeared after we knew that Michael Wolff was dropping garbage on Nikki Haley. And after Hillary Clinton was outed. That's exactly. Thank you. Go ahead and add that point. Add that point.

Would you please? Thank you. Go ahead. So the Grammys were on a Sunday. Sorry, the news happened so fast I can't even keep track. On the Friday, the New York Times dropped a story about this faith advisor with the amazing name of Bern Strider, who in 2008, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Patty Solis Doyle, and I think other people in Clinton world, told

her that she should let him go because he had been accused of sexual harassment by a subordinate. And rather than firing him, I believe, and you correct me if I'm wrong, that they moved her job. They sent him into like, you know, rehab or whatever for a little bit, but then he did the same thing. No, no surprise there. Um, and so she was outed as sort of covering up, um, for this guy in a way that was really, really unseemly. Now I'm certain

that they filmed this bit for the Grammys with her weeks ago before that news dropped, but I just seemed quite tone deaf to those of us who had been paying attention to include her, you know, reading the book when the author of the book was going around, you know, trying to fluff book sales by crapping on Nikki Haley. Right. So what we have now in the cultural landscape, anybody, it seems, can have their career vaporized, be put down the memory hole if a certain set of allegations are made against them. We're told to believe.

We're told that the accusation is sufficient. women into passive creatures without agency who simply, you know, find themselves for some strange reason naked in a man's room and are appalled to find that he doesn't act in the best behavior. And it finds in the situation in like Garrison Keillor, who finds himself absolutely removed from the cultural landscape and are pushing back. But these guys don't have a leg to stand on, do they? The cultural zeitgeist right now, the wind behind the Me Too movement, is sufficient to blow them off the stage. What is it going to take, actually, for that perhaps to draw back a little and not have the effect that it does today? Well, I honestly think that the Aziz story did shift things in a positive direction. I think most commonsensical people who support the Me Too movement read this story and thought this crosses some sort of line. It's upsetting. His behavior was gross and selfish and entitled and, frankly, very ordinary. If you're a millennial in this sexual landscape, you will know that that's true.

But I think for most people, they thought, you know, it's ridiculous that this would be grouped in with the kind of criminal behavior and predatory behavior and behavior that really was about using sexual pressure and assault and harassment to screw women in the workplace. And I think that many people, I mean, when I wrote the piece that I wrote for the Times about Aziz Ansari, saying that he was guilty only of not being a mind reader in that situation because, you know, until the woman never said no. And when she did say no, he said, okay, let's put on our clothes and chill out on the couch and watch Seinfeld. But so I think that for most people, so anyway, when I wrote that piece, I was expecting, you know, as I always do

when I say anything that sort of wades into this subject, a lot of people pushing back and calling me a, you know, a gender traitor and, you know and an apologist for rape culture and all the rest. But I was really heartened by the response. And the response largely was people saying, you're right. This might be an example, and I think it is, of our sort of really broken sexual hookup culture, but it is very different from the kind of cases we've been talking about in the Me Too movement. I think that the conversation is shifting, and I'm hoping that it's going to break into two conversations. One, which is the one that's been going on ever since the Harvey Weinstein story broke about sexual harassment in the workplace, which is a really important conversation, and a separate conversation, also very important, and frankly, I think affecting a lot more women, of let's really examine our hookup culture and the way that it's damaging to men and women. I think that's a really important conversation, but I'm just not willing to have it on, you know, the back of

Aziz Ansari. I think we should just be having it, period. But I do think that, for better or worse, that piece about him really spurred that conversation. I think it's happening. I just think it's really important to keep them sort of separate. We'll have that conversation. You know, it does, absolutely. And when we have that conversation, it'll have to be led by somebody from the left side on the Nixon, only Nixon can go to China thing, because if somebody from the right starts discussing and, and talking about the problems of hookup culture, then it's those Bible thumping weirdos who want to drag us back to the handmaidens tale. But so, but so the left will have, so the left will have to bring this about, but there's something

else that cleave that splits right down the middle of the left. Rose McGowan, the vulture columnist for New York Magazine, Rose McGowan was doing a book signing and got heckled by a trans activist. And what followed then was something that you see on the Internet absolutely every single day. A split between traditional feminists, first, second wave, and the trans activists who call anybody who sets them out of turf, a trans-excluding radical feminist, and accuses them of transphobia. And this is no small cleft, and it's going to – I mean, how can those two sides be stitched together? I don't think that they can. And from the outside, people looking at this say, these people are very peculiar. The whole inability to deal with this is very odd. How do you think that's going to work, play itself out? I don't know. I mean, I was very impressed. Rose McGowan punched back very hard. It's worth

watching the video and sort of made me think, God, we should just send her. I mean, the way that she punched back, I thought was quite powerful. I see that cleft that you're talking about. I think it's important. I think it's less significant than the kind of protectionist feminist impulse versus the sort of I don't know what the word is, like liberationist one. And I think that that goes to the right, too. Barry Peter here. That to the right too. Barry, Peter here. I think that's the main split. Barry, Peter here. Last question for you. Thanks for joining us. Last question. You

were for a number of years at the Wall Street Journal. Now you've moved to the New York Times, what, about six months ago, something like that, perhaps even a little more recently? Six, seven months ago. Yep. Six or seven months ago. Okay. Yeah. Difference in audiences. What you are – here you are saying, for example, you wrote a column on the limits of believe all women. We owe women to listen to them and respect them and take them seriously, but we don't owe anyone our unthinking belief. I'm quoting you.

Trust but verify may not have the same ring as believe all women, but it's a far better policy. By the standards of a lot of the readership of the New York Times, you're a right wing crazy, Barry. What's what's Yeah, what do you guys think I am? I mean, you must think you probably think I'm a progressive. I mean, I don't even know anymore. Well, that's what I wanted to know what's been up on labels. I mean, personally, it's been a very, very disorienting, whiplashy year. I've gone from being the most progressive person on a conservative editorial page to the most right-wing person on a very progressive one. Welcome to the Neanderthal club, Barry. I mean, it's just very strange. I mean, but I've had this experience my whole life.

I've had this experience on college campuses, you know, where I was perceived as being a conservative. I just don't care. I don't care about labels. Some people think I'm a neocon. Some people think, you know, in a conservative group, I'm the woke one. So I just try and look honestly at the issues. And if you look at the things I've been writing for a decade, I'm pretty consistent. The difference here is that I'm writing it in the pages of the Times. And, you know, some readers have the perception, the wrong

perception, you know, that the Times is meant to be their ideological safe space. Well, with all due respect, you know, and I love talking to readers. No, it's not. You know, this is definitely a progressive, largely editorial page, but we're also interested in exposing our readers to different kinds of ways of thinking about important issues. And I'm really proud to be a part of that, not only in my own writing, but certainly in the people that I help commission and edit for the page. Got it. Didn't somebody write a piece the other day about how the New York Times is now an alt-right rag? Because it's allowing different... Right. Well, this is the far left smear now. It's like, I'm considered alt-right. Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris were

all considered alt-right. I mean, this is people losing their minds. And I simply refuse to pay attention to them. And I don't think anyone serious should. I think it's ridiculous. People are calling us a Nazi paper. I mean, that's lunatic. The old, gray... They think we're a Nazi paper because we allowed, you know, there was a day right around the anniversary of Trump's inauguration that we dedicated. And I thought it was a brilliant move. We dedicated the whole editorial page to letters from Trump supporters. Does that make us a Nazi white supremacist rag? If it does, you know, I'm not that interested in having a conversation with you.

Well, if you if you have to ask, yes. I know, soon the New Yorker will do the same thing and publish an account of life in the heartland where Trump supporters live, and people will insist that they might as well swap Eustace Tilley for a Pepe mask, and that'll be great, because there's... And I'm keen

to have you on again to talk about the Times culture, because it is a fascinating thing, and the influence that it's had on American discourse is profound. But we have to let you go, and we have to thank you again for coming on. And everybody, you can follow her on Twitter. Just go to the place where you found this website, and you will find her Twitter address. Thanks. Barry, thanks a lot. Thanks, guys.

That was a joy. And I am interested in finding out a little bit more about the time. Did you ever read that great account of the Times history? What is it called? The Power and the Fury and the Glory and the... I'm trying to think of the name of it. You know the book I'm talking about, Peter? Not the Fire and Fury. Fire and Fury. I know that one. Fire and Fury. No, I think it's by

Richard Kluger or something like that. It's just I love newspaper books. I love reading about the history. By the way, how long have you been a newspaper man yourself? How long have you worked at the Strip now? Well, I started working at the Strip in 97. Before that, I was at the Pioneer Press. Before that, I was at the Internet Wire Service.

I go back to my first piece in a newspaper was, well, it would be the school newspaper in 1975. I got into the college paper in 78 and into alternative papers in about 84. So, yeah. Actually, you and I both understand that term, but I don't think a millennial would even understand the term a newspaper man.

You are a newspaper man. You just demonstrated it, but they don't – anyway. No, somebody quit the other day, retired, and his T-shirt said 30 on it, which means something to a particular generation. It means nothing to others. Just one of those little terms. And I realize that insider term about, you know, talk about dying technologies like this makes everybody fall asleep. But if you're going to fall asleep, find a Casper. That's all I'm saying.

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slash ricochet and using the promo code ricochet at your checkout that's casper.com slash ricochet promo code ricochet for fifty dollars off select mattresses terms and conditions apply and our thanks to casper for sponsoring this the ricochet podcast and now we welcome back to the podcast hayley barber the former governor of miss Mississippi and the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. He's the co-founder of the Washington lobby firm BGR Group and also co-chairs the bipartisan policy center's Immigration Task Force. By the time this gets out, MemoGate will have reduced Washington to ash and rubble. But right now, we don't know what's in it. What do you think is in the memo?

Well, I don't know, obviously. And this is not a simple subject. We, for very good reason, we have very strict controls over intelligence, security, surveillance, that sort of stuff, of foreigners for that matter, but particularly of Americans. And because that is so sensitive, appropriately, Congress takes its oversight responsibility very seriously, and they should. And when there is a finding by a congressional committee or by any government agency that the foreign intelligence surveillance rules have been violated, it's Congress's job to make people aware of that.

People want to know, and they're supposed to know. They need to know. So to me, I don't know what they're going to say. I don't know what they're going to say. I don't know what's in it. But to me, it is very appropriate if the Oversight Committee has found violations that the Oversight're waiting the release of this memo today. Here's a question I have. In all your time in Washington balkanization of the news media. So many of the major news outlets take sides. And they don't make any bones about it. I mean, you could watch MSNBC or CNN, and in about 10 seconds you know whose side they're on. I remember I did Morning Joe a few weeks ago, and I finally said to the guy I had watched before I went on,

I said, Joe, y'all have been going for 30 minutes, and y'all haven't said anything about any information that we didn't know six months ago. But that's their anti-Trumpness is talk about something anti-Trump and see if you can put a new twist on it. But the conservative media is not much better. Let's be honest about it. We have a very polarized country, and the news media reflects that. And I wonder, Peter, how much of that is about money? How much of it is that certain news outlets are trying to play to the left because that's the way they think their viewership goes up

and certain are playing to the right because that's the way their viewership goes up? Yep, yep. All that feels right to me, particularly on cable television. But you've got Jeff Bezos pouring all the money that it could ever need into the Washington Post, which you would think would set some of those young reporters free to try to behave like young Woodward and Bernsteins. And here we have a movie out now called The Post, which celebrates the Washington Post's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, lo those many years ago, and they're getting one

Academy Award nomination after another. And the Washington Post is, well, the Washington Post is clearly, today, is clearly unhappy with the idea of releasing information. It's just, to me, it's amazing. I guess I grant the point on cable news, but maybe I'm just behind the times, but I still expect better of newspaper and magazine reporters. It seems to me there's still some investigative spirit ought to still be alive there. But maybe I'm naive. I'm glad, Peter, after our 30 30 something year friendship that you still have. How do you feel about the tooth fairy?

Okay. Here's a question that this is a question I've been dying to ask you. You, you took a lot of heat early on from friends of ours. I suppose you'd call these friends never Trumpers because you said, I am with the Republican Party. Donald Trump is the nominee of the party, and therefore I will give him my support. He's taken office. He's been in office a year. How do you grade him on two things? One, learning to be president. Have you seen any improvement or changes? And two, the organization around him, General Kelly in particular. How do you grade them?

Well, I would start off by just making what I think is the fundamental point that I tried to make in 2016 during the election. My mama raised my two older brothers and me, and mama used to say life is a series of choices. And when the choice of President of the United States is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, I'm going to be for Donald Trump every time. I did have the self-control to not follow that with what I was thinking. If the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Duck, I'd be for Donald Duck because Donald Duck's less dangerous.

But my idea about Trump, he wouldn't have been in my first series of choices. But for America, he was better than Hillary Clinton. And boy, has he proved that. I mean, you look at the increase in economic growth, and he has gone away from Obama's idea that big government makes the economy grow. A $10 trillion increase in the national debt doubled it in his eight years in office. Government regulation is, no matter how much it stifles the economy, no cost is too high and no risk is too low.

That's what we saw out of him. And enormous tax increases, particularly for the people that can invest in the economy. They took huge tax increases. And so Trump has done almost exactly the opposite. True regulatory reform, a lot of it, though there's a lot more to go. Tax reform that puts much more money into the private economy. And, Lord, are we seeing the results of that. Companies, big companies, are pushing money back to their employees. They're pushing money into building things. They're pushing money into building things.

They're pushing money into buying more equipment, innovation. You know, UPS just said that they're going to spend $7 billion on upgrading their delivery system. Well, the reason they can do that is because the taxes over the next 10 or 20 years are going to be so much less than they would have been under Obama. So Trump notionally wants organic economic growth, and he's doing things that lead to that. The Wall Street phenomenon under Obama was driven by mergers and acquisitions, financial plays.

Those don't create jobs. In fact, those cut out jobs, closed factories, and you can see it in the heartland. Trump's trying to do stuff. People get jobs. People get better jobs. People get higher-paying jobs. And that's just – those are factually significant, accurate. And so while there's a lot of stuff about President Trump that drives me nuts, the fact

is he's making real progress for our country, particularly on the economy, which is the biggest issue to most Americans. But if you had had to vote for Donald Duck, the left would have said that he would just be a pawn of his rich uncle, Uncle Scrooge. And so we would have been right in the same situation. And the Democrats would have come back with, as they did after the State of the Union, with somebody who embodies that hard scrabble up from nothing story, one of the Kennedys. The nation's inexhaustible supplies of Kennedys never ceases to amaze me. But is this all they have? Are these people who get up and weep over the horrors of America that have unfurled now under just one year of Trump?

Is that all they got? James, you know, it's amazing to me. Even the Wall Street Journal, not the editorial page, but the news place, which is a lot more liberal than the editorial page, talked about Trump's optimism. It made you proud to be an American. And that's what America needs. We need people who say, this is the greatest country in the history of the world, something Obama wouldn't say, probably didn't believe. But we're going up forward. I'm optimistic.

And the left, golly, I mean, they hated it. Hey, Haley, Peter here. I got one more political question, and then a question about you and your briefcase, which I just have to ask. Okay, so you know what's coming. Oh, let's do that one first. You went to the airport the other day, and you've got to tell us what happened. This says something about Mississippi and about you and about the Second Amendment and the greatness of America. Let's hear it. Just before Christmas, Peter, I had a handgun that I wanted to move from one place to another. I put it in my briefcase and drove to where I was going, and I just forgot about it.

I took my briefcase and put it in the closet during Christmas. January 2nd, right afterwards, I went to the airport, took my briefcase and suitcase like I do, and went through the x-ray machine, and there was a.38 pistol in there. And, you know, it wasn't anybody's fault but mine. Absent-mindedness can come back and bite you when you get to be 70. But the security guys and ladies at the airport did just what they were supposed to do. They treated me

like anybody else. This was at home in Mississippi? It was in Jackson, Mississippi. That's right. But they were courteous, but they were polite, but they were businesslike, and the law was applied to me just like anybody else. The end of it is

while it was totally unintentional, I was guilty and said so and paid a fine and that's the way it's supposed to be. And that's that. What happened to the gun? They actually gave it back to my lawyer, which is SOP in our airport, apparently.

I am told that this is not rare. In fact, the vast majority of times somebody is caught going into the airport with a weapon. It's in a bag. They put it in and forgot it was there, either because they went hunting or because they but they probably a very high percentage are just like this. And then I could say at my age I can understand that. Haley, you don't know what this story does to me sitting here in Northern California. I just think to myself, oh, a place where people hunt, a place where people have guns and feel unselfconscious about it,

and a place where if you happen to forget it and leave a gun in your briefcase, everybody at the airport is totally – they enforce the law, but they're totally polite. Just for one year of my life, can you arrange for me to live in Mississippi, please? I can, and I can make sure you have plenty of guns in case you need them. Okay, listen, here's the last political question. The economy's booming. Trump's approval ratings are rising. How worried are you about losing the House, Republicans losing the House in 2018?

Less and less worried every day, or is this a concern? You know, I said during the 2016 election that history is one of the principal indicators of what's going to happen, and the news media just turned their back to the idea that it's really very hard for a party to keep the White House for three consecutive terms, which was a big problem for Hillary Clinton. Only once since Franklin Roosevelt, and of course that was when Vice President Bush succeeded Reagan, who had served two terms.

That's the only time since Roosevelt, three terms. Other times, two terms and you're out, except for Jimmy Carter, which is one term and you're out. The same thing has to be true for us. Midterm elections typically have losses for the party in power, and we are the majority party. I always flinch at, we don't control the Senate. It takes 60 to control the Senate, but we do have the majority in the Senate. So history says we're going to lose some seats. However, it's a very interesting year. You have 26, I'm sorry, 25 Democrat senators up and only nine Republicans.

That is really bad math for the Democrats. On the other hand, 26 Republican governors are up and only 10 Democrats, which means the governor's math is really challenging for the GOP. But now the GOP has 33 senators and the Democrats have 16. I mean, 33 governors. In a sense, the Democrats have 16 plus one independent. So history says we're supposed to lose some seats. How many? I think one of the things that will affect that is retirements.

Our system of term limits for committee chairs on the Republican side is causing some of our senior members to retire because their time as committee chairs is going away. I think we have seven committee chairs that have announced they're retiring. Peter, when you and I were in the White House working for Ronald Reagan, no committee chairman ever retired. They all died in office because the power of the chairs was truly great back then. Well, now those Republicans, you can't be chairman of the committee but for six years. And so that is a strike against us. Trump's low job

approval can't seem to get much over 40 or 42. The lowest for any president in his first year in the history of polling. I don't know if it's the history, but the history of polling. I don't know if it's the history, but the history of polling. And that really affects the ballot. So you've got a lot of things in here, and this could

be a bad year for Republicans if certain of those things take root. Encouraging for Republicans, and this is the last point I'll make, Since the tax bill, Republican numbers have gotten better. Trump's numbers have gotten better. His job approval yesterday in a real clear politics average was 42, I think. It had been down in the high 30s, and it's the first time it's been as high as 42, almost since the inauguration. The generic ballot, which Republicans got about 14 points behind on at one point, is now back to about seven.

And in one big poll this week, it was two. Well, if the Republican, average Republican member for Congress is two points behind, actually 49, we'd actually win more seats. Right. Because Republicans tend to be more spread out. If you look at that famous map of the presidential election by counties, which is all red, well, that affects the House races as well. But anyway, right now, I think it's too early to say what's going to happen. Both sides got some advantages, but the margins that Republicans have are not large by any

standard. You know, you and I are in the White House. I think the House Democrat margin was 90. Right, right. And for us today, it's about 40. About 24 seats would change it. Right. I just wonder how much of the anti-Trump polling will actually affect the vote,

because I can't remember a situation in which so many people on the Republican side would say, I don't approve of the president, for whatever reason they have, but they would still vote Republican. I mean, everybody on the D side loved Obama, but not everybody on the R side loves Trump. So even though he may be down in polling, that doesn't necessarily translate to people not getting out and voting R. That's the last question. Yeah, but it does have an effect on energy. I mean, clearly in the elections in 17, particularly in Virginia, Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for

governor, got more votes than any other candidate for governor of either party in history, except for the Democrat who beat him that year by eight points, eight or nine points, because the vote was so much larger. And a lot of it came out of historically Republican suburbs of Washington that have, A, become more Democratic as they've changed, but also there are a lot of Republican women who read the Washington Post every time and they really don't like Trump. Also in Washington, there's no such thing as a recession.

In a Washington government town, you go out into suburbs and many, many, many other cities and heartland and people are worried about the economy. They are worried about their kids getting jobs. They're worried about

their retirement. That's why I'm hesitant to say Virginia tells us what's going to happen in 2018, but Republicans better not just ignore it for darn sure. No, absolutely.

That does. And you may say that D.C. never has a recession, but I was there in 91, 92, and I remember there were steakhouses that closed in the afternoon for 90 minutes or so. I mean, so I saw how bad it got. The Capitol Grill, you know, you would get fewer ice cubes in your drink. It was just appalling. Hey, Haley, thanks for stopping by.

We'll talk to you again down the road, preferably before the election and also after. All right, Peter. James, take care. Take care, Haley, thanks for stopping by. We'll talk to you again down the road, preferably before the election and also after. All right, Peter. James, take care. Take care, Haley. Bye-bye. I hate to be binary about this, but you actually can divide the country into people who are comfortable with the phrase, I was moving a handgun from here to you belong with the people who probably are in those little blue enclaves where guns play absolutely no role in your life whatsoever. I couldn't help but think the number of times that I've gone traveling and never really thought about whether or not there's a gun in my bag because I've got two bags and each of them is filled with, well, I should back up a little

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slash ricochet 20 promo code ricochet 20 for twenty dollars off any suitcase and our thanks to ricket away for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. Peter, before we go, you know, can't really talk about the memo, which is coming out today because that'll be old news. Super Bowl will soon be old news. People will be, have forgotten the commercials they were disappointed in. Are you going, James? Are you going to go to the bowl?

No, no. No, I'm not. I've got press credentials that will get me about um i think i can step out of my front door and walk walk down the street without anybody actually you know asking me for my for my bona fides the uh it's it's funny we we were told that this place was just going to be thronged and packed and impassable and the streets would be clogged and the highways would be absolutely like something of the Walking Dead after the zombie virus hit.

I've gotten downtown and parked with ease the entire week. The skyways are busy, but I don't see a lot of people walking around with confused faces. It's funny. I mean, we're really going all out for this. And there are people who are having their picture taken by a giant ice sculpture that has the Roman numerals for this. And of course, they'll be in this weekend.

And the parties will begin and the huge $1,000 tickets and the great stakes and all the rest of it. But so far, the end of the world practically was what they told us. And it's not that. And I feel fine. So, James, who's your pick? Probably the Patriots. Do you think you believe they will win or you want them to win or both?

Well, I don't have – I mean I'd be angrier about the Eagles if they actually had beat us instead of assisting us in the destruction of ourselves. That was a game that mentally we just weren't there, and we beat ourselves. We did not play it. And so it wasn't like we were bested by this unstoppable force. But I have no animus or resentment for them. I hope that the Philly fans have their hopes ground into a fine powder and blown away. Their faith in a just and kind God is demolished, and they all essentially leave here with their chins welded to their sternums. You hate to say that other team that wins everything, let's have them win everything.

I hope they both play. I hope it's a great game. That's all I ask. I hope it's a great game. How about you? Well, I have a $5 bet with John Yoo. I hope they both play. It's a great game. That's all I ask. I hope it's a great game. How about you? Well, I have a $5 bet with John Yoo. Oh, that's right. John Yoo, the Philadelphia man. But both

of these teams are great stories. The idea that the Eagles are being led by this young quarterback who sat out most of the season until Wentz injured himself and now here comes Nick Foles and he played, you guys, the Vikings did sort of just check out of that game by, I don't know, midway through the third quarter. But that's because Nick Foles, earlier than that, but Nick Foles played a great game.

Yeah. So you've got this understudy becomes the star story on the Eagles side and on the Patriots side side, and I have to say this is a story that appeals to me most of all. I've never been a Patriots hater, although I understand with Deflategate, I get it. On the other hand, Bill Belichick, who grew up reviewing film with his dad, who was a coach at West Point. The man has been in the football game literally since he was five or six years old. And now you've got Tom Brady, who in quarterback years is about 98. And these two old pros

may be able to pull it off one more time, winning more Super Bowls than any other team in history. And James, I'm not old yet. I hope I can say that honestly. But I have reached a stage at which I have a special appreciation for old pros who just get it done again and again and again. So I'm with the Pats this weekend.

Well, that's well-reasoned. Brady is 40, so you're saying that someday when you're 40, you hope to be in hope to be i hope to be in half the condition he's in at that age yes all right okay good well you're right we all like a good story and this one supplies them and it's going to be played here in a beautiful new stadium an incredible place in downtown minneapolis and peter you'll be glad you're not here because the temperature is supposed to be about four oh oh yesterday was 15 below with the wind so it's it is us here now and then so we we um you can't say we didn't warn you they're everything with the signs from bold north to the people getting out and and embracing the

there's a zip line over the Mississippi. And before this week is over, I expect that some Minnesotan will swab himself with sterno, set it on fire, and go over that thing buck naked. Just because that's who we are. But that's who we've been, and that's who we'll continue to be. And if you would like Ricochet to continue to be, which, of course, you do because you love it and you love the comments and everything about it, well, then you will join. $2.50 a month only for the podcast listeners. $5 a month for the whole boat where you get to go to the member feed

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So thank you, everybody, for listening. Thank you, Peter. And we'll see everybody next week. And frankly, right away in the comments at Ricochet 3.0. Next week. Have gun, we'll travel, reach the cart of a man A knight without armor in a savage land His fast gun for hire heats the calling wind

A soldier of fortune is the man called Paladin Paladin, Paladin, where did you roam? Ricochet! Join the conversation.