The Ricochet Podcast - Bull Session

Episode Date: June 15, 2018

Another big news week and we’ve assembled the appropriate heavy hitters to help us parse it: first up, Victor Davis Hanson weighs in on North Korea, the IG report, and why the case for collusion is looking weaker and weaker every day. Then, Andrew McCarthy ( listen to his brand new podcast, The McCarthy Report) stops by for some in-depth analysis on that IG report and what it means for the... Source

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FBD Insurance Group Limited. Trading as FBD Insurance. Is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. You trust him? I do trust him, yeah. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson, back from Spain, and Rob Long.

I'm James Lalex. Today we talk to Victor Davis Hanson about the summit and Annie McCarthy about the IG report. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. Welcome everybody to the Ricochet podcast number 405. We're brought to you by the fine people at Blinkist. Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of best-selling non-fiction books and distills them down to the most impactful elements so you can read or listen to them in

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today at mancrates.com slash ricochet and we'll tell you a little bit more about what's in those crates later. Hint, often it's bacon. And we're brought to you by Ricochet itself. If Rob Long were here, and he'll be here in just a minute, he would tell you, oh, you know the drill, don't you? He would come up with some reason why you should pay for this instead of just freeloading as you've been doing for what, 404 episodes right now? Right, Peter? Right, right. 404 episodes.

Yes, but Rob isn't here, so you go ahead, James. I'm still jet-lagged. Oh, that's right. You came back from Spain. I just came back from Spain, exactly. Exacto, I should say. Right. And the Iberian culture itself lends itself sometimes, shall we say, to institutional bureaucratic corruption where people expect to leech off the state as opposed to pulling themselves up and doing the right thing and paying for what they ought to like a podcast, which is offered to them. unlike the Iberian Peninsula is a center right place where civil conversation is prized and

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But if they do, we will. Quite the week, Peter. We began with supposed ramping down the tensions on the North Korean peninsula. Then we moved directly from that to what was really said and done, and then directly from that to the Trump Foundation controversy, and then directly from that to the IG's report. Heads spin. Somewhere in the middle there, though, is that Trump Foundation thing. And you know what I find interesting? Hold on.

You have to tell me. You just gave a litany of the things that have happened over the last 10 days. I was out of the country and enjoying myself. I missed every single one of them except the IG report. So tell me about the Trump Foundation just in brief. Well, supposedly money sloshed between one to the other, sloshed between the foundation to the campaign to Mar-a-Lago lawsuits and the rest of it. I see. And so – and that's going to go poof probably like a lot of stuff does. What I find

interesting though, is that a lot of people, here's the thing that's being set up, the whataboutism is that, and I understand this to a certain degree, is that people on the right are looking at people on the left screaming about the foundation or just even bringing up the foundation with an arched eyebrow. And people on the right may say, you may have a perfectly good point. This may be utterly wrong. This may have been borderline criminal. But you know what? We don't care. Because where were you during Clinton? Right, right, right. Is this a good development, Peter? I'm trying to readjust here from bullfights and long siestas to American politics. Were you in Spain by any chance, Peter? Yeah, exactly. My mind is still in Spain.

It was such a wonderful experience. My first time there ever. However, how was the rain? How was the – we got – actually, we did get a little bit of rain, but only a couple of drizzles. It was – we had unseasonably cool weather, which meant it was just delightful. They all told us it could be 90 degrees easily, which would have made tromping around the streets of Madrid less pleasant. But it was absolutely lovely. And where did that rain mainly stay?

It did. Actually, I checked the weather. The rain stays mainly in the plain, except when we were there, it didn't. It covered the entire Iberian Peninsula, coasts, mountains, and La Mancha as well. Anyhow, so is this a good development? On the one hand, it seems maybe one purpose. I'm talking now about La Divina Providencia, which is much in my mind after a week in Spain. If you look at the United States from the point of view of centuries, which you tend to do if you're in Spain, you think maybe somehow or other a purpose of the Trump administration is to draw a lot of poisons out of – well, that may not be the way to put it – to draw a lot of bad things out into the light where everybody can see them how long go ahead how long have i been saying you can go back you've been saying the same

200 episodes in this podcast and find me quoting claudius the emperor from robert grave's uh james you know me better than that you know you know i don't believe anything until it's been long enough since hearing it that i can persuade myself it was my own idea and i finally have the poisons hatch out of the mud but go on go on from the perspective so there is there is something i do think that our friends on the left even the center left clinton supporters are finding themselves saying oh he really was worse with women. We can't, we have a double, we just have to address this double standard. Yes, the foundation, the Clinton foundation was corrupt. We really do have to address this double

standard. But we on the right are saying, you can't attack Bill Clinton for his attitude toward women and let Donald Trump, even though Donald Trump, as far as we can tell, didn't do anything illegal. And even though that, uh, access Hollywood tape dealt with some was what, 11 or 12 years old, you can't give him a pass on that. And if the Trump foundation was up to no good, it was up to no good. And we have to say, so it's, it's, uh, it is as well as which emperor would have put it.

And so, so that. So that's good. What's – yes, I think that's all to the good. What's on my mind though, in Spain, you look across at the United States and now who was it? A major bank yesterday upgraded their estimate for the current quarter growth rate to 4%. Just look across. Spain is a very wealthy country by spain's own historic standards but you look across at the united states and this this country this country is just a staggering thing the sense of growth energy dynamism it is just a staggering

thing i'm yakking james because i'm still jet-lagged. No, that's perfectly fine, Peter. I understand exactly what you're saying. You're the sort of person who in 1934, 1935, Nazi Germany would have said, look, we're building lots of roads and the factories are good. What's the problem? Which is what I hear an awful lot from the left. And I get that, but it's not applicable. I mean I saw this tweet the other day that said, ask yourself, if you were in Germany in 1934, what would you be doing right now? Exactly what you are doing. Implying that, of course,

everyone who is not actively trying to get their Fuhrer, Hitler, Trump, out right now is participating in the reconstruction of the Reich. Now, I think the reason that it's great if all the poisons hash out of the muck and everything is all of a sudden laid out for us and every side gets to see my gosh we've all compromised so much on ourselves and our ethics and the rest of it let's let's come up with a new shining moral order shall we both hands across the aisle it ain't gonna happen because the left believes that no matter what sort of corruption or illegality can be attached to the Clintons and their minions, in the end, it doesn't matter because they're trying to do the right thing, or at least the right thing is the necessary end to their politics. When it comes to Donald Trump, he's compounded by the fact that he

is evil and that everything that he wants to do is to bring about a crushing authoritarian corporate fascism to the country. Hence, everything has to be seen in that light. It stuns me every day when I go on Twitter and I see these people on the left who have absolutely no intention whatsoever, not just the left but liberals, no intention of making a case for their side and believe that by tweeting out the most hysterical comparisons to fascism that somehow i'm going to be on their side when they will i mean lose their bleep over the fact that there's a mural of donald trump at an immigration uh juvenile immigration detention facility or holding pen right there's a mural of donald trump with a flag into them that is the that is proof that their leader the great

leader to trump is is is strapping on his jackboots to bring fascism back. And if you point out, well, that's because he's president and actually here's a picture of the same thing with Obama's picture. Bleep, down the memory hole. We've got to talk about the next thing. And there's absolutely no – So, James, have you – so the IG's report came out pretty sort of midday yesterday California time. It would have been a little later in the day minneapolis time here's the question i have there are passages of the igs report i have

not read the whole report but i read pretty extensively the excerpts of it the reporting on it last night and there are passages that even at this stage even when we knew that they were using that they were misusing that dossier to get the court to give them search even when we knew that they were misusing that dossier to get the court to give them search warrant, even when we knew there was a lot of bad stuff going on, to see the back and forth in writing between FBI agents that was obviously biased, not the entire institution, but agent after agent had become thoroughly corrupted. They felt totally free to engage in deeply biased comments. We can't let Trump become president. No, we won't. We'll stop him. Unbelievable. And then there was a passage. I'm leaving aside the Russia

investigation. I'm leaving aside even the whole question of whether Donald Trump is guilty of anything. What I'm talking about is the level of petty bias and corruption that was clearly being tolerated at the FBI. There's the passage about the IG saying that he will deal with it in later reports, but they discovered multiple instances of FBI agents accepting favors, material favors, tickets, gifts, dinners out from the press. It was shocking to me. Even at this stage, it was shocking. Worse than I had expected. Worse than I could have believed. How is the left responding to that? Have you been on Twitter yet this morning? No, I haven't. I usually don't go on the internet until about 12 o'clock or so to save my sanity. But I'm sure that we're

ping-ponging back and forth between those who dare to criticize the FBI and those who – I mean, for a while there, you can't criticize the FBI because it's run by noble, upright, Elliot Ness characters. And then, of course, you can criticize the FBI because it's jackbooted thuggery and the rest of it, and it's the police state. It all depends. There's no constant there. But one constant, of course, is the problem of what to get your dad for Father's Day. And if Rob were here – Wait. What are you going to get your dad for Father's Day. And if Rob were here – Wait.

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And we thank them for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. And now we happily bring back to the podcast a man who needs no introduction, Victor Davis Hanson. Welcome, sir. And after a week of high-level talks, let's unpack what happened in North Korea. The left, of course, is screaming that Donald Trump legitimized an awful regime. The right is pointing out that the left was very happy to meet with the worst sort of people and give away the farm. You're actually on a farm right now, so tell us how that North Korea summit looked to you. Well, I think we have all the cards, and that's forgotten.

And by that, I mean when Trump came into office, there was a nuclear North Korea. And then something happened, and that was the disclosure that that nuclear North Korea had upped the ante by apparently claiming it could put the device on a missile and hit Portland or San Diego. At that point, Trump decided that that gambit not only nullified their use of missiles, but the entire nuclear project. He couldn't have that. That's his central threat. So then he used certain tools that are available in the United States. One was he put pressure on China for trade to stop unleashing their pet bulldog, which they find convenient.

And two, he raised the specter stealthily of Japanese militarization and nuclearization, maybe even Taiwan. Three, he green-lighted missile defense. Four, he loudly ordered a recalibration of U.S. nuclear resources. Five, he defended into plural threats like

Blockit Man, Bigger Button Than Yours. And five, he played good cop with his new team, his new team being Pompeo and Bolton, who were hardliners in a way that Tillerson and McMaster were not.

And the result is they're trying to get some kind of end of this existential threat to the West Coast. And Victor Peter here, what do you make of the results so far? Do we know? Go ahead. How do you read the situation? Did Trump get anything aside from good feelings? I think he did, because, again, unlike the Iran deal, the cards now that he understands are all in our hands. By that I mean the sanctions are starving the North Koreans to death, and they will. And unlike Obama or Bush or Clinton, North Korea doesn't think that Trump will affect him when he hears of starvation. So you know what's going to happen in three months if they continue the sanctions.

The UN, the Red Cross, everybody's going to say you've got to stop them. And Trump won't stop them. And the North Korean knows that. And they don't know what he'll do. I don't know what he'll do. You don't know what he'll do. That's new. And the United States is in an economic boom,

and North Korea is in decline, and China's worried. So Trump has got all the cards, and there's no hurry, and I think he knows that. He likes the, you know, the agulation. But North Korea's going to have to do something, or it's going to be back in the Stone Age. And China's very confused, wants to get in somehow. And North Korea, I think we're even leveraging North Korea away from China. I think we're telling them, you've been used by China,

and there's all this Western investment that's awaiting you in South Korea, and why don't you just sort of break away a little bit from China? I don't know if that's smart or stupid, but that's what Pompeo and Bolton are doing. I think that's the key, that they've been doing this for weeks. And Trump, when he says he's unprepared, he doesn't need to prepare, that's not accurate. He's got a really good team of people that we haven't seen in a while that are pretty effective. And I think they've read North Korea pretty well. while that are pretty obsessive. Let me ask you about that team in particular, because again, all

I'm doing, Victor, is popping questions at you that these are attacks that popped up from the left that pop up in my Twitter feed all the time. That now that Trump has been president for about a year and a half, he's shifting around members of his team and eliminating

the people who might impose some judiciousness in the administration. He's putting in place people who simply encourage all his own impulses. You know the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. I believe you also know the National Security Director, John Bolton. Are they enablers? Are they Trump enablers? What do you make of it? No, I think what he's doing is he's saying, I'm an art of the deal guy, and I don't enjoy being the bad guy and being told by McMaster or Tillerson, you can't do that, you can't do that. So I like guys that I get along with, A, and he didn't get along with them. Right. But B, I like guys that are harder than I am.

That way I can act like I'm magnanimous. Basically tells people, hey, man, I don't know what Pompeo or crazy Bolton's talking about Libya and getting rid of it. I don't know what we're going to do with these guys. But you've got to deal with me. And that's sort of the ego that Trump has. Whereas with Tillerson, he had to go play, you know, I have a bigger butt than I have. And then Tillerson, just in a tizzy.

Same with McMaster. So it's a different strategy, and I think it fits the personalities of the people involved a little bit better. And I think he feels closer to Pompeo. I don't know about Bowler, but he feels much closer to Pompeo than he does with Tillerson for a variety of reasons that would take a long time to list. But I think that, you know, we're going to see some results because North Korea has no way. We need to cut out all the rhetoric from left and right to say, what is the future of North Korea? And there is no future because they've got a president that they don't know what he'll do, but he will starve him to death. And he will retaliate if they try to use weapons.

I think the only problem North Korea has now for his thug and psychopath is that he's on a tiger. And if he gets off, he's killed so many people and his dad's killed so many people and he's killed it on the justification, I'm going to reward you, and we've got nukes and all this. If he takes the nukes away and they perceive that he's weak or he's got so many vendettas against him, he may be knocked off. So he's cautious. Hey, Victor, it's Rob Long in New York. Thanks for joining us. I got a question. So part of the Trump sort of technique or Trump personality is to keep things messy. Even people who were doing workouts with him, I mean, loan workouts with him in the 80s and 90s said that it was just this chaos.

It was just this constant. He would remove all the normal borders and barriers you would have between subjects and just kind of keep you off your guard. I mean isn't there a way to look at this – and I say this as somebody who's not generally very optimistic about this president. But I have to say that his use of trade and China, China specifically, I think his use of trade in Europe and Canada is stupid. But with China specifically, it seems to be tied up with North Korea at theukes and China's trade and IP practices. Isn't this kind of a crazy gambit here, crazy smart, I mean, to say to China, you've got 23 million starving North Koreans, right? They're going to go north. They're not going to go south.

Yeah, I think he's telling them that. He's also telling them that radioactivity blows into China and contamination blows into China. But I think in a larger sense, he reminds me that we all have these situations where we know certain things in our life can't go on. And it's too messy to deal with them. So we knew that you can't have NATO nations on the front lines not paying their promised 2% of GDP. We know that you know we know that deep down you can't have germany running up a 65 billion dollar surplus with only five planes that fly and expecting us to protect them while they're running a mercantile sham called the eu and they're at war basically with eastern europeans

over immigration southern europe Europeans over finance, and Britain over Brexit. We know that's an untenable situation, but we don't want to really get into it. We know that Canada can't really charge 260% tariffs on dairy. We just know that's not right. We know that it's not right that illegal aliens send $30 billion back to Mexico every year and $25 billion to Central America, and most of them are also drawing on federal support. Is that kind of why people think of him as rude? Only a rude person says stuff like that, brings out the obvious?

Yeah, I think Trump comes in and says, well, you guys in the Council on Foreign Relations and the Hoover Institution, where I work, and everybody says normal. It's not normal. It's abnormal. And the way I think is what people think in the business world or, you know, our daily lives. That's normal. And that's very unsettling. And I've used this image in print, but he's sort of like a, I don't know, a Shane or the Magnificent Seven or

Tom Dolphin and the Searchers. He comes in and says, I'm a nasty guy and you don't want me around and I don't fit in when I'm done. But for now and for this particular period, you've asked me to come in and clean things up and by cleaning up, you're going to hate me, but you're going to be better off. And that's, that's sort of on the ice. Yeah. Tragic girl. It goes back to to sophocles that's the role he's playing and when it's done he'll end up like lemay or pat and he's not going to end up you know like george marshall so end up as an

ass the sob right but but just to expand the meanness and the not niceness a little bit, immigration was another one of his huge, huge, huge campaign policies, big, big support across the country for his general immigration stance. He sort of wobbled back and forth a little bit here and there, but now we are separating families at the border we are doing the it's gotten dirty right i mean it was never going to be clean these are going to be tough things to do he's doing them um you think it's going to work you think it's not going to work in two ways one i mean being effective because we did sort of have a surge at the border of the past couple months or do you think it's going to Or do you think it's going to be a political failure? How does he get out of this? Well, I mean, again, it's what you call normal on immigration and abnormal.

I mean, two weeks ago I went in, a guy ran into me and hit me in the parking lot. And he had no ID, no registration, no insurance. It was his fault. And then he tells me in broken English, and this happens all the time in the real world. Look, you're important, importante, and you need, so give me $100 and I disappear. So did I want to have three hours to have a police report? Why, it was his fault? No, I gave him $100 and I was out about $900 in damage.

That's an everyday reality with illegal immigration. So we have 1.1 million identity thefts, and we're told that illegal immigration is the most law-abiding people in the world. We don't even mention the IRS. Has anybody in the media ever had their identity stolen? I have. I've had my checks taken, and the illegal alien's name put on the router number, and $8,000 written on my name. That happens every day. So when we talk about separating,

yeah, it probably happens. But on the other hand, three miles, I can go in there, and I can see 16-year-old gang members who don't have any parents. I think they're gang members. I saw ICE arrest about eight of them the other day. So I don't know what their parents are, but if I was a journalist for The Washington Post, I would say they're minors and they've been separated from their parents.

So what he's channeling is that this perception that we all get in the media is not the perception that people live. So the UC Berkeley liberal hospital shows that 58% of Californians want more deportations. These are not old white guys in Ohio. These are Asian. These are one quarter of the people in the state are not born in California. So what I'm getting at is that, no, people don't like in the abstract what Trump is doing, but they think that it was pretty amoral and unethical about what the situation was prior to Trump. And this particular class lectured them on morality, but never was exposed to the ramifications of their own ideology. So when I go to the answer, I hear all these

lectures and sermons, but I don't think these people ever encountered what the reaction would be to their sermon. Is it a winning strategy, though? What do you think? Is it a winning strategy going into November? Well, it's a nihilistic. Yeah, if you can. Well, we have to.

Again, it doesn't matter what I say or you say. It's just in this data driven society, it's data. So did he get 3% GDP per year? We don't know. I think there's a good chance he will. Is unemployment good? It's the lowest it's been in peacetime in 44 years. Did the stock market crash?

No. We're going to be the largest energy producer in the world. Are we doing better than Europe? Yes. So there's certain data that are driving that. And the problem with the whole political thing is that the Democratic Party, which I'm still a registered member and I grew up in a Democratic household, it's not Democratic anymore. It's hardcore leftist. And they don't have an answer for this. And so it's Trump 24-7 and what he's doing in a very crude and P.T.

Barnum Kardashian pardon Jack Johnson pardon this he's trying to create a new political reality where he's got 62% of the white vote never happened that high before all he needs is 15%

of the black vote and this Democratic Party is going to be in trouble. And that's his entire strategy. Keep his base and appeal to non-traditional Trump voters on terms of economics and class. And that's what I think is behind all of this hysteria, that if he were to be successful, at least politically, the Democratic Party is going to be in big trouble. And I think we're in an existential fight with Trump versus his political enemies. And it resonates into the IG report.

You read the text, piece of S, Trump voters, smelly Walmart, Trump voter, sort of like a crude version of a David Brooks column, you know. Hey, Victor, Peter here. Last question. I'm told we have to – actually, I have question after question for you. Even though we see each other here at the Hoover Institution, it's still a privilege to be able to ask questions in public of Victor Davis Hanson. Here's the question. You and Devin Nunes – Dein nunes is the chairman of the house

intelligence committee that's been pushing on the uh the whole fbi question the whole fbi story you and devin nunes have known each other a long time you are both boys from the central valley of california and i know that devin nunes remains a close friend of yours today. The IG report that came out yesterday, I have to say, even at this late stage of the game, when we've known that the FBI was way out of line, we've known it for months, even at that, there were large sections of that report that I myself found shocking. When does anybody apologize to Devin Nunes? What was his role? I don't know, but everything he said was going on.

He said all of the redactions are not anything to do with national security. They're nothing to do with it. They're all gossip that's embarrassing. And I'm sure now we find out, well, they use the word POS about Trump supporters. They talk about Diva. Actually, they use the wrong pronoun, um, gender,

but Viva la resistance. And so the reaction was used to protect the FBI and DOJ. They use the word gifts. Oh, FBI people use got gifts from liberal reporters. I don't think, I don't think Robert Mueller uses the word gifts. He's talking about Carter page or accusations against Paul Manafort.

Graft, corruption, those are the words. Yeah, those are the words we use. So then we learn that a DOJ attorney writes and says, can you get my job? I'll tip off the desk, but you've got to hire my son. And the whole thing, as you say, is full of that. But what we have to do as historians is say, so was the Fast and Furious. If you read the IG report there, so was the IG report on Lois Lerner and the IRS. And what does the IG always do? They say they do two things.

This is improper, and this is what you should do to prevent improper behavior. And then with the Obama, remember, 47 of 72 inspector generals said that their findings were stifled and ignored by the Obama administration. And I don't think that anything's going to happen from it at all. But I don't know, because this is, remember, this is one IG volume. We have the second volume coming out about the FISA court. We have a third, apparently, coming out about the BISA court. We have a third apparently coming out about the bot opposition research dossier. And we have a fourth coming out about the insertion of a quote-unquote informant.

And apparently when Mr. Horowitz says he's going to investigate that, I think it will be like this. We'll be shocked like you are that people conduct investigations in a manner they would never do against you or me if we were audited, but they do for their political friends in Washington.

And there will be no consequences other than we're supposed to shed tears that Peter Strzok lost his job or Lisa Page resigned or Jim Comey had to go on a book tour. That's what they call punishment. All we're doing is creating more resentment. And I think that that channels into this weird Trump phenomenon. It does. It does. And it will.

And it will. People just imagine that CNN and the rest of them were sitting around yesterday saying, so do we say that there was bias, but it wasn't political? Or should we say that there was political, but it wasn't political? Or should we say that there was political, but it wasn't bias? And it's obvious to all. Mueller doesn't run an investigation like Comey does. From Mueller, if you mislead somebody like Cheryl Page, I mean, Cheryl Mills, excuse me, or Huma Abedin, that's not just something you ignore. That's something you go to them and say, we're going to ruin your life,

and we're going to ruin your kid's life. We're going to charge you with perjury, and it's going to bankrupt you. Now, I want dirt on Trump. And Comey did not do that with any of those people, you know. We're going to ruin your life, Huma. We're going to ruin your life, Cheryl. You just lied to us about the server

and your use and knowledge of the server. I want dirt on Hillary. That didn't exist. Everybody knows that. And that's what's really depressing about the whole thing. One thing I'll just finish with. I've met so many people that voted for Trump that I was surprised it would dare do such a thing.

But I haven't had any, even with his worst and most proved outbursts, I haven't heard anybody say, I withdraw my vote now. But I have met people who said I couldn't vote for him because he's too proved, who are now saying, I think I'll vote for him. And I'm not saying that because I'm for or against Trump, I'm just saying it is to detect the way it's going, you know what I mean? And they look at the economy, they look at foreign policy and say, you know what? I don't like the SOB, but I was wrong. It was much better

than the way I'd vote for him. But I don't see people saying, I don't like the economy, I don't like the foreign policy, I don't like the deregulation. And the crudity cements the deal for me, and I'm never going to vote for him again. No, I think Evan McMillan's second run is probably dead at this point. Yeah, I think so. And I think that a lot of me and I'm never going to vote for him again. No, I think Evan McMullin's second run is probably dead at this point. Yeah, I think so.

And I think that a lot of people, I won't mention names, haven't made the case. So whatever Trump is, he has an animal cunning that we think is superficial but actually is a pretty good read on human nature. He's a product of a Manhattan real

estate mess. We know that you have muy importante things to get to, so we thank you for coming by today and look forward to seeing the next thing you write and talking to you the next time you're on the podcast with us. Thanks, Victor. Thank you for having me. Thanks, Victor. Thank you. Take care

of yourself. Yeah, I will. I got that operation Wednesday night, so it went okay. It went okay. All right. Good. Good. Okay, I will. I got the operation Wednesday night, so it went okay. It went okay. All right. Good. Good. Okay. Take care. Bye-bye. Yeah. He's in an operation. Peter's been in Spain. Rob, what have you been up to?

Nothing. I just had a little internet trouble this morning, but other than that, I'm basically okay. What happened with your internet? Well, you know because it's no way to fix it you're breaking up your i can hardly hear you see i can't imagine that you living in these small uh manhattan places would not have just great great wi-fi coverage everywhere surely you open up your app to choose a network and there's 700 networks from all the people around you and the bodega and the neighbors and the rest of it.

And it's frustrating because some of them are secured and some of them are unsecured. And what if you found an unsecured network two floors down? You could use that. Is that ethical? There's all these modern questions that we have. Better not use the Internet. But if you ever were to come out here

where i am in you know in middle america flyover country real america as opposed to the false pretentious non-un-american places like the coasts where you dwell rob um where i thrive let's be honest did i strike a nerve uh you would find that people have large houses and sometimes they're frustrated by the fact they can't get their internet in the back of the yard. That's for sure. That's an unsolvable problem, James. Well, you crustal coastal elites who look down on us with our large lots might say, look, if you're using so many resources of this precious finite planet that you can't get your Wi-Fi down by the pool, you deserve it. That's the price you should pay for your unsustainable lifestyle.

Well, I'm here to tell you that's not the pool. You deserve it. That's the price you should pay for your unsustainable lifestyle. Well, I'm here to tell you that not the case. Good Wi-Fi everywhere in your house is indeed sustainable, possible, and indeed likely, and indeed what you're going to have if you go to Eero. Eero was created in order to build a Wi-Fi system that we all wish we had in our home. Fast, reliable connections in every room

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So Rob Long, you're newly Aero'd, we understand. That is true. I am newly erode. And this is absolutely true. I had the worst Wi-Fi ever. And it was in a small apartment, but it is what it is, right? Everything's gotten much better.

This morning, I've been recording from there for the past three weeks, something like that, two weeks. It was so easy to set up. I'm pre-irritated when I get these devices, right? I'm pre-infuriated. So I already hate

Eero, and I hate everything about it, and I know it's not going to work. It's never going to work. It took about five seconds. It did everything it was supposed to do and even when i could see it like all the bars going and it said i found it we're all fine everything's great i was still hated it i was still really mad at it and then boom it just worked and it was fast and it was everywhere and um and then i had all this residual

anger you know because i have a lot of anger for the devices in my life and i didn't know what to do with it um and and luckily um the ig report came out last night so i could get mad about that i had all that you know that big anger pot that i needed to just spill but i have to say, it is exactly what they say it is. It is not just works, but it actually, it's really super, super, super, super, super easy to set up. So there you have it, friends.

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and it can happen tomorrow in seconds like Rob had. Free overnight shipping to the important because you want your wi-fi to be better and it can happen tomorrow in seconds like rob had free overnight shipping to the u.s or canada on your new ero wi-fi system just go to ero.com eero.com and at checkout select overnight shipping and then enter ricochet to make that shipping free that's ero.com order your new system select overnight shipping at checkout and enter the promo code RICOSHET to make shipping free. And our thanks to Eero for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. I, oh my gosh, let's see. Well, gentlemen, I believe we have Andy here, or do we not?

Or am I talking in a fashion that Yeti will cut out, or not? Who knows? All right, here he comes. Hi, it's Andy. All right, here he comes. Hi, it's Andy. All right, here we go. I'm going to introduce you in just a second. And here it is. Three, two, one.

And now we welcome Andrew C. McCarthy, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor to NR and a newly minted contributor at Fox News. Congratulations. Listen to his brand new podcast, The McCarthy Report, on your favorite podcast device

and follow him, of course, at Twitter. And you can hear him on the radio giving the most concise descriptions and evaluations of what's going on. And I catch you on Will Cowell Report from time to time, Andy, and it's always bracing and clear. So we've got this report. They're saying, oh, mistakes perhaps, but no evidence of bias. Really? Well, James, they're really not saying there's no evidence of bias. Really? Well, James, they're really not saying there's no evidence of bias. I actually think it's really slippery the way they've worded this.

Here's what they're actually saying. There's immense evidence of bias. Oh, but no politics. But no politics. Yeah, well, I mean, basically what they're saying is, yes, there's immense evidence of Oh, but no politics, but just to say, even if it wasn't the best choice among the available options, was it defensible, was it reasonable? And by doing that, he really reads the potential of bias out of every situation, as long as he can identify some government policy or some abstract reason why it might have been reasonable.

And the rest of us are supposed to suspend everything that we know about the investigation so that the fact that people who express bias, admit to bias, champion the fact that they have bias, act in a way that's completely consistent with that bias, and achieve results that the decisions that were biased were aiming at. We're supposed to pretend that the bias had nothing to do with it because it's possible that there were other reasons involved. And he's really not saying that there's no evidence of bias. He's saying that I don't have any conclusive proof that bias was the driving force of any particular decision, and I'm not going to invite people to draw the common-sense conclusion that when there's a mountain of bias evidence, that might have had an itty-bitty little bit of impact on the decision-making. Andy, it's Rob Long. But even – how do you – Strzok? Strzok, I think. Strzok. I think it's Strzok.

Strzok, yeah. Even Peter Strzok says, in addition to all this incredibly, incredibly baldly revealing politically biased statements. Even he says the Russia investigation in his gut is there's no there there. Well, he says that now, Rob, but he didn't say that at the beginning. Let me – here's what he said at the beginning, okay, because I actually have quoted this in a column that will go up. When he was first dispatched to England to do the first interviews in this case, he texts Page, this is on August 8th, this is just a week before

the infamous insurance policy text, right? And he says, and damn, this feels momentous, because this matters. The other one too, meaning the Clinton investigation, but that was to ensure that we didn't F something up. This matters, that is the Trump case, because this matters with matters in all. It almost reads like a Trump text. It's all capital letters. The Trump-Russia investigation that I'm about to embark on is the case that really matters because here is where the FBI gets to do what the FBI does. So we're now going to go out case after appearing to do a thorough investigation, we had to avoid doing anything that was so obviously outrageous it would have brought discredit to us in the moment. But other than that, that thing was baked from the beginning. So do you think that if you got Peter Strzok together right now somehow, do you think that that team really believes that there is a Russia case to be made against Trump?

I mean obviously they're going to – Manafort and political operatives are probably going to go to jail or pay huge fines. Of course, that happens every four years. It doesn't really matter who's president. Do you really think he believes that Trump is some kind of Russian dupe? No, no, no. I don't think so. I think, Rob, you have to try to put yourself in the shoes they were in as the continuum proceeds along, right? So I think at the beginning, remember, this point in time is right at the same time that

they're accepting and internalizing the allegations in the Steele dossier, which they said they took because they believed Steele, because he had good credibility with them having cooperated with them in another investigation and giving them what evidently was important cooperation. So they're getting this information from Steele. They clearly believe it because if they didn't believe it, they would never have gone to the FISA court with it. I mean it's bad enough to have gone without corroborating it. But I don't believe for a moment that they didn't believe what they told the court. And I think now, here we are, however many months later you read through these texts, one thing that comes through is he's a little bit melodramatic, but he's a smart guy. You know, I think they would draw the conclusion at this point, well, okay, there's no there there, but we tried.

We tried. So just two last questions. I know Peter wants to jump in, and then I'm going to jump in after that. But Trump says he's totally exonerated. Is he totally exonerated? No, I don't think so. I mean, I think to the extent he's exonerated, if that ends up being where we end up, it'll be because of exactly what you and I just discussed, which is that they weren't able to make the case. There's no case there. I think they're running with the theme that he's exonerated because there's a full court press on in the Trump legal team, and you're hearing this from my old boss, Rudy Giuliani, more than anyone else, I think, to discredit the underpinnings of the Mueller investigation. So that even if we say that Mueller isn't guilty of any of these shenanigans, if the investigation he's presiding over, if the fundaments of it are this discredited investigation, then his effort is necessarily discredited, or at least that's the line there. So is Strzach going to jail do you think no i don't think no i i always think in these situations um we're too and i'm not i

don't mean you're doing this but i think in general we obsess too much about what the the legal and criminal implications are you know i no, I'm talking about. No, no, I want to know. No, I hear you. But I always think that in an abuse of power situation, to me, the most important thing is that the government officials who are unfit to wield that power, it's that that power is removed from them. Whether in addition to that, they've done something indictable that they can go to jail for

is interesting and important. But I always think the most important thing is make them accountable and get these jobs away from them. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, James. Just to piggyback on that, get the jobs away from them.

That's a consequence, being fired. But one of those, this is how you get Trump things, says that we have people who lie to the FBI and eventually get to walk away. We'd all be put in jail for that. But it seems to be this class, this ruling class, this governing class, that doesn't really suffer any serious consequences for what we'd get nailed for. Yeah, and I think, James, that this highlights – the point you've made would be even more powerfully made if the artificiality of this report were not so evident. What I mean by that, to be more concrete, is the agents looked at these two investigations, the Clinton emails and the Trump-Russia thing, as if they were one single thing, one single transaction or two sides of the 2016 election that they were looking at at relatively the same time. And yet what we have is a 568-page report that tells you you can make

an evaluation of what they did with the Clinton emails case without considering the context of Trump-Russia. So for example, when they pitch to you the decision to give immunity from prosecution to Paul Combetta, the guy who serviced the server, who lied to the FBI and destroyed the evidence on the server. They give you a bunch of gobbledygook about federal interest in false statements, prosecutions, and did he suffer from bad lawyering, and was this a rational decision because it enabled them to get the testimony faster? What you don't consider and you're not asked to consider is how should we weigh this against the five guys that muller has prosecuted for lying to the fbi and squeezed until they you know gave him

whatever information they had and it brings up the to me what's the most important point, which is you have these two investigations bearing on the same important event, the 2016 election, that are handled by the same set of agents. Can you conceivably say that the same quality have you on and I'm going to say it one more time, which is thank you. Byron York has been doing yeoman's work throughout this whole. He's a fantastic reporter, but there is exactly one member of the press, one journalist working today who is a former prosecutor who understands the institutions of the Department of Justice and the FBI, who is a fine writer and who day after day after day is making this all accessible to the rest of us and performing a service to democracy. And that's you. Good work. You were an impressive prosecutor, as best I can tell. But what I know is you've turned into one of the great running acts of american journalism nicely done now well thank you thank you so much i can take the weekend off now and live on that for a long time tell mrs mccarthy i said all that will you please so listen my lawyer here here's now we've been going through arguments i want to know i want to know how this struck you viscerally yesterday as i say you've been reporting on this, doing the deepest, best reporting of anybody I am disappointed because I think there's two. First of all, Peter, because I think highly of Michael Horowitz, like everyone else, unfortunately, in this in this debacle. I actually served in the U.S. attorney's office with and have known for a number of years, and I think well of him.

And I think the report demonstrates how how thorough and careful he is. That said, it seems to me that the big flaw here is that you can't conceivably, as we just discussed, evaluate what happened in the Clinton emails case without the context of the Trump Russia case and what and how one thing reads on the other including the motivations that were involved and I think it's just a very artificial exercise to look at one

as if the other was not going on at the same time and as if the other didn't happen and the other thing that that um bothers me is it seems to me that this all comes down to whether you buy the fbi uh justice department obama white house version of what intent is required to prove a classified information defense or classified information offense, I should say. So if you buy their version of the statute, which is not what the statute says, and you conclude that they have to show an intent to harm the United States, which simply isn't true, then you can look at every single decision that was made from that premise and it seems entirely reasonable on their part to say well why should we scorch the earth here when we don't have enough intent to make this case anyway i mean it seems very reasonable to say why use the grand jury why use subpoenas why do search warrants why do any of that stuff on the other hand if you believe

as i do that they rewrote the statute in order not to make the case against her and that this is just an elaborate exercise that was intended from the start to exonerate her at the end after having appeared to do an energetic investigation, then your evaluation of what they do decision by decision is very different. And I just don't think he grappled with that. So, Andy, let me read a sentence to you from Jim Comey's piece that appeared in The New York Times yesterday at the same time that The New York Times released the IG's report. The report resoundingly demonstrates that there was no prosecutical case against Mrs. Clinton as we had concluded. And Andy replies what? Jim, you misread the statute. You got it wrong. Knock it off.

Is that the way you reply? How do you reply? That really is. It really is how I reply, except, I guess, in addition to say that I think Jim is working backwards. So Jim basically articulates a standard that is guess the legal conclusions and the uh the discretionary decision making that was done by the agents i'm strictly going to limit my examination to whether these decisions were rational not whether they were right or wrong, whether they were defensible. So he's not making the conclusion that Jim is pronouncing. In fact, he's explicitly, as I understand it, disavowing that he would make that conclusion.

Got it. Got it. Okay. Just another couple of questions, if I may, on what happens next. So you weren't shocked, but I was. You've been following this more closely, I suppose. But the reproduction of those texts back and forth ordinary americans that dripped from every text trump voters pos is unbelievable and then the other passage this is just a paragraph or two but the ig said in passing by the way there's another report on the way we have multiple instances of members of the f and the Department of Justice accepting gifts from journalists, tickets to this event, dinners out, that sort of thing. Shocking to me. Okay, I look at this and say, wow, this is just, apart from legal analysis, these people were out of line.

In their minds, they were out of line. They were condescending to the American people. They bought into being privileged members of the elite class in Washington. They're doing favors for journalists and accepting material rewards. Unbelievable. Is Christopher Wray the right guy to clean up the FBI? Is Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein, are they the right people to figure out exactly how deep the rot goes in the Department of Justice? How do you satisfy ordinary Americans

who look at all that and say, wait a minute, they're not serving us anymore. They're not serving – it used to be the FBI were the ordinary, reliable, patriotic Joes. The FBI is the the kind of conduct that you describe maybe not on the scale but the same species of of conduct this kind of corrupt relationship with the media in particular is not confined to these cases uh there is a pattern of this that has gone on at the FBI. I'm going to have a column about this tomorrow in the different context of some of the insider trading cases that went on after the financial crisis, where you again get this sort of corrupt interplay between the agents and the cooperative journalists. And what I'm concerned about with respect to FBI leadership under the current administration,

as well as Justice Department leadership, is to me, as someone who loves these institutions, the FBI and the Justice Department, the only way to fix this is to hold people accountable and purge this and change the ethos of these institutions and it seems to me that what leadership has done to this point is try to conceal and try to fight every investigator who tries to to scrape away the veil um and try to get to the bottom of this. I mean, they are not doing the things. I was very disappointed in Director Wray yesterday because I think he should have taken the opportunity to condemn the agents who behaved in a way that really brought disrepute to the Bureau. And instead, I think he nonsensically said, see, see, see, we were not motivated by politics here.

And to me, that is exactly what the report doesn't say. Hey, Andy, can I just jump in on this one last one? Yeah, of course. You're talking about the FBI, and we keep saying the FBI, and they took gifts, and they're politically motivated. And they don't seem like FBI agents. They seem like congressmen or staffers. They seem like they're political operatives. I mean, isn't – you clean up the FBI, say you clean it up. Isn't it inevitable that investigators who live and work in DC and investigate almost exclusively DC crimes, isn't it inevitable they become this? I mean where are the FBI agents that put bad guys behind – investigate bank robberies and identity theft and all sorts of things? I mean would it be better to rotate them in and out?

I mean every couple of years? Rob, you've really hit on something that has not been focused on enough. I usually do, Andy, as you know. I'm remarkably perceptive. This is a big leap for me, though. This is a big, big deal, although I don't think the solution is what you're suggesting. It's not rotating the agents out of D.C. Here's the problem.

This investigation, especially the Clinton emails one, was handled at headquarters. If you talk to veteran guys, especially guys who work in the criminal side of the house at the FBI and in the U.S. Attorney's Office, they will tell you that it's virtually unheard of for a big case to be worked out of headquarters and in particular to be worked by agents who ordinarily do national security stuff rather than criminal investigation. And one of the reasons that the FBI, one of the real big reasons that the FBI likes to handle cases in the field offices throughout the country that have venue over the different offenses that they're investigating is they want them to be insulated from the political environment of Washington. So headquarters is not a place where you want investigations to be run. Headquarters is supposed to be a place where policy gets driven and where, you know, if some investigative tool has to be used where we want to make sure that it's uniformly applied across the country, we need to have headquarters for that purpose, for the purpose of weighing in.

You do not want to have headquarters ever conducting these investigations. It should be a U.S. attorney's office and an FBI field office. And if Washington is too close, then they ought to do something like, for example, when Judge Mukasey was attorney general, when the CIA interrogators matter came up, this whole the waterboarding and all that stuff, he brought in a U.S. attorney from Connecticut outside Washington, outside the Eastern District of Virginia, where the CIA is, to investigate that with FBI agents who didn't work in those districts. What Sessions has done here, as I understand it, is he's brought this guy, Yubarin, from Utah, who was supposed to be doing a scrub on all of the stuff that happened in connection

with the 2016 investigation, so that that's outside of washington that's absolutely what they ought to be doing and i think an untold story here and a big part of what went wrong here is the decision to handle it as if it were a national security matter that needed to be run out of washington that was a big mistake right if it had been a movie you would have brought in a disgraced u.S. attorney who had been spending 30 years in Nome office, played by Sam Elliott, to come in for one last investigation. That would have been great. But as it is with Washington, Andy, I think the Congress has got a real role, a real cudgel that they can hold over the Bureau. They can tell the Bureau, look, either you purge everybody who's been involved in this and get back to your mission and stop being overtly political,

or we're never going to give you any money to get out of that building. Yeah, I wish I thought that was a realistic threat. I'm afraid, you know, part of the big problem here is the way that we do budgets anymore is not, you know, what they call regular order and all that jazz where you actually can make a credible threat to slash their funding unless they conduct themselves the way they're supposed to conduct themselves. Now we have, you know, like high noon at the OK Corral every 12 months or so, right, where there's one big old omnibus and it gets signed off on, and there's no budgeting, which is supposed to be the big tool,

the power of the purse that Congress has to bring these agencies into compliance with what their standards are supposed to be has kind of gone by the boards. And impeachment, which is the other tool they have, I'm not talking about impeaching the president. If they had, for example, James, impeached Koskinen, and if you think about it, here you have the IRS director, right? The IRS is the country's most

unpopular agency even in good times if we have good times anymore right um and you have him basically in the trick bag on a case involving destruction of evidence and harassing people for political purposes they should have nailed him just as an example that, you know, there's a limit to what we're going to put up with anymore. And they couldn't even do it with respect to him. So I think if you forget how to discipline people and your power to control their budgets has become illusory, it's very hard to bring them to heel. We have no shortage of discipline here. And so we say to you, be gone. Hey,

we'll see you on Fox. And as people are saying, if you're on Fox a couple more times, you're going to end up the AG before you know it. And that'll be fantastic. Oh, yeah. All right. Great.

Just remember who loves you, baby. Remember who loves you. Yeah, yeah. All right, guys. Have a great weekend.

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because he was in Spain. Tell us about Spain briefly. I mean, you know. You've already heard enough about Spain, everybody gets a frozen smile on their face when they get the screen out and they hook up the carrots. Well, the first day we, yeah, exactly, you don't want to hear that. I'll show you

my slides in the living room after dinner. So, well, here's something interesting. First of all, it's beautiful history, went to a bullfight, absolutely fantastic, fascinating spectacle. If Rob is allowed to microdose, I'm allowed to go to bullfights. But of course, all the time I reason for this, I concluded, is that the Spaniards, after the long, deep freeze of the Franco years, Europe to them has coincided with a period of prosperityat turns out that spain has been working very very hard with north africa morocco they've been working with the moroccans for two centuries to keep immigrants in africa and keep them from going across to spain okay that's what i hear over and over again from people of my generation the european union works for us and by the way we're

able to control our own borders uh because we we North Africa as opposed to the Italians who've had a million people cross from Libya. Okay. And then a couple of things happen. I talked to a couple of kids, teenaged kids, smart, well-educated, speak English beautifully. How representative they are, I don't know, but they didn't buy any of it. They said, we hate the European Union. We hate being ruled from Brussels. One thing you need to know about Spaniards is that we hate each other as the civil war demonstrated, but the people we hate, the only people we hate more is outsiders trying to tell us what to do. And by the way, when we watch English language television, we despise CNN. We watch Fox news. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. So there's a new generation rising.

And the second thing that happened was – You saw a very, very interesting slice of Spain. What? But I pressed them on this and they said, no, no, no. There are more people like us than you might suppose. And how do they – okay. How do they explain the socialist government? Oh, because they're not anything like the majority.

No, no, no. What they're trying to tell me is there's a new generation rising. Accurate or not, I don't know. But it's true that everybody who's giving the standard explanation of Spain was sort of my age-ish. And here are the kids who just didn't buy it. More pro-Trump than Victor. I mean it was just a shocking thing. So this is at the place where the people join to cheer the stabbing of animals, right?

No, this was not at the bullfight, actually. This was not at the bullfight. Stabbing of animals. Read Death in the Afternoon. You fill a sign. So the second thing that happened was there's a new socialist government and the business community was a little nervous about this. But while we were there, the new prime minister is announcing his ministers and they're all technocrats. It's not all the people of the left, but they're not going to do anything. They're technocrats. Our last day in Spain, the story all week had been that there was a boat of 600 migrants from Africa floating around the Mediterranean. Why?

Because the new Italian government refused them docking rights. And then Malta refused them docking rights. And our last day there, the new Spanish prime minister said, come to Spain. And there was a category of Spaniards who were shocked by that. Because as I say to them, one of their great achievements was that they had been controlling immigration from Africa and they had avoided the development of an anti-immigrant party. So we shall see how all of this plays out. But they just thought this is a catastrophe. Small matter to us, 600 immigrants.

But if the new government begins invite even making welcoming gestures in the direction of africa spain could have a problem on its hand very fast i was told the narrowest the distance between north africa and spanish territory is 14 kilometers you could swim it all right that's it that's those are my takes from spain well i think that spain is obliged to take in as many immigrants as possible to atone for the sin of having shoved muslims out of the country however many hundreds of years ago. I mean, that's what happens when you do that, right? Spain had this ridiculous crusade and pushed Muslims out of the country. I think they're entitled to come back in, in whatever numbers they choose.

Now, that'll be another podcast, and perhaps it too will be brought by the genial laughter of Peter Robinson and, well, the equally genial laughter of Rob Long, both of whom would like you to contribute to Ricochet and ensure its continuing survival. Rob, I did the spot for you, so just assure them. And I appreciate it. I browbeat them and I sneered at them, those sweaty, lumpy POS. It's a proven strategy. Yeah, it's really good.

Hey, listen, this podcast is brought to you by Blinkist, by Eero, and ManCrates. If you go to those sites that you see on Ricochet, you will have coupon codes. It will make your life easier, more fun, and cheaper too. And as we always say on Bended Knee with our knotted hands up beseechingly, if you happen to drift by iTunes podcast page, you might leave a review. It helps other listeners find the show, and that keeps the show going. As does, of course, your money. We always like that. Our thanks to our guests, Peter, Rob, it's been great, and we'll see you next week at Ricochet 3.0.

Next week, boys. Next week, fellas. In the days of 39 Oh, please leave the vendetta open, Frederico Larkin dead and gone bullet holes in the cemetery wall the black car

of the cardiopathy Spanish bones on the Costa Rica I'm flying in on the DC 10 tonight Spanish bones you have to get

a reponito you have to get a oh my God, of all the Spanish folks. You're the killer in Benito. You're the winner, oh my God, of all the Spanish. Weeks at my disco casino. The freedom fighters died up on the hill. They sang the red flag. They wore the black one after they died it was fucking mud hill

Back from the buses, went up in flashes Irish too, drenched in blood Spanish bums, shat to the hotels A senorita's nose was nipped in the bud Spanish bums, you're the killer, it's bonito You're the killer, oh my God, it's all Spanish bums, you're quiero y bonito, yo te quiero, oh my God, it's all. Spanish Bums, yo te quiero y bonito, yo te quiero, oh my God, it's all. The hillsides ring with through the people

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