The Ricochet Podcast - California Dreaming

Episode Date: November 30, 2018

This week, we take some time to discuss climate change and then the puzzling and disturbing disappearance of a seemingly once very prevalent species: the California Republican, with our guest the Hoover Institution’s Bill Whalen. Then, we go back in time to chat about that guy on the $20 bill, Andrew Jackson, with the guy who wrote the book on him, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade (buy his book Andrew... Source

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. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's what I said. That's obviously what our position is. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lylex. Today we talked to Bill Whelan about Republicans in California. Are there any?

And Brian Kilmeade about Andrew Jackson. Let's have ourselves a podcast. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 426. I'm James Lilex in Chile, Minnesota. Peter Robinson in sunny Clement, California is with me and Rob Long. Lord knows where in the world he is at present. We'll be along presently. Peter, how are you? I'm quite well. It's not actually sunny and clement. It's raining, drippy, 60 degrees or so. Not the great and wonderful frozen north that you inhabit.

And we're grateful for this, by the way, because now the wildfires are out. The smoke has cleared up. Yes, strange how the world seems to self-regulate itself. I'm trying to get to elicit a little sympathy here. You're getting none from me. Somebody tweeted out that it was raining in San Diego and there were 300 car accidents and spin-outs, which is to those of us here who have to power through drifts

enough to hide a mastodon, seems rather preposterous and ridiculous. So we're looking at a mild winter we are. And the only reason I bring up this weather talk is that there's been a lot of weather, I'm sorry, climate news this week. And I tend to have the same reaction to all of this, the dire predictions that I've had for 10, 15, 20 years, which is you've been saying this for 10, 15, 20 years. And every time it's always, it's the worst and dire things are going to happen.

And we have 10 years. And I'll tell you why I'm a little suspicious of this. Now, while I completely and fully understand that there may indeed be climactic changes undergoing and that there is the possibility indeed perhaps may happen, even the likelihood that mankind may have made a contribution to it through greenhouse gases. A, I'm not convinced it's going to be catastrophic because they've been saying that about everything as long as I've been alive. B, I don't think that if America did absolutely everything necessary to stop our part, that it would move the needle of wit because China and India

would keep on polluting as long as they wanted to. And three, or was it C, I'm of the opinion that actually, I think a lot of these people view the necessity of great state action to combat climate change as a stalking horse, a Trojan horse, if you will, out of which we'll pour a million bureaucrats to tell us how long our shower can last. And again, what kind of light bulb we have to use. So, I mean, am I wrong to mistrust the statists when they come and say the state must do this immediately and you have to give up everything that you want?

Not only are you not wrong with that, it was as beautiful and succinct a summary of all the reasons to be borne in mind that of the major industrial countries on the entire face of the planet, only one, one, has significantly reduced its greenhouse gas emissions, and that country is the United States of America. Well, that's impossible, Peter. We pulled out of the Paris Accord.

It's almost as like the Paris Accord was meant to say we mean to do something as opposed to we actually will. Yes, yes, yes. Well, and of course, there's our natural gas boom, which I believe is a little bit cleaner. We can thank Barack Obama for that. He's the guy who restarted our energy sector. And I think he asked for us to applaud and thank him. So I'm thanking him so much for all that he did.

As somebody with a family in the petroleum industry, yeah, no, as the kids say. All right, tick that one off. Here's the story that interested me this week. I saw a tweet that led to a headline because Twitter really generates the man next in line perhaps to be secretary of state, turns out to be connected to notorious Jeffrey Epstein. And I thought, that's an interesting way to phrase the story. It really is because those of us on the right who have been pointing at this guy for an awful long time and noting that Bill Clinton probably had his own monogrammed headrest on the Lolita Express,

were generally waved away as being sort of proto-Pizzagate types. Remind us all who Jeffrey Epstein is. I think a word or two on that. Well, you can go to the corner today and read Garrity's morning jolt where he had a little rundown. This guy apparently liked them young and frequent and frequently young and has a private island, a private island for God's sake. And he would get in his plane, dubbed the Lolita Express. You can just see these guys saying that with a grin and a twinkle and would fly off to

do probably not Pinochle, probably not, I'm thinking N nude twister and all the rest of the things there was a plea deal that was made by acosta not jim uh that uh resulted like 12 months in the county jail nothing and some curious codicils that said that uh immunity would be granted to people who were sort of also involved in this and that the the victims because there were 60 to 80 of them that they found would not be informed of the deal the guy got i hate to say got off because that's basically what his life seems to be about but served no paid nothing for what they said was a lot of really nasty stuff and one of the frequent people on this plane was Bill Clinton. And we,

I mean, you knew this, right? Yes, yes, yes. This is a story that goes back three, four,

five years, something like that. And we always wondered why, why did he get a pass? So it comes out now that because there's a Trump connection, we can bash that, but I'm just glad the story's out there because you really get the feeling that, that the end of bill clinton as a

viable public figure is it it wouldn't yes i agree it's over for him it's finally over i it's over and it didn't happen as everybody thought it would with a thunderclap right he just dribbled away like somebody standing over the loo at three o'clock in the morning with a prostate the size of a basketball. And that's kind of – you just fade it off and that's – I couldn't be happier. I was – yes, I could be happier if I could eliminate that image from my mind that you just placed there. But yes, yes, it's justice of a kind. It is justice delayed but it is justice of a kind all the same. Speaking of the double standard, do we have time for just a moment, another moment of double standard?

Mike Pompeo, the current Secretary of State, wrote a pretty darn good piece in the Wall Street Journal this past week in which he explained why, despite the Khashoggi murder, we just had to do business with Saudi Arabia. He included in that that and of course it's all distasteful but it's necessary it was a grown-up diplomat talking doing business with saudi arabia is as nothing by comparison with making common cause with the soviet union during the second world war we have to do business with bad guys often but he had a paragraph that i i just had sort of forgotten about this i don't know why it's inexcusable that i forgot about it but i needed reminding and he pointed out that the obama administration not only cut a deal with iran that took the that removed the economic

sanctions so that they could grow the knowing full well that some portion of the funds that went to the Iranian government would be used to kill Americans, to subvert our allies and to kill Americans. They actually flew pallets of cash to Iran in full knowledge that IEDs manufactured in Iran, that weapons smuggled into Iraq from Iran, that terrorists backed by Iran had killed Americans, had showered rockets on Israel, and not a peep. Not a peep. Double standard yet again. The curious affinity that people on the left have for iran is mystifying to me because on one hand they're absolutely convinced that the handmaiden's tale uh now renewed for however many seasons and a sequel soon to come is right around the corner if not here already but when you point to iran

which is run by people who that's their idea i mean that's that's like how they'd really like to run things too and a young population straining under the yoke of religious extremism, if they're as opposed to those things that they seem to be here, you would think that they would also call them out over there. But they don't. And it's – I don't get it. If only Rob Long were here, Rob Long could tell us. Ah, there he is with dulcet tones. If anybody was going to ask, see if the government was going to send pallets of cash to Alabama or Mississippi, another backward religious country according to the left. Yeah, no, look.

I caught most of that, of course, but the Iranian idea, though, is sort of classic best practices foreign policy, right? Yes, yes. This is – and it's – well, we know they're terrible, but let's get them into a framework. Right. And it used to be – American politics or geopolitics used to be – I know he's an SOB, but he's our SOB. So we don't really – we know that all these Central American and Latin American dictators are horrible, and we know that Marcos was horrible, and we know the Shah was horrible. Nobody was really deluding themselves about that. But, well, they're – we already asked them one question.

It's that will you help us stand up to the Soviets? And the answer to all those questions was yes. There will be no communist expansion in Latin Central America as long as we've got strong men to take care of it. And that kind of worked sometimes. It didn't work other times. It blew up in our faces sometimes. You know, I I'm old enough to remember when they actually had a free election in Nicaragua and they kicked the Sandinistas out. How absolutely stunned and depressed. The left was in America. They couldn't believe it.

If you want to read some of the funniest prose that you'll ever read, read P.G. O'Rourke's essay about the morning in Managua when all these sort of left-wing celebrities woke up to discover that the Sandinista regime of Daniel Ortega had been kicked out. So that was our – it's kind of real politic in a lot of ways. But the left has always been about frameworks. Bring somebody into the framework of a conversation. Bring somebody into the framework of a discussion. As long as they're renting two floors of hotel suites in Vienna and as long as we're meeting for an hour and a half a day at the Berliner Platz, whatever it is, the Hofburg, Schomburg Palace in Vienna, as long as we're doing that then um you know what will be okay right that was neville chamberlain's famous phrase i'd rather have jaw jaw than war war i thought that was i thought that was churchill i think and i was thinking the same phrase too because the left

always likes to point i think the left loves that churchill may have said it because churchill of course notorious warmonger that he was not funny i just blew that. I think it's kind of funny. In my brain, I was convinced it was devil chamberlain because I hated someone. It could possibly be Churchill who I ever fear. He could never say anything I disagree with. I will mute. Well, in a sense though, Rob, I mean, it's true. And the frameworks are nice and wonderful, but they're predicated upon the ability to exert force and the perceived willingness to use it. I mean you have to have leverage in order for that framework to work. Otherwise, I mean if you're not dealing with another country that's in your same cultural space, right?

I mean frameworks with France work. Frameworks with Iran don't because they have no – well, that's obvious. Anyway, go on. You were saying? I was going to say that – and I think they don't because the people – it tends to be this, that the people on our side who are arguing for our side or negotiating for our side tend to be the kind of people who are duped by their own majesty and their own gray eminence. So it's easy to negotiate with john carrey because all you have to do is flatter him and you flatter him by arriving at the table you flatter him by allowing him to talk you flatter him by allowing him to think he's making progress and he's thrilled

because he's making progress because he he's now he's he you are giving him the starring role in his own movie is you know the biography of his life in which he's a great man bringing peace to the world despite the fact, of course, that none of that is happening. I mean you can see that happen. I mean I'm not just being – dumping on the left here. I mean I think that happened to Trump with Kim in North Korea, in Singapore. There's a lot of flattery, a lot of – you know, this is really great, but he didn't do anything. And in fact, it might have set the tone and relationship back for many years. So when you're dealing with sort of weak people who are easily flattered, I mean, the ego of John Kerry is unequaled.

But at least the Iranians are they believe they're fighting for their lives. Kim believes he's fighting for his life. They are constantly paranoid about interior disruptions and the Iranians are constantly paranoid about the wars they've started and the

blowback of those wars. They have a lot more at stake. So for them to see some puffed-up American arrive with his entourage, it must be just like hunting dairy cows, the easiest thing in the world. Well, we learned the quote actually was wrong. We're all wrong. What Churchill apparently said, according to his biographer,

was meeting jaw-to-jaw is better than war, which is a strange way of putting it. I prefer face-to-face because jaw-to-jaw just seems oddly intimate. Yeah, that's right. Four years later, during a visit to Australia, Harold MacMillan said the words usually and wrongly attributed to Churchill. Jaw-to-jaw is better

than war-war. So Harold MacMillan is actually who we want to do. We were all wrong, which is great because it makes me feel better about being personally wrong. Let's see what's in the news elsewhere that we can discuss. You know, the odd thing is, is one of the sources that I have for news is a website, a group blog, and something very strange happened to it. It was either hijacked by its ad network or the people who run it made an extraordinarily stupid decision that every link on the page actually goes to a commerce site.

It's just evil. So you click on a link to a story about Iran and the Houthis and who's funding who and you're off to Nordstrom's. But then when you go back to the page, all the links are reset. I mean, if it's a way to get commerce, it's just absolutely cruel. And I went and I looked at all my diagnostic tools because I wanted to get back to this website and get the news instead of Nordstrom's. And I have this program that allows me to see all the things that are being sprayed onto my hard drive by the various things. And I found a whole bunch of them coming from Russian sites that are ad aggregators that do this for people.

And I think anybody who gets in bed with a Russian ad network that injects code into your site is asking for trouble. So I did a definition of trouble. Yeah. Oh, right. So what I did was I just, I got all of these domains there. So I can go back to the news and I blocked every single cookie that they put down on my website. So that I advise everybody to get a good cookie blocker, but I also advise everybody to get a good cookie. And that i also advise everybody to get a good cookie and that's mrs fields oh my that's mrs wow you know you know i'm sorry i i apologize i apologize for not not interrupting you well you shouldn't i mean basically it's like this i mean everybody's got a weird gift at christmas Everybody has somebody they don't want to get, and they give them something strange.

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promo code is ricochet. That's mrsfields.com proto code ricochet. And our thanks to Mrs. Fields for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. I've met her. She's a doll. And now we welcome Bill Whalen to the podcast, Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Fellow in Journalism and a Hoover Institute Research Fellow since 1999. Writes and comments on campaigns, elections, and governance with an emphasis on California and America's political landscapes. He's also the host of the terrific Area 55 podcast available right here on Ricochet, and you can follow him on Twitter, at Hoover Whalen. Bill, you and Peter Hoover, Republicans, are you 20% or 30% of the remaining Republicans in California? It's funny. I was looking at an ad today for Chrysler Pacificas, which proudly boasts that they can hold seven people. And it occurred to me that, yeah, maybe in the Bay Area that would probably work for Republicans carpooling.

But it sadly would work for House Republicans in California because as of this hour, they're down to just seven seats out of 53 for the entire state. It's just incredible. And how many seats did we lose in this last midterm then? Seven. Cut the delegation straight in half. 39 to 14 going in. It's now 46 to 7. Holy crow.

Well, a monostate rule, great. And California has enough seed corn that they can probably eat it for a decade or two before the ravages of their actions come to the bills, comes to the – I mean, but Orange County? What – Orange County was – what happened there? Well, I think the first thing, fellas, is any story you read about Republicans in Orange County, the words Ronald Reagan appear in the story. And not to diminish Ronald Reagan, who was a great man, but my goodness, he ran 34 years ago. And today's Orange County is not Ronald Reagan's Orange County. Orange County was 80 percent Caucasian when he ran in 1980. It's now a majority-minority, as is the state of California. It's not unlike going to Hope, Arkansas, which voted 80 percent Republican in this election, or Stonewall County, Texas, LBJ's resting place, which voted 20 percent for

better or worse. So times change and districts change, too. Now, having said that, this is not to gloss over what's going on in Orange County because it's indicative of a bigger problem for Republicans nationwide in that Republicans got their hat handed to them in suburban districts, high-density districts, districts with highly educated voters, districts with a lot of angry women lined up to vote against Donald Trump, and Orange County was no exception. Hey, Bill, it's Rob Long in New York. Thanks for joining us. So Republicans got their head handed to them, and yet if you ask Republicans or you watch Fox News, it certainly doesn't seem that way. Are Republicans living in a fantasy land?

There's a lot of inner confusion within Republicans in California, Rob, that has to be worked out. Look, in a past life, I worked for Pete Wilson. He was governor of California in the 1990s. You will not find a more crusading guy who came to conservative issues in California at that time. Affirmative action, that time, affirmative action, illegal immigration, welfare reform, criminal justice reform, and there were Republicans. He had excellent school reforms as well. Exactly.

And there were conservatives who detested him because he raised taxes once to solve a budget crisis, and he was pro-choice, just as there are moderate Republicans who will not accept conservatives in California because they don't believe in, say, government funding for STEM research or same-sex marriage. So the party does have this bad division. And, you know, sensing right now, look at the California Republican Party. It's like watching a car that's on the side of the road, and it's stopped, and it's not moving. And there are three theories here. One, it needs to have gas put in the tank, and it'll move.

Second theory, engine needs a major overhaul. Third theory, go find another mode of transportation, start another party. And that's a conversation that's going to ensue in California in 2019, just where to go from here. But I mean just to get super gloomy, and I know that Peter wants to get into it. I'm sure he'll be a lot more optimistic than I am. It seems to me that we're talking about a state that is the bellwether for the Republican Party nationwide. That it isn't as if we're going to save California. It's more likely that the rest of the Republican Party across America is going to resemble the Republican Party of California.

Small, uninfluential, on the sidelines, swamped by the Democrats. And it astonishes me that people that Republicans in Republicans nationwide don't seem to see that. They seem to be living optimistically about their party and their party's chances when the state of California seems like the future that we're heading towards really without a chance. Am I too gloomy? No, hardly at all. But look, there are several things going on here that are worth pointing out. I mean if you look at the people who lost in Orange County, for example, four Republican members of Congress went down. Dana Rohrabacher lost.

He lost by about 20,000 votes, about 7%. Dana Rohrabacher has been in Congress, Peter, since 1988. 30 years when he was telling people to only serve a couple of terms. That's 1988. That is what I call RLBC. That's Rob Long before cheers, right, Rob? Yeah, that's right. That's true.

It's been a while. You look at Mimi Walters, who was a second-term Republican running for re-election, ran just a horrible campaign. She wouldn't do town hall meetings. They thought that they would nail the Democratic opponent because she went to Harvard Law. They'd call her an Elizabeth Warren protege. Just, you know, a poorly run campaign. But there were two problems that Republicans could not get around California. Rob, this does speak to the nation in general.

Problem number one is Republicans out here just didn't have anything to run on in terms of accomplishments in Congress. You would say, well, wait a second. The tax cuts are hugely problematic in California because of SALT, the state and local tax provision in it. Also, you can't run on Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh is not a very popular issue right here. It agitates women, pro-choice women in particular. And then there is the question of that man in the White House, Donald Trump. Democrats for years have been trying to nationalize elections in California, thinking that the love for Barack Obama in California would sprinkle down in the congressional districts and Republicans would get kicked aside.

Republicans are very clever to localize elections. They avoided that. But in this election cycle, Republicans nationalized the election. Donald Trump made it a national election based largely on him and his personality, and it exploded in California Republicans' faces. This is a man who has, I've done polling for this here at Stanford, has about a 60% disapproval in California. Even more Californians do not want him to run for a second term. He lost to Orange County in 2016, the first time that's happened for a Republican in 80 years. He ran the least popular campaign for Republican here since, again, Alf Landon in 2016. He's poison for Republicans. And as you move forward, we can say, okay, fine, Republicans can go out and recruit better candidates.

They can come with the message. But guys, I don't see how it's going to get better here until Donald Trump is out of the way. Okay, but if I'm a pro-Trump Republican, I'm hearing that, and I'm going to say, who cares? California's filled with freaks and weirdos, and they're all liberals. We don't need them, as if you can cut off California and still do okay. Can you cut off California and still do okay? No, you still need to be competitive out here. You should never give up any part of the country.

By that same logic, Democrats should give up, let's say, Texas or even Florida, if you will. So no, you don't give up. This is a test case for Republicans rebuilding plain and simple. Getting back to that auto analogy that I had, I think you go back and look at the engine. And I think there's a good example here for Republicans to look at. You guys are going to probably kick me off the broadcast when I say this. It's Beto O'Rourke in this regard. Beto O'Rourke, before Beto O'Rourke became whatever he is now, Beto O'Rourke was a guy who had kind of interesting private sector life.

He worked in New York. Then he came back to El Paso, Texas. He got involved as a community. He did a lot of public service work. And then he ran for city council and served on city council for several years. Then he ran for Congress. Then he built up to the Senate. Republicans in California, we've just become a party of shortcuts out here.

Every four years, we put up a guy for governor who's never run here before. And it's just you can't grow as a party that way. It's a wildly hit or miss proposition. Sometimes you get lucky with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's kind of born to it. He's just a natural ham. Other times you get Meg Whitman who is just awful at it. So we're going to have to actually go back to the business of convincing Republicans to start running down the ticket in local elections, run for mayor, run for city council, run for county DA, and build from the bottom up. The problem with that is in our society, everybody wants instant gratification.

We want to win in the next cycle. But I think Republicans have to look at a longer overhaul here. All right. I get it. I guess what I mean is that I mean, I've lived in California for a long time. I live in New York now. One of the things I've noticed about myself thinking back when I lived in California was that I thought California was an important place. And now that I'm 3000 miles away from it, I realize it's still important. It's certainly important to me and my business, but I also see it more as the future. So I guess I'm more concerned about the California Republican Party and the state of it, not as regards California, but as regards everywhere else. I mean I think of Texas that way.

Better O'Rourke did pretty well in Texas, and it does seem like the demographic shifts that we're talking about in Orange County and in suburban, you know, exurban areas in California, that is mirrored in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio and Wisconsin and Michigan and Virginia and Georgia and Florida. And if you're going to run a national party and all the signs, let me put it this way, there were zero statistics or facts or results from the midterms that were meaningfully positive for Republicans. Every single other meaningful indication was negative. And I'm not sure that – I'm not sure it's worth going to save California if we're going to lose everything else.

But it does seem like we're going to lose everything else. So can you talk about the National Party for a minute? Yeah, I mean, my point would be for California is Republicans have one or two choices here. Either try to try to improve what you're doing here, work on the brand, come up with ideas, come up with better candidates, or sit back and let Democrats who run everything out here, let Democrats screw things up. The latter is not only surrender, but it's also a reckless thing to do. Okay, let's let Democrats do horrible things to education and budget and pensions and so forth. So now the party does have to rejuvenate that way. And you're right, I think by working in California, it does send a message elsewhere in the country. Republicans do

want to be both a red and a blue outfit. You know, one thing which is interesting about the election is it showed how weak Trump is in the House in terms of losing all his suburban seats, but how strong he is in the Senate. There are, I think, 18 states in America that voted for Trump by double digits, and that's 35 senators out of about another dozen in states like Ohio and Texas that are sort of Trump-friendly. He's got a base of 47 seats, but in the House, it's just completely the opposite because Republicans don't run well in cities. They don't run well in suburbs. They run well now in exurbs and rural areas. And that's what I look at California, how Republicans could become relevant.

Peter and I live here at Stanford in the Bay Area. Do you know how far you have to go now to find a Republican officeholder from the Bay Area? It shouldn't be that way. From the Bay Area? There's none. Isn't that right? There's none. No.

You and I have to hop in a car, Peter. We'd have to hop out. We'd have to go to Fresno. We'd have to drive to Fresno and, ironically enough, in the direction of Death's Valley to fund Republicans. So it's something's got to change here. And you could say, well, it's the people living in the Bay Area, but no, it's the party. Seven members, seven

Republican members of the House are all seven from the Central Valley, Bill? Two are from the Central Valley, Peter. Jeff Denham in the 10th District, who lost by about three and a half percent. And then David Valdeo, who is trailing right now by about 500 votes out of about 112,000 cast. That's the northern part of the Central Valley. Now, I mean, the ones who won, the seven seats we retain, where are they? They are North and Central Valley. So you start down South, you have a McCarthy around Bakersfield,

then you work your way up the Valley up into the North. Okay. So the curious thing is the Republicans do well. This is a deep mystery to me. And if you can explain it right now, this will have been a worthwhile podcast in and of itself. But the curious thing is that the Republicans that survive in California are doing well in just the same places that Republicans do well out in the wider country, which is to say in rural areas. That's the Central Valley. And up in the mountain areas, Republicans do well out in the wider country, which is to say in rural areas, that's the Central Valley, and up in the mountain areas, Republicans do well in the mountain states. I was in Wyoming last week.

That is – so there's this curious thing where Republicans are now flattened in urban areas, noncompetitive in suburban areas. Orange County is one vast suburburb and all we have left is the rural areas. It's no good to have a map that looks entirely red or almost entirely red when you're reporting House elections because that huge red interior of the country is very thinly populated. So go ahead. Why do Republicans do badly in cities? Republicans are doing badly in cities because Republicans just are not offering an agenda that appeals to people in the city. Republicans are going to have to come up with a more blended message to compete, let's say, in the suburbs of Los Angeles County or the suburbs of San Francisco. We're going to have to talk more about the environment. We're going to have to find a way to talk about health care.

My God, if you want to tongue-tie a Republican in California, ask them what they want to do on health care. They just go into Ralph Cramden, hummina, hummina, hummina mode right away. We have to get back to the environment, education, transportation, just kind of meat-motato issues that Californians want to hear. Going back to Wilson, who I worked with, Wilson was very good at this. He just was very smart about understanding where the center was in California, and he grabbed the center. And Republicans are going to have to do the same. And part of that, I hate to say, is going to involve a maturity test within the Republican Party. There are some Republicans who want to start their own movement, some who want to create a third party, but the party just has to embrace Ronald Reagan's concept. What did Reagan say? What, my 20% enemy is my 80%

friend? The party's going to have to realize when you have only 24% of the electorate which is what republicans are down to now they are now the third party in california you can't further break up you're just not gonna you're not gonna win elections unless you find a way to band together bill when it comes to them seizing in topics like environment and transportation i mean a sensible thing to do would be to say uh it is absolutely preposterous for us to spend this amount of money on a high-speed rail system that will be underused. So let's find a better way. Let's have dedicated bus lanes. And people roll their eyes and they're bored with you already because streetcars are what are cool.

They've been to Europe. Streetcars are great. We need rail like Europe. We need more bike lanes. We need all of these. So the minute we start to concede any of this stuff, we've lost the argument as to what needs to be done sensibly. I mean, every

time I walk into a California building, I am reminded of the fact that everything in that building causes cancer. Everything. I mean, everything you buy in every building, there's a sign that says the state of California has determined that it's pure asbestos in here.

And if you start to push back against that, then you want people to get cancer. Healthcare is the same. Unless you go for a full-throated state-controlled healthcare system, you're just conceding the argument that the state has to do something but not doing anything about it. I mean that's the problem in California, it seems to me. It runs up against a culture that just wants far more than we ought to concede. It does. Also, it's a culture that the Democrats have very cleverly weaned on government. Ronald Reagan's nine terrifying words from the government, I'm here to help.

Well, if you look at Gavin Newsom, the governor-elect, if you look at his agenda, what is he proposing? He wants universal pre-K. He wants more money for public schools. He wants job training. He wants universal health care. He really wants cradle-to-grave government for Californians, and Californians are not objecting to this. I was looking at some stats today. There are 13 million people in California who are on Medi-Cal, which is our state poverty health care program.

That would be the fifth largest state in America on its own. Another 1.8 million Californians are in covered California, which is the Obama portion of Obamacare portion out here. So that's 15 million Californians who are hooked into government right there. So Republicans are going to have to find a way to, if they want to be anti-government, they have to find a way to be perceived as not necessarily, I know it sounds kind of contradictory, but not anti-government, anti-government, but not necessarily bashing government. In other words, offering a more sensible alternative. All right. So, Bill, I'm just I'm channeling my in my inner conservative here. You're just talking about Republicans need to get more liberal. Well, you look at the numbers, Rob. In California, you look at where the Republicans are at 24%. You just turn further to the right, and there are not enough conservatives out there to be had. You

have to move into the middle. And, you know, there has to be common ground with the middle in California. It seems to me there can be a right-to-center coalition you can build without necessarily giving away everything. But I do think on some issues, Republicans are going to have to learn to let go. And, you know, abortion has been the rule of the land here in California for 50-plus years. I think a guy named Reagan signed that law. Same-sex marriage has been decided out here. So I think Republicans have to get away from its instinct to have social fights out here and get a little more involved in things that actually are on people's radar screens, getting back to the economy, transportation, and so forth. Let me do one last one.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead, James. I have a last one. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, James. I have a last one, actually, Rob. So go ahead. Here's what some Republicans say, and some conservatives say, and I know they say it because they say it to me usually very loudly, which is you ask yourself,

when people lose something, they always ask themselves two questions, right? Did I lose it, or was it stolen? And they always want it to be stolen, right? Did I lose it or was it stolen? And they always want it to be stolen, right? Because if it's stolen, if I didn't lose the money, the money was stolen, so I'm at fault. I'm a victim. And so when we lose elections, we always want to have them be stolen from us. It was stolen from us by a media that doesn't report fairly.

It was stolen from us by the liberals in the universities. It was stolen from us by X, Y, or Z. We're always going to try to find the thing that happened that isn't our fault and that the underlying theory is that, no, no, no, you don't understand. The people basically agree with us. And if they didn't – they don't hear it, we just need to talk louder. And what you're saying is, no, no, no, the people are hearing you, and what they're saying to you is we're not buying it. Yeah, it's just not getting through. Very funny speaking of stolen, by the way, Rob.

One of the pushbacks is how we still have like 400,000 votes still to be counted out here in California. It's really keystone cops in terms of elections out here. And you have people now saying, well, there must be voter fraud going on because more votes are counted. It just skews Democrats, so there must be something wrong here. It's the illegitimacy thing, which we have to have in elections out here. So now these elections are illegitimate. But, yeah, I think this is the issue here right now. You can either you as a Republican, you could say, well, the people are too dumb to listen to us or you have or you can make a calculation. You know, we got to do a better job of communicating to people. All right. So so I know Jason wants to take last one. Quick question. Ten years from now, Republican Party stronger or is it just gone? I'm going to cop out on that question, Rob, because I don't know where Donald Trump is going to be for the next six years.

I think if Donald Trump is around for six years, it's weaker. If he's gone in two years, it's stronger. Last question. I live in Minnesota. It's cold. If you read in the news out there in California that Minnesotans were setting their houses on fire in order to warm themselves up in these dark winter nights, and a lot of us were doing it, you would conclude that we'd made a very grave error in judgment and say, well, that's your decision. You're going to have to live with that. A lot of people probably look at California and say, look, the problem isn't that the Republican – the problem is that people want what they've got and what they are getting. And why should it be anybody else's job to get in between them and what is going to result from them getting what they want? You want socialized medicine. You want a welfare.

You want open borders. You want sanctuaries. You want all of these things. Then the consequences will come. Right, right. And there's a better lesson. There's a better lesson in having the consequences manifest themselves than actually being the party that steps in and ameliorates the consequences and keeps them from being as bad as they are. Isn't the best thing for Republicans to do with California is just say, we're done. Have fun.

Enjoy what you're building. I just don't understand the surrender concept. If you let things happen, if you let things stay the way they are in California and don't fight, fine. You let California be California, but you know what? It will spread nationwide. Gavin Newsom will run for president. You already have at least two Californians running for president in 2020, Kamala Harris and Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, Rob's good friend. Eric Garcetti wants to basically make the nation a version of Los Angeles, which I find to be a fascinating concept and a lot of progressive charming things about Los Angeles, Rob's good friend. Eric Garcetti wants to basically make the nation a version of Los Angeles,

which I find to be a fascinating concept and a lot of progressive charming things about Los Angeles. I'm also a skid row in Washington, D.C. It's kind of a scary thought, but this is the idea that... The home of the homeless. The home of the homeless, but this is a serious concept, fellas,

in that if you don't like what is working in Blue Fortress, California, then either fine, surrender, and don't do anything about it, but it's going to march elsewhere around the country, or you've got to stay in and fight the system. And I hope Republicans will stay and fight. Stay and fight.

I advise that as well. Just closing a hypothetical there. Thanks for joining us on the podcast today. It's been a great pleasure. We hope to talk to you soon again. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. Take care, Bill.

Okay. So I'm in a good mood, really. I'm calm. That's because you don't live in California. That's why. I'm incredibly nervous about the future, and there's literally nothing I can do about it. Well, you know, I am too. I mean, I see what's coming, and you sort of just have to shrug your shoulders and say,

well, I can either listen to talk radio all day and get my blood all angered up and, you know, argue with imaginary liberals in the shower. Um, or I can, um, well do all those things.

Yes. But also find a way to keep myself balanced and calm. So we say, well, Robbie, you're the meditation guy. You're the microdoser guy. So you might want to hear about this.

When I say calm, I mean, literally calm. If you feel stressed and anxious, you probably have some coping tools, deep breathing, things you like to think about, a rubber band you snap around your wrist. I don't know. But have you ever meditated? And if not, why do you think meditation is what? Don't you like the idea? You don't think it would benefit you? Well, it would. Listen, if you have trouble sleeping, if you're a little jittery, we want to tell you about Calm, the number one app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation. It's even named Apple's 2017 app of the year. Calm gives you the tools you need to live a happier,

healthier, and more mindful life. Just five minutes of Calm can change your whole day. So if you head to calm.com ricochet, you will get 25% off a Calm premium subscription, which includes hundreds of hours of premium programs, including guided meditations on issues like anxiety and stress, focus, relationships, including a brand new meditation each day called the Daily Calm. And there are sleep stories or like bedtime stories for grownups, so much more. For a limited time, Ricochet podcast listeners can get 25% off a Calm premium subscription at calm.com ricochet. It includes unlimited access to all of Calm's amazing content. Get started today. Start to learn to focus and calm yourself down in a new way,

and it'll work, and you'll be ready to go and turn on the radio and get the blood all angered up again. But then again, you'll want to go to Calm after that. Calm.com slash Ricochet. That's Calm, C-A-L-M dot com slash Ricochet. And we thank Calm for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast.

Now, we all know that Rob himself is a centered guy and mindful and the rest of it. I mean, it's possible to be centered in life and still energetic. And that's our Rob. But still, Rob, there have to be moments where you toss and turn at night thinking payroll is coming. Yes.

Payroll, there are bills due. If only there were freeloaders hanging on the boxcar of ricochets that rattles through the dark of the night and we could get them to convert them somehow to come into the passenger cars and pay. And you dream of yourself in a conductor outfit going around and asking people for their ticket. And then if they don't have a ticket, which means they're freeloading and not subscribing to Ricochet, you what? You slap them with a wet fish in this dream? I can't remember how you told that before.

Yeah, that's sort of a weird dream. It's really, really simple. I want to say if you're listening to this podcast and you like it and you're a member of Ricochet, thank you, and we are pleased to be members with you. But I'll be honest. A lot of people are listening to Ricochet and are not members, and I certainly understand that, because it's free. Why not? But there are also people who are listening to Ricochet and have been meaning to become

members. And I want to tell you that I'm going to speak just strictly to them, because there are enough of you people who have just been meaning to become members, meaning to join the community and to vote with their dollars for an online community that is civil and diverse and vibrant and fun and funny and interesting. And they've been meaning to do it and they haven't done it. And so I'm going to ask you, just those of you who've been meaning to do it and haven't done it, to please do it and do it today. You hit pause and do it today because we really do need you and you could really save Ricochet.

You could really help us grow and get a little bit bigger and do more podcasts and have better content. You are the difference. I'll talk to the people who don't want to join later and try to convince them, but I know there are a whole bunch of people. There are enough people right now listening to this podcast who have been meaning to join, who haven't done it, to really in many, many ways solve 80% of all of the things that keep us awake, those of us who are involved in this project. So if you've been thinking about it and you've been putting it off and you've been meaning to do it,

please hit pause, do it, and then come back, and we will be thrilled to greet you a week from now as members along with so many others. Or we could just hit pause for them and give them 20 minutes of dead air right here. Or that hold music. The wonderful hold music. Well, that's a great idea. And when you said civil conversation, I actually heard civil as in the old story about the woman of the 17 personalities.

And I drifted as you were talking because, of course, I know what you're talking about. And I realized we don't talk about multiple personalities anymore, do we? That was sort of a fad. It was an absolute scientific fact that these things happen. And now it's gone. Isn't that weird? Yeah, you don't hear that so much. You hear a little bit more, I think, about sort of like late adolescent or like early young adulthood schizophrenia.

That sort of happens in the brain around 26, 27, 28. But you really don't hear too much about that. Like, yeah, I'm the gatekeeper. Can we speak to Ellen? You know, like all that. Remember that? I remember that was a big thing. I don't know why.

Yeah, why not? I did hear some weird thing. I'm sorry. You probably literally are doing a transition right now. No, I'm not doing a transition. I did hear it. You were not? The only reason I was really quiet was because I figured this was going someplace.

The only reason anybody ever listens to me on this blasted podcast. That's because we can't figure out where you're going. As usual, you got me started on something else, and I was thinking that I did read recently an account, very strange, interesting, something I think that we'll probably hear more about soon, an account of a woman who had schizophrenia for years. I mean, since then, she got it when she was 26. She developed it when she was 27. And then later in her life, she required a bone marrow biopsy. I mean, sorry, a bone marrow transplant.

And after the bone marrow transplant, she was cured of her schizophrenia wow and then there was also someone who did the reverse who did not have it then had a bone marrow transplant and developed it uh leading i mean leading people to start thinking oh my god what if there's something deeply genetic about this but those are those are spooky ghost stories we can tell another day. And now we welcome to the podcast Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts of Fox & Friends, host of the nationally syndicated radio show The Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News Talk from 9 to 12 noon.

His new book is Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans. Welcome. You know, you come up with a book about a president who's about to be wiped off the $20 bill, but at least we're talking about him again. What is the legacy of old Hickory, and what influence has he had echoing down through the decades? Because I remember hearing Jacksonian being applied to Bush at some point, and a lot of people scratched their head and said, who?

Well, I mean, there's a couple of things going on. I focused on what made him the most famous man in America, and that was the Battle of New Orleans. Getting to impossible odds, put together a – took his 1,200-man militia, made it 5,000 in three weeks, and beat a 9,000-man army, who happened to be the best in the world in 45 minutes. And after that, he was internationally famous, and soon within eight years he'd be the president of the United States. So I want to go back and just find out with this guy who was an orphan at 14,

how the heck he pulled this off and became a lawyer, a congressman, an attorney general, a judge, and he was governor of Florida for a while and then became a two-term president. And what Jackson's done really is he was the everyman. He was somebody not from Virginia, Boston, Philadelphia, New York. He was by meager means, Boston, Philadelphia, New York. He was part of meager means, backwoodsman, self-taught, who basically was just a populist.

He was popular and became president. Everyone thought, well, this guy's not worthy of being president. He doesn't have the coot. He doesn't have the culture. And back then, he wasn't accepted, much like the president we have now. When Washington doesn't like this president, he took his case to states around the country. The first guy to do that was Andrew Jackson. He would hand out lithographs of him on a horse in a military uniform. He said, hey, I'm a war hero. Vote for me for president.

And people say, well, this guy represents me more than Jefferson Adams, Monroe, and all these other guys. Hey, Brian, Peter Robinson here. Thanks for joining us. The book, again, is Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans. Let's talk for a moment about the Miracle of New Orleans. The Battle of New Orleans takes place in what year? We have the Battle of New Orleans takes place January 8, 1815. So it's really two and a half, three years after the war starts.

After the War of, well, what we call the War of 1815. So it's really two and a half, three years after the war starts. After the War of 1812, what we call the War of 1812. So you've got the British with 9,000 and Andrew Jackson with a hastily assembled group of a force of 5,000. As a military matter, how did he do it? How did he

win? Yeah, that's a great question. War colleges still study this. Essentially, everything broke his way. He had to figure out where the British were going to land. They wanted to spend Christmas on Bourbon Street, and I was fascinated to find out it was a party town even then. The general was going to become the governor, and they weren't going to leave New Orleans. Even if the war ended, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, they were just going to stay.

Because they didn't think that Napoleon had any right to even give us, sell us the Louisiana territory. They thought that Napoleon just sold it because he was losing a war. And in record, you know, they did have a case, but Jackson knew it too. So Jackson beat him there. He tried to figure out where he was going to land, and they landed at exactly the wrong place. They landed in water so shallow, they couldn't get their boats and they had to paddle in. Well, the Americans, as soon as the

sun set, they roll our flak boats around. We start shooting cannonballs at them. And then we attach them. We attack them in the pitch black with axes, hatchets, and bayonets. And they called us some of the most brutal fighting ever. We wanted to send a message. Hey, you made a burn down Washington. You made one terrorize the East Coast. But there's a new general. We've got a new philosophy and we're not losing. So as they waited for everybody to get into town, Jackson backed up and said, OK, the only way to get past us is to go through us. So let's dig a hole. Let's fill it with water. Let's make a wall. And let's just stand behind this wall. And we'll build another wall behind that in case they breach it.

And they just marched and they got slaughtered. And they had an idea. They go, okay, we keep losing every time we try to move forward. So why don't we send the Irish up there with ladders? They'll put the ladders onto the berm. And then we'll run up the ladders and get over the top and then, you know, shoot them. Well, the Irish go, screw that.

You know, come war time, the war starts, and the Irish go, yeah, we're not doing that. That's a suicide mission. So the British just ended up being just taken out. Two generals, 17 colonels, 50-plus officers knocked out. The British only followed orders. They didn't really initiate much from the back. They were basically sitting targets for us.

Hey, Brian, it's Rob Long. Isn't it funny? The minute you said and then they told the Irish to put the ladders out of there, I just in my head, I'm like, the Irish, they aren't going to do that. They didn't do it.

Things don't change. i guess my question is um when did we stop as a country as a culture telling each other these stories i mean this is a great great story whoa didn't we used to tell each other these stories all the time? I mean, I think this is new information. The War of 1812 and, I mean, 1815, these things always took longer than we thought. These wars, these kind of stories, they're kind of gone now. What happened? Well, there's a thirst for them. Bill O'Reilly showed us that, and this is my third history book. And if you keep it accurate, but you get right to the

point, you don't write for a Harvard professor or Yale or Princeton, you write for everyday people, which are the people I run and you and I run in those circles. And you tell the story and you tell them it's true. I don't say the country's perfect. We have an extraordinary history. And for some reason, we want to qualify and apologize for our history, which is why a lot of parents, when it comes to school age, go to never, because they want to get back to that. And the War of 1812 in particular, people just kind of ignored. They go, well, it was kind of a draw. Some people thought it wasn't necessary. But if you study it, I mean, we were on the brink of extinction. And it basically, we pulled ourselves off the mat, and we were so convincing in that final battle,

we would never be invaded again, and countries would stop delegitimizing us and try to destroy us, and they would realize we're not going anywhere. We were accepted. And Jackson, prescient at the time, said, we're going to be the biggest and the best. My only hope is that we don't become an arrogant power. How would a guy who's got 18 colonies, who just was in a major war against a superpower,

why would he think we'd get that big? He saw the potential. He saw that the whole world wanted to be here. And it turns out the whole world still wants to be here. I don't know why we're running for this story. I think hopefully we're just going through a phase. Hey, so, I mean, just to go back to that particular story right now, do you think, was it, I really don't know the answer to the question.

Among the people, the people who were the Americans of the time, it seems now evident to us that we would have what Lincoln was talking about, the Manifest Destiny. We're going to go. We're going to march to the Pacific Ocean, and this was going to be a continental republic. Was that shared by people at the time? Did they understand that the Battle of New Orleans was kind of a pivot point, a hinge point, where after that we were just going to get big? Or was it just kind of scrappily fighting for survival? I mean, how much of the America was part of the imagination? 29 years after the Revolutionary War, the British really weren't accepting it. They said, okay, we'll leave the Midwest.

They didn't. You know, we'll leave the East Coast. We'll accept our shipping lanes and our trade. They were always harassing us, not accepting us. When Britain and France were fighting each other, both wanted us on their side. And when we refused to take sides, they started taking our merchant sailors off our ships and just saying, hey, you're in our Navy now. So we were totally disrespected. And I think that at the time, America had to stand up for itself.

And because of that, and being that the only problem was we didn't really have a standing army. We had really only a small navy. So we had a lot of will and a lot of guts, but we had no organization. So we had to stand up for ourselves and send a message to the rest of the world. As Thomas Jefferson said, in this world, if you don't punish the first insult, more are sure to follow. And that is true in the schoolyard, in school and work, you know, in our business. You've got to stand up for yourself every day. And we wish the intellectuals could think this out and wouldn't have to do it.

But every day we have to stand up for ourselves. And basically, we were late for other people. You know what? What? We have freedom. Right. It's been a longstanding American kind of way of running. You're running a general. What they always say is run against Washington, right?

Run against the entrenched administration. Run against the entrenched power, run against the in-crowd. And I guess Old Hickory was sort of the first guy to do that. But since he did it, it has certainly become a very effective battle cry for presidential candidates for 200 years, as as you as you mentioned even this one so um but but usually a couple years in when they're in the white house uh you know i'm not saying the swamp wins but the the swamp doesn't lose uh there are more there are more insiders in the trump white house than there are outsiders and that is sort of the way it tends to work thanks brian for talking to us today uh the

book is andrew jackson and the miracle of new orleans and as rob said it's a story we for some reason stopped telling ourselves it's a great story read it and tell it to others thank you for joining us today thank you yeah you know he's written a bunch of them they're they're really great i mean they are like so the grown-up version – I don't know if you guys – did you ever read these books? We Were There. Remember those books? Yes, yes, yes. They were the best.

We were there at – and then we were there at the Battle of Britain. We were there, whatever they were. And they were the kids' versions of these books. And I just feel like he's right. You can keep telling yourself these – you can keep telling these stories over and over again. They're always great stories, and they come from the great American experiment, not only battles but business stories and personal stories, and it's really a shame that we don't – flaws exemplified an aspect of American history that other people want to magnify in order to show that the entire enterprise has been rotten from the start, then the stories aren't going to be told, or they're going to be told only to show how things were bad.

We can't seem to... I mean, there was a day when all of the heroes were absolutely wonderful and noble and had their jaw tilted up towards the horizon, but now we can't seem to understand them as flawed people with different sides and different aspects. They've got to be demons, or they have to be victims. It's a strange place to be.

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or any language than free bacon i know it's quite a state it really is quite astonishing well um rob where are you going to be next week well you and i james will be on the high seas we're going to be uh on the national review cruise um so i i think i'll see you saturday uh around lunchtime somewhere on one of those decks or perhaps friday there's a Ricochet meetup in Florida. Oh, there is? It's one of those reasons that people should join Ricochet because it's not just a website. It's a place where communities grow and people get together

and meet in meat space, as ButcherBox might put it. That's right. And see and connect the faces with the styles and the words and the rest of it, and it's always great fun. So, yes, we will be – are we going to be on the bounding main or just the high seas? I think the high – well, I don't think we're on the high seas. We're on the low, be calm seas. Yeah, you said the high seas.

Now, I think we may be on the bounding main because I think – I think you're right. Didn't that term come about from the eras of buccaneers and the rest of it? You know what buccaneer means? No, please, but I'm interested. I'm interested. Bucan was a strip of dried meat that they used to eat because they had to preserve it and they didn't have refrigeration like we have today. So the men who subsisted entirely on this ancient dried meat were buccaneers, buccaneers.

So now it just means somebody with a great swashbuckling style, which I think – They needed was some pre-bacon, let's be honest. Exactly. Peter, anything on your mind before we wrap it up? No, I want to know where you're cruising. Oh, it's the same old interchangeable collection of – Oh, it's the – In other words, the Caribbean.

The Caribbean. Which I love. The Grand Turks and the Caicos, or the Grand Caicos and the Turks, and then the DR, I believe, which stands a stark contrast to Haiti. And Key West, of course, so you can look at the cats and, oh, it's Hemingway's place. I like walking around Key West. And some of – oh, the private island, the Half Moon Cay, which is – the cruise ship built this little – the line built this place. It's just a little speck. And it's fun because when you go there and you go to the bar, you realize that the person pouring you a drink is the same person who was wearing a uniform the day before showing you how to put your life jacket on. That's right.

They just swap them out into a different mufti and send them out, and they're attending bar all day. There is something you discover magnificently efficient about these cruise ship companies. Oh, yes. They really have figured out what do you – when you capture X hundred number of people and they have captured you, you're there, how hard can you shake them for any change they may have still in their pockets and and it's really i mean and i that sounds more negative than i i really mean this in an admiring way yeah there's this um there's a great feeling of like well yeah the guy who pours you your drink and the crow's nest is also gonna be pouring your drink on the private island which they say is oh oh it's a private island as if what they're what they're really saying is every dollar you spend on this island goes to us too like there's not a chance that anyone else is gonna you know it's like it's like you like when you go somewhere and someone says you're my best friend now they

don't leave you they're not going to leave you for your entire journey they'll be there walking next to you getting you whatever you need but charging you accordingly and there's something um you know like fantastic about that. Oh, I love that. I mean when you go to the gift shop on the private island, there's this ancient woman with a lined face in local costume and handmade leather shoes and the rest of it. She's probably the accountant. She goes back and puts on Dior and goes down for ballroom dancing. She's from Fort Lauderdale.

Yeah, she's like – Exactly. She just got off the boat a little early to open the shop before you got there. But she's on the boat. The other thing is that this is a ship that I've never been on before, and I know exactly where everything is because it's a Holland American. It's the Osterdam, and it's just a couple decks and a little bit shorter than the New Amsterdam and the Eurodam and some of these others. It's the same thing. I mean I know where everything is already,

which is nice. I like that. Uh, I, I, I love exploring different ships. There was a year when they actually went with the largest cruise ship on the, in the world.

And a lot of the people just said it was too, took them to love. I remember you loved it. Oh, that thing was fantastic. I mean, the sociology, the stud,

the human interest, the, the architecture is just the way they design these massive floating palaces, all to sell you liquor. The prime extraction of the cruise lines comes from the bars. So it seems to me like I would like to make a very lot of money in the alcohol trade. Okay, I got an idea let's build 14 enormous ships and staff them with 3 000 people each and then we'll put a hotel on it and we'll run a hotel and we'll make our money from booze and but they do but they do yeah that's all the you know i i i

know we're gonna wrap it up i should say this. Bobby Short, who was a wonderful cabaret artist here in New York and sang at the Cafe Carlisle for years and a fantastic character, really a legend in New York City. Someone once asked him, how do you describe what you do? And he said, I sell hooch. I mean, he really meant it. He said, I just play so that you buy a drink. And that's what my job is, to get you to buy a drink. And I love that. Like that is more often than not, that is what is behind large enterprises.

Well, in the words of Homer Simpson, to alcohol, the cause of and the solution to all of our problems. James, I will not let this conversation conclude without asking for a definition of a term you once explained to me. And it's such a fascinating concept, slightly morbid, shrinkage, cruise lines and shrinkage. Well, that can apply to men who've gone into the pool before it's warmed. That can apply to just shrinkage in retail is usually used for pilferage or for – it can be in a euphemism I imagine assigned for the people who just don't come back from a cruise. Well, that's what you gave me. You gave me this long definition that there is always a difference in the number between the number of people who get on the ship and the number of people who get off when the ship returns. Not always, but of course it happens.

I mean there's a morgue on every ship. There are some – I mean I've seen people – I remember watching as we were pulling out from St. Petersburg and there were people who were rushing through the gate to make it to the ship and I wasn't aware that they were. If I'm in Russia, I'm going to make a point of getting back to my ship is what i'm saying exactly so i mean and there's always the odd person who falls off but there's a lot of suicides um a lot yeah i'm just i just raised this point because i'm not going on the cruise and i'm slightly miffed about that and i just want to end with the notion that there is chirpy cheerful rob and James. There is a morgue on that stinking ship. Yeah, there better be.

Yeah. Anybody who has a chirpy, cheerful notion of the whole industry below decks, I imagine it's a little more austere than it is up in the crow's nest. And while I've been on smaller vessels where you can hear them partying downstairs with this thump, a thump, a techno beat as the eastern europeans are all coupling up but you are the guest and when you when you get there it's like the ship this is the first day of the ship it's just been clean it's brand new and everything feels that way by the end of it and you're ready to go there is a turnaround operation that they perform that is the most miraculous thing in the world how they arrive

and have to be provisioned and have to clean everything. And the guy starts his day saying goodbye to you, and by 3 o'clock in the afternoon, he's saying hello to his next best friend, and he knows your name the next day. Well, we could do a podcast on it, Rob, when we're there, but we probably won't because we'll be having too much fun. We'll be having too much fun, exactly. We thank our guests.

We thank Calm, Mrs. Fields, Cook We thank our guests. We thank calm. This is fields, cookies, butcher blocks, meat support them because they're supporting us. And of course, if you enjoyed the show, yada,

yada, yada, I know go to iTunes. He says every time, leave a review. He says every time, but it helps. It really does.

And, uh, we thank of course, those who have signed up to ricochet and parted with some shekels, Rob, Peter, Peter, we won't be talking to you next week. We'll be talking to you down the road.

But everybody, have a great December as the holiday season begins, and we'll see you at the comments at Ricochet 3.0. See you soon, fellas. I'll see you tomorrow or the next day, James. Sail happily. Sail happily, boys. At the mountains, at the birds, at the ocean, at the trees. We have fun, we have fun, we have fun when we please. We wake up with the sun in our eyes. It's no surprise that we get so much done But we always, yes we always, we always have fun

Yes we always, yes we always, we always have fun Why would you live anywhere else? Why would you live anywhere else? We've got the ocean, got the waves, got the sun, we've got the waves. This is the only place for me. Ricochet. Join the conversation. Yeah, leave the cold behind We're gonna make it to the beach on time Why would you live anywhere else?

Why would you live anywhere else? We've got the ocean, got the waves, got the sun We've got the waves This is the only place. This is the only place. This is the only place. This is the only place for me. Why don't you get a job, Mr. Coley?

What for? You need money. All I need are some tasty waves, cool buzz, and I'm fine.