The Ricochet Podcast - Cowboy Poets Society

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

Apologies for being a tad late today, but thankfully the whole gang is back in action! Today we’ve got Susan Ferrechio, chief congressional correspondent for the Washington Examiner. She takes on all comers: from Democrats playing election projection, to the bored and tired people in charge, to talk of a (collective gasp!) Clinton comeback. Susan has thoughts on all of it. Follow her on Twitter @ Source

I have a dream this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created. Do you want to be the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be the side of John Lewis or Bill Carter? With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Democracy simply doesn't work. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lilacs. Today we talk

to Susan Farecki of the Washington Examiner about what the heck is going on everywhere. Let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet podcast number 576. How do we get this far? Well, because of people like you, as they say on public radio, who joined Ricochet. What? You haven't joined Ricochet? Do so now. Ricochet.com. You could be part of the most stimulating conversation and community as well on the web. It's a sane place. And in these days, we need sane places. I'm in the same place currently, at least, of Minneapolis, where it's beautiful and snowy. Peter Robinson is in Balmy, California.

And Rob Long, peregrinating as he does. Where have your journeys taken you today, Rob? Journeys have taken me just in my own apartment here in New York City, just in front of the microphone. It was freezing earlier, and it's not freezing. It wasn't freezing yesterday, and it's not freezing today, although I'm told that it will be freezing on Sunday, which is like classic winter where you're like – and people from – my mother told me, hey, it's going to snow up there on Monday. It's going to snow here on Sunday and it moves up. Well, freezing is a relative term.

Of course, we had our temperature advanced by about 58 degrees in the course of two or three days from 21 below to 30, something above. So we're having the full range of the meteorological experience. Now, gentlemen, let me put this to you. Have you ever had a rolling rock beer? I have. Yes. experience now gentlemen let me put this to you have you ever had a rolling rock beer i have yes okay and on the back of the rolling rock beer is an enigmatic message that people have attempted to code for years it's uh brewed in the glass lined tanks of latrobe etc and then scrawled over it are the numbers 33 which some people would believe is a is a reference to prohibition some people believe is a reference to the number of words in the copy that was scrolled by somebody at the office and it made it into the final design. But it turns out that all those years ago, ruling Rock Beer was predicting the poll ratings of Joe Biden.

New Quinnipiac poll says the approval is at 33%. I'm asking you, do you think he can hit the 20s? Has anybody in our lifetime ever hit the 20s? I don't know whether, I don't know in modern polling. I mean, the problem is that the old polling wasn't as good as the modern polling is. And the modern polling, even the stuff that we read and we see isn't as good as the stuff that the president is getting because they spend more money. And the more money you spend on polling, the better the number. I suspect that the number, his actual number is so low internally

that no one is really, no one wants to talk about it. I mean, if they, I mean, the weirdest thing is that when a president is in such free fall as this one is so incredibly disastrous, you see it. You could tell it. There's this panic in that White House. There's a panic in the administration. There are people leaving the people going to spend more time with their families or people writing books. There are people talking to the press. There's just all sorts of chaos. I think this one might be so chaotic that there isn't even that. Well, Peter, let me ask you, do you think, is the speech that Joe Biden gave this week,

does that fit a man whose polls are so deep in the septic system that he's trying to reach out and build bridges? You have very beautifully put your finger on it, James. The polling is low. As Rob suggests, it's probably even lower on the good polls that they're seeing. And yet here he is, instead of attempting to moderate the message, instead of attempting to do what he said he would do when he ran for office, and especially in his inaugural speech, calm the country, reunite us, instead of any of that, he's being wildly intemperate. I thought that speech was absolutely outrageous, offensive, beneath his dignity, beneath the dignity of the office. Which one are we talking about? We're talking about the Atlanta speech in which he said, which side are you on?

Are you with George Wallace or Bull Connor if you vote against the Georgia law, which, as we all know, because it's been said 100 times, will permit looser voting rules than exist right now in Joe Biden's home state of Delaware. What I'm getting at is what James just teed up so beautifully, and I'm sure he wants me to get at, is that their behavior does not make sense on any conventional understanding of American politics at all. As best I can tell. So you begin with the rule that people respond to incentives. They must have decided that they, and again, here we are a little over a year into this presidency, and we don't even know who they are, although we can be pretty sure that it is a they and not a he because the president has so little energy and he seems to get confused. All that we've already talked about, whoever they are, they seem to have decided that they're going to lose Congress next November.

That seems to be baked in. And so what are they trying to do? They're liberals. They're trying to lay the predicate for a real bloodbath of a fight in 2020. Honestly, I have to say, after having spent my entire adult life around politics, I am just baffled. Even ideologues, once they reach that height of American politics, have almost always learned the game that to get things done, you moderate, you deal with Joe Manchin beginning a year ago. You don't start insulting him beginning a month ago. So I confess,

I am baffled. Yeah, it's a very strange thing because I think they are looking forward to losing the House and the Senate. That is their only way out, is to have this sort of direct oppositional sort of – I mean, although I suspect – I can't imagine Joe Biden's going to run again. But have that direct oppositional kind of clear line that sometimes presidents like that when it's like, I'd just rather do nothing but be able to point to an enemy. His biggest fights are with his own party. That is a sign that there is trouble. The Democrats have a majority in the House and an effective majority in the Senate. And the Biden administration and the Biden agenda is stymied. He can't point, as other presidents have done, to the evil Republicans in the House.

He can't point, as other Democratic presidents have, to the ancient and ossified bigots of the Republican Party in the Senate. He can't do that. His biggest fights are with Kristen Sinema and Joe Manchin and with his own COVID policy, in my view. But that is a sign that this guy is in big, big, big, big trouble. All he has to do is is make peace with his own party.

Right. He doesn't even have to moderate. He just has to go to Joe Manchin, who are democratically elected, Democratic senators in the democratically controlled Senate and make a deal. And he can't do it. And deal and he can't do it and i think he can't do it because i mean i think because the joe biden who could do it um isn't really with us anymore i guess and the team generously phrased yeah and the team that has around biden uh is inexperienced and young and liberal, and they don't understand that, like a lot of young conservatives do, by the way, they do not understand that actually, no, no, in America,

you have to take the B minus C plus version of what you want. Right. You know, you're just going to have to eat that special kind of cookie. That's how you get what you get. And they're just not doing it. And he's and he and Biden isn't isn't present enough. To. To pound the table and say, it's OK, what does Joe want to give it to him? Right. Right. The only something like that makes sense. The only thing something like that certainly has to be what's happening. The only thing that I can think is that what we have here is the charge of the light brigade. Because these kids, the people who are running the White House, aside from the president, who, as you say, is no longer really present, are young. Pure ideology. And if we're going to go down, we'll go down in a magnificent cavalry charge. But of course, they're thinking we won't really go down. We're in this town to play this game for three or four more decades.

So there's maybe the charge of the light brigade isn't quite right. Maybe it's the Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964, where everybody, including Barry Goldwater, knew that he was going to lose, and that in some way permitted the campaign to become even more ideological. We're just putting down markers for young conservatives, for the Republican Party of the future. And so said many of the people on the Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964. And these people may be saying, OK, we're going to go down, but there's a new Democratic Party, a borning, and we're going to be part of that labor. And if it costs us Joe Biden, well, he's already gone anyway. Don't you think it's weird? Something like that? I think. But don't you think it's weird, Peter, this kind of tone deafness to it, the idea that nobody, nobody believes really that this voting business is that's the yes, is is the is the is the is the safeguarding democracy for the future.

Nobody believes that. And except maybe some very, very, very young people in the White House. But nobody believes that. Maybe Joe Biden in his twilight believes it. But nobody knows. It's a it's sort of crazy on the face of it. I mean, all of I mean, it's the voting, the voting processes in Pennsylvania, Delaware and California, everywhere else. And I think even Mississippi are more are are are slightly more restrictive than they were. That was slightly more restrictive than they would be after the passing of this bill, but in fact, much more liberal than they were five, 10 years ago. I don't think you understand, Rob. I really don't. Biden was completely correct to trace

this back to Jim Crow, to the battle days of the South, because when you consider it, Bull Connor used fire hoses full of water to disenfranchise African Americans. Now, in Georgia, we're talking about using water not to give it to people standing in line. So water is involved in both of these instances. I think you can trace a clear line between the fire hoses and the restrictive laws that keep people, that make people keel over with dehydration in the line. But I guess what I mean is that nobody believes it.

Nobody does. That's right. But the strange thing about mean is that nobody believes it. Nobody does. That's right. But the strange thing about this is, is to hear from both of you guys, it's sort of the idea that you heard in Republican circles all the time. Well, it's good that we're going to lose because we'll get all the wishy-washy people out of the way. And then things will get really bad. And people will realize that the only salvation is going to be the Republican Party. You heard an awful lot of that. But Rob's right. It's not that they may not believe these things.

It's that they do they actually not know how unpopular some of these things are. I mean, everybody wants, you know, everybody wants a clean earth. Yeah, we do. Does that mean that they want $7 gasoline, intermittent power, forbidding people to have gas stoves or Weber grills in the backyard. No, none of the particulars of these things are popular at all when people dig into the details. So what are they thinking?

That they'll lose? Good, good, we'll lose, we'll clear, we'll scour. And then we'll come roaring back with this package of stuff that isn't popular with anybody goldwater stuff may have been scary to some at the time because it was you know he's gonna the daisy the nuclear war but how many of the things that they were actually attempting to bring to the american people later through a reconstituted republican party were that unpopular in the sense

that they are directly affected your life in the way that the price of the pump and the lack of stuff in the grocery store does. Maybe, but I mean, the go water theory is was was that was wrong. Then Republicans were wrong. Then the greatest, most indelible, most unreversible institutions of the liberal welfare state happened after 1964. This sort of crazy – I've heard these Republicans say this, this crazy Republican sort of reimagining of that time. Well, you know, it was kind of good to be lost because that set us up for Reagan 16 years later when Reagan didn't manage – Reagan couldn't dismantle the Department of Education,

which had only been started by Carter. So losing is never good because it doesn't – the rules do not change when you win. People think that when they win, the rules suddenly change and they get everything they want. And you don't, not in America. You don't get everything you want. You still have to make a deal with the jerk on the other side. Spoken like a man who wrote a great sitcom strip and then got notes, you know, notes from the... Yeah, sure. Always get notes. Briefly on Goldwater, the point about Goldwater was, the point I was making about the campaign was they believed they were going to lose anyway. Barry Goldwater said to the people close to him,

Bill Buck, they'd lost John Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson was now a new president. And the American people just don't want three presidents in 18 months. It's just too much for the country to take. So rightly or wrongly, they suppose they were going to lose anyway. I just looked it up here yesterday, the speech that Biden gave in Atlanta. And I just want to underline my bafflement, speechwriter that I am. Let me quote this. It's just three sentences. At consequential moments in history, said the President of the United States, there is a choice. I ask every elected official, how do you want to be remembered? Are you on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama? Do you want to be on the side of John

Lewis, the freedom marcher, or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis, the freedom marcher, or Bull Conner? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? There is no construction of American politics under which saying that makes any sense. There is no construction under which the president of the United States, accusing roughly half of his fellow citizens of siding with Jefferson Davis and Bull Connor, is outrageous and stupid. It's indecent. I don't care what they're saying. And when he said that it's indecent is the word. Do you want to be on the side of Martin Luther King or George Wallace? You want to be on the side of the Republican or the Democrat?

Oh, hold on. Wait a minute. Well, it's also the question is, like, do you do you want to do you believe that the difference between Martin Luther King and George Wallace is being able to place your completed ballot in a ballot collection facility that is not maintained by the U.S. Postal Service, seven to eight to 10 to 50, whatever days it is, with rain, with excess rain allowing for extra days. I mean, the problem with all this stuff is, and I really do believe that spoke parties have this. I had dinner with our old friend last night, Troy Sinek. And we started early. We ended very late at a great restaurant downtown. And we talked about everything. But one of the things we were baffled by is just the exhausted, out of energy, out of ideas, political apparatuses, apparati in America. They're just so tight.

Like, you look at the Republican Party, it's so tight. And the Democratic Party is so tired. But this especially is tired. All this voting stuff, because it never accepts the fact that voting participation in America in 2020 and 2016 was soaring. Midterm elections. Right, right. Exactly. It's soaring.

There are more Americans participating in voting now than if I'd said to you 15 years ago that it was going to be 60 percent participation or whatever it was. You look to me and say, my God, how great things must be, how great everything must be, because we never would imagine that we thought it was going to go down to 40 or 30. Google this in the New York Times. Could we even say in the future that a president was actually elected if only 20 percent of Americans participate or 30? And that was the biggest because that was a gigantic crisis for us. And now there are so many people voting that we've decided to create a crisis equal to the Voting Rights Act of the 60s. And I think people just aren't they just don't believe it anymore right you know and a couple big and i would say the other big thing which i don't think we talked about

did we talk about sonia sotomayor briefly um go right ahead at the at the oral arguments uh last week uh at the supreme court she said yeah she said something for vaccine mandates and mask mandates. She said something so phenomenally stupid. Yeah. So inexcusably. So actually, I mean, unfortunately, it's not actionable because she is the she's in the court of last resort. So there's no place to go to have her overturned, said something so dumb about COVID.

One hundred thousand young people, she said, have serious COVID, many of whom are on ventilators. That is categorically false. And it is disqualifying for this person to be rendering judgment on this case. She should recuse herself for her stupidity. She's as dumb as people going and drinking ivermectin from the veterinary supply store. And no one will say it. Everybody shrugs, but the American people do hear it. And they hear this hysterical moron and the Supreme Court. She's one of the handful of most powerful people in America, a regulatory function at this point, because she's judging, they are adjudicating whether you have to wear a mask or a vaccine mandate. So she is a regulator now,

and she's that dumb. And then you have the president of the United States screaming about voting rights and enfranchisement at a time when there's record participation in elections. And I think the American people are just saying, my God, we need a different channel. We need different noise. This noise no longer works for us in both COVID and voting and all the crises. And I would say, because I'm opportunistic

and I know I've talked too much and I'll shut up now, I would say now is a perfect time for us to talk about how terrible the schools are and how crazy all this environmental nonsense is because they this the same playbook they have which is to say if you don't give money to the schools your children are going to be reeling in the streets and if you don't we don't uh uh as james has paid seven dollars for gas we're all gonna die when the glacier hits um now it's perfect because they have no new they have no new ideas they have they don't even have

any new warnings and um i don't know seems like an opportunity where i especially since we spent a tremendous amount of money on the schools millions and millions and millions of billions of dollars and the schools aren't any better they haven't done anything about their ventilation have they they're still complaining about not where do Where did the money go exactly? Where did the money go? Yeah. You're absolutely right. People look at the voting stuff and they realize that it's not that we have record amounts of people voting. The problem that the other side believes is that the wrong people are voting and that you have to arrange things so that the right outcomes occur. The ideal outcome is for everybody to sit at home being paid by a universal basic income, not working, pursuing their life as

a cowboy poet, having somebody come to the door and harvest the ballot for them, you know, and what happens to the trillions? I mean, if you gave me those billions of dollars and said, fix the school, I could actually start to do something probably in an hour, although I would have to change my wardrobe, frankly, because you have to impress people. You got to look good. The other day, for example, I was looking for a shirt that matched this tie that I have, and I couldn't find it because I didn't make it. You're stuck. No way to fix that. Well, I'm going to tell you, I'll walk around with like a fool. You'd be surprised. So yeah, I was looking for a particular color, a bright color. I love bright colored shirts. What Catherine Lopez from National

Review used to call my male stripper wardrobe. Well, I couldn't find it because I'm at the whims of the stores, right? I mean, if I could, there's no guarantee that it would actually fit like I wanted it to fit. Who wants to be at the mercy of these things? Listen, if you're finding a signature color that you like, whether you want to find a more flattering cut or you want to get a new statement piece, the right detail can take your wardrobe up a notch. This year, let Indochino take care of your 2022 style edit. You can customize everything from suits to shirts, from chinos to bomber jackets at prices more affordable than you might expect. It's time to get a wardrobe personalized to your style and taste without spending a fortune. Each piece is made to your exact measurements,

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Promo code ricochet. You're going to love it. You're going to look great. Oh, the compliments you'll get. We thank you for sponsoring this, the ricochet podcast. And now we welcome to the podcast, Susan Farrakio. She's the chief congressional correspondent for the Washington examiner and the ricochet podcast. She's a frequent guest on PBS is long running public affairs program, the McLaughlin group.

And she's previously reported for congressional quarterly and the Miami Herald follower on Twitter. If you will, The McLaughlin Group, and she's previously reported for Congressional Quarterly and the Miami Herald. Follow her on Twitter, if you will, at Susan Ferrecchio. That'll be in the notes on the site. Susan, welcome back. And again, I have to say, we're both old newspaper people. Do you miss the hustle and bustle of the newsroom? How do you think that the Miami Herald would be handling things today would there be a a buzz there as they realize that the joe biden administration rolls on chalking up one triumph after the i'm sorry i do miss it i was just watching roman holiday last night and uh part of the movie takes place in a newsroom in italy in that clacking of the typewriters and all the news people running back and forth, gathering information, the pictures, photographers, pictures on every wall, covering every wall. I do miss that. And

I think there are a lot of reporters today who can't even fathom what that was. You know, when we started and I started, there was no internet. I know there, and the people I worked with said, well, when I started, we worked on typewriters. There were no computers, you know, just to just to evolve into what it is today, into this really fast paced social media driven industry. It's really changed not only how we produce news and how we consume news, but I feel pretty strongly it's changed the news and the news cycle itself. So it's, you know, it's been exciting to watch it all change over my career which has been about three decades now um and you know i don't know what's going to

happen in the future there's some good things about it and a lot of bad things about it isn't it odd that this acceleration of the news cycle and this constant i mean twitter telling you every seven seconds that something's happened is happening at the same time as we have an absolutely senescent and just this figurehead of a president who is so ill-suited to that. Who out there, and I'll just throw this out and let Rob and Peter go afterwards, who out there in the Republican Party seems able to meet this pace, to adapt to it, to fight back, to master, to ride that particular wild horse? Well, first of all, I think the fast pace and the way that there are more people of access to reporting news has made it more, I think, has equalized things because the mainstream media,

obviously, with the newspaper delivery system prior to social media, you really didn't have a lot of alternative voices there. And now, I hate to say it, but Republicans really are the alternative voice because the mainstream media is largely driven by liberals. I think that's fair to say. So that's been a great opportunity for the Republican Party to reach an audience that otherwise they couldn't get to. And I think there are a lot of Republicans who have jumped right in, certainly not all of them. Let's face it, there are members of Congress who walk around with flip phones still. So there are people who haven't really caught up to it all, including Lindsey Graham. But he's also active on social media. His team is active on social

media. And I think there are a lot of Republicans who jump right in there. Of course, the big problem is the shadow banning and the editing by the social media tech giants. And that's, of course, the next huge big problem in terms of ensuring news is delivered on equal footing. Who is doing the editing? Who is doing the blocking here? And that's a really important topic. And Republicans are certainly, several Republicans in the Senate and the House are really diving in on that. Susan, political question. Joe Biden earlier this week, I asked every elected official in America, how do you want to be remembered? On the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? On the sides of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? What could he possibly have been thinking? He effectively called

half of Americans George Wallace's or Bull Connor's. What on earth could possibly have been the political point of that speech? Well, 2022 was the political point of that speech? Well, 2022 was the political point of that speech. For Republicans and Democrats, both parties, it's always the path to the next election, how to regain or maintain power. So Democrats are looking ahead to 2022, thinking how can they maintain power? They feel like these red state voter integrity laws are going to diminish access to the voters that they think will keep them in office. Therefore, they feel like the only way to do that is to pass these two partisan. These are partisan election bills. Get them across the finish line.

And that will give them a chance to stay in power and keep trying to pass their big agenda that so far has not gone anywhere, really. And that's what he had in mind by getting up there and comparing the current voting system in these red states, particularly Georgia, where there's an important election happening that could determine the balance of the Senate. If he said, look, these laws are George Wallace. You know, these laws are racist. This protects them in two ways. It can get their base out.

I think that's what they have in mind. I could perhaps, in their view, find a way to push this rules change in the Senate and get their bills across the finish line. And three, if they lose, which is a real possibility right now, let's take a wild gander at what they're going to say if they don't win. They're going to say the reason they didn't win is Republicans stole it from them through these election laws that restricted voter access. They've already laid the foundation for that argument now. And it was really, that to me was the heart of what Biden was getting at during that speech. I don't think he wrote it. I think it's, you know, obviously I think his staff wrote it.

He could barely deliver it. He certainly didn't write it. Yeah. Right. So I think that that's what the Biden administration is trying to accomplish with in concert with House and Senate Democrats who are about to lose control of Congress. So wait a minute. I'm sorry. I'm going to put this in a provocative way and I'm going to use the T word. So, Rob, you can take your headphones off right now for a moment if you want to. So they are accusing Donald Trump of preparing to steal the next election, when in fact what's happening is that they are preparing to claim he stole the election, even as he is now claiming they stole the election, when all the polls indicate that if Donald Trump does win, does choose to run again, he'll win fair and square

by at least middling single digits. Now, November's a long way. But so the Democrat, it's this weird projection where they're preparing to do exactly what they accuse him of doing. You're saying that? Well, they just did it in 2016. 2016, the entire Trump administration was about how he stole the election by colluding with the Russians. And then in 2020, when Trump tried to make a claim that there were problems in the election process

that undermined credibility of the election, look what happened. So, you know, of course, a lot more did happen. And that's a whole nother story. But to this day, Democrats make the case that people are, you know, 20 states now, almost 20 states, are, we're going back and examining some of the last minute, significant, profound changes to our election law that were put in place because of COVID. They're going back and they're looking at those and they're saying, do we want drop boxes on every street corner, you know, unsupervised, you're losing the chain of supervision. Do we want to let people vote? Do we want to overwhelm the system the way we did the last time with the mail-in balloting and all these other things? Do we want to make sure there's more integrity? Do we want to tighten

up the process? Democrats say by doing that, you're now restricting. They liked the 2020 outcome, didn't they? The whole process helped them win. I think that's pretty fair to say. So why would they want to undo that? They don't. They want to keep it all in place. And they say by these states deciding on their own through legislatures elected by voters that they want to change these and tighten up voter integrity laws. By the way, voter ID is wildly popular. By saying that, Democrats are saying, you're going to restrict access. They keep going to the Senate floor talking about how people can stand in line for hours and they can't have water.

They can't have water. That's not true. What they want to do is avoid having partisan workers. Electioneering right at the polling booth, right? With food and drink and entertainment, whatever they were doing in some cases that that raise alarm bells poll workers can deliver refreshments to people standing in line and democrats never say that so that they're not being truthful what they're doing is just trying to scare people and you know they're trying to make it the most dramatic case possible, as any party would do, to try to push these two bills across the finish line. Now,

they're not going to pass because it's clear within their own party, they don't have a path to do that. So you ask, well, what's the end game? Why does Biden go do this when he knows that those bills aren't going to pass? Why are Democrats still going to take up the legislation next week? I think it goes back to what I started with originally, that the reason they're doing this is to show their base, that they're working hard for them. Their base is disillusioned by lack of movement in their big agenda, liberal wishlist items. And two, it certainly lays the groundwork for them since things are looking dismal for them in 2022, although it's too early for Republicans to claim victory,

certainly. If they do win, Republicans, Democrats have laid the foundation for discrediting the Republican victory in 2022. And I can promise you that that will happen right right right i want to set up i want to set up rob because he said a couple of things that are going around and around in my mind anyway here's the question to you and we'll see if rob wants to come in and sort of elaborate on it here we are stuck in this weird bitter vicious poisonous psych you stole the election. You're preparing to steal. No, you are the one who are discredited.

You're the threat. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has massed troops and tanks on the border of Ukraine and forced the president of the United States to engage in talks with him about Ukraine. It's sheer bullying. And the United States of America is talking, dealing as a result of a show of force. The Chinese are overflying Taiwanese airspace with fighters several times a week. There is serious stuff going on in the world, and this nation simply is not behaving like a great nation. It's all kabuki politics. There's nothing serious getting discussed or done. Here's my question. What serious people do you see just off stage, ready to come on and talk about substantive issues. If Rob was saying earlier that the Republican Party looks exhausted,

that Mitch McConnell gave, in my judgment, magnificent remarks in the chamber of the Senate the other day in reply to Joe Biden, and Mitch McConnell was fierce and well-spoken, but even he looks tired. And Mitch McConnell was fierce and well-spoken. But even he looks tired. He's just, they've just all had enough. Where do you see any energy and seriousness and intellect waiting to take over? Oh, it's there.

I think that there are Republicans and some Democrats in the House and the Senate who are very concerned about what's going on with China and Russia, and they want more attention. You know, the problem, I think, when it comes to our politicians these days is they're just so glued to these short election cycles, staying in power, watching the polls, putting their finger to the wind and seeing which way they need to move in order to maintain power or to get where they want to get, that you don't have the kind of governing that in the past we would be paying more attention to what's going on with foreign policy. And now there are plenty of people raising alarm bells. Certainly, the Biden administration is not the Trump administration where you had Mike Pompeo, you know, in charge of things, and you had Donald Trump taking what I think a lot of people agree is a really strong stand

on foreign policy against aggressors and people who are not on our side. People are not our allies. For example, just last night, Senate Democrats blocked this resolution proposed by Senator Ted Cruz that would have censored and sanctioned people constructing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which of course would supply energy from Russia to Germany. Now, Democrats were, the Biden White House really put the squeeze on Democrats on this because, of course, Germany does not want this to happen. They are relying on Russia for energy. And Democrats went along with the Biden administration. They blocked this thing, which is surprising. I think there are Democrats who are really equally concerned about this. Look, we just spent years with Democrats on the floor railing about Trump being aligned with Putin, yet they don't even want to sanction

Putin. They don't have the willpower to sanction Putin themselves right now. It's so serious. The situation is getting extremely serious with Ukraine. So I think there are people who are really interested in this. The problem is everybody to get in power, they need to win over the public, ask the public how concerned they are about this stuff. A lot of people, what you just described, a lot of people have no idea this is going on, nor do they care. I don't know why, given what's available on social media now, people aren't talking about this stuff because it doesn't directly impact them. Well, it will. The Nord Stream pipeline issue is a great one for the

Republicans to point out how the Biden administration keeps energy from flowing here and is perfectly happy to let the Russians do what they want. You're right. Germany does depend on them, but they shouldn't, A, because they're pursuing the sort of policies the Democrats want here with decarbonization, but B, the United States now has the facilities to ship liquid natural gas to them and this was partly due to the fracking revolution so we i mean so there's a whole lot of stuff that we can go and it makes you wonder whether or not the democrats are saying well if we sanction them then the russians will sanction us and we you know they'll cut off our caviar shipments i mean have you seen the have you seen the price of caviar the other day? I'm not a caviar eater, but I am a sleep guy.

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on the deck next. I guess what I would say is like you could make an argument that the conservative movement is rudderless, too, in the sense that I don't think there's a consensus in the conservative movement that the United States should be engaged internationally. I don't think there's a consensus that the United States, that our interests are served by whatever happens in Ukraine. I mean, you can see it in conservative websites, some of them really good, arguing that maybe it's time for an America first approach. So in a sense, we have lost the thread. In 1980, it was pretty clear, 1984, even 1988, it's pretty clear that conservatives in America were in favor of rolling back the Soviet Union, holding the line where it was, not allowing it to grow. Now it's not quite clear

what, I mean, there were debates about whether in conservative magazines and websites, whether the United States should really guarantee Taiwan. So we have lost a little bit of our resolve. We are, it seems to me, as a political country, trying to figure out where the lines are. And part of that was, you can see in the Biden administration, their biggest fights are with two Democratic senators. I mean, Mitch McConnell is a bystander in all this. He doesn't have to do anything. That's true. I mean Mitch McConnell is a bystander in all this. He doesn't have to do anything. He could just sit there and drink tea all day and let the Democrats aim their howitzers at Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. having, and a party, obviously, that's at war with itself. We said this before, you got to, ordinarily, that would be, we'd be able to see the signs of that in the White House. There would be people in the White House sniping at each other,

people at the White House double-crossing each other, having breakfasts and saying, off the record, this guy's a loser. I mean, even the Reagan's shaky first couple of years as president. That's what that's what happened in that administration. These guys seem like they're all part of a team. I mean, am I missing the backbiting and all the fun stuff that I love to enjoy or even more worrisome? Do the people in the White House not know how badly they're blowing this? That's a really great question. I was just talking about this with a fellow reporter wondering. First of all, it's early. As the administration moves forward, it's very possible you'll see as people leave. I was just wondering yesterday who's going to write the tell a book about by diminished mental capacity.

You know, these things traditionally do happen in administrations or is sniping. But I wonder if the Trump administration was just so overflowing with that problem that it just that the Democrats watched that and said, that's not happening to us. It's sort of like a backlash. And I wonder about that, but I think you're right. I think that, I think, I think they're sticking to their guns on their policy and their, their, you know, agenda, even though it's not going anywhere. And even though the polls aren't very good, I think they feel like if they could pass this stuff, they could go out and blitz the country with, you know, good news about all the new programs and subsidies people are going to get to

make their lives better. That was their plan. They were going to go around and say, you got a child tax credit, date free, COVID's over all kinds of subsidies, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But they don't have that. So, you know, it's really curious. I wrote a story that's running in the Washington Examiner magazine. If I could promote that coming up next week. Good magazine.

I contribute to that. Fantastic. It is. It's a great magazine. Well, I have a story coming out about the White House is about to apparently ask for more COVID aid, a substantial amount. So it would be another one ask for more COVID aid, a substantial amount. So it would be another one of these big COVID aid packages. The last one Democrats passed without any Republican

help, it was about $2 trillion. And that included the tax credit and the stimulus checks and all the stuff that Republicans believe kept the economy depressed by keeping workers out of the workforce. Anyway, they're planning another one of these things. And the majority leader was telling us it would include, believe it or not, more money for schools to stay open. Currently, the school systems have gotten through the last COVID aid package $120 billion, more than that, actually, and have only drawn down 4% of that so far. 4% since last March. Meanwhile, there are a lot of schools being shut down intermittently because of COVID. And, of course, we just had what happened in Chicago where that shutdown with the teachers union tried to go remote.

Talking about it again and apparently in New York City. So, you know, the Democrats are living in another universe. First of all, it's going to be very hard for them to pass that unless they circumvent Senate filibuster rules like they did the last. But more money, more and more money, $6 trillion in COVID aid has already gone out. I don't know if maybe the Biden administration feels like, well, here's another route we can use to pass some of our stuff under the guise of COVID aid, because Omicron is surging and, you know, they want to kind of ride that wave

and get some more money across the finish line. So that's the kind of thing they're paying attention to within the Biden administration. They're watching things like that, like kind of immediate candy, throwing out the candy. Right. It is interesting. And I do think it all connects back to the world with which we live now with social media being the news cycle. Everything has kind of become faster paced.

Yeah, but I guess what I mean is just the patterns seem like they – I mean when you're in a first term of a presidency, pretty much, I mean even a successful one, Reagan in the – first term in Reagan, they were nervous. The economy was not doing well. They inflation had not yet been tamed. There was still a recession and he wasn't that popular. And their argument, I think, in that White House was hold on because the money supply numbers are going up in the future. This is all going to turn around and it's going to look good. Right. And you're and you're not going to have to change you're just steady the steady the course right and if you were in the i don't know the the you stay the course right if you're in the in the in the clinton administration

in the first term it's like oh no wrong direction change direction do x y and z to sort of turn the ship around, and he did. He triangulated. He triangulated. Right. But also, he ran in 1996

as a lot more conservative after the drubbing in 1992. I mean, in 1994. So I guess the question is, and that was all the product of smart, adult, realistic people, pragmatic people in a White House coming up, looking at what's really happening and coming up with a solution that we sort of all understood was a political solution, but turned out to be at least politically successful for both those presidents. Who is doing that is anyone doing that in the biden administration biden and clinton are not i agree with that yeah and neither one is close to reagan but i mean you're usually you have people in an administration who are like gonna sit down with the president or somebody and say look here's the problem

here's what we need to do it doesn't seem like anyone's doing that in this administration well i don't think the Obama administration did that either. I mean, I think they just, they are liberal to the core. And the administration is. I know the thing is, it's funny, what is Biden?

I don't even know anymore. All of these senators, and it's not just because he's older and we all talk about his diminished mental capacity. They've all kind of evolved. But some of these senators who are more moderate have gone to the left and i think that's because they believe that's where their base is and that's their

that's their survival their survival is in the left we can't we can't so many of them went to the left right so many issues on abortion on guns on spending it's just there's very few true moderates left in fact there are approximately two and we know who they are in the Senate. We do. Everyone does now. Approximately two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They have great power because of that, and they're a slim majority. But the party itself has gone left. They followed the base. The excitement is with the younger, more liberal part of the party. They're winning elections, and the AOC crowd is where the excitement is and where the party energy is. It's where Obama was as the president. And it's where this administration is now.

Do I see them triangulating and becoming more moderate? I don't, you know, that'd be hard to envision. There is one prominent Democrat who sees what needs to be done. Let me quote from a piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Susan knows where this is going. Earlier this week, Doug Schoen, a perfect. Yeah, OK, that's the question, whether this is laughable. And Susan's already laughing.

A perfect storm in the Democratic Party is making a once unfathomable scenario plausible. A political comeback for Hillary Clinton in 2024. So when that appeared in the journal on Tuesday, because it was Susan, did all of Washington fall about it themselves laughing and saying that's just Doug Schoen trying to generate consulting fees again? Or did they say, oh, well, this is the rob long argument this is the suit in a minute it's a mess somebody some grown-up needs to come in and move that party back to the center and begin to appeal to the middle of the country and it's if it's only hillary clinton who's capable of doing so then it's hillary hillary clinton it may be i think for democrats it would be a phenomenal idea to run her i think i think she you chill me to the very marrow but go ahead say fine who

who can do it who can do it i remember last year watching these um primary primaries you know iowa new hampshire and and and i remember i was on the senate special report at fox and i kept saying week after week after Biden kept losing. I kept saying, I know, I know you think I'm crazy, but Biden is going to win this. None of these guys can get carried past these early states. It's going to be Biden. And I got home one night and my husband, Doug McElwain, who was at the time a Fox News correspondent, I got home and he just says, you know, you got to stop saying that. Look, it's about who can win. So my point is not say, yes, I was the lone voice out there.

It's the point is it's who can win. Okay. She can win. She can win. She can win. She can win the primary, you mean? Yeah. She can win the primary. She can win the general election.

She can win the general. Yes. Yes. Yes win the primary. She can win the general election. She can win the general. Yes, yes, yes. Who else do they have? Forget Kamala Harris. That's out. Forget some of these other people who are like, you know, nipping at the heels here wanting to run. There's nobody out there who could command the kind of immediate, you know, stardom in

the field as Hillary Clinton. And could she take on whoever the 2024 candidate is, be it Trump or DeSantis or whoever decides to run? Yes, she could. She's, well, we haven't heard a ton from her. She still seems to be, you know, pretty much at the same mental level as she was before I've heard a couple interviews with her.

I don't hear any change in the way she's performing mentally, which is important on the task of any person as they get older. I'm not just picking on Clinton. You wonder and you watch because when you age, people's mental capacity is a part of life. She still seems pretty with it. They need someone. If it's not going to be Biden, it sure as heck cannot be Harris. That's just forget it. It's over. It has to be somebody with stardom power. And that's Clinton. There are perhaps some others. What if it was, say, Michelle Obama? I mean, that would be an exciting possibility. She's not interested. I don't think that would happen. But it would have to be somebody that can get out there. Because let's face it, the 2020 primaries in 2019, 2020 were a mess. They were a mess.

And Biden won because of that, because there was nobody else who could carry the ball. Had to be him. They were like, dear God, we've got to use Biden because he's the only one who can make it through the whole circuit and come out the winner. That was really what the primaries are about. So, Susan, this is really I'll leave it to James to if you answer this the way I think you may answer it, I'll leave it to James to, if you answer this the way I think you may answer it, I'll leave it to James to try to figure out how to get us out of this on an up note, because I am now in the slough of despond. Are you saying that we're headed for a

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump rematch in 2024? Do we have to live through that again? Well, if the networks can make that happen, they will. They will. Save cable news. I'd say, you guys, anything is possible. I think you're right. It's just perverse enough to work. The reason that I think that Hillary actually would appeal to an awful lot of people, when you mentioned before that the senators are moving left because they feel that the energy, the power of the movement is on the left, the young folk, that's true. But this is a different set of leftist ideas. Previously, you go back however many decades you want. If somebody was moving to the left, it was on economic issues and some of the social issues that we all had to hash out about civil rights and the rest of it. But now

you have an entirely alien culture. You have woke culture, to use the term that everyone uses, which is anathema to most people. And when they see it reflected around them, they're horrified by it. They hate it. They can't stand it. So somebody who tries to tap into that energy runs the risk of dragging with them all of these woke-isms that seem to be infesting corporate and intellectual society. Hillary doesn't have that. Nobody's going to look at her and say that she's going to be the handmaiden for some some stridently woke ish. She brings a different kind of fresh, annoying leftist fresh kind of perspective. Yes.

Biden to Trump, Hillary, when we're talking about a rotating panoply of septuagenarians, I don't think fresh is the word that we necessarily want to use. But hey, you know, if we have to replay Trump and Hillary eight years down the... Oh my God, oh my Lord. Okay. Well, there's no way I can get out of this to Peter's satisfaction. So I'm just pleased. Thank you. Another star could emerge and change the whole television. That person just hasn't surfaced yet. It's not Ron DeSantis? Oh, on the Republican side, for sure. Oh, I see. Okay. There are many Republicans who could replace Trump in my view.

Oh, yeah, I agree. That would leave me jogging for the win, for sure. Susan, is there any chance that Donald Trump is saying to himself, I'm having fun now, but when it comes to it, I prefer the game of golf for my final years to running it? He'll want to be the kingmaker, for sure. He'll want to say, I anoint DeSantis. He'll want to make it his He'll want to be the kingmaker for sure. He'll want to say, I anoint, you know, he'll want to make it his pick. So he's the kingmaker.

Don't forget, once those high-speed trains start connecting Chicago with Denver, which is going to happen, I think, by next year, Butter Judge has got a lot to go on. Not only may the trains run on time, he made the trains appear. So yeah, it's still fluid. It's all fluid.

Susan, thanks so much. We're going to let you go. go we know you have to leave and we appreciate the time you've given us here in the ricochet podcast we'll see you in the examiner on twitter elsewhere and we'll have you back as often as is humanly possible have a great day susan thanks so much have a good weekend you guys bye-bye you know peter yeah the idea of hillary Hillary Clinton running again. It's, how many times do we have to go through this? It's, you know, in one respect, I suppose for some people in the Democratic side, they're like putting on an old comfortable pair of pants because, you know, you get a new pair of pants and they're tight and they don't fit, but after you've worn them and washed them eight or nine, ten or times,

so they fit on so comfortably. And Hillary Clinton is that comfy old ragged sweatpants that you just can't throw them out. Hillary Clinton is comfortable for the party. They know where she's like, you know, ratty old sweatpants. And frankly, if you're a guy, your wife has probably said, why are you still wearing those ratty old sweatpants? Because they're comfortable, but you know what? You can find comfortable sweatpants that aren't falling apart and stained and disgusting. No, you need to give your butt an upgrade.

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Well, that commercial was so stunning that Peter Robinson actually decided to leave the show right then and there and go order himself some Tommy Johns. But he did so with great graciousness because Peter's a gracious man. And we lost another gracious man. We lost probably the best critic in America and a good, good man, Terry Tichon. Padort said this, Terry possessed an extraordinary talent, all the more extraordinary because his life's work was a defense of the value, meaning, and profundity of ordinariness. A child of small town Missouri, he was someone who made a study of every topic that interested him, and with his passion for completeness, achieved a greater level of expertise in matters of high and popular culture than just about anyone in America. I got to attest to that. I mean, Terry was a great author.

He wrote the Satchmo biography, Pops. He wrote a play about it. He wrote opera libretti. He was a musician himself. And then he had this, you know, the theater work that he did for the Wall Street Journal, the movie reviews for Elsewhere, and his blog. Every time he ran across his byline, you know that you're going to learn something, you're going to be entertained in the process of reading it, and you would encounter one of those rare souls and spirits in American contemporary criticism, a genuinely decent fellow. It doesn't mean that he wasn't Brickley from time.

He could be wickedly funny, but he was a good soul. And when news of his death hit Twitter, the number of people who just were stunned and sad, of course, but also recollected a moment in which they just sent him a little message and he'd responded kindly with interest, with interest, interest you know with a smile on his face to something they had said about a movie or about a soundtrack or this the rest he was a generous person in that respect and you don't often find that in social media you never find that in social media but as far as the love of the ordinariness he used to write about smallville the town that he came from sykesville missouri and if you don't look at it on google earth, it ain't much. But I understand exactly what he loved about it. And

we used to bond about this because I too came from my own version of Smallville. But growing up in mid-century time, about feeling these revenant wisps of the culture that had immediately preceded you and being fascinated in middle brow culture. And just because you're interested in the high, the absolute pinnacle of human artistic achievement doesn't mean you can't recognize the wonderful quotidian stuff that flows through the American century and provides all these wonderful things from theater to easy listening music to soundtracks to the dens career to the densest cheapest noir to the he loved it all and understood it as being necessarily american and that's why it was always fun to talk

with him and it's a pity that he's gone that he's absolutely said it all i think that's true i mean it was quite a shock and unexpected but i mean as a friend of mine said um you get to be a certain age and then when you hear something so he died suddenly aside from the normal feelings of of regret and and uh and grief that you've lost a friend you say well sudden isn't bad no no sudden as you sleep is you know as we all would like to have our quietness what's the old joke that when i go i want to go look my great grandfather went quietly in sleep and not like not screaming in pain like the other people in this car screaming in horror i think it was pain seems to have another message to it. And speaking of which, we'll end on a high note,

because one of the things that dominated Twitter this week, and it was nice because it wasn't one of those things that the discourse just poisons to death. Somebody asked the question, what's the worst drive in America of at least three hours or more? It was tagged with long drive. So I imagine, Rob, you being literally that from time to time in your life, the long drive. Do you have an answer for the worst drive in America? Not really. I mean, I don't know what the, I mean, they mean a three-hour stretch when you're driving. I mean, you know, the worst drive in America for me was between my house and Burbank,

and that was about an hour. I mean, a three hour straight, it's, you know, it's hard across Texas is kind of boring, but it's not a bad drive. It is what it is. And, you know, this like, I don't know, it's like parts of like driving across the plains for three hours can be like Missouri can be like, you know, it's like, it's endlessly flat and but it's not i don't know it's not a bad drive there i guess i would say that the worst drive right now is probably i-40 outside you know you're leaving leaving oklahoma city from oklahoma city to say knoxville that's more than three hours but get but it only because of construction and trucks. And there used to be a lot of construction

there. And it was just like, it was miserable. But that's about it. I mean, I like to drive. So I don't, I would, you know, I guess I would say yes, three hour drive that I really don't like to do and has zero to argue to recommend it is that between my apartment in Manhattan and my mother's place in Baltimore. That's like, you know, it's the New Jersey Turnpike. But that's about it. You're not even on there for three hours. That's basically an hour and a half.

I think people who were responding said places like you mentioned before, the Plains, Texas. They didn't because it was boring. There's nothing there. And I think you're correct that the bad three-hour drives are the ones that are urban and full of construction and potholes and honking drivers. But that's the given.

Nobody likes that. That's, you know, this is the business we chose. But think of what it used to be before the interstates when people would have to ply these two-lane roads on the Lincoln Highway. I mean, it was, and you didn't have a radio to keep you company. You didn't have a gas station every 30 miles. You had to worry about your radiator.

And now for somebody to complain about, oh, a three-hour drive through Nebraska is so boring. Well, first of all, you have access to about a million books that you can listen to. You can just point your car's antenna toward one of the satellite birds that is hovering over this planet with gracious patience, and it will beam back to you can just point your car's uh antenna toward one of the satellite birds that is hovering over this planet with gracious patience and it will beam back to you any song

that you want in the world any symphony any old radio show you're gonna you can the entertainment that you can have is absolutely unlimited and then when you're tired of that after two hours as i always am you shut it all off And then you just experienced the zen of the plains. And if you're in North Dakota, for example, you may be so lucky as to see an enormous bank of clouds that rivals any mountain range you've ever seen that shifts from minute to minute from day from hour to hour. And you may just realize the immensity of this land. I mean, when you've gone three hours on a flat highway without a single curve and realize that there's three more of those to go, and then three after that, you realize how

big and great and wonderful and beautiful this place is. Great country. Terry loved it. Rob loves it. Peter loved it. I love it. And so do you on Ricochet, because that's why you belong to Ricochet, because you're concerned about the country and you want it to prosper. And we also want to prosper Indochino, Bell and Branch, and Tommy John. Support them for supporting us. And join Ricochet today. I mentioned it at the top of the hour. I'm mentioning it at the bottom.

It's something that you should do. It's something you're going to want to do, too. There's a lot of really cool members-only things. We have members-only meetups online. We're going to have a couple members-only meetups soon in real life, which I'm very excited about. We're going to get back to normal. So you can make cast your vote for normalcy, actually meeting like people unmasked wherever we have to go. Texas, Florida, let's do it.

We're planning those. Also, a bunch of new cool member features are coming that I'm very excited about, including the ability to sort of like create your own sort of little teleconference, your own kind of radio, kind of basically radio show, but like a conference. Like you can, you know, you and five Ricochet members and whoever else is there can join and chat if you don't want to write. And including another one, which I think we're trying to do, which will allow you, if you want, only if you want and you write a piece that you think is really great and you want to make it available we are making talking and talks with a big syndicator about maybe making some of our members if they want member posts um available for um reprint um uh which i think is really great i was one of the things i said was talking to Troy about last night. We spent a little time just reminiscing about some of our favorite member posts. And, of course, they were always people who sort of laid out their area of expertise in clear, interesting, funny, witty, engaging ways that just gave you an insight that you do not get.

And remember, reporters only know one thing, and that's how to work in a newspaper or a TV station. And Americans in general know a lot of stuff. And the record shows a place to share that. So if you are inclined even slightly as a member, please make that part of your membership plan. And if you are thinking right now, hey, I've been thinking about joining. I don't know why I would do it. Do it. Strike a blow for normalcy. And we're all going to get together soon. So many good things coming up

that you will go to Apple Podcast and you will try to give us six stars. Right. You won't be able to, so you'll have to give us five. And by the way, you can give us five stars today. I'm not even going to tell you why.

You know why. Go do it. Go do it. You want to do it. It's been great fun. Thanks to the guests. Thanks to Peter and Rob. We'll see you in the comments. Ricochet 4.0 next week. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa

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