The Ricochet Podcast - Drunken Monkey Business

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

This week the Three Whiskey Happy Hour gang join James for a riotous good time, even as discuss and debate their beloved nation's precarious situation. They cover Joe Biden's visit to the border, Donald Trump's appeals to the Supreme Court, the latest on the war in Gaza, and a silly journalist's constitutional illiteracy. Plus there are whiskey recommendations and a must-hear story about apish antics on the high seas.And if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the Three Whiskey Happy Hour podcast, available at Ricochet.com.- Soundbite from this week: dueling press conferences in Texas between the current and previous occupant of the Oval Office.

Are you guys in the same room? That might explain some of this. Yeah, we are. Unfortunately, he says. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast. Peter and Rob are out. I'm James Loddix.

We've got Steve, Hayward, Lucretia, and John Yoo, the three whiskey teams. So let's have ourselves a podcast. Peter and Rob are out. I'm James Loddix. We've got Steve Hayward, Lucretia and John Yoo, the three whiskey team. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I understand my predecessors in Eagle Pass today. So here's what I would say to Mr. Trump. Join me or I'll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together. The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime. It's a new form of vicious violation to our country. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet podcast number something or other. I don't know. I'm James Lilex, and I'm here to tell you that Rob Long and Peter Robinson have quit smoking years ago, as far as I know. but they're out and about in the world and in their stead uh we have believe it or not uh the three whiskey happy hour gang that would be lucretia that would

be steve hayward that would be america's foremost mcrib enthusiast john you welcome everybody to the ricochet podcast good morning james yes i'm happy to be back. Just like a happy meal. Absolutely. Yes. That McRib with its pressed animal flesh into a familiar shape, washed down with a shamrock shake. Oh, John's living high and mighty. Oh, I'm hungry already. I'm hungry already.

Well, rather than sit here and discuss fast food and its implications on the American diet, we should probably go to the news of the world, which is, as ever, bounteous. Where do we start? How about the border? People are saying that, you know, this might be an issue. This might actually be an issue in the upcoming election. And to that end, we saw a couple of people vying for the job of president. One already is. The other was heading down to Texas.

So who wants to take this first? Biden at the border. Apparently, he said it's long past time to Texas. So who wants to take this first? Biden at the border. Apparently, he said it's long past time to act. Folks, we need to move on this. And that's great coming from somebody who obviously has been moving heaven and earth in the last three years or so to make sure that America is safe from unwanted incursions to the South. So somebody take it first. Lucretia, I'll hand it to you. What do you think of Biden and Trump at the border? I'll take it and just comment on a couple of things that Biden went to the place in Texas,

which is probably right now the most secure, but all of Texas is fairly secure. And that's because Biden's refusal to act prompted Texas Governor Greg Abbott to send migrants to all sorts of places that were virtue signaling how much they loved immigrants and how welcome they were there. And of course, it's destroying those cities. Those are generally speaking blue cities, New York, Chicago, etc. And so Biden, of course, goes to visit the place that Texas has single-handedly cleaned up and stopped, I think it went from 30,000 a month ago to 7,500 apprehensions today, or yesterday, this month when Biden was there. And so, you know, Biden's just such a, I can't use those words. This is a family show.

But to come and say that it's a long past time to act, who does he think he's fooling with that? You know, my whole point is Trump went down to the other place, Eagles Pass, and pointed out everything that Biden had done wrong. And everybody's saying Trump's winning on the border. But it only matters because illegal immigration is now a problem for the whole country in many ways, whereas it used to be a problem just for me and my folks here at the border. Stephen, do you think that Trump has legitimacy that he had four years ago when it comes to eight years ago when it comes to talking about the border after all he was the president yeah well of course you know illegal crossings plummeted under trump uh and for a bunch of reasons one is i think the word went out that uh not a good time to try and

cross into the border to the united states because trump means what he says even if his actions such as building the wall didn't follow uh and i think there's a lot to, I mean, I've been wondering for a long time, how do people get the word? And how are all these caravans being organized to get people from all over the world down to our southern border? By the way, what border? I mean, the joke here is that we have a border. This doesn't just happen spontaneously. So I think Trump still has his credibility, because even if he's chaotic and all the other things you can say, I think you can say that at least he means it when we know Biden is plainly lying and just playing politics. And John, do you believe that people are willing to just forget about what's happened in the last eight years and just roll the dice with a guy who's talking the toughest on the matter? Well, James, thanks for having me back on the podcast.

Why haven't I been on more often? I'm still pissed off that you've been blocking me from taking over your host spot. You know how badly I want to be on the main Ricochet podcast. I would even give up two McRibs to come back. You're angry at me for blocking you from taking my job. That's great that's that's yeah in the spirit of self-interest then an abdication of the self i give it all over to you oh no don't do that oh no oh my god no i don't actually want to be responsible for this huge machine jesus so, here's one thing

where I disagree with Steve and Lucretia, I think, is yes, Biden has failed at the border. Yes, a lot of the border policies are in the hands of the president, but I think it is a federal function alone. I find it actually, I understand why Governor Abbott wants to send the National Guard to the border. I understand why he wants to put up barbed wire on the border. But I don't think states are allowed to interfere with the federal government when it carryouts its functions, for good or ill. So if Texas or Florida thinks that Biden is not enforcing our immigration laws strictly enough at the border, I don't think the answer is to send in troops. I find that a dangerous path to start going down. It reminds me, unfortunately, of the way

some Southern governors try to oppose the federal government's enforcement of Brown versus Board of Education. And the answer is at the ballot box. I find this actually the preferable answer is don't send troops to oppose federal officers at the border. Try to get the issue on the national election. Try to get Congress to do something about it. Or try to change the president who will do something different with immigration. So my point, John, the most important thing that Abbott did was send illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities across the country, which did in fact make it a much more national and a much more political issue than it had been before. So are you opposed to that, too,

or is that just something too close to immigration that a governor isn't allowed to do to protect his citizens? I mean, I think it's a cute political stunt. I don't think there's anything illegal about it. If people want to take free bus tickets from the state of Texas and go somewhere else, that's certainly fine. But I think what Abbott is doing now is dangerous, which is to risk some kind of confrontation between the Texas National Guard and federal border officers. I mean, I think the federal government should, again, for good or ill, whether you agree with the policy government should, again, for good or ill, whether you agree with the policy or not, should prevail. See, John, this is why you've been in Berkeley too long and in the Department of Justice before that too long. The argument that we have with you is not really

legal. Your points are completely cogent in the abstract. This is a political problem. It seems to me that you really can't say as a political matter that a state is without any kind of remedy when the federal government is not doing its duty. That's the root of our difference. And the fact that all it is is a Supreme Court opinion that says that somehow the federal government has exclusive control. Who cares? The Supreme Court also said that Blacks weren't human beings. Why should we care what the Supreme Court says about it? In fact, the states ran immigration policy for decades before the Supreme Court got involved. That's a matter that's not settled, in my opinion, just because the Supreme Court said so. Sorry. I'm a big fan of observing all the rules and the niceties and keeping all of the institutions

and norms intact. I really am. Because once you stray outside that and start coloring outside the lines, all of a sudden everything is open game. But, and that but is not going to delegitimize what I just said, but there are people who are inclined to say, look, it's been sticking by the rules and playing nice that's gotten us in this position in the first place. Nobody said anything about the fact that these cities would declare themselves to be sanctuaries, as Charles Lawton said in Squasimodo, that they refused to interface with ICE and were proud of the fact.

You had the sheriff, I believe, of Aspen, Colorado, who ran on the fact that he was not going to get along with ICE because it was an instrument of oppression. It was a means that undercut their legitimacy in the community, etc. So when you have a government official saying, we are not going to follow the law, we are going to ignore the law, we are not even going to talk to the people who are tasked by law with enforcing the law at all, you have people who turn around and say, well, you know what? They were the ones, they started it. They were the ones, they started it. They were the ones who put us down this path

by refusing to adhere to legal norms. And that's the dangerous part on both sides. But, you know, they started it. But James, no, but I think there's a difference here. Oh, I'm sure that there is. I'm just speaking of a general free-floating mental idea, but go ahead and do it, and please explain the idea, the difference. No, no, no, because you're, James, the reason I'm jealous of you being the host here is I

listen to the podcast every week, and you usually are the paragon of federalism. You are usually the paragon of let Washington screw up, and let's rely on our states to solve our problem. States should be allowed to decide whether they agree with federal policies or not, and whether they want to help the federal government or not. You could have some states, unfortunately, I say like California, which is, we're not a sanctuary city, we're a sanctuary state. As a professor at the University of California, I am not allowed, I'm forbidden by state law from telling ICE or whoever, anybody in the federal government what I know about the immigration status of any students or employees I meet. That is totally up to California. Texas have a totally different rule. They could say,

our state officials are going to help the federal government if they want. Border enforcement and immigration is still the federal responsibility. Only the federal government can detain people and deport them from the country. We don't want states enforcing federal law. But then after that, let the states decide whether they want to cooperate or not, and the voters can hold them responsible. If people in California don't want to see aliens coming across the border and then committing crimes, then they can change their government. But if we want to suffer the negative effects of illegal immigration, then that's what we've chosen to do. Don't disagree with any of that.

And it doesn't contradict what I said. I agree with you that they have the right to do this. And if people don't like it, that they use the means at their disposal in given to us as citizens to change it but that doesn't mean it's right that doesn't mean just because it's legal doesn't mean it is correct and i think that state's deciding not so actually now we really have a disagreement because i actually would i don't like seeing the law violated the border to the tune of three million people a year i think we should have much more legal immigration i think having one million legal immigrants a year is just stupidly crazy. We have a country of 330 million people. We have

a labor shortage going on. I think we should have more legal immigration as part of a deal. Control the border. Don't let people come across illegally in the 3 million numbers. But we should have a lot more legal immigration too. We can debate the numbers and we can debate where they come from and all of that stuff. I'm not in disagreement. I'm a yes, immigration, both thumbs up, but the way we're doing it right now is absolutely insane because, well, somebody once said they're not sending their best. Anyway, so that's- So actually the person I should be replacing is Rob because you don't have a real moderate on this podcast. Rob always says something moderate and then you and Peter beat up on him and then he just gives up and rolls into a fetal ball.

I'm willing to be aggressively moderate. There's a problem with what you're both saying and what you're not recognizing is why on earth the corrupt and despicable Biden administration would be opening the borders the way they are in the first place, or sanctuary cities would be welcoming illegal immigration beyond their virtue signaling. And of course, it's the demographics, it's the replacement theory. I can sound, you can say I'm a bigot for saying that. But now we know that many of these cities, many of these states are looking for ways to get these people to be able to vote. So what happens when the entire country has a plurality of illegal immigrants who love the Democratic Party and the money that's being dumped into them and on and on and on and on, and there's no possibility for the people who were here and created the prosperity

that they're sucking off of to vote vote them out of office what do we do then that's a problem you guys i don't think anybody wants to face that because it sounds like you're being a bigot but i don't care i'm not a bigot i see the damage done every day by illegal immigration because i live here my house is eight miles from the border i think that right i think there are a variety of reasons that that can be attributed to a number of people all of whom are on the left and progressive and have different reasons for it. Some of them are cloward, piven, you know, crash the system somehow, just overwhelm it, crash it, and change it. Some of them, yes, do like the demographic differences because it helps them stay in power or get into power. Some of them are ideologically predisposed to say, well, what is citizenship really?

Let's let them all in and then give them the benefit. It's a privilege for us to not do so. I think, but we can argue about the reasons for it. You've got the Chamber of Commerce that says they want cheap labor. We can have that argument later. I think the primary thing to do is to look at the problem facing us in the faith you know we can argue the rationales later but do something first steven uh yeah i mean i think the politics are pretty simple on the democratic side because you know democrats used to be kind of hawks on immigration as recently as the clinton years uh and even after that but then they woke up one day and they looked at california which was pretty much a red state in presidential elections and even into the last decade. And they realized what changed California? They think it was immigration. So the switch flipped and they thought, oh,

if we can do the rest of the nation that has changed the demographics of it, that will mean we can get democratic majorities everywhere and run the country. And that's what makes me worried about. I normally don't get worked up about large numbers of illegal immigrants voting illegally. But if the Democrats really... Why? Why? Well, for a bunch of reasons. I do now, I'm coming to the main point, which is I do now, if Democrats really believe the rhetoric, and I think they do, that Trump is this existential threat to democracy, then why wouldn't they try and cheat on a massive scale in this election? And the easiest way to do it with all these bodies that you're dumping into states around the country. But there's no proof so far, is there, Steve, from reliable data that voting by

illegal immigrants has actually changed the outcome of any national election, is there? Well, I'm not sure about a national election. I think you can point to a few congressional districts in California and, you know, here and there, not on a wide scale, but in some of those close elections where they're decided by a thousand votes, I think they may have tipped the balance here and there. The Democrats are going to win the popular vote in this next election. So I find this fear that it's going to be illegal aliens who are going to change the voting pattern. I'm not defending having aliens who are not allowed to vote to vote, but I was going to say, if you're

going to focus our attention and resources on making sure the election in November is free and fair, it's not going to be illegal aliens that are going to somehow steal the election for Biden. Biden is going to win the popular vote. It's just the electoral college is going to matter. Well, you know, in the current polls polls trump is actually leading in the popular vote first time ever for the last six eight weeks now so don't be so sure he wouldn't win the popular vote in a fair election that's the aggregate nationwide popular vote which yeah okay which is you know we can do about that but i'm happy to take bets i will take bets from any listener for one mcrib the mcrib that biden will win the popular vote in november nobody wants to win that you gotta put just it's just a data issue

oh well nobody wants to win a mcrib what what are you anti-american lucretia but the left wants the popular vote to be the determining factor they want to get rid of the electoral college and just have it be a popular vote so the coastal states can lord it over all the rest of us, and we can take it and we can like it. So, yeah, I mean, so there are all these different reasons that people have for wanting to change with the immigration policy that we have, as we've heard here on the podcast.

And it's not just limited to the South, and it's not just limited to Chicago and and it's not just limited to chicago and new york and the other cities that we see in the news in wisconsin there's a story that just erupt it just started floating up around here wisconsin whitewater wisconsin i had to smile when i saw the name of that town took me back to the good old days of cattle futures and all the rest of it remember remember that boy it was just times good times like a golden i i was on that investigation it was awesome it certainly was uh anyway uh so whitewater wisconsin has a population of 15 000 or rather used to have a population of 15 000 not as a population of 16 000 and the

thousand people who have come there in the last couple of years are mostly illegals, and they're mostly from Venezuela and from Colombia, as far as I take it right. And what this has done is, I'm sorry, Nicaragua. I'm sorry, I should be an NPR host. Nicaragua. So they have a problem because all of a sudden they have to get more English as a second language teachers. They have to figure out how to plug the police budget because there's more calls. The town has a $400,000 budget deficit now because the demographics have been changed. Now, how they all got to Whitewater, why they all decided to go to Whitewater, I don't know. I don't know if there was a caravan or a particular thing, or if there was some local organization that was saying,

let us do the virtuous thing and bring them to our town. I don't know if there was a caravan or a particular thing, or if there was some local organization that was saying, let us do the virtuous thing and bring them to our town. I don't know. But there's no doubt that changing nauseum about colonialism and the way that there was absolutely no right for the west to go into these places and uh and and insert themselves and make the cultural changes that they did is this not some sort of reverse form of that and i i think the people defending this would shrug their shoulders and say well maybe it is but it turnabouts fair play it's a it's whitewater wisconsin's turn now oh can i this colonial thing colonialism thing i don't know if we're going to talk about gaza and people accusing israelis now being colonizers

that's next this is this is ridiculous somebody came from asia i think the best thing that happened to asia is that the West showed up with technology and resources and theories that made the area the most prosperous it's ever been in history. I think it's crazy for people to say, oh, Western civilization has been a bad thing. But an answer to this question of a large number of immigrants showing up in certain places all at once over on closer, isn't that the story of America? This has been going on for the whole history of the country. Yes, you have had large numbers of immigrants.

Have you not read, Lucretia, about the waves of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries into the East Coast cities? I mean, talk about overwhelming. You have large numbers of Irish, Italians, Polish, all coming into these cities at the same time. And you read stories from back then about people complaining about police being overwhelmed, about the rise of organized crime. But our society has been very good at incorporating them, assimilating them, and they become American. Yes, yes, I agree. That is the story in New York and Chicago and big cities that have the resources and the capacity to take it. Yes, and I'm for that. I'm for that. And I was, you know, and I don't want to cut everybody off here and I'm going to shut up after this,

but I want to tell you something that I found in a newspaper from 100 years ago, February 25th, 1924. I talked about this in the diner yesterday, the Los Angeles Times, they were debating a bill, the Democrats were opposing it, a bill, the Johnson Immigration Bill, okay, that they said would fan the flames against the populations from other places, that would cause religious and national hatreds. Here was the statement read on the floor 100 years ago, 1924. The foreign-born population of our country and those born here of foreign parents, said the Democrats, comprise 33 and a third percent of the total population. Of these, at least 25 percent are recent immigrants and constitute the young men and women of today's laboring classes so necessary to our industrial prosperity. That was 100 years ago. They're saying that 33% of the total population is foreign-born or traces themselves back to foreign-born. So yes, that is the American story. And we can support that without saying that a small town in Wisconsin is obliged by history somehow to suddenly turn around and expend all of its money and energy

on a population that suddenly just arrives. Yeah, can I add to that, James, that I think 1924, if that bill's the one you're talking about, is the immigration bill that halted immigration, because people thought we've had more than we can effectively assimilate, and we need a pause, and I think we need that again. And then secondly, John, those older waves of immigration are different than a lot of what we're seeing now. Not all of it, but they all came from, coming from Europe, they came from Judeo-Christian civilizations. You know, the Ashkenazi Jews and, you know, the Irish. All the people you mentioned are essentially just like us, except they had to learn English and had to learn it quickly, and they did, because we didn't have a welfare state that coddled them and actually, them in a lot of ways. If we went back to that situation, well, I'll just end with Milton Friedman's famous line, you can either have high rates of immigration or a generous welfare state, but you can't have both. And we're testing those propositions. Before John gets to that, Lucretia, you had something to say.

I was just going to say that John's attempt to make some sort of moral analogy between that and what we have today. Most of those people did not come illegally. By definition, when you let people in your country who are illegal aliens, they are lawbreakers. They are lawbreakers. And why would we think that they would make good citizens when they're willing to break the very first law when they walk in the country? Even if they're good people, they are breaking the law. My grandparents came here, they immigrated, they went to a small town with lots of other people from the same place they were, and not one of them ever accepted one penny from the government, probably until Social Security,

I'm guessing. But they also learned English english they taught their kids english you know it's not the same thing and immigrants used to love this country did you see in any of the newspaper accounts or you know online accounts of all of the immigrants walking across with sweatshirts and t-shirts on that say fu america what why why would we be letting people like that in there is no analogy between what you just said and what is happening today across the board if you want to talk about legal immigration 50 years from now okay but no right now we need to stop anybody from coming here illegally and then figure out what we're going to do about legal immigration i guess that's what james is saying too so i shouldn't be repetitive but oh no that's what we're all here for to to to to repeat you to to repeat me in my infinite wisdom my tower

my towering and like john your response before we move on to the next topic oh i i've made my points i i i actually not so it's not so clear to me that the aliens who are coming in and yes i can see they're breaking the law when they come in are acting immorally they're violating our laws they feel like they have some greater moral reason to break those laws which may be trying to come for some place where they have political freedom or economic opportunity i don't think i I mean, you, so, you know, for the listeners, Steve and Lucretia are professional moral philosophers. I am not. I'm just a pragmatic, realistic lawyer. These guys, they think about Aristotle and Plato,

and they spend hours and hours thinking about the just and the good and the beautiful. I don't. I'm just trying to come up with a practical solution it shows john my practical solution shoot at the border but you don't like that now this is why that is no but that's like your morally principled thing you're like oh if they're an invading force causing more than why can't we shoot them i don't think that's practical i really don't i think that what the practical solution is you have to figure out how to control the border and then right filter who you want to come in and then who you want to be citizen. And you can't just, I don't think it's a good answer to just say, well, there's so many people coming, we should just shut the border entirely, which I hear you

and Steve saying, which I think is not possible. And then we have a totally unguarded border with Canada. Why don't people just come into Canada? We can't shut the country down. We have trade. We have ports of entry. So it's more of a practical problem about how to control a movement of people who want to come to the country. I think for good reason. John, this is going to be the most awesome comment thread for this episode. I can't wait to read it.

Why? Reasonable. What are you talking about? Why don't they come from Canada? Because they have to pass through North Dakota, a barren expanse that terrifies the hardest of hearts. Well, when it comes to just... And as a matter of fact, they do.

They do. We just had a case here of some smugglers who actually got the people they were smuggling killed, frozen to death, because they were coming from the northern place. So, yeah, they're coming from all over. I agree. They're coming from the north. They're coming from the northern place. So, yeah, they're coming from all over. I agree. They're coming from the north.

They're coming from all the sides. They're coming. Lord knows how many cargo vessels disgorge a metal box that has some people in it. Yes. But it seems that we can do more. So we can all agree then we've solved that issue and that we should move on, speaking of legal, just, and moral and the rest of it, to Donald Trump being kicked off the ballot again and this working its way up the legal system. John, you being, of course, our ricochet Supreme Court correspondent, tell me-

Finally, I'm getting a good title out of you. Well, you've known that for years. It's something I've applied willy and or nilly. You say it in the most cynical mocking tone i was trying to be as genuine as i possibly could i guess my true feelings just worked their way outside of my theatrical performance see i knew it i knew it but do go on so this is not as important as the immunity issue this uh you know decision to kick trump off the ballot it's a loser if you listen to the oral arguments read the briefs in the supreme court case the supreme court is going to hold very shortly that

the president cannot be disqualified and then this case this this like all the other blue state secretaries of states who thought they had some power to remove trump from the ballot that's just going to be over and done with the much more more serious thing is, you know, what's going on with Trump in the criminal cases and the immunity case that the court just granted. But I think this effort to disqualify him, that was, you know, a never-Trump-er pipe dream. It was interesting, but it didn't have a chance at the Supreme Court. And I think this Illinois judge will be quickly overturned. The immunity case you mentioned,

tell people a little bit more about that. Well, that's actually really interesting. And this is actually one where I thought initially this long, you know, Hail Mary pass effort by Trump is going to work. So, the issue is, is the president immune from criminal prosecution after he's left office? Prosecution by the federal government. States is another issue. So this essentially involves a January 6th prosecution by the special counsel, Jack Smith, and the other prosecution for mishandling classified documents that's going on in Florida.

So President Trump is lost at the trial court. He's lost on this at the D.C. Circuit, which is the most powerful appeals court, which is in Washington, D.C. I think he's raised an argument he's ultimately going to lose that, A, he has immunity and can only be tried for things which he was impeached and convicted for by the House and the Senate. And so, but tactically, he's really succeeded. I mean, the courts have helped him here because the Supreme Court has scheduled the oral arguments for the last week of April. The decision won't come out till July 4th, around the July 4th weekend, which means I

think it's really hard to get a trial and a verdict in time for the November elections. But at the same time, the trial will be going on during the election season, which might give Trump plenty of opportunities to peer on the front of the courthouse in Washington, seeing he's being railroaded by the Biden administration. I have a question for John about the Colorado or the Illinois judge the the timeline about that the colorado case is also going to be decided by the court sometime we're here in april is that or you don't know oh no the oral arguments already occurred so we're just waiting for the so it could be any moment and it could be any day now to the illinois case where the judge yes by the way so this i i have to do this the illinois judge who removed

trump from the ballot is so damn illiterate she should be shot on principle is what i told steve and john because this was her sentence just throw in with the illegal aliens and start firing exactly this court shares the colorado supreme court sentiments that did not reach its conclusion lightly somebody explain to me what that means because that's a a judge writing and that came from the actual anyway sorry will that be if if the court rules in the colorado case that um that they can't kick trump off the ballot that will automatically cover this because she said she was um delaying her decision i believe until today to give chance trump a chance to appeal but he doesn't need to right if yeah if i were him yeah if i were him i wouldn't even bother because if the supreme court says as i expect it will that states have no ability to choose who to disqualify or not

based on whether they participate in insurrection, it's up to the federal government to do it, then every state officially tried to do this. Their action is just automatically blocked. Thank you. Yeah, but the other case that you referenced, John, is the immunity case. And look, I mean, this is tricky because i actually think there's a good again abstract principal ground for broad immunity for presidential acts the difficulty is you know trump is out on the margin of things and presents the court a big problem i kind of worry that uh what we're going to get is something like we got out of the bush v gore case in 2000 right you know the court had to intervene in that case because things were getting out of hand and what they had a sentence in bush versus gore that said something to the

effect of well yeah we're deciding this case but we really don't think it should be a precedent for anything like this ever again which has always raised hackles i've got a feeling the court's going to look at this and and wrestle with it seriously and then probably side against trump because it's just on the edge and they don't want to go so far as to say it's complete immunity for any possible action including shooting someone on fifth avenue and that famous phrase why would you say he's on the margins to begin with steve what on the margins did trump actually do oh oh i agree with that i mean so one more level of deep then so trump is not actually being

charged with insurrection by jack smith uh one of the um i'm not sure it's a formal count but one of the arguments they're making is that he knew he lost the election and he was acting in bad faith well that seems to me a subjective judgment because trump's argument is no i was doing all this in defense of the constitution because a fraudulent election subverts our Constitution. That seems to me a pretty strong argument. If they were charging him with the crime of insurrection or some other formal crime, or actually shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue, then I don't think I would stretch the immunity umbrella that far. But that's a pretty weird circumstance and i just paused there because between three of these these effervescent intellectuals i thought somebody was going to jump in probably john but uh yes i'm ready to be effervescent okay so so i don't think trump has immunity i do think he has good claims when he's actually tried to resist these criminal charges. Immunity means like you just can't prosecute Trump for anything he did as president. I don't think

that's consistent with what the founders thought. I think it's a terrible idea that we now have what I hope does not become a permanent practice of presidents prosecuting their predecessors, because I think that does lead us on the road to Nicaragua. But I think that the founders said, I think pretty clearly that presidents, after they leave office, can be prosecuted. You look at their discussion of impeachment, and they basically say, look, impeachment is for removing presidents who do bad things. Impeachment is not criminal. We're not actually trying and convicting and throwing anybody in jail for impeachment. And then the founders would say, Hamilton would say, because you can do that to them after they leave office. They can always be prosecuted after they leave office. So I think one. But the second thing is, immunity is just whether you can

prosecute them. It doesn't mean that Jack Smith's going to win win i agree with part of what steve said these prosecutions these charges for defrauding the u.s which you would use for a defense contractor or obstructing congress which you would actually that's what you would use for hunter biden you know people who don't obey congressional subpoenas those crime those charges don't really fit what trump did they should have charged trump with insurrection. Jack Smith chose not to do that. He wimped out. And I think Trump could actually make a very good claim once the trial starts that actually the charges should be dismissed because they don't apply to what actually happened on January 6th. But that's immunity. Trump has gone too far with the

immunity claim. He actually may end up harming the presidency in some way if the Supreme Court ends up issuing a case that really narrows what presidents can and can't be sued for. James, I don't want to belabor this. I just want to say that John slipped in that I think he should have been charged with insurrection, which is the most idiotic thing John has said in a long time. But let's just go on and not take that one up. Thank you for pointing that out, which I'm sure was hard for you to do, Lucretia. Can I say that is also the shortest thing Lucretia said in response to one of my stupid things in a long time, too. From the border to the national events to across the ocean to Israel, I mentioned before

that there was, of course, people are always angry about colonization and the history thereof. The latest thing we've heard is that Israel is a manifestation, if not the niple ultra, the epitome of colonization in that there's never been any Jews there before, but all of a sudden, in 48, a whole bunch showed up and kicked everybody out and uh it's all illegal and genocide is going on i've been hearing this my entire life it flares to the surface whenever there's an intifada or a second intifada or something happens with this or that or the other now we have an event in gaza which hit our my newspaper all the wires yesterday uh framing it as israeli troops uh firing into a crowd and killing hundreds of people um and to which one might say i wonder if there's another take on

that i wonder if this is another bombed hospital i wonder if when they say witnesses say or health authorities say if there's going to be a little asterix that say oh and by the way the health authorities are not a mosque uh no one there was not and i tracked the headline throughout the day as it got massaged and changed as it sounds now i think the the the thing is hundreds die in food riot uh as israelis fire or something like that there's the the primary purpose is to let you know that the IDF fired a whole bunch of bullets during this food distribution and a lot of people died and that's basically their fault. And it's their fault anyway because they

invaded Gaza. Well, it's their fault anyway because they're there in the first place. And the Gazans are hungry. And the Gazans are hungry, which is the IDF's fault because they should have done what in response to October 7th? I'm not exactly sure. I guess they're supposed to do this

and no more and leave everything in place so it could happen again. There was a joke I heard the other day that I'll probably end the podcast with. It's a pretty grim one. But right now, I just want to hear what you guys have been hearing about this as the story evolves. And it's like nobody ever learns that the first story out that comes, the first instance of these stories, the first iteration always being genocidal Israelis pointlessly use overkill to kill a whole lot of people for apparently no reason other than bloodlust, is the first take. And after about three or four iterations of that, it seems to come back to something where oh oh that didn't happen at all i disagree with one thing you said james and that's nobody ever learns to even even to speculate that that was not exactly the intention from the very beginning knowing that that you know the pro-Palestinians, that Rashid Tlaib and her ilk will automatically jump on this and use it as propaganda throughout their

communities. And I know you know that. It was just the way you said it. That's the whole point. Of course, the IDF is not responsible for a riot that killed hundreds of people who were going after food. They had nothing to do with it. And everything they're doing is legitimate in terms of fighting a real enemy. And this nonsense about colonialism, as you put it, it's as if Jews have not been there for, what, 3,000 years at least that we know of, and that Palestinians didn't even exist practically since my lifetime. It's such nonsense, and it's so frustrating that you can't seem to get to any truth on the matter. But it's because, I think, the whole thing isn't designed to be propaganda. Hold on, I just want to say, when I say nobody learns, I mean nobody in the media seems to learn and to think and stop and question the sources.

Because it's curious to me that you have a new generation of people in journalism who believe that objective reporting is wrong. You can't be objective. First of all, the individual can never be, but the institutions of journalism should not be objective because that gives both side ism to evil that if you say there's another side to climate change or another side to trump policies then you are equivocating with evil and there is no other side there's always another side it seems to them uh when it comes to reporting on israel That's the point at which the objectivity that, well, we're just being objective here. We're reporting what Hamas says and we report what Israel says. We're being objective. Stephen, you're going to say?

Stephen Eckert Well, I was going to say, you know, Hamas is very skilled at creating provocations that sometimes draw Israeli fire, but most often, I think the Hamas people are doing the shooting themselves because they're that cynical and evil, right? And the media falls for it. And, you you know what's the old saying is that um uh you know truth a falsehood flies around the world before the truth has put its shoes on and i think we see that here there was another video that you might have seen a week or so ago james that was shows that every once in a while they screw this up and it doesn't work. And I don't think it was contrived, but it was a video of some Gazan marching his look-like five-year-old boy toward an Israeli tank,

and he's yelling at them, you know, shoot, shoot. I mean, he was begging the Israelis to shoot his kid. That's the way it came across. And instead, the Israeli soldiers walked up and gave the kid a candy bar so that they didn't get their propaganda moment out of it. But encouraging diabetes, tooth decay. Yeah sakes i think that uh we also should underscore i think and this is you would not get this if you're following the u.s media or even what the bite administration is saying but unfortunately civilians die in war. And I actually think the

Israelis are going well beyond what almost any other nation other than us would do to protect civilians in fighting this war, where they're warning people, trying to get civilians to leave areas of fighting. Compare that to Hamas, right? They are using the fact that we believe in Western civilization against us. They're not trying to defend their civilian population. They're trying to put them out as human shields. They want Israel to kill as many of their own civilian population as possible. So, Steve said, Hamas is really good at propaganda. What they're really bad at is actually fighting a real war. What they're really good at is throwing civilians as cannon fodder in front of

Israeli bombs and guns, because that's their real strategy. And so, the only way to get through it is you can't let them succeed at it. I mean, to get into the nitty-gritty of the laws of war, you're not allowed to put civilians in front of you. You're not allowed to shoot from civilian buildings. And under the laws of war, those are the people who are responsible for any war crimes, not you when you have to shoot against them. Because otherwise, you're going to encourage, if Hamas succeeds, you're going to see twice as many civilians next time piled on top of Hamas headquarters. You're going to see more civilians sent out. In the progressive intellectual cosmology, the Palestinians will always have the mahygro, as we used to call it back in the 80s the moral high ground and since they are the victims and they are the oppressed and they are the colonized then any response any means necessary is justified that's

all there is to it anyway james i have a question for you and for the other hosts uh we We know how incredibly far the IDF and Israel in general is willing to go to protect civilians, to follow the laws of war, to do all of the things that will try and win them some kind of credibility on the international stage. And it always seems to be an abject failure for the most part. And I'm wondering if I'm Israel, how much longer do I even bother? How much longer do I bother to worry about civilian casualties that are brought about by Hamas, by policies or actions specifically taken by Hamas? I wonder that, you know, it's sort of a little bit like my argument about how much longer Republicans are going to try to do the right thing. I'll leave that aside. But in the face of fighting evil at some point, since the international community will not force Hamas to follow the rules of war, as John was pointing out, how much longer should we expect Israel to do that?

And what would be the consequences if they stopped? I think there are two ways to look at that. One, when it comes to sort of the close-up fighting that they've been doing, I think that they will continue to adhere to the laws of war. Because to do otherwise would be, never mind the rest of the world, they know the rest of the world's opinion is going to be what it is. You don't need some, you know, some leftist in France waving his finger at them. I think it's a matter of self-conception. I think they have a self-conception of themselves as a decent society that is not going to stoop to the levels. And while it would be easier to drop a daisy cutter or a moab about every 10 feet in Gaza, job done, over-pressure working in the tunnels, dust off your hands and go home, it's

not their self-conception themselves and i think a sense of national shame would attend i may be completely naive about that on the other hand um i don't think that when it came to using a nuclear weapon to respond to uh taken out of tel aviv when the iranians get one and lob one over uh i i i don't think think that they would say no we really can't hit Tehran. That's just not in us. I think those are two different situations. And in the first, I think that they will continue to stick by the rules of war.

In the second situation, the temple columns get pulled down. Yeah. I mean, right. I think that an eye for an eye, right? That would be the situation with a nuclear exchange with Iran. But, Lucretia, I don't think that they need to go scorched earth. I mean, I think they can conduct their operations within the laws of war. And I think that also probably comports with Jewish teaching, but I'm no expert.

What I think is equally interesting, a parallel question, is I think Israel has decided we're not going to listen to Biden and the Europeans. We are going to finish the job on our own terms. And I mean, that is quite significant, because if you go back to George W. Bush, and I know it was a minor war compared to this, but when Israel went into Lebanon in 2005, I forget the year, to fight back against Hezbollah, apparently George Bush, very pro-Israel, told them that, really, you have to wrap this up in 30 days, beyond that. And, you know, we know Ronald Reagan held back Israel in 1982 in Lebanon. And then, of course, you know, we regretted that, the sequel to that, of course. But everything that I understand, and the Wall Street Journal had a great story about how a recent phone

call between Biden and Netanyahu ended with Biden either yelling at Netanyahu or a cloud, I'm not sure, but he hung up the phone angry, is the report that's been passed along. So, I think Israel's decided and they're united by, that's the other thing you hear, is that the Israelis are overwhelmingly united on finishing the war completely and on their own terms, and the rest of us can just lump it. Except that they rely on us for, for i mean this is what's really going on hamas's propaganda is really just aimed at the biden administration to cut off funding and material to israel i mean israel can't succeed in the end unless we help them uh they just all right they need us for money fuel weapons i mean the ironic thing is if if Israel does want to finish the job and we cut them off,

I think Netanyahu will still continue the offensive. It'll just be without precision guided missiles and high level intelligence. It'll be much worse for the Palestinian population in Gaza. One more question for you guys. Sorry about this, James, but I'm actually curious because- What's with the questions? Wait a minute. Who's the host here host here i want to know we're all trying out for your job john who wants to be the host now lucretia is asking the questions give us five hours to just talk about these things i wouldn't have to do it on the podcast but i have a question and it's a serious one it's about michigan so if if the biden administration is worried about the electoral consequences of its support, lukewarm as it is for Israel, in places like Michigan where there is a strong, I don't know, Muslim vote, whatever it is, what does that actually mean for the larger political electoral landscape? I mean, they're obviously not going to vote for Trump.

Will they just stay home how does that work where i don't know you see a story so they may hold their nose um i mean as the as the party goes more and more to the progressive side of things you may have people who put more pressure on and as john has liked us and you know like to remind us at the beginning of the show use the means of the ballot to change national policy. I don't know why Joe Biden is particularly as pro-Israel as he is. I don't think the man has a thought-out position in his head. I think he's an empty windsock and has been so the duration of his career that we're seeing now is sort of a remnant, you know, twitching instinctive support of Israel and realizing

it's probably a good thing. but as the party moves left, you don't have to be from Michigan to have the progressive animus against Israel for being a colonialist Western state. Now, the good thing is, we're not talking about the days when the squad is ascendant. The good thing is, I think these ideas are on the wane. It's not as though they've been unchallenged in the intellectual marketplace lately,. It's not as though they've been unchallenged in the intellectual marketplace lately, and it's not as though they haven't been ridiculed, and it's not as though the moderate sides, I think, of the Democratic Party are starting to look at the people they got in bed with and say, I don't like this. I don't like this at all. So whether or not that sensible population rises to the fore or just ages out and dies, I can't tell you. That's all I can say in my own confused and rambling way

because I'm wrapping that up and moving along to something else before we end the conversation entirely because this one's fun. I think I may get something out of you. You've all been sitting back there, milk toast, not putting yourself on the line. I mean, this is probably the only podcast where we've had two, count them,

two suggestions of shooting people. And I'm hoping for, and I'm looking, well, you know, this is your chance for a third here, unless John would like to find somebody to shoot here or Stephen. It has to do with a clip from MSNBC, and I can't pronounce the last woman's name. Heidi Prisabilla, Prisabilla, Prisabilla, I'm not making fun of it. It's just one of those names that's all consonants, except for the end. She made the following claim, quote, the thing that unites them as Christian nationalists, not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalist is very different, she said, is that they believe our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don't come from any earthly

authority. They don't come from Congress. They don't come from the Supreme Court. They come from any earthly authority they don't come from congress they don't come from the supreme court they come from god is what she said she came to this astonishing revelation that there are people out there who believe there is a higher authority than the state now my head's just full of bees when i hear something like this and i you know the thing is is i think it's it's entirely possible to be agnostic and to not be uh one of those people who believe that however you conceive of a deity handed down the tablets or whatnot you don't have to believe that to believe that there actually is a higher authority than that constituted uh in the halls of washington dc that our innate rights of human beings are granted to

us by our existence as human beings and such. So, what do you guys think of this quote? Is this a big notion abroad in the land? I can't even take that one seriously, but I will answer in a serious way, which is to say, the genius of the American regime, the American experiment, the American Constitutional Republic, is that it was capable of making what you just said, James, that our rights actually don't come from us, from our own self-willing, from Congress, from Washington. They are beyond human beings in some way. You know, the Declaration says nature and nature's God. And the fact that those rights exist because of our human nature is accessible to us through human reason. Obviously, this,

I'll just say Heidi, Heidi has no capacity for reason, so she doesn't see this but i just want to i just shout out to the american constitutional republic as it at least once was that's what made it the greatest country in the history of the world is our recognition that our rights belong to us as human beings and were not given to us by government. They were given to us by something greater than ourselves. You know, James, you were probably wise to wait till the very end to pose this question, because the three of us have actually taught a law school seminar largely on this question and have guest speakers about the whole religious liberty business. I'll just say this briefly. You know who else is a Christian nationalist, if that's your definition? Well, Joe Biden,

once upon a time, said when he was yelling at Robertbert bork by the way 30 some years ago that he believes our rights don't come from government they come from god bill clinton said that uh i can think of things franklin roosevelt said that would get him run out of the faculty club at any liberal university in america today uh if a democrat said them today so this just shows appalling historical ignorance as well as a sort of a general what's the phrase crushing morosity on offer these days from places like msnbc joe biden said that when he had less hair or is it fewer hair john we'll go we've got one whiskey related question to go but i want your take on this law guy uh can you can you tell me in 37 seconds exactly sum it all up for us well you remember when justice katanji brown

jackson lucretia's favorite justice on the supreme court was right up in her confirmation hearings and basically i think ted cruz asked her do you believe in natural rights? And she refused to answer the question, if you recall. And so, basically denied the Declaration of Independence, which was the foundation for abolitionism and the foundation for argue about in this seminar, but you probably aren't surprised to learn that Steve and Lucretia pile on me and attack me because the only amendment I would make to what they've said is, and I think actually, James, what you said is actually closer to my view maybe, which is I'm not sure whether you have to be a Christian to believe this or even believe in a God. I think that you could be an atheist and still believe that each, you know, man and woman and whatever other sexes we're going to be creating in the future, just throw that in for Grisha, but every man, woman, and child is equal in some fundamental way, and so they therefore start out in life with equal rights. And that we created the American government, unlike Asian governments and European governments. We created American governments to protect the rights, and so that's why we want to – we start out by limiting government, not thinking, oh, the government gave us this, so we're so lucky, and so the government can do everything. So, I think in this seminar, this is really the question we fight over is, is it – the rights dependent on religion?

Are they given to you by god or can you i'm a big fan of hobbes you know this is just something rational equal human beings create when they leave the state of nature i've always thought the state nature would be fun but if we have to leave it we leave it and enter society that's how we make our rights so it does it's not dependent on christianity in anywhere even being religious. But that's what I said. Right. So I learned this back in high school in North Dakota. It wasn't hard. But somehow, over the last 20, 30, 40 years, we've transmuted this idea into something completely different, where the idea of being born equal somehow means that we all have equal capacities and therefore uh we have to have mechanisms by the

state to ensure equitable outcomes and etc etc etc getting back to this very basic concept seems fundamental for preserving the union as we know it and to see an msnbc commentator say something stupid like that it's not just one last thing is her view is not at all a minority view. In fact, I think her view represents what most professors think, most professionals, a lot of college graduates, all those elites, I think they agree with her and disagree with you. Why, John? You said it, but you didn't really carry on.

And that is because what a recognition of equal human rights, natural rights that came to us from nature or from nature's God, that means that not only do we use government to create whatever kind of society at the moment they think is appropriate. And that's why you have to deny that rights come from anywhere other than from the regime in power at the time, because otherwise it limits them. It limits what is just, it limits, you know, all of those kinds of things and that's the reason i think what you say is very true everyone in there was an elite in power these days believes that that that rights are what we decide to give the american people we end with this since you guys do the three whisk i'm sorry i said guys okay with that. Now, now you're on the list. You are on the list.

Welcome to the group of us who are on the receiving end of Lucretia. Since you three individuals, or does that sort of, is that wrong? Because you're more of a collective. Does that, you've subsumed your individuality into a collective. Guys, okay. All right then, guys. Since you are the three whiskey happy hour um we're going to go out where each of you is going to name one whiskey for people perhaps to sample and sip whilst they listen to your brilliance john

i've become a big fan of american bourbons and even though bourbon is best made in the south my two colleagues here know that i'm a big fan of Whistlepig, which is made somehow, a bourbon made somehow in New England. It's good. It is good. I like Whistlepig. Lucretia? Lafroig 10 is my favorite go-to whiskey, and Lucretia hates it, so there's another division. It's a bit peaty, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm more of a spay guy myself. A bit. And I think it's like licking an ashtray, James. I, on the other hand, prefer single malt scotch, old enough to vote. I'm pretty open about whether it's a Macallan or a Glenlivet or something like that. But yes, and none of that stuff that smells like somebody put their cigarette butt out in the bottle.

Or added a tincture of Lysol. No, I'm with you. I'm more on that side myself. Wait, so James, what's your favorite? James, you've never said that on your podcast. What is your favorite? Gee, John, it's almost as if I was responding to her comment and then segueing to my own choice in my own way.

But thank you for reminding me that that's what I was doing. I'm going to be a great host, guys. You're going to be great. I was just going to say that the McAllen 12 is nice. I mean, the 18 could be considered a little bit too much of what it is, and the 12 understates itself nicely, so it can't vote. At least not yet. Give them a couple of years. So what James is trying to say is McAllen 12 is available at Costco's near you.

McAllen 18, too expensive. I have a fine, full panoply of whiskeys, which I will be consulting tonight. And I always start with the best and then work my way down to the stuff that takes the varnish off the floor. Because by the time you get to that, who cares? I like to experiment every week. I tried something the other day called Paddleford, which was the mash bill was high corn and so i liked that and it was it was good but i gotta tell you what i've really become fond of lately is something called monkey shoulder and that's ah yes i've had that i i hate all things related to monkeys i just don't like monkeys at all

can't stand them didn't play because i remember jonah goldberg on a cruise accused you of being a monkey oh he accused me of being many things yes right oh yes yes he did he accused me and then you hold the best you did the funniest thing i've ever seen in my life which is you pretended to urinate on him i did that was awesome that was that is like the funniest thing i've ever seen at a conference it was a glorious moment it really was because he didn't know i was in the audience and we were doing we had the largest cruise ship the oasis of the sea and we were in the back in the skating rink because the ship of course of course has a skating rink with seats around it

and that's where we're having the the night owl and he was doing night owl with a couple other guys with rob i think possibly and he was discussing something and he ro doing Night Owl with a couple other guys, with Rob, I think, possibly. And he was discussing something, and Robert Reich came into it, and he was making a short joke, and he made some remark about how Robert Reich had to stand on a soapbox in order to use the urinal. And he said, like lilacs, I think is what he said. Somebody has a tape of this. Well, I was up in the stands with Michael Walsh at the point here, and I heard that, and everyone laughed at that point.

And I'm of the opinion that you ought never to make a joke of somebody else's physical appearance unless, of course, everybody knows you're the dearest of friends, and you do it back and forth, and it's part of your banter and part of your bit. Which I thought people could assume this was the case here, but I could not resist. I marched down the stairs. I walked across the stage, at which point there's a little thrill and a rill as people wonder exactly what's going to happen. And with my back to the audience, I mimic getting up on that soapbox in front of Jonah and mimic the actions of hiking down one's fly and doing, and then shaking and zipping up and walking off without a word. It was so awesome. He was so humiliated.

It was beautiful. He was so humiliated. Everyone laughed and was on your side. It was great. I've always wondered if you never forgave me for that at all. I haven't the faintest idea. Anyway, so Monkey Shoulder, and I'll be very brief about it. Monkey Shoulder was so named because the guys who had to stir the malt,

the mash, would develop one big shoulder that was larger than the the guys who had to stir the malt, a pair of the mash, would develop one big shoulder that was larger than the others. And they called that the monkey shoulder. So you can imagine these guys walking with a big draping arm. And one of the reasons that I like it is it's a blend made by grants, which is my favorite go-to bar pour whiskey. I love grants. It's a nice sweet blend. And this is their le plus ultra of their blends, monkey shoulder.

So there you have it. You have Laphroaig if you want something that does indeed taste like somebody shoved peat down the back of your throat. You've got your Macallan 18, which is an absolutely fantastic and expensive and shows you exactly how high-maintenance Lucretia is. And like Lucretia, also Class C. It works in every environment. Right. And then, of course, you remember John had said that he likes the, uh, the, uh, the Evan Williams six months old. So, uh, there you go, folks. That goes with the McRib. It goes with the McRib. Those are your intellectual instructions for the week. Uh, your geopolitical insights,

your constitutional, if you like this, well, then you're going to love the rest of the three whiskey podcast as well. I assume that Peter and Rob will be back. I almost hope not because this has been great. Gentlemen, ladies, guys, thank you for joining this, the Ricochet Podcast. And you listening, if you like it, go to Ricochet and sign up and join, if you will,

and take advantage of all the other great podcasts on the Ricochet Audio Network. Happy March! We'll see you later, guys. Thanks, James. Thanks. Bye. Bye.

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