The Ricochet Podcast - Fighting Political Punctilios with...Fire

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Sometimes you've just had enough. Bill Barr, two-time Attorney General and author of One Damn Thing After Another, knows the feeling. He joins James, Steve, and Charles today to discuss the legal grounds for the extraordinary rendition of Nicolás Maduro and the options available to federal law enforcement as the Twin Cities tiptoe around an insurrection. The trio speculates on whether the US is reversing its position on Iran, considers the supposed price tag on a Greenland buy, and James declares that he has absolutely no opinion on the new Star Trek series. Not a one. Zip, zero. Don't bother asking...

You had to ask. You had to ask. Of course I had to ask. I mean, that was obvious, right? I didn't know you were a big trekky. Oh, God, yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. It's the Rickashay podcast. I'm James Lilex. Charles C.W. Cook is here. Stephen Hayward is here. And we talk to former Attorney General Bill Barr about just about everything. So let's have ourselves a podcast.

Let me say once again to Donald Trump and Christy Knoem end this occupation. Let's be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. Instead, it's a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government. This domestic act of terrorism to use your vehicle to try to kill law enforcement officers is going to stop. And I'm asking the Department of Justice to prosecute it as domestic terrorism. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricoshae podcast number 772. Why don't you? Why don't you? You could be part of the most stimulating conversations and community on the web. I'm James Lillings in Minneapolis, peaceful, sane, oh, so ordinary Mayberry RFD, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

And I'm joined, of course, by Charles C.W. Cook and Stephen Hayward. And we're going to go right to our guest, Bill Barr. An American attorney, author of One Damn Thing After Another, He served as the United States Attorney General twice. Once under George H.W. Bush, and again under Donald Trump for the president's first term, before heading to the DOJ, Bar worked in the office of legal counsel where he penned an opinion that has said to have formed the legal justification for arresting Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. And 36 years later, the same treatment for Nicholas Maduro. Welcome. Thank you. Great to be here. Well, extraordinary rendition. That's the term that's on everybody's, everybody's lips these days. fits the special forces operation that brings it to fruition.

I guess the question remains, I guess some would say, looking at this, hey, what gives us the right to decide that this is the thing to do? Well, both our national security and our law enforcement system. The opinions you discussed really grew out of a situation that had emerged at the end of the Cold War when I was in the Department of Justice under President George, H.W. Bush, a lot of conflict had moved to what we call the gray zone. It involved things like transnational criminal organizations, drug organizations, cartels, and terrorist organizations

emerging. And the question is, how could we deal with these, especially when they were getting safe haven in countries that were either no man's land. And although they were technically within sovereign territory of a country, no one was doing anything about it. And, and it was sort of no man's land, or countries that were absolutely complicit in the activity. They themselves were criminal organizations or terrorists favored the terrorists in supporting them, and how does the United States defend themselves in that kind of situation and deal with it? And one of the things we, I'm just going to give you the genesis of that opinion, one of the things we dealt with was that under the Jimmy Carter administration,

they had issued an opinion saying that if something violates customary international, law, then it's not even legal under U.S. law, and the United States doesn't have the power to depart from it. And that was simply wrong as a matter of constitutional law and international law, which is customary, a norm that countries follow or don't follow. And so wrote opinion that said that under customary international law, if you go in and carry out your law enforcement activities within another country without their permission, that violates customary international law, but it's not a violation of U.S. law. And the U.S. can do that. The U.S. can do that and can bring the person back for trial. So that question was, can we do it? Is it lawful under U.S. law?

There's another question which is, okay, does it violate customary international law? And the answer is normally, yes, it does violate customary international law. but in a situation, there's sort of two responses to that. One is that in a situation, it's called the enabling, not able or unwilling doctor in, which is if a sovereign country allows its territory to be used for anti-American activity, things that are imposing, not just anti-American politically, but predatory action directed against the United States, hurting the American people, hurting our vital interests, then they have to stop it. Sovereignty is not a shield for that kind of activity. They have the corollary responsibility to stop it. And if they don't stop it, the country that's being preyed upon can go in and stop it. And we reasserted that. And under international law, that does give us the right to go in and deal with terrorist organizations or drug trafficking cartels if another country is part of the problem. So the other aspect of it is that

Something like that raises our defense powers, and we can go in and use our defense powers to protect the vital interests of the United States. And remember, norms vary and change over time because countries either follow them or don't follow them. And under certain circumstances, they say, you know, this norm is not working and we're going to change it. That's how the 20-mile limit changed or the three-mile limit changed. And then it became 200 miles. And that happened because some states said, we're not going to follow three miles, because it doesn't adequately address their circumstance.

So countries do have the freedom to respond to changing circumstances and say, this is the practice that we think is necessary to protect our vital interests. I know that's a long-winded answer, but it's actually sort of a complicated legal issue when I wanted to lay out its different facets. And there's a lot there. And before I toss it to the other smart guys, Just one quick question. When you talk about international law, a lot of people say, yeah, well, how many divisions does Brussels have? What specifically are we talking about when we say international law? What compacts did we sign up for?

What does the enforcement mechanism be for the penalties for violating them other than shrugging the shoulders and saying, well, I guess the norms, they be a shift in. Yeah, that is a super question, and it hits right at the weakness of all these critiques based on international law. There are two kinds of international law, roughly speaking, really three. But one is customary. There's no agreement between the countries. A second is agreements that don't become part of U.S. law. They're not so-called executed into U.S. law. Usually that requires passing a statute that then has binding effect in the United States.

Like if we're going to, this is going to be our fishing zone, this is going to be your fishing zone. You pass a statute and say American fishermen have to stay on this side of the line. Then it's part of U.S. law. If it doesn't become part of U.S. law, if it's not executed into U.S. law, then it's an agreement. And it's not something that has binding legal effect within the United States. It's something addressed to the sovereign of the United States and essentially the conscience and prudent judgment. It's like saying, okay, I'm not going to follow it. I understand their costs.

I'll bear the cost. Live with it. Okay. Now, the other kind are treaties that, you know, that are agreed to. And that are executed and then there's those that are not going to execute it. The treaty in question that everyone cites is the UN Charter. And the UN Charter has two parts to it, roughly. One is to set up an enforcement mechanism, which was supposed to be the Security Council. And then the other is to say, because we have the Security Council that's going to come in and make things right, wherever there's something wrong, you shouldn't use force.

And then there's language in it saying that this does not preclude the use of force against another sovereign state if you're under attack, armed attack. And the basic debate that goes on in international laws, does that mean that the only time you can use force is literally when someone has, has guns and is landing on your beach. And they're restrictionists, needless to say, most of the professoriate that says, yes, that's the only time. U.S. doesn't follow that. We say we can use force to protect our vital interests to defend ourselves. It doesn't have to be, you know, if someone's conducting cyber attacks, if they're launching

poison into the United States through drugs, that's an attack on U.S. sovereignty, and we can use force to defend it. So, you know, that is the international law issue. but what makes a lot of it crazy is the premise of restrictions on the use of force were based on that there was some authority out there that would come in and protect you. And that has not happened. It doesn't work. So it's a little bit like saying, hey, we're going to establish a police force and you can give up

your guns. In fact, not just give them up, we're going to take your guns because you don't need them anymore because we have a police force. And then you never set up a police force. That's the world we're in in so-called international law. Hi there, Charles Cook here. I wonder why, in your views, the president allowed to take this step without Congress? Obviously, if another country came in and took away our president, we would regard that as an act of war.

We wouldn't say it was kinetic action or another euphemism. why then does the Congress not have to at least pass an authorization for the use of military force to justify this action that was just taken? Well, because the framers, you know, at the time they wrote the Constitution in the 18th century, the idea of declaring war had a very special meaning. It was a juridical concept. And when a formal state of war was declared, it had all kinds of consequences. For example, in those days, that obliged every citizen of your country that has declared war to actually treat members of the other society as enemies. And you were free to go and seize their property and so forth. So it was a formal state in the 18th century.

Now, the framers quite realized that wars can be fought. That is military conflicts, armed conflicts, can. take place that are not declared wars and that frequently nations find themselves embroiled in that. So we fought the quasi-war with France. We sent a squadron of frigates to actually overthrow the government of the Barbary pirates and substitute another Pasha. That was what they were trying to do there when they were on the shores of Tripoli. And so ever since the founding of the Republic, there have been many instances where we have had military conflict without direct declarations of war and military conflict without Congress ever approving it, scores of them.

And I think what has happened historically is that the executive has running room, and I think the framers would have agreed, has running room to respond to particular threats without going to Congress first and getting permission to do that. And it's largely a political question to be. be ironed out between the, you know, the budding of heads between the branches of government as to where that line is. And I think that that's a dynamic political process that the framers is the framers conceived of. And that Congress holds a lot of cards. They hold the money. And so I think in practice what it has boiled down to is that if it is reacting to a particular

threat that does not involve, you know, exploding into a major war, then that, the executive has as much latitude as he can without going to Congress and getting them, you know, they have levers to pull if they don't like it. Whereas, you know, starting in cold blood with a, you know, major attack that could result in a serious military conflict and embroils in a serious military conflict, you know, in terms of its magnitude, that, you know, that's the kind of thing that they would expect Congress to do ahead of time. So, you know, an interesting area that sort of was on the border here, some would think, was the Gulf War where we had, Congress allowed us to build up 600,000 troops right along the border there. And the question was, do we need congressional permission to actually cross the border and liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi army?

And I actually didn't think we did, even though that was a major military conflict with Iraq. but we decided, you know, it was, again, a political judgment, which is we think we can get the permission. Let's go up and get the permission because that's a better way to take, you know, to move forward with the country. And that's how we did it there. So General Barr, it's Steve Hayward out in California. I want to go back to one follow-up question about the Panama business from 37 years ago now. Wow, I'm getting old. I know. I don't remember now that, I mean, I know there was the usual fuss from the radical left complaining about American intervention and Latin American imperialism and all the rest of that.

I don't remember there being a significant fuss from the opposition party in Congress on Capitol Hill, and maybe I just don't remember when I missed it. Whereas today, there's a lot of fuss. And I'm wondering, is that just because Trump is such a polarizing figure and there's this reflex to oppose anything Trump does? or, you know, have the politics of this changed since then? Or is there some important difference between then and now? I don't see one. I think the defining characteristic of the last three to four decades, the thing that is driving much of what happens in the United States and our politics,

and in fact, in my view, ultimately the reason there is Trump today is the radical move of the Democratic Party to the left. and from a party that was sort of traditional liberals and still, you know, shared a lot of the values with their political opponents and above all loved America and put America first and had some different ideas. But still, there was a deep love for this country and trying to do what's right for America. And that's not where progressives are. Yeah.

And so I think that is the basic difference. Yeah, I'm going to take up with James. later about how different Minnesota might look today if Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale were still with us since changes there, right? That's a serious question. Let me shift gears to Greenland. I don't know if you have an opinion about Greenland. I mean, it's mostly thought of as a foreign policy defense question, I suppose. But do you have either a general opinion or a specific legal opinion about what is going on with Trump's ambitions to acquire Greenland? Well, you know, I am actually, I do not think we should invade Greenland and internal conflict within NATO.

I believe he's right in wanting to, I mean, I think it would actually be a good idea to have America control Greenland and control it as sovereign territory, preferably. And I do believe it's important to the defense of the West, not just, you know, naval things and submarines, but space and so forth. And it's critical, and we know the Chinese and Russians are very focused on that. And so I am sympathetic with it. I think we, I hope it can be worked out without a military conflict, and I expect it will be. I think the important thing is that the United States has essentially plenary authority to do what it needs to do to defend Greenland and the West.

And second, I think it's important that the United States be able to control where the minerals and the important resources of Greenland go, that they go to the, such as far allies in the West, not to our enemies. Yeah, well, opposing an invasion places you with 95% of Americans, according to polls, and including 92% of Republicans. So not exactly a bolder, outrageous place to be. Let me ask you a question about Trump, too, as I'm calling this. this non-consecutive second term.

And, you know, your book was called One Damn Thing After Another. I have to confess, I haven't read it. And wondering if you got that from the old Edna St. Vincent Malay line, that history is not one damn thing after, it's not, no, it's not one damn thing after another. It's the same damn thing over and over again, she said. Yeah, where I got it from is when Reagan won, he asked William Smith to be his attorney general. and William French Smith wanted to do his homework, and he went to visit Ed Levy, who had been Attorney General under Gerald Ford. And as you know, Levy was an academician.

He had been the head of the University of Chicago Law School and then president of the university. He wore tweed. Right. You know, the epitome of a professor. And William French Smith said, you know, hey, Ed, could you tell me about the position of attorney, General, what it is to serve as Attorney General. He was expecting a discourse about the rule of law and all of the Constitution and so forth. And Ed Levy puffed on his pipe and looked at him and said, it's one damn thing after enough.

I see. Right, right. Right. I see. William Prince Smith lived down. General Smith lived down the street from my parents where I was growing up, but so didn't know him. But, well, the reason I'm bringing this up, and, you know, you may. you know, not wish to answer it too fully.

But so Trump won, I'll put it this way. You know, you suited up again. You had a number of people appointed to cabinet positions who, I mean, there were a few of the, said we say, idiosyncratic people around Trump in the first administration. But you also had conventional Republicans you might expect in any Republican administration. You know, what's his name from Exxon for Secretary of State and so forth? This administration, well, put it this way. Just give you one example.

The contrast between Alex Azar, a good friend of mine, and RFK Jr. in Health and Human Services is about as night and day as you can possibly get. There don't seem to be any conventional Republicans in the cabinet with one or two exceptions like Secretary of State Rubio. And, you know, it's a lot more loyalist, which I understand a reason for that, but also non-conventional, non-belt way, or as the MAGA people, would put it, non-swampy people, right? What do you make of all that? Is this deliberate, conscious, wise? How do you evaluate this difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2? Well, I would say, you know, it's Trump making an adjustment based on what he felt were the dynamics of the first administration, starting with Russia gate. You know, I think history would have been a lot different had the Democrats not, not, I won't say Democrats, I would say, you know, those involved in that and the progressive way of the Democratic Party. party and the media, especially, tried to orchestrate what was effectively a coup. And I think history would have been different had he not met that as soon as he walked

into the Oval Office. And I think the other thing is I felt, I think he felt that one of the problems was the entrenched deep state and the perfidy of many in the who worked in the senior ranks of the career people. He felt that sabotaged his administration. And I think he felt that, and I think he believed that you have to fight fire with fire and that the only way to break out of this trajectory the country was on was to fight fire with fire and really take on the progressives, you know, much more aggressively than our normal political

punctilio would permit. And so he's off on that course. And he may prove to be right. And he may prove to be right as a great disruptor and someone who achieves things. My own concern, which I don't like fighting fire with fire. I think, obviously, he's right at the other side has played dirty, and Republicans tend to play by the Marcus of Queensberry's rules. But I'm not sure the answer to that is to descend to their level. I'm concerned about that and what it does to our institutions over time. And the other thing is that I'm, you know, I do get worried that, that, that style may lead to unnecessary blowback and backlash that makes it hard to achieve our harder than necessary to achieve our agenda. But I do understand his frustration, and I think he is accomplishing things

that require bold leadership and aggressive leadership. And so I still feel, that I am much more happy that he's in charge of things that's an alternative. I have a question about the Insurrection Act. Yeah. I think Trump may not end up needing it, as he's indicated, because he can send troops in to defend federal assets without the Insurrection Act. Obviously, there are various parts of the Insurrection Act. Some of them seem easier to meet than others.

What I want to know is, what would comment? constitute as an insurrection, not as a blocking a federal law or making it difficult for the federal government to execute the law, which is part of it. But what would constitute an actual insurrection as imagined by those who wrote that law in 1807? So I handled the last times it was ever used. You know, I, it was involved in sort of orchestrating it. One was when I was under Bush, and it was the breakdown of law and order in St. Croy. And then after that, 92 in LA, those were the last times it was actually invoked. I actually don't have in front of me, don't remember the exact language, but insurrection really isn't the test. There's specific language about, you know, interfering with the federal function and then provoking, you know, rioting and stuff like breakdown of law and order. Those are usually the things you look for. It doesn't have to, you know, overthrowing the government is a species of it, but it doesn't, you don't need an intent to overthrow the government in order to establish an insurrection.

It's basically a breakdown of law and order that's not being carried out, you know, where the state is not, you know, sufficient to enforce law and order. And the federal government force is needed. That's essentially what it is. And what's happening now is, you know, the old Bolshevik and Leninist idea of make them feeling the whoop of the Cossack. That is, the way you radicalize a population is by provoking the government authority to use force. And that's making them feel the whip of the Cossack. And then you say, these people are fascists. And, you know, look at them.

There's suppressing liberty and so forth. That's the tactic that's being used. And there's another thing going on here, which is a subtle legal point, but people have to understand. You know, the law, Justice Scalia wrote an opinion called the Prince opinion, where he basically said that the federal government can't force the state to carry out federal law. That law involved gun control, and the law required the state officers to do things and affirmatively do things to carry out the federal scheme. And Scalia said you can't commandeer the state to do that stuff. Unfortunately, that's been taken to the point where the state feels that it's able to just not do anything to help or to respond to information requests or any kind of help to the federal government. And what we're seeing now, to me, is intolerable.

The police force would protect any other group that was going about its lawful business and was being interfered with mobs. They would keep the peace on the street and keep the mob from interfering with the lawful activities of, you know, a convention or whatever's going on. Here, they are abdicating their responsibility and leaving the mobs to directly attack federal officers in create a very incendiary situation. That comes pretty close if it doesn't cross the line into insurrection. They are They are promoting the rule of the mob directed against the federal government where they wouldn't permit that for any other group. And that to me is unacceptable, and something has to be done about it.

But what here in Minneapolis, the mayor has said that he wants the police to fight the ICE agents? And the chief of police was standing next to him as he said this and raised an eyebrow sort of spark-like, as that was being said. What is- That is insurrection. But that's what it seems like to me. I mean, what is to be done, as the man said, short of the Insurrection Act?

What can we do? Because, I mean, we have in this city where I live, and no, I haven't seen it. It happens elsewhere. I did have a woman drive by my house honking and pointing at a black SUV and blowing a whistle and mouthing the word ice. But I think it was actually a tree trimmer guy who was making the neighbor. So that's as close as I've gotten to it. But what can we do? because, I mean, every day ends with a culmination of shots of somebody taken of the guys walking out with the pepper bullets and, you know, hitting them the noggin and off they go.

But we see cars ripped open. We see documents taken. We see all manner of things that border on civic disorder that looks like it's going to dissolve. What should we do short of the Insurrection Act to get my town a little bit more sane, safe, and stable? And, of course, people will say, well, just pull out ice. Just disband ice. that's all you got to do. No, I think, you know, you have to be smart about which cases to use and what circumstances to push the principle.

But, for example, if someone gets up and makes a speech or does something to promote interference in federal law enforcement, they should be arrested and charged. That's not insurrection. That's obstruction or a conspiracy to obstruct or what have you. You don't need an insurrection. You know, these people stand up in meetings and say, you know, if an ice person comes into this school, we're going to have our police officers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that is interference with the federal function. Could it be insurrection? You could call it insurrection, but you don't have to call it insurrection. I think you go for those kinds of examples and you start and you start prosecuting people for that kind of interference.

I do think you also have to consider bringing suits and going after the political. politicians who have created this situation and are doing it. They're basically withdrawing police protection from the federal government. No one's asking for the local police to go in and make the arrests, but we're asking for the normal protection that every other entity in the United States would get. And by withdrawing it, you know, I think there's a violation of the law going on, and I think that they should be held accountable for it. But, you know, this is why the left is so insidious because this is exactly what they want to trigger.

They're very good at playing in the gray zone, going so far and then creating a reaction and then demonizing. And, of course, the media plays that game. So it's a difficult situation. The administration is handling it the best they can. I would just say it takes good judgment to know exactly, you know, where to, you know, where to arrest, where to take your stand and so forth. Well, the optics around here are lousy, but that's what's going to happen when you have the clash of the people

who are carrying out their constitutional federal duties and the people who are obliged to oppose them because they don't believe that there's anything wrong with being a legal immigrant in the first place. Just as the man said today, that this is stolen land, and ergo, or there's no legal philosophical moral precept to arrest somebody for being here. When you mentioned fighting fire with fire, I mean, it's been really the administration has been using a flamethrower versus a birthday candle.

They have not backed off. They have gone full force at this. Do you see in that a sort of resolution that seems contrary with the way that Republican administrations have worked before? Because usually something bad happens, they back off and say, forgive us, will be nice now. No, I think that's the thing that is good. You know, there are many things. Trump is taking the bull by the horns and tackling difficult issues that everyone else has just kicked the can down the road. And I give him a lot of respect and applause for that.

And this is an example of that. You know, at the end of the day, we need to control our borders. That requires not accepting the fact that military. millions came in illegally under Biden, and now they have to be deported. And we have to insist on the rule of law. And that's a difficult process to carry out. And I think he's right in making sure it's carried out. So you're right.

I mean, one of the reasons things have gotten as bad as they have is because Republicans, you know, frequently in the past, have been in the situation of, because largely because of the pressure of the media. and the monolithic media we have in this country, add in the country, you know, would pull back and not take the heat for doing what had to be done. That's why I support what he's talking about on the cartels. You know, it is ridiculous that we have these narco-terrorist states right south of us carrying out these predations

where the casualties are higher than they were at the peak of World War II in the United States for killed in action. And what are we supposed to do about? about it. You know, it's not a problem of locking up, you know, all the, the pushers on the corners in our inner cities. That's not going to stop it. It's going to the root of the problem, the head of the snake. And when we've done that, we've made great progress. We wiped out the Cali and the Medellin cartel. Clinton comes in, pulls back from engagement over there in South America. They get re-entrenched. And we have to go down there and take these organizations on. We

can crush them. And, you know, what Venvich, I've been saying all along, you know, the war is not the way it used to be, where you hit carpet bomb cities, okay? We can be very precise. Syria showed that, where we destroyed ISIS, very small group of American special forces. We know where these people are. We know exactly where they are. And we can take care of the problem. And those countries, even if you think Mexico's government is not complicit, even if you thought that and you thought they really wanted to deal with it, they couldn't do it. The only way it will get done is the United States going down there.

And so Trump is right. He's taking the bull by the horns. And when we discussed this in the first term, he said that. He said, you know, this is tough. But, you know, I came into office to deal with the tough problems, not kick the can down the road. Who's going to do it? how are we going to deal with this?

And so I support him taking on some of these tough issues, the immigration issue, the drug issue and so forth, and delivering, you know, the hard medicine that it requires and not chickening out. That's what's good. That's what's good. Bill Barr, we thank you for being back at the show. It's been a delight to have you and to hear your opinions again. The last book is one damn thing after another go buy it and wait for the next one. and we look forward to the next time we speak.

Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Bye-bye. All right. Yes, when it comes to the cartels, what was I thinking as he was speaking about that, that we could indeed use, oh, now we know what it is, that we had the object lesson of the Special Forces versus the Cuban soldiers.

There was a film today that I saw on Twitter. I think it actually may have been Charles who responded to it. They were bringing the bodies home from Venezuela to Cuba. And was it you, Charles, who actually? actually asked the question, why are they in shoe boxes? It wasn't, but I did wonder that. Yeah, yeah, because there were the very small

coffins, and it's all that they could probably get up with a spatula on a tweezer. So yes, there are things that can be done. The question is, gentlemen, now, is, let's quickly whipsaw around the world and to put on our

other hats of expertise that we do not deserve to wear. Did we flinch with Iran or did we tense in such a way that revealed all the things that they were planning to do in response?

That's been one of the theories that I've been, there's a couple of people that have been following, who are quite interesting. I'm not saying they're right, but they're quite interesting in putting together what this means, what that means, what this mobilization means, what that mobilization means. And they made

the point that, that A, when we seem to be On the verge of a blow, we got a pretty good idea of what lit up. And secondly, at this very moment, the pizza tracker is hitting record numbers. So who knows? So I'll shut up and let you guys tell me what you think. Oh, boy. What problem is we're really only speculating by what we can get out of the news media,

which may not even be close to accurate or penetrating to what really is going on behind the scenes. A couple things I think we do know or can conclude. One is apparently the scale of the massacre in Iran is massive and maybe even more than has been reported. But now, I'd heard a week ago, by the way, when the so-called official figure, whatever the heck that is, was a few hundred. And I was hearing then from somebody in Washington, no, no, it's many thousands are being killed now. And three or four days later, that's what started to get out into the reporting. On the other hand, you did hear that Iran paused, at least, planned executions of several hundred people. Now, is that a concession they gave to get Trump off their back?

I don't know. It could just be a pause. I wouldn't, for a moment, take that to the bank and say, ah, we've made real progress here. The third question is, this may be a case of where we did not have, and this has been reported, We did not have sufficient military assets to make an effective strike. Apparently, our one carrier is not yet in Persian Gulf. The Lincoln was over somewhere near Asia, I guess, and is steaming at top speed to get there. And then Iran is a huge country, densely populated in places.

And so how do you do strikes that are going to actually erode the regime? It's one thing to take out their nuclear facilities and so forth. But so you can see that there are some difficulties, practical difficulties. well, all right, what are we going to do? And I have no idea what might be done. It's also reported, again, who knows accurately or not, but the Jerusalem Post has usually got good sources that Prime Minister Netanyahu asked President Trump to hold off for now.

Who knows what the Israelis are doing inside the borders of Iran? We tend to ascribe magical powers to Mossad in Iran, and they have done some amazing things in the past. But bringing down this whole regime is a time. thing to do. The last thought, sorry I'm rambling here, but I do worry that we now look like we did in 1956 when we encouraged the Hungarians to revolt and then did did not lift the finger to help them when they did. I think it would be shameful if the outcome of this is the Iranian regime survives and Trump essentially said well never mind. Any other fears, Charles, or we're just going to

leave it to that. Well, I don't like spiders. well well there we go um arachnophobia we can add to your other phobias and the things that uh that are are bad so we'll see yeah we will i don't think it's over but i have been up and i can't tell you how many times i've seen you know the street rise up and then nothing happens there's an inexhaustible supply of thugs that they can get from other countries to come and shoot and beat we'll see you know one of the reason this one's so depressing other than that it's been promised on so many occasions and our hopes have been dashed is that this is one of the few examples of a country that needs and would do well out of a revolution I'm a conservative I'm not reflexively in favor of

revolution or chaos or the overthrow of the existing order. And as I've said many, many times when discussing the American Revolution, the American Revolution was a strange one relative to say the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution in that it was small-sea conservative, it was restorative. It was full of people saying, we want to be more like the country that we thought we were, rather than we wish to get rid of them. was no reconstituting the clocks or forcing people to call each other comrade or any of that. All the letters to the king in 1774 said, please, give us our birthright.

Usually that's not the case. But in Iran, it sort of is because the transformation that that country underwent, it wasn't perfect, of course, nor was the Shah. But the transformation that that country underwent from 1940 to 1979 was remarkable. It was massive increases in literacy. It was an educated populace. It was secular, by which I don't mean it was irreligious, but that it was not subordinate to politicized form of Islam. And a revolution would presumably give an awful lot of that back.

In other words, it would remove the crazies. It would remove the totalitarians. And this is why it's just so depressing watching it not happen. happen because you want it's an undoing of of a wrong and I keep thinking oh finally you know that thing that happened is it's going to be fixed and it just doesn't seem to but it's an odd sentiment to feel as a Burkean well yes but no in as much as it's obvious that the country suffered went backwards as endured right um hideous mismanagement I mean there's a post on a ricochet Ricochet.com, by the way, the site that you all

should go to and join and sign and up for and comment at about why people weren't marching for the protesters when they were marching for Gaza. And it's one of those. It's not a real head scratcher. Nobody posts something like that because they really can't figure out the answer. What do you guys think? I mean, it's obviously so.

It's the fact that it's anti-American. It's the fact that it's anti-Israel. It's the fact that it is as many have pointed out, you know, Islam has been conflated now and redefined into being a race. So if somebody is protesting against Islam, then they are giving aid and comfort to all the mega hat racists in, you know, VFW club somewhere. No, they've seen what it is.

But the other thing is that perhaps it is a command economy in a lot of ways. Now, it's a very corrupt economy. It's incredibly corrupt, but it is a command economy in many ways, which stifles that, you know, Persian bizarre instincts. and some people are saying that you know we don't want to give them too much the protesters too much credit because they you know the ideas well yes Iran has handled it badly but

real real feocratic socialism hasn't been tried which is just I'm quoting I'm quoting myself there it's not something I came up spontaneously so there's lots of reasons for people not getting behind this and it'll be interesting I also think that if there is a successful

coup and the Shah does come back or the Shah is integrated into whatever they come up with afterwards, that it's going to irritate all those people who are bringing up the coup of the early 50s over and over and over again is one of the dominating original sins of the Middle East. You know, I couldn't expect anything to go well in 2026 when we toppled, you know, when we toppled most of the day the kami in 1951 or 53 or whenever it was. They'd have to stop talking about that then.

We also have a national security interest in making sure that all of those beautiful Persian women don't have to avail. That's a big part of it. It's a big part of it. They're just so pretty and they're all behind these pieces of cloth. I know. But they've taken them off now and they're lighting cigarettes with pictures of Kamenei and I

love that. It's a gorgeous image. It's still my beating heart, James. I know. I know. Did you pack into one picture? Some beautiful Persian women lighting a cigarette and she's going after a theater. Yeah, I know. It's just beautiful and you'd think that she

would be out there as a is a, you know, knocking Greta Thunberg off the pedestal the most preferred, but unfortunately she's pretty, so we can't have that. The, Bill Barr talked, and we were talking before, about Greenland, which I regarded right now is just sort of an interesting and amusing diversion. And I, Stephen, what did you say, 92% of people don't want, don't want to? Who are the 8% of people who are, who are? I think it's only one, right?

The seven said don't know. Yeah. They're packing their kit bag and saying, oh, over there. I mean, no, I have not in my entire life given more than an hour's worth of thought to Greenland other than when it looks big, but I think that's a distortion of the Mercator perspective. It's probably not that big. And why is it called green when actually it's full of ice and why is ice called ice when it's actually quite an idea? But, you know, what's there that we need other than the fact that. that it's where it is.

Oh, well, first of all, I'll be really brief because I want to toss to Charlie on this, because he wrote a terrific piece about how we can't afford this. And I think I may not entirely agree with that. I mean, I think the main point is right. It's a lot of money that we don't have right now. However, I guess it's mineral rich. I mean, oil, gas, precious, you know, rare earths and stuff

that we'd like to develop a supply independent of China. That all makes some sense. And strategically important, that all makes sense too. One worry that I have is that if, we do acquire Greenland, then it's going to be federal property, and that means it's subject to the political control, like all other federal property, that has been a plague on us for mining and oil and gas production for decades now, right? I mean, the energy boom in this country has almost entirely occurred on privately owned land

and state-owned land out west, where the federal government had minimal tools to obstruct it. And so if you have all of Greenland is federal property, well, guess what? The environmentalists under a Democratic administration are going to declare it a national wildlife refuge for, you know, ice bacteria or something. And good luck extracting the value from it. Because I could see, you know, amortizing the price of acquiring Greenland, if Denmark would sell it, from the economic potential of the place. But no one's ever talked about that. And I think the idea that you privatize it right away, which is what you ought to do, said, I'm not sure who would buy it, right? I mean, there's all kinds of problems with the idea that Charlie just barely begins to get that in his piece.

Charlie? No, that's all fair. And there was a really good counter argument to my piece by John Perry at National Review in which he made some of these points. My argument, really, was just that I accept that we are broke. And indeed, not just accept it, but talk about it all the time. We have $38 trillion of debt. We're spending more than it would cost to buy Greenland on servicing the debt every year,

$900 billion to a trillion dollars at the moment. Medicare is more expensive than that. Medicaid is about the same price. Congress is not going to do this because it would require cuts. But leaving aside that it is unlikely that we're going to buy it, and I hope unthinkable that we would invade it, $700 billion for Greenland is a steel.

It is enormous. It would increase the size of the United States by 22%. It has so much oil and natural gas that if all of the world's production, everywhere other than Greenland ceased, it could feed the need for oil and natural gas. globally for three years. It has an enormous number of rare earth minerals that we need, and it's militarily useful. Now, you're absolutely right, Steve. The United States has been really suicidal when it comes to the use of public lands. I don't think the US would be worse

than Denmark, which has treated it like a zoo and declined to permit any. extraction. But if you were going to do it, then you would have to buy it, homestead it quite quickly, and set in place a set of rules that permitted private enterprise to go and get the stuff that is under the ground and under the snow, which would be more expensive than it is in, say, Oklahoma, granted. If we did that, I think $700 billion, is a pretty good price. And the last point that I made is that an awful lot of America's land, about 40% of it was bought in the Alaska purchase,

the Louisiana purchase. We bought much of the Southwest. It wasn't bought so much, but Florida was in the 1820s added to the United States. We took on their debts. And every time we've done this, it's worked out pretty well. And every time we've done this, there have been people who thought that it was really stupid.

Thomas Jefferson was mocked for the Louisiana purchase. Seward in 1867 was mocked for wanting to buy Alaska. It was nicknamed Seward's Folly. He didn't become popular until 1890 when we discovered gold everywhere in Alaska. It's worth saying as well, Seward was the guy who originally wanted to buy Greenland. That was part of his plan. He only got Alaska. but he wanted Greenland.

Harry Truman tried to buy Greenland in 1946. This is not something that Trump streamed up. So I don't think we're going to do it. I don't think we can afford it. I don't think we would make the necessary sacrifices. And I agree with you, there might be problems going forward with the rules that Congress would set or a Democratic president would impose.

But in the abstract, the idea is treated as if it's lunacy. Donald Trump's crazy idea. It's not crazy. It's actually very sensible. if you look at it as a purely commercial transaction. It's entirely possible that at the end of the day what we will get are some mining concessions and we'll be able to go in and extract some things

to further decouple from China, in which case one might say that the whole thing about invasion and the rest of it was just setting up an absurd point that actually got everybody's attention and this was sort of, I don't know, clever deal-making, we'll see. I do know that when you mentioned Seward's Folly, that it's been a long time since anything has been called a folly.

And I always enjoy those. because they always point to the most successful things that ever happened in the human history. Somebody was calling it, you know, they're going to be saying, you know, Elon's falling is the rocket that begins colonization of Mars, for example. There will be a big. I'm always curious how many of those. Well, they do, don't know? I know. They do.

So I don't know how many of these, whether they're not being called a folly by some drunken wagon, the press is actually, you know, it's actually a guarantor of success. Well, now, James, speaking of folly. rockets to places. I have an important cultural question for you. Have you had the misfortune of seeing the new Star Trek, Starfleet? Not even, no, not going there. Nope, nope, nope, nope, no. For the first time. You've heard how bad it is? For the first time in my life, for the first time in my life, I have refused to even begin to watch a Star Trek show. And I cannot tell you how painful

this is. I've been there for every single one of these bleep-pity bleeps, including discovery for which I had a certain amount of hope at the beginning until that rapidly just ebbed away within the first 15, 20 minutes of that thing. No, I am not going to watch it. One of the things that I saw, everything that I see, first of all, to me the idea that a thousand years,

hence that the Federation still is like that in a speaking English and set design is basically the same as ridiculous, and I don't want to go there. I don't want to look at a Gem Hadar-Klingon hybrid. I don't even want to think how that happens. I don't like the look of her. She looks like she's from HR and she's come to say something about a joke that you heard I told.

I don't like her. I don't like the pictures of Holly Hunter. All cat-like crawled up, you know, all cozily crawled up in the captain's chair reading a book with her glasses in 3,020 AD instead of somebody who's striding it to the chair sitting down, gripping the arms and firing fake. I don't want to look. They have somebody there in the crowd scene who, honest to God, has got a half of her face. painted white and half of her face painted black. Now, we all know what that means. We all know it's Frank Gorshian and his, you know, that, shall I say,

delicate racial analogy that they made and let that be your last battlefield. Supposedly, that rates is extinct, but I guess somebody brought it back in Blow Decks or Prodigy or something like, I don't care. They killed it for me. They gave me a nice send-off at the end of Picard III. They got the gang back together. They got the ship back together. They kicked ass.

that done and they play poker, it worked. And that was the end, and that was good. And now it's done. I knew that would set you off on epic rap. What listeners should know, I mean, I watched the four-minute trailer, and if that's the best they can do, it's got to be awful. All listeners need to know is that the lead Klingon character is named Jaden. Jaden, I know.

I mean, what next? The governor of California named Gavin, it's almost that stupid. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. And I like Strange New Worlds, even though I think the third season just got lost in itself. And I'm looking for them to conclude it with the fourth. It's been good. But no, I mean, I used to just sit down and wait, how they're going to start this. What's the theme going to be?

What's the reveal of the ship going to be? Oh, look at that. Look at the voyage. You're coming out of those gaseous clouds with that. Do, do, do, oh, I'm here. I'm there already. And then the first season sucks as it always does. But you stay there, and you seven seasons on, it concludes, and you feel like you've actually

it's been a contribution to the Lord that you remember, you were there eight years old, your grandfather's television, color television in Harwood, North Dakota, watching the very first episode in color, terrified because it was really scary stuff. And you've been there ever since, and then you finally hit a point where you say,

no, it's not that it's not for me. Oh, this is for the kids. It's not, no, no, no, no. It's because it's bad. It's because it's run by people who just do not get it. If you look at all the sci-fi of the 50s and 6, there's still a military ethos.

There are Navy men. There's command structures. You know, there's ICER. There's, you know, Ah, Oogah. There's all that stuff. And all of that has just washed away into this sort of gallivanting about space and these nice little ships with these enormous pointless bridges so that we can give somebody a lecture on what they ought to do and feel good about ourselves for watching it.

I say it's spinach into hell with it. Well, my theory is, oh, sorry. My theory is that behind the scenes, the executive producer is a pseudonym for Kathleen Kennedy, who's trying to kill two franchises. So that's the entirely possible. Well, all this is gone. I've never been a particular trekkie, although I did like the movies. But the one that I watched when I was a kid had Captain Picard in.

Is that good? Do you like that? No, it is good. It found its footing after about a year or so. It started out odd. The tone wasn't right. That everybody inhabited their characters by the second and third, and then it got really good and has the best.

Lefinger in television history. Fire. It was good. But it was very 90s because the Cold War was over and now an international group of people were cruising around in the Hilton solving disputes in luxury. It was basically the 90s. And then Deep Space 9

comes along and that's post-Soviet, you know, the empire's fallen, they're on the borderlands and the rest of it and then, you know, I mean, you can find these analogies to, I'm not the first to say it, you can find analogies to the time in every one of these. But yes, Picard was good.

It also gave us marvelous techno babble that we could, you know, that we could repeat to ourselves. And, you know, it was like, it was like a vision. It was like a documentary of the future. It felt like this was a possible thing that we were going to have at the time. And then, no, didn't. Okay, that's it. That's it.

You did it to me. You made me do it. What I'm not going to make you do, however, is go to give us a five-star review because I'm not going to ask you for that yet. I am going to ask you to go to ricochet and check to see if there's any meetups in your area because that's what Rurkishay people do. It's not just a website where you get together and blather and plavre and throw bricks at each other. No, no, no, no.

Early February, a couple of meetups, one group in Detroit, another of the Florida Space Coast, Canaveral probably. I love that. And if you'd like to learn more or have your own, go to Rurkishay.com and go to the meetup page at Rookishay.com slash events. Now I'm going to ask you for that five-star review because if you do, well, more people see the podcast. More people listen. More people go to RICOchet and that ensures

that we go on, oh, not just past version 5.0, but to 6.0 and beyond. And beyond, as Buzz would say. So I have to ask you, Charlie. We're not at 5.0 yet, but we are at last. It was 4.9.1.4.1.4. Something like that. Yes, it's something like

that. We've been doing small little updates. But, you know, more exciting than that is we have some new podcasts. No. Yes. With our friend Henry Olson. conservative crossroads with Henry Olson in which he hosts a debate each episode between conservatives of different factions, different views, and right down to the studs as well. This isn't superficial. Henry says, right, what about Ukraine?

And then he lets them argue it out. So that's a really good new show at Rikershow. Ah, I hope you've enjoyed the show, folks. We have enjoyed making it and bringing it to you. I'm James Laleck's Minneapolis. This is Stephen in California and Charles in Florida. It's been a pleasure as well. We'll see everybody in the comments.

Rurcchet 4. Whatever. We'll see you there. Bye-bye. Rickashay. Join the conversation.