The Ricochet Podcast - Goodbye, Mr. Loaf

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

After an informative press conference with Mr. President, who better to take us through last year’s stunning over-performance than Byron York? (Be sure to subscribe to his podcast, available right here on Ricochet!) Among other things, we go over Biden’s plan to get out more; the dilemma of staff shakeups when the boss is the problem; and question of succession. The hosts also get into the so... Source

Let me put on my Mark Zuckerberg Oculus Metaverse device here so we can completely absorb you into the new world. I have a dream this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. It depends on what it does. It's one thing if it's a minor incursion. With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Democracy simply doesn't work.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lylex. Today, our guest is Byron York, telling you everything you need to know about Washington, D.C. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you! Welcome, everybody, to the Ricochet Podcast.

It is episode number 577. You can join us at Ricochet.com, by the way, and be part of the most stimulating conversation and community on the web. And what you can do, for example, is upbraid the hosts personally in the comments if you see fit, if you're a member. I'm James Lilacs with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. And, guys, I've got to apologize. Last week when I was running down the usual where we are,

Peter in Clement, California, Rob Long in Cosmopolitan, New York, I said that I was running down the usual where we are, Peter and Clement, California, Rob Long and Cosmopolitan, New York, I said that I was insane Minneapolis. And a Minneapolis in the comments and Ricochet took me to task for that, pointing out the vaccine mandates and knowing that the very pizza restaurant that I go to on Wednesdays is probably going to have to ask for my papers. And how did I feel about that? Well, first of all, you know, the pizza restaurant that I went to. But secondly, it was right. I have this sort of baked in feeling that I live in the same place without realizing the last two years, things have changed a lot. And that's true for just about all of us in a certain sense. We've come to adapt and redefine and the rest of it. And we oughtn't because things are different. And we have to remind ourselves of that.

For example, let's take a look at this voting bill. Things are different now in the sense that apparently Jim Crow 2.0 is going to descend across the country even though we're what? Going back to the rules that we had in 2016, 2018, 2020. Guys, how do you think about this? And how do you think it's going to be played going forward?

The headlines I all see say voting rights bill, you know, dead, meaning that this was actually a voting rights bill. That's another little thing that we take for granted when we actually have to interrogate it a little bit closer. Well, what is there to say? What we saw the other evening was pure political theater. There were two votes. One was the vote on, I guess it was one of the two pieces of legislation, 49 Democratic votes for, 50 Republican votes against, and one Democratic vote against, Chuck Schumer, who voted against it for some procedural reason. It enabled him to bring up the filibuster question. Anyway, the vice president was not even in the Capitol building, meaning that Chuck Schumer knew beforehand that he was going to lose the vote. This was pure theater, pure theater. And then the second major vote was whether to change the rules of the Senate to eliminate the filibuster or, if you believe them, which I don't.

But if you believe them, it was just to eliminate the filibuster just this once, just to let this piece of legislation go through. And Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema both voted with the Republicans against eliminating the filibuster, just as they had been saying that they would. So why are the Democrats putting us through this pure theater? The legislation, there are two pieces of legislation. power over voting systems of the states, not the presidential vote, which is given to state legislatures in the Constitution itself. Apparently, this would draw on, this legislation would have drawn on the powers of Congress to regulate elections to Congress. Why did they go so overboard? Why did they stage this Kabuki theater the other night? Why did Joe Biden claim that if this legislation doesn't pass, we're going back to Jim Crow 2 or we're going to Jim Crow 2.0? We discussed this last week. I've thought about it all week. I still don't have a good answer unless I really don't want to – I don't even want to suggest this, but unless the motive is to lay down the predicate for arguing 10 months from now that the Republican victories in the House of Representatives are illegitimate.

That's the only reason I – exactly. Preemptive delegitimization. Okay, talk me out of it. Somebody cheerful, talk me out of it. That would mean I'd have to take a contrary position, and I can't, and I don't. I think that rhetorically that of it. Somebody cheerful, talk me out of it. That would mean I'd have to take a contrary position, and I can't, and I don't. I think that rhetorically that's it, and it also is this broad brush painting the other side as being

the people who don't want these people to vote. It's a handy cut. What else do they have exactly? What drum can they bang otherwise? Yeah, I mean, I would never want to discount just sheer incompetence. That is also? Yeah, I mean, I would never want to discount just sheer incompetence. That is also a possibility. I mean, the weirdest thing about all of this is that at no point do Americans start saying, hey, do something about this.

Because in most Americans' lifetime, or not most Americans, but in a huge number of voting Americans, all they have seen is voting participation going up for the past generation, not down. They've seen more votes cast, not fewer. More people voting, not fewer. More people as a percentage, not fewer. So the weirdest thing about all this is that they are desperately, panically, in a giant panic, trying to solve a problem that no Americans really have ever identified as a problem, while ignoring and messing up solutions to problems that most Americans are feeling every day, like the economy, inflation, gas lines, energy prices, even the Ukraine, which I think most Americans don't care about, but it still ranks higher than voting rights, and voting rights ranks lower than climate, and climate ranks pretty low on Americans' list of things that they're really concerned about every day.

I don't mean just Republicans, all Americans. And it just seems so strange to me that when a big government solutions, which I would disagree with, but big government solutions would be so popular now that they are focused on this government and probably also America is in this one little – this crystalline form here in this voting business because it involves sheer panic over nothing, incredibly hyperbolic language that is totally disproportionate to what the bill actually does, based on a total faulty premise from, I think, from both parties, that somehow voter participation helps them, hurts us, hurts us, helps them, whatever it is. That's probably false. But certainly it's more false than true, more provably false than provably true. And at the end of it, it's all wrapped up in federalizing what is explicitly, and I cannot imagine would stand Supreme Court scrutiny, what is explicitly a state's, a province of the states. How they conduct their elections is pretty clearly theirs and not the federal government for very, very understandable reasons. That we wanted to have 50 checks or a multiple X number of checks against one federal behemoth. The federal behemoth doesn't like that, never has liked that, but that doesn't

mean that we have to change. Well, the state's federalism was a, was a bulwark against the, the tyranny of Trump back in the COVID days. Now we've swung the other way and the states are back in their usual democratic conception as being little fiefdoms of tyranny themselves. Little clubs. Can I, just for the record, because here's the cheer. The cheer is we ought to feel good about the country for the following reason. I agree.

Jason Riley published a piece in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. He looked at the figures. Black voting participation has been rising since the 1990s. And now get ready for this couple of sentences. In 2020, blacks voted at higher rates than whites in Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Two more sentences from Jason. After losing the Georgia governor's race in 2018, Georgia, Stacey Abrams founded an organization to fight voter suppression and subsequently has become the progressive face of the cause. Yet by 2018, by 2018, four years ago, black voter registration and turnout rates in Georgia had surpassed those of whites. Georgia, where Joe Biden went to speak last week and say that if you don't support this legislation, you're in favor of voter suppression and turning the country over to the Bull Connors in the

Republic. Georgia, Africanamerican registration rates are higher than those whites i mean just an accomplishment why isn't he cheering that but or at least the more logical thing is if you are concerned with those numbers if you are concerned i mean and just in general the voter participation you should be arguing that we should not do a thing. Don't change anything. You know, when something's working, it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you came down, or you just sort of appeared

on the American scene right now, you would see probably, it would really be one party having these freakouts, right? A climate change, carbon emissions drastically lowered by fracking and natural gas so stop fracking stop natural gas pipelines uh covid is it uh mitigated and attack covid serious covid mitigated and attacked by vaccines and by treatments stop. Don't stop wearing masks. You need to wear a double mask.

Everything's, the school's got to be closed. Voter participation is going up for 30 years, 30 years. That's 90s, 30 years. We're old. That's 30 years. Unbroken line going up. Whatever we do, let's fix that. Let's get into that. That's broken. Everything that's working, they break, and everything that's broken, they double down on. That's broken. Everything that's working, they break, and everything that's broken, they double down on. That is a message that ordinary Americans get, which explains why the party affiliation numbers went reversed this week, or at least it was announced, that more people identify as Republican than Democrat. And I mean, look, this is not a sea change. This is not going to change the way the company, this is, has been our policy, our politics for the past 40 years, almost like

just very volatile up and down. But if you are in, if your job is simply just to guide one of the political parties, you know, the Coke side or the Pepsi side or whatever side you want, that is the American people are trying to have a conversation with you and you are not listening. And that I think is a dangerous, dangerous position to be if what you're doing is you're one of the two major political parties in America. And also people over the last year and a half have seen more than any other time in their lifetime, the ability of the government to affect their lives on a quotidian level.

They've, they've, they've, I mean, usually the, you know, the bitch and moan about the government. Yeah. It's out there and it gets into our pocket and the regulations, you know, but unless you're in a heavily regulated industry, you probably don't have to deal with that every day. But now we see more of government reach overreach. It's tendrils going into every aspect of our life, telling us what we have to deal with that every day. But now we see more of government reach, overreach, its tendrils going into every aspect of our life,

telling us what we have to put in our face, where we can go and when we can go there. That's a foretaste of things to come, as we used to say in the liturgy. Well, the other thing, mask-related, since Rob brought it up and I piggybacked on it for an inelegant segue, we had mask-gate with the Supreme Court,

which, I hate to say this, calls into question the sources of nina totem which in dc is a heresy that will make them start stacking the you know the bundlings of twigs around the you know the post and lash you to it and set them on fire but what do you guys what do you guys make of this i it was one of those stories that seemed to rock it around the internet because it was just so perfect juicy it's just well not just we know that this these guys are bad and we know that they don't care about anybody and they're they want people they don't care of people if they make people die we just summarize really quickly that nina totenberg npr reported that uh one of the reasons why uh sonia sort of justice sotomayor is not in oral arguments,

I don't know whether she's in her chambers or not, but she's not there and she's zooming in, is because she has diabetes and she feels that she's at high risk. And she asked Chief Justice Roberts to ask the other justices to wear a mask. And they all said, okay, except for Gorsuch, who refused and appears unmasked, and therefore he is forcing Sonia Sotomayor to stay home and go on Zoom. Juicy story, right? It's got it all, you know, meanness, COVID, all that stuff.

And then a few days later, they released a statement. Hours later. Hours later. It's right. The court released a statement saying that is not, this is not true. Gorsuch and I think both Gorsuch

and Sotomayor said, we are good for, we argue about the law, but we are in fact warm colleagues, and that Justice Roberts never asked that question. And then today, I think this morning, NPR decided to clarify it with a non-clarification by saying, well, this wasn't what it was about anyway. That was just an anecdote at the top of the story. The story is really about how the judges aren't getting along. And we stand by that, even though the point of the piece, the story in the piece is false, which they didn't retract, they just clarified. And even in the judge's statement of a few days ago, they said they're getting along. They actually refuted that part, too. It's a complete and total.

I mean, it's wrong on both sides. I mean, I actually feel that. Both sides. Well, I kind of feel like even were it true. Right. If I am Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor, who I already know has nutty and completely unfounded crackpot beliefs about COVID. We know this because it came out of her mouth. And she says, no, honey, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm not going to go live in crazy

town with you. I'm living in a normal America where we're supposed to live. And you can live in crazy town if you want. But if you want to live in crazy town, you live in crazy town at home on zoom. That's what I would have said. And I probably would have been impeached for it, but I'm not saying he did that. He didn't do that. He's clearly much more collegial and judicious than I am. But had he done that, were it true? I would still think he's right. Correct. Can, could I vent for one just very briefly because this is a perennial subject. But NPR, these people for at least five years now throughout the whole Trump period and before that they were kind of genially liberal. Oh yeah. Sort of high high tone, high class liberal. Washington Post editorial page, a set of assumptions from the Georgetown side.

Yes, exactly. So they never were playing to the American middle. But in the last at least five years, NPR has joined the news staff of the Washington Post and the New York Times. They just made a decision. We're against Trump, all that he stands for, and that puts them against half of the country. I mean, they're just over to the left explicitly, and they drop the kind of the politesse and geniality. They're left. And they accept taxpayer money.

They require all of us, all of us, to submit to the coercive powers of the federal government to fend them. And over in Britain, for the first time in decades, actually, I believe for the first time ever, a government has said, here's what's going to happen. The BBC, if you own a television, you're required to pay a tax of close to 200 pounds a year. A license. A license fee, it's so called. They have a van. And they have a van that goes up and down the streets and finds out if you're watching television and you haven't paid that license fee, you're in big trouble.

They send the cops in. You've got to knock at the door. And the government has now announced that they're going to freeze the fee. The BBC wants the fee to continue going up that they're going to freeze the fee. The BBC wants the fee to continue going up. They're going to freeze the fee for the next two years and then reconsider the way in which the BBC funds itself. And the BBC's reaction is the same reaction we get from the NPR journalists, although it's been a long time since a Republican had the guts to say, wait a minute, why is the public funding these people? The BBC's reaction is

exactly the same as what the NPR reaction was in 1994 when Gingrich took the House. There was some talk for about two weeks. Oh, he's going to fire Big Bird. Remember that was always Big Bird for some reason. And they say, well, wait a minute. Look at all the value we provide. The BBC is saying, actually, if you take that daily fee, it's less than it costs to subscribe to Netflix.

Answer, terrific. In that case, you'll do perfectly well in the private market. Cut off the federal subsidy to NPR. Just cut it off. They don't deserve it. Be as left as you want to, but don't pretend. Don't pretend you're some sort of national or it's ridiculous. It's outrageous. All right. I've vented. I've vented. That's a good vent, but I, I, there is a solution, Peter. And that solution is the shining vision of Ricochet, which is supposed to be, we want to be national public radio from a different set of priorities, not different facts, just different set of priorities. And in order to do that, we sort of need your help. So if you're listening, please join because that is our vision. 24-7, audio on demand, news, information, culture,

and whatever this is. And that is the only way. That's the only way for us to get out of that incredible, incredible bubble is to create another bubble of our own. And I, that's, I mean, look, I mean, the weird thing is that these guys have always been looking for the crisis that allows them to throw over the idea of being fair, right? They were only fair when they felt like there was no, but they were looking for the crisis. And so behind the scenes with this Totenberg piece, you already know what it is, which

is that they are, this is going to be a steady drumbeat of undermining the court because they are worried it's going to overturn Roe. And they have a six month PR campaign to say, Gorsuch tried to kill Sotomayor with his toxic cough or whatever. They aren't getting along. The Supreme Court is broken down. There's really only one solution, and that is to add judges to the court or something or some other kind of court reform. And that's what this is. And I don't even think they're planning it out.

I think it's all visceral. This is all emotional. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Isn't stupid. Well, you spend your entire life in accumulating series of existential crisis. Eventually you go mad. Right. And they compound and they add to each other. The climate is going to kill everybody. Income inequality is going to wreck our society. Our democracy, which is this phrase that keeps popping up all the time, is in tatters and is about to be replaced by authoritarianism somehow. And Roe is going to go away.

So on the other side of this, where we see freedom and opportunity, they see the end of practically of everything. I mean, it's the sweet meteor of death. It is the extinction level event that they somehow in their bones have been summoning just because it feels good to be the smart person who knows that everything's screwed, right? You have a little cynical, little nice little little smirk at the end, because none of these rubes and yahoos know exactly what's coming, but I do. And I have the feeling now that they

actually think, my God, it is coming. It is going to happen. All these horrible things that I've been talking about, or maybe they don't really. What I just love, and I know, Peter, you have to vent, is the way that Rob went from Peter's talk about NPR to actually pivoting into a commercial of his own. I know. Isn't that good? That's pretty good, right? It was almost James level. It was ballet-like.

The pivot was just on one toe, on point. He swiveled around. And, of course, we know that Rob spends a lot of time at the ballet bar that he has installed in his house with a wall of mirrors. I don't know what your exercise routine is. I walk. I stride. I do the rest of this, but diet and exercise is not enough, frankly, for your health.

Research increasingly shows that a healthy gut microbiome is crucial to a healthy life. Now, over time, people with type 2 diabetes lose that gut bacteria. And, you know, that gut bacteria helps you digest fiber and manage your blood glucose levels. For those with type 2 diabetes, diet and exercise alone are often not enough to manage it. The best approach emphasizes diet, exercise, and a healthy gut microbiome. Our sponsor, we're proud to tell you about, is Pendulum Glucose Control.

It's designed to lower A1c and after-meal blood glucose levels to help you manage your type 2 diabetes. You can feel like an uphill battle sometimes to keep your post- meal blood sugar and your A1C levels where you want them. And if you struggle to manage them with diet and exercise alone, Pendulum can help fill in the gaps. Pendulum's team of scientists, doctors, and innovators have isolated the unique strains of beneficial gut bacteria that help people with type 2 diabetes manage their blood sugar levels. Pendulum is the only place to purchase a newly isolated, highly sought after strain called, oh boy, I'm going to try to pronounce this here.

Ackermansia. Well, I was just leaning into it, Rob. Thank you very much. Let's do it together. Three, two, one. Ackermansia. Boy, we're really a great team here. I'm excited about this product, James.

Can I take it? I can tell. Ackermansia is formulated and bottled in the U.S. with the highest safety and quality standards and verified by the non-GMO project. With Pendulum, you can feel in control of your levels, not the other way around. If you or someone you love has type 2 diabetes, take control of your glucose levels with Pendulum Glucose Control. Be like Rob, who loves it, who takes it and loves it and feels better, right? No, I love it. I take the Ackermansia. You can get it separately and I do that. Although I do have Pendulum, I take that

too. So I think it's great. I mean, we're all going to learn more about this stuff in the next 10, 15 years. That we will. Use code Ricochet, PendulumLife.com to get 20% off all the products. That's P-E-N-D-U-L-U-M-L-I-F-E.com. Promo code Ricochet for 20% off all products. And we thank Pendulum for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Now we welcome back to the podcast, our old friend, Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner and a Fox News contributor. Also the author of Obsession, Inside the Washington Establishment's Never Ending War on Trump. Byron, welcome back. We had a press conference yesterday, lasted, I don't know, four hours or so in which Joe Biden talked about,

you know, the family at the dinner table. They look and they think and things happen. People are applauding him for his, you know, amazing ability to endure an hour and a half of pointed, tough, never-ending questions. Some people looked at that and said, that's a guy who's lost a step, whose ball isn't as fast as it used to be. Let's talk about that. What do we take away from that other than it's okay for Russia to just do a little bit of mischief in Ukraine and also the elections are going to be illegitimate. Those are the big takeaways, right? Yeah. Well, first of all, he did go 112 minutes, eight minutes short of two hours. And he clearly did that to show that he has the stamina

to do such things. At one point, he talked about working 12 to 14-hour days. Clearly, as our oldest president, going to turn 80 toward the end of this year in November, he's trying to suggest that he has the stamina to do the job. talked about, he said very quickly, did not elaborate, but that he would run for your re-election and that Kamala Harris would be his running mate. So he was trying to kind of get past the public image that he's too old and that he has indeed slowed down and that there's no way in the world he would serve a second term ending his first term at age 82. And did you buy it? No, no. Well, look, he's obviously slowed down. He's had a very public life. You can look at the videos from his public life, and he's clearly slowed down. There's no doubt about it. You know, during the campaign,

I think some Republicans deluded themselves, fooled themselves into thinking he had dementia or something like that, which is clearly not true. But he's he's slowed down. I think the idea that he would run for reelection and that is ask the American people for him to serve until age 86 as president is not only totally unprecedented, but it's just crazy. I just don't think that happens. I mean, obviously, you know, Ronald Reagan left office at age 77 after eight years, and there was a ton of speculation in Reagan's second term about whether he was too old, whether he was senile. They didn't even use the word dementia back then. He was senile. But the idea of doing the most challenging job in the world until age

86 is just kind of nuts. So no, I don't think he's going to run again. You don't think he's going to run again? No, I don't think so. So what's the no so what's the mood what's what's the thinking in washington are the democrats relieved um so the the assumption among democrats in town is of course he's not going to run are they relieved that he's not going to run again no i mean this guy's been a lame duck or is this guy still a problem he was was a lame duck starting on Inauguration Day. This is a bad situation. I mean, we have a name for presidents who are not going to serve another term, and that's lame duck. And so, no, they're not happy at all. And listen, they could see this coming.

This is their own damn fault. But, you know, we've talked so much about the uncertainty on the Republican side. What will Donald Trump do? Will he throw a bomb in the race? Will he blah, blah, blah? But the uncertainty on the Democratic side is incredible. The idea that you have a president who's in his first year who cannot run again and that his vice president is rather unpopular. There's serious doubts about whether

she's really up for the job as well, but she's the first woman vice president and the first person of color vice president. And the idea of Democrats somehow pushing her off the ticket is absolutely unthinkable. Those are going to be very complicated conversations. And then you have these sort of circling of people like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, maybe Cory Booker, you know, of all the people who ran. What about Hillary Clinton? Did you take that? Did you take Doug Schoen's piece in the, well, there you go. I did.

I saw that. You know, Hillary Clinton would be 77 on Inauguration Day. So it would be kind of a youth movement in the Democratic Party. But since we're talking about Hillary, I mean, that press conference that he gave was, I think, one of the worst things I've seen, sort of off-the-cuff presidential presentations. And I know part of it is i i think he's a buffoon so maybe i'm just looking at it negatively i guess my question is how much panic is there in the white house how much political panic is there in the white house when are we going to start to see

a shake-up and who's going to do it like in the reagan administration which has always been great for high drama and palace intrigue it was n was Nancy Reagan walked in and closed the door and talked to Ronnie. And then before you knew it, four people was out. Yeah. Don Regan was out. Right. Who's good.

Is anyone there going to do it? Well, it clearly you need a different strategist. Ron claim can't stay. He's got to go. Right. I mean, it's not the first thing you do.

And I don't think there's any, but this rudderless or is go, right? I mean, it's not the first thing you do. And I don't think there's any, but this rudderless or is it, or am I missing something? I think the problem in the first term of the Reagan presidency, there were serious staff problems. The problem was not the president at that time. And this time, the problem is the president. I mean, do I think Ron Klain has done a terrible job and that if he had a better chief of staff, Joe Biden would be a great president? No, I don't think that. So I think we've just now, after this news conference, heard a little bit of doubt sowing about Ron Klain, the chief of staff in but i don't think we're anywhere near uh that stage yet although you know biden was asked and this is a this is a a section of the um press conference that i didn't think got enough um attention i just did my own podcast on it biden was asked

are you satisfied with your staff's work during this year? And he said, yes, I'm satisfied. And then he went on to list the three things he was going to do different in the next year, because obviously it hadn't been a good year. And there've been a lot of talk about a reset or a reboot of his administration. So he gets to the three things that he's going to do. Number one is I'm going to get out more. I'm going to go talk to people. This is a classic I've got a communications problem sort of explanation.

Right. You see it in every White House when things go bad. They all say we just haven't it out enough to explain to the American people how great we really are. Well, the second thing he's going to do is he's going to bring in more intellectuals, experts, editors, give him great ideas. And he specifically mentioned his time early in the administration where he had some presidential historians and the sort of Michael Beschloss group had them. And they all told him that he had the possibility of being a transformationalities that FDR and LBJ had, but still he could be a big, historic, transformational president like them. It was terrible advice.

And now Biden wants more of it. And then the third thing he's going to do, third thing, big change, is he's going to campaign more. He's going to raise a lot of money for Democratic candidates in this midterm year. So he talked about changes in his presidency, and they are no changes at all, which should not surprise us. But isn't this, it surprises me, I wouldn't have bet a year plus a few months ago, 18 months ago, that President Biden, after a long career in the Senate, after a long career with friends on both sides of the aisles, right, an ability to sort of be senatorial, he was big mouth, but he was a senatorial senator,

that his biggest problem in his administration was going to be getting something through a democratically controlled Senate because of the intransigence of two Democratic senators. I mean, if anything seemed like a lob, like the most easy shot for a Joe Biden to hit, it's that. Like, all you got to do is get two people in your party to come to a deal. That's kind of what he did for, you know, like, that's not hard. And that is the one it's almost like it's almost too perfect it's almost biblical in its like symmetry that this is the thing that he can't do the thing that the thing that he's dead he can do or has done i think i think he skimmed you skimmed very lightly

over the phrase democratically controlled senate and that that's a problem. In the House, he has literally a handful, five vote majority, which is bad enough. But in the Senate, Democrats do not control a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate. It's 50-50. And they have to depend, if they get to a tie, on Vice President Kamala Harris to break the tie. And that's the reason that Charles Schumer is the majority leader. And Biden's problems, as far as passing legislation are concerned, would be fantastically less serious if there were 53 Democrats in the Senate, which is not an unusual situation. The majority party has 53, 54, maybe 55 votes, they can lose a couple and still pass something. And the reason he's had so much trouble is that there's been this huge mismatch between their legislative ambitions and 50 votes, their actual number of votes in the Senate. So I'm not surprised that he can't get anything through the Senate because he doesn't have a majority. So here's an idea. We've all thought that Donald Trump did

our side a disservice by going to Georgia and saying things that persuaded Georgia voters to stay home and costing Republicans two seats in the Senate. In a curious way, he did Joe Biden a disservice. If Republicans controlled that chamber outright, 51 to 49 or 52 to 48, everything would have been different. Joe Biden would have recognized those numbers were against him. He would have governed. Ron Klain would have drawn up an agenda that comported with the way Joe Biden campaigned and that would have comported with Joe Biden's inaugural address. And his rate, it would have been modest. It would have been heavy on infrastructure.

He would have been doing deals that he could actually get through. And he understands how to do that. And his ratings right now would be at 55%. What do you think of that? That's an interesting theory. First of all, Trump truly did the Republican Party a major misservice. But what you're saying is, I think, correct. And actually, it's not that far from what we've gotten, which is there was a big COVID

relief bill, $1.9 trillion passed, I think, in March, probably would have passed in some version in a Republican Senate. Didn't have a lot to do with COVID relief. They just passed one in December, I think $900 billion in December, but there would have been more. And then the bipartisan infrastructure bill, something like that would have happened with the Republican Senate. And that's about it. I mean, there are other things that they've done. I mean, Senate actually has passed stuff. It's just not the big ticket

Democratic agenda items. So I think what you're saying is that we could have avoided a lot of this stupid kabuki theater that we've had about passing Build Back Better or passing the Freedom to Vote Act or the For the People Act, whatever you want to call it, without having an actual Senate majority. Hey, Byron, one more. I know Rob wants to get in, I'm sure, James, but I have one more. The Democratic behavior in the Capitol. The other evening Chuck Schumer put us through pure kabuki theater. He knew he didn't have the votes to get this voting legislation. He knew he didn't have the votes to cut back on the filibuster. It was pure kabuki.

And in the House, Nancy Pelosi has not moderated one whit. So you look at their behavior and you say, wow, these people are confident of picking up seats. They are defying Republicans. They're laying down predicate for all the legislation they're going to be able to get through when they broaden their majority in the House in 10 months, 11 months, and when they get a controlling majority, and the polls show, not only will that not happen, but the Democrats are headed, polls can change in 10 months, but on today's showing, the Democrats are headed for a wipeout, a wipeout of historic proportions in the House of Representatives. I saw one pollster, I can't remember the name, doesn't matter who, but Newt Gingrich recaptured the House of Representatives in 1994 by flipping 54 seats. If the election were held today, I heard one reasonably, it could be 67.

I mean, they could be facing a tidal wave. And the mismatch between the polls and the behavior of seasoned professional politicians is astounding to me. Is this because they recognize they're going to get wiped out and they say, oh, the hell with it. We may as well just be as ideological. We may as well play to the base because we're going to have to be rebuilding from that base 11 months from now. Wasn't there a Tonya Tucker song called It's a Little Too Late to Do the Right Thing Now? Yeah. I think it is.

And, you know, the Democrats in the House have these conference calls and Nancy Pelosi's on them. And I think they all go the same way, which is that a fairly small number of so-called moderate Democrats, non-progressive Democrats, complain about how they're just doing everything wrong and they're going to get killed in November. And then the rest of them just decide to go ahead. And, you know, the progressive caucus in the Democratic Party, I'm guessing, I'm not guessing, but I think it's 90, about 90 members. It's pretty big. And they really kind of run the place. a real progressive from New York, after the Freedom to Vote Act and the whole filibuster thing failed in the Senate, he got on the floor of the House and he said that white nationalists

used the Jim Crow filibuster to stop voting rights. I mean, he called Senator Sinema and Manchin white nationalists. So there's a certain amount of anger in the progressive base that Nancy Pelosi cannot ignore. And then so when Joe Biden says, well, you know, obviously we can't pass this big Build Back Better Act. Maybe we can cut it up into chunks and pass that pass that and nancy pelosi's been very cool to that there are some procedural reasons she's right that it would be very difficult to do um but they appear to be determined to stay on this course yeah i mean if you're heading off the cliff i mean this is either a thelma lou Louise moment or somebody thinks they have a get out of jail free card between now and midterm day. And I just don't see what that is.

I mean, you can only talk about January 6 so much. You can only talk about Trump so much. You can only talk about the past so much. On the list of things that American people care about. You don't find any of those things. You just find the economy. You find inflation. You find energy price.

You find all that stuff. Schools opening, all those things that they are on the wrong side of. We're getting close. Tell me if I've told the story to you because I told it. Maybe I told you it the other day. But I remember going to lunch with John Boehner in 2010. And it must have been the springtime. And remember, Republicans won a smashing victory.

It was Obama's first midterm. They picked up 63 seats to take the House, bigger than that 1994 victory that Peter just mentioned. So anyway, that's a few months ahead. We're having lunch in Boehner with a glass of red wine, of course, said this is baked in the cake. It's going to happen. We're going to win. And, you know, his aides were all nervous. Oh, don't say that. That's off the all uh nervous oh don't say that that's off the record

oh don't say that please um but it was baked in the cake at that point wasn't gonna turn around he was right and i think that uh are we there yet now for november 2022 i don't know it's only january and i'm kind of naturally cautious and, you know, things can, big things can happen that surprise us. But certainly the baking is going on as we speak. All right. I just have to share a little bit before we, I have one more question before we get to, I want to remind people, I'm going to share a little bit out of school. Peter Robinson on our Slack chat, which we have during the podcast says, I love Byron. He actually knows stuff. And Peter

emphasized the nose and it is true. And if you're listening, you are very lucky to hear Byron York. You can hear him now soon, five days a week on the Ricochet Network, the Byron York show every day, knowing things and helping you know things. And so I guess that means that when you're on this podcast, no one will have to listen because they've already heard. There you go. Well, thank you. If you're looking for something, this is the baby that we talked earlier about a national,

a new kind of Ricochet NPR. This is the first brick in that wall, which I hope we'll build soon. So I'm looking for signs. In like, I don't know, it was like March or April or at some point I was in Washington, the first Clinton's first term, and it was a disaster. And I said something, I was at a thing in Washington and I said something to a politician, a Republican politician.

I said, hey, I hear Jack Kemp reserved the whole fifth floor of the Marriott in Manchester, New Hampshire already. And it's a joke. It was a joke, right? Stupid joke. It just meant that they were already

planning to run against Clinton. And this Republican politician looked at me, Ash, and said, really? Really? Because I felt like he's late. He didn't give his credit card soon enough to block those rooms. What are we looking for? Where are the betrayals going to be for the very weak king? Is it going to be somebody spending a little? Such a Rob Long question. Who's going to spend more time in Iowa? Who should we be looking at in New Hampshire suddenly? Where are the signs that an earthquake is about to happen? Because this is a power vacuum. It's a rudderless administration. And, you know, you got a lot

of hungry politicians there. Well, it's a great question and it's incredibly sensitive you know on the republican side well i'm a sensitive person very sensitive on the republican side we've had eight candidates um and i could name them but if i started now i'd come up with seven and forget the last one but there have been eight candidates going to Iowa in the last few months. The only one, big one who hasn't, by the way, is Ron DeSantis. They've been going to Iowa, and there's kind of a just-in-case primary caucus campaign going on there, just in case being in case Donald Trump doesn't run. And in some cases, maybe even if he does, but they're out there and it's no secret that Mike Pompeo is there or Nikki Haley goes there or Tom Cotton goes there, a bunch of

people going to Iowa. Now you can't do that when you have an incumbent president who says that he's going to run again, even if you don't believe him. You just can't do it. So there was a little flutter. It must have been a couple of months ago about Pete Buttigieg. He'd been kind of absent. He was on parental leave, absent during some of the supply chain stuff, and he comes out. And when he takes a higher profile, there are a lot of press notices saying that he's positioning himself for 2024 if the president doesn't run. Then you see Pete Buttigieg just go back in the hole. I mean, he's kind of disappeared again. And there has been talk that Amy Klobuchar, who was on special report last night, as a matter of fact, is positioning herself. She was actually, I mean, I watched her campaign in New Hampshire.

She was at a chamber of commerce, as a matter of fact. And she's kind of positioned herself in kind of a moderate, as a moderate Democrat who can work in a progressive world. There have been talk, I haven't seen anything, but there's been talk about Cory Booker, who certainly still wants to be president as well. But this is the kind of thing you cannot do in an open – and I don't think you can even rent rooms in New Hampshire or Iowa. I just don't think you can. The Committee for American Progress, Future Corp LLC can't block out the rooms. That's a good point, that an outside group could start doing stuff on behalf of some unspecified candidate.

But your two problems are the president and the vice president, that the president who is maintaining what appears to be a fiction that he's going to run again, and the vice president who, if he did not run again, would be his natural heir, and you cross her at your own peril. So, gosh, it's a really, really difficult situation. I mean, as a watcher here, as somebody who enjoys this stuff, this is going to be really fun, right? Oh, yeah. And that's why so much of the media attention on Trump, and I'm not saying Trump's not a story, and I'll talk about him as long as anybody wants, but equally big is the Democratic disarray or the uncertainty on the Democratic side.

Yeah. Well, Amy Klobuchar is from Minnesota, of course, and Minnesota is right above Iowa, where Iowa's hat, as some people say. So it's possible that Amy Klobuchar is being smuggled in a carpet like Cleopatra at some of these places in Iowa. You're rolling out yourself an Iowa hat. Yes, I just did. I've never heard of that before. I just made it up on the spot.

I think Manitoba... I thought I missed something in all those visits to Iowa. Nobody referred to their hat in Minnesota. Manitoba is Minnesota's hat or alter ego. Hi, Peter, you got one more before I have a penetrating exit question. So yeah, it's the question of questions, Byron. If anybody knows, you do.

Uh-oh. Is he or isn't he? Is Donald Trump going to run? Oh, well, I don't know. For a while there, I thought he wasn't. Then I became convinced that he was, he certainly tells everybody that he's going to do it. Uh, you can, you can easily find a lot of people to whom he said he's going to run or made it clear that he is going to run and sort of his

public, um, uh, persona is to act like he's running and then say, watch this space when he's asked. On the other hand, I think he thinks it would be just politically suicidal to say he's not running right now. I mean, boom, there goes all the influence. So I'm not entirely sure he will, you know, he wouldn't admit it, but he'll have the same age problem as Joe Biden does. He would be 78 years old on inauguration day in 2025, same age Biden was on inauguration day 2021. So if you think Biden's too old, Trump's too old. So it's, and also, I do think there's just an inevitable march of time factor here. We had a poll yesterday.

I think it was an NBC poll. And the question is, which has been asked a lot of Republicans, ask it of Republicans, do you consider yourself more a supporter of Donald Trump or more a supporter of the Republican Party. And the bottom line, it was 56% Republican Party, 36% Donald Trump, 56-36 GOP to Trump. That's the highest the Republican Party has been in asking this question in the last couple of years. And it's the lowest Trump has been in asking this question in the last couple of years. So, you know, if I tweet that, all of my Twitter followers say, I can't believe you're listening to polls or you're listening to MSDNC or blah, blah, blah. But there's been a bunch of polls to this effect, and there's no doubt that time is marching on. And even though Trump is certainly trying to remain the leader of the Republican Party, the fact is all this other stuff is happening and he has no official role in it. And there's clearly a lot of Republicans who want to be the next president.

So I don't know what he's going to do, but he's gonna it's going to be a more of an uphill thing than he thinks well you had roger stone out there slamming desantis the other day hard yeah fat trump wannabe and then you had other people saying no no no no don't don't pay any attention to that actually they're they're great friends it's wonderful all of this is processed and all of this will be either moot or incredibly pertinent in a year or three from now. I want to end by maybe circling back Jen Psaki style to something you said earlier about the COVID relief package that they signed. In Washington is the idea that, look, we passed this COVID, spent a lot of money, they ought to be happy. And we're supposed to be out here grateful for it when none of us really know exactly what that money went for. We were told that all this money went to schools and it was

going to change the schools and it was going to help their ventilation so they didn't have to have the windows open in COVID. But none of that's happened. None of this. Nobody can look around and say that is because they passed that big COVID bill. What people feel indistinctly is that maybe it had something to do with the inflation that we had, although whether or not the link between government spending and inflation is as ironclad in people's minds as I'd like. But how much of an impact do you think that that, you know, we did something for COVID is going to matter in 2022, or is that just water under the bridge long gone

that's going to be a moot point by the time people vote? I don't think it matters a whole lot. You know, actually, I saw another poll, which is a very interesting question, but I didn't commit it to memory. But basically, it was, would you rather see Joe Biden do something about inflation or get the Build Back Better bill passed? You can guess what the answer was. It was overwhelmingly do something about inflation. As far as spending, you know, these trillion-dollar spending bills, it's actually not easy to spend a trillion dollars. I mean, it's a lot of money. And there were complaints from Republicans when the COVID relief bill was passed in March,

the $1.9 trillion, that they had just passed a $900 billion COVID relief bill in December, and none of that money was out the door when they passed this new $1.9 trillion. So we are seeing some of the inevitable stories about how the money is misspent, or at least it's spent on things that it wasn't intended for. We've certainly seen a fair amount of stories of individual fraud with PPP and other things like that. So I don't think the idea that, hey, we passed a $1.9 trillion bill back in March of 2021 is going to just be a big, big winner for Democrats. Especially since people suggest that if anything does come of this by the end of this year, it will be the successful reupholstering of the seats in Lincoln Center. Byron, we said we'd have you on for 35 minutes.

We've had you on for 42, which is compliant with the inflation that we have these days. So we want to advise everybody to make a note and subscribe in your podcast feed to the Byron York Show, because you will know things as Byron does. And it's been a pleasure as always, we could go another hour and learn more, but we've got to get out of here and let you get back to your life. Thank you. Thank you guys.

Thanks Byron. Can't wait to get here. Thanks Byron. And we know that Rob has to shoot out here very quickly, but Rob, I want to ask you if you saw the story. I'm going to be gut filled tonight. That's why. Oh, I'm off to play the grand piano. No more butter why. Oh, oh, I'm off to play the grand piano.

No more buttered scones for me. I'm off to play the grand piano. Yeah. Well, good. Give Greg our love and respect. I will do that. One of the things probably that Greg would like to talk about, and you have, everybody's seen these pictures of the trash,

the strewage, the open boxes in the L.A. train yards. Have you guys seen these? Oh, yeah. It's insane. I've seen this for a couple of months. It looks like a third world country. It actually looks considerably worse than the rail yard in New Delhi. Yeah.

It is because gangs are trashing the trains and stealing things. Well, Gavin Newsom, he got angry about it. He went there and he said it looked, as Rob did, like a third world country. But then he apologized for saying it was gangs. He didn't mean that term in a pejorative sense. The railroad is complaining because they are, you know, the bulls will come by and arrest these guys and they give them over to the DA and poof, nothing happens. Slap in the wrist. Off you go.

Send no more. This to me, pictures like this and stories like this are things that resonate and really, really clang in people's heads because this is not the way we ought to be. I mean, in the back of our heads, don't we have sort of this idea, dragnet-like, that when this happens, the cops come and they catch the guys and the prosecutors are eager to prosecute. And they go to jail. They actually go to jail and they break rocks. But we know that's not happening. We know that the thing that we ought to do and can do, they have chosen not to do. And I think that's what so many people take away from this. It's not that we can't do anything about this. It's that they have chosen not to.

It's like homeless, crazy people in the streets, carjackings, gangs ripping up trains. There is a choice to let this happen. Is that the feeling that you get? Oh, definitely. Definitely. By the way, I wonder if this happened to the two of you. You just said a moment ago that these images really resonate with people. I wonder if everybody's thinking exactly what I'm thinking.

Oh, wait a minute. That's where my missing Amazon package went. Something that didn't get delivered, there it is. Just outrageous. We have to worry about the train not getting hijacked. Then we have to worry about the delivery man not getting carjacked. And then we have to worry about the poach pirate who's going to come to our door and take it and if you talk about these things you're paranoid about crime and you want the carceral state as the

idiots use the word uh to you know to to beef up the school of prison pipeline and most people just say no i want the world that we used to live in just a very short time ago in which i could order something it would arrive and i could take it from my door and there wouldn't be massive all sorts of you know swarming criminality twixt there and me of course in the uh in the within a week i'm sure there'll be several pieces written about how actually this is a good thing it's a check on jeff bezos's enormous wealth that this is. This is an act of revolution,

which I think... Well, actually, this is my next National Review piece about how Friday and Smith in Dragnet would have done this in the old days and how they would have to do it today. So I advise everybody to look for the next issue of National Review, or you'll find my work right alongside

Rob Long's. And Rob's got to run because he's got to do gut-filled. But I have one more question for Peter before I go. Say goodbye, Rob. Crack on the mic and say goodbye. Bye-bye, Rob. He's already turned off the mic and he's left. You know, these TV guys, they get a little bit gone. Mediums like this, they

don't matter. Peter, last question here. Meatloaf has died and we wanted to ask you what here, Meatloaf has died and we wanted to ask you what your favorite Meatloaf song was. Meatloaf. There's a person called Meatloaf or there was a person called Meatloaf? There was. Oh, you're just humiliating

me. You are just... And there has been for a very long time. Jim Steinman, Meatloaf, two words. Meat and Meatloaf, two words. Meat and loaf, two words. So the New York Times, when they referred to him in one of his concert reviews, they called him Mr. Loaf, which was the most precious twee thing that the New York Times ever did. We all fell about laughing.

Okay. Great, huge operatic voice. Bad Out of Hell was his. Bad Out of Hell, that's my favorite. Right. Paradise by the Dashboard Light and all the rest of these overcooked over sung you know just massively operatic you know not operatic at all sort of word great popular stuff and he didn't have a great voice and stringy hair and he had like a pumpkin but he died at the age of 74 so i was asked to humiliate you by asking you for your favorite thing.

But let's talk about another passing of somebody of a stout girth. I heard this this morning, and it pained me because Louis Anderson died, the comic. Do you know who Louis Anderson is? Yes, I have a dim memory of him. Big guy. Yeah. Funny guy. Really Minnesota guy. of him big guy yeah funny guy minnesota you know really minnesota guy and he did a turn in this

obscure little television show called baskets where he played and you would love this because it's the monte python men in the vaudevillian sense playing women unconvincingly but convincingly still he played the mother of the characters, Zach something or other. And he did this wonderful turn as a Midwestern middle-aged mom. And it's so perfect. Everybody who grew up in this part of the country looked at that and just saw a lifetime of experience of our culture summed up in this man playing this wonderful character. And I can't recommend it enough. The show itself, Baskets, may strike you as a tad tiresome, and it's got its moments.

But if you can find it, you will find Louis Anderson's last television performance, and it's one of those things that reminds you, why didn't somebody get him doing this 20, 30 years ago? Louis Anderson, a very funny comic, Minnesota, Midwestern talent. Anything else, Peter, you want to sum up before we head out, or are we actually going to get out at a reasonable time this? I'm done. I'm done. I'm a little concerned that now that Rob keeps thinking of us as the new NPR, the anti-NPR, he's going to make you and me,

James, start practicing his NPR voice. This has been brought to you by a grant from the Robert C. and Michael T. Woods Foundation. People like you know, as a matter of fact, that sort of sonambulant warm bath of of of traditional liberalism tone. I remember, you know, back when I was a good liberal in college, when when all things considered would come on and the theme would play, we're about to hear the way things are. We're about to settle ourselves into the set of assumptions. We all should, the smart people, the wise people. And now I listen to it and it's, it's clangingly awful and uncomfortable, woke as it possibly can be in every way. And just not interesting at all. And it's part of that is

because I've changed my mind on a lot of things, but part of it, because also I just don't figure it to be all that compelling radio to leave with this, but we do, we do have it on in the house and we listened to the public radio classical station, which for the entirety of my life on Saturday afternoons has consisted of opera at a very small volume trickling from a speaker somewhere in the house because I'll turn it on in the morning to listen to classical and to listen to the wonderful show that our local station does where they play soundtrack music um and they it's great two hours of wonderful soundtracks and then my wife first

off to do something and i drift off to do chores and there's always just very small barely perceptible opera shrieking from and it goes back to toscanini you know it goes back to to the to the 40s of rca having their i think it was nbc having their their opera on saturday wasn't it the texaco opera i think it was yeah yeah it was an american tradition that you have to somehow subject yourself to opera on saturday afternoons and it remains to this day coming through mpr well we've hit the point where i'm babbling so i have to tell you, Pendulum, our sponsor, is good for you and good for your gut. Support them for supporting us.

And, of course, I think Rob would like you to join Ricochet today. He made two in-show spots and pitches, which is, frankly, stunning. And Rob would also tell you to leave that five-star review, wouldn't he? He would. Make Rob happy. Be like Rob. Peter, thanks. Thanks to Byron, and thank you for listening.

And we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 4.0 next week, my friend. Next week, James. Maybe we can talk all night But that ain't getting us nowhere I told you everything I possibly can. There's nothing left inside of me. And maybe you can cry all night But that'll never change the way that I feel The snow is really piling up outside

I wish you wouldn't make me leave here I poured it on and I poured it out I tried to show you just how much I care I'm tired of words and I'm too hoarse to shout But you've been cold to me so long I'm crying icicles instead of tears And all I can do Is keep on telling you I want you

I want you, I need you, but there ain't bad Now don't be sad Cause two out of three ain't bad You'll never find your gold on a sandy beach. You'll never drift for oil on a city street. I know you're looking for a ruby in a mountain of rocks. But there ain't no Coupe de Ville hiding at the bottom of a crackerjack box. I can't tell you that I'm something I'm not. No matter how I try, I'll never be able to give you something, I know I'll never get her out of my heart She never loved me back

Ooh, I know Well, I remember how she left me on a stormy night Oh, she kissed me and got out of our bed And though I pleaded and I begged her not to walk out that door She packed her bags and turned right away And she kept on telling me She kept on telling me She kept on telling me She kept on telling me

I want you I need you But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you Now don't be sad Don't be sad Cause two out of three ain't bad I want you

I need you But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you Now don't be sad Don't be sad Cause two out of three ain't bad Now don't be sad Cause two out of three ain't bad

Maybe we can talk all night Join the conversation But that ain't getting us nowhere way you