The Ricochet Podcast - Heating Up

Episode Date: June 2, 2017

The hard thing about producing a weekly podcast is coming up with relevant topics to talk about. Nothing ever happens in this boring administration we’ve elected. Yawn. This week, we’ve got Pat Buchanan (you must buy his new book Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever) who weighs in on those endless Nixon/Trump comparisons... Source

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Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. I just, I mean, there's so much wrong, so many wrong things. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lileks and our guests today, Pat Buchanan and Dennis Prager. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. Welcome, everybody, to this, the Ricochet Podcast, number 355. It's brought to you by the fine people at SimpliSafe. When you install SimpliSafe home security system, you're arming your home with the powerful sensors that actually tell you if a door opens or a window breaks.

Go to SimpliSafe.com slash Ricochet and get a special 10% discount while you order today. And we're brought to you by Casper Mattresses. You can get $50 towards any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com slash ricochet and using ricochet as your promo code. And, of course, we're brought to you by Rob Long himself, the personification of Ricochet, who's here to tell you about a great new deal. Rob? Well, first I want to say, if you're listening to this podcast and you're a member of Ricochet, thank you. We are thrilled and honored to be members along with you. And if you are

listening to this podcast and you're not a member and you've thought about it, you really should do it. This is an incredible podcast. We've got Pat Buchanan and Dennis Prager. It's like an embarrassment of riches. And it's the kind of thing we're bringing to you for free. And we say to podcast listeners, we need you, we need you, we need you, and they go, I don't want to pay $5 a month. That's going to kill you, we need you, we need you, we need you, and they go, I don't want to pay $5 a month.

Like that's going to kill you, but okay, whatever. I don't want to join Ricochet because I'm never really going to post at any – I'm not going to make any posts. I'm not going to mix it up. I'm not going to do any of that stuff. Okay, so we heard you. We now have a podcast here just for you. You can join Ricochet for $2.50 a month. That's it, $2.50 a month.

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a center-right perspective that's civil, that will rival the prestige and the cultural power of National Public Radio. That is my goal. We can only do it with your help. So I was just listening to National Public Radio just a few minutes ago with their warm velvety voices and boundless preconceptions, unshakable as they are. They were trying to find some humor at the end of the show by talking about Covfefe, when, of course, Wayne Hellick's part was the imminent death of the world thanks to trump withdrawing from

paris court and cnn had a picture yesterday i just loved um about all the things that were going to happen the flooding the warming the deserts the mass extinctions and it was this chart was labeled science consequences science being that word that they invoke now like a deity not like a deity but as a deity that's the only deity they have of course I'm sorry go ahead the weird thing about that is that they don't understand

the hysteria of it is so weirdly counterproductive nobody believes the projections that the the seas will rise tomorrow nobody believes that so not even i think i think really not even half of their own supporters so the this obsession with the apocalypse is so crazy can i may i just click down just to get them out of the way, click down what everybody knows about this, and then we can return to the point that you guys have just raised, which I think is absolutely critical and at the same time baffling, which is the weirdness of the response. So let's just go really quickly. One, this is not a binding agreement. It was an executive order.

The idea that Donald Trump had to stick with it ignores the Constitution of the United States. If Barack Obama and John Kerry thought this thing was vital to saving the planet, they could have submitted it to the Senate when they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. Two, geostrategically, this thing would commit countries that obey their, that respect their commitments, i.e. the United States, to come up with some way of reducing CO2 emissions. China, Russia, closed countries, countries that are willing to lie and flout agreements, they get to do whatever they want. Donald Trump is right. This thing was targeted the United States.

And then three, we know the politics of this thing, whether – as you can say, it's non-binding, it's this, it's that. We know the Democrats would have used this from now until the end of time to introduce new legislation, CO2, to save the planet. Look, we're part of the Paris Accords. It would have been a catastrophe. And everybody knows this. This is right on the surface of the issue. You just, it's right there. And yet the hysteria is mind-blowing so what is going on many things at first i want to ask rob rob lives by the water of course oh yes okay so i am i am i imagine that prices in your home in california in that district are plummeting because people are because all of your good liberal neighbors are factoring in the imminence of their property. Yeah.

The irony is technically I do – I already technically live in a flood zone. Already, you know, the Venice, California, Venice is supposed to reclaim wetlands. So people are already mad about that. But, yeah, no, I already can't buy flood insurance and live in a flood zone. I guess now I live in a floodier zone. But in Manhattan, I'm in Manhattan right now, and man, I've got two rivers on either side where the waters are surely rising. Are rents dropping? Are people fleeing southern Florida?

Ironically, rents are dropping, but they're dropping because here there was a housing bubble and there's a little bit of a slowdown here in New York. So, yeah, rents are dropping, but they're not dropping – they're dropping for economic reasons. That's what's so strange about this is that even if you grant – It's a strangeness it's even if you grant even i don't which i don't but even if you grant them the science and you say yes global warming it's happening or climate change whatever that whatever the new phrase is they want us to say um maybe not at the rate that they're projecting but it's happening and it's really going to be bad if it happens even if you grant them all of that. There is only one proven solution, which is the free market technological advances that should be encouraged and not subsidized, but encouraged by a free market,

vibrant, venture-risk, capitalistic society. The United States of America has already cut its emissions to the levels at which they were at 20 years ago no other country has come close to that we have a zero we've obeyed the kyoto protocols which we didn't sign exactly the last time we decided that last time we went rogue and the seas were going to rise we're all going to die in some kind of nasty quake or whatever. John Kerry and Michael Moore and Barack Obama and Jake Tapper all know this. And they're still hysterical. There's some. Go ahead.

Yes. I mean, Rob's right. Free market solutions, new technologies that are invented that are economically feasible. That's what's going to eventually do it. But but it takes too much time. The only way that we can stop climate change is the complete deindustrialization of the world. No, I'm serious. Well, I know you are.

Everybody – we get up with the sun. We go to bed when the sun goes down. We have whale oil lamps. Of course, it won't be whale oil because the whales are sacred too. But you know what I mean. Otherwise, we're just fiddling around the margins. We impoverish ourselves for the sake of the planet and accomplish very little. But I hear an intake of breath there.

It's about to take issue with me. Yes, that's me. No, no. What I was going to say was I agree with that except that if it were even, I mean I might understand it. I might be able to sort of parse the logic of it. But it's not even. It's not as if China and India are – have these draconian cutbacks. They want to deindustrialize us as they deindustrialize China and India. It's very strange. That's right, and we don't want the third world to have air conditioning because that's bad for the planet as well. Now, I mean it's extraordinary when you think about it that while we have accomplished these things indeed, where did this panic begin? I heard the other day somebody say that you can tell a climate denier –

That's us. The existence of the climate. You can tell a climate denier if they always use the phrase global warming mockingly. It's climate change. It's not global warming. And I thought, well, eventually it became climate change. What you guys were calling it global warming for about 15 years. Now, the fact that you've shifted away from that tells me everything about this position of yours, this infinitely malleable concept.

The main point of which is to shame people about the lives that they leave everybody pretty much outside of the true believers and the people who are really upset about this everybody pretty much gets that when they say climate change and what we have to do what they mean is you have to stop doing the stuff that you do like drive and fly yeah and have lights on and have big cars and not take public transportation you have to stop doing all of that and we're going to find a way to make you that's what that's what people hear now james by the way james this it strikes it has struck me more than once although i think this is the first time i'm saying it out loud one of the remark one of the many remarkable things about my friend James Lilacs is that he has proven to me that the close study of popular

culture, you don't have to start with Aristotle, popular American culture can lead to wisdom. You can learn a lot just by looking. But boys, James and Rob, I have some very bad news for the two of you. Brace yourselves. I know what it is. Yesterday, Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States, did something that required genuine virtue. Even if we grant that he's as impulsive and crazy and thoughtless as the two of you at sometimes wish to argue often just argue why you have to ruin all of that we have to say that this guy stood up to the press which he knew was going to blow look he stood up he stood up he did something that required just talk to him courage and you have to admit it. Go ahead. I will. I'm waiting. I was about to say before you started on this.

You mean I stepped on your segue? This nutty peroration. I was about to say good for President Donald Trump. This is a good thing he did. This is great. Good for him. I'm glad he did it. Me too. I would have said that without reservation.

This is the chief benefit of having a shoot a shoot from the hip uh guy who doesn't care this is all right this is small potatoes compared to peter you know mx missiles in europe which everybody hated uh and everybody really hated there were riots um yes there were but okay this is this is good this is more more of this please i would say say I don't know whether I refer to it as virtue. I mean, hold on. I mean, I don't know if I I don't know if I refer to that. I don't think it's specifically to Donald Trump. I just mean that in terms of just he's still president of the United States and a political officer. He's not. All right. So let me try one. Let me try one more on you. And I want James in here because I want to hear you both say it. But piety, piety is a virtue.

And, you know, I'm now. Yeah. Piety, piety, love of country, placing your your your native land first. Oh, and when Donald Trump. Oh, no, no, no. I think when Donald Trump says the greatness of America now, of course, he's blundering this way and that. He's wrong on trade and so forth. But he is placing love of country at the center of his policy in a way that Barack Obama simply did not. Oh, I – go ahead. No, that's one way of looking at it, and I'm – I'm getting nowhere with that.

All right. And while I said that I support this without reservation, that sort of means it's like saying let's not look too closely at this because I don't want to tell you some of the things in the back of my head about why he did this because I don't want to hear from the other side how this is proof that we should start putting him up on a plinth and gilding him with gold because this is a hell of a guy. But since you did, I will. And that's it. This is all great. Support it. Fantastic. We'll have the conversation.

Kind of easy for him to do because the media hates him. The liberals hate him already, and this is one of the things that the people who voted for him expected. And so there you go. It's not hard. The thing is it reminds you that all of his successes are from unilateral executive actions, that we're not seeing a crafting of strategy, LBJ-type bending of arms. He's good at making the orders, not because he necessarily has an authoritarian personality, as people say, but because that's something that he can do without having to go through deal-making, which I thought he was so great at. But I don't want to say any of that because it would ruin the fact that I praised him for doing this,

and I think that's a great deal. So you know what I just said. You know, it's interesting, and we should put a link to this in the podcast notes. Rich Lowry wrote a very, very smart piece yesterday uh or at least i read it yesterday i think it was yesterday uh in which he just talks about the modern american president modern being turned a corner right around obama right where uh the this sort of unilateral presidency which is something that obama and trump have sharing share in common and it was a really interesting piece talking about how the presidency itself has changed. I think that's sort of it's irrelevant, really, whether it's Donald Trump is the president.

I think any president at this point would have to be following along those footsteps. My my issue here, it was a smart move. It's the right move. He needs to be looking for reliable I.T. solutions for your business and innovate. We are the I.T. solutions people for businesses across Ireland from network security to cloud productivity. I'm David Satterfield. Whether it's communications or security, Innovate has you covered. Visit Innovate today. Innovate, the IT solutions people. Praised for making the right moves. He needs to be, this is a very, very smart politically, certainly, I think, but also has some principle behind it. And you can tell it has some principle behind it because Donald Trump is not the chief or even, I think, or even the loudest advocate for the decision.

If you scan the news channels yesterday or the blogs today, you see this incredible cacophony of great, whether it's your cup of tea or not, but powerful, smart, conservative leaders who speak well and are eloquent, making good arguments. I mean, you mentioned Jake Tapper. I thought Jake Tapper did a great job yesterday of letting Rand Paul. Oh, did he? Good.

Yeah, beat his head against the wall. I mean, Rand Paul just kind of picked up Jake Tapper. And I like Jake Tapper. I think he's the fairest TV news. I think he's incredibly fair. He was tough on Rand Paul and Rand Paul was tough right back. And if you watch that exchange, you are edified. I mean, I think that's what makes that exchange so smart is that you are edified. You are smarter than you were before.

And Rand Paul does it all and does a great job at arguing. And I think this is something – this is a great bellwether for – or even a north star here for Donald Trump. See this decision. See how well it has been – the media is going to hate you. The liberals are going to hate you. Europeans are going to hate you. That's fine. They're going to hate you anyway. The general constellation of Republicans and conservatives have basically echoed and amplified your choice and your decision and supported it in this – more of this. Figure out what this is for healthcare.

Figure out what this is for taxes. Figure out what this is for everything and do this because this is what a president in 2017 needs to do. By the way, when I said that, you know, again, we have unilateral action and Rich Lowry was making the point and Rob was making the point, that doesn't mean that I think that Trump should have gone to the Senate and gone through some long process, that he was perfectly within his power to do so, this whole scrap of paper, just so we're clear. But I think it's – I mean I think it's a generally – it's not a – I don't think it's a good trend.

Oh, no, no. Yeah, I'm hoping which turns out I take Rich's argument. I hope it's mistaken. I hope that by the time I mean, who knows if Donald Trump gets two terms, I hope Mitch McConnell figures. I hope we pick up a few seats in the Senate and they figure out how to run the institution. It's been a decade now. Well, not quite a decade, but a decade now when the principal job of a Republican in the United States Senate was to show up in the chamber a couple of times a week and vote no. And it's hard if you've been doing that for a long time to pull yourself together and figure out in this new tweet, tweet a sphere, endless news cycle environment. It's a new environment. It's hard to figure out how to run that institution. The House, likewise, it turns out the Republican Party, like all majority parties, has a couple of wings. govern is by diktat, then the republic is done. That part of the agenda has to be restoring right order.

Yeah, and we don't get to do anything. That means we don't get to do anything. I mean, I would just say I know we want to move on, but I just want to say that the other thing that I think this is useful. I mean, this is a useful next couple of weeks because we see that Donald Trump is going to be on a roll politically. He's going to win back his – his wavering supporters are going to come back to him. He's got some good job numbers. They're not fantastic, but there's some good – job numbers came out today that suggest there's an economy slowly on the mend. But the most important thing, and Jim Garrity pointed it out, is that the economy added 6,000 jobs in mining and 8,000 jobs in support activities for mining.

So, okay, that's 14,000 jobs, not a lot of jobs, but it does suggest that jobs are the most important thing and that his decision here is consistent with a job strategy and i know we want to move on but i'd add one other point this is it's not exactly atmospherics but it's somehow or other i remember i felt this during the 80s when things go right they tend to pull themselves together and go right comprehensively. So in some funny way, it's not nothing that that anti-ballistic missile test worked the other day, that we were able to hit a bullet with it. It's not nothing that we've got three carrier groups within striking distance of North Korea saying,

we are serious. It's not nothing that Jim Mattis goes on television. And when an interviewer says, what keeps you awake at night, he immediately says nothing. I keep other people awake at night. Right. Just a gathering sense that this country is getting its act together again. And that has to help Trump if he knows what to do with it. And I'm sitting here in Minnesota, just shaking my head, just shaking my head because you don't get it. I have every intention of going to Europe at some point in the next couple of years. And do you know how they're going to look at me? They're going to look at me with scorn and derision

because I am an American. You think actually that getting 6,000 mining jobs is important. And I've got my fingers up in little quotes because mining with its dust and its dirt and its filth and its rapery of the earth, mining. Those people getting those jobs in mining should be having a job downtown at the cinema running the projector, which is showing a movie from France about the plight of a community when the mines shut down, because that's what's important. Well, you make a solid case there, James. But I do think there's an even more solid case to be made that Peter made, which is that it's better to feel safe. It's better to feel secure. It's better to have someone else stay awake at night. You know, folks, getting a good night's sleep is easier said than done, especially if you just heard a noise downstairs. Think about it. What do you do in that situation?

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in case you just can't get to the pad downstairs. You hit that thing and you get help because somebody stole my silo. My silo. Somebody stole my Segway. Somebody stole my kit. I'm just shaking things up here a little bit, people. Why don't you come pick it up? Yeah, because every time I talk, people think that a commercial is coming.

That is true, actually, except for me. So we're not going to do that. Instead, we're going to go to our first guest, Pat Buchanan. Patrick J. Buchanan has been a senior advisor to three American presidents. And from 1966 through 74, Pat was confident. Let me start that one again because we're going to stop this. So, right? All right.

I'm starting up. I'm teeing it up again. So let's go to our first guest, Patrick J. Buchanan. He's been a senior advisor to three American presidents. From 1966 through 74, Pat Buchanan was confidant and assistant to Richard Nixon. In 1974, Pat Buchanan served as assistant to Gerald Ford, and from 1985 to 87, Pat was the White House communications director for Ronald Reagan. His new book is Nixon's White House Wars,

The Battle That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. You can read his syndicated column and follow him on Twitter at Patrick Buchanan. And we welcome him to this, the Ricochet podcast. Hello, Pat. Hello. Let's talk about the book. Everybody likes to think that we are in another Nixon-type era with impeachment looming around the corner. At least that's what they did last week.

First of all, that's nonsense, right? And secondly, there's no possible way that we're echoing the Nixon years yet. Well, I think there's no substance there to justify talking about an equation with Watergate undeniably. I mean, Watergate began in June of 1972 with a break in a crime originally. And by a week later, it identified all the main perpetrators, and the only question left was whether it went up to Magruder and Mitchell. So no, I don't think the substance is there, but there's no question that the mood in this town

and the obsession of the media are very similar to Watergate in its later days. Pat, Peter Robinson here. The title, I haven't read the book yet, I confess. I will certainly read it, and I'm hoping we can make a little television together about the book. But Nixon's White House wars. That word wars, it's the fights that took place in that White House that define that administration. Why do you say that? Nobody, I don't think anybody would say Reagan's White House wars, would they? No, they wouldn't. I think that Nixon's White House battles were not only internal, I believe, but also external. I mean, in my view, we were really in a battle between the conservative Republicans, which represented by Buchanan and moderates and others. And we were in a battle over what kind of campaign to conduct and what policies.

But I do think, and we were certainly engaged with the outside, and there's no question about it, that the external forces added to Nixon's mistakes brought down and destroyed his presidency. But Peter, one of the points, let me give you an example. Yes. It was a great battle to get the Agnew speeches attacking the networks in Washington Post and New York Times in November of 1963. And internally, the opposition in the White House fought very hard. They fought hard for busing decisions, and they fought hard over court

appointments. And all these battles inside the White House, it mirrored what was going on outside. Right. And how did the president handle that? How did your how did President Nixon handle all that? Did he was it Rooseveltian? He knew these of course, he knew these battles were going on. Richard Nixon was a very canny man. He knew what was happening around him. He just let them play out. I've heard you say over the years that he'd had Ray Price was on the speechwriting staff. So so Richard Nixon could hear how a policy would sound through the eyes or through the writing of a liberal. You were there for the conservatives. Sapphire's there for humor, moderation, pragmatism. And Richard Nixon was using these battles? Well, he was not just talking speech writers. He had also people in the cabinet. Right. Let's take the issues of the South.

All of us were for desegregating the South, but the question was these judges were handing down rulings requiring the mass busing of kids from suburbs into inner cities. And the country was on fire over the issues, and so we battled. I battled with Garment over speeches. I tried to get Agnew to deliver a speech. Nixon would preside over these battles, and he was receptive at times to the other side, I mean, for me, the other side winning and prevailing. In terms of domestic policy, for example, if you take EPA and you take OSHA and the Cancer Institute and a lot of areas in the book that I mentioned, these were clearly liberal policies, liberal Republican policies, progressive policies.

At the same time, I think his political strategy, we won the battle for that, Ken Kachigian and I, and others, and Colson and others who argued that we, let's go with the blue collar, southern strategy, northern Catholics, add these groups together to the Nixon Goldwater core of the Republican Party, and we had a new majority and hammer issues that split the Democrats apart. And so Nixon was tremendously as receptive to that idea more than anyone else in the West Wing, as he was to really some liberal ideas. Okay, so now bring us up to Trump and the election we just went through. He had the South with him, solid South,

Richard Nixon's Southern strategy. He also carried the industrial upper Midwest to everyone's astonishment. He carried Pennsylvania by more than a couple of points. It wasn't a huge margin in Pennsylvania, but it also wasn't a squeaker. So did Donald Trump stumble into some kind of new version, reassertion of the Nixon strategy? What do we make of this? You're correct in this sense, that we put together this combination, Nixon got 43% in 1968.

We put this together, and the Lord provided us George McGovern as an opponent in 1972. So you've got all these Northern Catholic, Irish, Italian, Eastern Europeans, and others who could not stand the counterculture, could not stand what was being done on campuses, their anti-Vietnam demonstrations. So the Northern Catholics came with us, and of course the Southern Protestants, as we called them then. They'd been re-baptized evangelicals. But these were all basically folks who grew up as Democrats and voted by and large for FDR and Wilson every time they ran. So what Nixon did, he put together 49 states. Reagan got 44 and then 49.

But this started through attrition and aging and dying. This great coalition started to pass away. And what Trump did is he put together the remnants of it narrowly with Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio. And he got those voters. My cousins are all in western Pennsylvania, southwestern Pennsylvania. And Trump's signs were all over the place out there. So he got the same kinds of voters that Nixon got.

But to be candid, there aren't enough of them left. And they are really, attrition is taking its toll. And the old idea of Brownstein's idea of the blue wall, I think, is we should not write that off. The mass immigration into the country, legal, illegal, whatever you call it, is bringing in minorities that vote between 70% and 90% Democratic. So California's gone. California's gone. California's gone forever. New York, Peter, look at California. I mean, Reagan won it four times in landslides and Nixon won it six out of every time, seven times he ran. And every time he was on a national ticket, which is five.

So did we did Donald Trump just put together the coalition for the last time? Or is there if you're in the white, you're in Trump's White House and you say to him, here's what you need to start doing right now to plan for your reelection. What, what advice would you give him? I think he's, uh, he's obviously got to get this group back together and he's got to keep it energized and he can't lose that. The court, the, the deciding issues here where it was not only a sort of, if you will, regular Reagan Republican when you're talking about judges and taxes and things like that, but control of the border, control of immigration, no more foreign wars, stop exporting jobs, make new trade deals. deals, the economic nationalism and economic patriotism and America first aspects are an indispensable element of Trump's cause. That's why yesterday, what he did yesterday with a very nationalist decision, which rallies his base, he has to keep doing that.

But to be truthful, you've got to have the Ryan Republicans and the McConnell Republicans with you as well. And you've got to get that coalition together to get something done. And frankly, it's not succeeding right now in getting anything done on the Hill. Hey, Pat, it's Rob Long. Thank you for joining us. I've got a question.

The rap on Nixon's always, oh, yeah, he was no conservative. Look at all the liberal stuff he did. You mentioned EPA, OSHA, all that stuff. Big lefty, rhino, lefty, squish, just like me, frankly. But it was a successful political strategy. Oh, it certainly was. Would you recommend – what similar things would you recommend to President Trump to both hold on to his coalition? I mean, you know, there's what he did. He did it in the campaign when he said we're not going to touch Social Security and Medicare. But Nixon is not going to touch them. Those are indispensable to his coalition. Right. And it presents a real problem if you want to balance the budget down the road. But Nixon, I'm really talking about the sort of more liberal, almost great society initiatives

that Nixon signed off on. Right, we had the 18-year-old vote, and he ended the draft, and all of these things, and as you mentioned, he gave away an awful lot of land to the Indians. Anything on the horizon for Trump? No, but what I think is that if you've got many of the conservatives in Washington on the Hill post-Reagan, they come to represent sort of a, we're going to have to cut and tear and there's going to be sacrifice and all the rest of it, which doesn't give you that extra dimension that gives you the country the way Reagan's persona did. And so I think, and also in terms of policy, there are some things you can't go gold water

on. It's all there is to it. I mean, we went through 64, and you woke up bloodied and broken, and you said, look, we tried that, and cutting the Social Security card in half and selling TVA doesn't do it. Right. But I guess if you were in the Oval Office today and you were trying to give Trump some advice, and I think he's going to get a nice big fat lift from yesterday's decision about the Paris Accords. I think that he's going to win over a lot of people.

What other advice would you give him facing what looks like going to be a tough midterm? Well, I think what he asked, everything's going to be contingent or a great deal is going to be contingent about whether the economy really gets moving again. And apparently there's still a lot of confidence out there

if you see how the markets have been reacting. I think he's got to work on that. And as a practical matter, I do think dramatic tax reform, and this is what I think is the anticipation in the business community and everything, I think this is number one. And secondly, I do think that an infrastructure program is number two, an Eisenhower-type thing, although I don't know that you've got the money to go that big anymore. But these could be done.

And the third thing is, for heaven's sake, stay out of any new wars. And our neocon friends here in D.C. are plotting right now. Do you think that – would you consider that health care and health care reform and Obamacare reform, would you put that in sort of the next one? The problem with health care right now is that the numbers have changed. Before Trump got here, everybody wanted to be rid of Obamacare. But now that they've seen the Republican care or Trump care, they prefer Obamacare. So if the Republicans repeal that and they're explaining why all these folks are suddenly being dropped off the rolls, 19 and 2018 could be a serious problem.

So look, the Republicans face a lot of dilemmas in terms of what they said they were going to do and what they're going to do. And they're not going to deliver on some of these things, I think. Let me rewind just a second ago. Which wars are the neocons in Washington, D.C., planning against? I think you can see it quite clearly. They're pushing for a war with Iran. I didn't like what I saw over there in Saudi Arabia, to be honest, this idea of a Sunni Arab NATO with the Israelis behind the Saudis and everyone talking about the great threat and the great menace being Iran. I don't share that view. I'm kind of hopeful with that election.

I think Iran's a divided society, and I don't think we want another war there, but I think those folks would like the United States to smash Iran the way we did Iraq and make sure that Iran does not emerge as the dominant power in the Persian Gulf, which, frankly, it will ultimately do if it doesn't have a great war like with the United States, because it's a larger country. It's more advanced than Saudi Arabia in a lot of ways. I think there are 80 million people there. And among the young there, clearly there's a real desire to move toward the West and away from that theocracy.

So I would like to see a lot more diplomacy. And I agreed, frankly, with the decision to the nuclear deal. I think it's a good deal. I don't think the Iranians want nuclear weapons because it wouldn't make them any more secure, but less so. Pat, Peter here with the last question. You wrote a book called The Death of the West. About a decade later, you wrote a book called Suicide of a Superpower. And yet, as a believing Catholic, you understand that despair is not permitted.

That's a matter about your soul, Peter. That's the distinction I was hoping to make. So here we have Donald Trump. We're three months into it. Illegal immigration is down. Neil Gorsuch is on the Supreme Court. We've got a secretary of defense who says we're not just going to shove ISIS around. The new policy is annihilation. We had an ICBM test, anti-ICBM test the other day that worked. Donald Trump just took us out of those Paris Accords. Is Pat Buchanan beginning to feel a little optimism? Short-term optimism, yeah. Short-term, Peter.

Listen, was I optimistic? I was elated that Trump was elected. And there are victories, and we're going to have some victories. But in the long term, if you... Let me just take a look at... I had a fellow in here, a journalist from the top Italian newspaper, and I was talking, and Italy's a great country,

and their population is declining. They're horribly... Their economics are in terrible shape. They look across the Mediterranean to Africa, which has 1.1 billion people now, 2 billion by mid-century, 4 billion by the end of this century. And they're already coming across the Med in the thousands. Terribly, some of those folks are drowning. But this is the story of Europe and the story of the West. And I don't know that there's – I mean, I just don't see how you can be a long-term optimist about the future of Western civilization, which once, when my father was born in 1905, ruled the entire world almost.

Well, that's books to come. But in the meantime – Are you guys going to secede out there, by the way? California? I'm coming. I've got some people that will help you. If California's the seeds, it's either Texas or I'm camping out in your backyard on St. Louis.

Look, Northern Virginia's gone. You've got to get to the Charlottesville before you get to the Confederacy. I'm in Minnesota. We'll be part of Canada before the century's out. Pat Buchanan, his new book is Nixon's White House Wars, The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. Thanks for being on the podcast today, sir. Okay, you guys take it easy. Thank you, Pat.

Thanks, Pat. We're going to go – this would be the spot where you expect that Rob interrupts me because I'm doing a commercial, but I'm not. Oh, yeah. I'm going straight to Dennis Prager. Dennis Prager, of course, is author, syndicator, columnist, radio talk show host. His most recent book is still The Best Hope, Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He's currently in the midst of a 30-day, $1 million crowdfunding campaign with Indiegogo for the Dennis Prager, Adam Carolla film, No Safe Spaces. It's about the decay of free speech and free thought on college campuses and what this happens to mean for our country.

And we welcome him back to the podcast this time, not to talk about Bruckner and Fountain Pens, but movies and other things. Hey, Dennis, James Lamex here in Minnesota, and we'll talk about the reaction to your reaction to your National Review piece in just a bit. But first, this movie, how could it be more timely, given what we're seeing in places like Evergreen College, where you have students telling the teacher, essentially, that hand gestures are no longer permitted on American campuses?

Well, look, you're the first to know, because it's going to come out. The Democrats are going to have some hearings on it. We actually sponsored these events at Evergreen State and elsewhere in order to help publicize the movie that Adam Carolla and I are making. You're the first to know. Well, the thing of it, Dennis, is that I suspected that these were actually genuine examples of campus idiocy because of the combination of humorlessness and hysteria, which seem to characterize these overblown reactions. But tell us more about that. All right, forgive me. I just want to say we've really transcended craziness and absurdity. It's now vile, or to rearrange those letters, evil, what is happening on campuses. of violence and racism on the part of black students at evergreen state college or university that i have ever witnessed on an american campus and the fact that it is not reported is one of

the reasons it is so important to adam carolla and me to make this film great dennis peter rob here. Before I say anything else, bravo. I just, the other day, I just happened to watch your Prager University video on the preamble to the first commandment. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt. And it was just brilliant. It was just brilliant. It was just brilliant. It is amazing that the Decalogue has been around for thousands of years, and Dennis Prager has something new to say about it. Anyway, so compliments to you, Dennis.

And I hope everybody listens to all of that. Go. Go say anything you want. Well, thank you. It means the world to me because the thing I'm most proud of, all the work I've done, has been on the Bible, to make it relevant to modern people. And the Ten Commandments in particular, because that's everything encapsulated, the whole moral message. And we have about 10 million views on the Ten Commandments. There are 11 different videos.

And you love the most difficult one, the preamble. Yes. To your credit, the most difficult one. The preamble is your credit. That's the, the others are easier. They're all, I make them all simple, but not simplistic. But the preamble is, it shows you how, what a serious thing you are. We still there? We're still here. We're still here okay good okay i'm with you guys god doesn't want you to call me a serious thinker dennis that he doesn't want you to tell lies like that so you went silent for a moment okay so you wrote a piece why conservatives still attack trump and as the ink was still drying

on that george will attacked Trump in a column yesterday that went all over the place. What's going on here? It's actually depressing to me, to be honest. I was as opposed to Donald Trump during the primaries as any never Trumper. I wrote probably at least four columns attacking him in every way possible. I said, though, from the and on my radio show, and I lost listeners as a result of it. But I, you know, I do say what I believe on my show and in my writings. And I thought he was unfit. And this is what I wrote. But from the very first column I wrote, I said, if he is nominated, I will vote for him. And then I became as passionate advocating for his election as I was against his getting the nomination. And this is, he has surpassed every conservative's most erotic dream.

And I'm puzzled. Well, I'm not puzzled because I wrote my theories as to why, but it is puzzling, if you will, that conservatives do not look at what he does and concentrate on his tweets. I don't give a hoot what he tweets. I care what he does. He's the president. And what he has achieved is astonishing. Astonishing. They said, I remember being attacked by callers. You believe he's going to appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court?

Man, you know, I'm going to sell you a bridge, Dennis. That was the typical reaction. For that alone, people should go, whoa, thank God he was elected. Hey, Dennis, it's Rob Long. I remember following that, following your conversion. Let me ask you something. Don't you think this president, though, from his supporters, needs a little more tough love and a little less love? Right now, no.

Right now, first of all, he won't listen to you. Secondly, and more importantly. No, no, no. I mean, me either. Okay? It doesn't matter. And I have connections through someone there, but it doesn't matter. It's what matters is this. And here is the bottom line of my column. We're in a civil war. If you believe that, then your general, whatever his flaws, has to win. That's defeating the left is the moral duty of conservatives. That is the primary moral duty.

Now, I made this analogy in the election, making it clear I am not comparing him to Stalin or her to Hitler. I'm just using the analogy to show we supported a genocidal maniac to defeat a bigger genocidal maniac. That is the way it is in life. I am not a utopian. This is the man I have and I know whom I must defeat. If the left does not lose, America is over as we know it. Now, here's the key. Many of those who responded, like Jonah Goldberg, and I adore these people. They're friends. Many of them, almost everyone's been on my show. Many of them have made Prager University videos. But Jonah Goldberg wrote,

I don't agree with Dennis. It's not a civil war. It's a culture war. Okay, So that's it. I'm right. If you think it's a culture war, then it doesn't matter if you attack your own general. But if it's a civil war, you have to support the general that you have. Well, Dennis, let's look into the future. Let's look at seven years after a Trump presidency. And let's look at the inevitable handing of power back to the Democrats, which will happen. This is America. Unless, of course, we decide to unilaterally do away with the progressive side of the political equation. But we can't and we shouldn't. What do we win in eight years? Is this war over or is it like the Syrian civil war grinding and bloody and produces refugees to

Canada and France? We have a better chance with, just for example, we have a better chance with a conservative Supreme Court to survive than with a left-wing Supreme Court. That's all. I mean, I don't, frankly, I don't look at what eight years from now will be like. Right? That's why I don't buy the global warming issue, that the that Florida will be flooded in 2100 does not overwhelm me as a as a problem. We will figure out how to deal with it scientifically by the year 2100, if in fact that happens right now. I'm not prepared to bankrupt the United States on behalf of computer models of what will happen in 2100. So too here. All I know is we must

win as much as we can now. We need hundreds of more federal judges who will not promote the lie that these guys did, who overturned his country ban on the basis of what the man said running for office. I mean, a fifth grader understands a judge rules on a law, not on the words of the guy who passed the law while he was running for office. So I'm going to take every good we can have right now. If the economy really does succeed, Americans may keep Republicans in power. Nothing succeeds like success. Period. Dennis, last question. Today in the second hour of your show, you're going to be beginning the segment to the happiness hour.

Well, you know, with a song we all know and love. But in the third hour, you use The Beast by Milt Buchner. Great tune. And it comes from an era when people used to have an organ in the living room, and people would gather around, and Dad would play the song, and the like. Is the decline of American culture, can you trace it back to the point where the organ started to disappear from the living rooms of America? You have a truly original mind. I can't say that I do.

I can hear you. No, you know what? No, no. I think it's the decline of the oboe, not the organ. Ah, the oboe, of course. Indeed, you're right. Yeah, yeah. I know.

No, no, no, no, no. You were close. You made me realize, though, it's the oboe. Okay. I would have gone with the organ with the small child playing the cymbals and the triangle in the background. But that's another point we'll have to get to. Hey, we know you've got a show to do. We'll be listening to it. By the way, if I could just urge people, I urge your listeners to go to nosafespaces.com and help us make this movie, Adam Carolla.

Because we have to do what Dinesh did with regard to President Obama. We want to do this with regard to the universities. And we are – we will put that link in the show notes. So everyone listening to this podcast, check the show notes. They'll appear on your phone. And we thank Dennis Brager, Oboe enthusiast, for being with us today. We'll see you. Thanks, Dennis.

That is correct. Thank you. Thank you, guys. An honor. Thanks, Dennis. That is correct. Thank you. Thank you, guys. An honor. Thanks, Dennis. You know, all week long, ever since it was a Tuesday that the piece was up in National Review, and we were debating it back and forth and ricocheting the link, and I was just thinking, all right, we're going to have Dennis on the show,

and I was formulating the things that I was going to say in the back of my head. But to tell you the truth, the whole Trump versus the previous never Trumpers, all of this, you have to get behind him. Other people saying you have to take the tweets and character into account. It's really, it's, it's,

it's just boring and done and over by this point, mainly because I, not because the passions are gone, but because the arguments, it's like debating same sex marriage after, you know, in 2016, it's just the arguments

are so familiar and tired by now i think so i also feel like i mean i haven't quite worked it out or i would have gotten into it with with dennis a little bit maybe when i thought about a little bit more i'll be able to do that i also feel like i while i'm in general agreement that there is a culture war um i don't think that it's going to be won by the president or a president. If you really believe in a culture war, I don't think that you should support the president. I don't think you should support any president. I don't think you should support. It shouldn't be about politics.

The culture war is going to be won by people making movies like Dennis is making. Yeah, but I'm sorry. I say I use the word tired and you just let it go. You didn't even you. Oh, my God. You're right. Holy moly. You are not –

Speaking of tired. Your segues are too subtle. That's your problem, James. You're not paying attention. You double-deal. You do a segue, and then you're like – then it's not a segue. I think you've got to pick a lane. Oh, Rob.

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Casper.com slash Ricochet. $50 off. All right, well, let's go back to the thing we were saying before, and that was the Civil War, the Cold Civil War, the Hot Culture War. Peter, weigh in on this. I don't – this distinction between a civil war and a culture war just is lost on me. It's politics. It's a war.

Of course it's a war. It is far more important for – I mean – but now we're going back. It's politics. The pro-Trump stuff and the never-Trump stuff is just – although I will say this much. Ten days ago, 11 days ago, 12 days ago, when Trump had fired James Comey and then he was off traveling around the Middle East, you could have argued either way. I do. By the way, I was just in Washington earlier this week, and it is astonishing. As best I can tell, that town, two thirds of that town hates Donald Trump from the left and about one third of that town hates donald trump from the left and about one-third of that town hates donald trump from the right it is just astonishing the animosity toward that man everywhere you go

even among a lot of republicans off the record a lot of good sign actually it's a good sign so so i mean i granted that i so this argument i mean i can see what dennis you gotta you gotta stand with the president because even just two two weeks ago, the Democrats, the left, the press, everybody thought we were going to have an impeachment within. And now here he is pulling us out of the Paris Accords. He the one person he'll listen to in moderating his tweets and being more careful about what he says is his own very expensive personal lawyer who is now running up big bills for Donald Trump. I actually think Trump is in a pretty good place and therefore as of today, both the never Trump and the pro-Trump stuff is a little bit boring. What's much more interesting is why is Rob going to Paris? What does he think the French are doing these days? Can I – before we do that, can I just say my radical position about Trump is that when he does something stupid that I think is stupid, I'm going to call it stupid, and he does those things regularly.

But when he does something smart that I think is clever, or I think it's, whether it's by design or he just sort of forest gumped his way into it, I don't care. I'm going to praise it. I think his...

So here's the question. Here's the question. Isn't there a difference in, well, I'm not even, yeah, isn't there a difference in scale though? So I think you and I would agree that the tweets are stupid. You ought to just knock that off. They're stupid, yeah.

But the tweets don't – haven't you sort of stopped reading them? Well, I think they might. No, I think they might matter. I think it's really hard to say that a president with his – who came into office with his popular vote deficit, which was enormous. I mean, whatever you want to say, it was enormous. And with his sort of polarizing attitude to sort of continue to up on health care. Now, I don't think he should give up on health care, but I think making health care your first priority was stupid. Right, right. I see what you're saying. It's politically dumb in the way that I think that Barack Obama was politically dumb, although Barack Obama came into office at a 53 percent smashing popular vote victory and universally popular, which he then sort of dribbled away because he was a fool. But what terrifies me is that we are turning into Obama acolytes who march, and it's all about Obama. And that you refused.

That's correct. Absolutely. If you're not your party or power, it just evaporates. And then suddenly you're the Democrats. You're like, you don't have any house. The state houses are empty. The Senate doesn't have any new leaders. The House doesn't have any new leaders. And you're reaching down to like deputy mayors of San Antonio or whatever for your next generation. And I think that's a mistake. We are losing a lot of support in a younger demographic. I don't mean like the 18 to 24 i mean 18 to 40

and that's not a good sign um and this president can is we know he could be popular he just needs to pull himself together and i don't think it's me being you know anti-trump or never trump to say that i think it's me not drinking the kool-aid but we all we're all different he's to smile he's show we're having a good. You know, the dentist will say the tweets doesn't don't matter. I think they do because they create controversies and give the press more gasoline for the fire. They love the fan, but,

but also there's this, the revelatory of the man himself. And sometimes you just wish that you didn't learn these things. I wish the president was not up at 12 o'clock or 11 o'clock bitching about press coverage on Twitter. Yeah. Most powerful man in the world. You know,

I know he doesn't drink, but maybe have one lap cap diet Coke by the fire. It's not a bad idea. You know, watch. I don't care. A Woody Woodpecker cartoon, anything but the shows don't.

There's a level of obsession about that. That is bizarre. And the other thing is that the reason that we have these tweets is that periodically he feels that the spotlight has gone elsewhere and that's it's not acceptable the spotlight's always got to be on him because it's it's mainly about him it's also about the rest of us but it's mainly about him and i'd run reagan and it doesn't matter as long as we get what we get but still the treat the tweets the behavior of the character they are revelatory and you know prager spent six months telling us why this guy was unfit

and now i'm supposed to completely ignore everything that dennis said about why he was unfit that's all i'll say yeah the chief I think, of being president is that there's no other job. You got it, right? You got it. You're there. You don't have to get it again. You're there. So when people ask Reagan, does it bother you to read what they say, the mean things they say about the New York Times, the Washington Post, he looked at them like they were speaking Sanskrit because he said, I don't read the New York Times, the Washington Post.

And he really didn't. It's like, well, why would he read that? He already knows what they say. It's not that interesting. And he's already president, and they're not. And that's what I – the confidence and the quiet and the deliberateness of a president whose policies I support mostly, which I think I would say about this president. I just – it just makes me nervous. It makes me nervous.

I'll grant all of that. And here's the political problem of the hour. Pat Buchanan touched on it. So conservatives like me and Dennis Prager, I agree with Dennis Prager. Donald Trump has exceeded conservatives. Most erotic. But again, you know, illegal immigration is down.'re out of the neil gorsuch is on it's not down oh no it is it is it's down it's down a lot it's down by some 70 according to the figures which are the same figures that were being quoted when it was up so it looks as though it's down by

a lot anyhow however everything now comes down to economic growth and they screwed it up. They put health care in the legislative agenda ahead of tax reform. And that may turn out to be a very serious error. But the whole name of the game, in my judgment, between now and the midterms, the whole game is whether they can get this economy growing again. By the way, you can do a lot of that by rolling back regulations by executive order through the agencies. And a lot of that is taking place. But they must get tax reform. And we shall see. You know, look, it's easy stuff first, right? It's easy stuff and mandate stuff first in your first year, meaning you have a consensus, broad consensus in the house

and the senate anyway uh for reducing corporate tax rates right that's something that barack obama talked about right so you can probably do that you can do that in a week uh you could probably get some other weird uh you could do all the administrative bureaucratic stuff you can get done but that's really not going to be um it's better be done on the qt anyway because you're just that's going to erupt into sort of controversy the second thing you could do which i'm still don't i'm still not quite sure i don't i don't know why it's not being done is you ran on a wall there should be a we should be that's a mandate issue and that really should be a big issue for him i mean at some point people who wanted a wall you don't want to where's the wall? He said we needed a wall. And I understand that you say legal immigration is down, but we've had a net loss of illegal immigration since 2008 in this country. From Mexico, from the south, from southern Florida. Right, right, right. So in general, I mean, there were easy wins he could have racked up.

There were easy wins he could have racked up, frankly, just speaking politically, as a president who needs Democrat support in the Senate. Because if they don't, I mean, basically it's a 60-plus rule now in the Senate, however you cut it. Democratic support on what, on his budget? On budget, on corporate budget or on on budget on on corporate tax cuts on something right right right got it yes he's thrown the bone right you know obama did the obama's mistake was he never threw them a bone all he did was insult republicans and the response for the country was okay now you're gonna we're gonna put them in charge and everything stopped once he got obamacare, nothing else happened. And if you were a progressive or a liberal and you wanted things to happen, you had to turn to surreptitious stuff in DOJ and surreptitious stuff in the deep state, as they say, which I think is true, right?

So that's a bad outcome for us. We shouldn't be wanting that outcome because it's going to be hard to turn that deep state around to the right in the next four years so we should be and it doesn't matter by comparison with economic if you get economic growth everything else gets much much easier much much everything and chuck schumer wants it too so that's right you know the first year you make friends and everybody's happy and then the second year you go for the throne is there any place to put a bridge and park slope rob do you you'd know well that's just it i mean we want to get economic growth by stepping aside and letting the dynamic root animal spirit surge up and the other side wants to use the state to extract money from one group or invent it out of a magic

printing machine and then use it to create cement pouring jobs here and there yeah which which has the problem cement too burly i mean uh so yeah cement the great book by gladkov the great work of soviet socialist realism that's what happens when you remake society your best sellers have terms have names like cement uh you know as far as throwing the guys a bone and working with the democrats rob the problem is of course is that they are now the self-styled resistance right right these are the guys who are sitting in attics listening to radio broadcasts from the other country waiting for coded messages that tell them it's time to start putting you know the the demolition stuff behind underneath the bridge for when the nazis come over so maybe maybe when they yeah a little down and realize the resistance is sort of uh an over

you don't need that many of them though you don't need that many of them just need enough you know that that was the ob Obama's big mistake. Right. He wasn't hungry for compromise. He wasn't hungry for compromise. Or even like you could buy a senator. I mean, senators will do what you want. You just have to like give them a little bit of a little lipstick on the pig and a senator will show up and shake your hand. It doesn't really mean a droid politics is something that Donald Trump should be able to do. He has charmed bankers and creditors his whole life. I mean, he declared bankruptcy four times, but he probably came close to it 40. So 36 times he probably sat in front of people who he owed a great deal of money to and managed to get them to get out of the house and do what he wanted to do. You need a little of that, I think.

Right. Well, I mean, the art of the deal is about himself looking good at the end of it. He's come up against a whole bunch of other people now who for the first time have the same priority. Bankers aren't looking for mass adulation. They're looking to make money, right? That's a very good point. He's dealing with 535 sociopaths. Right.

So many sociopaths. But if you want people who've got their head screwed on straight, why not go to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley where you will see Peter Robinson being interviewed by Pat Sajak. What a great Ricochet event. It's a special live taping of Uncommon Knowledge, July 23rd. That's a Sunday at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. Pat Sajak interviewing Peter about the speech,

and tickets are free for Ricochet members, and they'll be hosting a meetup afterwards as well. Reagan and Thatcher members will have a special section of seats reserved for you, and some special mementos of your visit as well. Details are on the site. Remember, everybody, you can support the podcast by patronizing Casper Mattresses and Simply Safe, and you can visit the Ricochet store where you can buy things with that special R, Swan About Town, with it branded as such.

And people will ask you, what is that about? And you'll tell them. We have a new podcast tier, $2.50 for people. That's an amazing deal. It allows you to listen to everything and comment on the podcast as well. And as soon as you get a taste, you'll want to upgrade ASAP. Thanks, everybody. And, guys, we'll see you next week.

I got the feeling that something will have happened to Twix now and then. Oh, there'll be some tweets. All right, boys. Next week, fellas. I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and

stops my mind from wondering where it will go. I'm feeling the cracks that ran through the door and kept my mind from wondering where it will go. And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong and right, where I belong and right, where I belong. See the people standing there Who disagree and never win I wonder why they don't get in my door I'm painting a room in a colorful way And when my mind is wandering

There I will come Ricochet. Join the conversation. And it really doesn't matter If I'm wrong, I'm right Where I belong, I'm right Where I belong Silly people run around They worry me

And never ask me why Don't get past my door Taking the time For a number of things That weren't important yesterday And I still go Fixing all where the rain gets in Sucks my mind from wondering

Where it will go Where it will go Fixing a hole where the rain can see Stop my mind from wandering Where it will go