The Ricochet Podcast - It's All OK

Episode Date: September 7, 2018

Hugely busy week, which means a hugely busy podcast. This week, the invaluable Byron York stops by to set us straight on just who might have penned that NYT op-ed, where in the world Bob Mueller is, and other D.C. shenanigans. Then Christopher Scalia, who knows a thing or two about the Supreme Court, joins to discuss the Kavanaugh circus, er, hearings. Also, so long, Bandit — you were one the of... 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. This is about the closest I'll probably ever have in my life to an I am Sparta this moment. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lileks. Today we talk to Byron York about Anonymous and Chris Scalia about SCOTUS. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 414.

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while it just packs the right amount of vibrations to help clean your teeth. Go to getquip.com slash ricochet right now, and you'll get your first refill pack free with a Quip electric toothbrush. And we're brought to you by the memory of Burt Reynolds. But we'll get to that later. We're also brought to you by Ricochet itself. And Rob, I know you want to talk about Burt Reynolds. Sure. But actually what you are obliged to do at this point is parrot the words of Director of Technical Operation Max, who every week delights

in making you say things that make you grit your teeth. But we're all on the same page when it comes to pro ricochet. So what's Max got you saying this week? Max has actually kind of soft-pedaled this week. I think he was giving me too much to read, and I think he felt like his words were being mangled and unfairly maligned by me. Or it could be that Max is trying to lay low because he is the anonymous op-ed. But I will say this.

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These are fun podcasts to do, but they're also fun to listen to. And it would be great if you guys could support us, ricochet.com slash join. That's it. Great. I freelance that a lot, as you can tell. Excellent. I had people at the State Fair come up and say they were Ricochet members, which is fantastic. And I was standing on a stage expostulating about lip balm to people at the State Fair while tens of thousands of people streamed by to my left, caring not.

But it was fun. And what I loved about it was that at no point did somebody in the middle of one of my little perorations of the crowd stand up and start screaming reproductive health now or some other line from Handmaiden's Tale. And that seems to be the norm protests of people who have no connection whatsoever to any sort of organization lavishly funded, right? It's just they're moved by the spirit of the moment. There's no big money corrupting politics here, is there? What do you think of what we saw this week so far and how do you think Kavanaugh came out? Peter, welcome and what say you? What we've seen so far this – well, what is there to say? The Democratic Party is in total thrall to the socialist left.

I don't know what else to call it to the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. When I say they're in total thrall, I mean that every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who's running for president, and that includes for sure Kamala Harris and it includes for sure Cory Booker. And it also includes some who are just extremely partisan, Senator Blumenthal of New Jersey. I beg your pardon, of Connecticut and Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island. And they were asking questions that made it clear they just didn't care. Every person I named is intelligent. Several of them are lawyers. They know what legal arguments are. They know what the job of a justice of the Supreme Court is. Even on the argument of Justice Breyer, who is probably the leading proponent of a so-called

living constitution where the justice is on his argument, they read their values into it. Even on the argument of Justice Breyer, the job of a Supreme Court justice is circumscribed. It's to read the text. It's to consult with colleagues and academic work. They just don't care. They have turned it into a completely political circus. As for Brett Kavanaugh, who knows? Under that kind of barrage, the best you can do is attempt to remain dignified and try to duck any questions that would lead you necessarily into saying things that are improper for someone who may soon be sitting on the high court to discuss. I thought he did a fine job. Well, so somebody mentioned – I was having a discussion the other day and someone said, well, who was the last nominee to the Supreme Court who genuinely answered questions, who took them seriously and unbent his thinking in front of the committee? And the answer to that was Judge Robert Bork. I know. And it did not end up well. It did not end up well for him.

So, I mean, it just – I keep thinking that I've lost the capacity to be shocked. Donald Trump shocks me still from time to time. I suppose we can get to that in anonymous – so on. But the Democrats came out even more partisan and even more reckless. They are being reckless with the Constitution of the United States, and I was shocked. Rob, you have to walk Peter back here because I'm sure that Peter saw the New York Times Paul Krugman piece. Paul Krugman's piece was titled that Kavanaugh will kill the Constitution. He will kill the Constitution. That's what's at stake.

He will interpret it so narrowly that its windpipe will close and it will asphyxiate, I think. Well, it's also – the killing and the dying, we're all going to die. If you vote for Brett Kavanaugh, I'm going to die. If you vote for net neutrality, I'm surprised that there's anybody left after net neutrality passed and various other things that were going to kill people. Here's the kind of credulous nonsense you have to put up with, the kind of disingenuous thing. I just got an alert from The New York Times 13 minutes ago. So this is Friday morning. May as well give the date away. Thirteen minutes ago on Friday morning, the Kavanaugh hearings have been going on for a long time at this point. Certainly decades, it feels like, at American political pace these days.

Here's the alert, New York Times. Democrats grilling Judge Brett Kavanaugh may be using his confirmation hearings as an audition for president in 2020. This is what the New York Times breaking news. Here's the problem. Here's what I don't like about this, and I don't like it when it's – the same thing happens on the Trump side as it's happening on the Democratic side, which is this pretend saying something in a spooky voice that is in fact the truth. But if you say it in a spooky voice, it seems scary. Isn't it true, Judge Kavanaugh, that you will be unelected and serve for life? Yes, that's true.

And you feel that, and they'll ask questions about, so does the Supreme Court have any restrictions on its abilities to adjudicate appeals cases? No, it does not. So it's unelected! Anything you say in a powerful voice, even if you're reading absolutely anodyne parts of the American Constitution, which has pretty much stood

strong for two centuries plus, it sounds spooky. And you're trying to get him... What they're trying to maneuver Kavanaugh into doing is to saying things like, yes, if a case comes up that is one of these hot-button cases, I will be part of the decision-making of that case. I'll be on the screen for it. But they're trying to say it in a spooky voice with a spooky light.

And I think it's dumb politics too because all the Democrats have to do is be normal. That's really their only challenge here in the midterms of 2020 is to act normal, is to act like human beings, is to be able to say with credibility to the American people, we're not crazy. We're not left-wing socialists. We're normal Americans just like you, and aren't you tired of this guy? That's all they have to say. But they can't. They can't do it. They can't do it. They can't do it.

It's crazy. No, because they may not feel that in their hearts that they've joined the ranks of the – they've lurched to the left, but they can't repudiate them because then they're roasted on Twitter. I mean, Feinstein says, you know, we're sorry about the interruptions

and she gets 7,000 castigations on the internet because she has to resist every single possible aspect of this administration. Uh, it's, it's remarkable if you watch this and you have any sort of brain to engage, you say, all right, let's get this clear. Then the, the, the constitution is absolutely explicit about abortion, but it's sort of vague about the right to carry arms. Uh, we should, um, absolutely respect all precedents except for Citizens United and Heller. These have to be turned over. It was on and on and on.

And you realize that the base of this is a party that increasingly regards the Constitution as an impediment to what they want to do. I mean it used to be a wonderful, noble, pliable, procrustean bed that they could shape could they could you they could shape from this raw american clay a better world but now just to hell with it because there are good things and we want the good things and if bernie sanders comes up with a bill that is literally by its name a bill of attainders since it's named bezos by some strange you know initialism uh that's fine too what matters is justice of social justice and it's just you know the moment you hear that's fine too. What matters is justice, of social justice. And it's, you know, the moment you hear this, you start to spin up and you can't. It's impossible to relax.

Oh, it's impossible to relax. You just want to calm down and it's just difficult these days. It's difficult. It's hard. There, deep breath. Now, you know, a lot of words, folks, have been used to describe the current state of the country and calm is certainly not one of them. I don't think I've taken a deep breath since this podcast began.

But there are ways in which you can center yourself, to use some of the terms here. That's why we're excited to partner with Calm, the number one app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation. It was even named Apple's 2017 app of the year. And I'll bet when that happened that they were excited, but not unduly so. Calm gives you the tools you need to live a happier, healthier, and more mindful life. Just five minutes of Calm changes your whole day. If you head to calm.com slash ricochet, you'll get 25% off a Calm premium subscription,

which includes hundreds of hours of premium programs. It includes guided meditations on issues like anxiety, stress, focus, and relationships, including a brand-new meditation each day called The Daily Calm. And there are sleep stories, like bedtime stories for grown-ups, and so much more. Rob Long, who, as we know, can be excitable at moments. He was making coffee before this began. He's a calm member and booster. And, Rob, tell us how it's going for you. Well, now you know that I – I can hear all the conservatives listening to this right now and rolling their eyes.

But let me tell you something about meditation. It actually is an incredibly medically powerful thing. One of our dear friends is an something good from this totally distracting world and this totally distracting like object in your hand that you're scrolling through twitter and checking all this stuff all the time and now you can actually use the phone to kind of um chill out for a few minutes and it has a huge impact on the rest of your day that is that that is that is google it i mean it meditation is a incredibly, incredibly valuable tool for anybody who wants to focus and be calm and sort of pull yourself together a little bit for the day. And Calm is a perfect way to do it. Well, there you go. Ricochet Podcast, which would be you can get 25% off a Calm premium subscription at calm.com slash ricochet.

It includes unlimited access to all of Calm's amazing content. You get started today at calm.com slash ricochet. That's Calm.com slash ricochet. And our thanks to Calm for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome back to the podcast, Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor, and the author of The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Byron, we know that you know who wrote the anonymous letter in the New York Times. The question is, do you think that the rest of the country beyond the Beltway cares, is watching, and is on tenterhooks waiting for the identity to be revealed? No, I don't think they care much at all.

But this is totally consumed Washington, and apparently points outside from listening to you guys. But look, I don't think they care much. Obviously, you know, we're going to see in November the degree to which the midterm elections are really nationalized. And, you know, this has always been a kind of a conflict between the whole all politics is local and this race is nationalized thing. And, you know, we'll we'll know more after the election. Laptop. Check. Spanner. Check. Screwdriver. Check. A career built around me. Check. Spanner. Check. Screwdriver. Check. A career built around me? Check. Bring your best self to work every day with exciting heavy vehicle mechanic apprenticeship opportunities with BusAaron and Dublin Bus. We are leading the way in sustainable public transport, moving from fossil fuel to zero emissions. Join our team and help keep Ireland on the road to greener journeys.

Enjoy a career that's built around you. To apply, visit careers.busseran.ie today. Wait a minute. That's it? We'll talk to you again in November. I used to work in local news and, you know, the big snowstorms are really big and the weather is really big. And one i was the producer one time they go to this there's this huge snow predicted overnight and they go to the weatherman and they say tom what's it going to be and he said we'll know more tomorrow i don't know yeah but local stations love to hype upcoming weather bad weather and i was looking looking at CNN. I walked past CNN yesterday, and there the Kairon says, the stripe says, White House in crisis.

So this is what's being pumped out all over the country and to airports, of course, all over the world. But it doesn't really feel like here, like White House in crisis describes the peril of the republic at the moment. No, and by the way, I would recommend you read an op-ed, just saw it, from Mark Penn who was President Clinton's pollster for a while and describes the White House in chaos by which he meant the Clinton White House in 1995.

And look, this is clearly more intense than it has been in some previous White Houses in chaos, which could be due to the actual facts of the Trump presidency. It could be due to the craziness of the media environment and social media. It could be due to a number of things, but clearly we've had this kind of analysis of, you know, presidents who are kind of talking to the walls and disloyal people who are working for him and depictions of the staff gone crazy and the White House in chaos. We've had it before.

So, okay, all right. Who is it? I mean, I want to know. Well, I don't know, but I will say a couple of things. And first of all, I think Molly Hemingway said the other day, like, why name names when you don't know anything? Why bring somebody's name up when you don't know? Because it even bring somebody's why bring somebody's name up when you don't know because it's fun person actually did it thank you

word on the orient express byron come on i mean i want to know what's professor plum the lead pipe in the library i will bring up a couple of issues which i think are interesting when you're looking for the identity of this person perhaps start with with people who are outside of the New York times, of course, but people who know who wrote it, not the author, him or herself, but who know who wrote it. Because if you listen to Jim Dow, the New York times op-ed editor, he said on their podcast, quote, it began with an intermediary who I trust and know well. OK, well, there's an intermediary. We know that.

Also, if you read it, it was it was done in perfect sort of op ed style. There's an op ed style that's really perfect. So you think, well, did the New York Times editors who are all very good, did they just craft it and turn it into that or what? And Dow said it came in the door really well written. Quote, I don't typically expect someone in government to write clearly. It's not what we anticipate most of the time. In this case, I was really quite impressed by the clarity of the writing and the emotional impact of the writing. So then you ask, well, did this person have somebody who helped them write it? Maybe the person who helped them write it was the intermediary. It could just be one person, but there are multiple people who know who did this who aren't the actual author.

So it seems to me that's a place to start. Can I just throw out two names? The name that everyone's talking about. I know, I know. Larry Kudlow, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, New Yorker, smart writer, great writer,

wonderful thinker. That was brooded about, his name was brooded about in the early hours of this. And let me – how about another dark horse for you? Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of Treasury. I think – well, first of all, I'm a little handicapped by not being maybe up to the very second on the denial. I thought Mnuchin had denied it. Yeah, well, he's a Wall Street lawyer – a Wall Street banker, so he's going to deny it, but he's not going to be held. Well, okay, then you have 30-plus people who have denied it, and if you figure that some of them are lying, then it could be any of them. Well, remember, here's my template. Joe Klein

who wrote the book Primary Colors, written by Anonymous, and was later revealed, revealed himself. He denied it several times. He said it's not me. Yes, he did. And somebody has been floating around an old Wall Street Journal

article today where Mark Felt was absolutely with great heartfelt passion denying that he was Deep Throat. So, you know, I have not seen if Larry has denied it or not. So but I have no reason to believe any of these people may or may not be involved. So I'm going to stick with my uh with my i'm not going to say who it is because i don't know well let me ask you but you know i did expect them to be i did expect it to come out pretty soon though you know and um my first thought was this cannot stay secret for very long and it's already stayed secret for maybe a little longer

than i thought it would so i know i know p wants to jump in. Here's my last question to you. This is usually what Peter says to me. As somebody who's been there, been watching this administration, how accurate, forget who wrote it, how accurate is that op-ed? Well, I think that it's probably, there are plenty of accurate parts in it. You know, the president is impetuous. He does change his mind. He'll say something, let's go kill Assad. Let's kill a whole lot of them, you know?

And, I mean, he clearly has approached being president just like he approached being Donald Trump before he was president. Okay. The idea that you become president and then you realize that your words, every syllable you utter has such gravity that you have to be extremely careful. Well, that's not him. He just doesn't do that. So has he said all this stuff in meetings? I'm sure he has. I think, you know, would it have been a good idea to terminate the South Korea trade agreement? I think not. Was it a good idea for Gary Cohn, as depicted about the and Phil Klein, who's at the Washington Examiner, who's no fan of Trump, were concerned about the undemocratic aspect of what this anonymous writer described. And also, the anonymous writer talked about stopping not just Trump's worst

excesses, but his agenda. So what does that mean? Does that mean a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border? Does that mean travel ban? What is it, you know, is it anything that he decides is bad policy that he must stop? But look, the erratic behavior, mercurial behavior, the saying all sorts of things. I don't doubt that a lot of that's true. Byron Peter here. Hi, Peter. So first of all, thank you very much. That was just lovely because that was like listening to Hercule Poirot, played by Byron York, giving a lesson to Inspector Hastings, played by Rob Long. No, no, Hastings. We must use the little cases.

We are now at mid-novel, and I can't wait to have you on in a week or two when you give us a summing up of Poirot, and it was you! All right. So we know, for example – By the way, can I just interrupt for one second, Peter? If I am right, if I am right – What, Mnuchin or Laird? It wasn't Laird. I will never, ever stop talking about it.

I just want you to know. I'm going to turn this into a six-act play if I'm right. I'm just preparing you all for how awful it is. You will become the most boring person in America if you tell us five years from now. Remember that op-ed that was published in 2018, and the guy was anonymous, and I guessed who it was. Byron, you'll see me coming. You'll turn and run away. I know what he's going to say.

Yes, exactly. I promise that. Anyway, sorry, Peter. Go ahead. Okay, no, no. So, Byron, you just compared this to Mark Felt, the number two at the FBI who was deep-throated, brought down a president. What was the other comparison you had? In any event, this is a nothing.

It's an anonymous – it's a voiceless, colorless op-ed. It was written in op-ed ease so that it didn't sound like anybody. And it said nothing new. Furthermore, it didn't even say all that much that was specific to this administration. Go all the way back to Nixon. We know that Haldeman and Ehrlichman, part of their job was to ignore certain outbursts from Richard. Okay. So that says, let me job was to ignore certain outbursts from Richard. Okay. So that says, let me move on to two things that could actually be substantive. And now I'm talking about the effects on the midterms, moving public opinion.

Bob Woodward's book. Woodward has a reputation. A book is a book. It's not a column. Any effect? Are people taking it seriously? Have you seen anything more than excerpts yet yourself? Well, let me just address the op-ed one more thing.

There's been some disagreement with me saying this, but from the very beginning, and I think I was on special report the evening it came out, so just a few hours later, I was struck by the smallness of the complaints. Yes, good point. I was struck by the smallness of the complaints because the author conceded that Trump had some rather big accomplishments, that his policies were already making America safer and more prosperous. Now, peace and prosperity are really sort of the highest level presidential achievements. And I thought by comparison, his complaints were rather small, that Trump could be erratic and would change his mind and would make meetings just miserable. And I'm thinking, great, meetings were really bad. That's really a big deal. And a lot of the accusations of Trump against Trump were sounded dramatic, but he didn't really back them up.

It's as if I were saying, you know, Peter Robinson is stark, raving mad. And I made a big deal out of that. And somebody said, well, like, what has he done that's so crazy? And I didn't name anything. It's not a strong case. So I thought that there was a smallness when you read the thing rather closely, that there were some people who were sort of taken away by the author's descriptions. Of course, we can't judge the credibility of that

because we don't know who the author is. But I didn't think that, especially once he conceded that Trump had brought peace and prosperity. And I think he also mentioned tax cuts, a more robust military and regulation. And I'm thinking that's pretty good. Anyway, on the Woodward book. Woodward. On the Woodward book. You know, there has been a certain amount of commentary. I have not read it. I don't have it. Certain amount of commentary to the effect that, well, you know, we've heard all this before. And, you know, Michael Wolff said a lot of this stuff. But, hey, this is Woodward. This is Woodward.

Right. Yeah, exactly. So as if I remember Michael Wolff's book, Fire and Fury, taking up at least a week of news cycles. Right. And there was some there was some pushback because Wolff had been a jerk to a lot of mainstream reporters and had also. Whereas Bob Woodward has spent an entire career signing to everybody in Washington. Well, I mean, Woodward is worshipped by a number of reporters. And as a matter of fact, I don't want to wander around too much,

but, you know, the very first White House Correspondents Center last year, the first one of the Trump presidency that he did not attend, they decided what to do. And they decide to have their two icons of the press, which is Woodard and Bernstein, appeared.

And they spoke at the dinner. And they called it a celebration of the First Amendment. But what was underneath was, I mean, this was, when is the White House correspondent's dinner? It's in the springtime, so March or April of 2017. I mean, clearly Trump was already super controversial and everything was overheated every single day. And this was a celebration of two guys who removed a president. I mean, that was the subtext of this whole thing.

And so that is the subtext now of the Woodward book, which is he brought down Nixon, and now look what he's saying about Trump. Now, will this affect the voters? I don't know. I mean, it's been my impression from my own reporting that there were shy Trump voters. You know, they don't like to talk about it because people I know who don't like Trump are pretty aggressive in expressing their disapproval of the president. How could anybody support this guy or something like that? There are such people, but on the other – and there are a lot of people who don't like Trump's style. Right. And so I don't know. But historically, look, it would be it would be newsworthy if Republicans don't lose the House. Right. Because

in the past 50 years or so, when a president has his first midterms, his party loses a bunch of seats. And then usually the average of seats that they lose is more than the Democrats need to take over the House. Laptop. Check. Spanner. Check. Screwdriver. Check. A career built around me? Check. Bring your best self to work every day with exciting heavy vehicle mechanic apprenticeship opportunities with BusAaron and Dublin Bus. We are leading the way in sustainable public transport, moving from fossil fuel to zero emissions. Join our team and help keep Ireland on the road to greener journeys.

Enjoy a career that's built around you. To apply, visit careers.busaaron.ie today. Byron, may I? There's one other point about which I want to ask you. But first, I want to see if you agree briefly with this summing up on my part. Three big events in Washington this week. One, the anonymous Wall Street Journal. I beg your pardon. Not the Wall Street. Emphatically not the Wall Street Journal. The anonymous column in The New York Times. The release of snippets of the Woodward book, incidentally, immediately slapped down by two people who were quoted attacking Trump in the Woodward book, General Kelly and General Mattis. And I believe that

if there are two people, and there may be only two in all of Washington whose integrity cannot be impugned, it's those two former four-star Marine generals. And they both said Woodward's lying. And you know what? I believe them. Okay, so we have Anonymous, we have Woodward, and then we have the Kavanaugh hearings. And you know what? I don't think any of them broke any ground. There's nothing new in any of them. Washington is overheated. The left views the Constitution as ins instrument.

There's just nothing in any of it, as far as I can tell, that's genuinely news. Kind of a breakthrough Spartacus moment for Senator Booker. I thought that was breakthrough. Okay, so last question for me is Mueller. Is Mueller going to do anything? Have we heard the last from Mueller between now and the midterms. And then I know James wants to get in here. Wow. Well, you know, you can't predict, but it has been my feeling that Mueller would observe the 60-day non-rule rule in the Justice Department, this rule that everybody talks about that doesn't really exist, that you don't take any public actions that might influence the election in the 60 days beforehand. The Trump defense team has basically kind of suggested that it really means that Mueller has to just shut down, which is not true. But you just don't take some big splashy public

action during that period before the campaign. And I think that Mueller does kind of want to go by the book on that. And also, he has a great example of what not to do, which is James Comey's announcement in the Clinton email investigation on, I believe, October 28, 2016, 10 days before the election. It was disastrous. It was a really unbelievably stupid thing to do. So I do think Mueller is going to be silent, or basically silent. Not totally, though, because we have another Manafort trial coming up pretty soon in the District of Columbia. As we speak, George Papadopoulos is going to be sentenced in a short while. I don't think Michael Flynn is going to be sentenced any time in the next,

I don't know, a few weeks, maybe before the election. So there's going to be stuff that happens. But I would really be surprised, actually, if Mueller took some big public action. Byron, let me take a 30,000-feet view here to conceal my lack of specific knowledge. We were mentioning before Woodward and Bernstein. Yeah, I have a friend who's teaching a writing class at a local college, college, mind you. And he said the other day that his students had no idea who Woodward and Bernstein were. They didn't know what Watergate was. He made them watch all the president's men.

These kids, they don't know. What they do know is that they're going to be impoverished by expensive loans for their education, and they will be unable to find houses anywhere, and that they will essentially live much worse than the previous generation. And also that Trump is a racist. How do you possibly realign in the Republican Party and its ideals to attract these people? Because they're more likely to wander over to the party, crooks its finger, and say, come here, we we got bushels of free gold. Well, that's the sort of Shangri-La, the mythical young voter you want to appeal to.

They're not going to vote that much, and they really don't vote a lot in midterms. So, I mean, maybe there's some race, like Beto O'Rourke or something, or something that captures their imagination. He skateboards. He was a punk. Yeah, right. Got a band. Maybe there's, you know, something that catches their imagination, but generally they won't vote. And this is going to be, I think, just's speech in Montana on Thursday night, and I was really struck by the amount of time he talked about Social Security and Medicare. I am not going to change your Social Security. I'm going to protect your Social Security. There's going to be no changes to your Social Security and Medicare. The Democrats are just trying to destroy it. And the only change I'll make is to make it stronger. Really, really interesting. He spent much more time talking about Social Security and Medicare than he did talking, railing about this anonymous op-ed. And I thought,

well, that's smart. Well, good, because our demographic then can look forward to continually feasting on the marrow, the sweet, rich marrow of the youth as they toil for our benefits. Well, this is not – I mean, look, this is one of the ways – this is the most un-Ryan-esque thing you could ever say. And this is one of the ways in which candidate Trump blew up Republican orthodoxy and everybody at the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Heritage Foundation and AEI and all of these places that have all of these charts of Medicare costs going crazy by 2040 and beyond. You know, Trump just didn't listen to them and he said i'm not touching your medicare and your social security and and uh to my knowledge nobody has been elected president uh doing otherwise you know byron is ever it's a it's a pleasure we'll talk to you uh whenever the next big thing breaks which is probably i don't know what four or five hours or so. Byron, come back, okay?

We'll call when you find out the identity of Mr. X. I want to get you to just – I think you should just keep dropping – I think you should just drop into these podcasts like Bob Hope in the old days and the Tonight Show. Anytime you got something to say, please just give us a call because I want to – I think that's what I want. We'll talk soon, guys. Bye, Ryan. Thanks, man. Take care.

You would have to come up with some little insert though like, you know, Byron just back from Connecticut Avenue, York or something like that, which Hope always did to such great hilarity. Yeah, Connecticut Avenue. I wish I was in D.C. because given Cory Booker's Spartacus moment, I imagine that the approaches to the Capitol today were lined with crucified senators um just to show them how it goes um yeah you know uh oh gosh you you you drill down on this here and you so oh very good thank you i just i just wanted you to ruin it i wouldn't i i use that word just so you can ruin it quickly and I get to the spot.

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The first one free, the Quip electric toothbrush. That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com slash ricochet. That's G-E-T-Q-U-I-P dot com slash ricochet. And our thanks of course, to quick response from this, the ricochet podcast. And now we welcome back to the podcast, Chris Scalia. He's Antonin and Marine Scalia's eighth child and the father of two of their 36 grandchildren. His new book is Scalia speaks reflections on law,

faith, and life. Well-lived welcome back. I assume you're hanging on every moment of the Kavanaugh hearings. What's your impression so far? Of course I am. First, can I just correct you on two points already? I don't mean to sound like a fatter.

Keep going. Three is fine. First, I have three kids. It's important to me in the Scalia family. Two children is just really slacking. So I have three now. And then if you could call me Spartacus over the course of the interview rather than Chris, that would be a deal. Would Sparky do? Would Sparky do? Sparky is fine, yeah. Yeah, it's been,

it's been, I guess, entertaining is one word for it. I think the nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, has done a very good job of staying poised. I think anybody watching these hearings wonders not only how the nominees stay awake, but also just how they stay patient in the face of just very frustrating, sometimes unfair, and sometimes just kind of uninformed questioning. But I think he's handled himself very well. It's always a little bit frustrating because we know the nominees cannot give very detailed answers in some instances. We sometimes maybe want them to say more, but at the same time, we have to keep in mind that they can't because they have to be impartial and they have to be fair in cases that come up before them. But obviously, the senators, the Democratic senators in particular, have been a different story. And it's just been very frustrating watching them and a little bit amazing. Hey, Chris, Peter here. Congratulations on child number three. Your dad was confirmed by

a Senate vote of 98 to zero. Zero because there were a couple senators who just didn't happen to be there that day. Brett Kavanaugh is likely to be confirmed, if indeed he is confirmed, on a straight party line vote of 51-49. Nobody I've heard, the most optimistic projection, is 54-46

because there are perhaps three Democrats who might vote to confirm. From 98 to 0 to 51-49, what's happened? I think Ben Sasse correctly identified some of the problems, I guess, on Wednesday he did this, when he said that the Senate has advocated some of its responsibility to the administrative state and to the judiciary. So as a result, confirmation hearings, there's more pressure on federal judges and especially Supreme Court judges. And my father had a similar argument. He argued that because of the expansion of what's known as the living constitution, which is basically the meaning of the constitution changes according to the norms and standards of a given time, judges usurp rights properly delegated to elected representatives. Senators will treat them like elected representatives during the confirmation hearings. And voters or protesters will treat them like elected representatives too and scream and yell during confirmation hearings. So I think all of those factors play an enormous

role in it. The judiciary is not what it used to be. It I think it has more power. It plays a more important role in the lives of everyday Americans. I think my father, my father saw it. I mean, he was alive for most of that. He didn't see these protesters, but he wasn't surprised by the changes he saw. He regretted it, but understood that that was just bound to happen given the role judges had. Hey, Chris, it's Rob Long in Los Angeles. Thanks for joining us. So – Hello, Rob. So there's going to – I guess the – trying to trace the strategy of the Democratic senators in opposition, right?

They know they're going to lose, right? Or are they sifting through trying to find – I mean they're going to lose on Roe v. Wade. They're going to lose on constitutional sort of original intent, all the sort of standard issues that they oppose conservative judges on. But now they're kind of going to – he's a bad guy. So the story – I'm just asking you to respond to the story. It came out. There was – I guess in 2004 when he was part of the team guiding some Bush appointees, nominees through the confirmation process. Somebody, a Republican staffer, stole documents in the Senate Judiciary Committee that had their strategy for opposing those judges, and she sent them to him and then later somebody asked him if he ever got them and he said no and so now the idea is we we can't win on originalism we can't win on basic conservative judicial philosophy we're going to try to beat this guy on perjury is that and am i am i am i summarizing this right it just seems so byzantine i don't think they

actually think they can beat him that way i think at this point they are just trying to save face and um make him seem illegitimate so as long as he's confirmed they'll always say yeah but he perjured himself and and shouldn't have been confirmed. The way they say, but Garland, whenever you mention your course. It doesn't seem like a very wise strategy for most of us. He doesn't have to keep applying for the job. Yeah, that's right. But, I mean, look what Senator Harris did with her questions about, did you ever talk to a lawyer from this law

firm? And it was clear Judge Kavanaugh had no idea what she was talking about, but was trying carefully, trying very sure to understand what she was asking. But the question was so broad, it was clear that she was trying to kind of save it for later so that she could say, well, but you said you never. And, you know, I think that Durbin and Leahy are trying to do similar things. But it's just it's not convincing. At least I don't think the average person finds it convincing,, as you said, the details are so Byzantine. And Kavanaugh's explanations are just a lot clearer than the theories the senators are offering. So how many senators are still there, Democrats, are still there who voted to confirm Antonin Scalia?

Wow. That is a, great question. That is a very good question. Maybe Leahy? Yeah. Was he there then? I don't know when he was first in office. Your dad was 86?

Was it 86? Yeah, 86. And I don't know when. I think Leahy was there. 1886. Yeah, Leahy's been there since the Earth was lava. That's right. But I'm not sure who else.

I'm not even sure of that. So the question is – I mean Leahy – don't put words in my mouth. Leahy would say right now, oh, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have. But surely there was a standard, right? I mean there was a standard. I mean I think at that point Antonin Scalia had had a much more robust conservative than Brett Kavanaugh. Surely there was a standard. Is that are we ever going to get back to that or is it just going to be in a 51 percent country?

We're just kind of doomed to this kind of thing. Until we agree on what judges should be doing, I don't think we're going to see an end to this until we, until enough people agree that judges should be originalists and textualists. We're always going to have confirmation battles like this one. It used to be, um, even when there was disagreement over originalism, people would, senators would still look at qualifications and integrity. And that's what the hearings were about for both sides, Democrats and Republicans. I mean, Republicans were most, almost all of them voted for Ginsburg too. So, but I think as long as Democrats

expect judges to fulfill their policy preferences in a way that Republicans don't expect judges to do. We're going to have confirmation battles like this. And I think that's originalism is taken a lot more seriously and shared by a lot more people than it was when my father was first confirmed. But I don't see I just don't see how you convince Democrats anymore that that it's the right way to judge because they're so they're so their heels are so dug into this. Yeah, the Republicans aren't see i just don't see how you convince democrats anymore that that it's the right way to judge because they're so they're so their heels are so dug into this yeah the republicans aren't going to flip the table i mean the next time that they're confirming somebody that they don't like they're not going to say so essentially you believe that the constitution should be shredded by any means

necessary in order to ensure that there are 600,000 abortions of black babies every year, right? You'd snap every vertebrae in your spine, bending over backwards to contort the cons. I mean, we're not going to hear that level of rhetoric. We're not going to hear them accusing the Democratic nominee of wanting confiscation, death, tyranny, statism, and the rest of it. And I'm sorry, I don't see that the Republicans are going to play this out like the Democrats are now.

And they certainly wouldn't call the Constitution a little book like the – Like Harris did, like Senator Harris did. Yes, that little book that you have there. Chris, the answer is Patrick Leahy, who was elected to the Senate in 1974, and Orrin Hatch, who was elected in 1976. Two men now on the Judiciary Committee voted to confirm your dad. Last question for me, Chris. We lost your dad, what, about two years ago now. In his final years, of course, the Federalist Society was growing. He helped to establish it. He helped to found it. He saw it grow. He saw originalism was a laughingstock at elite law schools. And by the time of his death, if an elite law school did not have two or three serious originalists on their faculty, the law school was a laughingstock. So all of these things took place while your dad was on the court. And frankly, much of it because of your dad. Was he optimistic that things were turning in the right direction, or did he view the originalism and the overall conservative cause as simply a fighting retreat?

No, he was optimistic, and that's why he – obviously he always explained originalism, even if he didn't use the word, he, you know, he explained things clearly. And, but more importantly, perhaps he also delivered the speeches collected in Scalia speaks book plug there. Um, and he spoke as often as he did because he had, he was optimistic that he could convince people that originalism was the best of all possible ways to approach interpreting the Constitution and textualism for statutes. I mean, so yes, I mean, he wrote in the minority more often than he would have liked, but I think the fact that he made the argument as often as he did to so many different people in so many different places shows that he was always optimistic about being able to convince them and to persuade Americans. Originalism, textualism. You might as well

flash the white power hand signal here, Chris. Full Nazi on us here. Hey, thanks a lot for joining us today. We'll talk to you again. Pleasure to talk to you. It's a pleasure. Bye bye. Everybody should get Scalia speaks the collective speeches of Antonin Scalia. I have now not only read the book straight through, I'm going back and rereading certain speeches.

It's just wonderful. Buy it. Keep it on your bedside table. Exactly. Thanks, Chris. Thank you, Peter.

Take it easy, guys. Bye. Hey, Rob. Thank you, Peter. Take it easy, guys. Bye. Hey, Rob. Yeah? Would you say that a lot of the questions being asked of the nominee passed the smell test? I don't think they passed the smell test, James. No, I don't think so either.

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this is the moment where we're all, I mean, we're always grateful for Rob, but Rob, we lost Burt Reynolds this week at the age of 82. And, uh, one of the good things about having Rob,

well, there are so many, so many good reasons to have, but it's his inexhaustible supply of Hollywood anecdotes. So this one does not involve Rob having a moment in the forest with a toothless kid in the tree playing a stringed instrument. You have a Burt Reynolds story. I do. I do.

All right. Well, let's close the show and you can tell us all later. This podcast is – Okay. He was a movie star and he acted like a movie star even after he stopped making real movies. And so there was a time when he was on television. He was the star of Evening Shade and he was not in great shape on the show Evening Shade. And he wasn't really happy doing it. But he's a soldier, so he did it. But he ended up taking an advance from CBS of some enormous amount of money.

But it still wasn't enough to get him out of a hole but enormous amount of money and he owed it to them and he thought of this as like oh this is like i have a deal with cbs being have a talent deal because i'm talent deal they pay the talent to sit around and wait and so they had as far as he was concerned they had done that as far as cbs was concerned he owed them you know a couple million dollars so we were doing a show at cbs and the head of CBS called us up and said, hey, listen, I think Burt Reynolds might be right for this role. Would you sit down and talk to him? And so we said, yeah, okay, I'll sit down. We just sit down.

So suddenly Burt Reynolds appeared in our office a day later, and he was just supposed to be there for a day. We were supposed to talk to him for an hour, sorry, just to talk to him a little bit, get to know him a little bit. He ended up staying about four hours. I mean I remember it got dark in the office, and he just told us these incredibly great stories about a life that had huge ups, huge ups, listen, here's the worst thing. When you start making real money, don't start flying private because it just burns a hole right through all the money you got, which I thought was kind of funny. And then he also talked a little bit

about his propensity for punching directors and producers, frankly, when things weren't, he didn't think they were right. He was a huge, huge advocate of other actors. He was an incredible fan of other actors. So he hadn't really read the script we were talking about.

He didn't really know what he was talking about, but he was just going through actors he thought we should put in a show. And he kept saying, maybe you don't want me, but you should look at charlie journey charlie journey so and he would just we spent an hour talking about other actors and how great they were which is something you just don't hear anymore and it was a fantastic four hours it was incredibly great at the end of it we stood up and he hugged us and he said whatever happens man whatever whatever happens in this this project this has been a lot of fun um and then he kind of sauntered off into the twilight um and it was heartbreaking too because you know we we knew we couldn't hire him um the studio wasn't was never would never pay for that he was can be really really erratic and kind of unreliable in the series and um it was it felt like um we had met a true legend who had been through a lot and had put other people through a lot just to be fair.

And we would have loved – in a different world, we would have loved to have worked with him. And I remember calling my agent and saying, hey, listen, this was a great, great meeting. This guy was incredible. And look, you meet a movie star, they're all charming. That's the definition of a movie star, somebody you meet over breakfast and they're charming. That's the basic part of the gig. He was more than that. He was absolutely enchanting.

We were like – the stories and the way he talked about being on screen and the way he talked about acting and we talked about what's funny and stuff. And so I talked to my agent and said, you know what? I mean I don't know. Maybe. And she said, well, look. I mean you'd be on the air in the network. The network would put you on the air instantly because they want to get their money back. But if you accept it and you want to move forward with him, we got to go to the studio and get what we call a side agreement. And I said, what is a side agreement? And she said a side agreement is an agreement that if he punches you, and he probably will, and you don't want to come back to work again, they still have to pay you.

So that colored all of that in a different hue, and it didn't really matter anyway because the studio was never going to go for it because there's just too much money at stake. And it was just one of those great – I mean I'm thrilled that I even had a chance to meet the guy, and I'm even more thrilled that in order to hire him in the later stages of his life, you kind of need to have a side agreement. Or a Reynolds clause as they probably call it now. Yeah. Yeah, Reynolds rap was when he punched somebody and that shut down the production. That's just great. It tells you everything you need to know about the business, too. Here's this great guy.

We could just put a camera on him and let it roll, and after 12 hours, we have a full season of fascinating anecdotes. Nah, let's put him in a cop show where he's a weary detective paired with a street smart young kid who doesn't play by the rules. I mean, who wouldn't want to sit in and listen to those four hours of stories, right? If you're listening to this podcast, of course, you love to listen to stories. Those by Rob, the tales by Peter, it's all here and product, or I'm sorry, Ponder 158, 1958. Oh, good Lord. Let me try that again. If you like stories, of course, you're listening to this podcast because you like stories, Rob's tales, Peter's observations, my ads. Well, if you go to iTunes, you will find reviews of this podcast, like one written by Ponder 1958, who said, and I quote,

sometimes this podcast is a little anti-Trump for my taste, but for the most part, they are pretty balanced. I particularly enjoy Peter Robinson's comments. I'm not a fan of Trump, but I prefer more balance than I get most places. And I think I get it here. They have a wide variety of guests who I don't always agree with, but they have good discussions. Peter Robinson is the absolute best in the world. I added that last part just to make you think Peter wrote the review. But there you go.

Ponder is a Peter fan. He's a podcast fan. And if you go to iTunes and leave something like that, we'd love to read it. And it would help surface the podcast so more people find it. And when more people find it, of course, Rob, what do they do? Why they join, don't they? They join. They subscribe.

At the podcast listener level, $2.50 a month. You probably heard me say this at the beginning of the podcast. and you thought, okay, yeah, I did mean to join. I really will join. And then you forgot because people forget. But now we're an hour later. We're done with the podcast. I want you to turn this off and join. And also go to Calm, Fleur, and Quip.

Calm, Fleur, Quip. Three syllables. Ricochet has three as well. These are fine products, and if you support them, your life is better. Your teeth are better. Your mood is better. Your scent is better. We're here to make the world better by whatever means necessary. No, not by

whatever means. No, just by... Any means necessary. Reasonable, sensible, centrist, constitutional means. Right, Peter? Correct. Correct. Correct. Alright. Thanks, guys. We'll see you later, and we'll see everybody else in the comments at Ricochet 3.0. Next week, boys, and Ponder 1958.

The check is in the mail. Next week, fellas. We've got a long way to go And a short time to get there Time to eastbound and watch old bandit run Keep your foot hard on the pedal Some devil mind him brakes Let it all hang out cause we got a run to make

The boys are thirsty in Atlanta And there's beer in Texarkana And we'll bring right back. Ricochet. Join the conversation. Thank you. We'll be right back. And it's your time to get there. I'm Eastbound, now watch your bandit run. Old Smokey's got them ears on. He's hot on your trail. He ain't gonna rest till you're in jail. That's my dream.

To make a film. That is true. And right. And dramatic. Ricochet. Join the conversation. you