The Ricochet Podcast - Minnesota Not-So-Nice

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

There's a lot of joy in the air. Or so we're told by the Jolly Dad VP nominee Tim Walz. To step past the vibes for a moment, we talk with John H. Hinderaker, president of the Minneapolis-based Center of the American Experiment. He takes us through the methods and policies of Governor Walz, which reveal a less-than-pleasant character.Plus, he sticks around with James, Steve, and "Lucretia" to discuss the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon's departure from the White House.

Sorry, there's a crisis at the Lucretia household. The kitten has gotten herself too high to get down, and I can't reach her. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lileks, and I'll be talking with Stephen Hayward and Lucretia. Our guest today, John Hinderaker, at the Center of the American Experiment,

to talk about, well, of course, Governor Walz. So let's have ourselves a podcast. And I'll tell you what I have been doing. I've been voting for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can do CDC research. We can make sure we don't have reciprocal carry among states, and we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons were. Welcome, everybody, to the Ricochet Podcast, number 703. I'm James Lylex in Minneapolis, and I'm joined by Stephen Hayward and Lucretia, and it's like the ship of Perseus, you know? We keep shedding different pieces, Rob and Peter,

and adding others, but yet the ship itself is still the same. When I'm gone, of course, it will still be the Ricochet flagship podcast, and you guys can carry on and eventually forget that I ever existed, but that's a ways away, I hope. For now, we're here today to discuss, well, we're going to be getting to the vice presidential pick with John Hinderaker from Powerline in just a little while. But I want you guys to give me your impression on the overwhelming sense of joy that we are now feeling. The giddy infectious enthusiasm, as somebody once said. The fact that we seem as a nation to have awoken from a slumber of a torporous slumber and now are suffused with this magical sparkle that runs like electricity through the entire country.

I've been led to believe that the future was pretty grim, given that the isms and the climate change and the rest of the existential crises that face America. But apparently, we have turned a corner and America's back, baby. So what do you think? James, can I offend all of your listeners with what I call it? It's the Camelama Ding Dong Media-gasm. That does trip off the tongue. Doesn't it now?

Sorry, go ahead, Steve. Yes, the media is enthusiastic and emboldened by this. I mean, we're getting really hard stories on Tim Walz, like his favorite hot dish recipe. But anyway, Stephen, you were going to say? Well, how quickly this is galloping along. Ten days ago, we were told that this election was about vibes, right? Harris had all the vibes, and then this week suddenly it became joy. And once again, I thought of a historical parallel.

I drive Lucretia nuts with these. She thinks I'm wacko. But the last time we had a candidate who was about the politics of joy, was also a vice president, succeeding a president who dropped out mid-campaign from Minnesota, right? You remember that guy. I know where you're going the minute you said it. Yeah, I know. Right? The great Hubert Humphrey was all about the politics of joy, and boy, did he have an unjoyful campaign and an unjoyful result. I think we're going to repeat that in not exactly the same, but I think we're going to see the same pattern.

Grisha? Why does it drive you nuts when he brings up Hubert Humphrey? I mean, Humphrey was important. No, no, no, it doesn't drive me nuts. I call him analogy man. It doesn't drive me nuts that he brings up Hubert Humphrey. What drives me a little bit nuts is that Steve can manage to find a not always apt historical analogy to just about anything, as if

history just repeats itself over and over and over in exactly the same way. No, no, no, no. It's not. I'll use the apocryphal Mark Twain line. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. I think that's what they were saying. And that would be the thousandth time.

I thought that was George Lucas. Yes, we do look back, and it's inevitable and it's natural to find parallels like this, the Minnesota, the joy, the rest of it. But let us focus perhaps just on the joy itself. I'm not opposed to joy in an election. I kind of like it,

as a matter of fact. While I like the idea of somebody laying out a clear path to get ourselves out of the numerous morasses in which we find ourselves, there is something quintessentially American about having that bright spirit, that inner Norman Rockwell glow to your face that attracts people. You can't, I mean, you can't glower and frown and be dismissive and sarcastic and bitter and the rest of it and expect people to come to the polls to vote for anything but grim, sullen duty. And sometimes grim, sullen duty will get you the election. But what's the matter with joy is what I'm saying.

What's there to be joyful about? He's an idiot. He's a draft. No, you can't say you can't call him a draft doctor. That's silly. A stolen valor, a petty tyrant who in the same breath that he says, mind your own business reminds us that he was, you know, he locked people in their homes and then encouraged their neighbors to snitch on them if they actually walked outside to walk their dog during COVID. He was the absolute worst. There is nothing to be joyful about either of those far leftist,

basic communist idiots. Sorry. I like nothing about either one of them. Absolutely nothing. I can find a few things about RFK that I like. I like nothing about those two. What about RFK that I like. I like nothing about those two. What about RFK do you like? I like the fact that he's become a meme into which people drop every single historical event of consequence.

Just him sitting there with his arms crossed, calmly discussing how he was in Sarajevo in 1914 and wondered by a coffee shop. I mean, it's just absolutely delightful. But anyway, to Lucretia's point, I mean, what's there to be joyful about? I mean, if you want to look at the positions of the candidates and where you think that they would send us on the left, no, it's not something that fills your heart with a great deal of joy. But again, we are talking about a vibe election. We are talking about something where people are apparently, at least, I mean, on the left side, are absolutely enthusiastically energized by the fact that they don't have to pretend that they believe that this doddering man with mashed potatoes in his brain

is somebody for whom they should feel enthusiasm. I mean, they've got real power and energy behind them. And I think it's, to people who aren't particularly engaged on the issues or don't engage to the extent that you do or do engage and don't agree with you, this is a powerful, motivating thing. This is a real, I mean, it may be a blast of nitrous gas, it may wear off, but it's energized them. So what are the consequences of that? Do we find out, you know, does the right find a way to manifest joy in its own way? Because otherwise we're the lemon suckers, right? Well,

I think at least two ways of thinking about this. One is they're trying to get the jump on Trump by stealing some of Trump's thunder. Trump's rallies are these great joyous affairs. I mean, he's kind of been the candidate to joy because he's funny and has sort of sarcastic and attacking way is sort of Don Rickles schtick that he does. And, you know, maybe they've got him a little off balance.

I mean, he made a couple of minor mistakes here in the aftermath of Hamlet's ascendance. So they're trying to steal that, but it's also a tactic, second, to avoid any serious media scrutiny, which the media is happy to go along with. And it's because it's going to be a short campaign. They're gambling. They can make it to Election Day on vibes, to go back to the original theme of the campaign. I'm skeptical it's going to work, only because there's some underlying facts that I think will reassert themselves. One is, Republican registration has been surging, especially in the

battleground states. Republicans have actually drawn even or ahead of Democrats in registrations in a lot of places in the country. I think nationally, Republicans are now nearly even with Democrats for the first time in decades. Now you have this third of the country who are independents, and they always decide things. Second second the issue map will come back into play all the top issues favor trump people are concerned about the border the economy national security uh abortion which is supposed to favor democrats i guess it does it's number six or seven on the list of important issues for voters and if the campaign and if the trump campaign can get us back around to reminding people what they're unhappy about, I think Harris will have a harder time dodging and weaving and changing her positions.

And that's going to reassert itself. So I'm still betting on Trump for a narrow but solid win. great um suggestion on x that trump should hold a press conference since uh uh kamalama ding dong won't and have a tv next to him and ask questions and have the answers be play be kamalama ding dong's answers that things that she said in the past come across on the TV. And I think that would be brilliant, because I agree with Steve. If, and this, I, unfortunately, I don't agree with his optimism on this. If the Trump campaign can get the conversation back to issues, of course, Trump wins, of course, Trump wins, you know, and away from personalities and so on. I get mad at Republicans who want to complain that they're, you know, that Trump is not focusing on issues. But it's a little bit difficult right now for him to push forward on this when he gets

absolutely zero help from the press. So he's going to have to do some kinds of tricky things, I think, to force the press maybe not hold a a press press conference like i just described but to force the media into demanding from kamala harris that that she addressed you know other than on day one she's gonna lower prices thank god i don't know quite why she's waiting until the first uh day of her new administration and not maybe get started on that now but you know anyway so i that that's what worries me i don't know that i've ever seen it so bad where the media just was so all in uh you know it's good i maybe it's just been getting worse and worse and worse but you really have to go to social media to find anything that is in any way critical of Kamala Harris.

Not even Fox is very critical, if you ask me. So that was my thoughts on the matter. Maybe I think Trump can do it. Get the same sense. I mean, one of the things that you can do, and again, the minute we spend all of our time saying, here's what they should do, if they really want to win, they do this. When you do that, the game's up. I mean, we're not actually seeing it come from the minds of the people who are running the campaign. But what I would like to see, because I don't want a vibes election, what I would like to see is a series of honest questions and an honest examination of the answers. I mean, there's a couple of things

that Walz has said that I think are indicative of his positions. And it's maybe not enough to run on Joya's big dad Midwestern energy when you have two statements that really indicate the divide in the country. One of them has to do with a comment about the border wall that, you know, if they put it up 20 feet, he'd invest money in a company that made 30-foot ladders. Words to that effect, which to me is revelatory of a whole host of positions. And I think that we deserve an honest conversation about those. And if the press really wanted to hold his feet to the fire, or at least facilitate that honest conversation they would ask and they would press and we would get very detailed specifics about what exactly their position on the border is um because i'd like to know i'd i'd i'd really like to know the second

has to do with a comment again that was floating around on social media last week had to do with the statement about uh hate speech not in dis, not having First Amendment protection. Well, that's wrong. That's very, very wrong. And as we've seen in Western democracies recently, particularly in England, horrifyingly in England, the idea that there is this special, I mean, they don't have the First Amendment, so, you know, have fun with your Orwell fulfillment factory there, buddy. But the idea that they're putting people away for spreading, for sharing a link that they believe to be inflammatory is terrifying. So, yes, does the left, the majority of the progressive body in the country today believe that there should be exceptions for hate speech and disinformation? Apparently so. Apparently so because it's injurious and

threatening to our democracy. Well, no, there isn't any carve out. And the biggest threat to our democracy is somebody setting up themselves as the adjudicator of what is not allowed to be said. And that goes for social media, that goes for the newspapers, that goes for standing on the street corner, that goes for everything. I don't want to hear a word out of these guys about freedom of speech and our democracy if they're saying well that's disinformation ergo we're going to use the force of the state to make sure that it isn't spoken no sorry no james i've never been so proud to own a tesla in my life yeah well you're one of those you know bleeding hearts that wants to save the planet so i understand that correctly.

Every day. Just wait until Elon Musk pulls off his rubber face, reveals the lizard head beneath, and then bricks everyone out in the countryside. That'll happen. Well, you know what? We can sit here, and right now I'm outnumbered. I'm just one Minnesotan against you guys. At least physically Minnesotans. Perhaps you guys are Minnesotans in your heart. But I want to bring on my old friend, John. John Hinderaker, president of the Center American Experiment, a Minneapolis-based think tank that is not at the present time on fire, proposes creative solutions that emphasize free enterprise,

limited government, personal responsibility, and government accountability. In other words, fascism straight up. He was founder of the power line blog in 2002 and welcome back john how you doing uh doing great james good to see you yeah good to talk to you too all right we got the gov here you know i wrote a piece about this for discourse where they're just saying hey you're a minnesotan what do you think how do people think you know what do you think and it's like you know we have all these stories about the people who oh he was a teacher he was a great teacher i love them as a teacher and you know that's entirely possible i'm i'm sure that his students did love him i loved my teachers too and then i'd go back to the town and i'd open up the newspaper and one of them was writing a fist

shaking letter about ronnie reagan being mean to the sandinistas and i think okay all right well i'll just think back to the happy days when you were failing me at chemistry. The fact that he's a genial guy and that he's friendly and people like him is utterly irrelevant. What matters are the policies. And you guys have been going over the policies, not the personality, and laying out exactly what didn't work for Minnesota and what won't work for the country. So let's just set aside all the football coach, the supposed stuff about, you know, the service in the National Guard. Let's just, what counts is the ideology behind the policies and how those play out. What's he done for Minnesota? Well, first of all, James, I would take issue with the characterization of Tim Walz as genial. I think he is vicious and mean-spirited, and I think he's

displayed that throughout his political career. And I think one thing he's got going for him as a vice presidential nominee is that he's well qualified to play the attack dog role that vice presidents typically get assigned. So I just want to make it clear. I understand that. Believe me, I understand that. But yeah, but James, you're right. The real issue is, is what has he done and how has it worked? And the answer is that the Walls administration has been a classic illustration of the failure of left-wing policies. Tim Walls came into office as governor of Minnesota, and for the last two years especially, he's had a very compliant state legislature, and he's implemented a whole series of far-left policies, and they've had disastrous consequences for Minnesota. Do you want to start with crime,

James? Well, yes, and let's also talk about how much the governor has an, because that'd be fair. We're going to talk about a lot of things, but how much the governor has influence over that particular aspect. So yeah, let's talk about crime. I live in Minneapolis. I've got my thoughts on that, but go ahead. Well, let's start with the basic data, okay? I think that's what's important.

Minnesota, through its history, has always been a low-crime state. That was always true until Tim Walz got into office at the beginning of 2019. And now, beginning in 2020 and continuing to the present, for the first time in its history, Minnesota is officially a high crime state. The per capita rate of serious crimes, that's part one crimes as defined by the FBI, is now higher in Minnesota than it is for the country as a whole. We are a high crime state that has never happened before. And there's a couple reasons for it, James. One of them, of course, is the 2020 George Floyd riots. And Tim Walz dithered for four days. Everybody was pleading

with him, including the mayor of Minneapolis, to call out the National Guard, and he wouldn't do it. And he said, I'm paraphrasing, but he said that he wasn't doing it because he was sympathetic to the objectives of the rioters. Finally, after four days, he called out the National Guard and they called the riots, but the damage was done. I mean, as you know, James, big swaths of the city of Minneapolis were burned down and the rioters stormed the Minneapolis Police Department's 3rd Precinct Station, they burned it to the ground. I mean, it was a nightmare. And the crime rate in Minnesota has never recovered. The crime spree continues to this day. And the other thing that, and David Zimmer of our office did a post either yesterday afternoon or just this morning, which is also really revealing. And it shows how

the crime rate, the violent crime rate, started rising right after Tim Walz and Keith Ellison came into office at the beginning of 2019. And it plots the crime rate, violent crime rate, against the incarceration rate in Minnesota, which is absurdly low. And as the incarceration rate falls over the course of the Walls administration, the violent crime rate rises. And David goes on to explain the specific things that have been done in Minnesota by the Walls administration and by the Minnesota legislature, which Walls dominates, that have radically reduced the incarceration rate. So the data are all there. Minnesota has become a high crime state for the first time ever, and Tim Walls can't

dodge the responsibility. A couple of points. One, to go back to what you were saying before about him being kind of nasty in the clutch. Yeah, I mean, when I say genial, I mean that the images of him always look like, you know, when you're looking through your dad's old photographs of the hunting trips, he looks like the chubby guy in the end

with a big grin and the plaid jacket and the rest of it. I'm just talking about the most superficial issue of it. Secondly, when it comes to Walt and the riots and the rest of it, I mean, you remember he gave a press conference at the end of May where he went off on the protesters. He may have had initial sympathy, like his wife at the start, who said that she liked to keep the window open so she could smell the burning of injustice, which says a lot. But I mean, he did really hammer them in a press conference toward the end of May. I was reading some remarks about that, and it's kind of just what I want the guy to say. Well, I agree with the points that you make. I think it's going to be hard to blame him specifically for what happened in Minneapolis. Minneapolis, I believe, is driving most of the crime rate here and that has to do with less police it

has to do with less policing it has to do with the end of all of the little nuisance laws by which they used to nip crime at the butt etc etc etc there's a lot of stuff there's a lot of stuff packaged into that and while i don't think you're going to hang around him what you can hang around him is his party and the attitudes of his party, which are don't police, don't pull the guys over, don't send them to prison. You know, that I think is fair. Well, James, if you're saying that he's not the only radical leftist in Minnesota, you're absolutely right. The Hippon County attorney, Mary Moriarty, you know, we could do a separate podcast about her, but I think you're being way, way too generous. I mean, when Paul

was fighting after the rioters was after the fact. While the riots were going on, that's when they needed him to do something to stop them, and he didn't. And that's the key fact. And then again, beyond that, the incarceration rate has declined significantly, and you can just see it in the chart, that the violent crime rate has risen. And that, too, again, he's not the only one, but it's a combination of administrative actions and legislative actions that have driven that. So let's go to education, because I think governors submit budgets, budgets are statewide, and so I think maybe we can look there and say that we can have a more clear direct line between his tenure, his occupation of the office, and the results. Whereas Minnesota always prizes a literate state that's full of smart people looking to get ahead,

how are we doing on that score? Yeah, well, so Katrin Wigfall, who's our education policy fellow here at American Experiment, put together a brilliant chart that tells you everything you need to know. And what it shows is that in recent years, and particularly during the Walz administration, spending on K-12 education has skyrocketed. The chart shows per-student inflation-adjusted spending, and it has just skyrocketed. At the same time, student performance has been declining catastrophically. And the chart, again, it just tells you everything you need to know. And the facts, James, as you know, are shocking. Currently, more than half of all of the K-12 students in Minnesota's public schools can neither read nor do math at grade level. I mean, just think about that. We're not spending enough. We're obviously not

spending enough money. It's unbelievable. Let me give you another one, James. Let me give you another one. The longer they're in Minnesota's public schools, the worse off they are. 64 percent, 64 percent of 11th graders in all the Minnesota public schools, K through 12, cannot do, I'm sorry, this is 11th graders, 64 percent across the state of Minnesota cannot do math at grade level, 64 percent. I mean, this is catastrophically bad. How do you expect them to make more Democrats without schools that perform like that? Hi, John. We usually you and I usually only see each other in pixels and I've got three or four questions, but they all culminate in this one. When are you ever going to run for governor of Minnesota? Clearly, we need someone like you to do this. I actually have been asked that question more seriously, Steve, but it's been a while.

And I think I don't want to run and have people talking about whether I'm senile yet. You know, I think I've passed the point where that would have been a good idea. Yeah, well, all right. Well, look, I know, but people should keep asking you that. Look, Lucretia and I, I won't say we don't have any sympathy for you in Minnesota, but we have been governed, well, me, I am still, but Lucretia grew up in California. We're governed by Gavin Newsom. And it seems to me the only difference between Newsom and Waltz is that Waltz doesn't use as much Brylcreem in his hair. And Newsom gets more press because it's California and so forth. On the

other hand, I do notice that Newsom's approval ratings in California are deeply underwater. The problem is there isn't, and by the way, the serious point behind my question of you running for governor is that the Republican Party is just so feeble in California that they can't seem to get a decent statewide candidate with even a shot at disrupting the progressive juggernaut here. Minnesota's closer, right? I mean, the Republicans are like within a couple of seats in the legislature. Is that right? Yeah, I often point out to people, everybody thinks Minnesota is this deep blue state. It's true that Republicans haven't won a statewide election since 2006. But if you look at the legislature, it's very narrowly balanced. I mean,

the Democrats, all the terrible things they've done in the last two years, they passed by one vote in the state Senate, 34-33. They swung one seat in 2022 in a district where there was a Republican incumbent. He was challenged in the primary by a more conservative Republican. The conservative Republican won the primary, became the nominee. The incumbent Republican then endorsed the Democrat, who won by 321 votes. And all the terrible things the Democrats have done since passed 34-33 in the Minnesota Senate. So yeah, we are more finely balanced than people realize. But the other side of the coin, Steve, to be honest, is that Minnesota's Republican Party has been weak for about the last 15 to 20 years. And there's a structural imbalance. The Democrats in the 22 cycle outspent Republicans three to one. And that's typical. In some ways,

they'll outspend the Republicans four to one, five to one, six to one. Right. Okay. Sorry. That's a problem. One more question, and then I'll turn it over to Lucretia, who I think I know what she wants to ask about. I think conservative media have been pretty good at least laying out a whole list of issues about Waltz and his opinions and his views. There's one story, though, that I know you and Scott Johnson have covered closely that I haven't heard people jump on yet, and it's the scandal over the, what's it called, the Feeding Minnesota program where you had hundreds of... Feeding Our Future. Feeding Our Future, right. Would you tell

listeners what that's about, and is Waltz implicated in at least being negligent about that? Yeah, okay, we could talk for a long time. Being our future is the biggest, that's shorthand, okay, for a huge scandal here in Minnesota, the single biggest fraud that's been identified as coming out of all the COVID programs, and very briefly, this was a program that was supposed to feed poor children. Now, if you did the math, we don't have that many poor children in Minnesota. I mean, these people were claiming to feed millions and millions of meals ostensibly to poor children. Feeding Our Future was one of two or three umbrella nonprofits. And the woman, Amy Bach, who ran Feeding Our Future, she's now a criminal defendant,

she went out and rustled up a bunch of Somalis to put together other non-profits. And they worked frequently through restaurants. And they started invoicing for the alleged feeding of millions of meals to poor children. And the state of Minnesota shoveled out the door, the Department of Education shoveled out the door hundreds of millions of dollars and finally got investigated. The U.S. attorney thinks that $500 million were stolen from the taxpayers. There are 70 criminal indictments. One case so far has gone to trial. 18 defendants have pled guilty. Five have been found guilty in that trial.

The defendants delivered a bag with $100,000 in cash in it to the home of one of the jurors the day before they were going to start deliberating with a note saying that there was more where that came from if she voted to acquit the defendants. It's an unbelievable scandal, but it's one of many. Well over a billion dollars in identified specific scandals with names, not just the waste they indulge in every day. Scandals with names have gone out the door during the Walz administration. I mean, it is the most scandal-plagued administration in America. Yeah, can't some of that attach to Walz, or is he able to put distance between him and that? You tell me. It hasn't attached to Walz in the local press in Minnesota. I mean,

look at the Department of Education. The commissioner was appointed by Walls. The buck stops, if it doesn't stop with Walls, it stops with the commissioner of education. Not a single person in the Department of Education has been fired or suspended or furloughed or had a pay cut or had a reprimand put in their file or anything else as the result of a 500 million dollar scandal that's the administration that tim wallace runs john this is of a piece with the usual republicans right you obviously are telling me because you don't like the feeding market future program that you don't want to feed children that you just the very idea of feeding children why would anybody want to and this is one of the attacks that we've seen.

When people point out that they're trying to make it sound as if the GOP is upset that the state feeds children in schools, that that's the thing that animates. Well, James, I'm upset when people steal money by pretending to feed nonexistent children. Well, again, it'd be a slightly different point. Your nuance there is just, now he's going to fall on deaf ears. Because we know that the Republicans want children to be starving all day, and they don't want them to learn. But the attack is that they say that the Republicans are opposed to feeding children in school. Before we go to Lucretia, could you just tell us exactly why that isn't an accurate description of the objections to Walt's policy? Well, I mean, none of that has even come up. I

mean, the criminal prosecutions and the criticism the Department of Education has taken have had nothing to do with feeding children. They've had to do with stealing money. Right. But it's the idea that, I mean, we're going to feed children in school regardless of income. That's the problem. Well, that's another. So that's a whole other. That's what I meant. That's a completely different issue.

Now we're talking about children who are actually attending school. That was not the case with Feeding Our Future. I know. I know. There's a whole other issue, which is that the Minnesota legislature has passed now a law that provides both breakfast and lunch to all students in the Minnesota public schools, not just poor kids. You don't have to qualify for free lunch. You now get free breakfast and free lunch if you are a student attending Minnesota schools. And that has not been all that controversial, frankly, but I mean, some of us have criticized it on the ground

that it's really the parents' job to feed their children, okay? If there are poor kids whose parents can't afford to pay the 35 cents or whatever school lunch costs nowadays... I'm happy to help them out. I'm happy to help them out. But there are programs, federal programs that do that. Yeah, but since when is it the state's duty to feed children? In the first instance, it's up to the parents to feed their children. So I want to ask a question of you, John, that I think you can attach directly to Tim Waltz. So for a variety of different reasons, I have probably spent a dozen hours over the last couple of weeks with command sergeant majors that are friends of mine that I work with.

And I will tell you that while the people who wouldn't vote for, let me say that right. The people who would vote for the, the Kamalama ding dong, Tim Waltz ticket aren't going to care about Tim Waltz, shall we say, exaggerating his record. There are a lot of veterans out there who might not have voted one way or the other who will come out on this because the issue to me is very, very serious. It is because I spend most of my time professionally and my volunteer time with

soldiers. The idea, A, of a command sergeant major, I know he had the right to retire. We're not clear how he got out of his enlistment, his six-year enlistment, but that he would leave his battalion before they were about to deploy to Iraq. I know there's all these little things about dates and so on. Sorry, you know, at least a year and a half before a unit's likely to deploy, especially in those circumstances. So he put in his retirement paperwork after he found out they were deploying. There's no doubt about that. Number two, and to leave his battalion like that, I have never met a senior enlisted officer who would even consider doing that. They're always doing the opposite. So he is cowardly, or he's so driven by power and so forth that he couldn't see it any other way.

But then to claim that he was in war, that I held this gun in war, all of the things that he claimed, to claim having been a retired command sergeant major, he knew that most people were unlikely to challenge that because most people don't understand how the whole process works and what the difference between an E- and an E9 and why it matters. But over the years, he's claimed so many lies, basically, twisting the truth, I think that's a lie, that veterans I know and talk to who couldn't give a damn about politics are scandalized by this. And I think that attaches to him. And I think what you're seeing is a lot of Republicans

continue to press this point. You see some evidence that the Democrats are a little panicked about this and are trying to push back. I think this sticks with Waltz. And whether it sticks with him enough to force them to get rid of him, it's not clear to me yet. Depends. But what do you think, knowing that you're there in Minneapolis, you've probably met some of the people that were in his battalion that were upset about the fact that he abandoned them, in their opinion? Well, there are multiple things going on with respect to Tim Wall's exaggeration, at best, of his military service. And I agree with you, Lucretia, that the most significant one is his abandoning his battalion. He was in the Minnesota National Guard for 24 years.

He took money. He served. That's all great. That's fine. It was all in peacetime. Well, now the Iraq War comes along. And in 2005 or maybe even in 2004, his battalion gets the word they are going to be deployed to Iraq. And there's a lot of talk about this.

This is in the works, as you say, for quite a while. And several of his former National Guardsmen fellows have said that he repeatedly told them, I'm going to Iraq, I'm going to be with you, I'm going to be there. And then at the last minute, he pulled out and he quit and he left the National Guard. And many of those National Guardsmen are bitterly angry at him for it. There was a piece in the Daily Mail where the mother of a 20-year-old Minnesota National Guardsman who was in that battalion who went to Iraq when Tim Walz didn't. She's bitterly angry at Tim Walz to this day. I don't know how big an issue this is with the general public,

but I think it's going to be an issue with a lot of veterans. And I think the side issues, as I would view them, the fact that he always said, oh, I retired as a command sergeant major. Well, actually, that's not quite right. You know, he held that title kind of provisionally, but he never completed the requirements for it. And so when he when he summarily quit the National Guard, he was demoted and he didn't retire as a command sergeant major. Now, I think most people maybe won't understand that distinction. I think some military people will. And then, of course, he goes around, he's on video, you know, talking about himself like he was a war hero. You know, he's talking about gun control, these weapons of war. I carried these weapons of war in war, he says. No, he didn't. You know, he was never in a war. He never went near a war zone.

And so, you know, stolen valor is a charge that we'll see. It may stick to him. No, I mean, just as, you know, the phrase big debt energy means the patriarchy is back. Doesn't it mean that all of this talk about his service means that, you know, it's good that we got these guys with guns in uniform going to other countries to do things. And, of course, that's going to stick and not be flipped the minute that it turns on the other candidate. So, yeah, I'm not sure how much this is going to stick with people. Some of the particulars may be. I don't think so.

Yeah. Pennsylvania has 800,000 veterans. Again, what John says is true. Does it matter to the general population that the guy said he was a command sergeant major, but he really was demoted back to master sergeant? It doesn't matter to the general population. They don't know the difference between an E8 and E9 and why that's important. But you know what? Every single one of those veterans understands it completely.

And I agree with you. It's going to make a difference. In close elections, it's going to make a difference. Perhaps you're absolutely right. It goes back to convincing the vast middle that your person, your guys are the ones who are happy and joyful and will do great things, and the other side is full of evil. And I mean, what John was saying there before, making the distinction between the state giving breakfast and lunch to needy kids who

otherwise could not afford it, and then just giving it to everybody, seems like, to a lot of people, a ridiculous distinction to make. What are you upset about? Why not? What's the problem? You want to stigmatize the kids who are getting it for free? But it actually is, I mean, it's indicative of a lot. The idea that it isn't the parent's responsibility to put the Lunchables in the bag. It is the state and all of its manifestations

that's supposed to take care of you. That's what we get hung up on. But does that affect the general election? I don't think so. So anyway, go on. Can I make just two quick observations about this? One is, I think we're at the phase that happens in a lot of campaigns where the record of the running mate, the possible personal scandals come to the fore for a few weeks. The same controversy almost happened with Dan Quayle in 1988 in his Indiana National Guard service. So who knows whether this is going to stick the way the

Swift boat problem stuck with John Kerry. But there's a second thing here, the exaggerations of waltz. There's a pattern here that I've commented on before with Lucretia and I've written about. There's a kind of neediness about liberals. And they lie about stuff, about their own records. So Joe Biden, as we know, was arrested with Nelson Mandela and marched in the civil rights movement and climbed Mount Everest. Al Gore invented the Internet. Hillary Clinton was under fire in Bosnia. Brian Williams at NBC News.

It's not just office holders, but, you know, he was under fire in Iraq. And what drives these people to do this? I think it's part of their—actually, I think it's deep roots in leftist ideology ideology and it takes a while to explain but there's at this some point a social psychologist has to say there's a pattern recognition problem here with liberals who feel compelled to puff up their personal heroism and bravery and reputation when the facts can't back it up and that's always a bad sign sometimes things truth is more important than just the facts steve don't you know yes well my truth remember it's my truth we live in the age of proprietary truth as i've been calling it that's the simple explanation for what you said would take too long to explain

okay yeah so i don't know john that's why we need a truth teller like you to run for governor a real truth teller so i'll just my there. I think you make a great point, Steve. I can't really explain it, but there's no question. There's a long history. There's no doubt that Tim Walz is very much in that tradition. You know, he can't just, you know, be honest and tell the truth. They have to pump themselves up. Yeah. Is this a modern effect? I mean i think back to your talk we were talking before we got on here about the the previous happy warrior hubert humphrey i don't remember i don't remember humphrey actually exaggerating and inflating what he did i don't

remember any of those guys really doing so i mean jfk you know pt book the rest of it there's always a little of that in politics but as far as being sort of a pathological thing by people who really you know i got hey james i gotta stick up i gotta stick up for uh for kennedy you know i think passing out the tie pins you know with the 109 that it's okay politics you know he had that on his record but later on he was asked you you know, how he became a woman. And his answer was, well, I had no choice. They sank my boat. Right. Yeah. I think at some level, Kennedy, you know, Kennedy did have a little more self-awareness.

Yes. Well, speaking of presidents who did not finish out their term, it's the 50th anniversary of Watergate, the resignation, and the rest of it. I always remember that this time of the year, I think it's the birthday of Prince, the anniversary of Hiroshima, and Nixon's resignation. So celebrate those in which way you choose. What do we know 50 years on that we didn't know at the time? What have we learned? In retrospect, should he have stuck it out? Yes. Does any of this matter to a modern American politics or are there resonances to this day that still echo

whenever we talk about these things? Well, let me start with three quick points that Lucretia can backfill in a number of ways. That was a question of our guest, actually. Oh, okay. We'll let John go first. Since he's sticking around, I want to give him some reason to be here. Are we off Tim Walls? I have more to say about Tim Wall tim wallace by the way you should hear what he did to minnesota's economy

for example but that's okay we can move on did you know that for the first time in our history we are now a below average state economically by the most basic measure, per capita GDP. We have always been above the national average. And per capita GDP in 2023, because of Tim Walz's crazy and the DFL's crazy left-wing policies, we are now below average. More people leaving than coming out. Of course, yeah, way more people leaving than moving in. That's the acid test. If people want to live in your state and people don't want to live in Tim Walz's Minnesota. Now, let's go back to Nixon. You sound like a candidate staying on message just there.

Yes, well, I try to stay on message. But so, yeah, look, I mean, I'll tell you what, and you guys may know more about this than I do. I was in law school during Watergate. I had friends who were a couple of years ahead of me in law school who went to work in the prosecutor's office, the independent prosecutor's office. And it was Archibald Cox who took that over. No, he, no, what was the sequence? Cox was the first one and who Nixon fired. And then, yeah, oh, that over. No, he, no, what was the sequence? Cox was the first one, and who Nixon fired. And then, yeah, oh, that's right, and then Jaworski took it over. And I had friends who

went to work in that office, and the whole ethos was, get Nixon. We are trying to get Nixon. I mean, I saw it firsthand. And I guess what I've always felt is that in the end, Nixon didn't have any choice. And part of the reason he didn't have any choice is that his party didn't stand behind him. He got sold out, really, in the U.S. Senate. And at the time, people thought, oh, this is a good thing. You know, James, all these people, they're not being partisan. Right. And with hindsight, the way the political game has been played ever since, I'd like to see kind of an alternative universe where the Republican Party gets behind Nixon, stays

behind Nixon, where he doesn't get, you know, he doesn't get forced out and sticks to his guns and see what would have happened. Yeah. So, I mean, I think we've learned some new facts over the 50 years, because a lot of confidential documents from the Justice Department have been pried loose through FOIA and other means, and what we learned is there was massive prosecutorial misconduct and completely unethical ex parte communications with Judge John Sirica, who's presiding over the whole thing.

It also turns out that people who have more slowly gone through some of the things in the tapes, especially the famous smoking gun tape, the March meeting with John Dean saying we can find the money to pay hush money to the burglars. Turns out that the timelines don't work out right. And those those conversations were actually misunderstood, including by Nixon's own team. But then finally, I think when you look at what's happened to Trump, starting with the phony Russia hoax and the lawfare against him, all of a sudden our perspective has changed. One of the things to understand about Nixon is, remember that he humiliated the left by winning 49 states in 1972. And second, he proposed seriously to take control of the federal bureaucracy. And I think the real subtext here, and of course Watergate was an excuse, and Nixon himself admitted it. He says, I gave them a sword, and if I'd have been them,

I'd have done the same thing with it, right? That was the famous David Frost interview. But look, I think the real subtext here and the sort of lingering and significant storyline for us today is that bureaucracy decided, the permanent government, the deep state, whatever you want to call it, they decided Nixon has to go because he is an existential threat to our existence and our program, right? Nixon understood, and he was starting to say something that Republicans still have trouble saying directly, and then I'll shut up. Our permanent bureaucracy, the administrative state, whatever you want to call it, it is the partisan instrument of the Democratic Party,

and that's why any threat to it—so, you know, your Bushes are not going to threaten it very seriously. And look, they tried to take Reagan down using the same lawfare playbook with Iran-Contra. But Trump, once again, comes along and is a direct threat to them with specific proposals. That explains why the left is ginning up about Project 2025, even though it's an exercise that Heritage has done for 40 years. And so, you know, if Trump wins, as I say, I I expect he will we are going to see them try and run the exact same playbook one more time I think I'll stop there I would disagree with one thing you say I always have to disagree with just one small point okay okay you you actually contradicted yourself in that whole because what you said was the administrative state, how did you put it? It's the partisan instrument of

the Democratic Party, right? It's the partisan instrument of the Uniparty, Steve. Okay. And you said that because the very next thing you said was the Bushes aren't going to, you know, do anything about that. The Republican Party establishment is almost as guilty and complicit in refusing to allow, and kind of back to what John even said, refusing to allow any Republican president or presidential candidate to criticize too deeply the swamp, call it that. That sounds a little bit childish to put it that way. But I mean it sincerely. And that is that because the Republicans wouldn't stand behind Nixon, and I don't think it's just because they were watching the polls and so forth, because they

weren't responsible for some of the negative press that Nixon was getting and all that. Republicans have shown themselves over and over, with few exceptions, that they're not willing to stand behind a candidate who wants to clean house of the federal government. And so that's where I would disagree. And I think if you put it in that context, it explains why Nixon was not supported in 1974. And it explains why Trump wasn't supported in 2016, 2017, all through his presidency, and why Trump is not supported by many members of the Republican establishment today, because they don't want Trump to do what Trump wants to do. They didn't want Nixon to do what

Nixon wanted to do, because there's just too much at stake for the way things operate on a daily basis in washington dc for republicans even to want that um whole nice little situation that got to end whether it's defense contractors on and on and on i could go on this forever and i won't i'll quit now well that's a big subject but i want to go back to a point you made steve because i just don't remember this i'm sure you're probably right. You say Nixon was making noises about really taking on the federal bureaucracy. I mean, didn't Nixon found the EPA? Oh, yeah. No, right. Yes, that's right. Maybe I'm just forgetting. I was younger then, but I mean, I don't remember Nixon making war on the federal bureaucracy. Well, it's a long... Oh, no, no, he understood what had gone wrong,

I think, and wanted to reverse course dramatically in his second term. But he didn't just want to abolish the EPA. He wanted to actually centralize, control the bureaucracy in the White House and have a super cabinet. There's a great book about this from, gosh, the late 70s called The Plot That Failed. And the opening scene is, it's by a liberal professor named Richard Nathan. It's a great, makes for great reading. But he said was, he overheard his conversation on a plane in early 73, where one liberal operative says to another on the shuttle to New York, you realize Nixon's only weeks away from taking over the federal government.

And that becomes the whole storyline of the book. And yeah, no, Nixon's a complicated person. We didn't perceive this very well. The administrative state and spending arguably grew more under him than under the Great Society, and that is a big problem. And that's one of the great ways. Well, that was why, you know, my mentor, Stan Evans, used to say, you know, I didn't support Nixon until after Watergate, you know, after wage and price controls and the EPA, Watergate was a breath of fresh air. Well, this is one of the great historical moments with Nixon or Ford. I think it was Nixon and then carried on by Ford.

And Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were in charge of wage and price control. I know. I mean, conservatism in the 1970s was not what it later became. Oh, and William Simon was the first energy czar, which is, you know, on principle, he couldn't, shouldn't, okay. Right. But to his credit, Nixon had

a plan for building something like a hundred nuclear reactors. Correct. They had this big strategy where they were going to become completely energy independent. We would have had so much, so much electricity at this point that it would be too cheap to meter. It would be penny cheap.

I mean, that, you know, as you said, he was a complicated man, and no one understands him but his woman. Yeah, yeah. Well, John, we've got a few minutes left. Anything you want to leave us with? Any parting thoughts? Any warnings?

Anything for the great national audience to remember that only us Minnesotans know? Well, not really. I mean, I would just add this thought. I'm appalled at Tim Walz being the vice presidential choice because Kamala may very well win, and I don't want Tim Walz anywhere near the levers of power. On the other hand, one interesting phenomenon is how, now that he's the vice presidential nominee, light is being shown on him and his administration, his policies, his conduct, in a way that's never happened here in Minnesota, despite our best efforts, James. The Star Tribune and the other media here in Minnesota have done nothing but run interference for Tim Walz. I've got a good friend who was active in the 2018 Republican campaign when Walz first got elected governor and kept trying to talk to local reporters

about Tim Walls' military service and how he abandoned his battalion and lied about his rank. All this stuff was known then, and the reporters uniformly told him, that's an old story, it's been covered, we won't write about it. And, you know, it's really interesting how this is, it's kind of a case study in how it's not just the national media, you know, that's in the tank for the Democrats. In some respects, local media tends to be worse. And it's kind of fun for me to see people finally paying attention to Tim Walz's record. We'll see. And we'll also see how people outstate regard this whole weird charge. I think one of the most illustrating things about the administration happened a couple of years ago, I think, a couple of years ago, during the Trans Day of Visibility at the state capitol.

Now, I'm of the opinion that if somebody wants to declare themselves to be another gender and wear the clothing of that other sex, fine. I don't care. There's a club for you, I, fine. I don't care. There's a club for you, I'm sure. I don't care. Don't ask me to agree, to conform to the gender ideology, don't ask me to be anything but indifferent. However, I do draw the line at having an event in the state capitol where this guy on heels is dancing on the state seal, which is embedded in the floor of the rotunda. It's actually the sort of thing you cannot do. There are ropes around it, out of respect.

You're not supposed to walk across it. But we have this event where everybody's whooping and whooping and hollering and cheering at this guy staggering around doing a horrible dance in high heels on the state seal itself. And to oppose that, to find that deplorable is weird apparently that act that

show is not itself weird but to have an objection to it to have an opinion about it even is being seen as weird and that is how the culture of the metro at least has shifted in the many years that i've been here how long before they removed that seal? James, no, this is my point. Lucretia, that seal no longer exists. You know why? Because Tim Walz's committee didn't like it. There was an Indian on it on horseback, a pioneer, pine trees, waterfall, the state motto, and the date, 1858. That was the date when Minnesota became a state. Tim Walz's committee said we shouldn't celebrate that date. That was a tragedy that Minnesota joined the union. That was a terrible, terrible thing. We have to take that date off the state seal. And so the Indians gone, the the pioneer is gone, the date is gone,

it's all gone. And now it's just a loon. So the state seal that guy danced on symbolically, that was a preview of things to come because that state seal has now been retired. Well, the state seal is no longer on your flag. Instead, you have the wannabe Somali flag. Not a Somali flag. Yeah. The real question is whether or not it will be sandblasted or dynamited off one of the buildings in the State Fair. Because one of the old 1930s, 1940s barns, I remember, has the old seal on it. So I'm curious whether we're going to go full Orwell and statue here and just jackhammer that thing off because its sentiments are no longer to be shared.

History is such a bothersome impediment to getting us all into the year zero. Gosh darn it. Anyway, John, thanks so much. Everybody should go daily as you go to Ricochet to PowerlineBlog.com and have a good read. John, enjoy your lunch. Thank you for joining us today. James, can I just get in a very quick closing note? Of course.

Listeners should know that I have filed an injunction in federal court under the old common law doctrine of adverse possession to take permanent ownership of Peter's spot since he's gone AWOL. And Lucretia is recruiting a team of the best medical doctors to give the long overdue rhinoplasty to Rob Long. Oh, my gosh. Steve, I got to warn you warn you adverse possession takes 21 years so i don't know you might have to wait a while you know you know what the next year is going to feel like at least 20 so yeah john hinder ricker thank you for joining us today in the podcast good to see you john and we've come to an hour so we're going to get out of here because uh what more needs to be said, really, except that you ought to go to Ricochet, where a couple of things will happen.

One, you will be amazed. She hadn't gone there before. B, you will be curious beyond measure to find out what goes on in the member feed. Well, you have to join up. For a mere pittance, you can find out and join the community there. That's a sort of sane, center-right, civil conversation you've been looking for all your years on the web, mostly civil sometimes. Yes.

Sometimes, you know, not so civil. We're only human. What can we say? You can also find where the ricochet people are meeting up because it's not just a website. It's a place where people arrange meetings,

where we meet in human form, contact and have ribs and drink beer and generally talk about everything except politics. Look, thanks for joining us today, Steven. Again, you know, good luck in the adverse possession lawsuit. It might take 21 years, but I hope I'm going to be here for that long. And if not, I'm sure somebody else will be slaughtered in this place with absolute frictionless ease.

We were brought to you by the people that you heard breaking in periodically in the podcast. Support them and you support Ricochet.com. And I tell you to give us that five-star review on Apple Podcasts, but you know that already. You haven't done it. You feel guilty. I forgive you. Go do it. Send no more. I'm James Lalix here in Minneapolis. Stephen LaCroix. It's been a pleasure, and we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 4.0.

Bye, James.