The Ricochet Podcast - Murphy and Kaus

Episode Date: June 19, 2014

Political strategist Mike Murphy makes a long overdue return to the Ricochet Podcast to discuss what really happened in the Cantor-Brat race. Was it immigration or is all politics local? Our old friend Mickey Kaus has a point of view on that, and he joins to give his boots-on-the-ground analysis of what happened in VA-7. Spoiler alert: he and Mike disagree — but in a very entertaining and... Source

They say you can't hurry love, but if you don't get to your post office by March 23rd, you'll miss your chance to save €2.50 on a book of 10 heart-shaped love stamps. Now, just €14. Down from €16.50. Perfect for all kinds of love messages like, We're getting hitched. You're still my favourite. Or,

Growl McCree. If you've a couple of fuckle. Buy yours now at your local post office or at onpust.com. Send joy. Show growl. Send love. Onpust. For your world. T's and C's apply or at onpust.com. Send joy, show grow, send love. Onpust, for your world. Decencies apply, see onpust.com.

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. Hi, Los Angeles. I'm Troy Sinek from Westlake Village. Tune in to see whether I sink or swim on Jeopardy. Activate program. More than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. Well, I'm not a crook.

I'll never tell a lie. But I am not a bully. I'm the king of the world! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long and a panoply of guests. Mike Murphy shows up and then mixes it up with Mickey Kaus. And then we'll top it off with reigning Jeopardy! champ Troy Senec. Yes, Ricochet's own.

Wow, what a lineup. Let's have ourselves a podcast. There you go again. Which podcast? The Ricochet Podcast. Which number? Number 219, and it's brought to you by Audible.com. Who are they? You know.

The Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, nonfiction, and periodicals. Now, for a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. And we're brought to you by Encounter Books for 15% off any title. All of them. Go to encounterbooks.com and use the coupon code ricochet at your checkout. This week's featured title is Faithless Execution,

Building the Political Case for Obama's Impeachment by Andy McCarthy. And of course, we're brought to you by ricochet.com itself. Amir Pittens for a month. Amir Pittens for a year. I'm here to tell you all about that as co-founder, co- brought to you by Ricochet.com itself. Amir Pittens for a month. Amir Pittens for a year. And here to tell you all about that is co-founder, co-founding father of Ricochet, Rob Long. Take it. Thank you, James.

Praise you, baby. I will do that. You said it was Ricochet podcast number 219 in the old way. We had an old way of numbering these Ricochet podcasts. It would be volume four, number 11, meaning we've done it for four years and 11 weeks. If you are listening to the podcast for the first time after four years and 11 weeks, we thank

you and we are happy to have you. If you are listening to this podcast and you are a member of Ricochet.com, we are thankful that you are a member along with us. If you are listening and you are not, you have to go to Ricochet.com and become a member. Why?

It is the fastest growing, most civil, most influential conversation on the web between and among our contributors. People read the Ricochet member feed. They read our conversations, people in high places and people in low places. Our goal is to sort of knit together the center right of the country to win it back the hard way, the only way. And we need your help. And we need your help to keep doing that. We need your help to keep putting out these podcasts. We need your help to grow our membership.

We need your help to make the conversation crackle the way it's been crackling. So please go to Ricochet.com and join. That's the only way to make sure that these podcasts keep coming to you. And if you enjoy it and you like it, pony up. And a special shout out, as the kids say on the internets these days, to the Thatcher-level members. Did we mention these?

No. There are three levels of membership. There's the Sainted Coolidge, Calvin Coolidge level, which is your most efficient basic level. There is the Margaret Thatcher level, sort of mid-tier. You get a few more goodies and a few more extra stuff. And then there's the – of course, the highest level possible would be the Reagan level. And that's a little bit more money and there's a dinner and a couple of events that you get to come to and a couple of podcasts that are extra. And we would be pleased to have you at any level.

But of course, if it's possible, Thatcher and Reagan would do us a world of good. And here are this week's Thatcher and Reagan would do us a world of good. Thank you. And here are this week's Thatcher-level initiates, D-Man, Aloha Johnny, Neutral Observer, Collegetown Girl, and Scott Roycer. Thank you so much. We turn now, having gotten the commerce out of the way, although we never get the commerce out of the way.

We love the commerce part. That's why we're on the right. We bring in Peter Robinson in sunny California. Hope it's sunny, Peter. It's miserably drizzly rainy here in Minnesota. Is it really? You make me feel so much better. Well, it's how we're having the wettest spring ever. And frankly, I don't mind a day like this.

There are some days where it's nice to be inside as the thunder goes. But here's the problem. And here's where the federal government, I believe, enters into the problem. At 7 o'clock this morning, my phone started shrieking because there was an alert about a flood, flash flood warning. And I believe that this is some government-mandated program that says you will get these alerts no matter what. You can't opt out of them. Now, I can understand that somebody who was in a flash flood area would be concerned. I live in a hill.

There's absolutely no chance whatsoever that I'm going to be inundated or borne away by a flood. But my phone starts shrieking. It was earlier than that, I believe. that I'm going to be inundated or borne away by a flood. But my phone starts shrieking. Yeah. It was earlier than that, I believe. And so there I am trying to get back to bed thinking, thank you for the warning about the flood. But speaking about warnings about floods, Peter, no doubt you have been watching with a very pained eye

what's going on across the world on all sides, seemingly, as things catch fire. Wait a minute. You guys get all the light banter and then you bring me in for a clunk. What about the situation in the Middle East? No, actually, I was going to talk about

Greek Isles who are having a really good year this year and how you feel about that. But no, if you want to take a rant, go ahead. Take a rant in Iraq. Take a rant in Iraq? Please. Take Iran and Iraq. Take Iran and Iraq? Please. Take Iran and Iraq, please.

Yeah. So we have to flip this one over to Rob pretty quickly because I am genuinely conflicted about this, meaning I keep finding myself looking at it in the wrong way, meaning that I take great pleasure in seeing Barack Obama mess up yet again. That's a terrible thing to say and even to feel that the president of the United States – and when it comes to Iraq, what is happening there is terrible, clearly. On the other hand, I felt very queasy about the way the Bush administration got into the war, couldn't win the war, couldn't win the war, couldn't win the war, and finally there was a surge. And it just seemed to me that it never really got – an argument never really got made well to the American people. And now – oh, so here's the other complication.

I'm now revealing what a terrible person I am that I'm thinking to myself, you know, strictly speaking, as if I were Machiavelli and looking at nothing but the political realities here, maybe it's not so bad for the United States, for the Sunnis and the Shiites to just have at each other the way they used to in the old days. So that is just a kind of a stream of consciousness. None of it a useful thought, really. In fact, none of it constructive at all. But that's what goes around in my mind when I look at the newspaper and think, whoa, they're closing in on Baghdad.

Whoa, Obama has no idea what to do. Oh, now the United States is telling Maliki to resign? Really? And to be replaced by whom? Rob, now tell us what we should be thinking. Well, no, I think that's whom rob now tell us what we should be thinking well no i think that's kind of very close to i mean what we should be thinking i don't know it's an absolutely baffling um you know chinese torture box uh where every turn has pain and there's no solution because we went in and we kind of didn't have a we didn't have a fully

articulated policy and we were hoping that this would happen. Our policy was let's hope this is easier than it's going to be. Of course, nothing is ever easier. Everything is always harder and everything is always a mess. Even when you have a very clear goal, which is take Berlin, it's just a huge number of crazy things happened on the way to taking Berlin back. So in Iraq, it's sort of the same situation.

I do think, however, that there was – and we know this now sort of as a fact. In the early days after 9-11, there was a formulation made and no one really quite knows whose it was that if you look in a clockwise fashion around Israel, just picking Israel as sort of your fulcrum or your center. You look at the countries, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, countries like that. What you have around the only democracy in the region is stability.

At that point, stability in Egypt for 30 years, stability in northern Africa certainly for 30 years, stability in the Assad regime in Syria for 30, 50 years, 60 years, stability in Iraq for 40 years.

He was a Ba'athist for 40 years. Iran, of course, in 79. The Saudi throne, the King of Jordan's throne. Maybe the problem in the Middle East isn't instability. Maybe it's stability. So if we go in and shake things up and create instability, how is that worse? Maybe it's even better. And then maybe, as you put it, Peter,

maybe when they're fighting each other, they don't have time to bomb us. Correct. So, correct. I will say Paul Ray, our friend and frequent Ricochet contributor, Paul Ray, who was here at Stanford for a year, he and I had lunch a number of times.

He was here as a visiting fellow. He's gone back to Hillsdale College and he promises to reappear on Rico And he said, as a cold matter of realpolitik, that is true. But it is simply unchristian of you and wrong to wish death and destruction upon both of those peoples. So there you have it. I'm just – that's what got me thinking that all my responses to this are inadequate. Well, I think it's really – that's a very compelling point. But once you go in there to try to impose democracy, to create democracy, to create a working state, that's what you're playing is real politic, right? There are going to be winners and there are losers and some of the losers are totally innocent. By the way, hasn't this much been established?

I can only think of two things that have been established. One, there is a piece of very good news in my opinion. I think it is geopolitical good news as well but it just seems to be good news in and of itself that the Kurds in the northeastern part of Iraq have, so to speak, gotten away. They now have a functioning, it's not recognized diplomatically, but they have a functioning country. It's growing economically. They're holding elections. They even seem to have something like two competing political parties. They have certainly by the standards of the Middle East, freedom of speech. That is one good result from our invasion of Iraq all those years ago in 2003. So – but the second – Well, right.

That's a promise we made to them all during the first invasion of Iraq in the 90s. Yes. This is a quarter-century struggle for the Kurds. It's a disaster for the nation of Iraq, but it's a – Yeah. It's a disaster for the nation of Iraq, but it's a – Yeah, okay. So – and then the second thing, it seems to me General Douglas MacArthur occupied Japan. He ran Japan for seven years before we stepped away and let Japan take off as the stable democracy that it has been ever since. In Germany, the denazification process took a good, well, of course, Germany is a very complicated puzzle because there was Western, but let's just

talk about Western Germany, which succeeded. The denazification process in the American and British and French zones went on for a good five years and we remained a present. Well, for that matter, we still have troops there to this day. The idea that we could go to Iraq and build a democracy and clear out. Right. Not just not going to happen. So we have to say to ourselves, you want to succeed in Afghanistan? We have to stay there. Is that a price we're willing to pay?

I don't think so. I'm not sure, but I don't think so. We want to fix the problem in Iraq. You can perhaps, and so maybe this is what I'm coming to. Maybe it's good enough from the point of view of the security of this country to fill the air over these troubled areas with drones and keep hitting the terrorists, but you're not going to build – you're not going to bring peace or growth or anything like a stable democracy to those countries by using drones. It may be good enough to protect this country. Yeah, drones are sort of like this magic invention for Barack Obama. Yeah, exactly. create an enormous amount of death and destruction, speaking of being a Christian, and to do it with very little coverage and very little American – very few American casualties.

So in a lot of ways, drones are a perfect Barack Obama tool because they don't – I mean in terms of taking a country like Afghanistan that used to support – was a state that sponsored terrorism and turning it into a state that doesn't do that. Who knows whether a drone is able to do that or not? Look, it's a mess, right? I mean part of the problem is that we went in with these kind of crazy ideals, kind of 19th century ideals like Lord Kitchener going to the Mahdi to fight the Fuzzy Wuzzies. And we never quite knew what we were – we never quite understood the difference between Iraq and Iran – Iraq and Afghanistan. Afghanistan, we didn't have a choice. Afghanistan was going to be a mess and there was no reason that it was never going to be a mess. And of course it was going to be a mess, but we had to do it.

You can't allow a state in the world to sponsor terrorism uh to that extent you just can't uh and and um and we learned a lesson with libya years before that a few a few strategic bombs that doesn't do the work you need to you need to you need to punish the offender iraq was slightly slightly different and a bigger bigger sandwich to bite bite. And now, of course, it's all spilling out. Well, it's kind of like this. We left before we even really got started. I mean with a country that had been – an imaginary country conjured by lines by bureaucrats that have been held together by brutality, when you come in and you break that, you either stay for a long time and have a transitional period

where you pay off the bribe-able and bloody the nose of the surly, or you just leave them to it and get out. And that's what Barack Obama did. You tell me that there's not enough money. 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.busseran.ie today. He wanted out and he got out and this is what we have. But the enemy of the good is – I mean the enemy of some perfect outcome where we end up with a Germany 40 years down the road isn't very helpful when you've got these sons of bitches taking over oil rigs and going towards Baghdad. I think the opportunity to stop them has been squandered. You pick up the paper and you say that, oh, no, they're not going to have any airstrikes.

President rules out airstrikes. Well, these are not guys who are going on their belly in sand-colored uniforms working their way gradually toward Baghdad. I got the feeling that we probably can find out where their armored columns are going and destroy them. But that was a long time ago. That was two weeks ago in this war. We were curious to try to bring back our girls back then. Right. We've lost the momentum on that. So I, what I hate about this more than the feeling of the seventies, again,

the feeling of powerlessness is the feeling of, of it. It's like running in a nightmare, that feeling you have where you can't run fast enough away and your emotions are uncoordinated and it's all sand all of a sudden. Yeah. And right. That's how this all feels.

And if there's an, an utter vacuum and absence at the top, you sense that the president doesn't care. They tweet out a picture of him getting licked by a robot giraffe. That's funny. That's gif-able. That'll be on BuzzFeed. And they worry conspicuously about the oceans. But they don't look at a situation like this and say this is going to end with something horrible happening in New York two to three years from now or a San Diego port.

You don't get the sense that they get it. Well, but I – I mean I – and I'm no defender of Barack Obama. But I'm also – I mean their point, which – and they have some justification to say this, is that, hey, listen, this was a mess that we inherited and I don't know if there's another way to fix this without it being a mess. Everybody kind of knew even going in that getting out was going to be the trouble and that it was going to probably – there's very little chance of making that perfect bank shot so that you sink both balls in the corner pocket and then the – just very, very unlikely. It was going to be messy.

Maybe not this messy. It was going to be messy. You can't really criticize him for failing to have an outcome that for our side was merely hypothetical, only hypothetical. It's a horrible, horrible situation. The problem really is the very beginning I think is the very beginning. You add up everything we spent on Iraq and you said – what if you had said, listen, the reason these bastards have all this leverage over us is because we have to buy their oil. But what if we took all this money and developed our own oil resources, which everybody knows we have, and we did that.

Wouldn't that be better? Which we should, and it's a mess, and I'm very nice that you're standing up for Barack Obama and tossing him the baby wipes so he can clean up the mess. Well, speaking of, thank God, Mike Murphy's on. He'll take it, yeah. Yeah, nice job defending the president there, comrade.

Jeez, Rob. Oh, my God. I'm uncomfortable being on such a liberal show, frankly, but I'll try to help. Good to be with you guys. Hey, Mike, I got one question. I mean, obviously, there's an issue here. We're not going to talk about Iraq, but there has been, we now know what happened in Virginia 7.

Is that right? Are you confident that we have an idea of what happened? We have an idea. We don't really know. See, there's a, again, I've been enjoying watching all the kind of instant punditry on it, none of which are based on, like, facts. Now, we don't have all the facts, but we have some. And God forbid to get in the way of, you know, armchair speculation, but we know a fair amount. The reason it's so hard to figure out is Virginia is a very quirky state. These are like little footnotes that count.

Virginia has no party registration. You walk in and say, I want to register to vote. They say, great. They don't ask you if you're a Republican, Democrat, or declined to state, as we say in California, or independent. And the primaries are totally open. So you could leave one of your standby or president match parties and just walk into a precinct in that election, and they just hand you a ballot. And because there was nothing going on on the Democratic side, there was no contest.

There was that college professor. You get a Republican ballot republican ballot you can vote so what what we think happened in the post-election study i tweeted a few times that at murphy mike uh... the job of block the news of republican pollsters got a lot of you know what was the criticism for early polling being wrong uh... in he decided to go to happen what he was doing was pulling the official republican american voters the republican party would get which again to figure out what the hell happened. What he was doing was polling the official Republican primary voter list

that the Republican Party would give you, which, again, in Virginia is hard to compile. And it turns out he was polling half the electorate, and the other half were a lot of new Republicans, a lot of people who hadn't put in primaries before, and a lot of independents, and even some Democrats. Now, I don't believe any of the conspiracy theory about who organized it,

you know, mind control thing, but I totally believe, because we have political science data on this, that in a totally open primary with nothing else going on and famous candidates, some Democrats and a lot of independents who aren't even necessarily Democratic, some could be true independents,

some could be kind of closet Republicans, showed up and voted. Probably about 40 to 45% of the electorate in that special election. We know the turnout went from low 30,000 up to about 46,000. Those voters had to come from somewhere. So if you look at it, there's no doubt that Cantor was in trouble with the Republicans in the district. In the exit polling, which anybody can read,

it's on the McLaughlin website, or again, I've tweeted a few links, Cantor carried the people who identified themselves as Republicans by about eight or nine points. Now, you know, post-election surveys have a little bit of methodological challenge because people tend to lie a little bit after an election about who they voted for. But still, let's say he broke the Republicans even, which is still a huge story if you're the majority leader. That's definitely an indication of pushback but the non-republicans about 30 percent of the electorate in this exit poll were independents and about 16 or 15 percent were democrats overwhelmingly voted against canter so what we know now is it was kind of like a california jungle primary you know it's a little bit of a perfect storm canter had big republican trouble

he got wiped out with independents and particularly Democrats. What it was not was a single issue immigration protest vote, Tea Party, internal Republican thing. The electorate was too, you know, ideologically and politically diverse for it to simply be that. And among the most predictable long-term Republican primary voters, Cantor did the best. One quick footnote, because I just like this kind of point of CW pushback, I heard a lot about Laura Ingraham, who I've known for a long time. I'm perfectly a friend of Laura Ingraham's. But her radio show is not on in the Richmond market,

which is 85% of the electorate. She's on in Winchester, outside the district, in Charlottesville in two small stations that bleed into four counties, about 11%, 12% of the electorate in the district. Of those four counties, Cantor won three of them. So I don't want to cut into our advertising revenue. Some people can listen on the Internet. But the idea of this was, I guess you're going to have Mickey on later,

that this election result was right out of my friend Mickey's dream journal. Just isn't backed by the facts. It was much more about punishing Washington, Cantor being seen as not connected to the district, having left the home fires, and some people who like the president and don't like Eric Cantor decided, hey, it's a free

country, I can vote too, and they voted, and it wasn't for Cantor's re-election. So, Mike, Peter here, Peter Robinson, two questions. Hi, Peter. One is, I mean, we all know that Cantor's re-election. So, Mike, Peter here. Peter Robinson, two questions. Hi, Peter. One is, I mean, we all know that Cantor in the leadership was the most anti-immigration of the leaders. Boehner wanted to push for immigration. Paul Ryan is making noises about immigration in this session. And as best I can tell from reading it all, Cantor was still saying, well, maybe someday,

but not now, no. Nevertheless, we keep reading that immigration played at least some role in his defeat. Is that correct? Was it a component? I think it was part of it. I mean, let's put it this way. In the polling, the pollster right after the election talked to 400 voters, which is a pretty good sample. And of the 400, about 35 said immigration, 35 out of 400, less than 10% said immigration was the main reason they voted against Cantor. So, you know, I think it was in the mix, but it was not the driving cause. And that's bad news to people who, you know, what happens in these special elections, which always have peculiarities to it, in

this case, the nature of Virginia open primaries and Cantor's leadership position being a magnet for Democratic opposition. But they always try to say, aha, we now have a national direction. Well, simultaneously over in South Carolina,

no liberal state, five people spent a year running around the state saying Lindsey Graham is an immigrant-loving communist, and he wiped the floor with all of them getting 60% of the vote

or close to. So I think, you know, we have to be careful at telescoping. If you were to interview people, what we did in the polling or McLaughlin did, who voted against Cantor, immigration was part of the equation. But among all the people who voted in that election, there was a question on the poll, should we have comprehensive immigration reform? And it was not overwhelmingly supported. I'm not going to claim that, but it was about 50-51 yes, about 37 or 8 no. So it just was a secondary thing at best.

Second question is the effect of this, not on the country, not on the pundits, but the effect of the day afterwards was that Paul Ryan and John Boehner, who've been pushing for immigration reform in this session, would not be doing that unless they had 30, 40 members that they thought they might be able to cut a deal with. And my suspicion was that if they had 40 members they thought they could bring over to their side in this session, 38 of those members are now saying, not a chance, baby. Look what just happened to Eric. Correct? No, I think you're right. I think you're right, at least right after the election, because people in politics, unfortunately, argue with anecdotal info. Cantor got killed in immigration. We can't do immigration. What's for lunch? Now, the truth is Cantor didn't get killed

in immigration. Immigration is a paper tiger issue. And a lot of people in the party can do basic math and don't want us to become the minority party and watch President Hillary Clinton, you know, preside over a Democratic Senate and a declining House majority, which we'd probably lose after the next redistricting in the census, understand this is an existential question. So there's pushback. And one reason I've been howling this data so much is we should not let the myth of Virginia 7 overcome the facts of Virginia 7. So our people, for whatever side of the issue they're on, and I understand the anti-immigration side of it, but whatever side they're on, they're at least arguing for facts, not fiction.

But yes, I think there's been a chilling effect on immigration reform from this, and hopefully that will fall, but we will see. I think it's a hard lift to get it done in this election cycle. I think there is a window in 2015, and if we're smart, we'll take it. One more, Mike, from Peter on immigration, if I may. I'm just asking for sure Chuck Schumer, look at the 11 million illegals in the country now and they think to themselves immigration reform for us means votes. You hear Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan talk about it and they say, wait a moment. If we Republicans don't do immigration reform, we'll lose votes. Both sides cannot be correct about the politics

of immigration. Who is? I think I'm with Jeb. There's truth in both arguments. That's the problem. It's disingenuous to say that we have 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, and somehow they're going to get overnight citizenship and voting rights, and they're all going to vote Democratic. That's false on a lot of levels that's not where immigration reform would lead now in time you could see going to legal status and eventually voting rights for some but we know from the demography that's very hard to argue with the latino vote is so big and important that the worry about being swamped in 10 years is the least of our worries. We're being swamped today by illegal voting American citizen Latinos.

The number one name of male babies in Texas, the state that holds the Republican Electoral College Coalition together, is Jose. So if we don't get in the business of recognizing the market we're in of voters and recognizing that Latino voters are important and that 25% of millennial voters are Latino. And we start campaigning with all our stuff, which, by the way, every poll shows we have an incredible pitch to make. But when our opening line is, I want to throw your uncle in jail for coming to this country illegally because he wanted a better life for his family then than not

uh... become here to have work and hopefully see his uh... his kids grew up to be americans grace fifty can give them and we consider that a felony so i'll we go you know some barbed wire ready for you i worry about it i think a path to legal status with fines and penalties and stuff to recognize that it is a lot of the crime but help if i drive my wife to the hospital and she's having a baby

and I run a few red lights, I'm a criminal too. We've got to recognize this. Or the question of the legal status of $10 million now is irrelevant. The existing voter universe will wipe us out, and we will be the minority party, and we will not be in the presidency, and we're not holding the Senate. So it turns them off, in other words, to say that we're going to deport your uncle. But if we say we want to build a fence to keep your next uncle from coming in, they're fine with that?

That's good? Yeah, that's an oversimplification of the argument. If we say we want to find a way to get you legal status if you're played by the rules in America, and we want to say an immigration policy to let people come here to work rather than vilify you the way we do and just turn on AM radio if you don't believe me, we can make tremendous strides. And frankly, if we got on the right side of that and we were on the right side of gay marriage, we would beat the Democrats like a slow mule and we'd be able to run a conservative opportunity society in America.

Well, I do listen to talk. I do. I do listen to talk radio. What Dennis Prager says is Dennis Prager is for enforcing the law and controlling the border. And he also says that he understands exactly why people come over here. He would if he was in their position. He understands and has sympathy. But he's not saying deport. That's AM Talk Radio. Michael Medved doesn't say deport them. Hugh Hewitt is a

big fence guy with a wide door to bring in the people that we need. I am a Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved fan, but we just talked about 8% of AM Talk Radio. All the numbers are Limbaugh and Levine. I mean, dominant market share. So I agree with you. I like Diet Dr. Pepper too. 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. But in the soft drink category, it's Coke and Pepsi. But I'm going back to what you said

was an oversimplification. Do you think that if the Republican Party, instead of going with deportation as their big theme, which I don't hear, but I'm not hearing what you hear, and goes with border control, border security, that the Hispanic audience demographic here already will say, oh, great. Yeah, that's fine. I agree with that. I'm on your side. Do they make that distinction? Legal status. It's all about legal status. Border security is an issue that kind of makes people feel better about the current situation, but the political issue in the Finland community is legal status.

Okay, hey, Mike, Peter here. Some sort of legal status. Okay. Hey, Mike, Peter here one more time, Mike. So on immigration, I'm happy to move on from immigration, but so immigration, the comprehensive legislation, the bill that the Senate passed and that the house stopped called for a path to citizenship of something like 10 years. And Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush and others said, and Marco Rubio has changed now, but he was saying at the time, this will solve the Republican problem with Hispanics. Isn't it obvious that if there's a 10-year path to citizenship, I guess it's not obvious because

people, smart people like you say no, but isn't it the case that if there's a 10-year path to citizenship, that gives the Democrats 10 years to outbid the Republicans and say, oh, we Democrats want to cut it now to eight years. We want to cut it to five years. We want to expand the number of rights you have while you're on the path to citizenship. And Republicans for all, for a decade, Republicans will be forced to say, wait a minute, we had a deal here. And they'll be the naysayers all over again.

Isn't that just obvious about the way the politics work? I think your premise is wrong. I think that's a marginal argument that won't have that much sway. If we can get to a consensus on a 10-year path and a legal status without citizenship before that,

we'll do fine. We'll take away 90% of the argument, and then we can pivot and counterattack on economics, education, reform, and the things that we can win Latino votes on. So I think that I don't buy that.

And by the way, the other problem is the other plan, the current plan, head in the sand and huff and puff, is a guaranteed disaster. It's a cavalry charge against tanks, just a question of time. It is a path to permanent minority status for our party and a complete 50-year leftist domination of national governance. And to me, the imperative is not to have that occur.

Rob, I have 20 more questions, but Rob sent me a text. Rob wants in. Go ahead, Rob. Well, I actually wanted to talk a little bit about the future, so if you have some more immigration, go. I guess my question, Mike, is why not border security first?

Well, if you get out of the rhetorical fights of this, border security has been enhanced. We've spent a lot of money. Illegal immigration has dropped with economic realities because it's the market's quarter. But the point is the Republican base is more interested in border security. The vote of the future we need to survive and prosper as a party is more interested in a path to legal status. So you can sequence it, but that's just political window dressing. The fundamental issue is status.

Wait a minute. Political window dressing is bad now? No, no, no. It's good. I've been a living of it. But I'm just saying if you want to get the votes, you've got to get to the fundamental problem. But I don't understand why those two things are not compatible. They're totally compatible.

But your question, I think, was which to do one first. Well, the votes we already have are pleased by border security. The votes we already have are a ticket to losing. So, yeah, I'm all for it, and I think it's good policy, but the political matter, and if we have to do it first to get to the second, fine, but the price of that, there is a price of that because the clock is ticking. See, the biggest problem we face is not the two thousand fourteen elections we're going to do great for free

will probably learn all the wrong lessons we're gonna have states you could collect a bigger cement with an hour out of to the senate i'm all for that we may well win the majority but two years from now better two-and-a-half in two thousand sixteen we will probably lose the senate majority because we got twenty four Republican seats to defend,

including in states that are not Republican-friendly in a presidential year under the current demography, which gets back to the Latino problem, including, for example, Illinois. So the worst scenario for us is we win the Senate, we drive the brand right on some issues like that, and then we have a cataclysmic loss in 2016 where we lose the Senate, we potentially lose the presidency, and we hang on to the House until redistricting, and we can very well lose the House in 2020. So, yes, we can start with border security,

but we better get around to legal status and some of these other issues that really move Latino voters or we're whistling past a graveyard. Hey, Mike, Peter here one more time. This is a non-immigration question. And Scott Emmerich is giving me, if this has to be your last, if you've got to go, go. But here's the question. I've got a little time. I'm here to about, I guess, 9.05 or so.

Okay. Then you can look at that point. But you might want to beforehand. I want to get back to Rob's love of Obama, but go ahead. Okay, you get back to Rob's love of Obama next. I'm actually going to say the big Rob's thing about the Iraq thing is such a quagmire at so many levels. They have bundled it. But they're managing a failure to begin with.

I don't really blame the Bush administration. This thing goes back a long time. I'll blame the British Foreign Office after World War I. But it looks now like three bad alternatives. So there's no easy way out. The simple bomb thing doesn't work. You know what would happen if we started bombing? We would have couped force Iranian bloodthirsty killers doing our spotting for our precision munitions.

I mean, we'd literally be in business with the Iranians, which is almost as bad as being in business with the uh you know isis right anyway no no no no no american politics a friend of mine somebody we all know but who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons just texted me the other day from the latest of the conferences put on by the coke brothers by invitation only. You're well aware of these. I'm sure you've spoken at them. And the text

that he sent me, he sent me an email and he said, this was just wonderful. The Koch brothers have put up tens of millions of dollars. They have speakers come in. It's clear that they have a kind of, they've thought through a whole strategy. They have speakers come in. It's clear that they have a kind of – they've thought through a whole strategy. They have various volunteer organizations that are doing this in this state, that in the other state.

And at the end of it all, Charles Koch stood up and says, I'm in for this much over the coming year. And his brother David stands up and says, I'm in for this much. And the people around the room say, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. They raise money. And he closed it by saying it's what the Republican Party should be, but isn't. Is it the case that the Koch brothers, that Karl Robben crossroads, that these new center-right organizations are necessary because of the collapse of political parties, but particularly the collapse of any real structure in the Republican Party. Is that the future of the American right?

You know, I don't know if I agree with the framing. I would just say this. We have a system now where outside ideological money swamps the parties on both sides. Historically, there's always been union money on the left, but now there's like Steyer, the hedge fund guy who hates the internal combustion engine. And on our side, we have the Kochs and others. So there's no doubt that external forces spending money to litigate issues in front of the public, it's a growing dynamic. And parties in the U.S., kind of the way we've operated, have become weaker and weaker, especially since the rise of television and direct primaries. So I think it's kind of a, I don't know if one causes the other, but there's no doubt that this money is there. And a lot of what the Kochs are trying to do,

and there are things I can quibble with on the tactics and everything, but the fundamental idea they have is we have to move public opinion to move politics. It's not just a matter, but they do a lot of this, of running an independent expenditure ad in a certain Senate race. I mean, they do a lot of that, and it's been mostly helpful. Some of it has not been so helpful, because often you get into debates about the quality of what they do. But their fundamental thrust is to also spend money

on kind of an ideological reawakening, which is a very smart idea. I mean, we have a problem in the country. The growth economics and the concept of free enterprise have lost some of the grip on the great middle class, and it's hard to win elections in America. The middle class isn't on your side, and that case has to be made for growth and free enterprise and a tide lifting all boats and opportunity in the country. We have to relitigate some of these issues, or being the party of free enterprise and the right, we're at a bigger disadvantage than we

should be. So I'm generally very pro-Coke. Hey, Mike, we have Mickey Kaus on in a few minutes. Hey, Mickey! Well, he's on in a few minutes. Would you stick around so we can have an actual... He's sneaking over the border right now from

where his secret headquarters are. Would you stick around so we can have an actual – He's sneaking over the border right now from AHA, where his secret headquarters are. Would you stick around so we can have an actual train wreck? Yeah, I can stick around until about 9.04. All right. And then Lindsey Graham and I have to go down to the Mexican embassy and surrender more sovereignty. I cannot imagine that anyone will want to take more of you and Mickey debating more than that. So that's a perfect timing. We'll try to get Mickey on

in a moment. That'll be grand because maybe we've got some time there where we can discuss the fascinating Speaker of the House, Majority Whip, all of that stuff, which I know is just electrifying America. But whenever I hear the name Kevin McCarthy mentioned, I always think back to Kevin McCarthy, who was the actor in many

movies, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But then again, there are probably... Go ahead. I'm assuming you're right. No, I was just going to say there were probably people who hear Mike Murphy and think, wait a minute, we got the guy on who was saying the song Wildfire? Because I remember when that was... I haven't asked that, you know? I checked his hotel once in North

Dakota on the campaign trail, and somebody brought out a record for me to sign. I hope that you did. It's a lovely little ballad. I did. I totally did. I said, I might as well make the dream come true. And I said, yeah, I'll never forget that, Pony.

Unfortunately, it came out coincident with the movie The Andromeda Strain, in which the term wildfire was used to describe the laboratory that they used to keep us all from dying from outer space organisms. That is a great poll. I try that joke all the time, and nobody gets it. Like when Cantor lost, I wanted to tweet just wildfire, because that was the code word they call the scientists with the whisk them away from the dinner party. Precisely.

But nobody gets it. We do have an actual link, though, to Kevin McCarthy, because when we talk to Mickey, we should repeat the Murphy Challenge, which is, Mickey's a California resident. He ran a courageous campaign for Senate in the Democratic primaries against, I'm trying to remember, I think it was Boxer. I think he should move to Kevin McCarthy's district and be the next Dave Brat. And he can primary the next likely majority leader, next election cycle, out there in Bakersfield. And we can put some of the immigration arguments that he'll claim had a big impact on Virginia 7 to work again and try another lab experiment.

What else for Congress? That's a great idea. And now I must grind all of the gears to get back to what I was saying before about why – I ruined your transition to the movie poll that nobody will get anyway, so I don't feel too bad. Absolutely. Well, it wasn't a poll. It was just a reference to Michael Crichton. And oddly enough, Andromeda Strain is not available as an audiobook, which is probably a good idea.

It's a highly visual movie if you've ever seen it. But everything else that – It's a good movie. Very good. Though I'm a Satan bug fan if we're going to go into bug movies. Satan bug actually isn't that good. I'm going to search audible.com right now to see if it's available. However, when I saw it as a kid, it absolutely terrified me, but it lacks the clinical scientific precision of Andromeda.

Now, the thing about Crichton, though, was that he wrote that as a very early, he was young when he wrote that book, and he actually appears as a young man in it, I believe, in some scenes. He was about 21. He was a doctor. But later, Crichton, who we miss very much, wrote a series of books scientifically based that give you the illusion of having learned something. And if you'd like to listen to them, the place to go is to audible.com. Audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet is where you get your free 30-day trial and a free audiobook of your choice.

And we have to give a choice here. Somebody, I believe, Peter, the fickle finger of fate, as they used to say on Laughing, God, I Hate the Memory of That Show, is pointing at you. Quickly, your pick this week for Audible before we go on to Mickey and bring him in together with Mike. El león, la bruja y el ropero en las crónicas de Narnia. And I'm not tossing that in just because we've been talking about immigration. My middle son needs to bone up on his Spanish for college. He's got a summer job. He's got a commute.

That's about half an hour in each direction. And he just downloaded the Spanish version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, one of his favorite books when he was a little boy, and is listening to it in Spanish. And you know what? It does the trick. It helps to tune up your ear for Spanish. So it turns out that we just thought, hmm, I wonder if Audible has that the other evening. And it turns out there is a large collection of books in Spanish. Thanks, no doubt, in large part to Mike Murphy and Paul Ryan. Well, we won't go through.

Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because that expands the base right there. That will get us good in Texas. Audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet. Audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet to get your free 30 day trial. And of course, Peter, Peter having gone Spanish on us, that brings up the matter of Raul Labrador, who some were pitching as a, as the next great thing in the house. Let's ask Mickey cows about that. And we bring them into the conversation with Mike Murphy. Welcome back, Mickey. Hey Mickey, it's Rob long. How are you? I, I'm fine. We have Mike Murphy's on right now.

You say Eric Cantor lost because of immigration. Mike Murphy says you're full of it. Well, I've said immigration. No, don't go shock jock on me, Rob. And by the way, Rob was defending Obama early, Mickey. You ought to get a transcript and do a column there. I've said immigration was a factor, but not nearly the overwhelming factor that some of the CW proclaims, and overall the district is not rabid for. It was not a big immigration rejection vote in my view.

That was my opinion. Well, I think it was. I was heavily involved in this campaign. I aggressively tweeted about it. I went there. I talked to the people. You did? I conspired. Yeah, I was there on Monday before the election, and I hung around brat headquarters and talked to the campaign manager. And then I was at the victory party,

talked to the people who'd started the whole thing who were anti-immigration activists. The whole debate in the last couple weeks of the campaign was about immigration, so much so that Cantor put out a mailer where he portrayed himself as the anti-amnesty candidate. Now, why would he do that if he didn't think it was an important issue? I don't think his campaign is that incompetent. Maybe they are. There were some other polls. One automated poll showed that for 52% of the voters, immigration was a significant issue.

And I'm not at all convinced by this poll by the guy who screwed it up, McLaughlin, where he claims he doesn't really deal much with immigration, but he sort of has a couple of things that could be interpreted as that immigration wasn't important. The way I see the race is, Kander was unpopular in his district. That's why he was a ripe target, because there was like a 35%, 45%, 40% base of people at the anybody but Kander vote, because he'd alienated them in various non-immigration ways.

And you add immigration on top of that, and he loses. Mickey, Peter Robinson here. So why did the Brat campaign – Eric Cantor was one of the most – was I think the most anti-immigrant member of the house of the Republicans – Republican leadership in the house. Why on earth would Bratt take Cantor on? All the Republican leadership is relatively pro-immigration reform, and Cantor signed on to John Boehner's principles, which were written by an immigration reform activist and provided for a sweeping legalization of all existing illegals. Okay, so he signed on toals. He signed on that.

He also rode in an elevator with Lindsey Graham. We have photos. This is him signing a document. Him supporting a document. He also made a big show of rebranding himself by coming out in favor of amnesty for the Dreamers, the kids who

were brought here allegedly through no fault of their own. Rich Lowry put it best. He was trying to finesse the issue and play off both sides. And immigration is an issue where we want people we can trust, and we didn't trust him. Also, we could knock him off. If we could knock off Boehner, maybe we'd knock off Boehner. Got it.

I have a challenge, Mickey. I want you to move to Bakersfield and primary McCarthy next year. I thought this was a challenge, Mickey. I want you to move to Bakersfield in primary McCarthy next year. I thought this was a trap, Mike. Let's test it. Look, I was a high-dollar donor to your Senate campaign. I've seen you campaign. You're a machine, and now I know you were there for Brat. Mike owns me, you understand, because he raised funds for my campaign. So I'm completely in his role.

That's right. It's a very unfair debate. He broke his chains on the immigration thing where we thought we had him under our diplomatic control. I did all the voiceovers for you, Mickey. Don't forget, I was your voiceover guy. But you want us to refer to you as kingmaker, right? Do you feel like a kingmaker?

Mickey, how much of what Mike says is, I mean, now that the celebrations are over and the balloons have sort of been cleared away from the ballroom, how much of what Mike says is – I mean now that the celebrations are over and the balloons have sort of been cleared away from the ballroom, how much of the realism of that poll do you think is real? Of which poll? The follow-on poll that suggests that Cantor won among Republicans and lost among ticket jumpers. I found it semi-convincing that there were a bunch of people who were not lifelong, diehard Republicans who voted in every primary who voted in this election. So what? That's the electorate. They weren't necessarily mischief-making Democrats, although there was an attempt to make mischief among the Democrats that I was tangentially encouraging,

which was by Ben Cooter Jones, who was... With your tweets, etc.? With more than my tweets, Rob. This was... Okay. This is a black bag operation, but... All right. Kreskin was involved, Rob. There was some mind control.

The amazing... It was all done with no fingerprints. No, I think I sent an email to Ben Jones or something. But he he he was he lost the canter and he was he was, you know, annoyed and thought canter ran a dishonorable race. So he wanted to bounce him. So he was agitating on the left just to get rid of canter in an honorable way. I mean, he actually liked Brad better. But most of the people, you know, the independent voters are, we learned in 2012, a lot of them are ex-Republicans. Now, some of these were more than that. They voted

for Obama, they voted in Democratic primaries. But, you know, if Cantor only won the Republican vote 55-45, which I think what this poll shows, that's still an incredible demonstration of the effect of immigration. That's terrifying to current House members who might be challenged that the majority leader could lose 45% of the vote in a primary, in part because people don't trust him on immigration. That's all we need. The fact that we also knocked him off is just gravy. Hold on, Mickey, Peter here here i grant every word of that analysis and what you just described i'm now taking mike's role here because mike mike argued it himself so so well before you got on the line what you just described is it is a kind of suicide

for the republican party it's not a question of the vote 10 years from now, if the illegals ever become legal, we're being, we Republicans are being swamped by the Hispanic vote that is legal today. Meg Whitman spent a hundred million dollars running for governor of California. She hired the best advisors possible, including Mr. Murphy. And when it became clear that she had fired a housemaid because the papers were wrong, the Hispanic vote, the Hispanic vote, the legal vote fell away and she lost that race a good campaign, well run, no shortage of money. She lost the race by a large margin. What happened in California, what has happened in California, which is that Republicans have lost the legal Hispanic vote, will happen across the country. If Republicans lose Texas, they've lost the country more or less, well, for our lifetimes.

Well, so, Mickey? Well, there are a bunch of answers. First, the firing of the maid is an extra personal issue that would hurt any candidate because it seemed to show that Whitman was callous. So that was an extra issue. Second, if California is the future, so why let in so many immigrants that all of the United States is going to look like California? In retrospect, there was no way Whitman was going to win that election. Brown seems somewhat inevitable. Third, Mr. Murphy refuses to take Mickey Kaus's advice, which is to have a position that's not just endorsement of the La Raza-approved immigration reform,

but say, okay, there will be an eventual amnesty, but we want enforcement first to make sure that what's happening on the southern border of the United States doesn't happen again. So we have enforcement first. We do three things to enforce the border. Then we have our amnesty. There is an amnesty down the road. That would enable a Republican candidate to say the same thing in the primary that he or she says in the general election. Instead, we have Whitman acting all tough in the primary election and then pivoting as soon as she wins to try to act more liberal. And that inherently saps the credibility of a Republican candidate. I also happen to think enforcement first is the right position. So if Republicans adopted that, I think they'd have a much easier time.

Let me chime in for a minute because I was involved in the Whitman campaign. What was more interesting was the primary, where the Couse faction was given $25 million to run a massive television campaign attacking illegal immigrants in California, and featuring a particularly memorable ad with a roadkill sign, like a crossing amaryllis of an immigrant family put on every channel. And it was devastating the Republican brand. It hurt us dog and we never really recovered from that

because in california such a partisan democratic status uphill to begin with uh... and so i i think that that they pick on a native this forces of general counsels but marshalling were uh... were real political detriment to us here and i i agree with the premise of your question but look this is this is a good example You can either argue politics anecdotally, which is I knew a guy who told me, or carom shot logic, and it's fun, and everybody does it,

and I'm enjoying listening to it. But we do know some facts about election, and the truth is, you interview 400 voters scientifically, and 35 of them tell you immigration was the number one issue. You can ignore that fact, but if you want a fact-based analysis, you can't. Wait, Republican voters or all voters said immigration? Yeah, the McLaughlin poll.

The cross tabs are there. You can look at some of the cuts. And I've looked at every question on the poll. It's just it's hard to find more than 10% of the voters for which this was the burning issue. I'm not going to say the anti-immigration vote wasn't part of the coalition, but it was not a sufficient cost of living. There's no question

that asks, were you motivated by immigration? There's a question number five that says, please tell me which issue you are most concerned with, not that it affected your vote. If you ask me what I'm most concerned with, I'd say I'm most concerned with world peace and the economy and jobs there.

Marjorie Moore would be in line. I know. And two of the pollsters were secret Latinos who tilted the poll in the Kennedy assassination with the beginning of this. I mean, again, you can argue that. You've got to read the questions. You've got to read the questions. The question did not ask what you said there. How did Lindsey Graham win? Let me ask you that.

Look, it's harder to beat a senator than it is to beat a congressman. He's a million miles to the left of Cantor, and he won. How'd that happen in a Republican primary in South Carolina? Because it's much harder to knock off somebody statewide, especially when they've managed to neutralize all the good candidates who might run against them. The fact that we won one of two, I'll take that. The fact that we didn't run the table and beat every single Republican. All right.

Look, the poll does not ask what you say it asks. It says, please tell me which issue you are most concerned with. Then, when they summarize it, they falsify the question and say, which one of the following issues is most important to you when deciding your vote for Congress? They didn't ask when deciding your vote for Congress. Shouldn't people who vote immigration say immigration? Look, you said which issue you're most concerned with. That says what's the most important issue.

Obviously, economy and the jobs is the most important issue. You'd have to be a people like me to say illegal immigration was the most important issue. But if you ask me how I vote, I would say it turned on immigration. They're two separate questions, and they conflate the two in a totally confusing way, and the poll is basically meaningless as far as immigration is concerned. It shows

Bratton, it shows Cantor winning on immigration. Insane. He only won on immigration because he posed as an anti-amnesty crusader. What he was for was the DREAM Act and nothing else. I mean, he has a 96% aligned vote with the entire Republican caucus in the House, so I guess we've got to throw them all out. But isn't the Lindsey Graham thing – Mike, just set me straight on this if I'm wrong about it.

Isn't the Lindsey Graham thing that he had so many different challengers they couldn't get out of each other's way? What was it, four Republican challengers? He had five five campaigns or four or five i remember there were campaigning full-time against him in one of the most conservative republican primary electorates in the country and he he got over a majority of the vote i would think if somebody should be able to force him in a runoff if there was majority consensus in the state even it was split among multiple candidates that he was a horrible traitor and the all-important number one ignore the polls issue of immigration. He just crossed

the halfway line, right? I think he just got 51%. I'll look that up. Sorry, I'll fall some more. It was a little higher, I think. I think it was 56. Or something like 52 or something like that. He has a point on that, right? Go ahead. A month ago, I said that there are going to be two candidates involved in immigration,

Lindsey Graham and Eric Cantor, and anti-immigrant forces are going to knock off the majority leader of the United States Congress, you would be aghast. Murphy would be aghast. Now that it's happened, he's trying to say, well, you didn't do the other five things. Well, Mickey, don't tell me what I would have been. I'll tell you what I am. The fact is I don't believe anti-immigration forces were nearly that powerful.

I think if it was a closed primary in Virginia, Cantor would have won a very close race. Anti-immigration would have been part of it. You would have gotten a platform, but it's hard to find evidence that it was the big race, particularly when 45%-ish of the people who participated in that open primary in a non-registration state were independents and Democrats, none of whom said their number one issue was immigration.

Well, but look at the actual campaign that was run, Mike. It was all, people made up their minds a lot in the last two weeks. The last two weeks were all about immigration. Why were they talking about immigration? You can't prove that statement. I don't believe it. I mean, show me data. You got an excess collection of all the press?

Do you have a tracking poll? Do you have anything scientific? No, you just believe that because you went to the district and hung around with 50 anti-immigration guys and decided, hey, everybody we're talking to is an immigration guy. Laura Ingraham turned out 625 anti-immigration guys on a weekday at a rally. So at some point, if there are enough anti-immigration guys... No, I agree. There were 500 anti-immigration guys... No, I agree. There were 500 anti-immigration votes out of 46,000.

You convinced me. Hey, boys, Peter here. Closing question for both of you. Kevin McCarthy is the new majority leader in the House of Representatives. I'd like each of you to give him two sentences of advice on the way to handle immigration and to position his caucus between now and November. Mickey? Shift to an enforcement first position and buy off the high-tech employers.

Say, look, we have enforcement, then amnesty. In the meantime, when we have the enforcement, you can have a bunch more guest workers. Split the pro-amnesty coalition and pass a bill that eventually will secure the borders and then eventually there'll be an amnesty down the road for current illegals. Mike? Ignore

Kaus, push the bill, listen to Graham. You don't think the bill is dead? Nothing's dead in Washington. We re-litigate. But there's so much money behind it that it's like the first lobbyist who admits the bill is dead is going to be taken out and shot or something. Well, no, I'm not a lobbyist. I'm somebody who's for comprehensive immigration reform because I don't want to see a debt credit.

I actually think it's a good thing. I like the policy. Let's talk about Haley Barber. Amnesty. Talk about Haley Barber? No, when I said lobbyist, I was talking about Haley Barber. Amnesty. Talk about Haley Barber? No, when I said lobbyist, I was thinking of Haley Barber. Okay, speaking of Haley Barber, this is the last question because Mike has to leave. Rob is texting me in 30 seconds.

Boys, both of you, who's going to win in Mississippi, the Tea Party candidate for the Senate race, the Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel or the incumbent six-term senator Thad Cochran? Mickey and then Mike. McDaniel will win, but Mike will do a poll showing that all his issues with Thad were agreed to by the voters. Mike Murphy gets the last word. I think, look, the polls have all showed McDaniel ahead. Cochran's closing.

If I had to bet, I'd bet McDaniel, but I think an upset is possible. All the advantages of McDaniel in a runoff, lower turnout. And immigration has not been a big issue in that race at all. Okay. That was my last question. Thanks, man. All right. See you guys. We're going to settle this at the Octagon later. Thanks, fellas. Thanks. Well, that was quite an encounter between those two. And now that I've brought up encounter, I might mention, as you probably were wondering if we're going to have an encounter spot. Of course, we love them. They love us.

And you're wondering, do we have a new book? We do. And it's been making all the rounds and causing some stir in what the author is proposing. That's right. It's Andy McCarthy's book, Faithful Executions, what they did, the ISIS guys did to the others. Faithless Execution, building the political case for Obama's impeachment. Couldn't be more timely. If I may read some of the praises. In drafting our founding compact, the framers confronted a wrenching paradox. For the fledgling nation to survive, for it to have the security the Articles of Confederation had failed to provide, awesome powers had to be concentrated in a chief executive, the president,

empowered to act swiftly and decisively in times of peril. Yet there was no greater threat to liberty, the defining American imperative, the very reason for creating a central government, than the concentration of unchecked power in a single government official. Consequently, debates of the Philadelphia Convention centered not on whether or not presidential power had to be effectively checked, a premise on which there was unanimity, but on how to do it, how to stop a rogue executive who abused his awesome powers, who imperiled liberty by becoming a law unto himself. Sound familiar? Well, his faithless execution will demonstrate it is a straightforward matter to plead articles of impeachment

derived from these episodes to establish, quote, high crimes and misdemeanors, end quote, a term of art borrowed from English law signifying maladministration and abuses of power by holders of high public trust. To focus on the individual episodes is to miss the overarching offense, however, the president's willful violation of his solemn constitutional oath to faithfully execute the laws. The modus operandi for the transformation he promised to deliver

is to concentrate power into his own hands by flouting the law, the Constitution, statutes, and judicial rulings, and essentially daring the coordinate branches of government to stop him. End praises. I think you get the point. Andy tees it up and takes a swing and you read and decide whether or not he's made the

case. To get Andy McCarthy's book for 15% off the list price, go to encounterbooks.com and use the coupon code RICOCHET at the checkout. And we thank Encounter Books for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. I believe that we were going to talk to a Jeopardy. Yeah, we have a celebrity. We have a celebrity. But before we do, can I just say that there's something weird about a famous and still Democrat, Mickey Kaus.

Yes. A speechwriter for Jimmy Carter arguing – taking the hard line on illegal immigration against a lifelong Republican who has helped a lot of very conservative Republicans win statewide elections. There's just something kind of weirdly glorious about that. I just kind of – I never stop to marvel at that. Anyway, that's what I would say. Your word for it is marveling. My word for it is cognitive dissonance. I mean the whole thing through.

I'm thinking, wait, wait, wait. I'm agreeing with Mickey. I'm agreeing with Mickey. Yeah, yeah. That's the only thing, I mean, you'll agree with. I mean if we had – if we were talking about Obamacare, it would be the complete reverse. No, no, I know. I know.

In fact, I spent a happy – well, in the end, it wasn't all that happy. But I spent what started out as a happy hour in your very living room, Rob, trying to find other areas. I thought, yeah, Nicky is such a great guy. I couldn't find a single other issue, not one on which we agree, not one. It's great. It's great. Well, maybe you might agree that the previous longtime record holder of Jeopardy, Ken Jennings, has distinguished himself on Twitter as being something of a jerk, not a particularly pleasant public persona. And if you go to Twitchy, you can see the sort of stuff that he engages with back and forth with his fans.

Is he a big lefty? Is he a big lefty, that guy? No. So it seems. So it seems. I don't think we have that trouble with Troy Sinek. After Troy dethrones Ken Jennings as the longest-winning, most successful Jeopardy! champion ever, he'll still be the same nice guy that we know and love. And we welcome him to the podcast to discuss the fact that he's on Jeopardy.

Wow. And I'm not even going to put anything in the form of a question because that's about as hackneyed as you can get. Try I have to ask you, though. It's like this. I tried out for Jeopardy once. I did it in Atlantic City. And I passed the first round. And after that, I said, okay, that's it.

I'm done. I'm just going to content myself with knowing that I passed and not go on and make a fool of myself because it's not really what you know. It's how you control the button. Right? Right? Tell us your button-clicking secrets. It's that damn button. You were precisely right, James. It's when you go and tape Jeopardy, what you can't see on TV is that there is a light board on the side of the game board where people read the clues. And as the clues are being read, those lights tick down, and only once they go off are you able to ring in. And actually if you ring in prior to that, you're locked out. There's a penalty for a fraction of a second.

And what you have to do, what I did anyway, I mean there are any number – people have written entire books about how you game this. What worked for me is it's a matter of reading the clues as quickly as you can. So basically once it comes up, you try and read it, process it, figure out your first and maybe second answer for what it could conceivably be and at that point, focus entirely on the timing. So you're basically spending the first half getting the substance out of the way and the second half trying to pick your spots. And if you watch the show I did last night, for instance, it takes a while.

I mean that was the first one that I was on and I probably got halfway through the show before I ever figured out the timing for it. Hey, Troy, how did this happen? How do you get to be on Jeopardy? It's a long process. Like James was saying, I mean it's – there are several sort of tiers. In fact, I probably started attempting this I think probably about three years ago. You have to take an online exam where they give you 50 questions, very short time. I think it comes out to – you've got roughly 30 or 45 seconds for each one.

You don't know whether or not you passed that. You just take it. And if you did pass it, there's a chance you can get called in to go in person, take another one, do sort of interviews and have them get a sense of your personality. If you pass that, there's a chance that you can be called in to actually do the show. So there's kind of three different steps that go into it, and you can succeed at every one and not necessarily get called in because they have more people applying for it than they have spaces for people to do it. Hey, Troy, it's Rob. Did you win anything? I won money, Rob. I won sweet, crazy money. Wait, so can I ask you – so you win the money, and do they give you the tax form right then? I mean how does the taxes –

Yes, they do. They give you the tax form right then, and it's a weird sort of – the financial arrangement for it is – this is timeshare economics. It's really weird. If it wasn't for the fact that Jeopardy is a pretty well-established institution, you would be entirely mistrustful of it because the show that aired last night was taped in February. I did this four months ago. Right. I remember that. And it's now June and it's airing, and the standard that they give you is that any money that you win, you will receive within four months of it airing. So I won't even – yeah, I won't see any of this money.

Trebek could be in Grand Cayman by then. The whole thing stinks a little. But it will be Thanksgiving before I see a cent of it. The government will see its share quicker. You can't tell us how it stands, right? I cannot. It's ongoing. People can tune into it tonight.

But no, I am prohibited from discussing anything other than what's already aired. When I tried out – I tried out in Atlantic City actually where they had open auditions. You walked in. You took the little test. And just to remind you that this wasn't DeJeopardy. There was a life-size cardboard cutout of Alex Trebek by the door. And that was as close as you got. Now, you've gotten very close to the man that everybody regards as this very smooth, erudite Canadian fellow that we all like and who projects the intelligence that the show seems to draw. However, when you talk to him, you get that little moment when he walks up and talks to you.

There was a little clip on YouTube a while ago where somebody was – Alex was saying, you've made such money. You made this. And the guy said, well, I've made more than the, than the, uh, the children in sweatshops who make your suits, Alex, which was one of the most ingracious and mortifying moments I've ever seen. You had to tailor in your head what you were going to say to Alex Trebek. What did you, what did you think was going to be, to be the persona that you wanted to project? What did you want to get across? And I guess what I'm saying is how many times did you mention Ricochet? You know, we actually – the producers had several conversations with me about this, about the fact that they very much frown on specific references to a business interest that you're involved with.

I will say this, James. The experience that you had with the cardboard cutout of Alex Trebek is the optimal interaction with Alex Trebek. Our friend Pat Sajak is the metaphysical opposite of Mr. Trebek who is every bit the frosty Canadian that comes across on television and then some – there was actually – it's a little bit out of school but who the hell cares? Actually, they've still got the check, so maybe I shouldn't say this. But when they taped the show, the show is basically done live to tape. So the time it takes to tape the show is roughly – I mean they'll stop if there are mistakes but it's roughly the 30 minutes it takes to air.

So the breaks in between are roughly the same as the commercial breaks. In between, Alex Trebek will take questions from the audience and you can imagine what the demographic split is for a Jeopardy audience. It's pretty much – everybody is either under eight or over 80. And Trebek got a question from a small child. There's a lot of kids there on field trips and a very sweet kid. I don't even remember what his question was, but Trebek calls on him and the kid says, Mr. Trebek. Trebek cuts him off right there.

He says, you never start a sentence with the word um. You are kidding me. Frosty silence. And that's Alex Trebek, a friend of mine who is Canadian. You are kidding me. who had taken her, ran into Trebek. Trebek was in the room and went over to him, sort of almost meekly, and said, Mr. Trebek, my daughter's here. We're huge Jeopardy fans. Could she just take a picture with you? And the response he got back was,

I don't do kids. I don't do kids. So, yeah, the cardboard cutout, James, you were at the peak of the mountain there. Wow. You didn't miss anything. You don't start the sentence with who. You see, now Judge Judy – Judge Judy, if somebody starts up by saying um, she will instantaneously bark, um is not an answer.

And she's absolutely right, and I've used that in my own life and lost many friends because of it. But great. Nice to know that he's just nothing but a glacier. Huh. Odd how I could – How's the auditioning for Wheel of Fortune coming along? Yeah, you know, I don't think you can – you probably can't make it, right? I can't.

They actually – we had extensive conversations about this. In fact, there was some question – You had to sign a non-compete? Are you kidding me? No. Well, because of Pat's relationship with Ricochet. If you have any sort of affiliation with somebody who hosts a game show, even one that's as tangential as that, you're not allowed to participate. In fact, production had to,

because it's the same company, had to make sure that it was okay for me to do Jeopardy because of the connection with all these little mazes. So Troy, is it hard for you to decide to watch yourself on Jeopardy when I know you're such a World Cup fan? I did actually entirely ignore it. A group of people, both the World Cup and Jeopardy, a group of people who are family friends of mine put on this big thing last night for people to watch it. And I got to be honest. I was outside playing catch with the dog. I take no pleasure whatsoever in actually watching it occur on television.

That said, the pain of watching it is marginally less than watching Luxembourg versus Latvia or whatever the hell it was. I would give back my Jeopardy! winnings not to have to watch that. Oh, wow. OK. So now we have an idea of what the Jeopardy! winnings might be. That's good.

So you're not watching any of the World Cup? No, no. You know what? I have – I am not an elitist about this. I mean there's – Rachel Liu had this post on Ricochet this week about is soccer a great game and there's always – it seems like every time that there is – well, basically the World Cup. Anytime that there's a major soccer event in the news, the press starts relitigating this. Are conservatives too good for soccer? I don't particularly like the game. It's actually – it's a good game to watch in person.

If you've ever been to a soccer match in person, it's kind of like hockey in that sense. It doesn't translate well to television. The thing that I resent though, I think the thing that a lot of conservatives resent is not soccer itself. It's not even soccer fans per se. It is the kind of soccer fan for whom the affinity for soccer is sort of a cultural totem. There is an implicit condescension in there that you don't know precisely the right way to pronounce the name of the Portuguese striker. And obviously that shows that you're some knuckle-dragging, uncultured American who could probably name the starting line of the Baltimore Ravens. But clearly this is an indicator.

It's a whole food sport. That's what it's become. A whole food sport. That is brilliant. Yeah, I'm not going to endear myself to a lot of people with that. But I'm just – it's the pretension that surrounds it that irritates me, not the game itself. Right, right. It's the idea that I'm watching it.

Aren't I international? Look like crossing my sevens um i'm not uh i'm not following your uh your your the kinds of americans who say you know americans don't appreciate you know who begin every every summation about the american characters if they're not actually americans that's true all that said it's kind of fun to walk into a restaurant in la at lunchtime and um and watch and see a bunch of people from different countries watching a sport. I don't have to follow it. Although I do every now and then. If Brazil is playing for some reason, I like to watch Brazil.

And I do like the theatrics, the incredible theatrics of fouls and post and and post goal celebrations i always think there are you know are the things that even even americans were dancing in the end zone don't quite haven't quite figured out the draw how dramatic you can make your foul um you know the sort of the pain the sort of almost like a latin soap opera telenovela the pain of the guy holding his leg and rolling around yeah yeah definitely hoping the opponent is green card red carded yeah it's really off broadway stuff and Yeah, yeah. James got dinged, got scuffed, and he acted as if somebody was plunging a scimitar between a couple of vertebrae. I mean this is – and basketball has learned this from soccer, but they don't have quite the appropriate European flair. When you see the guys do it in the World Cup, I mean they have mastered this art. They have mastered this art.

I'm not sure though when those restaurants are going into an LA, Rob. I mean the question I would have, how many of those people are rooting for the United States? Well, I haven't seen the US play, but I suspect that – they're not Americans mostly. Right, because I've had this experience in LA, and it's usually Mexico. That's usually where you see the big turnout is for the games where Mexico is playing. It was fun to walk during the – last week during the Brazil-Croatia game and see the entire bar in the restaurant was filled with Brazilians and Croatians. I thought, well, that's one way to know who the Brazilians and Croatians are. I'm waiting for flopping to hit the NFL when the two lines collide and then everybody instantly falls down. It just looks like being Hamlet at that point. We're going to base our NFL games on the red winning from Game of Thrones.

Well, listen, we got to wrap this up. And Troy, we thank you as ever for showing up. And we wish you a continued and eternal success and the beginning of your game show career that eventually will end, I suppose, with Survivor and you being a conservative will know what it's like to be outnumbered and attacked from every source. Your conservative skills will let you build your clan to success. So

we'll see you suntanned and lean in about a year and a half or so. Or in just your normal state on Ricochet. And listen, folks, thank you for listening. And if you haven't paid up, well, you know who you are. And listen, folks, thank you for listening. And if you haven't paid up, well, you know who you are. And I know the nagging guilt that just drags at your soul like a fishhook every day you log on to Ricochet. And I say, I should, I should, I really should. Well, you should

and you can. And it's very easy. You can sign up for a month. You can sign up for a year. You can pledge to the various levels, which will get you more and more respect. That's right. The endless and boundless admiration, love, and respect of a dog that Rob Long owns and Rob Long and Peter Robinson, the founders of Ricochet. Thanks to audible.com, audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet, audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet for your free 30-day trial and encounterbooks.com, of course, where the coupon code ricochet gets you 15% off Andy McCarthy's Faithless Execution, or for that matter, any other title. Thanks, Peter.

Thanks, Rob. Thanks, Troy. Our guests, Mickey and Mike, and everybody who's been listening. And we'll see you down the road at Ricochet 2.0. Thanks, fellas. Next week. Next week. Take care. I know you don't.

Smoke on your pipe and put lead in it. Oh, yeah! I like to be in America. Okay, buy me in America. Everything free in America. For a small fee in America. Okay, I'm going to. Buying on credit is so nice

One look at us and they charge twice I'll have my own washing machine What will you have, though, to keep clean? Skyscrapers bloom in America Cadillacs boom in America Industry boom in America Twelve in a room in America Lots of new housing with more space

Lots of door slamming in our face I'll get a terrace apartment Better get rid of your accent Life can be bright in America If you can fight in America Life is all right in America Ricochet. Join the conversation. America America America America

Here you are free and you have pride Long as you stay on your own side Free to be anything you choose Free to wear devils and shine shoes