The Ricochet Podcast - My Corona

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

Rob Long is off this week, Law Talk’s John Yoo is sitting in. We’ve got Henry Olsen (he of The Horse Race podcast right here on this network) to chat about Super Duper Tuesday, Joementum!, and whether we’ve seen the last of the Socialist. Then, our friend and advisor Dr. George Savage stops by the tell us all about the Corona Virus — who’s got it, who doesn’t, what we can do about it and what we... Source

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston Telephone Directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University. Billionaires today, if you can believe it, have an effective tax rate lower than the middle class. Why are you complaining? Who wrote the code? My call was perfect. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and John Yoo sitting in for Rob Long. I'm James Lalex. Today we talk to Henry Olsen about the horse race and Dr. George Savage about, well, coronavirus. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you!

Welcome, everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast number 486, if you're making hash marks in the wall of your cell. I'm James Lylex here in Minnesota. Peter Robinson in California. Rob Long is self-quarantined. No, he's out doing stuff. But who knows? Maybe he's walking around with a 30-day latency period, spreading the coronavirus hither, thither, and yon. But I doubt it, hope not.

Sitting in for him is John Yu, who's just all over the podcast these days. Impeachment is over, but John, obviously, we still like you. We like you a lot. So here you are, and welcome. Oh, thanks. I feel it's spring. Are we going to have spring training anymore with the coronavirus? But it's spring training when the young prospects are brought up to the big leagues for just little outburst where he attacked a couple of Supreme Court justices by name and told them they're going to reap the release to the whirlwind. And he backed off from it later saying that it was more of a general commentary on Congress and the electoral results.

But no, you don't really call two guys up by name who aren't up for election, if that's your point. And then he also said it was because, you know, he's from Brooklyn. Scrappy old Chuck, you know, Chuck from around the block, that guy who's still got the little fighter in him. Nonsense. What did you guys make of this? And John, also, I know that the court case that Schumer is talking about is really important and might bear on where things are going to go in the future. So let's get to that first. You know, you can see Schumer going, nice little Supreme Court you got there. Shame anything should happen to it. Exactly. Exactly. But what it shows is, unfortunately, it shows the bad sides of both Schumer and John Roberts. It shows a bad side of Schumer and the Democratic Party, which is going on something of an offensive against the courts.

This is part of Elizabeth Warren and other nominees saying we should pack the court, increase it to 16 justices until they do what the Democratic Party wants. And now you have Schumer resurrecting. This is not the first time this is happening. Efforts in the past, such as President Obama and Senator Leahy criticizing John Roberts while the Obamacare case was being decided, is, I think, a steady war against the judiciary that we're seeing from the left, which always usually despises institutions which slow down democracy. And then, unfortunately, I think it shows the worst of John Roberts because, look, he's got lifetime tenure. His salary can't be reduced.

He's got one of the best jobs in government. All federal judges are protected from criticism. They can't be removed unless they're impeached. And so why does he care? Why is he out there taking note of these criticisms and response? He's only encouraging more of it because now Schumer et al know that he's sensitive to it. You think so, really, that he should have just remained? So what should have happened? He should have remained silent, let the Republicans do what they did, which was to get all over Schumer today or yesterday. Yeah, that's what I would say. You know, he should pretend no politics goes on at all. He's a chief justice. Let me just mention about the abortion case. This is. Yes, yes. What's the substance of the case Schumer was talking about that was being argued in the court while he was giving that speech? Really, really important. I mean, it could be one of the most important, maybe the most important abortion case since the partial birth abortion laws were upheld in the last decade. And then before that, the case that put Roe v. Wade on life support, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which was decided in 92.

This is a case where Louisiana, using its power to regulate the medical profession, says if you want to perform abortions in Louisiana, we think it's important that you have the right to admit patients to hospitals within, I think it's a 30-mile radius of where you're practicing. Louisiana says, look, this is in case something happens, an emergency arises, you need to rush the patient into the hospital. Plus, we have the right to regulate medicine. That's why we license doctors. On the other side, abortion rights, pro-choice people say this is, quote-unquote, an undue burden on a woman's right to access abortion. The reason why this is important is because the Supreme Court just a few years ago struck down the very same law when it was passed by Texas. But at that time, Justice Kennedy was on the court. Justice Scalia had passed away, and so we didn't have Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh on the court. look at the new replacements, you could see the courts upholding Louisiana law. If they do that,

you could see this being the start down the road to overruling Roe versus Wade. On the other hand, if the court upholds the past case, strikes down the Louisiana law, I would say the chances of cutting back on or overruling Roe wait or would require yet another justice to be appointed by President Trump. And where does the Chief Justice stand in the Texas case? And then where do you suppose he will stand in this case? This is why it is an important sign, this case, because in the Texas case a few years ago, Chief Justice Roberts was in the dissent. He thought it was okay for Texas and for states to use their power over the medical profession to regulate abortion. On the other hand, people say Chief Justice Roberts cares, and this is what ties in with the fight with Schumer,

Chief Justice Roberts cares about the public impressions of the court about its institutional legitimacy, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, you can always come up with reasons not to do something controversial, but right. And so he's going to be tugged because he doesn't want it to seem like, oh, you just change one person on the court, and then all of constitutional law changes. Okay, so you said constitutional but right. Your view is that they should uphold the Louisiana law, just as they should have upheld the Texas law even though they didn't, correct? That's what, Justice, you would vote to do? Oh, could you just say that again? I love the way that sounds. It doesn't get said enough. I was hoping Trump would really go for the Hail Mary. I mean, if he wanted to make

the election about the Supreme Court, just nominate me. No one will talk about this coronavirus anymore or the stock market. I think Roe versus Wade is one of the worst decisions in the last 50 years of the Supreme Court history. I'm actually pro-choice as a policy matter, but I don't think it's the job of the Supreme Court and the federal government to decide. I think it's clearly a matter left up to the states. That's basically, I think, what John Roberts thinks. That's why he dissented. That's why he should vote to uphold the Louisiana legislation. If that were to happen, then I think the big bet that legal or constitutional conservatives or the federal society or conservatives generally placed on Trump will have paid off. Okay, John, you keep talking like a law professor.

Should, would, if. You're on Ricochet right now. You're replacing Rob Long. What will happen? Nobody will ever hold you to this prediction, but you've got to predict stuff. How will the court vote? Well, if I was like Rob, what would I say? Well, this is like Cheers, where Ted and Diana—

So I think the court will reverse itself, and it will uphold the Louisiana law. And I think it'll be kind of—you were around, Peter, back in 92. It'll be like 92 when Casey was decided during an election year. I think this will have the effect of getting people to focus on abortion and the Supreme Court is one of the important issues in the 2020 election. Well, it wasn't only this case this week. There was also a case about Kansas and Kansas is, it had to do with using the information that was provided for employment purposes by illegal immigrants. And Kansas was saying, hey, we caught him at it, we can kick him out.

And the whole argument was supposedly about whether or not the government, tell me if I'm getting this right or wrong, John, the federal standards sort of overreached and invalidated anything Kansas wanted to do. Never mind what your local yokels want to do. It's what the feds want to do. And the Supreme Court 5-4 came down on the side of Kansas, which some people say is sort of indicative of a growing non-delegation idea there that's going to give states more rights as opposed to what the federal government wants. Is that a reasonably accurate sort of kind of assessment of what happened? Or just you want to laugh like a maniac and tell me, no, Mr. Bond, you're wrong, and here's why. Oh, no, no, no. I didn't focus on the case, but I can tell you a little bit about it. I think you pretty much got the facts right.

I think it's actually more important about the immigration problem, because if you, this is interesting, go look in the Constitution. I know you've got, I've got it on my iPhone. I look at it all the time, although it has all these games, which are much more interesting than the Constitution. Anyway, you look at the Constitution, the word immigration is not in there. There's nothing about the border in the Constitution. The only power the federal government has is the power to naturalize, to decide who gets to become a citizen. And so because of that, there's always been this struggle between the national government and the states about who can affect immigration. And so the case you're referring to, James,

is about how much can Kansas do to try to have its own kind of policy on immigration? Can they start cooperating? Can they on immigration? Can they start to cooperate? Can they give information? Could they even go farther to try to affect immigration? Now, I think a lot of people also are interested in the identity theft angle. Could states prosecute an illegal alien? Is that the Rob long-term? I'm sure Rob would spend five minutes trying to figure out what undocumented alien. Right, illegal alien. John, you will never become Mr. Justice

you if you don't get through with the lingo. Not even alien. That is otherizing. It's an undocumented person or a pre-citizen. Oh, is that where we are now? A pre-citizen. That's pre-citizen. Leave it to James.

That is just brilliant. A citizen fetus. That is brilliant. Actually, one last really important case. Probably maybe the more important in a longer term way than either of these two cases that was argued this week was a case challenging the constitutionality of the what's called the cfpb the consumer finance protection board that's the one that really calls up this issue james was referring to about delegation so behind the scenes of government what's really going on is who gets to control the administrative state aka the swamp. You could see impeachment was all about the bureaucracy

trying to reach up and swat away Trump, right? The FBI, the NSC. And so what's going on right now behind the scenes is the president is struggling to take control of the administrative state. Congress doesn't want that to happen. So they stick in all kinds of things to make these agencies independent. The CFPB is the most powerful independent agency. Ever seen maybe on a par with the federal reserve bank. And it only has one leader. The formerly. The

Obama picked Richard Cordray for example to be the head of this agency. They have the power to regulate all consumer finance in the country mortgages credit cards bank accounts. Auto loans They go on and on. That whole constitution out of that system was being challenged at the Supreme Court this week. If the court strikes down the CFPB, you could see the beginning of the end of independent agencies. That would be a huge,

an earthquake in government compared to the cases we're talking about. That's the second term of Trump. Right. Peter, you had something else you wanted to get into. I have one last one. This is nothing. It can't possibly be as important as the cases you've just been discussing. If I'm Rob now, I would just say, I'm really tired now.

Can I go to bed? I'm tired. Oh, wow. Now, wait a minute. This is why I never leave. This is why I never leave the Oh, wow. This is now. Wait a minute. This is this is why this is why I never leave. This is why I never. Exactly. Exactly.

Listen. OK, so Judge Judge Reggie B. Walton, who is in a was nominated to the federal bench by George W. Bush, issued a report. I have to understand. I have to admit, I don't quite understand why he was, oh, it's a FOIA, Freedom of Information Act, requesting full release of something. And Judge Walton issued a statement, something, criticizing very, very sharply Attorney General

Barr's characterization of the Mueller report before the report was released to Congress. You will recall that Attorney General Barr released something like a four-page summary of the report, which held us all in thrall over the weekend. And the main takeaway was, this doesn't look that bad for Trump. And now Judge Walton said that he may very well, the Attorney General may very well have been acting in bad faith and intentionally trying to create a political climate favorable to President Trump, which is pretty striking. John, significant in any way or just one judge popping off? I think it's one judge popping off. I think Judge Walton is, you know, wandering off really into the political thickets that are far beyond what

are required by the case. The case is only about whether these public interest organizations can get the full Mueller report declassified. If you look at the Mueller report, and I'm sad to say I have read it several times, you will see different blacked out portions. They're not a lot. They're very, very few. And they're supposedly there to protect confidential information, classified information. For example, how do we know the things in this report about Russia contacting Trump are true or untrue? Well, maybe it's based on we've wiretapped Putin's cell phone. Oh, I wish we could. That would be almost as good as wiretapping Rob Long's cell phone. Anyway, what if we were able to do that? We don't want to put that out of the Mueller report, so it's blacked out.

So Walton is just deciding. The only thing before him is how much of that to now release in the public, how much of that is no longer a national security consideration. And so instead, he goes on this long rant attacking Attorney General Barr, a 22-page rant attacking Attorney General Barr for the way he rolled out the report. And his main criticism is, oh, Barr, you didn't tell the American people enough of what was in the report in the few weeks before you released the full thing. I think it's quite unfair, actually, because it was still up to Attorney General Barr to make the decisions not to prosecute Trump for obstruction of justice, or to take up and confirm that Trump's campaign had not conspired with the Russians. I don't think anyone's saying actually those are not within Barr's powers. Walton is just going off about the public presentation of that to the American people, which does not matter to a court.

It really doesn't matter. Plus, the American people saw the whole report just a few weeks later, and we've dissected it endlessly. And I think Barr was right. So I hope this is one judge just popping off. But it does show you, I think, again, and this is a theme with the other two cases you've asked me about, is how political even judges are becoming in this environment. Yes, yes. Well, somewhere in this country with all the judges we have, there has to be one who's actually named Popinoff. And he probably keeps himself constantly, lest he be accused by John Yoo of doing precisely what he's named for. And secondly, when it comes to what bars. I mean, yes, we all have the report.

We're all able to read it for ourselves. The problem is that most people got what they got out of the Mueller report from the news media, which had a sort of, shall we say, a sort of kind of quasi-o-vested interest in maybe not telling everybody everything and watering it down a little bit. As a matter of fact, if you just relied on the news to tell you what's what and what's what, most of what they give you is watered down. So in terms of news, you're hydrated, but maybe in terms of your body, you're not. Did you know that 75% of us are walking around every day chronically dehydrated? Ah, we're suffering needlessly from frequent headaches, from energy slumps and poor focus. Just ask Rob Long, who probably doesn't drink enough water. Well, it doesn't have to be that way for you or for Rob or for any of us because of Hydrant. Hydrant

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And for 25% off your first order, go to drinkhydrant.com and enter the promo code ricochet at the checkout. That's drinkhydrant.com, promo code ricochet for 25% off your first order. drinkhydrant.com, promoomo code RICOSHET. And our thanks to Hydrant for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome to the podcast Henry Olson, host of the Horse Race podcast. Right here on Ricochet.

Also columnist for the Washington Post and a fellow for the Center of Ethics and Public Policy. Henry, we'll get to Joe Menem in just a second, but right now there's the nailing and the washing and the rending of garments about Elizabeth Warren because really she was the smartest, bestest person ever to do it. And it says awful, rotten things about our country that we just didn't realize how marvelous she was. That's what I'm reading.

Atlantic Magazine has these five reasons why she didn't catch fire. And none of them seem to be she was an unlikable skull that everybody knew was going to lecture us and take away things. So I think, go ahead. No, that's it. Go ahead. What do you think about Elizabeth Warren? No, no. I mean, I think that's hilarious that there's this huge reaction going on.

I was talking with a 20-year-old progressive woman who was asking my advice to vote, but the one person she wouldn't listen about was Elizabeth Warren because, cue the music, she was an unlikable scold who would just boss her around. So it's kind of obvious that she had glaring weaknesses. And then when she would talk about ideas and plans, there were always ideas and plans that were way to the left. In fact, her campaign got sunk by her stubborn insistence on going forward with exactly her idea, a Medicare for all. And when she put out her plan to finance it is when she stopped being the front runner. Right, right. Henry Peter here. All right, now we come to Joe Mentum. I'm trying to, well, this is the question is for you. Going into South Carolina, Bernie Sanders was almost the prohibitive front runner. South Carolina happens. Biden wins by 20

points. Come Super Tuesday, Biden carries everything except California and a couple of states that barely matter because the delegate count is so small. And it's so question number one is, is it really over? And question number two, which is, I think, fascinating, is what the heck happened? Because Joe Biden did nothing. He didn't contribute. There are no ads that went up. He didn't have a stellar debate performance. He was just being Joe.

Nothing in Joe Biden's campaign or person changed. Well, I think the first question is, he is the prohibitive favorite, but he has to hold the lead now. And we'll see whether or not Bernie Sanders can poke holes in him. Certainly Bernie's going to try, and I don't think he's going to drop out if he loses Michigan. Bernie's 78, and he's not a team player. I can't see why he would drop out any time soon. He certainly doesn't lack money. I mean, his true believers will pay through the nose to see their man in office.

So he may be the favorite, but that doesn't mean it's over. What happened? Well, there was always a majority waiting for a candidate from the so-called moderate wing of the Democratic Party, which is to say merely the center left. The challenge was always how to put together that coalition and not split it. Before South Carolina, it was split all sorts of ways. After South Carolina, it was clear that the African-American community was going to back Biden. And what that meant was that neither but a judge nor Klobuchar had any shot at the nomination. And they did something people usually don't do, which is drop out in time rather than too late.

I suspect they did so under pressure, and I suspect they did so in anticipation of goodwill flowering from the Democratic establishment. But what that meant was that he, in 72 hours, was able to largely unite that majority faction. And Bernie, who's had six years to try and expand his progressive army into a majority faction, had chosen not to do so. And that meant Biden was there for being the person who represented the least worst alternative for many of these voters. Hey, Henry, I got a question. Because I had my hopes set on the really rich short guy because I thought he was Asian. But anyway, what happened to Bloomberg? All the political professionals thought it was going to be Bloomberg, right?

How could $500 million not buy him more than America? Well, I made money on predicted betting that he wouldn't win a single primary. So not all. Yes, I did. But I don't know what it is. Is it what the way it looked like to me, the political neophyte was Bloomberg's entry and the way he came in actually help Biden in some way that he came in and that first debate day just piled on in the second debate? They went after him and it kind of took the focus off of Biden and all his faults and the fact that he'd done so badly. And then when the dust cleared, everyone said, oh, my God, we just destroyed the only other moderate that could be Trump. And then they returned to Biden. I just find the timing seems more than just coincidence. Well, I really do think it was coincidence.

I know that people would like to create a whole web of conspiracy theories, but Bloomberg could have said no. Clearly the establishment doesn't pull Mike Bloomberg's strings. He could have said, no, I don't want to be in the debate. He could have, like, oh, like, actually maybe tried to be a decent debater. And I think most of the people on that stage would not have attacked Biden. I think if Bloomberg had not been there, it would have been guns out for Bernie or guns out for Pete because they looked stronger.

So I really do think it was just Biden had strong support among the black community, and he got a much larger boost than anyone expected from him. They decided they didn't like Bernie. Henry, a number of people, notably Ross Dalvett, have made the point that the Democratic Party has just done what the Republican Party failed to do in 2016. And that is, to put it coarsely, this is not the way Ross put it, of course, but the party decided, recognized that a crazy person was about to get the nomination. In 2016, the Republican Party recognized that Donald Trump was, to everyone's amazement, actually becoming competitive for the nomination.

Here it was Bernie Sanders. But whereas the Republican Party in 2016 could not pull itself together as a party to unite behind one of Trump's opponents, the Democrats just pulled it off. And the Democrats somehow or other, and this is the question to you, why is it that the Democratic Party as a party should remain effective in a way that the Republican Party has not? Well, I think it helped that there was only one candidate to choose from, that it was clear Butt a judge and klobuchar weren't going anywhere i see and it was also clear that bloomberg war particularly after that first debate you know it's like god we put this person up there and uh... he may have a lot of money but he doesn't have a lot of political smarts uh... the other thing is that uh... they didn't have somebody like that groups is that that crews was a factional candidate who was not going to get out of the race for anybody.

And the person who could have put the coalition together, Marco Rubio, was in a Tong War with Jeb Bush over whether or not he had waited his turn or not. So, you know, if Jeb had been strong instead of Marco, I think you might have seen that because there would have been a heft behind it, but you had a right-wing establishment that wouldn't make way, and you had a moderate establishment that was still interested in Jeb and not sold on Marco, and that meant that there wasn't anyone to jump to. Got it, got it. Henry, one more question from me. Last time you were on, you and I had a little conversation about the real Joe Biden as opposed

to the notional Joe Biden. The idea of Joe Biden is he's Obama's vice president, highly effective politician, deeply experienced and a moderate. And the reality of Joe Biden is he's lost a step or two. He's kind of creaky. And you don't have to watch the Fox News error reels in which he misspeaks again and again to feel that there's a lack of energy there. No surprise. He's 78 years old.

Can we just give him a walker or like one of those little electric carts that people drive at Costco with the little beeper when he goes backwards? Exactly. So when we call Joe a rascal, I think he likes it to mean irascible and perky and spunky and funny. Not the literal name of the machine that you use to get around. All right. You see, Henry, that Joe Biden elicits this humor. He's making my point. I don't know if anybody joined me last yesterday evening and watching this say so. But I ended up, I just glanced at it thinking I'd just look at it for a moment. I ended up watching most of the Donald Trump town hall on Fox News last night in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

And you know what? He was spectacular. He's still Donald Trump. He still insults his opponents. He was smart. He was quick. He was funny and he was entertaining. This is a man who is in and how he does it at the age of 73. He's clearly overweight. It wouldn't you know, it still strikes me that there's a coronary waiting to happen there. But just as a matter of political horse flesh, he was really good. How the heck is this going to play out? The Democrats still are nominating a weak candidate, aren't they? Yes, they're nominating a weak candidate whose chance of victory rests on the

idea that he is plain vanilla and Donald Trump is a pick the flavor of ice cream that you hate the most. Rocky road. The man is Rocky road without a doubt. There we go. See, I wasn't going to, I would have said butter pecan or something, but everyone has been. Yeah. The thing, if I were Trump, what I would do is I would push by into his limit and beyond which is to say i would go about uh... i would go and fly everywhere and i would say look this is what president does if joe biden can't do this in the campaign you have to ask whether he can do it in the white house

and i would verbally abuse him i would go after hunter and what i would try and do is get inside his skin because you get Joe mad and tired. And that's when Joe's lost a step really. So all you need is a couple of those. You want your people to organize. You want half a dozen debates. Each one of them should last two hours. I mean, really, the physical ask. You want a street fight. That's what that's what you're recommending. If you're Donald Trump, you want a street fight. Yeah, but it includes a physical component. Yes, yes, yes.

Remember, they tried to keep Biden wrapped up where he wasn't going to take unscripted events. He was not going to do a whole lot of events. And hopefully, they were hoping that he wouldn't be pushed. And what happened is the Democratic field forced him to be pushed. And now we're seeing what the result of that is. You push Joe Biden, he slips up in front of the camera. And not the gaffe where, oh, he said the truth and it was a little too early. It's, you know, how do you mix up your wife and your sister?

The gaffe that I loved yesterday or the day before was where he was saying we're all created equal. Men and women created equal men and women created equal under the, you know, the thing. And I didn't know if it was because he couldn't find the words or because he realized he was walking up to say in the G word, God, and that's just, oh, that's, that's not done these days. But here's the thing is that when you listen to a lot of these things, you not only suspect, okay, he's all this going to happen, he's tired, whatever. But there is the question as to whether or not he's going to make it, whether or not he can go the distance. And is anybody in DC looking around and saying, okay, we got to be really careful about a V pick here because it's likely that that's who's going

to be POTUS. I think everyone is thinking that, honestly. My column on Thursday for the Washington Post was exactly that, which is go for Amy Klobuchar, 20 years younger, clearly competent, ticks the woman box. Really? Amy Klobuchar? You think he should pick Amy Klobuchar? Yeah, Henry, that's the one thing you've done that I thought was cool. She's just mean. She's mean. Okay, guys, first, here, let me tell you something. Every single suburban mom over a certain age loves Amy Klobuchar. And the reason that they do is not despite of the fact that she's mean to her underlings. It's because of it.

Because they've all had dealings in the workplace with these millennials who don't know how to work, who think they're owed a job, who can't do what you tell them to. And the fact that Amy gets exasperated with them just shows that she's got spine. I teach at Berkeley. I'm surrounded by 6,500 of them, but I don't throw stuff at them. Well, not when anyone's watching.

I mean, I throw racers and stuff, but not pointed, sharp objects made out of metal. Oh, for heaven's sakes. The idea that she's got some Popeye-like arm from all the exercise she's got and hurling weighted objects at the heads of her staff is a bit overwrought. But seriously, Henry, do you think she's much

more likable than Elizabeth Warren? Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I do think she's more likable. She doesn't have a lot of charisma. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I do think she's more likable. She doesn't have a lot of charisma. And I think that's one of the reasons why her campaign never really took fire. But I don't think she has the scold temperament that Warren does.

And remember, the part of what you want, and it's the Democrat, People have asked me for last year, how does a Democrat beat Donald Trump? And my argument was always run polenta. Run something that is bland and inoffensive. You globalized the league. You should have said mayonnaise or Wonder Bread. What the hell is this polenta business? I'm just quoting Mario Cuomo, who called Walter Mondale in 1984 as exciting as polenta. I'm just getting into my Democratic political history. The term around here is hot dish. It's hot dish, cream of mushroom soup, rice, hamburger, and maybe a couple of grains of pepper. That's what we have up here, and Amy knows it. Andrew, can I ask you one last question before you go? Is it locked in that Biden's going to win, or do you think there's any chance Sanders could still win? And if he loses,

does he go third party? I still have hope. I don't think Sanders will go for third party, personally. I think it's highly unlikely Sanders will be the nominee. He needed to have a big lead of delegates coming out of Super Tuesday because of the nature of the states that are yes to vote and said he's behind. I do think that he can damage Biden. I don't think he's going to be shy about damaging Biden. And then the question is, is there a third party alternative who runs and says, look, yeah, I know Trump is bad, but we care about ending the swamp and why should we replace the orange swamp with the cadaver swamp? And some people will buy that. But yeah, the other thing you just have to remember is Biden's 77. Who knows what's going

to happen? Right. Hey, Henry, we keep saying this is the last question. This is my last question. How much difference can Mike Bloomberg's money make? He's not going to be a candidate, and the law is that he can only contribute a certain amount to Biden's campaign, but he's a free citizen and he can put up ads across the country slamming Donald Trump in any way he likes if he wants to. Will he? And will he prove effective in damaging Trump? Well, he says he will. The Democratic strategists and activists that I've spoken to say that when he signed up all his staff, he signed them on contracts through November.

So he anticipated, whether he wins or loses, at least paying thousands of people through November. So he anticipated whether he wins or loses, at least paying thousands of people through November. The thing is with the presidential campaign nowadays, paid advertising and paid activity only helps at the margins. It will allow, if he keeps it up, a Democrat to have some degree of equality with Trump on the airwaves. But I doubt Bloomberg can coordinate a ground effort as well as a centralized Trump campaign can. And I think the ground game is going to be more important on the margin than the air game. So it's not bad for the Democrats, but the presidency is the only race in America where earned media and free media and

people just chatting about stuff to their friends is a much greater source of information than what you see on TV or get in your mailbox. So I think it'll be marginal at best, but I do think he'll do it. I want the left to have to say at the end of the day, yes, money is speech. Yes, it is good, meet right and true that Bloomberg should do that. I want them to say it. And even though they'll never agree to it later,

but I just want them to acknowledge it is. Henry, thanks a lot. We'll listen to you on the Horse Race podcast, read you in the Washington Post and the rest of it and see you on Twitter. I'm sure that you're there as well. I'd say your Twitter handle right now, but people are not listening to this podcast with pen and paper in hand, so they can go

to Ricochet and find out what it is. Thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you again soon. Henry, thanks so much. Thanks, Henry. You globalized elite Davos man, you... Ah, yes. Palenta at Davos man, you. Ah, yes, Palenta at Davos, I believe. That was the follow-up to Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I can't. Palenta at Davos. I'm so cheap, however. I'm not cheap. How cheap are you? No, I mean, I'm not. Well, like this, for example, I don't go out to eat an awful lot because for some reason, just like the money's gone and then the food's gone. And like, oh, that's what's going on right now here in Berkeley with the coronavirus.

I ran into an old lady running out of the Target just the other over the weekend with a box and in the box was ramen water and baby wipes well that pretty much sums up both ends of the necessities of life i guess but my point is if i was bloomberg and at the end of the day you know i was worth 60 billion and i'd spend 500 600 million i would still think like man that's a lot of money i it's not that I have $55 billion left. It's just that I really flushed $600 million. Isn't there something I better could have done with that money? Like give everybody in the country a million dollars? But that's a piece of television that we'll get to in a second, perhaps. But anyway, no, Bloomberg isn't hurting. He's not going to be hurting at all. He's got money coming out of his ears and everywhere else. But you may not be in Bloomberg's

position. Few of us are. If you've got debt, if you're carrying revolving debt, that means you're not only paying off your card every month, you could be paying thousands of dollars in interest every year that you just don't have to. Okay. With Lending Club, that's right, Lending Club, you can consolidate your debt or you can pay off your credit cards with one fixed monthly payment. Since 2007, Lending Club has helped millions of people regain control of their finances with affordable, fixed-rate personal loans. There's no trips to a bank. There's no high-interest credit cards.

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Check your rate in minutes and borrow up to $40,000. That's LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. LendingClub.com slash Ricochet. All loans made by WebBank, member FDIC, equal housing lender. And our thanks to Lending Club well, Dr. George Savage is in. He's the co-founder and chief medical officer of Proteus Digital Health and formerly the company's vice president of research and development. He sees digital medicine as an invaluable collaboration platform for patient and physician, integrating both information about a patient's response to therapy directly into everyday health care. In a spare time, Dr. Savage serves on the Silent Cal Board of Directors and gracefully allows the other board members to solicit free medical advice from him.

And when that board happens and convenes next time, Dr. Savage, are you going to be wearing a face mask? Are you going to pass them out to everybody else? Everybody's worried or not about coronavirus. We seem to have two tracks of information going. One is the media telling us all sorts of portable things are happening. And then there are people who are telling us to calm down. It's not the plague. Somewhere in between is possibly the truth. Tell us your take on this. Where are we in the epidemic, and what are the next few weeks likely to look like? Okay, well, first of all, it's great to be here, and it's not the apocalypse or the plague or the opening reel of some science fiction movie where Will Smith is running through New York City all alone, but it is something that

is worthy of public attention. It's worthy of the sort of public health response that we see going on right now. What we're facing is a new virus. And that means that not only do doctors not know how to deal with it, but each individual immune system has never seen anything quite like it. And so therefore, you have to proceed with caution. We don't have treatments and vaccines and all the other things. And so what we'd like to do is right now focus on containment and not have this become a generally circulating fact of life like seasonal influenza is. The flu is just something that everyone has to deal with. It's always here. You can't get rid of it. This is a new virus. The ideal thing would be to have it go away and not bother us. Community spread is broken out in some places, meaning that may be less likely. And we're also not sure whether it

will be something that will persist into the warmer months. George, define community spread. What does community spread mean? Yeah, community spread just means you don't really know where it came from. Right now, we know this originated in China. People who've traveled to China have been in contact with people in China and now in other areas, you can trace contacts back and say, okay, I know where you got this. The more concerning thing is you don't really know where it came from. Somebody with no particular risk factor just turns up with this virus, and that's the community spread. And that's what is beginning to happen. It's just got it.

Yeah, it is. And so looking at all of the available data so far, this is more serious than the flu in general as a new agent. It might not be over time as people build up immunity, but right now it certainly is. And people are taking appropriate precautions, but it's not the end of the world. And what are the limiting factors? Why would a virus like, how is it pronounced, COVID-19 is what we're calling it now, not coronavirus. Why would a virus like COVID-19 go away, short of infecting every single human being on the planet? How do these things disappear or go dormant on their own, so to speak? Yeah, it's really interesting. Of course,

this is passed person to person. That's the route of transmission. What makes it hard to contain right now is that people are infectious before some period of time before they know they're sick. And so that's made it challenging to completely contain the virus. But what you want to do is get the number of new infections the virus, you know, anybody with the virus is causing to go below one, mainly so that there are fewer and fewer cases every day, not more and more. And then it would just die out. There'd be no place for it to be if it wasn't in people. And maybe you'd have an outbreak now and then because there'd be limited amounts of virus somewhere rather than just generally circulating. Yeah. Doctor, if it's as potentially as lethal,

no more really lethal than the flu, are we not overreacting? If you're right that this is really just maybe a slightly worse version of the flu, spreads the same way, has pretty much the same symptoms, will unfortunately kill about the same percentage of people who get it. Aren't we overreacting? We are canceling conferences. We have banned travel to different countries. Here at Berkeley and at Stanford, they are not allowing people from China, South Korea, Japan to enter campus until they've been through quarantine. Stocks prices are dropping by the thousands. I think it's dropped another few hundred points while we've been on the call. Isn't this all an overreaction then to something that we're

just going to have to learn to live with, just like we learned to live with the flu? Well, I don't think so. I don't think it's an overreaction. I want to challenge the premise. It is worse than the flu. And what is of concern right now is that the mortality rate seems to be much higher than flu. So flu is a big killer. It kills about globally about 400,000 people a year. But that's only about a 0.1 percent mortality rate. So lots of people get the flu, hundreds of millions a year around the world. And some people, typically the elderly and others with chronic diseases, but sometimes healthier people, will die of that disease. And pneumonia is the common pathway there. This disease seems to have a much higher mortality rate. The World Health Organization revised upward its estimate as 3.4 percent, which was really 35 times. They had been about 2 percent. One of the points is we don't really know right now. If you look at the raw

fatality rate, there's about 100,000 cases reported globally today. 3,000. Yeah. I mean, there's got to be way more than that who have it in China. We just can't trust the numbers. And this is my key point, because if you look at the 3.4%, there are a lot of cases that are just developing that haven't proceeded to their conclusion, which hopefully is recovery. So you don't know. The mortality rate could be higher if you think about the number of patients who've recovered versus the number who've died. That would give you more like 6 percent or 5.7. But there may be many patients out there who get the sniffles, and that's actually coronavirus. And they're never logged in the denominator as having coronavirus because no one's tested them, and there hasn't been adequate surveillance.

So the final point is we don't really know. We've got an upper bound on mortality, which puts it into the range of not as bad as SARS was when that came out a while ago. That was about 10 percent, but significant, much worse than the flu. Or if there's lots of undiagnosed coronavirus cases out there where people get very mild symptoms and not much happens, it might not be as big a deal as we think right now. The answer is we don't really know. And so this is very prudent to spend a month or so and disrupt everything that we do to try to see if we can contain this and keep this from being just a fact of life. Hey, George, I just wanted to say how refreshing it is to hear John use premises just batted down, just destroyed.

There was nothing left of John's question. You know, I got to say, my parents are doctors. I have this unhealthy respect for the medical profession. And when the doctors tell me things, I believe them. I fall silent before doctors. It's the only people who do that to me. That is my one weakness compared to Rob, because Rob respects nothing and bears no deference to anyone. James has a question, obviously. Go ahead, James. Well, Dr. Savage,

you said the 3.6 mortality rate. That's in the demographic bracket that I'm in, unfortunately, and it's much lower for younger people and higher for people who are older. But when we look at stories like Iran, we hear stories about the morgues are filled, the disease is exploding, and the mortality rate over there is fantastic. Likewise with Italy. There have to be other factors here. In other words, in Italy, you have a population that may be, on the average, older and thus more susceptible to it. In Iran, you may have bad public health for a variety of reasons, environmental, the hospitals are bad, et cetera. And that's what it is too. So, I mean, when we look at the mortality rate, are they figuring in other countries that do not have the same sort of

baseline of health that the United States, Canada does? Well, there is a lot to what you say. And that is certainly in some countries, you may not even have as much testing or surveillance that would affect that denominator. But also the availability of supportive care, the availability of some of the drugs that are being repurposed from, say, HIV treatment and other treatments to try against coronavirus may be less available. The sad fact is we don't really know. Based on reported cases right now in Iran, the mortality rate, I'm showing like 124 deaths out of 5,000 or so diagnosed cases, which doesn't seem completely out of line. Although some of those people are prominent, obviously, in Iran being reported. So we just don't know enough until we get a lot more data in. George, here's one more question for you. Everybody else is calling you doctor. I've known you so many years, but I'll do it too. Okay. Doctor, grade the administration's response

to the, grade this country's response to the coronavirus how are we doing too relaxed incompetent on top of it fauci's great pence is terrible what are your impressions about the way it's going well i think it's going pretty well all things considered uh i think uh first of all if nothing else this is a good exercise of the global system and the u.s system for trying to deal with these kind of events in a much more global world than we've had in the past. So we are finding some lagging responses in some holes, as you would expect, any time this would happen. But I think the administration was pretty on top of it with trying to restrict travel and keep this contained to where the initial outbreak was. I think many of the isolation strategies that are underway right now, in retrospect, hopefully they will be viewed as over the top. A medical information conference in Orlando that has tens of thousands of people I was supposed to go to

next week has been canceled, all the way down to my wife's women's group was going to a church retreat in Monterey this weekend, and that was canceled. So at some level, you sort of scratch your head and say maybe you're going overboard, but better a little too much for a month or two period. My daughter, spring break, she was going to go into the woods and do some woods thing that was nice and natural and happy. And they canceled that, so all the students are now staying in a dense city in their dorms smart john you had one more before we before we head out no what do you think this means about china i mean this is outside the box but isn't a lot of this uh depends i think reveals a lot about the difference between us and china and isn't also the case that if you were to ask anybody where, if there's going to be a coronavirus, if there's going to be an epidemic, what country would you want to be in? I mean, doesn't this show, despite all the criticisms and how we've got to do Medicare for everybody and all this crap, this is still the best country to be in for its public health system?

And where do you think, if there's going to be a vaccine or even a cure for this, where do you think it's going to be invented? I couldn't agree more. When I think about China and the fact that they knew about this disease a good month before they told anyone, it seemed to be a factor in early December. And then we're trying to keep a lid on it. We lost a big opportunity globally to try to contain it even more than we did. And of course, they've kicked up with a pretty authoritarian response, which seems to have really shifted the balance in terms of new cases there. But in the free world, certainly there are

adequate response, and that's where the inventions are really occurring. We're repurposing a lot of good drugs that show promise that are in clinical trials already, and there's work on a vaccine that is in safety trials either now or about to be. And so even a year from now, we should potentially have a vaccine for this and hopefully treat even sooner. Great. As Neil Young saying, keep on coughing in the free world. Dr. Savage, thank you so much for joining us today. And we hope to not talk to you for a while because everything's fine. But if we talk to you in a couple of weeks, but we won't.

Thank you for joining us today on the podcast. Thank you. George, thank you for beating up on John just a little. You guys know the technical term for the germs that cross over between animals and people? You know, it's got that zoo in it right there. I don't know. Really? No.

Oh, zoogenic. Right. It's zoogenic. I don't know. Really? No. Zoologist? Zoologist. Zoologist. Isn't it great the fact that we all have, you know, we have our domestic animals and we don't have this pass back and forth that even if I got the COVID-19 that I wouldn't pass it to my dog. And when the dog gets something, he doesn't pass it to me. Unless, of course, it's what he's got in his mouth right now, which is a new pull toy, chew toy that I gave him that he wants to play with. My dog has energy. But you know what? Sometimes I really wonder whether or not he might have more energy and a little bit of a shinier coat and all the rest of it. And that's why I'm looking forward to my first shipment from Ollie. Ollie. Now you see, your dog's health is important as every other member of your family, right? It starts with what you feed them. But do you know what's in your dog

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You've got to go to myoli.com slash try slash ricochet. Again, myoli.com slash try slash ricochet. It's the best deal they've made anywhere. So, you've got to go to myoli.com slash try slash ricochet for 50% off off plus a free bag of treats. I can't say the word because he's looking at me. That's M-Y-O-L-L-I-E dot com. And our thanks to Olly for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now it's time for the James Lylex Member Post of the Week. This is Big Market Radio Yeti. I'd have you taken into the back room and whipped.

That's got to be tighter. You can't fit a piece of onion skin paper between my last syllable and the first notes of that thing. All right? Can we talk about this? Kidding. I'm serious. I'm kidding. Post of the Week. It's from Bob Bama this week.

Can we stop saying bleep damn? I was a little chastened when I saw this because it's about language. And he said, quote, on the last week's podcast, Rob felt it necessary to say bleep damn. Last week, James was similarly compelled to say it. I don't think I did. I don't say that on the air. God damn it, I do. John, John. I was trying to be Rob. On the air. God damn it, I do. Oh, for God's sake. John, John. John, it's always... Okay, John.

I was trying to be Rob. I think I said it in German, which I know is something of a bit of a dodge, G-O-T-T, as opposed to the other. But I don't, because even though this is podcast and we can be a little bit looser, there's still all these FCC warnings in my head that you get hauled into the office and talk to if you say that on the air. So I don't think I did. But that said, he's got a point. And he especially has a point when it comes to keeping debate from coarsening. And we're still holding the line on that, aren't we? We're still, we'd still be surprised if we went down the street and there was a big billboard with the F word, wouldn't we? Yes, yes, yes. I was biking home from the office to my home just yesterday across the

stanford campus we've had some spring weather i biked past a fraternity needless to say they had huge speakers set up on the lawn and they were booming music that contained repeated uses of the f word yep and it just crossed my mind to think, isn't there somebody in this neighborhood who's going to complain to the kids? And then I just thought, and biked on my way. So it's out there,

but, but it's still, it's not good. It's not good. You should have stopped your Walker and shaking your cane at those little devils and told them to stop their caterwauling. I do have a vision of Peter biking along with his sweater knotted. And, of course, the bike has a little basket in front, too.

Exactly. On the back. You got it, except the basket is in back. Jeepers, these kids today with their language. You're the one who's cussing on the air, James. How did I become the butt of this segment? I have said all of these bad things. I used to have a boss who swore more than anybody I've ever known in my life.

She was amazingly Baroque in her cursing. And it was part of her time and her culture, newsroom culture in the 60s and 70s and the rest of it. And she never lost it until she went to work for The Washington Post. And then she had to tone it down. She was great. But the point is, is that I when it comes to public discourse, you know, I can count the number of times I've used certain words in my blog because I just feel like, A, it's the ghost pepper of words. You really want to reserve that spice for the moment when you have nothing left. And two, I don't want to be one of these young people who's always showing their authenticity and their rage by using the F-word over everything.

They're going to miss the F-word because they really don't have anything else to take its place. They have nothing in reserve. They have nothing in reserve, right, to demonstrate. I think cursing is fine, especially at home with children present. What's your problem actually one area you see unreserved open cursing i think two places wall street and government i heard so much cursing when i worked in congress i loved it especially southerners southern politicians could curse like there was nobody's business well it's a little bit different there.

It has more of a musicality to it than a Chuck Schumer type string. Again, you can be creative in your career. We're not talking about that. We're just talking about the base sort of gross way that the culture always seems to be going. I've been watching it all my life, and yet somehow things are still, there's still room at the bottom for it to go. Before we get to our last question I'm going to ask you guys, one of the questions that came up this week, I think I've seen it on Dig, Atlantic, all over, is that why are we ruled by such old people? How did it turn out that the elderly people, the boomers, have still got their withered mitts on the levers of politics and we can't dislodge them. Why?

Good question. Democratic Party. Identity politics. It has two white guys. Youth Party. It has one candidate who's 77, the other who's 78. It is just astounding. The boomer generation still wants to show they're not done ruining the country quite yet.

Right? That's you two. Both of you guys are boomers, aren't you? I don't count myself amongst that cohort because I have nothing in common with them. They all worship the 60s. They all love the music of the 60s. They all believe that the apogee of human civilization was sitting with a dose of syphilis in the mud at Woodstock. And I don't.

Chris Matthews is of that generation. And Chris Matthews got bounced because he's still behaving like it's 1966 and Hef is making all the moral codes and the mad men thing is going on. And you can make all these cracks at the women you're working around with because that's what they are. We're swinging. We're liberated. And while I'm sort of sorry to see him hoist on that particular petard, I'm not, because I know that he enabled every single other petard hoisting that's been going on. But the other part of it is that when you look at that Chris Matthews generation and the way they say, hey, you know what, that's just how we talked. We were free and open and sexual. Because you had created this boomer culture that gave men all sorts of sexual privileges without any sort of responsibilities and thought it would be really cool if women behaved the same way.

And they didn't. So look how this has turned out for us all now. We have a generation of Puritans who are practically having to get it notarized before they can lay a hand on each other, which is the swinging of the pendulum the other way. So no, John, I'm not a boomer. Can I throw a more immediate cause? I'm throwing rotten apples. Go on. the other way so no john i'm not a boomer i'm the people can i can i follow the follow immediate more immediate at them and throwing rotten apples go on a more immediate causes more immediate political causes look at the difference between the democratic primary candidates this time around and the republican ones last time around the republican ones actually were a very full

flowering of younger people yes yes yes democrats were not and i think the reason why is because of the obama years even though obama won his presidency was catastrophic for the democratic party every election under him resulted in thousands of democratic office holders getting voted out of office the republicans wiped clean the democratic bench and so you have a kind of missing generation of promising young democratic office holders because of the big losses under obama yeah which is you see the effects only people left their old senators basically that's a good point and also the obama obama obama's party never turned its back on him never repudiated him him. And then, of course, you've also got the

feeling among Democrats that they never really lost last time. So here we have Biden, who's a continuation, whereas George W. Bush, like him, admire him, love him if you want to. That administration got us into a war that went sideways for five years and ended in a financial crisis. And there was a feeling within the Republican Party, we need to try something new, something different, something fresher. Hence, last time around, you had Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, who really did go down a generation. We'll see what happens when Trump is gone. But that's one thing that strikes me over and over again, is how really impressive the Republican bench, so to speak, mostly in the

Senate, some governors, the next generation of Republicans, there are two dozen really impressive people from Nikki Haley to Ben, well, you could start naming them, you can go on, as I said, for a couple of dozen. But part of it is, the Bush years didn't go out, didn't work too well. It's time to turn this party over, I feel. The delicious part is watching the Democrats complain about old white men when they all had the opportunity to put in something else. They all had the opportunity to vote for a woman, to vote for somebody of this particular extraction or identification, and they didn't. So don't lecture us about the monochrome tone of the politics. When they did the opportunity, they had the same thing.

I've got a question coming up to end this, but first I have to tell everybody the following things. Because if I didn't say that there was more material beyond this, everyone would tune out. First, this podcast was brought to you by Lending Club, by Hydrant, and by OLLI. You support them, you support us, and you make your life easier. It's great products. And please, if you would, and I just feel, just my heart sags when I have to say this. If you could please leave a five-star review from us, that'd be really good. I feel like I'm walking down the subway cart, you know, with a sign and rattling my cup and saying, I'm not going to spend it on. But if you could go to Apple Podcasts and give us a five-star review,

one or two of you, and shout, wave your hand saying, I'm here because James begged me, because James abdicated all sense of self-respect and again asked us to do this. The reason being is that if you go and look at what is available every week for new podcasts, there tends to be a specific sort that they choose. And I'm not saying that they're putting their thumb on the butcher's scale to the left, but it kind of looks that way sometimes. So help us send a right podcast out, will you? Go give us five star reviews, and that helps more people find the show. Now to our last question, and that is, guys... One more. Say, at least you miss Rob.

And say, at least you miss Rob. There you go. I thought you were going to say, please say more of that fascinating you character. He brings a sprightly tone that's like a splash of lemon seltzer on a hot day. What the hell? Lemon seltzer? Who drinks that crap, you boomer?

People in Brooklyn, like Chuck Schumer. Actually, should you be calling it lemon pop or whatever you Midwesterners call soda? Yeah, we call it pop. Exactly. Yeah, no, if it was in Brooklyn, it'd be a lemon seltzer cream or something like that. Cream with lemon. All right, so the question is, forget politicszer cream or something like that. Cream with lemon. All right. So the question is, forget politics, forget all of this stuff, forget coronavirus.

If we have to shelter in place, though, for a quarantine, we'll want to watch a lot of television. So what are you watching, Peter? Oh, that's OK. We just finished a really moving, beautifully done four part series called The Pharmacist documentary. A pharmacist in a suburb of New Orleans loses his son in a drug deal and begins to dig into what's going on in his own neighborhood. And it's just two, the whole thing is built around two, three, four ordinary people trying to do good against bureaucracy, the inattention of the legal. It's a wonderfully moving thing because it's just ordinary people. You are so boring.

So you're looking at all the Netflix shows and you see a show about pharmacists and that's the one you clicked on? It's called The Weakest Point is the title. They show them dispensing drugs. That'll be so cool. All right. We're halfway through The Night Of. The Night Of, which is a little hipper. The Night Of, Colton Procedural, 2016,

I think, set in Manhattan. What are you watching, John? Mexican sex wrestling or something? Yes. Wait, what channel was that on? I don't have that on my network. I don't have the premium version that James is getting. Amazon Prime.

Oh, come on. Aren't you guys watching Better Call Saul? Come on. Oh, yeah. I love that. But I've said it so many times on this show. I love Better Call Saul. Better Call Saul, a great show.

And then, you know, did you see that they also— Bob Odenkirk is sort of establishing himself as a comic genius, I think. Oh, he's wonderful. Bob Odenkirk. Fantastic. He's just funny. And he's great in his good, serious role. Is Rob working on that show?

Where is Rob? Is he working on that show? That's a good question. That's a good question. He always picks some European black-and-white film from the Criterion Collection. Yes, yes, what you have to be. You know, now that he's living in Manhattan, he plays to a different crowd, you know? James, what are you watching?

I just finished Gabriel Fernandez, The Case of Gabriel Fernandez, which is a really harrowing documentary on, I think, on Netflix about a young boy who was beaten by his family and the refusal, the inability of the California Child Protective Service is to save this boy. And it's such an indictment of the system in the one-party state. It's mortifying. It's a bit too long, but it's interesting. And it's, like I say, it just gets you right here. This is a child that needed protecting, and all the people who could didn't. For a little bit lighter note, I've been watching nothing but virus movies for a piece that I'm doing for the newspaper. Oh, yes.

And I had to watch Cheats on that. Tell us. Well, I watched Outbreak, which is an absolutely horrible movie and doesn't hold up well at all. That's terrible. I love the beginning. The beginning of Outbreak shows all these people wandering around these infectious labs, gaining access with a hand scan reader. So you managed, if you're going from level three to level 4, you're bringing all the germs with you. Dustin Hoffman is

he wanted an action movie role. He got one, and he also wanted to make eyes at Rene Russo, who wouldn't, so it's just dreadful. I was rooting for the monkey during the whole movie. I mean, I love that guy. You've got to find a freaking monkey

in the United States. You know, Monkey Zero. I watched The Flu, which is a South Korean movie. And what was fascinating to me about this one is that after they've locked down this suburb, who takes over? But the Americans. And the Americans insist you've got to lock down quarantine and you have to kill everybody. And the South Korean officials, the president, everybody defers to the Americans until one politician stands up and tells the Americans to stand. And I'm thinking, really? Do we have that kind of power in South Korea?

Yeah, yes, actually, we do. That is the way things work there. Really? Yeah, we have 30 000 troops there we have i know i i know we do we have we have statutory authority to override their government in the interests of what we in a national security threat yes we do oh yeah that's it's awesome isn't it but it's never gonna happen because what people don't understand is that kimchi is an age-old war that kills off all viruses. So it's never going to happen.

There's no more kimchi. I eat a lot of kimchi. I'm inoculated from the flu and this coronavirus thing. You know, whatever interesting large point I had was just not only, you know, you shoved that to the side. I'm like Rob Long version 2.0, baby. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. Contagion. You like Contagion, though. I've read your tweets, right? There's one movie

you've liked so far, James. The point being that if this movie, The Flew South Korea, describes a tremendous animus about the United States. Contagion is better. Contagion just sort of unfolds like it would and it stumbles along.

And apparently Gwyneth Paltrow kills 20% of Minnesota, if not the world. Thanks, Gwyneth. And it's good. It's written by a local guy, so it's got all these local references that make you laugh. Where are you on the bus, sir?

I'm at Lake and Lindale, which is kind of like saying, I'm at Hollywood and Vine. There's a lot of that. And they didn't shoot a frame of it in Minneapolis, which still cheeses me off. But it's good. And having watched the Omega Man, the Andromeda Strain, the Satan Bug, the Flu. Does the Andromeda Strain stand up after all these years?

Or the Crow, does it ever? Does it really? And it was remade, too to into a miniseries. Poorly. Yeah. Yeah. The movie itself is quite good. The harrowing thing about the Andromeda strain,

the movie is that you, you never see anybody die. You never see anybody get it. Nobody ever falls down. The only death that you see is the death. Well, of a rat, but of a monkey.

And they didn't actually kill it. They, but it's so convincing and so horrible that the audience is convinced that they actually saw a living creature you know the die and it's it's it shakes you and there was nothing like it like that technologically to look at there's no special effects that didn't exist it's it's all it's it's all machinery that apparently we had and nobody knew that we had and it's just it, it's still cool. Early 70s. I can't remember the date.

1970. Michael Crichton's first. And Michael Crichton is in it for about 15 seconds. He's like nine feet tall standing in the background. He's 25 years old. Here's a guy who went to med school and said, you know what? I'm not going to be a doctor. I think I'm just going to write books.

Yes, my value in society is much better writing pulp fiction rather than working as a doctor at a doctor. I think I'm just going to write books. Yes, my value to society is much better writing pulp fiction rather than working as a doctor at a hospital. Actually, I could make the argument that the guy advanced more arguments and injected them into popular culture with a deftness that other authors might not have had. I'm glad that he did what he did. Hey, we've got to go.

It's been a long one. John, it's great. I know you've got people right now tracking on Robin Kelly. I know you guys are never having me back after this one. So thanks. It was a lot of fun. See you next spring. You're sending out your emails. Cough on Rob so this doesn't happen.

All right. Been a pleasure. Thank you both for coming. Talk to you soon. We'll see you, Peter. And we'll see everybody, of course, in the comments at Ricochet 4.0. And join next week. I'm going to stop. Give Sharona. Keeping it a mystery. Kissing me.

Running down the length of my thighs. Sharona. Don't stop. Give it up. Such a dirty mind. I always get it up. For the touch of the young mankind. My, my, my, my.

Woo! My, my, my, my Sharona. My, my, my, my Sharona. My, my, my, my Sharona. Ricochet. Join the conversation. I can hear you, yeah. Yes, but can you hear you. Yeah. Yes. Yes. But can you hear you?

I'm sitting in for Rob Long, so I'm generally a pain in the ass. Oh, that's awesome. It's so easy for me. It comes naturally. Here we go. You ready? Yes. Three, two, one. one

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