The Ricochet Podcast - Our Favorite Bands

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

As the late Johnny Thunders would say, "Rock and roll is simply an attitude." And we bring the attitude this week with Free Press contributor Eli Lake, as we talk Graham Platner's Maine implosion, underestimating the Ukranians and how Donald Trump may have stumbled to the right answer in Iran.All that and Eli leads us through a round of "What Are You Listening To?" and Charlie's collection of semi-pornographic album covers.Let's have ourselves a podcast...Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-ricochet-podcast--5817275/support.

What are we going to say, Charles? You want me to go to you? I said I'm going to close my eyes for the entire podcast if I look at weird. All right, great. Coming down to three, two, one. It can't be made. And for that reason, we are suspending campaign operations. It's the Rekashay podcast on James Lillick's joined by Charles C.W. Cook and Stephen Hayward.

Today we're going to talk about history breaking with Eli Lick. So let's have ourselves a podcast. They have very little left. And they want to make a deal so badly. They call it. And then a while ago, they wanted to make a deal so bad. I just don't know if they're worthy of making... I don't know that they're going to honor the deal.

That's welcome. Welcome, everybody. This is the Rickusay podcast, number 700 at a 97. I'm James Lylex in a beautiful summer day in Adina, Minnesota. I'm joined by Stephen Hayward somewhere in the world and Charles C.W. Cook in Florida as ever. And gentlemen, we could just waste some time, flapping and gums with some, you know, introductory stuff

about the weather and the politics and the Ukraine and the rest of it. Or we could just go straight to... our guest, Eli Lake, and we are going to do exactly that. Columnist for the free press, contributing editor-comitory magazine, and the host of the Breaking History Podcast. And for those of you who are wondering about the visuals of this particular episode, Eli is wearing a T-shirt that has John and Yoko on it. In that beatific pose of theirs that most familiar to me is when they were watching a maid

clean up their room before they went and returned to their sit-in for some vacuous cause. James, if we all stayed in bed, we could stop the Vietnam War. I suppose we could. If we all stayed in bed, we could stop all the wars and give things a chance. That said, Eli, we assume is wearing the shirt ironically. Welcome to the show and tell us what history got busted this week. Oh, well, on the shirt, yes, I disagree with the politics of this era of John Lennon, of course. and his, I did a podcast a few years back on this called John Lennon, and I spelled the L-E-N-I-N-N.

But, and Charlie may disagree with me. I think that some of the music that he produced, particularly the album called Plastic Ono Band, is superb. And you can hear, I would consider it to be kind of proto-punk and deserves a listen for anyone who seriously loves the Beatles, as I know that Charlie does. Well, I will save her biork like her proto-Biork relations for later, but I'll take your word for it. Okay.

So what do we? So anyway, yeah, I mean, the president is back to telling the truth about the Iranian regime. That's nice. I don't know. I have some views on Ram Platner, if we're going to be talking about that today. And the, I think maybe you want to start with Platner because I kind of think that the Democratic establishment has made a grievous error at this point. Sure. Yeah.

I think I think that too, but say why you think that. Okay. So I have, I mean, I didn't like Graham Platner as soon as I found out of his. Totenkov tattoo. I didn't like Graham Plattener when I found out of his Reddit post. There are a gazillion red flags that I thought made Graham Platner, not just unacceptable, you know, future member of the Senate, but also a, you know, a fraud. I mean, he's not a working man and, you know, all that isn't, you know, we should get that out there. So I'm not defending Grand Platter here.

What are you talking about? We know his hands were cracked from the, They were sliced by the oyster shells and the briny waters got in and stung deep. He knows what it's like to work. Come on. Yeah, this is the Senate campaign equivalent of Billy Joel's song, Downeaster Alexa, where he's playing the role of the like, you know, sort of hard scrabble fisherman when he's like, you know, already like a gazillioner. Anyway, but for me, I think the problem here is that there was an election

and 73% of Maine's Democrats voted for Platner and almost all of these basic allegations were out. And at the time, Pod Save America and Roe Kana and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were all saying that none of the allegations and the very credible I thought allegations from Lindsay Fitfield, who happened to be conservative, were disqualifying. And the voters of Maine and their Democratic Party agreed and they nominated him. And now, Another story comes out, and then they all turn on a dime. And I guess my question is, I don't really see how that should be the factor that changes things. Like there was something that we didn't know before and so forth.

And so what ended up happening was that the kind of people who can run the Democratic Party, and I think that there is more centralized power in the Democratic Party today than there was, obviously, in 2016, when Trump and his movement pretty much took over the Republican Party. But they decided, they really turned the screws. They said, we're not going to spend any money. We're not going to allow you to use these platforms to raise money. Well, what I think, Eli, is, well, I think it's a mistake for not only those reasons, but I think that there's going to be a certain amount of the progressive voters, the DSA crazies, who are otherwise riding a hundred. high right now. I think a lot of them are not going to turn out in Maine. I think you're going to be angry. Maybe they'll find somebody who's a platinum clone or talk about that. But I think that

a lot of them are going to be mad at the establishment the way some conservative voters have been mad at the Republican establishment over the years and sat out elections. That may make the difference for Collins. So it's just a tactical mistake, I think, on the raw politics of it. I'm not sorry to see him go because I agree with my point here is only that there's a pattern with the Democrats. I that right now the key point is that Bram Platner, what he said on Wednesday night, plays into a key populist trope. And that is that unseen undemocratic forces

are taking away the will of the people. And there is some evidence for that when it comes to the Democratic Party, whether it was some of the things that the DNC under Debbie Wasserman Schultz was doing to Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, whether it was the 2020 election, when everybody seemed to sort of say,

all right, Biden won South Carolina, so we want everybody else to get out, or whether it was in 2024, when Joe Biden was the winner of the actual Democratic primary, then he pulls out because of his disastrous debate performance, and they kind of just make, they coronate Kamala Harris, when it would have been unclear whether she would have won that primary if, you know, he had decided he wasn't going to run for a second term.

all of that is playing into the pattern, and they did it again in Maine, and I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not arguing. I think Graham Platner is a creepozoid, and I think that he, what is the term, he's credibly accused of rape, and I don't believe his denials,

but that doesn't really matter because the people already voted. And so what are you going to do with that? And I think it's not just a problem for them in terms of Susan Collins. I think it's a problem for the credibility of the Democratic Party, in general if they cannot keep this faith with their voters?

I don't know. I don't know. I think that that makes perfect sense and maybe correct. I think there's a counter argument that this gives them a better chance against Collins. If I were Collins today, I would feel less confident of victory than I would have three days ago. I think that the bolstering point, Eli, for your position, is this phrase I keep seeing, it's crucial we beat Susan Collins, which is just intrinsically funny, right? It's crucial we beat Susan Collins.

I'm trying to think what it would be on the right. Again, I'm not saying that it doesn't matter because people on the left want a Democrat in Maine. That's fine. left one to majority in the Senate, that's fine. The sake of the Republic requires us to defeat John Fetterman. Yeah, or last time around, Joe Manchin is perhaps the best example of it. Now, obviously, I wanted a Republican in West Virginia because I wanted a Republican Senate. But it's crucial we beat Joe Manchin.

It just sounds funny. And so that would bolster your point, which is that maybe the 7 to 10% of actual independent in Maine look at the Democratic Party now and say, you know, this seems a bit of a mess. And Susan Collins is predictable. So we'll stick with Susan Collins. I just think that Platner was, as you say, already a guy who had a Nazi tattoo and had been credibly accused of sexual assault and had made all those horrible Reddit posts. And I think that he had been very much weakened in the eyes of Maine voters.

And if they manage to find someone now, before a lot of people are paying full attention, who seems more serious, doesn't the underlying pro-democratic party sentiment that is undergirding this election make it more difficult, not easier for Collins? Okay, hold on. I want to distinguish two things. You may be right. Susan Collins will have, would have had an easier race. against a deeply flawed grand platinum.

And, you know, there is evidence that if they pick somebody who doesn't have those flaws, she'll have a harder race. So let me concede that that might be the case. I just think that there's a deeper problem for the Democratic Party independent of that, which is that there is a credible narrative now that, The wing of the party that, by the way, as a patriotic American and as a Zionist, would like to see discarded into the dustbin of the century, but the socialist populist left of the party can credibly say that every time we make a run for power, there is some undemocratic,

behind-the-scenes scheming that deprives us of that. A lot of people believe that, and I don't think the evidence necessarily supports that, that in 2016, if the Democratic National Committee had been fair and neutral that Bernie Sanders would have won the nomination. I don't know that the evidence system supports that. A lot of people believe that there was enormous pressure that was put on every other candidate in 2020

to drop out of the race to make way for Joe Biden when he had stumbled and managed to only win South Carolina because of James Clyburn. And then again in 2024, you had the man who won the most votes, Joe Biden, pull out and they didn't have another process, they just simply kind of affirmed or coronated Kamala Harris. That's a problem for our country overall. And in the end, I think it bolsters the

wing of the Democratic Party, again, that I hope is defeated. And so, yeah. And this seems like a pretty blatant example of that. Again, a lot of this stuff was out when the Democrats of Maine voted last month, and they voted for him anyway. So, I don't know what to say. Like, you, there isn't a, I don't, you know,

is there some rule that, oh, a really bad story then means you get to do a do-over? That doesn't make sense to me. And the fact that Platner went along with it and wasn't contrite, and in his defiant message on Wednesday evening,

said, I was robbed and you were robbed. And I've told that it's impossible to do this. The machine won't let me raise money and won't give me data. voter data and I can't run a modern campaign. So if I stay in, they've told it to me, well, that right there tells me that, you know, it's that this narrative will continue whatever happens, whether Collins prevails or not,

they're still going to say, you know, you, you took our candidate away from us. You intervened undemocratically. What matters the most, however, is that the right is being hypocritical about this, because Donald Trump is a convicted sex event. Donald Trump, as we know, is a fascist, ergo the Hitler tattoo thing gets wiped out. And Donald Trump said a lot of things on Twitter that probably were as bad as the things

that were said on Reddit. So it's complete and utter hypocrisy to point out any of these things, which is why a lot of people on the left are irritated that he had to go. It's like, come on, come on, I mean, what about Trump? I mean, and I say this is a veteran

of many Reddit threads in which this argument has been advanced. Stephen, I don't know. Well, I think that the whole scene right now is another Trump superpower. He's made the left absolutely lose their minds and put more sale in the winds of the Democratic Socialists. I think you want to take a wider angle view of the whole scene for a minute. Eli touched on a few of the high points from the last several years. But I've been hearing secondhand, but from reliable sources for a long time now, that old senior Democrats,

some cabinet members back to the Clinton years, and occasionally James Carville publicly. saying the problem of Democratic Party is these progressive crazy people are tearing us apart, to which I always say, well, what are you going to do about it? And the helplessness of the Democratic establishment property, so-called, is, remember the phrase in the 30s, which were Democrats would say, well, communists are just liberals in a hurry. The mainstream of the Democratic Party is pretty far the left. They're actually soft socialists. That's being charitable, I think.

They don't really disagree with most of the issue platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, with the partial exception of their anti-Semitism. I think there's still as enough Democrats, older Democrats who are not anti-Semitic. But the point is, is that they don't have a ground in substance to resist the Democratic Socialists, and that makes them half-hearted, faint-hearted, insincere, and weak. And so they do these subterfuges, as Eli said. You get behind Joe Biden, like, oh, my God, couldn't they, they knew that Biden was just an empty shell by 2020. They didn't, I thought they missed a huge opportunity to have an open convention in 2024. The nation would have been riveted, but I think people thought it's uncontrollable. We don't know how that will spin out.

We might get Bernie Sanders a nominated by acclamation. I could see that fear, but I think they missed a major opportunity, and that's their cowardice in action. Sorry, that's a long rant, but I think the problems go way beyond Graham Platner, and we're going to see more of this civil war going on. You know what I love about this? The new line that I keep seeing Democrats. The nude lion? No, the new line. Oh, okay.

I might love the nude line if I saw it, but I haven't yet. But the new line is it's Platner's fault and his fault alone because he deceived us. Yeah, that's not a defense against us saying you should have seen this coming. We know he deceived you. That's literally why we're making fun of you, because he deceived you, and it was so obvious for the last five, six months that he was a charlatan. And so they go on TV, but he deceived us. It's just outrageous.

He deceived us. Yeah. If you are a professional political commentator and you were deceived by this, maybe get a different job. I love it. This week on conservative crossroads, should the Senate confirm Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche? Mike Fregoso says yes. The department under Blanche's stewardship has been doing very good work. Andrew McCarthy says no. The Justice Department has weaponized its processes against the president's enemies in a very public, notorious and unabashed way. The confirmation of Todd

Blanche. Coming up on conservative crossroads. Rickashay. Join the conversation. Let's cast our eyes elsewhere, Eli. There is a war going on. It's been going on for an awful long time. It's entered a new phase, I think, but then again, I've been saying that for a long time. Maybe it has been entering one new phase after the other. But the Ukrainian use of drones, which seems not only to be changing matters on the ground, but rewriting what people are talking about all additional future wars are going to look like. It's a fascinating display of technology and adaptability, is giving Russia some problems. Now, as we've often said, that they can

absorb nearly everything. That's the nature of the state and the people and the culture and the rest of it. Putin will never give up. But there are a variety of circumstances that are coming to bear at the same time. Gas shortages, harvests in need, refinery capacity. Cast your mind over that way and tell me how you think history is either being repeated or breaking as one of these podcasts we like to listen to says let me just take a step back there was a kind of realist argument on the right that sort of said you know we have to understand that Russia's a nation state it's got it's um you know it it has its national prerogatives and we should respect that and that the problem with too much of American farm policy is that it just assumed that for the rest of time,

America would be this primacist power shaping world events and determining things, and we just have to accept that there are other powers in the world, and they're going to do things as well, and that this is a grown-up way of looking at things. And I think the problem with that, and that we should also understand, by the way, our views as Americans, or our foreign policy in Americans should be about America's national interest and not get caught up with, you know, highfalutin ideas like spreading democracy or climate change or whatever. And my view is that that's fine, but, you know, Ukraine is also a nation state. And if you go back to the beginning of the war that Russia started, that speech

from Putin was really a kind of a potted history about why he believed Ukraine wasn't a real country. Are you talking about the one he didn't get? He was going to give after the three days. No, no, the one that he gave in 20, right when he started the war in 2022. And, you know,

my point is that that this is, that it was a, it was a misperception for a lot of people, but particularly from Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, to think that that Ukrainians themselves were not nationalists, that they wouldn't defend

their country, and that there were not things that they would also. fight for. I mean, we kept hearing about it, and it is true that if you go through Russian history, Russia is an largely almost always autocratic and they're willing to, you know, bleed through hundreds of thousands, of not millions of people in a war and it doesn't really have the same effect as it would in an advanced democracy like ours. Okay. But what was missing from all of that is this idea that, well, okay, there are a lot of Ukrainians who don't want to live under the domination of Russia. And there is a lot of history for that as well, and that they will use

their genius and their fighting spirit to counter what Russia does to make it extremely. So part of the story is just that the people who kind of the new nationalists seem to have forgotten about Ukrainian nationalism in a similar way that a big part of the, you know, Iranian and Palestinian propaganda is that Israel is not a real country. And so it doesn't recognize that, oh, no, no, actually, no, it is a real country. And when they are attacked, they're going to, that they are going to fight. And it is, it is good. So in that respect, I just think we have to sort of make that point because I think it was a deep flaw of the, if, for lack of a better word, the kind of neutral or pro-Russian conservatives that we side of the conservatives at one point that we saw.

I think that was. And that was also based on some Gercanesque notion of them being connected to, Western Siv and opposing the rainbow and the rest of it. They're orthodox. They're traditional. Right. No. Anyway, I think that was a large part of it too.

And a lot of people still haven't been disabused with that notion. Well, I mean, right. But the nice thing is that, you know, we can make our arguments, but the arguments being made right now in terms of the war, the war has been an absolute disaster for Russia. and I saw a statistic that was extraordinary that the lifespan of a Russian who was sent into the battlefield was something like less than an hour once they were in the battlefield or something. It was an incredible statistic that really is a kind of unthinkable and horrific meat grinder. And the only reason that Putin has been able is because of this long authoritarian tradition

that sadly is kind of a curse of the Russians. But on this question about the new technology, what the Ukrainians were able to figure out, it starts with the fact that they were in an existential crisis and that there were enough Ukrainians that did not want to surrender and live under domination. So they determined and they figured out this new way to use this kind of tech and they've not only done that, but as a result, I mean, it's a brutal war for Ukraine as well, obviously.

They've also are the leading edge now of drone defense. And I was very heartened to see in the beginning of the Iran war how Ukrainians were offering to share their know-how and technology with Gulf states and with Israel and ultimately with America because we need that as well. Eli, can I use that theater to pivot to Iran for a moment? Because I think you can draw some parallels. So, first of all, we sentimental Americans tend to underestimate or not appreciate the stubbornness of megalomaniacal tyrants like Putin. And we're, I think, rightly impressed by the resiliency of Ukraine. All right. So now you pivot over to Iran.

And, you know, there was all this happy talk back in January. You know, Trump says, helps on the way the people overthrow your government. A lot of moving parts there. But when I say resiliency of Iran, I don't mean that as praise at all or even respect for all the reasons I think are obvious. But, you know, I do remember my late friend Angelo Cotavia. He used to have a very blunt assessment of why the Cold War ended. You know, we always, you know, us Reaganites like me, I always like to say, well, you know, finally our Cold War strategy of peace or strength, all that.

And there's a lot to all that. But Angelo said the Cold War ended because the Soviet Union lost its will to, to shoot its own people in large numbers. I think there's something to that, too, right? Well, Iran has not lost its will to shoot its own people and its fellow Islamic neighbors in large numbers. And so did we underestimate the brittleness of the regime, do you think? Yes, we did.

Okay, I'll stop there. And full disclosure, I mean, I've always, for a long time, I've written, and sometimes a very lonely voice that I believe in people power. And I do think that you can organize, and the Iranian people have organized themselves, I should say, not externally, to withdraw their consent to the illegitimate regime. And that work had gone a very long way, and you can trace it back to the late 1990s. So that's still real, but the mistake was that I think that Donald Trump wanted to do regime change on the cheap. He thought that a leadership strike, the regime would topple and that at that point they would just scatter.

And he thought that Iran would be like what we saw in Venezuela. That's obviously that's not what happened. And I have to say that I thought that there's another part of this, which is that the Israelis, I think, also understood that they needed, they had other contingencies and things that were vetoed by Trump in the war plan, as we know. It was beyond arming the Kurds, but that was the one that has been reported by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times. So let's just put out there that Trump is a gambler, and he believed that the decapitation strike on February 28th was worth it, and that the regime might tumble, and it didn't.

And the problem with that is that it removed the ability to have credible escalation threats. So then, you know, once that was removed, you know, whatever was deterring the Iranians before from seizing the Strait of Hormuz was absent. So they went for broke. And they took the Strait of Hormuz. They started hitting our bases in our Gulf allies, Israel, et cetera. And then we ran out of interceptors. So that was the bad part of the war. Oh, that was the most question.

But let me just take a step back. And that was very bad, and that was poor planning. But let me just step back because, you know, to Trump's credit that in some ways, his vice can be a virtue. So his vice was promising that help was on the way to the Iranian people when he didn't deliver. And that vice became a virtue five weeks ago with the memorandum of understanding where he's promised. to bring Iran into the community of nations and give them $300 billion. Well, he turns out he didn't mean that either. So he stiffed the contractors yet again.

And I'm glad he did because if that memorandum of understanding had actually been the blueprint for some sort of long-range peace deal where the Iranians would be able to rebuild and keep their proxy networks in the region, it really would have been a disaster. It's not a disaster now. So then what do we have? He is able to tap dance his way out of a global economic recession and $200 barrel price of oil by speaking incoherently at times and vacillating wildly on negotiations with Iran's leaders or then calling them scum the next day, et cetera.

But he's been able to at least keep the markets kind of tapping, the markets along so we are not seeing a total freak out. And then what do we get? Well, 13 months ago, Iran had an industrial nuclear program that was very, very close to being able to produce enough fissile material for several dozens, if not hundreds of warheads, and Iran would have been a nuclear power. that was a problem that had vexed American presidents for 30 years or nearly 30 years. And with military force, Trump had managed to solve that problem and also take out a big chunk of their defense industrial base, particularly in the Second War. And if he manages to get, if that managed to still be the case and the Iranian regime does not crash the world of economy, and we can figure out a way to allow for some escorts in an imperfect solution

for the straight of four moves to allow for part of that straight to be open at least, then I think in that, if that's the deal, and we didn't pay with calamity economically, and we're able to rebuild our stocks of interceptors and precise munitions, and maybe some technological breakthroughs from the Israelis can change that particular math problem along the way. Well, then in the end, I think the judgment of history with a little bit of perspective will be that the aggression was worth it. That's a lot of caveats, Eli. I mean, I've came into this.

Have at it, Charlie. Well, I'm sympathetic to the aim. I didn't like that Trump did it without Congress or without. any debate or heads up. You and I are a 100% agree with you on that. You're absolutely right. Yeah, but the actual war, the merits of it, I'm in favor of. I just think he's blown it.

I think there's too many caveats. I hope you're right. But it must worry you that he did it so haphazardly that not only is he unlikely to achieve his aims, but that the next president who might be more circumspects will be scared off dealing with Iran or countries like Iran? Yes and no. I think that Iran getting a nuclear weapon would have been a calamitous development. And the fact that they won't for, I think it's not just a few years.

I mean, I understand that there are lots of estimates and that they could do this, they could do that. I think that there's, just as there have been wishcasting on my side of the ledger on this at times, I think there's wishcasting and some of the assessments. Well, the two years they're going to rebuild a nuclear program. It took them 30 years. I doubt it. I think that the idea of getting the nuclear dust would have been nice, but I also think it's buried beneath, you know, rubbleized facilities that used to have spinning centrifuges.

And good luck getting it. And we have incredible technology to sort of monitor. them. And I also don't think that the question of their nuclear program is unrelated to this larger question of the legitimacy of the regime. All of these especially, but all authoritarian and totalitarian regimes have to have sense of momentum and that their history is on their side. And a catastrophic defeat about something that was seen as a source of national pride, so much so that the mullahs in charge of that country were willing to endure punishing sanctions and isolation and all of that comes along with it in order to protect their right to enrich uranium,

which doesn't exist. To me, getting rid of that, I would hope, would have some sort of effect psychologically after the dust dissettled, where, yes, they are ruling by fear, but lots of people might say to themselves who are inside that system, maybe God isn't on our side. And again, they are proved they're willing to kill tens of thousands of people when they go out of the streets. But that's a double-edged sword because it also means that, you know, especially within the culture of Shia Islam, there are lots and lots of martyrs. And I don't think that goes away either. So In my view, it's like the immediate problem was this physical program that was removed through military force. And then it's a question of what's the price we're going to pay for it?

The price of a global recession would have maybe would have been too high politically, obviously, economically and so forth. So that's my main. If he can avoid that and we still get the destruction of the program, then I can live with it. And as for another president, I think we would have had that anyway. I mean, we were clearly going in that direction, just look at where the Democratic Party is, and look at where, you know, J.D. Vance is at this point. If he represents a significant faction or the next dominant faction of the Republican Party, then, you know, either way would have been a problem. So getting rid of the nuclear program to me is a big deal.

And I just think that let's not lose sight of that. Hi, I'm Ben Sass. And I'm Chris Dyerwalt. And this is not dead yet. We're all dying, but some of us have been brought face to face with that reality. However long, each of us have to do it, though, we all want to live a good life. One with meaning, love, and joy. And our guests are here to help us do exactly that.

Now available for download and streaming at ricochet.com. RICOCHAY! Join the conversation. I thought we got rid of the nuclear program with that big strike, midnight, midnight hammer or whatever. What we told that we've got facilities and sealed the tunnels? All true, all true. And he did say that.

And this is the problem with Trump, is that Trump as a communicator, you know, he's a BS artist. So he, you know, and he does it more than anybody, at least on a national scale we've ever seen, particularly any president. So that's the problem is that he's a boaster. He's prone to saying these kinds of things of hyperbole. And he's always, he doesn't, he's not really a long-term thinker. So he says things to get him out of the dilemma of the moment.

All that is, all that said, it still doesn't mean that getting, that using force. And then the second war was about really eliminating their defense industry. All of that is, is tangible. Well, I'm all for that. I'm all for that, but I just believe that this, as I keep saying over and over again, I believe that this was the point at which finally we were done with the mullahs, that there wouldn't be guys jumping out of cars with sticks to be women who had their heads uncovered. And leaving that in place is a, when we all know that this was the shot, this was the chance,

this was the time. Maybe you can't do it without actually sending troops. Maybe you have to use the Iraq example where, you know, Well, I don't think we can't do that. No. And we shouldn't do that. No, I mean, we don't want to occupy. No, no, we don't want to do that.

The way to do it is to think about it almost like the way we, you know, listen, these things, first of all, all these regimes look incredibly stable until the moment they're not. So think about this like Milosevic and Serbia. There was an effort to cleanse Albania of all of its, or rather cleanse Kosovo of all its Albanian Muslims. And we did a, well, we did. war in 1999 and we stopped Milosevic from doing that and he was still in power and then he made the mistake of holding an election and trying to fix it. And then the country rose up against him. And eventually that what, you know, what Angela Cotevilla pointed out, his thugs were unwilling to shoot into the crowds. I don't see why we couldn't see a scenario like that in Iran.

If you look at the history of Iran, this is an anomaly, the power of the cleracy had quartered in Kome, they've never had this kind of power in Iranian history. And also, the original 79 revolution was a bunch of promises were made that were then revoked. And basically this faction within this broader coalition that opposed Shah Reza-Palabi stole the revolution. And so there's always – so the ferment I think in Iran is real. And I think it's also organic. And you add to that the fact that Israel still believes that this is an existential threat and they cannot allow it. and they do have, I guess, a regime change plans, and they have capabilities.

So I'm not giving up hope in that regard. I just think that it's not going to happen. It didn't happen in the storybook way with a leadership strike and, you know, this show of force. And maybe we should have known it wouldn't have worked that way. That was a blunder. But it was not the fatal blunder. It's not the end of the, it's not, it doesn't. set us back forever. If we had adhered to the terrible memorandum of understanding that was introduced

five weeks ago in June, that would have been horrendous. That would have been a disaster. But, you know, the good news is we didn't mean that either. So great. Well, anything else in the world, Eli, that is historical and broken or in the process of before we let you get back to your daily life? I mean, the world is... I just fear that I'm going to wake up... I fear I'm going to wake up... Well, I'm a big fan. I have to say, I'm a big fan of all three of you.

I think you are as writers. But I do want to, just because I have the opportunity with Charlie. Oh, gee, if I could... We're all waiting here. ...move into... Briefly, I just think I like everything that Charlie writes, but I'm particularly, I think that Charlie is one of the best music snobs

on the internet right now. So if I could indulge my privileges as the guest, if I have any, if I could assert them. Charlie, what are you listening to? What am I listening to right now? Well, I spent yesterday, a day before yesterday, a lot of work and listening to the soundtrack to Interstellar, which ends up making you very depressed if you play it for... Is it Zimmer? Yes, it's...

Yeah. but it has this motif that essentially is played for nine hours. Yep, yep. And it makes you a little bit crazy. At the moment, being the summer in Florida, I'm listening to a lot of Allman Brothers band because I feel that when the sun comes out, you've got to turn on the Allman Brothers band. And I don't have too much away,

but because I did this road trip, which I'm writing up for the magazine, and we went to Graceland and Sun Studios, I've really gone to Elvis. And, you know, I know that might sound odd because I'm such a Beatles nut. But I'd always liked Elvis. But I don't think I'd really understood the genius of Elvis. It had just been assumed.

I don't know who said it, but they said the thing with Mozart is he's really good. But you're told that he's really good. So you don't actually bother to process it. And then when you really start listening to Mozart, you say, oh, man, he was really good. Elvis is the same. I mean, I just didn't quite realize how good Elvis was. So I've been listening to a lot of Elvis's book. But it's...

I love the gospel stuff. It's natural. It's absolutely natural with the guy. He didn't have to think about it or work about it. It's almost as though he was in possession of an instrument that he himself had nothing to do with. He had just been gifted with this remarkable talent. I mean, when I think of the Beatles, I think of Paul McCartney is sitting down and coming up

with a tune in four minutes and just strumming along. because he had great technical skill and because he had a composer's ability. Elvis didn't have a composer's ability. He was just this vessel for some sort of wonderful thing that flowed through him. Yeah, Elvis is great. And I even love Fat Elvis stuff too. Oh, yeah. Well, since you mentioned soundtracks, Charlie,

I've always had this mirthful idea of doing a pro-Joe McCarthy biopic with Elvis's suspicious minds as the main theme. That's great. Really, I'm sorry. That's just, that is, okay, I am working on the next season of breaking history right now, and there is a section that will deal with McCarthy from the perspective of Prescott Bush. Ah. But I want, can you give me the argument in a nutshell as to, I know Buckley and Beazell wrote the book defending him and about it,

and really attacking his critics, but give me the. Oh, I can't give the thumbnail, Eli, what? What you really should read, though, is, you know, my first mentor out of college, M. Stanton Evans wrote the best defense of McCarthy, blacklisted by history. It's really, really good, I think. But don't, okay, I'll just belabor it really quick. Just give me a second. I appreciate young Nixon because Nixon got the goods on his.

Yeah. McCarthy was just a demagogue and he just talked a lot of excrement so to speak. And to me, as somebody who I'd like to think, you know, even though I'm the last real neoconservative in that I was very left in college. But I mean, I'd like to think that if I could go back as being as anti-communist as I am today back into that era, I would resent McCarthy in the way that Irving Crystal wrote at the time. I'm saying like, listen, we don't have time for this unsurious nonsense. Are you kidding me? Eisenhower is out here approving, you know, like CIA interventions against, you know, third world commies. And you're telling me that he's a member of the party.

Give me a, what are you talking about? Well, the Army. Two things to think about, you know, to play out. One is, I mean, I agree with an awful lot of what I think is your view on this. And I always think about, I think you may know this, you know, Whitaker Chambers was asked to do a dust jacket blurb for the Buckley-Bosell book, and he declined. And before, this was months before the Army McCarthy hearings when McCarthy blew up. And he wrote to Buckley and said, and they didn't know each other very well yet.

And he said, I fear that he's, he's reckless. He's like somebody who knows that, you know, someone's thrown a tomato from Adam from the crowd. He knows the general direction. But he lashes out. And someday he's going to do something that will discredit the cause of anti-communism. That was a great prophecy. But one of the things we learned, point number two, really after the Cold War ends, and we get the Venona files,

is that a lot of the people McCarthy was after, he was right about, except the Truman administration had already run them out on national security grounds. But they did that quietly, and they wanted to conceal that they had done this because this was based on some of those cables that we only learned about decades later.

So McCarthy was sort of late to the party. He wasn't wrong about, it was wrong about some people, but he was right about a lot of people, but they were already old news. But the Truman administration and then Eisenhower, they couldn't admit that. And so that makes it kind of a muddle. And then, by the way, well, I could tell you more about all that because I used to talk to

Stan about this when he was doing research for the book. And, you know, so Stan's two great lines where happiness is an unclassified FBI file of communists. The other one was, he used to say, I didn't accrue of what Joe McCarthy was trying to do, but I sure admired his methods. He would do that to make liberals. You know what? The only observation I have about this is someone who doesn't know a great deal about the details, is that if Joe McCarthy had been going after fascists in America and behaved in precisely the same manner with precisely the same amount of evidence, he would be a hero today in taught in schools. Well, Charlie, we already actually know, we actually have the evidence of that, and his

name is Adam Schiff. So, or, you know, he wasn't going after when he was, you know, falsely growing up. But my point is that, right, I mean, you're absolutely right about that. And then the thing that grinds my gears is that even in the name, the red scare, is if it's like Islamophobia. Right. It's like, wait a second. Yeah, I am scared of the Soviets penetrating our national security state because they were,

not because it was a fantasy. Yeah, no, I am scared of Salafist Islam because it is trying to kill me. What are you talking about? There's not a phobia. We have to get rid of it. We have to get over our unnatural fear of communism, don't you, low? You know, that's just the thing. I mean, the way that Hollywood has managed to massage the red scare into this witch hunt,

McCarthyism became not accusing somebody incorrectly of being a communist, but simply accusing them of being a communist at all, or pointing out the fact that they had said, I am a communist. To take issue with that is to be a McCarthyite these days. And we're going to see a lot of that coming up with the DSA achieving the prominence that it has. We're going to see a lot of that. Were you saying that just because somebody is holding communist beliefs that they are outside of the pale of American politics? Yes, I am saying that.

I am exactly saying that. And they should be drummed out. You should have drummed them out an awful long time ago. I just like the fact that McCarthy had to eat an entire stick of butter to calm the stomach before those hearings. Is that true? That's what I understand. An entire stick takes work. But on the other hand, it sounds delicious.

I can just see taking that stick, warming it up a little bit, wrapping it up a little bit, wrapping a couple of water. offals around that, dunking it in some syrup. Not a bad way to go eventually. Well, it was from a state, James. I mean, I know, I know, I know. I'll tell you what I like about this little part of history. I like the fact that progressive icon Bobby Kennedy defied his brother's orders not to attend, but had to, out of respect for the great man, who he worked for, attend McCarthy's funeral and showed up anyway. and, you know, like, I just like to throw that at people. Like the idea that, like, Bobby Kennedy is just like,

oh, yeah, I know, he would have agreed with me on trans rights. Really? Because Bobby Kennedy was a Red Hunter, all right? That's, you know, and probably went too far. And Joe McCarthy was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s godfather. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's right. Yeah, also, yeah, the Kennedys loved McCarthy.

McCarthy. McCarthy, like, dated some of the, like, Eunice or one of them. Yeah, exactly. They're all Irish. There you go. All right, Eli. Well, now that you've said, thanks, guys, you love us all, but you love Charlie the most.

Don't think we'll ever forget that. Don't think we'll ever. No, that's not what I was saying, but I do, I'm a fan of all, you know, you guys are really wonderful. Well, we're just waiting for you to land on. The Republic is grateful to have all of you. We were waiting for you to land on one like the dating game or something.

All right, my friend. We'll talk to you later. Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. All right. Bye-bye. This week on conservative crossroads, should the Senate confirm Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche? Mike Fricoso says yes.

The department under Blanche's stewardship has been doing very good work. Andrew McCarthy says no. The Justice Department has weaponized its processes against the president's enemies in a very public, notorious, and unabashed way. The confirmation of Todd Blanche coming up on conservative crossroads. Rickshay. Join the conversation. So it is a good question as to what you're listening to. I am not going to tell everybody what I'm listening to. They probably roll their eyes.

They'd run right to YouTube to get it and hoover it up. But it's actually an album by a fellow who goes by the name of Canobi, who's found a way, as somebody put it, to mix early Pink Floyd with the Young and the Restless theme. And that's exactly what it is. This is this early 1960s, you know, swank instrumentation that you expect from Owen Bradley or from Montevani or from 1001 strings and all the rest of those guys. Interspersed with a sort of loungy feel to it that's quite unique. And I find it very, very calming. And I need that these days.

So that's it. Canobey for me. Steve, before we go to Charlie's album challenge, can you tell us what sort of a progressive, gentle giant, music you're listening to now with 17 key changes and 43 different time signature in the course of three minutes. Funny you should mention General Giant, James, because at the end of this month, there's a new remaster of In a Glass House, which I think was their greatest album, never released in America because Capitol Records said this is too weird for America, and then it set records as an

import. I remember paying $16 for it as a high school kid in 1970. Yeah, I know. Real money back then, right? I mean, that was like three weeks worth of mowing lawns on my neighborhood. Interesting story. I think, you may know James. I'm not sure if Charles has ever suffered through Gentle Giant.

Their first album was called Acquiring the Taste. And boy, was that an accurate album title, right? In a Glass House, they want to try and find the master tapes and couldn't find them. So what they've done is they've run the whatever recordings they could find through an AI processor. And they've released a couple of the early tracks. And it really is quite different and better. And I'm really waiting for the full release here at the end of the month. And so I'm listening to those guys.

a lot again in the recent weeks and months. Well, you used to be excited about remasters until you realize it wasn't an automatic guarantee of an upgraded experience. Sometimes they were worse. How about if we just remaster this thing and drive everything through a sack of wet mud? Okay, let's do it. It's remastered. I find that to be the case.

Charles, I'm blown over by what I've heard so far. I'll just say that. When you mentioned that you spent $16 on it as a youth, I just remember that there used to be a special part of the record store called... imports. And you would go and look at these foreign albums and these foreign labels and the rest of it. Charles growing up in the UK, was there an import bin or was it just generally assumed that pretty much everything was going to come from America? Well, I don't think it's true that pretty much everything came from America. But back when it did in the late 1950s and early 1960s, that was one advantage that the Beatles in the embryonic phase had over. many other bands, the records hit Liverpool first. And in fact, when there weren't too many of them, a lot of them stayed in Liverpool. They never made it down to Kent. So the Beatles would go to

the back of the record store to the import section and they would see Fats Domino or Buddy Holly or Smokey Robinson and they'd snap them up. And no one else at that point had yet heard them. So back in the day, that was a thing. I think, when I was a kid, it was a little bit different. I don't think they designated imported records, this imported record. Also, we were all listening to English bands, like, Blair and Oasis, James.

I know, of course you were. And Charles' record challenge this week. He's removed the pictures that his son did, that were up there, like a good father, and has given us three new out well, four. Well, no, three, because I don't know if that's an album. It is. That's four.

Okay. Well, it's absolutely mystified me. So I'm going to tell you then, left to right, what we have, as far as I can tell, I believe that's Simon and Garfunkel, right? Yes, bridge over troubled water. Yep, and then something that is, I just cannot make it out. It's too abstract for me.

It may be some 1960s cream thing, but that would be bluer. So you'll have to tell us that in a second. The next one, of course, is Beatles 6, which wasn't their sixth album at all. I think it was their 14th or 30 second or something like that. And then, of course, who can even who who can possibly not know the iconic cement, stained as it is with the micruration of the who, there for who's next. So that's it. You get Simon Garfunkel. Mystery of me, I lose that one, the Beatles and the Who. Tell me the one I didn't get. What is it?

It's Abraxas by Santana. Oh, yeah. Okay. Is that the one that's got the naked chick on the top and the front? Actually, I'm not sure. I could go have a look at me. I think the British, the American version was a very well-endowed African-American black woman who, an African-American black. How about that? Am I correct? Yes. Very much so. Yes. Very much so, yes. And you had, And that didn't come to mind instantly when you put that out? Let me go check to see if this woman is top of us. It's funny you say that because my eight-year-old likes to walk in and look at them.

And I don't think he should see that actually because that is borderline pornographic. I don't think so either. Now that you've said that, I can see that it is a braxis, but it's not an album. Now, James, yes. I have a vocabulary challenge for you. You used mixtureeration a couple moments ago with one of my favorite obscure words. But you need to mix it in in the same sentence with retrimingent. What's that?

It means backwards urinating, which so. It's like a Christopher Nolan thing. I'm not exactly sure how that's accomplished. I'm not exactly sure that I want to know. It probably involves some sort of Amazon parasite that gets into your urethra and starts hyperventilating. So we'll take that for another one. I think there's a picture of it on the front of a practice.

I think there probably is. That's one of those ones that you could look at like Sergeant Pepper, and all the details. And of course we did. Oh, there's an album in here too. Oh, even better. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. We thank Eli, of course, for joining us.

We want everybody to go to ricochet.com. Sign up. There's a new site coming soon, and it's going to be fantastic. But it's fantastic right now because it's got the kind of conversation, civil conversation, civil, sane, center-right conversation you've been looking for all of your days. Give us that five-star review on Apple.com. And if you don't, you know, iTunes, that whole thing, or wherever you find the podcast for that manner.

Our sponsors, we love them. You should, too. Give them some love and give them some money. We'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 4.0. No, four point something else on way to five. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure and we'll see everybody next week. Bye-bye. Rickache!

Join the conversation.