The Ricochet Podcast - Pass The Popcorn, Portman

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

This week, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) –soon to be Citizen Portman– stops by to discuss impeachment, working with the Biden administration (or not as the case may be), his plans for the future, why he decided to throw in the towel in terms of the Senate, and yes, how this year’s popcorn crop is looking at his farm in Ohio. Also, Rob Long is going on safari (really!), Peter Robinson is looking... Source

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Shall not extend further than removal from office. President Trump no longer is in office. The object of the Constitution has been achieved. He was removed by the voters. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Democracy simply doesn't work. With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey. Mr. Gorbachev,

tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lalex. Today, Senator Rob Portman. Let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you! Welcome, everybody, to the Littishay Podcast, number 351, 531. I'm losing track myself.

All we know is it's a show full of sound and fury, as Faulkner called it, or, in the words of Andrea Mitchell, a really big shoe. We're going to dispense with the opening chat, again, because we've got an important guest who we can't wait to talk to, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio. Senator Portman's been in the Senate since 2010, born and raised in Cincinnati, where he still lives today with his wife, Jane. Senator Portman recently announced to the chagrin of millions that he will not be seeking re-election when his term ends in 2022. Welcome to the Ricochet Podcast. Well, thanks, James. I don't know that it was

to the chagrin of millions, though. Maybe just Peter Robinson. I was chagrined. I'm still trying to talk about it. Rob Long has an opening question for you, Senator. Hey, Senator, thank you for joining us. I know it's a busy day, so we really appreciate it. I hear there's stuff going on in D.C. I'm not sure whether it's important or not. But so you're in the senate for 10 years and then i look at the news at the new york times my favorite paper today or yesterday 33 000 republicans left the california republican party after january 6 12 000 left the gop in pennsylvania 10 000 left the registration arizona two questions one are you are you deserting a sinking ship and two how many of your republican colleagues in the senate came up to you after you announced you're retiring and said man

that's the right idea well uh those are different different answers um no look i've been at this 30 years uh off and on, and 30 years is a long time. I've always kept my home in Ohio and done the commute, and it gets a little old after a while. And I am 65, and I love my family, and I love the private sector. I want to get back to it. But I'll continue to stay involved and engaged. So this is really more of a personal decision on my part. The other factor for me is, honestly, as you know, you know, I like to get things done.

I like to find that common ground between Republicans and Democrats and push legislative projects and oversight. And we've been good stewards of that, you know, approach in the sense that we've gotten, I think, over 150 of our bills signed into law by either President Obama or President Trump. I don't know that any other Senate office has that record. And so we've been very prolific, and we will continue to be for the next two years. But that's harder and harder to do. And it just is. It just is. And I have to say that in the Biden administration, it looks like it's going to be very hard as well. They started off on the wrong foot by making this COVID-19 issue a partisan issue and not working with us on a bipartisan product, which, you know, we just did five weeks ago. So that, I must say, that factored into it. I'm very concerned about divisions in our party.

On the other hand, I'm convinced that the Republican Party positions, and by that I mean, you know, our policy positions, our ideals, who we are, are actually much more in line with where the American people are. And you look at the results in 2020 and you see that. You know, in the House, we miraculously, after being told we were going to lose a bunch of House seats in the Congress, we gained a bunch, probably 15. In the Senate, we did better than anyone expected, what the polls indicated, given that we had so many members up, really 11 who had really tough seats. The Democrats had one. And yet, short of Georgia, which is an anomaly in my view, we can talk about, we end up down net one. So we would have kept the majority, but for Georgia. And then, obviously, at the state house level around the country we did well we picked up three more uh republican majorities and legislatures in ohio we we

added to a super majority in the house right so it wasn't about republican policies uh or what i would say our ideals were you know the direction of the party it was it was more my view about personality and style right so the rumors of the death of the Republican Party are, they're overrated. Yeah. I mean, as Mark Twain said, the rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. And I think that's true with the party. I believe that, you know, when you look at the policies, whether it is the tax reform and tax cuts or regulatory relief or whether it's rebuilding our military, whether it's what we did in terms of energy independence, all that's very popular. And I think, you know, you see the Biden administration beginning to find that out as they, you know,

cancel Keystone XL pipeline as an example and find out, you know, it's not very popular because people like energy independence. And they like God. Exactly right. So my other question is that, I mean, Freed, I mean, you know, there are a few, in sort of my view now, superstars, the Republican Party. You are definitely in that pantheon. Freed from two years of, I think probably you'd have to say, a little bit of a distraction whenever you're running for a reelect. Yep. What are your big plans? What do you really want to accomplish as a as a as a Republican and as a senator in two years?

And afterwards, when you think, you know, as Michael Corleone said, Godfather three, when you think you're free, we're going to pull you back in. What role are you going to take to sort of, you know, in my view, to help rebuild the Republican brand? Well, I will stay involved. And, you know, I'm not going to be in elected office two years from now, but I will be involved helping candidates I believe in and helping to promote good public policy. And if there's an opportunity to serve in some way, say on a commission to try to solve some of our big problems, I'd love to do that. So I'm always eager to do it. And Hoover will be a part of whatever I do. I like going out, Peter, and seeing your team out there. And I'm close to a lot of them, as you know. And so I look forward to staying involved in the public policy arena. In terms of what I'd love to do in the next two years, we do have a lot of stuff that's kind of, you know, ready to go. One is a big bill on China.

I spoke this morning to the National Security Advisor for President Biden about this topic. And I'm convinced that we can, in a bipartisan way, if we can get the administration to shift gears and be bipartisan, we can get something done on China that will be very significant. First, about keeping them from stealing our technology. And we have legislation now to do that following a year-long investigation and a hard-hitting report. And I think that's one where we can make great, great progress. And then reestablishing going forward, how do we provide through our own supply chain here in this country what we really need to be competitive,

and particularly with regard to the so-called new industries, you know. So I think of George Shultz, who we just lost, Peter, at Uber. You know, he was constantly talking about the need for us to be at the lead in terms of technology to deal with climate change. And so we should be at the lead on those sorts of things, you know, new energy ideas, but also with regard to our manufacturing sector and our ability to be competitive globally. So that's something that I'm very interested in. I think China is a topic where you can find a lot of bipartisanship and do thoughtful, smart stuff that actually puts us in a better competitive position. And then second, I'm very worried about the fiscal condition of our country and anything I can do during this shorter term to work on issues like Social Security, which I've spoken to, the new OMB director nominee, the new Treasury Secretary,

who's now in place, and in public and private, and they all said the right thing, which is that we want to work on this. I do hope we can make that bipartisan and come up with ways to save some of these essential entitlement programs before they bankrupt the country. Yeah, I know Peter wants to jump in here, but before he does, just an assessment from you, if you wouldn't mind. How much trouble are we in? I mean, we had a massive federal debt before COVID. It's now unthinkably large, and it's about to get larger. In January 2022, how much trouble are we going to be in? Well, economists differ on this. As you know, my own view, for what it's worth, is the measurement

that is most important is the percent of the economy. So your debt or deficit as a percent of the GDP. In absolute numbers, of course, we have the largest deficit by far and the largest debt, of course, in the history of the country. But as a percent of our economy, you can service that debt. It's sort of like in the private sector. If you've got income coming in adequate to meet your debt load, you're okay. But we're not okay. I mean, our debt as a percent of our GDP is the highest it's ever been except for one year right after World War II, when understandably, you know, we made incredible expenditures on the military side, by the way, all of which ended. And because they weren't entitlement, mandatory spending,

it was things we had to do to be able to save global freedom, and it worked. And after that period, my dad was a veteran. Many of you, I'm sure, have parents or grandparents who were. We had the greatest generation, you know, rebuild our economy. That's not the direction we're headed. We're headed toward increasingly difficult times because we have a structural deficit built onto the way we do our mandatory spending, so-called, our entitlements. So it's an entirely different situation. And, you know, I've spoken recently to, not just to Secretary Yellen about this, but publicly and privately, and said that, you know, Secretary of Treasury normally is the fiscal discipline job in the administration, and I hope

that she focuses on that. But also with hank paulson recently as an example and um trying to figure out you know what is the long-term impact and what economists will tell you right left or center is you know it's you get you go into uncharted territory here at some point and so the effect on interest rates going up which of course uh has the effect of making the deficit much worse because interest rates are so low right now, likely to go up. There are already, you know, indications that inflation is creeping up. So higher inflation, which of course is terrible for middle class families in my home state of Ohio who are going to suffer the most from that. So there are tangible, I think, relatively

short-term problems with just continuing to spend, spend, spend without worrying about it. Senator Peter here, you, by the way, you've destroyed my plan. I don't think I ever revealed this to you, but it was becoming a little less likely, I suppose, as the years passed. But my plan was for you to become president and then appoint me ambassador to some dinky little island in the Caribbean where I could just lie on the beach and say, the president said this, the president said that. Okay, it's over.

I'm sorry I've disappointed you. That would have been great for you. It would have been bad for the country, but great for you. No, you would have had to come back to be a speechwriter, and you could write the Berlin Wall speech all over again. You just touched on something that has come to mind a couple of times over these recent weeks. Your dad was a vet. My dad served in the Second World War. And I was just thinking to myself, you and I both came up under men and women, but in those days mostly men.

Of course, I think above all of George H.W. Bush, to whom we were devoted, and who was not only a vet, but a war hero. He volunteered, he joined the Navy. I think he signed the paperwork. It didn't become official until he turned 18, but he signed the paperwork even before he was 18 years old, shot down in the middle of a mission, saved by a submarine. And I was just contrasting the impeachment we're going through, impeachment or trial we're going through now with the one in 1974, where the Democrats in the House took three months to hold hearings. And they were very careful of each other, the Republicans and the Democrats. And Chairman Peter Rodino of House Judiciary made sure that the White House had lawyers present

and that it could call the witnesses, the White House could call the witnesses it wanted to call. And the press played it straight. And, of course, I looked this up. I thought, what? Peter Rodino served from 1941 to 1946 in the United States Army. Half the men on that committee had been in the war. Richard Nixon had been in the Navy. The press, Walter Cronkite, for goodness sake, had landed at Normandy in a glider. He had flown over in a glider with troops who were landing behind the enemy lines. And I just thought to myself, a difference between then and now is that then the people in charge were grownups in the sense that they knew the stakes. They understood what can happen when things go wrong. I don't know how you replace that kind of seriousness. Does that strike you as in some way

valid? Well, yes. And I think that the other comparison that is appropriate to be made to 1974 is that when Richard Nixon resigned from office, what did Peter Rodino do? And what did the Democrats in Congress do? They pulled back. They said impeachment is about removal. And that's clear to my view in the Constitution. And the removal has occurred. And, you know, he's no longer president. And so that's right. I hadn't thought of it. They didn't they didn't push ahead with voting the impeachment articles. They did not insist that the Senate hold a trial. Once he was gone, it was over. Right. And that's you know, we've had four presidential impeachments in the history of our country. I must say, I have been around 30 years off and on, but I've been now involved in three of the four, three of the casually introduce every year to impeach a president of the United States, which is the most severe penalty in a country and in a constitution, a constitution that focuses primarily on, you know, people who are representatives of the voters and the voters

should decide. And that's why impeachment is the founders intended to be so rare and why they curtailed it so much and even curtailed what you can do with it. It's for removal of office and disqualification, not a war. And so I think that 74 lesson is a good one. Look, I think just to come right up to the present day, I think what Donald Trump said and did around January 6th when the Capitol was under siege was terrible. And I think it was inexcusable. I really do. But the question is, do you take this tool, this powerful and rare tool that is about removal of a president? Every time impeachment is mentioned, it's about removal and converted into something where you could go after former presidents who are private citizens. And I think that is problematic.

And I think in 1974, they made the right decision. As horrible as it was, what had gone on with Watergate and the lies and the deceit, they viewed it as a power of removal. And it was no longer appropriate once Nixon left. Anyway, sorry to take you there, but that kind of brings me to the speed. No, no, no. What would your advice be to, I i mean you have a certain freedom now to speak your mind because you're not running for re-election and you've got on the one hand well i've just fred barnes has been writing that it's a liberation for the republican party to have

donald trump down in mar-a-lago and we all should hope that he just becomes engrossed with his golf game and then you've got i I saw Senator Graham, your colleague and friend, say the other evening that if Republicans think they can take back the House and recapture the Senate two years from now without Donald Trump, they have another thing coming. The party needs that man to be active and campaigning in the next two years. Now, from what you said earlier, we have popular policies, but we had personality problems. It sounds to me as though you're in the form, just how do you advise the folks who are going to be staying in the Senate and trying to put the pieces of the

Republican Party back together? What position do you advise them to take on the former president? Well, I, you know, look, I'm not, I'm not going to say anything I wouldn't have said had I been running again. And by the way, my position on impeachment hasn't changed. It was, it was concerning to me on a constitutional basis before and still is. I'm listening as a juror and that's my job and I will. And, you know, I'll make up my mind based on a lot of factors, but the constitutionality is, is, is, is a key factor in terms of, you know, I'll make up my mind based on a lot of factors, but the constitutionality is a key factor in terms of, you know, whether we are doing the right thing going forward and what is the precedent that we are setting. In terms of the party, focus on what makes us great as a party, which is that, you know, we represent, in my view, the fundamental ideals that have made this country great. And that is about what I said earlier, you know, the tax reform and tax cuts and regulatory relief and stronger military and

energy independence. But it's about something bigger. It's about freedom. It's about us being able as Americans to chart our own course in life and not to be reliant on the government. The government has a role to play, of course, but it should not be the primary one. You know, the greatness of our country is in what I think the Republican Party generally stands for. And I think that's where most Americans are. And again, I look at what happened in the elections. I think what you had was Republicans doing very well, except at the presidential level, for a simple reason is that, you know, we had a coalition of people who believed in all these pro-growth policies I talked about, but also believed that, you know, we ought to have fair

trade. We ought not to be in a situation where you have countries like China being able to play by their own rules and therefore hurt our workers and, you know, our businesses. And we ought to ensure that immigration is legal, but that we not allow illegal immigration to, you know, overwhelm us. And, you know, that's kind of a, that's kind of the coalition that was built. And I don't think it relies on Donald Trump. If he wants to stay involved, that's certainly his prerogative. But even if he doesn't, those policies, you know, are the core of our party and what makes us, I think, a party that can continue to be quite successful. I've heard people wanting to splinter off to the right

and splinter off to the left or splinter off to the popular side or splinter off to the, you know, more traditional side, whatever. Let's reunite instead and figure out, you know, how we did so well just a few months ago in the election, with the exception of the presidential level, and build on that. I know James wants to get back to ask a question about China, but you know what? You don't sound defensive or apologetic. It is just so refreshing to hear a Republican, after all the beating up that's been taking place over these past few years just say, no, no, actually, we're right and the country's with us. It'll work itself out. Yeah, I think it will, Peter.

I love to interrupt senators because they understand that sometimes there's important issues the nation needs to face, and one of them is finances, our nation's finances and the rest of it. How about you? How about your finances? No matter what stage of life you're in, thinking about your financial future can evoke some pretty strong emotions. But did you know that people who work with a financial advisor feel more at ease about their finances and they end up with 15% more money to spend in retirement on the average? Well, now thanks to SmartAsset, the service that covers over a million and a half people, they've trusted it to help them find an advisor. And thanks to SmartAsset, there's a free and easy path to help you find greater financial peace of mind.

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But we wonder exactly how much the Biden administration is going to be on board, whether or not there's this reflexive internationalist desire to be friends with China or whether they just want to accommodate China to show that they're not Donald Trump. We recently had an executive order that overturned something the Trump administration had done that required schools to report their connections, affiliations to the Confucius Institute. And Biden's executive order threw it away. I can't figure out why they would do that unless they're trying to send a signal to everybody and to China that we're on your side, China. and this is where we see the United States going. Is there really bipartisan consensus at this moment in the halls of Congress that China is not our friend,

perhaps, and best be dealt with warily, with caution and suspicion? I think so, James, and I think the specific example that you raise is an example of where where kind of in a knee-jerk way, the new Biden administration has said, you know, we're just going to get rid of all the Trump regulatory changes. And one of the regulatory changes that the Trump administration put in place, among others, was a good one. And that is to say, let's have transparency as to the China investment, and by that I mean the Chinese Communist Party investment, in our universities and our schools, our high schools, through these Confucius Institutes. They focus on cultural exchange, but they also focus on providing a history of China that is inaccurate, and they stifle freedom of expression. In other words,

Tiananmen Square didn't exist. It didn't happen. There's no problem in Tibet. You know, there's nothing going on with the Uyghurs. You know, Taiwan is part of greater China. And if that's being taught to our students, that's wrong, and people need to know about it, including parents and students in higher education and so on. So that's what the transparency was about, is that, you know, schools be required to report. I have raised this with the Biden administration as recently as today, and they've indicated to me that they're going to relook at that and that perhaps the broad, you know, edict that everything that the Trump administration did was wrong and so we're going to get rid of all its regulations, missed at least, in their view, even a few good ideas. So I think they might go back and

reimpose that. I hope they do. Otherwise, it does send, I agree with you, the wrong signal. Good. Keep the screws on. We appreciate it. Breaking news. Well, the Trump administration stood up to China in a way that had not been done previously. And we had to use a blunt instrument to do that, which is tariffs. And as, you know, Peter's Hoover friends will tell us, you know, there was damage to the American consumer and damage to some U.S. industries because of it. But on the other hand, we did get China, at least in phase one, to make some changes in terms of their approach, which is, you know, not a level playing field and not playing fair with international rules. The next phase of that was meant to be getting at

the broader issue of them subsidizing their companies, state-owned enterprises and otherwise, and not playing fairly in terms of, you know, the international and our domestic laws as to dumping and as to subsidization. So that's the bigger issue we need to get at now. And I hope that the Biden administration realizing that continues to keep the pressure on, as you say. And I think we can have a relationship with China that is mutually beneficial, but we can't have that unless there is equity in the relationship and sustainability in the relationship through a level playing field. You know, and that's not happening yet.

Senator Peter here one more time. Politics. You have said several times you hope the Biden administration does this and this. You hope there's an opportunity to work in a bipartisan way. You spoke with Janet Yellen. You've spoken with the NSC advisor and so forth. You're working with them clearly. So here's the question.

Joe Biden gives an inaugural address in which he talks about unity and coming together. And within 24 hours, he has signed executive orders that might as well have been written by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. His positions, the tone of his remarks, permitting this impeachment trial to go forward instead of asking the Democrats who now control both chambers to call it off. It looks as though the other side, the energy, the money, the determination on the other side is on the progressive left wing of the Democratic Party, and they see this as their moment. They feel almost desperate, precisely because the numbers in both chambers are so close, and they feel they could lose it in the next two years. They're going to go for it. We won't see real bipartisanship. We're going to see one hard left proposal after another. Joe Biden himself may wake up to this in six months and try to

pull back a little bit, but the energy is with the progressive left, and they are running the administration and both houses. Chuck Schumer's taking the positions he's taking because he's afraid of a primary challenge from AOC herself. And so, Senator, your next two years are going to be miserable. What do you think of it? Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm just mistaken in that reading. I would have told you after the inaugural address that you were wrong to assume that's how they would start now that they have started mostly that way. I can't say that. I mean, I think you're probably mostly right, including saying that six months from now, the president may wake up and say,

what happened here? I thought I was going to bring people together and start to heal the country, which is what he says he wants to do. And I actually believe he wants to in his heart, but he's not following his heart. Instead, he's following his staff and the majority leader and the speaker's focus, which is exactly as you say, you know, to go on their own, focused on, you know, a very progressive agenda. Bernie Sanders is calling the shots, as you know, with regard to the budget. He's the chairman of the Budget Committee. He's put together a package of $1.9 trillion. It includes a number of things that have nothing to do with COVID-19. And much of the COVID-19 money is not based on data or evidence. In other words, there's not a need for much of that money, including for state governments that, as you saw

in the Wall Street Journal again this morning, analysis has been done. Overall, state revenues are about equal in 2020 compared to 2019, down by like 0.1%. And yet we're talking about another $350 billion of taxpayer money being spent to send to states, many of whom just don't need it, including my home state of Ohio. So I think this is a decision they've made. I spoke again to some of the Biden administration about this as recently as today, and they said, well, we're just, we just believe we need to do these things and do them very quickly. So right after the $1.9 trillion package under what's called reconciliation, which means you don't need Republicans because it's a 50 vote margin. By the way, the Senate is 50-50. So it's kind of a risky

endeavor, too, because you could have one or two Democrats drop off because they feel uncomfortable about this direction. But then they say right after that, they're going to go with a $2 trillion package on, you know, rebuilding America better, again, under reconciliation. Well, here are two areas, COVID-19 and Build america better which is basically infrastructure where we've had bipartisanship in the past i mean we just did five covet 19 bills in a bipartisan way and i was very involved as you know as one of the five republicans working with five democrats to come up with this last package provided the basis for the 900 billion dollar approach and yet not one of us was consulted. And we still

are getting, you know, very little feedback in terms of our alternative proposals that we're giving the White House because they just want to go for it. They just want to go for it. And to jam Republicans is one thing, but to do something that is bad for the country is another, and that's what concerns me. So I'm hopeful that at some point, you know, the rhetoric soaring as it was on the inaugural stage is met with action rather than contradicting this notion that we're going to reach out and work together, and that's what's happening now. It is just astounding. You mentioned a fact that I hadn't really twigged with me, but it is just astounding that Democrats have made chairman of the Budget Committee a man who calls himself a socialist. It is just astounding. Listen, last question. As you well

know, I sit right out here in Silicon Valley. And, you know, here's what I'm hearing among the kids, the young entrepreneurs. Is it a pretty comprehensive, I'm contrasting this from the days when you and I were at Dartmouth College together, where the Cold War was taking place. We talked about politics. We cared about politics. Honestly, you did it. I have never come close, but becoming a United States senator was sort of the highest aspiration. Here's what I hear from young kids today. It's a kind of comprehensive breakdown in trust and even interest in the government of the United States. One reason Bitcoin is soaring right now

is that as many of my young friends, all of whom are much richer than I am, young as they are, they've done well in Palantir, this wave of IPOs we've seen, and they're very happy to let the market ride up on Jerome Powell's liquidity. And they take those dollars and turn them right into Bitcoin because they don't trust the dollar. I was on the phone. This is a fellow in his 20s still, who's founded two companies and invested in three dozen others. And he said, you know, when I was still at Stanford, I wanted to go into politics, but I have just decided you can't get anything done. So you're leaving yourself in two years. But what do you say to that generation?

Well, again, Peter, I did spend 30 years off and on in four different administrations and 12 years in the House and 12 years in the Senate. So I think I'm in a position to say don't give up. I mean, I'm not leaving public policy altogether. In two years, I'll be going back to my home state of Ohio, and I can't wait and get back in the private sector and back to family and a lot of things that I love. But I would tell those young people, you know, you can't give up and you must stay engaged and involved. And the value of the dollar, as I said earlier, that's one of the consequences of a fiscal policy that, you know, is irresponsible.

And it has impacts on the monetary side. And that's one of my concerns, frankly, if you look at what the dollar is doing today and the number of treasuries that have to be purchased at auction by us rather than by other countries or other investors because people are concerned about investing in effect in our future. So the Bitcoin phenomenon is part of that. And all the more reason for people to be engaged and involved because it affects all of us so fundamentally. And my hope is that we see a change of heart here in the Biden administration and that there is a willingness to work together and people can begin to see some bipartisanship again. Again, it's a 50-50 Senate. It couldn't be closer. The House margin is now, you know, only a handful of votes. They had, you know, 15 additional House Republicans elected, and Nancy Pelosi's margin, I think, of error is four or five votes now. So it's a time for us to

be bipartisan. If there's not, if this isn't the time, when is it? By the way, Joe Biden didn't just talk about bipartisanship and getting back to working together during the general election when you might expect it, because it probably helped him vis-a-vis Donald Trump, particularly in some of the suburban communities where people are looking for that in particular. But he did it in the primaries. You know, he won a primary in the Democratic Party saying that he beat Bernie Sanders. And now to, as you say, you know, and Bernie Sanders is my colleague, but now to give him the ability to ram a budget through without even having any Republican input seems to me to be a real problem.

And that, you know, not just for the party, but for our country and for making good on the promises that Joe Biden made, not just during the general election, but during the primary. Oh, I'm sorry, Senator. That was indeed Peter Robinson's last question. I believe Rob has the last one. And myself, James Lytleks, here in Minneapolis, I have one too. I'm looking as I drive to work at a massive infrastructure problem on our highways, which they're rebuilding, which is great, because infrastructure used to be bipartisan in as much as everybody got some concrete, everybody got some rebars, money was spread around. Is it the case now that infrastructure is increasingly ideologically polarized polarized because instead of just building

highways and dams and the rest of it, now we have to build green? We can't build roads because roads are for cars and cars are for bad. We can't build dams because dams are anti-ecological and so forth. Has this one last bastion of pork bipartisanship, is it too going to be destroyed by ideological motivations? Yeah, I mean, I, and by the way, James, I do have to run. I'm sorry. I've got a meeting on the impeachment issue. I've got to get to before the impeachment starts in 50 minutes. With regard to infrastructure, I think actually there is more that binds us together in a way than there would have been five or 10 years ago. And that is broadband. I mean, you think about it, it's directly related to COVID-19 because it has to do with tele-learning, has to do with tele-working.

Of course, it has to do with telehealth. And in many parts of the country, including broad swaths of, you know, Ohio, southeast Ohio in particular, we have no broadband at all or certainly no high speed broadband that's's enough to even allow people to be able to virtually learn, much less virtually work. So I think there's actually an opportunity there to say to Republicans who are very concerned about the rural access on broadband and Democrats who are concerned about some of the hookups in the urban areas to work together. On roads and bridges, I hear what you're saying, and I know there'll be a lot of push to, you know, to pick winners and losers in terms of clean energy projects and so on. But even those who may think the, you know, the automobile is not as central as it used to be, they want roads and bridges in their states

that work and that aren't crumbling. And we had one we just had an accident one of our huge uh bridges that is a bottleneck where 71 and 70 i-71 i-75 come together and you know the bridge has been deemed to be uh structurally obsolete for for years and it's dangerous and it's it's a safety hazard so i mean everybody should care about that. Whether you like electric cars or whether you like the, you know, the old combustion engine, you have to care about having good infrastructure. So I think it still is an opportunity. If anything, because of broadband, there should be even more reason for us to come together and do something. But let's do it smart. Let's do it in a way that engages the private sector. You know,

public-private partnerships is a whole lot better than using taxpayer dollars that don't have to be used for this purpose. So I think there are ways to do it, and that's why I'm urging them to work with us and not just put it into another reconciliation package, which is what apparently they're planning to do, or at least some are planning to do, which means that you don't need to have any Republican support. Just like COVID-19, this has been traditionally a bipartisan area. Let's not squander what bipartisanship we have left. Let's instead build on it. So, gentlemen, thank you. It was great to be on with you as always. Hey, how's the popcorn crop coming in this year? Well, we've kind of shifted. That's going to be a hayfield this year, but the honey and the maple syrup is coming on strong.

Okay, listen, I'm only asking because I want my annual goodies. You're going to have maple syrup this year. It's going to be awesome. Great. Fantastic. Thanks. It was a pleasure for us to talk to you. All right.

Thanks, guys. Thank you, Senator. Talk to you later. You know, Peter, urbanite that you are, I hope you realize that people grow corn. They don't grow popcorn. I mean, there's not some. I thought it was a special subspecies or something. Okay, yes. But if you're thinking there's some field out there where it's all white and puffy

like cotton balls or something that falls in Oz, no, you actually, there's a process you have to go to get the corn. That's right. I mean, for example, some people think that there's large underground quarries of kitty litter and they just have to mine it. No, it's a little bit more difficult than that. And frankly, when it comes to kitty litter, if you're somebody who has to deal with it, either disposing it or buying it or all the rest of this stuff, then listen to this because this is for you. If it's not, you may wonder what in the world we're doing talking about kitty litter. Has there been some great innovation in the world? There is.

And there is. And here's what it is. First of all, if you're working from home, a lot of people are. I mean, that means more time for your morning coffee, means more for an occasional afternoon nap. I know I take them. And, of course, it means more of an opportunity for your furry feline friend to walk across the keyboard in the middle of your Zoom call, as they are wont to do. You love having your cat around, don't you? But you don't love being around that litter box, no. Well, Kiddie Poo Club, I love to say that, Kiddie Poo Club is an

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the Ricochet podcast. James. Yes. I missed, I missed Michelangelo when he was painting the Sistine ceiling. I never saw Einstein at the chalkboard, but I have seen James Lilacs do segues. And a cold read, which is always fun.

Yes, well, I enjoyed the comments and questions that you guys had to the senators. Cool to have a senator on for 30 minutes. And there's so much, you know, the infrastructure thing fascinates me because I love infrastructure. I love building. And we have this massive project here with our highways over and over and constantly again i know rob in new york you're dealing with what infrastructure from oh yeah from way back i mean we were talking about from way back and from brand new it's it's the weirdest thing ever you there's this a couple brand new bridges and then the rest of it it was looks like it was, you know, there are probably some poor European immigrants buried there from 1901 or something.

It's just sad. But that is the problem with an older city. You have a mix, you know. You have to go at some point as a New Yorker to the airport, which I always dreaded because it would take four flipping freaking ever, whether, I mean, I would, I,

I'm the kind of guy who you're in Minneapolis. I live 15, you know, seven, 12 minutes from the airport and I'll build in four hours, you know, in New York, you get in the car and you,

and you sit at the mouth of a tunnel for 37 minutes. It's better now. It's actually considered considerably. It's not as bad as I think as it was maybe 20 years ago. Part of that is that Newark airport's nice. I mean live in uh live in downtown so newark airport is and all they did this is literally all they did they made newark airport nice yes like it's amazing what you can get away with in the world if you just make it a little nicer and are you flying out of newer no no JFK today. So it's the old, which bridge, which tunnel, how are you going to get out there? I will, well, you know, it's always going to be Waze, but I probably will, well, it

depends, you know, because like COVID is like, the traffic's fantastic. Oh, that's right. Of course. I'll probably go over the Williamsburg Bridge. I imagine it'll be Williamsburg. Over the Williamsburg and then the BQE out to the Van Wick, I'm assuming. Got it. Okay.

There you go. But the idea that, you know'm it's so easy to get to the airport now that the economy is decimated and the city is emptied out because of disease oh people say like i had dinner with a friend of mine and he's coming from town he goes man it's great it took me 10 minutes to get here but you know but it's awful i mean i find parking down right i'm every time i go downtown to the office i debate whether or not i should ever do this again because the the effect that my mental health is starting to be cumulatively disastrous well you better be careful because you're not starting with a lot of it let's be honest no you're right but i mean working in an empty building in an empty downtown that used to be fairly vibrant and bustling at least in the sky was at lunchtime is is just is is incredibly depressing and when you add to that the fact that

one we're not going to be mailed a mask by the government i believe is that still going on are they still going to mail everybody a mask oh biden program you're going to mail everybody a mask just because nobody had gotten the idea that we're supposed to wear one and two last i heard they were mulling travel restrictions to Florida. You couldn't fly there anymore because of the variants. The British variant, which I love, because anytime anybody on the left calls it the British variant, I say, wait a minute, hold on.

So it's all right to note the geological origin of the disease. And they'll say, well, it's because it's the variant. I love the idea of the British flu. When it says the british variant i always imagine it has a u in it you know covid like rumor right or neighbor right right but if they call just before i you know what i have i got the british variant that means we're going to go and beat people who i prefer the british variant i feel more comfortable with the british variant So where are you going, if I may ask? I am going to Africa. I'm going to Kenya. I'm extremely lucky and was invited by a dear friend to go along on a safari. So that's what I'm doing. It is completely and utterly irresponsible. I

should not be doing it, not because of COVID or anything, but because I have an enormous amount of work and I'm behind on all of it. And when my partners in this project find out that I am in Africa, I have not told them. When I find out that I'm in Africa, they're going to flip. But there you go. You just have to live your life. Fantastic. I know that you love Asia. I know that you've traveled in Central Asia, including to the various stands, all the stands. I know that you took a famous trip on a freighter over to was it shanghai or hong kong shanghai yeah but i've never have you ever been to africa this will be a new departure oh you have i've never been to i've never been to to what i would call animal africa you know where you see the lions and whatever uh i've been to northern, I've been to the Sahara, northern Africa,

and the Sahel. So I've been sort of the, Africa's so huge. The Sahara itself is as big as the United States. So I've been to sort of the top half. Alright, so this is sub-Saharan Africa, your first trip. This is sub-Saharan. Never been, yeah. Fantastic. I'm excited. Well, when you return, make sure

that you don't bring the lassitude of the continent with you. We want you as keen and sharp and on your toes as possible. Just like our producer, of course, who the moment that I say Lilac's Post of the Week will play the sounder. See there, that's what I mean. Well, you know what? Returning to form, I think we have to like that. The James Lilac's Member Post of the Week. Yes, well, a producer does tend to listen to the show for those bad words or those things or the cues or something like that.

But, you know, if we were all sitting in a room and there was the producer on the other side of the glass, I could wave and the rest of it. But no. Oh, wait a minute. I am sitting in a room and I can wave. Never mind. The Post of the Week comes from RushBabe49, who wrote, and there's just so many. We haven't done this for a while and there's been so many great posts i didn't know where to start because a lot of them are in politics and they're fantastic and insightful and the rest of some of them were

were you know culture and the rest i mean there's so much there which is why you should join ricochet and get to the member feed but i like this one because it was called canada single-handedly destroys the al Alaska cruise industry. Quote, this week, Canada has contributed to the ruination of the Alaska cruise industry. Numerous cruise lines, including Princess, Celebrity, Disney, Norwegian, Holland America, Crystal, and Seabourn, cruise to Alaska from ports in the U.S. West Coast, including Los Angeles, I'm sorry, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and I've been watching too many old movies, and Seattle. Canada now has prohibited any cruise line from cruising in their waters or landing at their ports until the end of February 2022. That is a year from now, not to mention the ruination of the finances of the state of Alaska,

which stands to lose over 800,000 passengers who shop and tour in Alaska from those cruise ships, and up to $800 million of revenue for those passengers. So why is this the post of the week? First of all, because I love cruise ships, which is, you know, and I miss them. Even the Alaska ones, which stop at these dreary, gray, drizzly ports where there's nothing to do by Tanzanite. Or they have, no, they have some other special metal up there. Anyway, but it's beautiful and it's heartbreaking and it's gorgeous. I like this because it's about that, because it shows the unintended consequences, because it shows the fact that COVID continues to roll and it's gorgeous. I like this because it's about that, because it shows the unintended consequences, because it shows the fact that COVID continues to roll and roil on,

perhaps for no real good reason. And fourth, when people read about this, they chimed into the comments about various aspects of maritime law that required the ships to dock in Canada. I mean, things that I never knew that you find out. And then people talking about the cruises that they've taken and what they loved. I mean, so in other words, it's a perfect entry point for Ricochet in that just this little news story becomes also about economics and politics and culture and life and history and cruise and vacations and art and the rest of it. And so that's why it was the post of the week.

That's exactly right. Rush Babe's been a member forever, right? I mean, I don't think I remember. I can't remember when she was. I remember when she was Rush Babe 29. Right. Right, right, right. And from the Pacific Northwest. So it's always nice to like, that's one of the things I like about Brickshade, like you find

people from all over the country sort of chiming in. He's trying really hard now, not to not to sound condescending from no no but i'm saying that's the people who live outside manhattan but what i was going to say is if you look at the map you know it's like we have all the corners and we have a lot of the inside there's some states i think that we don't have a wish we mean i don't want to do an outreach but it'd be nice there's some places that i don't think we have

representation from but what i like is that we have this kind of sprawl like like if you from point to point um i wonder if we have any it'd be great if we had somebody from maine but and whatever but i guess what the point is that all those people have this sort of each person has an area of expertise and and and experience and better than that they are able to explain yes to people like us me who you know if you don't know what you don't know you don't know and it's nice to have somebody who's smart and experienced to tell you something you didn't know in a language that you can understand i'm just speaking on behalf of people like me who have a hard time understanding things that is true every single person on ricochet knows a lot about something yeah and is articulate enough to explain it it's i agree

i agree what fascinates me about what the cruise industry has been through it's going to come back it has to there are all these ships that are just floating out there with no path what are the people who used to work on them there's all this money that was sent home by these young folks who came from the Philippines and also from Eastern Europe that would get these jobs, these great jobs. I mean, good in the sense that they paid more than you could probably get back home. And what's going to happen? Are they never going to come back again? Is the first year of the cruise industry going to consist of staffing all of these vessels with people who've never done this before? Imagine the HR challenge that is that that'd be oh very good thank you

very much thank you very much you made it very easy hr itself is impossible test you can stop yes it is an hr issue and when running a business frankly hr issues can kill you he said moving carefully into the spot wrongful termination suits, which you don't want, minimum wage requirements, labor regulations, and HR manager salaries, you know, they aren't cheap. The average is $70,000 a year, 70K for that. Well, Bambi, that's spelled B-A-M-B-E-E, was created specifically for small businesses. You can get a dedicated HR manager, craft HR policy, and maintain your compliance all

for, you ready, $99 a month. With Bambi, you can change HR from your biggest liability to your biggest strength. Your dedicated HR manager is available by phone, by email, or real-time chat. From onboarding to terminations, they customize your policies to fit your business and help you manage your employees day by day, all for just $99 a month. Month to month, no hidden fees, cancel anytime. You didn't start your business because you wanted to spend time on HR compliance, did you? No. So let Bambi help. Get your free HR audit today, free. Go to bambi.com slash Ricochet right now to schedule your free HR audit. That's bambi.com slash Ricochet, spelled B-A-M

to the B-E-E.com slash Ricochet. And our thanks to Bambi.com slash Ricochet, spelled B-A-M to the B-E-E dot com slash Ricochet. And our thanks to Bambi for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Before we go, big free speech advocate dead, Larry Flint. Never really thought of Larry Flint first as a free speech advocate, but that's what he became in the minds of the people on the left, it seems, who sort of waved away what he was doing and liked the fact that he stood up for free speech, or at least Woody Harrelson did in the movie version. I had a friend who had a magazine,

and it was not that kind of magazine. It was a completely, I think it was a fitness, actually it was a running magazine. And he started with his brother, and I think they ran it out of their house for a long time and then it was purchased uh by flint publications i think in the 80s and so because you know he had a big he had a big tower in la and he had a big magazine company and so you know it was a nice it was a very nice windfall but he had to move out to la

and he was the editor of that magazine for a while and he said that it was it was like a completely anodyne and completely you wouldn't have you had no idea what was actually what the what the the work product of that building actually was by looking at it by walking through it except in the in the elevators sometimes as you're going up to your floor and all everything was sort of separated there would be you know two two editors in the elevator looking at, you know, doing a little work on the elevator. Hey,

I like this photo shoot. Like that, but did we retouch that? And they would be circling and retouching and talking about the most explicit pornography that you like. I like what I like shocking. And, but just in the most toneless business,

like fashion, completely uninterested or unmoved or unimpressed by what they were doing and then he would sort of slink over to his little running magazine and write a you know article about shoes uh but that was that's the only that's that's ultimately was a business and um i don't know i don't know whether we do have this urge to like turn people into heroes of a thing yes Yes, yes, yes. And I suspect that there are a lot of people who are lionizing Larry Flint today who are on the right. And there are a lot of people who are on the left who would have lionized him a few years ago are now rethinking as the left is the idea of free speech and the idea of that stuff.

I mean, you know, the left has become puritanical. They've they've they've been and they've done so for reasons of virtue and for safety and equity and the rest of it. So Larry Flint would be tossed on the bonfire. He's no longer they don't believe in free speech anymore. So a free speech advocate certainly is going to be there. And they don't believe in pornography anymore either i mean that to be fair there's there they there there was always a small portion of the left using the feminist left that was actually against this um and now that part has a much much louder voice for better for worse but but it it is interesting to see the

the inability of people right now to sort of to find the right corner for somebody like larry flint who it seems like you shouldn't really be um um confused about we know what he did time magazine will run a cover we are all andrea dworkin now yeah well we are we uh we are all andrea mitchell oh say may i return to africa for a moment when you travel under what sort of obligation do you find yourself to record what you're seeing do you always keep a notebook do you take out your a camera how do you how are you when you travel i bring a notebook and i bring a camera um. And the notebook is sometimes just because I need something to write stuff down that isn't – not my journal-y reflections. It's just usually notes. It's like I went here, I went there, I saw this, how you spell something.

I often do that. There's no narrative there. And the camera I bring – and I almost – I don't, I don't regret it, but the camera phones are pretty good. Yes. And I do regret the, the, just the nice cameras, you know, claim on your carrying your shoulder, all that stuff you got to think about. And then the idea that your face is always covered by something while you're taking a picture. And I don't like that. I don't, I i mean i like to

be you know open have your face available because you got to see stuff so you're not thinking at every moment how can i get a column out of this um no i usually um i usually i know that's a that's a that's a writing process that i find when i find myself complaining about something or describing something, it'll suddenly dawn on me. Oh, I should write a column about this. I don't sort of sit down and do the column first. I first have noticed what it is, what new irritation there is in my life I can complain about. Incidentally, that was Bill Buckley's technique. Once somebody said to him, how can you write two columns a week for all these years?

Oh, there's more than sufficient to irritate me yeah that's what it's always and you don't even think about you think wait a minute was should i do a thing about that yeah that and then every now and then i'll i'll try it out you'll be in a conversation with somebody and you'll use it you know try to use a little material out and see how it goes and then people who are friends of mine will know i'm doing that not that one that. That's just you. That is just you. There's no universal appeal to that. James, how do you travel?

How do I travel? I don't anymore, apparently. As light as possible. I used to bring a nice camera, and now I just simply have the laptop and the phone. And I write every day while I'm there. I try to sum up what I've done, and at the end of the day,

you get your pictures out of your phone, and you get them in folders, and you get them named so that you don't fall behind so that when it's all done, you don't have this massive information. It's all categorized and organized. And if you want, you could slap it in a book and have it delivered by the time you get home. But yeah, I don't get a lot of columns out of it, which is interesting. I mean, I don't know what Rob's schedule is, but I have have at least two a week and one of them you know is for a newspaper that moves a half a million copies so there's a big spotlight on that one uh but the idea that you that there would never be an idea or the the notion that you would never have an idea to do it is just simply impossible because

if you're in this business you have to if you cannot at a moment so with a gun to your head come up with a column every single day like they used to do you ought not to be in the business but now it's become this thing where people are expected to go to the high tower and steeple their fingers and cogitate over great issues as opposed to just turning out the copy man it ain't that hard uh so we'll wait to see what rob turns out we will wait to see peter of course um don't you get a book coming out don't you that you're oh maybe before i die this is no books yeah thanks for touching that sore nerve just as we however my wife announced just yesterday morning she looked up from her computer which is never a good sign when she has her laptop open. And we are going to the Rockies because she announced that I,

not she, I have gotten stale. I've been in the house much too long. The pandemic has gotten to me. Imagine such a thing. I haven't, I've been my usual pleasant. She's right.

She's right. And she is. So we're going to meet some of her family and we're going to have a family thing in the snow, in the Rockies. And I curse both of you because I don't intend to have a family thing in the snow in the rockies and i curse both of you because i don't intend to take a notebook or i can't i just intended let it all happen well you should take you should take a book to read not right to read oh yeah yeah yes yes oh no no there'll be no well the unexamined life is not worth living but the unexamined and unrecorded

vacation certainly is yes have fun thank Thank you. Go out there. So you're going somewhere. Rob is going somewhere. I'm staying right here where I will continue to, to read the pre-roll ads and the rest of it and check in. And, and one of the things that I'm going to do by the way, today is put in the can are highlights of the best of ricochet,

which is a radio show that runs on the radio America network. The best of ricochet, check your local listings as we love to say. And I don't know who's hosting that thing this week. Is it me again? Probably. Great. Fantastic.

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can join Ricochet, which you should do if you haven't yet, because then you'll be one of the people to whom we say we'll see you in the comments at Ricochet 4.0. Next week, fellas. No, not next week. A couple weeks for me. A couple weeks. Okay. Next week, James, it'll be you and me next week. Indeed.

And probably John Yoo, who will muscle his way in for some reason. Right. Oh. Come on boys, stand on Mary Beth started to dip, she hit the ship But she just couldn't get her hand on Well since I met this boy, she had the deed to the ranch And a grand on Well, big fan, blowin' hot on a red line She's a master hitchhiker and a new 39

He hung her, stand on Go ahead, baby, stand on Well now I'm wentin' down And you can figure it out Just stand on Well, if your mind's confused You don't know what you're gonna do Well, buddy, stand on Well, if you've lost control

Of the situation And handled forever Well, see you're rockin' over And stand on Come on, man, stand on Stand on Ricochet. Join the conversation. We'll be right back. You don't know what you're gonna do Then buddy stand on it Well if you've lost control Of the situation at hand Well rather go

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And they blew him into the wall Well, he rolled over twice Nothing to survive And in the back of a hamster More dead than alive Somebody shouted Man, you call that drive Why don't you stand on it

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Oh, oh. I just, I don't really care about animals. I mean, I, you know, they're majestic and all. Well, one dog at a time, you care quite a lot. Right. I mean, you have the capacity.