The Ricochet Podcast - Reunited

Episode Date: April 1, 2017

It’s a special Saturday edition of the Ricochet Podcast, and it’s special not only because of the day (April Fool’s Day!), but because we get to welcome back our regulate host, TV’s Rob Long. We cover the all the news of the past six months, Peter’s quest to buy a new TV, what it’s like to take over a network TV show in mid-season, take some questions from the chat room and from the Member Feed... Source

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will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. People of the Philippines, I have returned. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lilacs. Peter Robinson will be here today.

And it's the great return of Rob Long. Let's Ricochet Podcast number 346. We're brought to you today by the fine people at Lyft. You can download the free Lyft app today and enter the promo code Ricochet. What is Lyft? You know what it is. It's that great car service. And if you enter Ricochet in the payment section, you get three free rides up to $10 each at a $30

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here's Rob to tell you why. And now I can say, here's Rob to tell you why. Rob, I've streamlined this down into a little guilty. Oh, that has been super effective, too. And I certainly hope what we want is your impassioned return to Ricochet's flagship by getting on your

knees and pretend it's an elevator pitch and your sitcom is looking for another season and you're going to shake things up. The doors are closing. You've got 10 floors. Tell people why Ricochet.

Well, I mean, I'll do it the way I would pitch any project, in total desperation. The Ricochet Audio Network, we do lots and lots of podcasts. If you're a fan of this podcast or any others, take a moment to visit ricochet.com and sign up for all the other podcasts. Podcasts are free.

Now, here's why they're free. They're free because we love to do them. But we really want you to become a member of Ricochet.com. That's a fast-growing, smart, and incredibly civil conservative center-right conversation site. Lots going on in the world. Your voice is important. Ricochet.com is read and digested and often referred to in the corridors of power. So you can write the editorial that gets on the front page that gets in somebody's hands.

You have a voice. But here's the problem. Ricochet.com, the site, is not financially secure, I should say. It is kind of run and moderated by our members that be you, and we need you to join. So if you've been listening and you've been listening and you want me back, I'm back.

If you've been listening and you think, I loved Ricochet without him, then join and I will go away. So you will get whatever you want. But please join because I want to keep doing this. We want to keep doing this. We want to keep having Ricochet up and running and thriving for years and years to come. And that all depends on you. It really does. So please join. You know, I hear in the background, a bleeping sound, which possibly could be Ricochet's heart

monitor. I think that's coming from you, Rob. We haven't heard it for a while. Unless you, of course, have been, unless it's a monitor to your own heart, which we understand that in the business that you're in, it can be a strain and that people can want to hook themselves up to a medical device to find out that they're still relevant. Peter Robinson is still relevant in here as well. Peter, do you also hear Rob's beeping heart monitor? I hear something at regular short intervals it sounds to me like a dripping sink it could be wait hold on a minute it could be the steady drip

drip drip of news coming out of washington that's that which i always told is uh i did you never have an actual dripping sound to accompany it's actually destroying my mental image of rob's manhattan no it's it's gone. It disappeared. But I've always been imagining you, Rob, sitting in one of these new 100-story skyscrapers. But now I hear from the drip, drip, drip that you've just got a place in a dive in the Bowery. Well, very close, by the way. The Bowery. I wish we could afford the Bowery.

The Bowery is very hot. Really? Really. By the way, may I begin by thanking Uncle Rob Long, and not quite for the reason that he imagines. One week ago, my oldest son

and my oldest daughter and I made a flying trip down to Los Angeles because their little brother and his rugby team were playing UCLA. We decided to go on Friday evening, and we did a Rob thing. Rob actually likes to drive rather than fly. We just drove down and back and Rob, who is in New York, very kindly offered us the use

of his extremely cool house in Venice Beach. And I thank him for that. But here's what I really thank him for. The kids were just staggered because rob's house is full of books books he has one room that's a dedicated library filled with bookshelves right several several thousand volumes at a minimum and on virtually every horizontal surface through the house there are two or three or a dozen books stacked. Off in the kitchen and dining room side of the house,

there's a bookshelf dedicated to cookbooks. Just spectacular for a father to watch kids looking at book spines. Oh, this is a cool – oh, he read that. Oh, wow, I've got to read that. I didn't read them all. Quiet. Keep that quiet. Thank you, wow. I've got to read that. I didn't read them all. Quiet. Keep that quiet. Thank you, Rob. I mean, it's just how it's very rare for kids to see that a cool person reads.

Thank you. I've often had the feeling that I should be surrounded by tottering shelves of books. And I found myself over the years divesting more and more of them, partly because I look at some of them and they scream and sneer at me. You don't remember any of me, do you? You don't remember a single word of me, do you? And they taunt you after a while. I have mostly reference books. I have shelves and shelves of reference books, but as far as novels and the rest of them and the biographies, out they go. There's only a limited amount of space that you can have. Likewise, I don't have DVDs anywhere because I've converted them all to digital. And one of these days, I'm sure

I'll be buying the DVDs of Rob's show and converting them to digital and then not watching them like I do with my books. But Rob, your show... I don't think so. Actually, I don't think you'll ever be converting new stuff to any kind of permanent media. It seems like everything exists. It'll be in the cloud?

Unless you're a fanatic or you're smart. I mean, I'm not smart. I don't back up anything that goes to the cloud. And that, of course, is probably silly, and computer security people are snickering now with their sleeves at me. I really don't...

When I started in TV, which is now 27 years ago, just to show you what an old- timer I am, we shot on film, 35 millimeter. It was transferred, and the editor would cut on these giant – only starting to cut on giant platters, basically huge DVDs essentially. We would look at it, cut on a VHS tape in our office, and we'd give him little notes and stuff. Now everything's digital. There's a phrase you used to say on movie sets when you were moving on

or you were changing something. Check the gates. Say, check the gates. And that would mean you'd open up the camera, and you would look inside where the shutter was and make sure there wasn't like a tiny little hair there a hair in the gauge right it's a great metaphor a great metaphor for the imperfections that somehow bedevil a great project oh the hair in the gate yeah then check the gates now there are no gates there's no gates there's just there's

just to check the media i guess you say or check the thumb drive i don't know what you check because you're we're watching it and we're watching the image get captured. I'm watching it happen like I never was able to do before. And it's weird. It's just a weird, this old-timey way of making entertainment,

which was on the film business, was like the most old industrial thing you can think of. It would be lights and huge cords and we would lay down a little track, a little railroad track, right? was on on in the film business was like the most old industrial thing you can think of i mean lights and huge cords and we would lay down a little track a little railroad track right doesn't exist anymore it's all just kind of since you said it since you said it rob you said 27 years 20 you said it not me i was going to withhold this piece of information but pedro was – you've got some scripts, and I'm sorry to say that I heard my son say, Dad, what was Cheers? Oh, a knife went through my heart.

A knife went through my heart. That's not – I mean, yeah. But off the air, roughly the year he was born? Oh, my gosh. 94? Pedro was born in 93. Yeah, maybe 93. Isn't that amazing?

I do every now and then meet someone who will say, oh, my parents love that show. And then often I hear people, I've heard more than once, my grandparents love that show. So you just say, hey, listen, it's entertainment. All right. Well, you came into the business in the era of your father's VCR blinking 12, 12, 12, and now we are in the world of DVRs and streaming and all the rest of it. But yet it all comes down to plot. It all comes down to character. It all comes down to good writing.

And so after 27 years in the business, Rob, you now still are in the business turning out a hit sitcom. Are there basics that will just never change? Because once you change them so much, you no longer have the beloved sitcom format. Well, I mean, there are things that shouldn't change, that have changed, but are kind of partially changed. Nothing really changes. I mean you can hear a joke that someone told 20 years ago or 50 years ago or 300 years ago. I think that's a little bit of a corny joke, but you recognize what it was going for, and you recognize the structure of it. So it just was either good or bad or it was successful or not successful or based entirely on the time of the era.

But still, the mechanics of a joke are kind of the same. There aren't that many different forms. And the characters are kind of the same. Who was that varlet I saw you with last night? That was my footman. That was no Trump. The characters are the same. You go right

to the archetypes. I hate to be sort of pretentious, but it's not all that different from the familiar characters you would see in little sketches in the traveling troops. They would just see... Everybody knew who the braggart soldier was and everybody knew who the young lover was and everybody knew who the father,

the greedy and uptight father-in-law was and these are normal everybody knew who the smart wife was the the wife who knew everything um everybody these are these are canterbury tales canterbury tales at least right yeah yeah well folks you can catch rob long's Southern Fried to Cameron starring Bo Caccio on one of the networks this week. I could actually. I could pitch that. You probably could. I watch an awful lot of – I find myself watching Netflix television more and more.

I become entranced with the way that police shows, cop shows, detective shows are manifested in other cultures. You can watch the moody troubled cop in Wales. You can watch the moody troubled cop in Wales. You can watch the moody troubled cop in Sweden. You can watch a moody troubled cop in Iceland. And it's interesting how each culture has its own take on what is essentially kind of an American story, but has been adapted protean-wise

by the rest of the world. And have you tried Shetland as well? Same thing set in the Shetland Islands. Right, and that's a moody detective who's also a pony, I understand. the world and have you tried shetland as well same thing set in the shetland islands right and that's a moody um uh detective who's also a pony i understand and so it's all right right which is kind of a fringe thing on his feet i find the moody the moody cop uh genre to be you know i don't played out i'm sort of bored by it i kind of want to find the jaunty fun cop who likes his job and marches around the city in a fun car and has all sorts

of friends you know boys may i by the way the thin man kind of i am having a lovely lovely time catching up with the two of you and i hope all our listeners are too i'd much rather talk about this what's going on in your lives and ask questions of you than talk about politics i suppose we'll have to do a little of that but may i one other point to hear what the two of you make of it. Our television, which was our first and so far only flat panel television, I can't remember when we bought it, but it had to have been a decade ago. Our television finally just quit working. You turn it on and half the screen is dark and the other half is light, and 30 seconds later, the whole thing goes snippety-snappety-snap and goes black. It's dead.

It's gone. And Aditha and I did a little research and we found what we think is the best replacement. And we even, which for us is a big huff and a puff, went all the way down to Best Buy near here and looked at different models. That's the one. We got home and I said, okay, you decide whether you want 55 inch or 65 inch. Our current TV is 48 inches. And she said, okay, I'll think that over. And that was almost three weeks ago. And do you know what has held us up? My wife said, oh, I'm having, I'm, I'm reading again. I'm the, the children aren't coming home and just turning on the

television for the background she i keep saying we need a tv we can't drop out this is the benedict option not being able to watch any television and the kid we we've been watching the americans well of course we can call that up and on a computer screen that does the trick. The big God television in our playroom, my wife just prefers to have this kind of defunct volcano there. I don't know whether it's permanent, but is this temporary madness in the Robinson household or have we liberated ourselves? I don't even know how to think about it.

Well, when people cut off their electricity, they tend to bond together by sitting around candles and reading a good book. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Rob, I'm going to ask you, should he buy a television? Yeah, I think you should.

I mean, you know, on American, I'd have a TV. But, you know, it is – I mean, I just remember – I forget who it was told me this. Somebody I met who was a marriage counselor. And she said, yeah, she said that her first, you know, the first hour session with a couple that's there, they would talk and she'd listen. And then she would say, OK, this week, take the TV out of the bedroom. And if you have a TV in your bedroom, take it out. And they would take it out. And then a week or two later, they come back.

And she'd say, oh, you know, 40% of all the issues have been resolved. Because what happens is you turn on TV, and it's in the morning, and no one's talking, and then they get up at night, and they're listening, and no one's talking. And all the little small things that happen in your day, whether they're interesting or not interesting, whether it's small talk, whether it's just weird operational stuff, all that was a useful interaction that kind of de-intensified everything else. And what I didn't follow up with, what I wanted to up was like okay and the other group group they probably came in ready for a divorce because they finally

had a chance to sit down and talk to each other in the morning in the evening they realized they hate each other's guts which i think probably also happened but at least for part of it was just this this thing that's on that um keeps us from making idle chit chat and which was strange about is that we have all these other ways of making idle chit-chat. And which was strange about it is that we have all these other ways of making idle chit-chat. I mean, that's what Twitter is, and what texting is. That's really what email and Facebook are,

just idle chit-chat. But we used to do that to each other because we had nothing else to do. Yeah, the TV in the bedroom, sort of a psychological bundling board. I'm not fond of that. My daughter, however, this is interesting. She's of the new generation, right?

And so even though we have a TV that's about as large as the one Peter is contemplating, my daughter prefers to watch television on her phone. Most of what she watches is on the small computer or the small phone, which drives me nuts. Look at this. I've got Cinerama down here. What are you doing? You're looking at a deck of cards. And she'll watch these movies that have astonishing visuals and special effects on her phone.

And I want to say, look, let's just have astonishing visuals and special effects on her phone. And I want to say, look, let's just have a division of labor, if we will. Use your phone for phone things, for tapping and for pictures. And this big screen here, that's for consuming visual entertainment as it's meant to be done. I mean, you don't watch a movie on your phone, and I don't go up to the TV and start pressing it with a finger and hoping a car will come. But I would if there was a Lyft app in that TV. Oh, man. You know, you'd think that after so many months away that I wouldn't feel compelled to do this.

You really think that I'd be over this? I almost wasn't going to give you the opportunity. I almost was just going to go say, and we'll be back to this after just a minute. But first, a word from Lyft. That was a fantastic segue, I've got to say. Partly that was fantastic because I really was following the thread like you always do, and it's always kind of a weird fake-out because I'm about to jump in without my own thoughts. But then part of me was thinking, oh, this is a segue, and I just really needed to interrupt it.

And I thank you, and I feel now everything's back to normal. What did you do when you were listening to the podcast and unable to go in? Oh, God, it was painful. Actually, that's a really good question because it was painful. And also I was aware, weirdly, that I'm not listening to it live when I was hearing the podcast. I was hearing it like a listener, and I couldn't interrupt you if I tried. So, yeah, it was very painful. So I feel much better now.

I'm feeling much better. Continue. Continue. Sorry. Oh, that's why I have to do the ad now. Well, I'm happy to do so because it's a cool company. And what you need to do is you need to go to any place where you get your apps and get the Lyft app for free. And once you have that Lyft app on your phone, you can summon transportation to your house, to the curb, to wherever you happen to be and know that you're getting the best ride possible. You know about Lyft, right? I mean,

it gives you a ride in minutes on demand 24-7 for less than the cost of a cab. Less than the cost of a cab. Oh, we've been waiting decades to be able to say that, haven't we? And if you've tried it, you know what I mean. You download the app, request a driver, and they show up in three and a half minutes on average. That's really fast fast every driver is fully vetted extremely vetted through their 10 point safety standard including criminal and dmv background check so you know you're going to get around quickly and safely lift drivers are rated after every ride so only the best will stick around and you don't have to worry about getting into a filthy car with some creepy dude because he was skis out long ago if he ever showed up in the first place with lift you can tip in the app, which obviously leads to happier drivers, and that's always

nice. I mean, 9 out of 10 Lyft drivers get a perfect 5-star rating from the passenger. It's just a better all-around experience. Bigger is now is better. Lyft is not the biggest rideshare app, but it's the fastest growing, and it's the highest rated. It's taking quality over quantity. So thanks to Lyft,

you get an easy way to avoid drunk driving and you'd never have to bum a ride from a friend and you'd never have to worry about parking. A lot of people are actually ditching their cars and relying on Lyft to get around. And you know, I can't say that I blame them. If I lived in New York, I'd just do that myself. And if I lived here, I'd do that perhaps more because it's just, well, because you get the $30 credit, right? Lyft is offering you, our listeners, a special deal. Free rides up to $10 each. That's the $30 value when you enter the promo code RICOSHET.

Download the free Lyft app today and enter the promo code RICOSHET in the payment section. You'll find it easily. You'll start with three free rides up to $10 each, and that's the $30 value. Promo code RICOSHET, and our thanks to RIT Lift for sponsoring this podcast. I have to say, as a customer, a Lyft customer, I use it when I go back to L.A., and my car, of course, is in New York,

and I use it in New York, but the one in L.A. is the one I use the most. It is fantastic. The drivers are really great. They're a little bit faster than the other... They come to bit faster than the other. They come to you faster than, say, another large ride-sharing app. And just in general, I think it's a friendlier, happier company.

So I'm a Lyft believer. That's great because friendly and happy is what we need nowadays since the country is so deeply riven half the country believes that uh let's go to let's let's let's talk about we have to we have to um what does flynn know yeah right stroking of chin on the other side yeah there was what's what's his deal well i mean his deal could be there there's a lot of drumroll here for this issue. I mean, full disclosure, in the ensuing months of my absence and my submersion into other work, I haven't become more enamored or impressed or friendly with the Trump administration. But there is this attitude, I think, among people, certain people, that everything they do should be accompanied by spooky music, like in a bad movie. And so this has become this breathless story reported with this breathless anticipation.

It is also possible that his smart lawyer said, OK, all these things you did, it is possible to construct a case against you that may result in some kind of Scooter Libby-like punishment. Exactly. And Scooter Libby, I think think is definitely the controlling example here because where I – General Flynn, again, a person I don't really have any – I'm thrilled that he is not guiding national security policy. I can tell you I don't think he was a very competent choice. I think he was a second-rater he can see oh i could easily do six months with a garage door opener on my you know on my ankle and i don't want to do that uh and i don't think scooter libby should have done that and so i'm not i'm not gonna allow that and so i think he's doing a very smart thing he may know nothing he may actually have really the most boring, shrugging, anodyne story to tell.

But I think he's doing the smart thing because these days, policy and a difference in policy is often debated in front of a judge, and the penalty for losing is you go to prison for six months. Let us remind listeners very briefly why Scooter Libby went to prison. Because he was investigated and then charged. Excuse me, that's not true. He was investigated in the Valerie Plame incident, we now know that the prosecutor already knew that Scooter Libby had not revealed the identity of a CIA agent, that the person who had actually revealed it was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's number two at the State Department. But he investigated and prosecuted Scooter Libby.

What was the prosecution? Perjury. And what did it all come down to? That in one conversation that Scooter Libby had had with Tim Russert, Scooter Libby remembered it one way and Tim Russert remembered it another way. And the prosecutor chose to prosecute Libby for perjury and the jury found Tim Russert more credible. Nevertheless nevertheless it was merely he said one thing the scooter libby said another scooter libby maintains i believe completely plausibly his innocence to this day that he simply became confused and they put him away and ruined his career for getting confused the point is if mike flynn saying, wait a minute,

you can construct a case against almost anybody. I want immunity. That strikes me as entirely plausible. And if I were Flynn's lawyer, I'd be advising him to ask for immunity, too. Absolutely. Immunity, especially from prosecution on those grounds, on grounds of perjury. Right. That's where they get you and i the libby case can turn into which is that libby genuinely did not believe that that name valerie plane was in any way uh classified or in any way secret he just didn't he still maintains that that was not the case um that of course was not what they got him on they did not get him on as they often don't the underlying crime right investigating and i think with here with russia what's most interesting to me about is i don't understand the underlying crime i really don't

get it there isn't one well i'll tell you what there is i'll tell you what there is first of all rob um the thing about valerie plame is that it was wrong to reveal her name because there's nothing more sacred than that, than privacy, and also that this was all done because of the perfidious efforts to destroy Iraq with lies. So those were the

diamond-hard pointed charges here. It was the climate that said we have to punish and punish and punish and punish, and we also have to pretend that we're really interested. Now you can leak anybody's name because the right thing to do is to resist. So flip their little moral compass there. And Scooter Libby worked for Dick Cheney, and Dick Cheney was the Grand Moff Tarkin or whatever it is. Absolutely.

So, Peter, you asked what is the russian thing well um what it is is apparently there is the belief that that trump officials went to russians and said how can you help us influence this election right and uh they hacked it don't you know that doesn't mean that they went and changed any vote totals in any machines uh it means that emails were released and a couple of macedonian websites were created to float ridiculous news that apparently made Hillary supporters say, I can't vote for her. I must vote for the man antithetical to everything I stand for. And that's it. Or there's also concern about some oligarch collusion with the Trump business apparatus, which wouldn't surprise me.

I mean, if there's Russian money in Trump property somewhere, that wouldn't surprise me at all. And that's not illegal, actually. But what's so what we know? All right. I'll state what everybody's stating just because just to have it out on the table and ask. Well, I have a theory. So when you. OK, so quickly.

I have a theory. All right. So very quickly. The claim is that the Trump campaign somehow or other actually colluded with the Russians, worked with the foreign government to defeat Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. None. Zero. Zip.

No evidence. What we do know, and this is not merely evidence, we know it for a fact certain, is that during the Obama administration, the intelligence agencies were conducting surveillance that netted conversations with Trump campaign officials and that those conversations were widely distributed among intel agencies because Barack Obama, shortly before leaving office, changed the rules, loosened the rules, making it possible for many more people to read this intel and therefore making it much more likely that it would leak. And finally, that we do know that it did leak and that Michael Flynn's name was not redacted as the law required. That there we have no doubt, zero, that a crime, a felony,

has been committed. Our own intelligence agencies were out and leaking against American citizens. Of that, there is no doubt whatsoever. Of the claim that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, there is no evidence whatsoever. So which of the two is the press devoting all its attention to the claim that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia? It is madness. It is, but Rob, Peter, you're correct.

I'm just being post thing and throwing it to Rob. These are two completely separate issues, but neither side seems capable of of holding them both in their head at the same time it's one is a response to the other they come up with with russian hacking and the right comes up with what about intelligence yeah when when really we ought to be discussing these in two completely separate spheres right or or discussing them sort of from a much so 30 000 foot view we really this is, we're not discussing anything, any of the underlying reasons why any of this stuff has happened.

I mean, and again, in a full disclosure, I have not changed my opinion. I think the Trump administration is filled with second graders, the low lives. Okay. So I'm not defending them in any way.

Quick question on that point. Do you want to draw a distinction between the Trump administration and the Trump white house? Yeah. Okay. That's a, that's very valid's very valid yes i would do that i would do that uh uh but in general it's overrun by low-lifes and second-rate and what's why we're seeing this complete disarray utter chaos and and just a probably the worst run white house in history in modern history and that includes the clinton white house the first two years um so that that's it what what i think what what freaks everybody or confuses everybody uh sort of certainly in

the left certainly the media is this idea first of all the use of the word collusion as if there's something weird in a free society that has a First Amendment and that allows anyone who wants to buy TV time and to hire a PR agency and to hire a lobbyist. The idea is that the Russian government and the Russian national interests don't have any standing because Putin is so horrible, which is true. But if we go back – I mean, here's my grand theory here. If you go back to the Cold War, American foreign policy pretty much across the board, bipartisan foreign policy attitude was, we're going to be allied and do business with a lot of bad guys in Central and South Americaica in the mid-east everywhere because we're part of a larger struggle against the bigger foe and that's communism right and so no one was going around saying you know those guys you know penis shit nice man trujillo nice dude uh the shah wonderful

war that nobody they they they weren't fools. They knew these people were in varying degrees compromised and in varying degrees despotic. But they were – I think it was LBJ. He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch. That was pretty much the guiding principle of American Cold War foreign policy from 1946 to 19 to when reagan ended it 1988 pretty much 1989 um and that is exactly what's happening here uh people forget that that whether you agree with it or not donald trump believes that our greatest foe our existential threat is radical islam vladimir putin thinks that the greatest threat he faces is radical Islam. Now, he's got a lot of other things going on, but he believes it's radical Islam. Vladimir Putin doesn't care what Bashar Assad does to his people. All he knows is Bashar Assad is going to fight radical Islam.

Vladimir Putin has Islamic factions and Islamic terrorists in his own country, in Chechnya and in Abkhazia, and growing some of them in what used to be the Balkans and in the Central Asian republics that he wants to bring back into the fold. He sees this as an existential threat. He sees an American political leader who is full-throated and believes – I disagree with that. I don't think it's our biggest problem but whatever if i'm glad to be putin i see trump there and i'll do anything i can to help him and if you're donald trump if you're a 70 year old american of sort of limited uh intellectual flexibility shall we say it seems the completely logical of course but this this the basic understanding between – that Americans and Russians would have a common goal is completely, completely eludes the American media and the American left. It just doesn't compute, so they don't understand what's happening.

Could I elaborate on that? Sorry, go ahead. Let me just – what I'd say is this is a new Cold War. ISIS and al-Qaeda and radical Islam are now to America what communism was to America. And Putin is a tin-pot dictator like – very tin-pot dictator. He's like the Shah. And he is our – if you're Donald Trump, you see him. Terrible guy. Puts people in prison.

Tortures. Murders. No elections. No freedom in his country, lots of mischief. But we agree on the one big thing. Right. To elaborate, related point. I had breakfast the other day. Well, I probably shouldn't mention his name because he didn't know any of this was going to be – in any event, I had breakfast the other day in Northern California and he made the following point. In 1972, which was the year Nixon went to China, in 1972, the ratio of the Russian GDP to the Chinese was – I don't remember exactly but it was 10 to 1, let's call it.

The Russian GDP was much bigger than the Chinese. Today, the ratio is exactly the opposite. If it was – today, it's China 10 to 1 over Russia. move for Richard Nixon to deal with that very bad man Mao Zedong to create a counterweight against the Soviet Union, why is it so outrageous to suggest that in 2017, the United States should deal with that very bad man Vladimir Putin to counterweight against this growing power antagonist China? Now, of course, there are sort of short-term answers short-term answer is because mazitong wasn't making a bid on the heartland of western civilization that is europe and vladimir putin is he's in ukraine he's threatening the balt the baltic states and fine but as a larger strategic question just exactly what what Rob said, we have – we and the Russians have in common with Russia, bad as we can continue to stipulate, bad as their leadership is.

Okay. Has the press said that? Has anybody said that? Have even the geniuses in foreign affairs written about it? Not that I can see. Not that I can see. And yet to say that yet to say that it's obvious right it's it's astonishing to me that that that what is in fact a really simple reset

or rearrangement of american foreign policy interests and conduct and alliances um based on a slightly new version of the past is just not now i don't agree with it i don't think they're correct but but that doesn't but it's not irrational it's not weird it doesn't require this strange investigation into you met the ambassador what did you say all that stuff just seems i mean you have to willfully ignore recent American foreign policy. I mean, not even that recent. I mean, not even that old. Just a general understanding of American foreign policy and the great movements in our foreign policy and our national interests in the past 60 years, 70 years.

That's all you need to know. Start from the perspective that every single thing the Trump administration does, every single thing Donald Trump does must be accompanied by, you know, that spooky psycho music they would do in the 70s, you know, and show the serial killer. And he would just be like drinking coffee and looking at a city park. But it was strange. Oh, here's a strange stuff going on in his head. If you see everything they do like that, then you're going to have investigations of everything because nothing seems normal to you. Nothing seems explainable on normal levels because you can't – because we – I think partly because for eight years, the press and the sort of progressive left have been trying to tell us that there is no such thing as radical islam that it is not a threat that it doesn't exist even that they they they believe it now so that when it's so obvious that well trump he keeps talking about it he thinks it's really i think he's wrong i don't think it's existential threat but he keeps saying it is he's not he's not lying to you about his

beliefs he's not hiding to you about his beliefs. He's not hiding them. He believes it. There's only one other leader in the world who believes it, and that's Vladimir Putin. I'm sorry. You're right all about the curious things that we have to believe. We have to forget that calling Russia a major geopolitical foe was

when Mitt Romney said it, the stupidest thing ever and a symbol that his mind was stuck back in the 80s, surrounded by binders of women. You have to forget that the dealing with the Russians and making good with the Russians and loving the Russians was an absolute priority in the 1980s when they were commie red bastards because Ronald Reagan was evil

and because we wanted to save the planet, etc., and because there was always a sort of warmth and fellow feeling for the grand experiment of Bolshevism and what it could possibly do. You have to forget all that. Now here we are in this situation. And while Rob's right that it's entirely possible and perhaps necessary in this day and age to reach a real politic understanding in order to confront a common foe, the problem is, is that the administration that is doing it does not seem to have been able to make, did not make, and does not seem to have been able to make that argument in the run-up to the election itself. What you had was shrugging about Putin's crimes and saying, you know, well, we kill a lot

of people too, which is not exactly a nuanced argument. You got Newt Sankt, you know, Estonia is a suburb of St. Petersburg. And then you have a general crowd who was winked at by Bannon et al., the people who admire Putin because he is a stalwart defender of Christian civilization, all these things. Now, how large that is, I haven't the faintest idea. Does that play into Trump's thinking that he believes that Putin is a defender of Western values in the end?

No, I don't. What I think is, is that being seen on the same stage with Putin is a boost to Trump's ego. It makes him feel like an important player. We hung around in the green room. Now, here's the – and it's nothing more than that, I don't think. I don't think there's any deep strategic thinking. But here's the question to both of you guys. When it comes down to what Putin wants, what Putin motivates,

there are those who say and look at it and say, well, he's interested in restoring Russian greatness. And that's probably somewhere in the agenda. But I think Putin's number one concern is not dying, not losing control and not pleasing the old. That's my number one concern, too, to the point where he gets taken out and replaced by somebody who's better. And so how would you know? Because I would think, why would Putin want Trump if Trump is going to beef up the military and he's going to pump gas, these are two things that are anti-Russian interests. Hillary Clinton would do neither, which would benefit them.

But it's possible, actually, that what concerns Putin is not military greatness. They go over there. They drop some barrel bombs. Mission accomplished. America can do what it wants. Who cares? It's not the price of oil. America can pump oil. We'll what it wants. Who cares? It's not the price of oil. America can pump oil.

We'll make less money. Who cares? What counts are the opinions and the economics of five to ten guys who have the money and control the economy. And if you keep the oligarchs happy, despite what it costs the rest of your society, then you're okay. And that is what motivates Putin above and beyond. I would just quibble with that in three ways. One, I don't think Putin is an insecure leader in Russia. I think he is radically secure.

Every now and then he'll throw an oligarch in prison and the other oligarchs say, okay. The oligarchs have no weapons. They have no army. They have no guns. Putin is the popular leader in Russia because he is, in many ways, making Russia great again, along the same lines that Trump sometimes talks about.

I mean, he's not. The economy is cratering. It's slowing down. The oil prices have collapsed. All sorts of terrible things are happening um but but he is restoring kind of a russian orthodox strutting pride you know he's restoring the idea of czarism in a lot of ways to russia uh it's everything but a weird um western ideology if you look at what some of the Russian pro-Putin thinkers and writers are saying, when they talk about what's happening in Mother Russia, they almost always use kind of

anti-Semitic phrases that you saw early on in the 20th century. There's this intellectual fad that's come from the Jewish Central European intellectual professorate Marxism, and it doesn't belong here. It's not truly Russian. It should be – it's more European, and you saw that in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century.

And he's kind of restoring that idea that this has been this weird thing that we have to move away from. But I think he is secure there. Before you go on to points two and three, may I offer a thought or two on that one? Very seldom does it happen, but it does from time to time happen. I just flatly disagree. A thousand years of Russian history, no ruler of Russia is ever secure. He may be broadly popular in the sense that polls show that Russians are support this. I mean, I grant every word you said about what he's trying to do,

he's trying to draw on deep Russian traditions, including very ugly traditions such as anti-Semitism. But again and again and again in Russian history, it's been a small number of people. The Bolshevik Revolution took place really only among a few thousand people at the most and really only a couple of dozen central conspirators and only in Petrograd, only in one city. The rest of the country, Russian Revolution, assassination, plots. You can be undone as a russian leader this is the lesson of as i say of a thousand years of russian history by a small number of people and it can develop out of nowhere very quickly he may look secure but if you're on top of russia you're just not secure anything could happen to

you and your followers i suppose but i But where was the where? So my. So I don't feel secure. What's that? But where was the internal the internal coup in the Romanov dynasty? I mean, there was an assassination. There's a bomb over and over again. I mean, 300 years last transfer that took place. Well, the grandfather, there were assassination attempts and then Nicholas's grandfather had his legs blown off and was brought back to the palace and bled to death in Nicholas's presence okay so all right well i i'll accept that although i i i suspect that

putin is driven less by uh office and security and more by um a sense of greatness and almost invulnerability that could very well be but if you say he's secure i i suspect that if he's paying attention to the lessons of russian history which he must be, at some level he's asking, how do I end this? I either die in office or what? Somebody give me a chalet in Switzerland and a peaceful exit. How do I get out of here? How do I end this? My second point was just I think that there are practical areas of alignment between perfectly rational, although I think probably mistaken, but perfectly rational American foreign policy thinkers,

which I would include Flynn in that, and the Russian attitude, which is in Syria, which is why do we care what Bashar Assad's doing to his people? It's a civil war. It's madness. It's total chaos. Assad is the only one really who's going to come out on top. Let's be realistic. Let's support it and kill off all the Islamic radicals. And that's how you that's and then help him later maintain order. And there are American foreign policy, lots of foreign policy thinkers who think, you know what, not a bad idea,

even if it increases and probably maximizes Russian influence in the region, something we've been trying to drive out for the past 50, 60 years. But it's a tradeoff because our great, great enemy is radical Islam, and let's let the Russians take the heat for now. That also – there's no mystery there. a new administration to go and tell the Russian ambassador, hey, listen, you know, that time we had a drink and I agree with you about Syria. Well, we're in there. Don't worry. We'll let you do what you need to do. And and if maybe even signal that before. And if you're Putin sitting in the Kremlin and you're weird kind of James Bond, you know, from Russia would love, you know, those big dark rooms. That's why I was I was imagine it with that weird phone. That strange thing they all have

this outdated stuff you'd say oh i'll do whatever it takes i'll put that guy in now the third thing i was going to say is i think putin like a lot of people who are trump supporters is confused all the time and baffled all the time and nervous all the time because this guy doesn't seem to be very consistent and he doesn't seem to be terribly reliable so you've you know you put all your eggs in a basket and turns out the basket just kind of doesn't isn't going to follow orders and isn't really going to have any particular uh set of principles you know i think putin like a lot of trump supporters is going to be disappointed but that i think i don't think that they're i just the mystery part of it i don't get i don't i don't understand the mystery or the crime or the investigation or the freak out it just all seems uh incredible like incredibly incredibly misplaced i'm envisioning

that phone robin i know exactly what you mean it's large it's it's bakelite which of course we don't know what that we don't know what it is but that is bakelite um and it's probably red and when i remember seeing movies when i was a kid what used to frighten me about it was that it had no dial it had no dial right you just picked it up and the guy on the other end eventually uh it would would answer and i it never occurred to me as a kid how they did that they must have strung a huge cable onto what under the water how was that done and it always amazed me that nobody ever made a spy movie that was predicated on somebody snipping that cord, that one essential cord. That's a good one.

So when they picked it up to find you, they'd say, hey, by the way, there's a bomber head in your way, but it's not one of ours, that there would be nothing on the line. That would seem to me the first thing that you would do. And burglars who – Blofeld. Blofeld would do that, right? The first thing that burglars do is that they sever your phone line so that your home security system can't call back. Oh. They do.

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we've got a Scott in Estonia and his question is, uh, first for Rob, then everyone. Oh, well, I guess that's Rob's been gone. It's been five years since Andrew Breitbart died. What do you think he would have made of the rise of Trump?

What would he have made of the Breitbart website today? And if he has a legacy, what do you think it is? Wow, that's a great question. I don't know, because I loved loved Andrew and he was a great friend and I just enjoyed every minute of him. And it's tempting when you have somebody like that in your life and that somebody has that much impact and is not there to speak for him to ascribe all sorts of things and say, you know, Andrew would have hated this. And I was guilty of that in the campaign. I still think that he would have hated a lot of what's going on in that campaign. But I can tell you that the person I knew was incredibly cheerful, incredibly upbeat, had lots of friends on both sides of the uh of the debate uh was incredibly uh

socially tolerant of everything and everyone um was a very embracing figure um there was nothing dark ever anything dark about andrew bright part no not at all and um he loved the fray he loved the fight he was a real fighter but he was um he he was uh he was not did not believe in giant um you know tect tectonic shifts or culture clashes or anything like that um i'm not sure i think he would love the the popular and populist enthusiasms that uh were sort of awakened and i think he would have loved the idea of this sort of citizens brigade and i think he would have really enjoyed at some level the idea that um the american voter threw a stink bomb into Washington. And everybody running around with their heads cut off because Trump's coming in.

He would have really enjoyed. I'm not sure about the policies. I don't think so. I'm not sure. I know Andrew was a believer in free trade. I'm not sure about all those little things. And I think he would have been overjoyed at the kind of uh the chaos of it but i but he would have been really appalled by any of these sort of um you know he would have been appalled by some of this the way it sometimes veers into a kind of xenophobia

he was not him at all um uh he, like, living in L.A. He loved having immigrants. He was, I remember having him sit on my front porch, and he was living around the corner from me, and having him talk about reinvigorating American culture and American dynamism with immigrants. So, who knows? I mean, I just miss him.

I wish he was here. But I do also believe that he would never have allowed his website, his namesake website, to become this closely allied with a specific American political figure.

That I will say without a hesitation. He would never have allowed his website to become a mouthpiece. Peter? Oh, sorry. That's a Rob question through and through. I don't have anything to say. Rob knew.

I only met Andrew a couple of times through Rob. I recorded an interview with him. But that was beautiful, and I have nothing to add or detract. I endorse every word that Rob said, but I didn't know Andrew as well. The only thing that strikes me is I've already mentioned there just wasn't anything dark about Andrew. My impression – again, Rob knew a hundred times better than i did but my impression was that andrew was one of these people like antonin scully or like bill buckley for that matter that may in some ways be the closest analog build all kind different in many many ways but bill

buckley would get angry about ideas he would get angry about what people wanted to do and then have dinner with the same people and be charming to them personally? This notion – I mean the trite way of putting it is hate the sin but love the sinner. But Andrew was always capable of drawing a distinction between ideas that he thought were mistaken and that he was willing to fight and people, which he always found fascinating, charming and wanted to befriend. But he was also kind of a shambling figure. I was in Azerbaijan with him, and we were on this junket, on this sort of mission that the government wanted to take us around, and everyone's trying to behave. There were a bunch of reporters there, some people from Newsweek and et cetera. It was a high-end group, and Andrew was just kind of walking around in his big old shirt

and shorts untucked and and he was always on the computer and he always needed a wi-fi and then once we were sort of delayed leaving because we had to go somewhere he was on the phone and the guy leading the tour is like who is this person like why is he here and he made some comment to me about you know andrew's i can't you know this was a maybe maybe inviting andrew a mistake. And so I pulled him aside and said, you understand who Andrew Breitbart is? You understand when he's on the computer what he's doing? He is writing and shaping headlines for the Drudge Report. Then, and I think less so now, but then definitely the most influential agenda driver for the news media.

You understand when he was on the phone, who he's talking to, he's doing the Dennis Miller talk show. He's talking about three or four million people. The most influential person, the person you really want to carry your message is Andrew Breitbart, not a reporter from Newsweek or me, you know. And his eyes kind of like, I don't think the guy actually got it, but I suspect that a few months later, three or four months later, the penny dropped. That was the great thing about Andrew.

He didn't look like he really – he didn't look like he could convince you of anything. And yet he had all these great – he saw something before anybody else did. And that's, I think, his most amazing legacy and his most amazing insight. Next question from, and thank you for that recollection. It's always sad to recall how long it's been and how much we miss him. Question member feed from Don Tillman. And he says, okay, guys, this is dead simple. The Democrats always practice strategic projection. They always accuse the right of the very thing they are doing.

And that's happening here. The Russian contributions to the Clinton Foundation, the Hillary uranium deal with Russia, Podesta's Russian involvement, all these accusations of Trump of a mysterious, unspecified Russian link. There are specific, explicit Russian links on their side, right? True, odd, that. almost as if they don't really believe that the russian part is the is the uh is the thing to worry about almost as if it's just a convenient hook on which they can hang the cloak of resistance right i couldn't agree more i mean that's i i there's nothing to say to that except that don tillman as usual is exactly right and i'll add this one of the things that you hear constantly uh if you go to the left So there's nothing to say to that except that Don Tillman, as usual, is exactly right.

And I'll add this. One of the things that you hear constantly if you go to the left-wing fulminating fever swamp dead of the night sweaty websites is that they're feared that a new era of repression is about to begin in which speech is going to be shut down. I gather that it doesn't help that the president once again today said we should revisit libel laws which is just stupid uh but if you look at the threats to free and full expression it's it's not coming from the right it's not the right demanding that a painting be removed from the whitney biennial because a person of the wrong color painted it. It's not the right that is showing up in mob-like format and grabbing the hair of people who are protecting a 70-year-old man who's come to make a speech. There's your projection. I mean, the right is just, leave us alone.

I don't see what you want to say. It's the left and the antifas, as they like to call themselves, that are running with masked faces and burning Starbucks. I mean, it's an odd bit of projection too i would just say i mean i only again since i've been gone for so long and and uh by the way i'm so it was i i this is so much fun i can't believe i missed it so much i can't happen again just so i'll have to figure something else out um but i would just quibble with the word strategic i think with that we ascribe to our political foes all sorts of cleverness and planning and understanding. There's nothing strategic about this.

They're not strategically attacking Trump because they're trying to cover up or misdirect us from paying attention to Clinton or whatever. It's not that at all. It's any weapon to hand i mean and you can see there's many more examples of that but the most recent one which which i loved was when somebody i think was trump said something about or maybe you know ryan said something about hey listen you gotta you know maybe for the health care business you gotta have some priorities i mean a lot of those people maybe you don't get the news the new iphone and the whole world went insane can you you believe it? There was Paul Ryan attacking poor people for their choices. And it was really only about 22 minutes later before somebody found a tape of Barack Obama saying almost exactly the same thing in almost the

exact same words. And in the same way, Mitt Romney, as you referenced earlier, James, said, hey, Russia's a real foe, and everybody laughed and poo-pooed him. And now they're saying almost the same thing with almost the same words. There's no strategy here. It's just I don't like my enemies. Everything they say is wrong. If Donald Trump says the sky is blue, it's not blue. And I will just contradict at every point, and I will use whatever weapon I've got and create a brand new set of principles every time, even if it turns out I violated myself.

Because I'll never be held to account. And I was going to say that when you mentioned the Mitt Romney thing about Russia and about Putin. That still makes me so mad and i i should get over it but when i start thinking about what how they all rolled their eyes and poo-pooed him in the press his political enemies, his political foes, that's fine. It actually doesn't bug me so much that Barack Obama made that statement. He was running against the guy. It was stupid, but I forgive him. It was the acquiescence of the press, their sort of lick, spittle, nodding, he stepped in at this time the and the absolute unwillingness and to my mind anyway um uh in inaction on an enact in in a begging for a second chance and begging for an apology i mean that should be the beginning of everybody's statement everybody

who ever made a comment about what mitt romney said in that debate owes the American people a perpetual and constant apology. Well, that'll be coming soon. That's coming right away. I don't get mad about that again. But I would just quibble. I don't think it's strategic. I think we spend too much time thinking here's the Democrats' big plan. There's no plan.

It's just they're just any weapon to hand. Yeah, it's Joe Sorbin, the late Joe Sorbin who had – are moments when there are conspiracies, but conspiracies are actually complicated and difficult to pull off. Don't think in terms of conspirators hatching big strategic plans. Think in terms of a beehive. The signals are all small, and yet the swarm moves together. The motivations are so similar, and the signals that they make to each other are so subtle that they're almost impossible to pick up. And they're not even aware necessarily that they're picking up the signals themselves, but the swarm moves together. I've always remembered that as the more useful metaphor to bear in mind.

It's how insane. I've always remembered that as the more useful metaphor to bear in mind. It's how insects – Never ascribe to conspiracy what mere incompetence will accomplish. Right, right. Something similar to that here, I think. Right. It's how insects communicate these things to each other. I mean, ants will touch feelers, right, to swap pheromones to say that the – follow me. And then bees do that dance, right, That complicated little dance to tell all the other bees

this is where I'm from. Were they trying to recruit each other to do something? Now, you see, I thought you would have been better than that. Really? Why? You've really, no, no, this No, you've

sunk in my estimation, because at the peak of the game, you would have known that that needed one more line, one or two more lines before you could truly spoil it. You're right. Because if you spoil it before it actually starts to develop... It's a tree falling in the forest. You're absolutely right.

You're absolutely right. You know what? I'll do better next time and a time after that and a time after that and a time after that and a time after that and a time after that. Just, you know, ad infinitum. I will strive in each podcast. I pledge this to you. I will strive in each podcast to interrupt you more artfully. Oh, be still my beating heart. The point was that insects have ways of communicating information

and as do we, but the thing of it is that there's so many out there. There's so many new channels of information out there. How do you get across the point, etc., etc.? Yes, Rob, recruiting. Anyway, when you talk recruiting, there's a word that comes to mind and it's the word that comes

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That's ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial. One more time to try for free, go to altogether now, ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial. And our thanks to ZipRecruiter for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, a bit more here from the member feed. Mikeence is the most uh up uptight repressed um possibly disturbed man that has occupied the office of vice presidency and what he needs to do in order to increase the climate for women in washington is he needs every single night to dine out with a young woman who's 20 years younger than him that's that is what apparently they are clamoring for. That's what needs to be done now. Otherwise, no woman is going to advance in Washington thanks to the new Pence rule.

God, this pervert. Your thoughts, Peter? I just don't get it. This doesn't even begin to compute with me it is because of the feminists and this the the the downgrading of of accusations accusations of rape harass if you look at a woman in the wrong way in the workplace everybody in america knows this every male in america knows this you can be subjected to a charge of sexual harassment. So, of course, you're never alone. You leave your office door open if you're going to have a meeting with a woman.

That's just – they've created that, not our side. They've created that. And Mike Pence – I just don't get the outrage. The man is being careful as far as I can tell and nothing more than that. Maybe – but at the same time i have to confess i have the feeling that i'm just missing something here i don't even see the others usually i can understand what the other side is pretending to be angry about and this time i just don't get it i think it's willful misunderstanding i mean ah i don't know what exactly he said or

how he described this but this can't be an argument in good faith it can't i think i don't know what exactly he said or how he described this. This can't be an argument in good faith. I think you're right. I think the outrage stems from the interpretation of his policy as being, I can't trust myself with a woman alone. That's just how, you know, I don't know, aggressive I am as a dude. Or maybe the other side is like, I wouldn't trust a woman alone with me because I am so incredibly hot. I think they're taking that interpretation

that it's some kind of weird uh male thing where he uh but i think what he's saying is what you're saying which is essentially um as long as i have the door open as long as i never do this i am have purchased for myself immunity to any of these um charges or uh misunderstandings or or lawsuits or whatever, right? Yeah. I think that's what he's saying. But again, it's like it doesn't matter now. We're now at a point where every single thing Mike Pence says

is going to be interpreted as weird from another planet. Could I just ask – let me ask the two of you the question then. Is it just – suppose I'm wrong. Suppose that the construction I just put on it and that Rob was kind enough to agree with, that there's a political consideration here that because of the culture of feminism, you have to protect you. You have to be extremely careful, all the more so if you're a politician and they'd love nothing more than to create some kind of rumors about infidelity. But set that aside. Maybe it really is about him and his wife. And maybe when he got into politics two decades ago, he said to himself, or maybe he and his wife sat down together and he said to his wife, I'm going to be traveling a lot.

I'm going to be away from home a lot. You know, I just want you to know, to rule out one possible set of misunderstandings in our marriage, that I cherish our marriage and I will never permit myself to be alone with a woman on the campaign trail or when I'm away from you. Would that be so horrible? What? No, I think that's what's interesting that's all it is that it's just an old-fashioned commitment to his wife what we hang him for that i don't get it but also it's like it's utterly consistent with his faith right his faith his faith the bedrock uh i think i would call the bedrock the foundational uh tenet of his faith is that we are all given to sin.

Yes. And that we are all weak. And he could, I think that's exactly right, that I'll be traveling all over the state. And there's not a movie, a political movie or political novel that doesn't have the infidelity of the candidate on a on a campaign trail as a as a at least a partial trope because it happens yes it does and uh there are lots of young women young staffers and interns etc you know running around all the time and i won't do that because i know that i'm weak or i know that the flesh is weak and that people are prone to sin.

That would be consistent with his worldview. But if you don't accept that he's got a worldview or you don't want to talk about his worldview or you don't want to talk about the underlying issue of his worldview, everything seems strange to you. It could even just have been a matter of courtesy to his wife. I'm not going to subject you to rumors, however scurrilous and unfounded.

I'm just going to conduct myself in such a way that that just doesn't happen. I just don't see the reason for outrage. Okay. Can I just – I have a little moment for like a grand theory or possible grand theory. Please. To bring it back to what we were talking about with Russia, because it strikes me that as long as you don't understand or don't want to discuss the underlying unifying theory here, I mean the press, especially in attacking Mike Pence, does not want to talk about – would not want to talk about his faith or the tenets of his faith. Because they might find that a lot of americans agree with it and understand it it might actually paint mike pence who has so far been painted entirely in unsympathetic terms

somewhat sympathetically you might find that married women uh who are a big part of the of an electorate would find his attitude and his beliefs and his conduct to be admirable. And they would say, boy, he's a thoughtful man and a good husband. And he understands instead of being a Christian scold who wants to like, who thinks that we all need to sort of follow the rules.

He understands that people make mistakes. The press, even exactly. He's even made a mistake in his past. The press will never get to it but my guess my hunch is that there are tens of millions of ordinary americans who hear this story and say you know what good for him next yeah i get it but i'd say the same thing just to wrap it up i'd say the same thing with the uh with the relationship between the trump

administration and donald trump and his feelings of v feelings for Vladimir Putin and vice versa. It is so obvious that their great area of agreement is in how to deal with radical Islam. But it is also obvious that the press, the left, whatever you want to talk about it, they don't want to talk about that because I think they instinctively know that if you say to Americans, look, his theory is clearly that there are primary responsibilities to destroy radical Islam. Putin's got a rather cold-blooded, horrible plan that's going to take a lot of that's why they're um they're in agreement and alignment i think the fear whether it's uh whether they're strategically fearing it to go back to the other question or not is well let's not air that argument because we might find that 80 percent of americans say yeah actually that makes sense right you know one of them make it insane and kind of come up with some kind of money thing or or weird Mike Pence, you know, uptightness or something instead of like the obvious. Let's not have that argument because that might lead to that might lead to increased communication with the people we cannot have.

One one final thought on that, Rob, has been a long time since you and I and James had a chance to talk. So this is going to be a long podcast. No guests. It's just catching up with Rob. But this just occurs to me. You were talking about the disarray on the Trump White House and what a group of amateurs it seems to be, which leads to the following thought just comes to mind as you're talking about Russia. Bill Buckley used to say that the importance of Jean Kirkpatrick in the Reagan administration was that she spoke the language of the academy. Likewise, Henry Kissinger could explain Richard Nixon to journalists, Nixon may be Bumbler, but at least he has this very clever man, Henry Kissinger, whose manners and whose language,

he's one of us. Jean Kirkpatrick, in some ways, one of us. Trump has no such figure. There's nobody, who knows, Rex Tillerson, there's just nobody around Trump. And this, I think, I'm generally pleased by the cabinet appointments in fact i'm generally thrilled by most of the cabinet appointments

but there's there is that figure missing there's no one newt gingrich comes closest and lord knows the academics and the press are no fans of newt gingrich that when you talk about the disarray in the trump white house i think i'd add that specific point they haven't got anybody there's no zbigniew brzezinski there's nobody who can talk to the academics and the press in language in which they feel they're being talked to by one of their own i agree with that and i just i know we have to run i just want to add to that one one extra point which is that you their fundament the problem you see there is a management problem. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that Donald Trump has no experience managing an organization like this with this much transparency.

And these many areas of accountability, you know, run a family business, you don't have to do that. I'm not putting him down or putting his business acumen down very different kinds of businesses and look at his impulse the impulse is to put the family back in control he's bringing jared and ivanka in closer and closer right i think because he wants to see he wants a circle of trust the problem is that everyone around him thinks and this is a problem you see a lot of times in organizations is that everyone around him is also trying to be donald trump like you know mike flynn was tweeting and his idiot son was tweeting and they're all acting like well i'm like donald trump but no only donald trump gets to be donald trump right donald trump gets to talk off the cuff well donald trump gets to say stuff and then you got to clean up the mess

sean spicer does not is not allowed to get mad at the press. He's going to be everybody. He's going to be the best friend. Only the boss gets to be the boss. And in an organization run by run, frankly, and filled by, as I said,

second Raiders and, and, and, and kind of sleaze artists, there's no understanding of where you fit in the, on the org chart. And I think that will do great harm to the agenda, an agenda that I am in many ways enthusiastic about,

and I think ultimately until there's a change, unless there's a change, it will undermine pretty much everything he does. Beautifully put. Howard Baker, when he came in as Reagan's chief of staff, said, I always remind myself, the most important word in chief of staff is staff. Right. Only the boss gets to be the boss. Only the boss gets to act like the boss. Everybody else has to act like buttoned up, zip tight, and fully, fully deferential to the constituent that you're serving. So if it's the press, it's the press.

There's no I in staff. Exactly right. There's an I in chief, and sometimes you wonder if it goes before the E or after because you can't remember. But there is an F in chief, and actually there's an F in of, too. So there's two Fs there, but staff is the most important. Well, this is why I don't write for politicians. And this is why, of course, this podcast has gone on forever. But we've loved every minute of it, and we hope you have, too.

We have to release Rob into the wild now, and off you go to Swanabout, Gotham. That's where you are, right? I'm in Gotham, yeah. We'll go have yourself a... Fix that drippy's faucet. I also heard... I also heard a door opening and closing. And I'm not going to tell you anything about

getting some WD-40 that you should have around the house like all of the guys to fix that. But I should tell you that doors like that are often points of entries for burglars. And you can get little alarms that hook on your doors from SimpliSafe. And you should. You should thank them for sponsoring the podcast,

and you should make your house safer and save money by going to SimpliSafe.com. Zip Recruiter as well, we thank them for sponsoring the podcast. Free trial is your coupon code there, and Lyft, $30 worth of free rides, three free rides, $10, if you go to Lyft and enter, again, that coupon code. Visit the Ricochet store, of course. You can find all kinds of our branded swag there to raise the brand in public.

And you might want to leave us a review on iTunes. It's one of the things that helps surface the podcast and gets us more listeners. And with more listeners, such as those of you in the Slate Panoply Network, we still connected to them. Yes, that'd be great. The more listeners, the better,

because the more members, the better. Join Ricochet and help keep this thing going, a place for civil conversation on the center right. And just to prove it, we will see you arguing politely, as it were, in the comments at Ricochet 3.0. Rob, it's been great to have you back. Peter, it's good to talk to you as ever, and we'll see everybody next week. Goodbye. Next week. Missed you guys. I was a fool to ever leave your side

Me minus you is such a lonely ride The breakup we had has made me lonesome and sad. I realize I love you cause I want you back. I spent the evening with the radio. Regret the moment that I let you go our quarrel was such a way of learning so much I know now that I love you

cause I need your touch hey hey reunited and it feels so good reunited cause we understood And it feels so good Reunited Cause we understood There's one perfect thing

And sugar, this one is it We both are so excited Cause we're reunited Hey, hey, hey Ricochet Join the conversation I sat here staring at the same old wall Came back to life just when I got your call

I wished I could climb right through the telephone line and give you what you want so you still be my hey I can't go cheating honey

I can't play cheating, honey. I can't play. I found it very hard to stay away. As we reminisce on precious moments like this. I'm glad we're back together cause I missed your kiss. Hey, hey. Reunited and it feels so good. Reunited cause we understood.