The Ricochet Podcast - Secrets and Lies

Episode Date: November 4, 2017

This week, noted author Rob Long (come on, buy his book!) is back on the big show, so we booked a guest he’d have a lot to chat about with, California Congressman Devin Nunes. We talk collusion, Russia, Mueller, all the good stuff. Also, Bush the elder says the President “is a blowhard,” are entitlements bad for the nation’s health?, and Steve Martin’s King Tut is racist. Well, at least at Reed... Source

At LiveScoreBet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football. The excitement, the roar and the chance to reward you. That's why every day of the festival, we're giving new members money back as a free sports bet up to €10 if your horse loses on a selected race. That's how we celebrate the biggest week in racing. Cheltenham with LiveScoreBet. This is total betting. Sign up by 2pm 14th of March. Bet within 48 hours of race. Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. is total betting. Sign up by 2 p.m. 14th of March. Bet within 48 hours of race.

Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18 plus gamblingcare.ie. Let's take this show from the top. Ready? I'm going to take it from the top. Three, two, one.

We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country 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. Imagine how incredible and how many good things we would be doing if people like Senator Bob Corker got on board and started doing their job instead of doing so much grandstanding on TV. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. He's back. I'm James Lilacs and our guest today, Devin Nunes on that steel dossier and more. Let's have ourselves a podcast it's the ricochet podcast number 376 how do we get this far well simple we've been brought to you by the fine people at for example casper mattresses start sleeping ahead of the curve with casper and get 50 off any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com slash ricochet. Use that promo code ricochet at checkout. And we're brought to you by Harry's.

Harry's is so confident you're going to love their blades, they'll give you their trial shave set for free when you sign up at harrys.com slash ricochet. You're just paying for shipping. And we're brought to you by Warby Parker. Prescription eyewear, of which I'm wearing right now, should not cost you more than a plane ticket or a new iphone and it always does and it's annoying now head to warbyparker.com slash ricochet and order your free home try-ons today we're also brought to you by ricochet now in the past few weeks i've had the pleasure and the duty of saying if rob were here he'd say this and then i'd tell you what rob would say sort of kind of because Rob is here and Rob is here to tell us exactly

why you should shave off some lucre from your bankroll and use it to keep this enterprise going I will say this if you're listening to this podcast and you're a member thank you we are thrilled and honored to have you as a member along with us if you're listening to this podcast

and you're not a member that is a We are thrilled and honored to have you as a member along with us. If you're listening to this podcast and you're not a member, that is a disastrous financial decision that you have made for us. We really do need you. Let me just paraphrase a little bit of what Member Gary Robbins said, because I know we're getting a little time crunch. One of the best features of the Ricochet community is the role of the moderators. I am a fervent never

Trumper, but I am fully able to express my opinions along with never Trumpers, semi-Trumpers and ever Trumpers. The best investment to keep track of politics he writes ricochet is but we also post articles on other issues like vacations happy and sad memories and the world series please join us that's gary robbins take it don't take it from me take it from a member i would add to his uh vacations happy sad memories the world series um uh what you do in your job like how your job works a lot of people uh have very interesting uh work and can contribute mightily to current national discussions i learned all about fracking from ricochet um

and a bunch of other things so uh if you're not a member please join and i want to do a special notice for boston area listeners this saturday november 11th at 7 p.m. at Tavern in the Square. You can check it out on the site. Please join the Harvard Lunch Club podcast. Michael Stopa, my old sparring partner, Michael Stopa, and Todd Feinberg, and Michael Graham from Ricochet's Michael in the Morning podcast, and noted author and TV sitcom auteur, me, Rob Long. This meetup is free for Ricochet members.

$10 for non-members, but if you join at the meetup we'll give you the $10 back. Don't come and not be a member. Come and join. That's my rule. You gotta come and you gotta join or I will guilt you from the podium. Come and meet your fellow members and non-members who then will become members because we'll guilt them and see what all the fuss is about.

It's going to be a lot of fun. So come Saturday November 11th in the Boston very close to the Boston area. If you want to know more about it, click on the thing. Go to the ricochet.com, and it's all there. Click on the thing. That's the level of technical expertise you can expect from the founder. You know what I mean? Click on the thing.

People say that. At this Boston event, will there also be a holographic projection of Peter Robinson? Oh, no. Oh, there is. I hear you, Peter. How are you? I have a rotten cold, but aside from that, I'm fine. Except for one matter.

Did I just hear Rob refer to himself totally unironically as an auteur? You did. And you know what? I was reading. That's the rule about copy. You've got to read it first before you start talking it. Because I actually thought, oh, this is going to be a noted author on TV. Oh, that's me.

That's got to be me, yeah. Noted author, I think, is actually the more outrageous one. Just the way TV works. Robert Longueuil, as we'll refer to you now. Well, you wrote a book, and you're not the only one. We'll get to that in a little bit. George H.W. Bush apparently wrote a book in which he called Trump, quote, a blowhard. He has a harsh, blunt assessment of Donald Trump, according to news reports.

And his son, former President George W. Bush, also has harsh words for Trump and says, quote, this guy doesn't know what it means to be president, end quote. This inevitably spurs a discussion of how the country has been decimated, ruined, et cetera, by Bush misrule, and it's a good thing that they're out of the political scape, et cetera. What say you, Peter Robinson, to that? Are you on board with the extirpation the the shunning of the bushes from public life now no of course well first of all george hw bush for whom i worked and whom i still very much revere uh i drove across texas i was in texas i had an event in austin

this is 18 months or two years ago now and i drove from austin to hou Houston to have lunch with George H.W. Bush, he's not well. He's a very old man now. He is a completely honorable man, but he's not well. And he will always command my respect. But the idea that he somehow is wading into the fray, wants to be in the thick of the controversy, is ridiculous. This sounds as though it probably is his very word. Blowhard is about the strongest language that he would ever use against anyone because he is a gentleman. He's a gentleman of the old school. He's an old gentleman of the old school.

George W. Bush, this guy doesn't know what it means to be president. You know, this is just not a newsflash. It's just not a newsflash. I mean, to be fair, this is a book by Mark Updegrove. The book is called The Last Republicans. A lot of it is about the weirdness of father-son presidents and the father-son presidency and this interesting symmetry between father and son so for instance uh george w bush when when george hw was president and running for re-election george w bush recommended that he dump um uh dan quayle dan quayle the ticket

and then x number of years later uh when george. Bush is president, George H.W. Bush, the former president, recommends that he dump Cheney from the ticket in his first reelection. Little things like that. But they both really believe that they – or they fear, and I think they might be right, and I don't know if that's necessarily the tragedy that everyone thinks it is, that it's the end of the – the Republican Party as they know it doesn't exist anymore. And I think that could be true. I don't – I'm not sure that – and I'm not sure that's a silly bad thing. I'm just – Right. All right.

So this may be a much more interesting book than I know. I haven't read the book as I guess I just made clear. All I've read is the news reports that they take a couple of shots at Donald Trump and it just strikes me as unsurprising. The future of the Republican Party is a fascinating question and we can get to that with our guest a little bit whom we'll be having on in just a moment uh it strikes me again more to follow details to follow we'll be talking about this for a good long time to come the republican party as it existed under H.W. Bush and George W. Bush is gone. I think it is gone. Well, okay.

I don't think it is. It's gone. It's gone. The base is less so in policy terms. I keep getting struck by this again and again and again. The most fervent anti-Trumpers, never Trumpers. Well, Rob, you can stick up for your peeps here, but in my observation, even the most fervent never-Trumpers who come from within the Republican

Party, conservatives who just can't abide this guy, really only differ from him in policy terms. They might want the tax reform to have taken a different shape, but they're in favor of tax reform. They're in favor of rebuilding the military. They're in favor of repealing Obamacare. Trade is the one that Trump, they believe, just has completely wrong. Even immigration, what they oppose is his tone. All he's doing is enforcing laws already on the book. The policy differences are really, at this stage, relatively contained, contained relatively minor and they mostly center

on trade and by the way it's not clear quite what he's doing on trade he wants to renegotiate nafta we'll see uh but the question of tone but also trump's tone is what we tend to hear about but the base i sense this i've been in i was was in Washington last week and talked to a number of office holders. The base wants fight. They want more fight. There's real anger among the Republican base across the country. They want Washington taken on. And that is a different matter. What does that even mean though? I mean, that's the problem. Well, that's the question. I mean, I just, I just spent several minutes saying that in policy terms it's not clear what it means it's temperamental it's attitudinal it has to do with rhetoric i'm not sure so you tell me what it means well the rhetoric the rhetoric the added the attitudinalness the the fighting the putting on the boxes and blotting their noses you know

it's calling cnn failing fake news which is funny it's's calling the New York Times failing New York Times. Ha ha. It's refusing to take the genteel tone that brought us debt and economic collapse, that genteel tone did. And it's all about punching people in the face because it feels good and it's great to watch. I mean, that's your taking it on. That's the spectacle, right? I mean, the horrible thing about the Bushes was their genteel, get-along, civilized manner stuff. Nobody wants that anymore. Look at the comments at Ricochet. People in a very civilized fashion using the code of conduct, which is amusing, talk about how much they love a guy who does not use a code of conduct and does not speak in civil.

Although, you know, I'm sorry. I have a cold, so I'm thinking slowly and blundering through this argument here. But one of the things I did in Washington last week was talk to John Kogan, my Hoover colleague John Kogan, about his wonderful new book, The High Cost of Good Intentions, A History of Federal Entitlement Programs. programs ronald reagan in the modern era post post roosevelt ronald reagan alone spent all eight years trying to lean against the entitlement state now george no he didn't fail he contained it more than any other president before or since excuse me you can say he failed because the entitlement state did indeed remain intact and enormous but it grew very little under ronald reagan and before him it grew and then what you get under the bushes they say the same things about the entitlement state as ronald reagan their policy is the same to contain it but it takes off under both bushes spending

increases in most tellingly federal regulations proliferate all over again. So there's something to be said about the question of fight. The question of fight, the question of rhetoric does actually translate into policy in at least some ways, I think. But again, I think you've conflated. First of all, the federal entitlement state isn't regulations and the spending around the edges. That's a very large component of it. The largest component of federal entitlement is Social Security and Medicare. Those are the entitlements. They're enormous.

They've been growing at a steady rate since their inception. I mean, poor Dan Rosnickowski who was attacked by a bunch of old people who are probably now dead

when they were trying to rein in Social Security under the Reagan administration. That was the end of that. I mean, the weird thing is that I understand a fighting conservative. I mean, I think it's probably exotic, but I understand it. Let me just make this clear. Ronald Reagan didn't attempt to eliminate –

actually, he did attempt to eliminate certain pieces of the state. He attempted to eliminate the education department. He didn't succeed. Kogan's point is that across eight years of Ronald Reagan, entitlement spending nearly freezes. It goes to about one to one and a half percent across all entitlements. That never happened before, and it took off again afterwards. There was an accomplishment. Now, it's perfectly true to say he didn't eliminate Social Security. He didn't eliminate Medicare. The state remained intact and was therefore in a position to take off again. But there was an accomplishment of a kind. And the way I read,

to the extent that the base is interested in the entitlement state, they want at least that again. And they didn't get anything close to that under either Bush. They don't want that again. That's by point. Donald Trump ran, I mean, you know, and won, essentially denying any changes in Social Security or Medicare. He didn't say he was going to cut Medicare or Social Security. Wait, wait, wait.

He didn't say he was going to even reduce it. No, no, no. Let's not wait just a moment. He said it would be the same. Hold on. Of course, I grant you that. I grant you that. But now we're talking about... Well, that's it. That's the whole game. Wait, wait, wait. He didn't say he was going to even reduce it. No, no, no. Let's not wait just a moment. He said it would be the same. Hold on. Of course, I grant you that. I grant you that. But now we're talking about-

Well, that's it. That's the whole game. No, it's not the whole game. It's not close to the whole game. The regular- Close? No. If we do nothing-

Wait, there's a lot of counting there. A lot of- Sorry, I thought I'd muted myself. My mistake. You know, in the old days, sometimes I would just interrupt and make some comment that would get us to a spot. But now I thought that I would just sort of like type as loudly as possible a note in Slack

telling you both to shut up because it's time to talk about something that's enduring, truly enduring beyond the politics of the moment, and that's Casper. Casper, you know, is a sleep brand that continues to revolutionize its line of products to create an exceptionally comfortable sleep experience one night at a time. Now, Casper mattresses provide all of the support the human body needs

in all the right places. I mean, you're going to spend one third of your life sleeping. You should be comfortable, right? Well, the Casper brand mattress combines multiple supportive memory foams for a quality sleep service with the right amount of sink and bounce. A breathable design helps you sleep cool and regulates your body temperature throughout the night. There are three mattresses available, by the way. They're all the same great Casper, but there's the. At LiveScoreBet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football.

The excitement, the roar, and the chance to reward you. That's why every day of the festival, we're giving new members money back as a free sports bet up to 10 euro if your horse loses on a selected race. That's how we celebrate the biggest week in racing cheltenham with live score bet this is total betting sign up by 2 p.m 14th of march bet within 48 hours of race main market excluding specials and place bets terms apply bet responsibly 18 plus gambling care.ee original the wave and the essential now casper is not just a mattress company. They offer a wide variety of products to ensure an overall better sleep experience. For example, the affordable

price is because they cut out the middleman. He's eliminated. He's gone, and they sell directly to you. Sheets, the pillows, they're wonderful. 20,000 reviews and an average of 4.8 stars across Casper, Amazon, and Google sites. Casper is fast becoming the Internet's favorite mattress. Designed, developed, and assembled in the U.S. No hassle returns if you're not completely satisfied. You got that? You don't like it? You will.

But if you don't like it, it goes back for free. You can deliver it right to your door in this small, tiny little box. Comes out, and you look at it, and you just want to fall down on it and go right to sleep, which is very easy to do on a Casper. And you won't be kept up by high prices, too, because there's free shipping and free returns in the U.S. and Canada. And you can be sure of your purchase with Casper's 100-night risk-free sleep on a trial. I've been sleeping on a Casper for two years now, I guess. And I never tire of the fact that it provides – you know how you just get in some beds and you sink like a marble through a dense fog,

and there's nothing to keep you firm. The Casper just seems to know exactly what kind of service you want and provides it. So start sleeping ahead of the curve with the Casper. Get $50 towards any mattress purchased by visiting casper.com slash ricochet and using the promo code ricochet at your checkout. That's casper.com slash ricochet and using the promo code ricochet at your checkout that's casper.com slash ricochet promo code ricochet for 50 off any mattress terms and conditions apply of course and we thank casper for sponsoring this the ricochet podcast now you guys before just a few minutes

ago we're arguing about uh what were you arguing about i forgot you remember i i do remember i just want to just to be very clear we were we were talking at cross-purposes because we were talking about two different things. One is entitlement spending, and that's Medicare, Social Security, and so forth. The other is the regulatory state. Reagan contained them both. Trump is at least taking on the regulatory state. But Rob is completely correct that Trump has explicitly said we're not going to touch the entitlements. And the entitlement state is two-thirds of the federal government.

Well, let's – somebody might be in a position to do something about this. We have entitlement state is two-thirds of the federal government. Well, let's touch somebody who might be in a position to do something about this. We have Congressman Devin Nunes on the show. He served as the U.S. Representative for California's

22nd Congressional District since 2003. As a Republican, he serves as Chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We welcome him

to the podcast. Good day, sir. Hey, how are you guys doing today? Oh, we're having fun debating things in Washington from different perspectives of people who aren't there, but you are. And now we have the dossier. The question I think that everybody boils it down to is the dossier. Was this used to get that FISA request that we heard about so long ago before the campaign, before even the election, when the New York Times was talking about tapping Trump Towers

way back in those murky days. Is this the thing that got that ball rolling? Well, that is the question. So if you believe the New York Times or the Washington Post, then it's true. One of the things that we've been struggling with is that since March, we've been asking the question of the FBI who paid for the dossier. Of course, now we know because we were able to track

down the bank and subpoena the bank record so that we were able to figure that out. And we found out that it was none other than the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, which now appear to be one and the same after the latest revelations over the last couple of days from Donna Brazile, that Hillary Clinton was running the DNC even at that time. So secondly, we've been asking since March, was this dossier used to get any type of warrant? So it wasn't until this week that we were able to begin our investigation of these records, and our investigators went down to the Department of Justice and began to go through these. And we still have a lot of missing information, let's just say,

and we're still investigating. So we hope to continue to get this information over the coming days, and hopefully we'll get it within weeks. Congressman Peter Robinson on here. We should make clear you represent California 22nd District. That's just west of Fresno. You're in the Central Valley. As it happens, you're a good friend of one of our frequent guests here, Victor Davis Hanson. When you say we, you have been referring to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, your colleagues on that committee, which you chair, and your staff.

Is that correct? That's correct. So the House Intelligence Committee, we have obviously members of Congress, and then we also have an investigative team that works with members of Congress. So our investigators have been over at the Department of Justice looking at these documents. And could you clear up, in the last couple of weeks, you've been in the news over and over and over again. In fact, I think it's fair to say that you and your committee are the big story right now. Clear something up for us.

The committee subpoenaed certain records from Fusion, the company that paid for, created, coordinated the dossier, and Fusion refused on the ground that the chairman of the committee had recused himself from the Russian investigation. This is all very strange, and as a matter of fact, it's untrue, is it not? Can you just clear that up for us? Well, let's, yeah, so let's, I think we just, to start from the beginning. Please, please, I think we have to. I think we have to. Yeah, I think the bottom line here is obstruction, okay? Obstruction of a legislative branch, i.e. the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into all things Russia.

That's what we're talking about here. And it's not obstruction by Republicans like the mainstream media would like for you to believe. It's actually obstruction by the Democrats, by Fusion GPS, even many within the executive branch who have been obstructing our investigation, because it's unacceptable for us to not to receive this information. So we asked for a lot of this. We asked for in the February-March time frame and letters. Those went unanswered for month after month after month until finally we asked to bring in two of Fusion GPS's owners, and they refused to come in. Finally, we were set to issue a subpoena,

and they came in, and then they pled the fifth. And so they wouldn't answer any of our questions so then we go ahead go ahead yeah go ahead oh and so the question is your own status though has been in the news you didn't recuse yourself but you stepped can you just clear clear up your own status as chair yeah so that was all i mean look that that those were just all lies. You know, here's what happened. When I went over to the, back in late March, first part of April, I went to the White House after we had discovered that, and this is a different issue, this is different than Fusion GPS, but I had discovered that intelligence reports had been unmasked.

So the names in those reports had been unmasked by Obama-era officials that included the names of Trump transition officials. Clearly, this is of great concern. So I went to the White House to brief the President of the United States to make him aware of this because he needed to know that this was happening or this had happened. It remains an important part of our investigation. We're still trying to get to the bottom of who was doing the masking, how they were able to do this, and then, of course, who leaked the information, which would be a massive leak at the highest level to leak information and

intelligence reports. So that's what happened. I went to the White House. At that point, the entire left had a coordinated effort to attack me. And so I went, you know, day after day. You may remember just being hounded by the left-wing media and the Democrats with basically every Democrat in Congress calling for me to step aside, including, ironically, now we find out later, the members on, the Democratic members on the House Ethics Committee were even out publicly calling for me to be removed.

So then, lo and behold, of course, a few days later, MoveOn.org, which is a well-known left-wing activist group that does the bidding of the left they filed with the ethics committee and then the ethics committee took up an investigation or an inquiry they call it into whether or not I leaked classified information when I gave it to the White House I mean this was on the basis of no evidence right on the basis of no evidence. Right. On the basis of no evidence. They still have no evidence. It's been a total joke. So at that time, I just said, I thought this would be over within a couple weeks. You know, that they'd say, okay, there's no evidence here, and this would be kicked out, and I'd be treated fairly.

So at that time, I just said, look, I'm not going to. What I'll do is I'm going to appoint a few of my members to run this investigation. I'll let them be in charge of running the investigation on a day-to-day basis that way it just looks above board i was totally transparent looks above board of course then what happens recusal he recused right and so and that's just never wild with the press you never recused yourself you have remained chairman of the committee and formally and effectively in charge of the committee throughout. You just stepped back temporarily, and now that that matter is cleared up, there's no ethics charge of any kind, you're picking up. I would say even better than that, Peter, is I never – I just said I would temporarily step aside, and I said right after that, at any time, I can step back in and

guide this investigation. I'm still the chairman of the committee. And if I want, I did this on my own transparency. Now, the good part is I haven't had to because we have members like Trey Gowdy, Mr. Rooney, Mr. Conaway, who are well-seasoned veterans of Congress. So they're running this investigation into whether or not there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Now, this is an easy thing to run because guess why? There is none. There's no collusion and there never was any. So, you know, this was a joke from the start. But as it relates to the unmasking investigation, as it relates to an investigation into DOJ and FBI and what

they're up to right I'm leading that investigation you're still in charge we have another investigation yeah well I'm in charge of everything got it of course okay plain and simple the only the only thing the left likes to do to confuse everything uh is they like to say that I recused because there's a legal definition of the term recused. I have my colleagues on the line here, Rob Long and James Lilacs, have a question. They're champing to get in. I have one last large question for you myself. Article 1 of the Constitution, Article 1 is about Congress.

It is clear that the founders put congress first and here it's it's shocking enough to my mind that a private company such as fusion would defy the house select committee the permanent committee on intelligence would defy the arm of the house of representatives that has been duly set up but that the fbi should defy an important committee of Congress strikes me as absolutely flabbergasting. Question, what enforcement powers does your committee have with regard to federal agencies and in particular with regard to the FBI? Well, every day you bring up a very good point. So this has been troubling from the start, especially since it's not believable that the FBI did Clinton's campaign paid for the dossier. So this is troubling. And that's why we have essentially an investigation into the FBI and their handling of this matter. And every day that goes by, every day that they obstruct, every day the evidence piles up.

And so, you know, we are beginning to focus in on who we're going to need to testify from the FBI. And every day that they obstruct, I think it gets worse for them. So the idea that the FBI is no longer... So eventually, to answer your question, we will get the information. We will ultimately get all the information. We hope so, because a lot of people watching this think, well, if the FBI is no

longer the upright, down-the-middle, just-the-facts-ma'am organization that we always thought it was going to be, if indeed they're playing a partisan game on behalf of the deep state, then there's no chance that anything will ever come of this, that there will be stonewalling and destruction of evidence and nobody will tell the truth and nobody will go to jail and we'll move on past it and we'll just chalk it up as something that happens during the election. I mean, that's how a lot of people are seeing what's going on.

It's entertaining. Go on. I think it's bigger than that, Peter. I think this is much bigger than that because people don't have trust in our law enforcement agencies and our intelligence agencies. And if it looks like they were co-opted by a political party, which is really what it's every day that passes, it looks more and more like that's what happened uh this is this is something that we've passed a point in this country that we haven't seen before and i think the american people are just beginning to uh discover uh many of the uh facts surrounding this russian situation i think the challenge that we have is that between the mainstream media, which you have about half of America that follows it, they believe that President Trump did something wrong with the Russian government, which there's no evidence of, but day after day after day of Russian nonsense makes that happen.

And so it's unfortunate that the mainstream media just refuses to cover the facts of this investigation which is i think creating a dangerous spot for the american people to be in uh hey congressman it's rob long in new york thank you for joining us i i i just want to sort of boil it down because i'm i'm um this is the way i see it and correct me when i'm wrong uh this all feels like campaigning as usual. One campaign, the Trump campaign, has a meeting with some people who say they've got some hacked email, delicious oppo research they can use against their opponent. Another campaign said...

At LiveScoreBet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football. The excitement, the roar, and the chance to reward you. That's why every day of the festival, we're giving new members money back as a free sports bet up to €10 if your horse loses on a selected race. That's how we celebrate the biggest week in racing. Cheltenham with LiveScoreBet. This is total betting. Sign up by 2pm 14th of March. Bet within 48 hours of race. Main market excluding specials and place bets.

Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18plusgamblingcare.ie The Clinton campaign has some oppo and pays for some oppo that they can use against their opponent. Now one member of one of the campaigns is under indictment for a lot of stuff that happened that was unrelated to the campaign. And another probably maybe from the other campaign will soon be under indictment. I mean, isn't this really just a case of sort of sleazy, incompetent campaign operatives in each campaign behaving foolishly and now paying the price? Well, I think the – let me start first with the democrats because that's where we have the

serious well no actually actually wait wait wait before you before you do i hate to start with the trump campaign okay so so with the trump campaign uh you must first of all what you have to know is the campaign was was very very small. So there were very few people that were actually involved in the day-to-day campaign. And in fact, when you look at the people who have been, let's just say, in the news, okay, so the people that have been called before our committee, the people that have been in the news every day that are associated with the Trump campaign, none of them were day-to-day campaign people. They were just kind of people who volunteered.

Trump never knew who they were, and in fact, most people on the campaign didn't know who they were. But he knew who Paul Manafort was. Except for Manafort. So remember, why was Manafort brought in? At the time, Trump, who was then the nominee, it was talked by people who didn't want to accept the results of the primary election. Now, remember, I was not involved in the primary. I stayed out as intelligence committee chairman. I offered to brief all the candidates. So I'm not some like longtime Trump guy here. All right. But I'm just calling the, I'm calling, you know calling balls and strikes here. So after the primary,

the Trump campaign got worried that somebody was going to try to go to the convention and steal the election. So Trump, who doesn't have any real connections to Washington, hires this Paul Manafort, who I didn't know the guy, but he had done four or five conventions, had worked the delegates on the House floor, started going back, I think, to 1976 timeframe, I think all the way until 92, I believe. He was the guy to hire. He was the guy to hire. Yeah, or at least a guy, right?

I think if he would have asked me or others, we probably would have said, hey, this might not be the guy to hire because he's known as kind of a big, a big time lobbyist here in Washington in the swamp. And, you know, probably not the type of guy you'd want to, you know, you'd want to hire because everybody I think knew that he had worked for, I never knew him, but I think common knowledge was that he worked for a lot of foreign, foreign agents or foreign government right right so look and there's nothing wrong with that i mean there's there's hundreds and hundreds of people here in washington that do that that's so now if you look at the indictment

yeah so right so the indictment right now looks like you know there was the question whether or not he disclosed things which which look i think there's a lot of people in this town that take advantage of these rules that represent foreign governments. And look, maybe these laws need to be tightened up. But I think the main question here is, was Trump telling Manafort, hey, let's go collude with Russians and let's get some money from Russians. None of that happened. No, I agree. But I think what I was trying to get at is that aside from the Manafort business, the other business was the meetings in Trump Tower to try to get oppo against Hillary Clinton, which is sleazy and horrible and nasty and all sorts of bad,

but it is actually business as usual for every campaign. And the other side was doing exactly the same thing with the dossier. I mean, what about this? I mean, look, I'm not saying people should be punished, but I'm just saying it doesn't feel like there's a white hat and a black hat here. It feels like two campaigns engaged in sleazy behavior that they were both incompetent at doing. Yeah, so I think what your point is, Rob, is that you feel like the meeting at Trump Tower that Donald Jr. had with a Russian lawyer, right, and that supposedly had dirt on Hillary Clinton, that's the meeting you'm referring to the timeline of the Trump campaign knowing that the emails were hacked and everyone else knowing that the emails were hacked. That's really what I'm referring to. But look, I'm not really casting any stones here. I mean, if they – I would be shocked. I would want an investigation into their mental capacity if they stood up and said, under no circumstances am I interested in this opposition research. That would be an insane thing for someone in the middle of a general campaign to do that we knew was going to get dirty and nasty and low,

because at least one of the candidates in that general election had a long history of running dirty and low campaigns, and the other was Donald Trump. So it seems to me like it was a perfectly legitimate thing for them to do. Yeah, no, I think that's accurate. I think it's a little much for me. Yeah, I think that's accurate that all campaigns engage in gathering opposites in research. The only thing that I will tell you is that the opposites in research, from what I can tell on the Trump side was,

was rather pathetic. In fact, I don't think they, I think they found probably the only example that they can find trying to gather opposition research was the Donald Trump meeting. And I will just tell you that there's a lot more that the public is going to find out on that issue. And that's, and I'll just leave it at that. But there's, there's a lot more coming on that issue that I think it's going to find out on that issue. And I'll just leave it at that, but there's a lot more coming on that issue that I think it's going to be a major turn of events. So, Congressman Peter here once again.

Rob makes a point. Every presidential campaign engages in oppo research. Does the Trump dossier strike you as anything unusual? Is that a new departure? Well, that's where I was going to go with this. Sure, go ahead. Yeah, that was my next point. So nothing compares to this, okay?

There is that. I mean, the fact that they would have a sophisticated operation to go get information. Yes, that's absolutely right. But let's talk about what we're talking, what we're really dealing with here. You have a campaign committee, the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary campaign that paid this company, Fusion GPS,

that hired a former British spy. It went over and supposedly, if you believe anything in the dossier, was working with Russian agents. This information was brought back. Christopher Steele was put in front of major news outlets in this country. Only one chose to write about it in September. At the same time that Hillary Clinton went out and started saying that Trump was part of Putin, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no one would go with the dossier. None of the major media outlets would go with the dossier because it was so ridiculous and so salacious. And salacious, I think, was the term

that, guess who used? James Comey, the FBI director. Now, turn around, and this dossier, we know, was briefed to the President of the United States. We we know was briefed to the president of the united states we know it was briefed to the united states congress as if this was some kind of intelligence by a british spy uh no sorry this was intelligence briefed by the american intelligence community by brennan by the but briefed by the intelligence agencies to the legislative branch and executive branch of government, to elected officials, as if there was something real to this, without telling the members of Congress that this was actually information compiled from a foreign government by a political party, the opposition party. This is unheard of.

This only happens in third world countries and banana republics and dictatorships. But enough about dynastic nations where it's Clinton's abortion. Thank you, sir, for bringing it. Keep digging, keep fighting. We'll be seeing you on Fox with the next revelation that we hear. And the story's not over. We look forward to hearing more details. Congressman, thanks for joining us.

Take care. All right. Appreciate it. Rob, I know this subject is of endless fascination to you, and I'm sort of curious. I'm curious how you keep yourself from devoting your attention to it 24-7 because I get the sense, and correct me if I'm wrong, that maybe you don't think the collusion – that's not the right word to use – going to our geopolitical enemy and saying give us some dirt to influence the election is necessarily a morally ethically gray area. I think it is, but then again, I'm obviously one of those stupid behave well, speak nice

Bush types who wouldn't reach for any weapon at hand to defeat the nightmare that is Hillary Clinton. I fully admit that. I just think there's a line to cross. When you go to your enemy and say, give me something on my enemy, you've changed yourself and you've changed the political dynamic. Well, that's a bunch of way to have all the cutouts and things.

And it was about a business deal. Look, I think that what they were trying to prove was some kind of sleazy business deal with the Russians. On the part of Trump or close associates. On the part of Trump, yeah. Right, right. And that seemed to them to be a fruitful area. And I, you know, all due respect to Congressman Nunes, I think it probably is still a fruitful area. But I think people don't care.

And that happens a lot in politics that you think, yeah, he might have been involved in some sleazy stuff. And who knows, two-thirds of that dossier may be true. But I believe in Wall Street terms that whatever is it, most of what's in that dossier is already priced into the cost of a Donald Trump presidency by his supporters. I don't know anybody who loves Donald Trump who says, no, he's really, really a great – he's a great husband, a great guy, faithful dude. Nobody says that. It's priced into the cost. But what I would argue, to me, the interesting thing is – or the sleazy thing is there was stuff put into the Republican Party platform, which, again, is a meaningless document. But it is stuff put into it that clearly came from a foreign, a Russian influence.

Now, whether Trump knew about it or not is a separate thing. I probably, I would, I would bet a lot of money. That's a very valuable, but it was a public event i mean uh i think what you may be referring to is during the um in the platform there was a strong statement in draft form condemning russian interference in ukraine paul manafort runs the convention and that statement gets softened if not removed i don't remember the details but but there's clearly a change. I think it's removed, yeah. Right, it's removed. That happened.

It was a public event. It was reported in the press. That was also a bought-and-paid-for thing you do when you hire parliament for it and give them a lot of money and get them to do that. Now, it's silly for the Russians to do that because the Republican Party platform is a meaningless document. But it would be hard to convince ex-communists that the party platform is a meaningless document um but they but it'd be hard to convince ex-communists

that the party platform is meaningless that's something that probably wouldn't work for them so look i to me it feels like this is sleazy campaign stuff that i've seen on book and i by the way i don't agree that i'm shocked shocked that we've crossed the rubicon here um no but people do they don't usually do it in generals, but they definitely do it in statewide. So here's what I find impressive about Congressman Nunes and his committee. The notion that Trump may have colluded with the Russians. Everybody's on that. I mean, everybody in the press is on that. And now Robert Mueller has an investigation that's on it.

The notion, however, I mean, so that's a question and everybody's on it. Here's what we know for sure. What what Congressman Nunes, Congressman Nunes did say that going get assembling the dossier was something different in Apple research. I'm with Rob on that Apple research is a dark and dirty art and who know. congressional committees and the president-elect of the United States were briefed by American intelligence, Comey of the FBI, Brennan of the CIA, on this dossier as if it was legitimate and without any indication that it was campaign oppo research that had been funded in large measure by the Democratic Party. The question there is, wait a minute, what's the breakdown in American intel? Is the FBI becoming becoming partisan now we have the fbi resisting for a period of months handing over documents that it is clearly within the purview

of the house permanent select committee to invest so congressman noon is this i think he's got real guts here he's going at a question that's being, by comparison, ignored. And the question there is, and in my judgment, probably of more lasting importance, although I'm willing to grant that you may weigh that differently, but it's an important question for sure. What's going on with the American intelligence community? What was Comey really up to? And maybe it was all fine. But the idea that there are serious questions and the FBI is resisting submitting information, that's important. And the other side of it, but this is the problem you have when you believe that the president of the United States who's been elected fairly and by all reports incredibly – honestly, is somehow not – this guy is not a real president. This guy is not a legitimate president. And that allows you, if you're a federal bureaucrat on either side, to do whatever you want to do. So that when

Congress subpoenas records that you think are going to help the guy you don't think should be president, you don't want to comply. And I think that is the more, that is a very dangerous line to cross. I don't like Trump very much, but he's President of the United States. I saw it on TV.

He took the oath of office. He has the right to be presidential. And this idea that we can somehow undermine the leader, the duly elected leader of the United States by some bureaucratic fascinations is, you know, there's only two solutions to that. One is to sort of root it out. And the second is maybe have fewer bureaucrats. That would also help. Yep'm i'm all about it's about the constitution he is a constitutionally elected chief executive opinions about him range all over the place from real loathing and even on ricochet they range all over the place but he's a constitutionally elected

president and article one of the constitution makes congress first congress clearly has oversight rights when it comes to federal agencies and uh and you gotta uphold the constitution you've got to uphold the constitution it'll last a lot longer than donald trump i totally agree at least i hope all right now let's link hands and walk into the sunset while james james yes yes sir how's the weather in minneapolis last couple of times i asked james that dumb question he produced pure poetry it's cold it's raw as a matter of fact. It snowed on Friday. And there's a kind of raw wind that really chaps your face. But Harry's makes really good stuff for that, too.

And that's why I'm happy that they do. See, that wasn't even a segue. It was just a statement of fact. Actually, getting ahead of Rob's presumption there. But you can't presume too much about Harry's Blaze that they won't fulfill once you try them. If you know the story, you know that they were started by a couple of guys, Jeff and Andy. They were fed up

up to here with being overcharged for razors, as are we all. Well, they decided to start their own razor company and to give guys everywhere what they deserve, which is a great shave at a fair price. So, they bought a factory with a hundred years of blade-making experience so they could make their own high-quality razors, sell them online, ship them directly to you for half the price of the leading brand.

Now, Harry's razors include everything you need for a close, comfortable shave in one box. There's five German-engineered blades, a lubricating strip, flex hinge for a comfortable glide around those troublesome areas, and a trimmer blade for hard-to-reach places, too. Weighted, ergonomically perfect handle. Oh, it's great. Harry's, they're so confident you're going to love the blades that they'll give you their trial shave set for free when you sign up at harrys.com slash ricochet. And you just pay for

shipping. Everybody, I've just spoken in glowing, testifying fashions about the emollients of their, um, emollient? Is there an emollient clause that somehow we're violating? Yes. But I'm just saying, once you use these blades, and you will not come away with your face feeling raw,

but you'll want to explore the rest of their face balms and shave creams and exfoliating stuff. There's a whole line of Harry's for you to discover, so start now by claiming your free trial offer from Harry's. $13 value for free. When you sign up, just cover shipping. Your free trial set includes, what do you think? What do you think?

That's right. It's got the blade. It's got the handle. Rich lathering shave gel. A travel blade cover. All that for free. Just shipping. Harrys.com slash ricochet.

That's harrys.com slash ricochet. Now, let's see. The question that is always in my head based on where this whole thing has been going is that even though, as Rob said, it's priced in, and no matter what they come up with, the core Trump audience isn't going to care. The people in the middle who have priced it in and are waiting for something treasonous to maybe turn them away. That's not going to happen. But what you're going to have is you're going to have a third of the country that is absolutely frothing mad about this, as tends to happen.

Just as we're going to have a third of the country over on our side, which is wondering why Fusion GPS and Uranium One and all the rest of those things aren't leading to Hillary Clinton being put away in Manacle. So once again, two completely different narratives forming the basis of their expectations and the way they look at the world. At least for the right, they're not looking at why isn't the president being put in jail, where's the left? That's how they're, I mean, they're convinced absolutely that this man is guilty of treason, collusion, and Putin puppetry, right down to this day based on what so peter let me ask you how does that emotion on the left and the democrats play out over time next election and

the next presidential election oh well i mean a short short and obvious answer is way too early to tell however and of course if robert muller finds that trump that there are some business dealings that are obviously uh outrageous dishonest and so forth or if he does find by the way my own judgment from all i've read i'm with congressman noon is that we have yet to see any evidence at all of trump or anyone close to him engaging in collusion with the russians with regard to the campaign all that's happened so far is that Mueller has indicted Paul Manafort, a sleaze, who had long-standing relations

with the Russians and the Ukrainians. No surprise in that. Can I interview you there? Yeah, go ahead. No, of course, of course, of course. The irony is that Manafort, most of those indictments are based on things,

classic Washington fashion, that everyone knew Manafort was doing in June and July. And then articles about Manafort when he took over the Trump campaign itemized. That's what's great about this is that what happens in Washington is when you're allowed to break the law, you're even allowed to flagrantly break the law. But at some point, if you flagrantly break the law and your name pops up in any other way, they go after you for the stuff that you've been doing with impunity for years.

That's what's so darkly hilarious about this, is that every... Man, I don't understand the grounds on which Manafort declares himself not guilty. That will be fascinating, because half of those things he admitted to in newspaper reports. Yeah, well, all technical grounds. Did he or did he not break the Foreign Agents Act? Exactly. That will be fascinating because half of those things he admitted to in newspaper reports. Yeah. Well, all technical grounds. Did he or did he not break the Foreign Agents Act? Exactly. Okay.

But all right. So if something comes up, if Mueller actually finds something, this could change. But at the moment, there's no evidence. And what you've got is a fight in the Democratic Party. Tom Steyer, I'm not sure how widely these commercials are being aired, but Tom Steyer, a billionaire here in San Francisco, is putting out commercials in which it says straight to camera headshot of Tom Steyer calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump and asking people to sign a petition. And this stuff is on the air here in California. I've seen it a

couple of times myself. Guess who says he's all wrong? Nancy Pelosi, who lives a few blocks away from Tom Steyer in San Francisco and is the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. She's saying, stop, you're just distracting people. We need to work on a genuine agenda. We need to expand our base beyond the coast. We have to get an economic agenda together.ancy pelosi of all people is sounding like the conservative among the democrats the point however is you know you're in trouble you know he's making sense yeah that's exactly well you know i live in northern california so i am used to saying oh that liberal democrat yeah that's the conservative in this race okay

the point how that i'm trying to make is very very simple which is that donald trump has the left just chasing its own tail fight fur flying and it's crazy it signifies nothing it has no real outreach to the center of the country to the people who voted for donald trump so at the moment their fury fury with Donald Trump is simply doing them harm themselves. That's the way I read it. Could it change? Of course. I think that's really – I mean I think that's true. To me, there are sort of three things happening in American politics, and we don't know the outcome of any of those things yet.

One is that you can have a president who is deeply unpopular, but you can have an economy that's growing and an unemployment rate that's dropping, and it doesn't seem to have any effect on Trump's popularity or lax popularity. He's got a hard base, hard floor, around 30%, and that's it. And yet he won. He won with that. He wasn't wasn't any more popular when he won than he is now. The second is you have this enormous traditionally you'd have an enormous opportunity here. Huge opportunity for the opposition party, whatever it is, to appear more normal than the incumbent president to less weird, crazy more stable more moderate exactly exactly trick to american politics is has been up until recently i just have to appear more normal and more like a normal human being for five more minutes than the other guy right if i make the other guy seem weird then i win um and that's kind of that's that's worked. But the third thing is – and Democrats don't seem to understand that.

They seem to be thinking, no, now is the time for us to talk about transgender bathrooms some more. Now is the time for us to try to impeach this president some more. Instead of, no, now is the time – he's given 60 percent, 66 percent of the country doesn't uh it doesn't like him this is a great opportunity for us to scoop up the rest of the to return the democratic party really to its traditional roots which involves a coalition of like working class whites and and ethnic minorities and all sorts of people right instead no the third thing that's possible is that you could if you were on the left say hey wait a minute if this weirdo with his extreme views still won the presidency then maybe we can too maybe we can win with a 30 strategy right i don't

think that's going to happen but and i don't really think they're thinking this way but i don't think it's impossible we may be entering a new phase in american politics although i doubt it because i'm a conservative i don't believe there's any such thing as a new phase in American politics, although I doubt it because I'm a conservative and I don't believe there's any such thing as a new phase in anything. But it is possible. But Elizabeth Warren is thinking that way. Bernie Sanders and his supporters are thinking that way. Right. Yeah.

No, no, I believe you're, that's exactly right. But I think when you have the field is stretched out in front of you and you can run, you know, you're wide open in the end zone. And you're the quarterback or the party continually runs plays that simply won't work. You wonder what the true loyalty is. You are loyal to your series of crackpot social political causes and not to the country as a whole? And the irony is that despite the fact that Donald Trump's an egomaniac and despite the fact that I think he's mentally and emotionally unstable and despite the fact that I personally find him repellent, I absolutely believe that he in general from a 50-foot view, has more goodwill towards the country than the Democrats. And I think I'm not alone in that. Rob, when I was in Washington last week, I had a conversation with my old buddy, John Hovind, senator of North Dakota.

Excuse me. It's not that he's – and my old buddy's – it's not that I know important people. It's people that I've known for a long time have become important. So John and I have known each other for a long time. As have you, Peter. Oh, stop. You were always important, Rob. But I said, so I just asked him, I put it this way roughly.

John, you represent North Dakota. There's fracking going on. But still, the economy of North Dakota is dominated by small businesses, farming, ranching, small communities. Bismarck is the biggest town. It's not that big. Your people go to church on Sunday. Families are still intact the divorce rate is low they the neighborliness is is is important to them why is it that your folks are behind donald trump and he said because they want obamacare repealed they want tax reform they want the country to be stronger again. They want North Korea stood up to. In other words, Trump's approval ratings may be – it is possible to disapp that because Donald Trump did not run.

I mean, there's no point in having a stronger military if your goal is to get out of our engagements in the world. Donald Trump ran and said the Iraq war was a mistake and a disaster, and sometimes he said it was fraudulent. Yes, he did. he said it was fraudulent. He ran and said that we're going to keep entitlements, not change them. Most conservatives want to reduce them or means test them. And he ran against Obamacare and as much as people say they don't want

Obamacare, they do want Obamacare. They just don't want to be noticed wanting it. The truth about Obamacare is that it's another federal entitlement and federal entitlements are really deep down popular. When you poll people on what they want, they'll tell you what they wish they wanted. But when you really say, no, no, you get this for free, they're perfectly happy. That is the poison of Obamacare. And I don't think

I think that the minute you actually repeal it, that's when you find out that actually all those people who hated it so much, they kind of liked it because it was free. Yeah, I'm willing to – actually, I'm willing to grant all of that except that some of – Donald Trump has already refashioned himself in a couple of regards. He did run against foreign entanglements, to use George Washington's famous phrase, as if he wanted to bring America back home. We're seven to eight months into the presidency. It's clear. He's the president of the United States.

The United States is committed abroad. He's got Jim Mattis at defense, and he's got Tillers. In other words, the point I'm trying to make is, almost in one instance after another another when it comes to appointments when it comes to decisions when about specific how is he going to handle a specific matter he's had a choice between governing as a more or less traditional conservative republican or governing as a wild on the substance or and he he's chosen the conservative path.

All I'm trying to say is that John Hoeven of North Dakota who's a pretty darn good politician, he won his last race by more than, it was close to 80, it was over 80%, 83% to 17%. He must be the most popular Republican elected office holder in the entire federal government.

And his people like the agenda. They like what they people like the agenda they like what they see of the agenda okay but do they also like man-made global war because that's what the trump administration just admitted rob no no no no no you can't just slip in something in the last 10 seconds it's a it's a whole show unto itself for goodness sake but but take a moment to explain what you mean and and well and let's agree to talk about it next time yeah sorry but i know that james got a spot to do and he's gonna blow his top but the trump administration just did the thing that uh that an establishment uh center-right republican the most namby-pamby rhino administration would do and that's issue

issue uh under its own cover from the White House, with the White House in promoter, saying that it's pretty clear that global warming, that the most likely cause of global warming or climate change is human activity, which is something that we've been trying to get them to not say for years, and they said it. A report that was interestingly attacked by a scientist, a climate scientist in the Wall Street Journal. Was it yesterday or the day before? Yes. This is one to which we may return.

James? Yes, if James is talking, it must be time for a commercial. And this is one for Warby Parker. And what do they provide? Well, if you're one of those people who finds themselves going to the mall and losing bowel and bladder control, frankly, when you look at the prices for just what appears to be about two ounces of wire, really? Yeah. Well, they got you over a barrel at those mall stores, which is why you want to look elsewhere. And that's what Warby Parker is for. Prescription eyewear should not cost you more than a plane ticket or an iphone now the company started as a collaboration between four close friends and warby parker was conceived as an alternative to the overpriced and bland

eyewear available today and it is bland you go and it's just the same style over and over again by engaging with customers directly through their website and retail stores warby parker is able to provide high quality good looking prescription eyewear at a fraction of the price available exclusively through warby parker's website and the retail stores the glasses start at 95 fraction of the price. Available exclusively through Warby Parker's website and the retail stores, the glasses start at $95. $95 for the frames in every pair. It's custom fit with an anti-reflective polycarbonate prescription lens. Warby Parker is also eyewear with a purpose, shall we say. Almost a billion people worldwide lack access to glasses.

That means that 50% of the global market population cannot effectively learn or work, which is crazy because glasses were invented 700 years ago. So Warby Parker partners with nonprofits like VisionSpring to ensure that for every pair of glasses sold, a pair is distributed to someone in need. They believe that everyone has the right to see. Now, Warby Parker has a free home try-on program. It's great. You can take them home, and unlike the store where you're trying to find a mirror where you can look at it and it's fuzzy and you can't see it because you're not wearing glasses,

at home you can position yourself exactly. You can take pictures with your phone. It's great. I've done it. And the only trick is to say of the five pairs that I have on loan, I want all five of them. You can try them on for five days. There's no obligation to buy. Ships free.

Includes prepaid return shipping label. Peter, I believe that you happen to be a customer of Warby Parker. How are your glasses treating you today? I am indeed. My glasses are treating me fine. Thank you very much. What happened in my case was I came home with a new prescription from the optometrist. This is not quite two years ago.

And my daughter said, Dad, you need cool glasses. You've got to go online and look at Warby Parker. So I did. And the triad at home works beautifully. They send five glasses at a time. They are rotten. First of all, my daughter helped me choose the five glasses. The glasses arrived. I was able to try them on my wife and daughter examined me from every angle. And we sent that. I think we sent of those back, held on to – well, I can't remember, but except that we tried – in the end, we tried 15 different pairs of glasses and chose one. And I leave it to Ricochet viewers and listeners to decide whether the glasses are cool, but they – my daughter and wife certainly think so. And I just got a new prescription from the optometrist, and I'm about to go onto the website and do it all over again.

One difference in the last couple of years is that there are Warby Parker stores more places, same low prices. So for example, there wasn't one here in Palo Alto. There is one now. If you want to go into a store, you might want to check their online site to see locations. There might be one near you. But if there isn't, the online Try It At Home program is golden. You know, this is where photographs are required, Peter.

Pixar didn't happen. You've got to post a picture of yourself. We want to see whether or not you chose the red, Sally, Jesse Raphael model. Remember, you get a great pair of glasses and somebody in need gets a fine pair of glasses as well. They start at $95 including prescription lens with anti-glare and anti-scratch coating.

WarbyParker.com slash Ricochet to start your risk-free home trial. Our thanks to Warby Parker for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. I'm going there after this because I need new glasses too. I bought some glasses on another site, cheap. The screw fell out. The screw fell out while I was at Heathrow, as a matter of fact.

No, no, it was worse. It was LaGuardia, which is a horrible airport. That is worse. Getting better. They're redoing the entire thing, and it'll be nice, but I'm staggering through wondering if I've had a stroke because one eye doesn't work and the other eye does as I'm going through security. A stupid little screw had fallen out of my glasses again.

Well, the thing of it is, is that if I was in college nowadays, however, I would have to have the strongest possible prescription in order to detect outrage in every single thing that existed prior to my coming to college. And the latest I have been informed by Blue Yeti appears to be this. Students at Reed College, they don't like Steve Martin's King Tut video. Now, do you need to know any more than that? No, you don't, because you get Steve Martin obviously appropriating Egyptian culture. There's nothing Egyptiangyptian about it

it's not a funny song it just isn't it's not a funny bit there's nothing really to it that that requires anybody to look at it now only sort of their late boomer betters saying oh steve martin is the bomb you must watch this this is brilliant but's not. You were stoned in college when you watched that. You thought it was funny, but it isn't. But there are Paul about it. Yes, Rob? If you were in college when you saw that, you are

now 60-something years old. Yes. I mean, it's insanely old, right? We're not talking about the most recent one. We're talking about the one from 78. Is there a new one? No. So how did students...

This is the piece of this story that I just don't get. Why did current students, we're talking about 18 and 19 and 20-year-old kids, why did they select... Why is it Steve Martin's King Tut video that they are protesting? I just don't get this. This is a piece of the story that makes no sense to me. Can you explain that bit, James?

Well, no, I don't. Except that it was used in class. Oh, I see. Okay, alright, that's it. I get it. But it doesn't have to be used. You unearth an artifact from the past, and it's like you just can't... There can be no history.

There can be no time because it's not going to conform to our present standards. There's a moment in the movie The Women, which is like from the 30s, something like that, directed by George Cukor, where the daughter is getting divorced. It's kind of a racy movie, and's like sad because she's going to be alone. And her mother, who's a widow, says, Oh, it's not so bad being alone. I get into bed, I can just stretch out like a swastika. And kind of jump off your chair when you see it. Whoa!

I get it. Anyway. Yeah. The problem is, I mean, this is Reed University, and they've got this group called RAR, which is also a computer suffix for a kind of compression. But that's neither here nor there. And they've been they get up and they disrupt lectures. And there's been some pushback by other students who come from other countries and other cultures. China, India say, wait a minute, we went through a lot to get here, and now that we're here, freshmen trying to learn, you guys are interrupting the professor and keeping them from teaching because you want me to learn from you? No, that's not how college works. I don't

think that's how college works to them. Now, it's entirely possible that somebody was trying to teach incoming students about Mesopotamian culture and soften them up a little bit by playing what they thought to be a funny Steve Martin thing, but of course they can't. So everything has to be examined down to the subatomic level to find exactly where it privileges whiteness and where it enshrines Western hegemony. The thing is, the problem is, is that it's like Cambridge or Oxford or Yale saying that you can graduate with an English, you can be graduated with an English degree without having to read Shakespeare.

They can do it if they wish, but it just means that the product itself is eventually so devalued that people look at something from Reed in a few years and say, oh, that place, I'm not going to take you seriously because I know what goes on there. Whereas the institutions that push back against this firmly and strongly are the ones where it won't be the expensive credentialed great name, but it may have some resonance among people who pay attention. Oh, this is that school that's sensible. This is the place where people actually learn. Let me look at this application. and also i think it destroys the humanities because what we say now is that all i can really trust right now is a degree or training that was rigorous in a specific field so if you went here for engineering or you have that class in engineering or even if you went to

that for-profit university in engineering um you must know your thing whereas if you just went to yale who knows what you know i I mean, I remember talking to somebody who's trying to raise money for Yale, and I said, you know, we act like the brand is somehow absolutely indomitable. There's nothing that could break it down, nothing that could besmirch it.

And of course, that's not true. I mean, you know, you can't buy an IBM typewriter anymore. You can't buy Kodak film anymore. There's lots of great American brands that are now disappeared. I'm not saying it's declined. great American brands that are now disappeared. I'm not saying it's declined.

They've been replaced by something else. But once you, as you say, James, once you devalue the brand, it's a cascade of things, and you don't get it back, especially at those prices. Right. Especially when you're talking about, you're telling American people, we need to subsidize student loans so that you can go to Reed or Yale or wherever and learn a lot of nonsense. Or put it this way, you're always going to learn nonsense, but you're going to learn nonsense

at the cost of learning actual actionable things. And I think that for people who seem to love the humanities so much, and I'm one of them, it really is the end of humanities because it's the end of anything unquantifiable. Why would you pay? Right, and there's the inevitable arms race of self-inflicted anger and misery. And you wonder when you look at these people, these people, there, that was a dog whistle.

When you look at the various groups on campuses that are constantly inflamed and aggravated, what fun is it exactly to be those people? How much – does that strike anybody as a modus vivendi that's particularly pleasurable? It doesn't. But if you're not angry, you're not paying attention, of course, as the bumper sticker says. If you're not outraged, you're not – you don't realize how bad things are. So the moment that you become sedate and confident, in other words, tenure, then, of course, you're dealing with somebody who's got to prove their bona fides by being angrier than you ever were. And so these colleges become these places where it's just nothing but a ripping apart and tearing apart of the one thing that humanity has managed to build that actually is universal, that is anti-race, that is the way out of poverty and misery but we can't have that now we gotta laugh at rick perry laugh at rick perry for saying that fossil fuels are going to prevent

rape which you know what they will they do did you hear that guys we'll leave we'll we'll end with that one we had we had to find a stupid republican saying a dumb thing and it was a rick perry saying that fossil fuels used in africa will prevent sexual assault hardy har what a fool except isn't that kind of yes how public safety works when you illuminate the streets that's right that's right he was making a reasonable point maybe he didn't make it well yes he was making a reasonable point by the way could i i'm sorry back to the university thing i was at dartmouth college earlier this autumn for Homecoming, a big event, and there were some kids, oh, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 kids marching around protesting. I think it was Donald Trump's, the latest iteration of the temporary visa ban, which included, even in that iteration, six or seven majority Muslim countries.

Okay. And I was quite proud of him, actually. It didn't occur to me, myself, but my junior son turned to me and said, Dad, why are they protesting here? 95% of everybody we're looking at already agrees with them. And a very astute professor overheard this exchange and said, you know, that's quite an important point, that it shows that the politics in the current generation has shifted from attempts at genuine persuasion, which is the way democracy is supposed to work, to mere virtue signaling,

not actually moving the political conversation one whit, not attempting to reach out and change minds and provide arguments and persuade but just a kind of self-indulgence that's what we're saying peacock plumage unfurled that's exactly right that's exactly right as j as usual james puts it best well you're going to be there very i'm very triggered by this conversation rob you want to tell them about that uhvern in the square meetup that's coming? Oh, yeah.

So I told you before, I'm recapping that. We are a big meetup for Ricochet members in New England, in Boston, November 11th, 7 p.m. Michael Stope will be there, Michael Graham, Todd Feinberg, and me. Please come. If you're around, come. If you are around and you listen to this podcast and you're not a member, become a member and then come, or come and then become a member there. But I would love to see you either way.

So come to Tavern in the Square, Boston, November 11, 7 p.m. All the details will be at ricochet.com. And while you're at it, of course, you might also go to harrys.com, casper.com, and warbyparker to use that coupon code ricochet and support them for supporting us and get some great stuff in the bargain yourself. And I'll just leave this

for the comments, in addition to all the other things we've been talking about, which I'm sure people have opinions of. Steve Martin was funny then, but it's not funny now. Discuss. And by the way, I think he's a fine dramatic actor, and I love to see him in movies. It was funny then. Some humor ages well.

Some fall flat today. Right. Totally. All right, everybody. Thanks, podcast listeners. Join today. Brand new Ex-John Deere. Only $2.50 a month.

Cheap. Come on! Join you. Keep Ricochet going and you get to contribute to the conversation as well. Rob, Peter, great. We'll see you guys next week. Next week! Now when he was a young man He never thought in C People standing in line

To see the boy king How'd you get so funky Did you do the monkey Now if I had known that line of J.C. I'd take all my money and bought me a museum. Buried with a donkey. He's my favorite honky. Born in Arizona. Moved the battle on your feet.

Dancing by the night. The ladies love the style. Rockin' for the smile. He ate a crocodile He gave his life for tourism Golden Idol He's an Egyptian They're selling you

Now when I die Now don't think I'm a nut Don't want no fancy funeral Just want my gold king touch He could have won a Grammy I'm a nut. Don't want no fancy funeral. Just want my gold king tie. He could have won a Grammy. Buried in his jammies. Born in Arizona. Moved to Pennsylvania.

Born in Arizona. Got a condo made of stoner. King tie. Ricochet. Join the conversation.