The Ricochet Podcast - Shattered

Episode Date: May 12, 2017

It’s never a dull moment with the Trump administration and to parse everything that happened this week, we call on our good friend, former podcaster, and the newly minted host of Washington Week In Review Bob Costa. After that, we take a look back at the 2016 race with Jonathan Allen, co-author of Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign. Also, taping, vaping, and narrative shaping. Source

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. He's a showboat. He's a grandstander. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Longback from Cuba and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lamex and our guests today, Bob Costa from the Washington Post and John Allen on the book Shattered.

Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. Yes, welcome everybody to this, the Ricochet Podcast. It's brought to you by the fine people at HelloFresh. HelloFresh wants to make cooking even more fun. Is it no fun for you? It'll be fun if you go to HelloFresh and use the coupon code RICOCHET30. That'll be $30 off your first week of HelloFresh meals, and we'll tell you a little bit more about that later.

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you know, slip a few shekels, because it's a place for civil conversation, which is rare, really rare on the web. But if you've said, you know, no, that's too much money for me. We have a new tier for the podcast listeners. This one's for you. We are giving you a special rate of $2.50 a month. You can join Ricochet for $2.50 to support the

site. And for that, you read the entire site, including the member post, and you can comment on the podcast post. Now, this is for everybody who says, yeah, I listen to the podcast, but I can't imagine I ever want to say anything about them. Well, maybe you will now. $2.50. If you're one of the multitudes of listeners who want to support ricochet but thought five bucks was too much step up 250 this one's for you peter how are you i'm i'm very well james i'm a little perplexed about the latest news from washington oh no what what the president what the president united states thinks he's doing but our first guest believe, will help us think that through. Aside from that, you know, aside from large issues, my own little life is going quite

well. What about you? Well, isn't that so? Isn't that the way it is for most people? Yes. I mean, for those people who live and breathe by what's on Fox and The Crawl and CNN and the rest, they're consumed by the events of Washington. Outside of that, though, and outside of the people who follow this, like team sports, it's remarkably irrelevant.

That doesn't mean it's not important. We just sometimes forget that not everybody spends all of their time obsessing about this. But there are people, if you look at Twitter and you look at the web, there are people who believe that last week constituted a crisis and a coup, and they ratcheted up the language to indicate that the very foundations of the republic are now at stake i i ordinarily i'm a great fan of tucker carlson i think he's doing a wonderful job and and frankly i i prefer him by a lot to bill o'reilly on the other hand last

night i'd had a long day i was kind of tired and i tuned, and there was Tucker, and he turned to James Rosen and said, James, has Washington ever felt such a sense of crisis before? And I just changed the channel. Well, Tucker actually has been sort of a voice of moderation in the sense that he doesn't believe that this is a crisis. Maybe the question he's asking is, washington itself feeling itself so self-important yes ever i mean the washington media maybe what he was talking about perhaps the mood of the media and the political establishment they're now indistinguishable because they both feed off each other in the symbiotic fountaining of crisis fluid i don't know what that meant but i mean i mean tucker had on something he had somebody on yesterday who was repeating, as

happened on the five, too, because I found myself watching that, that Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia connections, Russia meddling, Russia problem, Russia corruption, Russia, Russia, Russia. Do you think, Peter, that if there was any there there in the Gertrude Steinian sense, might there have been a leak about it now? Oh, I think for sure there would have been a leak about it now. I go right back to where we were two, three, and six weeks ago, which is that we have two alleged crimes. One alleged crime is some kind of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the russians to undermine or otherwise influence the

election and the other alleged crime is that someone improperly leaked the names of americans who had been surveilled but whose names were supposed to remain secret under the law and of the first crime we still have no evidence zero none that the Trump campaign in any way conspired with the Russians. And of the second crime, that somebody leaked names illegally, there is no doubt. And this is, you know, to me, Comey messed up the Hillary investigation. He took on himself the role of the attorney general in deciding whether to press charges or not. It was outrageous. He should have been fired for that.

And then, in my judgment, Donald Trump should have fired him on day one for his mishandling, outraging first the Democrats, then the Republicans, then outraging the Democrats again. But since then, the notion that you have an undoubted crime

staring you in the face and a crime for which there is no evidence and you stress the latter in your hearings before Congress and go light on the – this guy should have been fired 100 times over. So what does Donald Trump do? Mess it up? Mess it up. Hold on a second, Peter. You don't understand at all. The fact that these names were released and unmasked is completely irrelevant.

What counts is the crime they point to. And the very fact that people like you are pointed to something like this as evidence of malfeasance just shows how desperate you are to get away from the real crime, which is Donald Trump and the Russian driver. No, go on. You're saying that the president messed it up. Yes. I mean, if they actually believe we'll ask Bob Cost about this in a second. If the if the administration believed that this would not well, it wouldn't happen exactly as it has happened.

Then they're delusional. Then they're really not very good at this. They had to know. I mean, of course, if Hillaryinton had fired comey now before the right would be having would be having a complete fit in a meltdown i don't think so no no i don't think so of course we'd all be talking about how she was killing the investigation of the server and the 30 000 missing emails and all the rest of it of course not you and me you and i would say if they're you and i would say that guy deserved go. That's one of the few things she got right. Yes, sure, maybe there would be the – who knows what Breitbart would have made of it. But I think – truly, I do believe it was so clear that Comey had screwed up in so many self-ser Washington that Comey had to go, and Trump has managed to do the right thing so badly that everybody's in a lather about Trump, not Comey.

Anyway. Well, as well they should because on top of this, the joy of this administration is that there's never a dull moment ever and and the conversation constantly switches to something else. Because one day you're talking about whether or not he has the right to do this, and of course that he does, and it's the first since Nixon, but no, it wasn't, and then it's Clinton, and blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden we're talking about the fact that the president, the president of the United States, seems to be tweeting out a nice grocery shop you got here. Shame if something might happen to it sort of of threat with this thing about Comey. And here's the tweet, and I believe the tweet was this morning. At 5.26 a.m. over breakfast, maybe dial back the amount of sugar in the waffle syrup. I don't know.

James Comey, better hopes, tweeted the president that there are no, quote, tapes, end quote, of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press unbelievable unbelievable i i i got yeah i mean i here i i'm i'm the whole argument was the what he got going whatever it was two months ago, was that he felt he had been wiretapped by Barack Obama. And so everybody said, well, what's the evidence for that? Turns out there's no evidence for it, but indeed it would have been a serious crime. And so now Trump is saying, ha, ha, ha, ha, maybe I taped Comey. Unbelievable.

And I'm sure that there are people who are saying, no, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is maybe that somebody else taped and it would be and it wasn't him. But who knows? A lot of taping going out there. That's all I can say. A lot of people taping. They tape. We do. I mean, I don't know where to start. And again, and all of truly, truly, truly. I don't know where to start either. I do know where you end up. What you end up with is that the deputy attorney general, whose last name I'm not sure I can pronounce correctly, Rosen something or other, the new deputy attorney general produced a document, aated the specific ways in which James Comey had violated his duties as director of the FDI and usurped, improperly took on himself, decision-making authority that belonged properly to the attorney general,

or if the attorney general was conflicted, as Comey argued that she was the then attorney general, it should have gone to the deputy attorney general. He laid this out in a judicious, straightforward, and very compelling way, and the White House and President Trump should have said, that's it. We took the advice of the Deputy Attorney General. It came from the Deputy Attorney General, of course, because Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, had recused himself from any matters dealing with the Russian investigations, and they should simply have stood on that very well-written, thoroughly reasoned, and compelling document and kept their mouths shut and their fingers off Twitter and instead look. It's just incredible. Right.

Well, I mean you have a couple of things dealing here. First of all, there was the story that supposedly that Rosenstein said – Rosenstein. Thank you. Rod Rosenstein. Rod. Rod J. Rosenstein. If you blame me for this, I you. It's Rod Rosenstein. Rod. Yes. Rod J. Rosenstein.

If you blame me for this, I'm going to quit. There was that, which has been now denied, but who knows. But there's also something else here. There's also Trump's inability to let something go when it possibly can reflect well on himself.

I mean, him saying now that I was going to fire Comey, my decision, comes after a lot of people have been saying, well, where's the guy who was always saying you're fired? Where's the, you know, the swing and clang and pair guy who would uh never stand behind somebody else's decision but would always take it on himself and you say that enough

eventually and you get him coming out and saying i was going to do it it was my decision and when she said but i'm going to get back to these tapes. I'm fascinated as to what these conversations might actually be because this is exactly what happens. First, you're stunned that this is tweeted. Second, you're remarking on the hypocrisy supposedly about whether or not tapes are now good or bad. But then you end up saying, okay, well, what does he have on them? I mean in the course of 17 minutes of thinking about this, what do you think those conversations the president is dangling over Comey's head might be? You know, so what do we know? We know, according to the White House, the president spoke to James Comey three times, twice by telephone and once.

And this, I guess, is the disputed conversation. Once they had dinner together, just the two of them. So just the two of them. It's Comey's word against the presidents and apparently comey now the former fbi director had been telling friends made it what's the way into the press and at the i mean comey is no naive if if it's in the press it's because he wanted it in the press yesterday and today and comey is claiming that donald trump in the one-on-one conversation demanded james comey's personal loyalty to him, Donald Trump,

which was of course an improper demand. And Comey said, I will be loyal to the Constitution. I will be loyal to my duties. I will be loyal to the FBI. But I cannot promise you personal loyalty, which of course was the due and proper response. And Trump was angry, and Comey seems to be suggesting that Trump fired him in the end because he refused to give him

this improper promise of personal loyalty. Trump is angry about that, and so it's his word against the others. Da-da-da-da-da. Good Lord. A, James Comey is gone. Stop this tweeting. Appoint a new FBI director who is above reproach.

And thank goodness, even at this late stage in the decay of the republic, there are plenty of people who could take that job who would be above reproach. I myself, like Senator Mike Lee of Utah's suggestion, that Trump should name Merrick Garland. So do that instead of getting into this crazy match with James Comey. But James Comey will push back somehow. Today, James Comey will be in the news again for sure. If not today, tomorrow, pushing back against Trump. What does Comey have to lose at this point? He's fighting for his reputation, and he can already sense that he's a hero to half the country.

I keep saying unbelievable because he's taking on Trump. All of a sudden. Unbelievable. I keep saying unbelievable because I just cannot believe it. Well, we need to find a word that's perhaps shorter because we're going to be using it a lot for four years. I think in the tapes, perhaps what Trump is threatening Comey with is a little portion of the tape where Comey says, can I have a second scoop of ice cream too?

And Trump says, of course, at this level of power, we all get second scoops. There's a big, big problem on CNN the other day when everybody got one scoop and Trump got two and it goes with a story about how the president's eating tastes are so pedestrian and ultra nouveau riche and crass I got iceberg lettuce and thousand island this guy is just has no class whatsoever which sort of uh is one of the ways of the the media saying saying that our rarefied tastes exceed those of you clods who go to Olive Garden and queue up Cracker Bell. Got you, people. Well, listen, people out here in the hinterland actually enjoy good food. If you're in Podunk, as one of the California senators recently said in a broadband Internet discussion,

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But you've got to start first before you can come back to it. Once you start, I think you'll stick around. $30 off your first week of Hello Fresh. HelloFresh.com. Enter the coupon code RICOCHET30 as your promo code. That's HelloFresh.com, promo code RICOCHET30. And our thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Now, back to Washington, where everything makes perfect sense, and there's absolutely no question about the forward confidence stride of American culture.

We're going to talk to Bob Costa, our old friend here from the podcast National Review and Elsewhere. He's a national political reporter at The Washington Post and the newly minted host of PBS's Washington Week in Review, for which we say Mazel Tov. Follow him on Twitter, of course, at AtCostaReports. Bob, welcome back. What's going on now? Well, I'm sure you've all seen the president's tweets. Yes. Yes.

Bob, Peter Robinson here. Before anything else, congratulations on becoming the host of Washington Week in Review on PBS. You know, I might actually start watching PBS, Bob. We'll follow the example you've set at Uncommon Knowledge. Ah, you sweetie, you. Listen, I don't,'t i really you have to do some explaining here i am i'm totally open-minded about trump there are even moments when i find myself supporting him but this rosenstein the attorney general i beg your pardon the deputy

attorney general laid out a perfectly sufficient rationale for dismissing James Comey, a judicious document that pointed out, I didn't point it, but that substantiated all the ways in which Comey had violated his duties as FBI director. And the president could simply have said, on the advice of the Justice Department, I am dismissing Comey and stopped it at that. Instead, we have him telling Lester Holt last night, I've been planning this for a long time. He's tweeting this morning, threatening with Comey with tapes. What?

I just don't understand. There was a good reason to fire him. There was a rationale laid out by a properly constituted official. And the Trump White House and the president himself won't take a win and leave it alone. Bob? Well, I'm not here to psychoanalyze President Trump, but I think... I was hoping. All right. Well, I think what we're watching in real time is the White House, in terms of the staff and people close to the president, as well as the administration, feel that Rosenstein's memo did outline a criteria to get rid of him. And the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was in agreement with that memo.

They met with the president on Monday in the Oval Office. But based on my reporting, Peter, the president was very frustrated over the weekend when he was at his golf course in New Jersey, fuming about Comey, calling his testimony from last week on Capitol Hill strange, thinking Comey's strange, way too much focus on Russia. So he had these instincts from the president that he outlined in the whole interview and that we've reported on. He really sees Russia as a distraction. He does want to see the investigation close. And so he decided to move on Comey and the first explanation was to use all the handling of the email server and the different investigations as the excuse but the

president said well that was part of it I guess officially speaking but really I just wanted to get rid of Comey because I think the Russia investigation is a fraud. Okay so you have restated in a better tighter better reported way the question I'm asking whoever was were your sort of obviously I'm not asking you to name your sources, but whoever were your sources saying, no, no, no, Rosenstein wasn't it. That memo wasn't it. The president really wanted to shut down the investigation into Russia. That's, that's, it sounds as though you had sources who were all but saying that.

What could they possibly have been thinking? This is like, this is like saying, hey, by the way, slip this in your CD and watch it. It's Richard Nixon. I mean, it's just unbelievable that they would do something that would so easily permit the press to draw parallels between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon, the firing of Comey and the firing of Archibald Cox all those years ago. And then Henry Kissinger shows up in the Oval Office the next day with the Russian officials. So go ahead. Here's the thing. Here's why I think that happened, Peter, because people close to the

president, people within the White House know very well every day, privately mostly, that the president is expressing his frustration, watching TV, growing more frustrated as he sees Russia mentioned. So as much as they try to spin it as a Justice Department memo that led to this, they know because of the president's personality and because of the way he's so uncontained inside of the West Wing, that as much as they want to try to say something else, they know the truth will eventually come out in terms of what drove this. So they're not really trying to paper it up too much. Okay, let me ask, Rob Long just joined us, and I know he wants in and I know James want in, but I want to ask myself for one more question. So Bob, one other piece of your reporting, your story in the Post, that Rosenstein, is it Rosenstein or Rosenstein?

That's a sort of a perpetual question. Let's just say Rosenstein. Okay, that Rosenstein, i'm quoting your story now rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the white house on tuesday evening cast him as the prime mover of the decision to fire comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation now my judgment is the president should have acted only on his recommendation and that's all the white house should be saying. But if Rosenstein threatened to resign, then you've got another layer of what is to me almost incredible disarray here. Who does that? Is that piece of your reporting still standing up? I understand that at some place or other, Rosenstein is now denying that he threatened to resign. And then the second question is, what is going on? The deputy attorney general is asked to write this memorandum. They met the president about it.

What did he think was going to happen? The notion that you now get pushed around by a deputy attorney general. Okay, so does the report stand up? And what the heck is going on there? One, the Post stands by its reporting. Two, you're right. Rosenstein did say briefly to, I believe, a WJLA-TV reporter, simply no when asked, did he threaten to resign? So that has been...

Let me explain something, though. Please, please. Sorry Horowitz, who's a Pulitzer Prize winner at the Post, she had the reporting, she's our Justice Department reporter, long-time correspondent, that Rosenstein, when he saw the White House moving to use his memorandum and his name and his credibility as a way of explaining the Comey firing, expressed to numerous people privately that he was unhappy with this turn of events, that he did not feel comfortable working in an environment where he felt like he was being used in a way. Yes, he stood by his memorandum, his critique of Come he felt like he was being used in a way.

Yes, he stood by his memorandum, his critique of Comey, but he was not told of how this would play out, and he was uncomfortable with how it played out. Whether it was a direct threat or not, you know, that – I see. Here's the thing, Peter, though. Everyone on Capitol Hill – I'm talking about the lawmakers – wants to hear from Rosenstein.

So we're going to hear the story because he's going to be asked to testify. Right, right. Hey, Bob, it's Rob Long here. Thanks for joining us, especially – I think when we asked you to join us, we had no idea it would be so interesting. Let me ask you something. You're reporting. This is sort of a shoe leather question. How much of your reporting is spent trying to get information on what the president's strategy is? And how much of it is spent trying to get information on what he feels and what his emotions are?

Do you know? Do you get it? I get the distinction. I think more of it's probably on the strategy, the former, because it's hard. Every time I report on how he's feeling, I reported the other day that he was feeling isolated and under siege based on conversations with some of his friends and that he was golfing and grousing and felt like the party wasn't with him. The Russia thing had gone on too much. Comey was out of control in his mind. That gets a lot of pushback from the administration about whenever you report on his feelings. But I stand by that's what people close to him were telling me he was saying.

And the thing about the administration is I'm often comfortable with what we do because the president's calling this orbit of friends and associates and business partners whose officials don't even know about each and every day from up in the residence, from the golf course in Bedminster. And he is complaining about the presidency, complaining about his party, grousing that things aren't going his way. But I think what's interesting is that Rob's question is the difference between strategy and feelings for the president is that the White House does seem to have these strategies and these narratives they want to unfold in a certain way. But the president has his own feelings that often run counter to that strategy.

Yeah, I mean it just seems like we can all agree that the DAG's letter was factual and probably thoughtfully prepared and correct, and that Comey probably deserved to be fired. I think he deserved to be fired last July. But the unfolding of this seems – it's disquieting to read reports like you're reporting, which of course is the best reporting out there, about a president who's unable to control himself and unable to control his impulses. That seems like a worrying sign. But

put it this way, are you hearing other people worried about this too, or am I just simply fixating on one thing? Well, there is worry especially on capitol hill but within the white house there's an understanding that this is who president trump is for the people who work with him on the campaign this is how he was on the campaign he was i mean this is a president who goes against his own white house narrative this week his own story from his press secretary and he's's tweeting about Rosie O'Donnell.

And to people who are close to him, they say this is who he is. And he cannot be contained. He cannot be controlled. It doesn't matter about Jared Kushner or Steve Bannon or Reince Priebus or Vice President Pence. This is a president who, and it sounds almost cliche, does his own thing. But he does. I mean, that's how he operates. So I guess my other question, I have two questions after that. One is totally. How much how big is this going to get? I mean, how much trouble is he in right now? Well, for now, the Republicans control the Congress and you see the House Intelligence Committee isn't moving very quickly. Devin Nunes had to recuse himself as chairman, not as chairman, but is running the Russia stuff. And Burr, the senator from North Carolina, the Republican, and Warner, Mark Warner of West

Virginia, they're running the Senate Intelligence Committee, and they are moving forward with different kinds of testimony planned. It's going to probably bring Comey and Rosenstein. But I think the FBI continues to go forward. You saw McCabe's testimony on Capitol Hill. He's the acting FBI director. He says there's no closed investigation. So the question is, is there really a smoking gun here, or is it just more about the Russian interference in the election, which everyone seems to acknowledge happened? But is there some kind of deeper connection? But I think the question that Republicans are alarmed by, when I was at the Capitol all this week, is they believe, forget about Russia, that questions about obstruction of justice could become more of a problem than any kind of Russian question. Right. How much nervousness are you hearing right now about the midterms?

Lots. I mean, they know it's early, but they've only barely passed the health care bill in the House. Nothing's been repealed. The Senate's going to take probably six to ten months to pass a health care bill, and they'll still have to come back to the House. Tax reform is going nowhere at this moment, only in early stages of conversation. There's been no movement on infrastructure. And the Republicans don't have enough votes in the House to get much of anything done. And Democrats are already dug in, believing that they're salivating. The House majority is winnable, and so might as well dig in.

Do they believe that it's winnable because there will be a disaffected base of Republicans who said, what is the point of sending you people there if you have everything and you can't do anything? I mean, you can't do anything? I mean, I can't see a lot of Trump's base saying, that's it. I'm voting for a D now. But again, it may be too much. I don't think it's the Trump base. The way the Democratic strategists have explained it to me when I've met with them is,

look, the left is more animated than ever. The resistance, the Women's March, all this. So you've got the hard left animated. And then they really believe, if you look at that Georgia special election, they haven't won it. But suburban, moderate, centrist, independents, and some moderate Republicans could grow skittish about Trump on questions of obstruction of justice or Russia. And if you can get a coalition of a fully energized left and some moderates, it'll be just like in 06 when the Democrats won the House because the left was up in arms about the Iraq war and so were some moderates. Right.

Or another way to put it, they'll have their own Tea Party moment. And they're moving away from social issues. Look at the post interview with Nancy Pelosi the other day, the Democratic leader. She says, actually, Tom Perez, actually, everyone else in the Democratic Party, if you're pro-life, if you're anti-abortion, you're okay in the Democratic Party, because she knows she needs those social conservatives who are skittish about Trump to come over. Right. And then also, tell me if I'm reading this correctly, Bob, it's Peter here once again. So Trump is having trouble with conservatives in the House, sooner or later, he'll have trouble with, I'm talking about Republicans – with moderates as well.

But in moving the health – attempting to move the healthcare legislation – well, they finally did get it through. But in moving the healthcare legislation, it was that Freedom Caucus that was willing to defy the president. And now over in the Senate, Ben Sasse. Ben Sasse was very dubious about trump throughout the campaign but from the inauguration until just yesterday as best i could tell ben sass was on board to support the president and hope for the best and now ben sass is tweeting that the firing of comey was very very disturbing of course we've got lindsey graham and john mccain essentially unmoored from the administration you could say that that's been the case for a long time.

But he's got – where's this guy's base on Capitol Hill? He's got conservatives against him and moderates feeling very, very queasy. I don't know if he has a base, Peter. I mean the moderates in the Senate, the hawks don't really like him. They're okay with the Syria strikes and that was about it. Privately, I mean here's the thing I'm wondering. them they are they're okay with the serious strikes and that was about it uh privately i mean here's the thing i'm wondering when where's the tipping point because private conversations with republican lawmakers in the house and senate republicans are pretty dim pretty dark right and uh not so much they don't want to psychoanalyze trump either they don't want to start saying

what's going on with this guy but they do do wonder for themselves, when does this really become an administration that just doesn't even get anything done in Capitol Hill and is immersed in battling investigations and accusations and intense media scrutiny? And so they're really wondering, can anything get done? And if nothing gets done really this year, what does that mean for the party in 2018? Do they have to distance themselves from Trump? And he's so unpredictable i mean he's not running any of these tweets by congress by mcconnell or ryan uh right and i think that's the thing it's the comey thing as much as the president thought he was closing the door on

russia in a way he's just poured fuel on the fire oh absolutely absolutely it is the sense because they you know no one's on board because they don't like the policies or because they want to distance themselves from somebody who just strikes them as a loose cannon, a Roman candle, that there's just no good reason to get next to this because you never know how it's going to blow up in your face? I mean this isn't ideological, or is it? It's not ideological, which is – they're okay with Trump's populism and his strident nationalism. They don't all love Steve Bannon, but they actually don't care about Trump's different ideology because they thought they could use Trump to get healthcare feel like if he's totally distracted and the party's in a weaker position because of all the questions about russia and comey then what's then what's trump good for if he can't even execute on signing some of their their key initiatives through congress hey bob here's my unfair question what do people think is behind the russia stuff i mean i keep running around in my head and trying to figure out

at the end of the day if it's all uncovered what that all would be i mean is it just they knew that they had that the russians had hacked into the dnc email servers is is that ultimately what it's all going to be about it could be it could be about knowledge of the servers or the question is how close does it get to the president? Because there's no question that there are some people with links to the Trump campaign. Paul Manafort, Carter Page had friendships, relationships with people within the Putin orbit. Maybe not exactly working for Putin, but business associates, etc. But Trump keeps asking Comey, as he said himself, am I under investigation?

Am I under investigation? Because that's what really the White House is concerned about. They're okay with Carter Page and others being tied because they think they can cut loose those guys. I mean you're kind of not allowed to ask that, right? Right. Well, you can ask whatever you want, but I think so much of this is murky still, which frustrates all sides because we know Russia was interfering, but when did that interference, if ever, become collusion? That's the question. Right. So it's really about politics. It's not about money. It's not like we're going to discover – that's what the darkness is. Oh, there's loans.

Well, I don't rule anything out. I mean I don't like to speculate either, but I don't rule anything out without any evidence. That's why I did say it was an unfair question just in my defense. Well, to clarify things or to muddy things, didn't the people who would have Trump's law firms come out with a big statement today about all of the things that he had financially connected with Russia? I'm seeing this bouncing around the web today, pointing out that there was a nominal amount of money from the Miss Universe contest, which, again, first time ever we've had a president say, no, when I had the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, I didn't make very much money off of it. I mean, so that may may clarify but it won't again we keep using the word russia as if this is a stand-in for collusion and there's been absolutely if if there is fine i agree but there's been absolutely no evidence of this whatsoever ever from the start of it, has there been? It's complicated. I'm not here to make accusations at all. But look, there's a lot of things that need further investigation. I think your point is right, though, that in terms of financial ties between Russia and Trump, it's been very unclear.

Have the sons at different times said that the Trump organization does rely on Russia money? Yes, that's public. We've reported that. But there are really no details. But the president makes it hard on himself and for us reporters when he doesn't release his tax returns. So now we're relying today on a statement from his attorneys, which we have to take at face value in their eyes as this is all he's ever done with Russia, but we still can't see the returns. Right. Well, we know you have to get back to – Can I just put – one last one, just kind of a prediction here from you, Bob. On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that we will eventually know the whole story i i don't think we still know

the full story in watergate or the kennedy assassination okay so like a one look i just think what we really want to find out is was there any direct collusion between russian figures with any links to the intelligence or the Russian government with the Trump campaign, and if there was any kind of, if not collusion, conversations, what were the extent of those conversations? I think people deserve to know that. And two, people need to have a better picture of the president's financial network to know which may influence his thinking on certain decisions, which we still don't have any kind

of real guidance on. I think those are just the basics that people want to know more about. And the problem is on the Russia question, you're right. Russia has become this kind of symbol of – people are allowed to have relationships with people from foreign countries. People are allowed to have different kinds of associations. But I'll tell you, when you watch someone like Carter Page go on TV and have this smirk and kind of be cagey about everything, it does raise questions about what was what were the points of entry for some Russian figures to try to influence Trump's campaign and what did that look like? And we're trying to paint that picture more. Well, yes. Big canvas, many colors, and some skilled hands with a brush. Thanks, Bob, for joining us today,

and we look forward to the next thing that you write and or say on television. We'll talk to you then. Bob, thank you. Thank you. And again, if there's something with Russia, then let all the poisons in the mud hatch out, and that's what I'd like to know. I've just been

hearing this and hearing this and hearing this and rob peter and i were saying before you know the unmasking story the fact that the intelligence community was leaking like a colander doesn't seem to bother anybody and they'll say ah you're not concerned about the crime you're just concerned about the means by which it was exposed this is not fun but what's amusing is to watch the democrats again go through this spasm of uh of being concerned about russia as being some sort of international bogeyman that everybody every right-thinking american must now oppose i mean the day that they stopped lionizing ted kennedy you know went over there when they were commie red bastards and tried to get them to work against

reagan the day they stopped lionizing him that's fine the day that they say that there was something fishy and spineless about Barack Obama saying I'll have more flexibility after the election, then I will. The day they apologized for saying that Mitt Romney was some 80s retro throwback for having the idiocy to suggest that Russia was our number one geopolitical foe. When they say that, then I'll take them seriously. When they say that there's absolutely no chance whatsoever that Hillary Clinton's server with 30,000 deleted messages might not have had something she didn't want exposed to an FOIA about the uranium sale. Would any of these things trouble them?

I'll take them seriously. But we escalated from talk of meddling, which may be just really Guccifer 2 or whatever FSU or FGP or whatever their alphabet soup calling their spies these days. When Guccifer 2 released Podesta's emails, that's contributing, but that's not the same as having Putin's guys go in and alter vote machines. But that's what they want us to think, and they've escalated it to treason, and it's amusing. It's good politics. It's great theater. It might work, but no, i'm not buying it from them at all at all hey but it's not okay good no we're going what are you gonna say but it's not part of the problem i mean it's not part of our problem here with him and part of our problem general

politics is that we we it constantly comes down to yeah but the democrats or the democrats did this or anyone that on the trumpian level it's's always like, well, Rachel Maddow. I mean like on the most level, most sort of irrelevant level, you have people on the left and the right screaming like I just did some battle on Twitter and I just showed them MSNBC or Fox News or whatever it is. And we end up arguing. And I think that's one of the things I find so upsetting with this particular president is that because he puts me in this position of arguing things about what the Democrats did. Whereas, in fact, I think these are all self-inflicted wounds and they get deeper and deeper and deeper because, as I have said over and over again, I'm not convinced that this president is mentally or emotionally stable. Right. But just because the – I understand that, Rob, and I know that you hate the whataboutism, and I do too. But the point that I'm trying to make is that I have nobody here really that seems to me to be operating from any sort of principle anywhere anymore, because either they did a really good job of having no principles before, but now the skills are lacking. Um,

or we just have, we're governed completely by self interested kleptocrats. Yeah. Well, go on, go ahead. No, I'm just,

listen, yes, I take the point, but not completely. Because of course, there's Jeff Sessions at Justice. And there's Jim Mattis at Defense. And there's Kelly at Homeland Security. Those guys are tough and principled. And but I agree, the idea that you can say, well, you know, there's only thing, well, there's really there's only one thing wrong with the Trump administration when it comes right down to, oh yeah, what's that? Well, it's sort of, it's Donald Trump. That's a problem. Well, we were told that we're getting a great new style of leader who was bold and decisive and would be able to drain that swamp, cut out the middleman, as you might say.

Speaking of which, the middleman is often responsible. Speaking of which, you, the yacht. I don't have time. And I had to throw that one past Rob before he saw it. I knew it. I support it. I don't have time.

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of community and content at sidewire a columnist for roll call and an adjunct professor at northwestern university he's also the host of the dc BS podcast. Welcome, John, to the Ricochet podcast. Thanks for having me on. Hey, John, it's Rob Long in New York. Thanks for joining us. I got a question for you. Your book is very tough on the Clinton campaign. It says some really tough things. And the Clintons and that clinton operation have a tendency to sort of hit back at stuff what what's what's been the reaction i know what the official reaction's been but what's been the reaction privately to this book does anybody call you up or do you get a sense that people are saying yeah man you're right i wish we had dot X or Y or Z, we blew it? Or are they still in the Russian meddling emails kind of running for cover position?

I mean, the preponderance of feedback we've gotten privately has been that we nailed this thing on the head, you know, both from people that we talked to and people we didn't talk to. Certainly there are, you know, people that have issues and have made them public and people have taken issue with a paragraph here, a paragraph there, but mostly what we're hearing from people inside Clinton world is that they're impressed with how accurately we portrayed what was going on. Peter Robinson here, John. By the way, I can confirm that. Although my colleagues here, Rob Long and James Lilacs, may be astonished to hear this, I do have a couple of friends in Clinton world, and they concur. You got it.

You nailed it. So here's the question that everybody's asking. Shattered? What am I? The poet W.H. Auden said there's a difference between the Greek sense of tragedy and the sense of tragedy in the West in Greek tragedies a tragedy is a tragedy because it could not have been

otherwise and in the West, the modern Western sense of tragedy is that it's a tragedy because it could have been otherwise and your book reads like the sinking of the Titanic after the iceberg hit. I mean, it's just one accumulation of disarray, disaffection after another,

and it almost feels like a chronicle of this horrible, inevitable, slow-motion catastrophe that everybody was aware of and that nobody could do anything about but of course that can't be the case because they were human beings they could have who could have stopped this name two or three points that in retrospect after writing this book you say there was a turning point they did the wrong thing they could have done this instead can you do that well what's so fascinating is i think that that the biggest things were things that she did herself before this campaign started and after the 2008 campaign. So while she knew she was at least thinking about running for president and probably going to run for president, she sets up this email server, which ends up being a dark cloud over the campaign from before the launch date, because we found out about it in March 2015, all the way through the end of the campaign, being a dark cloud over the campaign from before the launch date, because we found out about it in March 2015, all the way through the end of the campaign,

everything that you attribute to Jim Comey, the FBI director, is something that sprouted out from that. He wouldn't have been involved in this campaign at all if not for the server. She gives these speeches to Wall Street banks at a time of rising populism. Nobody in their right mind with a political tuner would have advised her to do that. And in fact, some people told her not to do it. And her response was, they'll hit me for something. But this is a particularly bad thing to do politically at this moment. So those were a couple of things she did early on. And then this is the second time she's run for president without a message, without a clear reason why people should elect her to do something for the country. And so the why her, why now question was never answered. And, you know, Bernie Sanders had a clear message.

He wanted to take power and money away from elites and give it give more of it to other folks. Donald Trump had a clear message that was nationalistic. Hillary Clinton was for a million different things and in some ways was for nothing. Okay, so another question here is sort of follow on from that. You had in this, I mean, in your book you interview everybody. You're talking to all the people on the campaign. And although I personally disagree with them on nearly every issue you could name, there's no doubt these are highly intelligent, very deeply experienced people. She had gathered around her the Democratic A-team, people of experience going back a couple of decades.

So how can it be the case unless there was simply this strange will to power and she looked like the best shot going? How can it be the case that so many people gave her their support, worked so hard for her? When it came right down to it, she was a terrible candidate. On Wall Street, somebody will say, I don't care how much you've invested. Sunk costs are sunk. Every single day, you should look at your portfolio as if you were investing for the first time. Nobody looked at Hillary Clinton that way in this campaign. How could this have happened?

Well, she was, as you point out, the only game in town. And by the way, I love the question about Greek tragedy or Western tragedy. The book's subtitle is Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign. And it could have been tragic as opposed to doomed but um it's funny tragic might have been misinterpreted to mean western when it had a little bit more of a greek feel yes yes so she was the only game in town she was absolutely the only game in town so many of the people that came to work for her were uh longtime folks who were ready to get back in, and then some of them were Obama folks who only knew campaigning in the Obama era

and only knew campaigning with a candidate who had Barack Obama's unique set of talents. Hillary Clinton did not possess anything like Barack Obama's talents as a campaigner. So one more question for me, and then I know Rob Long wants to get back in, James Lilacs too. But on election night, I'm assuming you stayed up as late as the rest of us did, but I suspect there may be a difference in your response. You were not surprised. Is that true? Could that be? I was surprised. Oh, you were not surprised. Is that true? Could that be? I was surprised. Oh, you were?

I did. Like everybody else, I looked at the polls, and the polls said she was going to win. And it's interesting. My co-author and I talked to our editor in October, and we've been working on all the early chapters, you know, the chapters about the primaries and whatever for quite a while. And he called us in October, and he said, guys, you you got a problem. And we said, what's the problem? He said, this book, it sounds like the campaign is miserable. They're making all these mistakes. It sounds like doom and gloom.

And she's going to win the election and be the next president. How are you going to square that? And we were like, well, let's deal with it after election day. Donald Trump handled that one for you. Right. I mean, we thought going into election day. Donald Trump handled that one for you. Right. I mean, we thought going into election day, just like everybody else, or just like most people, that the polls had her with enough of a pad and enough of the right places that she was likely to win. We were hearing that from her side.

The most optimistic people on the Trump side were saying, if we pull it inside straight, we'll win. So we did our reporting well. I mean, I'm proud of the fact that we did the reporting and writing without regard to who we thought was going to win, but we definitely thought she was going to win on election day. Hey, John, it's Rob Long again. I got one question for you. Do you think she's read this book?

You know, I don't know. I wish I knew. She read the last one. We're told that she liked the last one. My guess is if she reads this one, she probably won't like it as much. Yeah. You know, because it forces – I mean, it would force her to look in the mirror. But I have to say I also think that, you know, getting back to the sort of Greek tragedy stuff, I mean, I think her humanity comes through

in the traits that are both strengths and weaknesses. And in some venues, they're strengths, and in other venues, they're weaknesses. For example, she's really into public policy. She really cares about it. She can explain the ins and outs of pretty much any policy to you at a far deeper level than any candidate. If you're in office that's a

great trait if you're a candidate it gets you bogged down in the weeds and you you never you never say things in black and white terms the voters really want to hear in terms of trying to figure out where your heart is um so the next question which one last one sorry peter do you think she's done right you think she's done, right? Do you think she's done? No. She said on election night, and we detail this in the book, we've got like a big TikTok of like what happened in her hotel suite that night as she's finding out she's losing and all these back and forth calls with the White House and with Trump. And she says to her staff as they're working on her concession speech that,

that it's someone else's job now to fight for democratic values. And she wants to just exit gracefully. And she says that this was my last race. There's been some talk of her running again, but it's been a very low level rumor mill kind of thing. I don't expect her to run for office again. Related question from Peter here, John. Are the Clinton people done?

As you know very well, say, for example, the Bush family. I can remember being at the dedication of the old man's presidential library, and the young Bush, George W w who was then governor of texas walked through the huge tent that had been set up for lunch after the formal dedication ceremony and shook every hand and you could see this organization this network of people fundraisers political operatives supporters of a hundred different kinds shifting from the old man to George W. Bush, this whole network. Likewise, the Clinton operation, they've been putting together this network for a couple of decades. Is it done or do they simply stay in Washington and reattach themselves to some other candidate?

How does this work? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's a different answer for different people. There are people who are still working for Hillary Clinton that are part of that network and still people working for Bill Clinton for his foundation stuff that are part of that network. But I think it's going to get a lot smaller. And, you know, I think some of them would like to, you know, sort of hitch on to Chelsea Clinton. But like, I just don't see that. I mean, right. You know, she could she win a House seat in a heavily Democratic area in New York? Sure. I don't see her winning statewide office anytime soon. Certainly don't see her being a competitive presidential candidate probably ever. populism, more agitated left-wing side, more progressive, that's probably going to continue, isn't it? In as much as the people who are now part of the resistance are not inclined to be

very moderate. Does the Democrat Party have a problem perhaps overshooting its mark, thinking that the time is ripe for more extreme progressive policies and nominating somebody who's not exactly in touch with the people who voted for Trump? I think you're right that the Democratic Party is moving left. I have no doubt about that. And I think they were for some time. And even Clinton, who was seen as a centrist by so many people in her party, was moving left in this election. And I think that hurt her, to be honest. I think it made it harder for her to persuade people in the middle. That said, voters often have just the binary choice, Democrat or Republican. So I've been watching our politics for a long time, and it seems to swing back and forth between the parties, not entirely regardless

of whether the extremists are running the party or not, but to some degree. In my lifetime, we've seen a lot more push. We've seen the Republican Party move right for the most part and the Democratic Party move left. Donald Trump is kind of a question mark in that. Well, it's entirely possible that the people who saw the Republicans win the Congress, both branches and the presidency thought thought, here we go. Finally, we're going to save America.

We're going to wake up in six years with a single payer and free college and think, wait a minute. How the hell did that happen? And we'll read your book about that. We'll read the book that you write about that. It'll be a heck of a hangover for them. Yeah, it will be. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today, John. John, an astonishing act of reporting the company it's a great book it's a great

astonishing piece of reporting thank you thank you so much guys i don't think the a nation is uh puts its its embrace its its lonely gaze out to chelsea there are some but there are some who believe that it's you know like like you know yoda in the second star wars movie when the ghost of obi-wan says she was our last you know he was our last hope and yoda says no there is another and that's going to be chelsea somehow and the attempts to build her up and to make her into this sage right this hip person who's now speaking out untrammeled unfiltered the new fresh voice of the of the uh resistance is absolutely it's hilarious isn't it it's bizarre too because it it's so hollow i mean this there there's zero accomplishments there. It really is the worst

kind of like Kim Jong-un style succession. It's almost like succession porn, really. It's crazy. If you had a job that you wanted to fill and the only qualifications

were unearned patronage and success, well, you'd go right to her. But that's not always that easy sometimes. You've got to recruit. Democrats have got to recruit better people. You've got to recruit better people.

And if anybody wants to do that... How could they possibly know how to recruit? I don't know. Recruiting is really hard. That's a recruiter who comes right into you. Oh, what?

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why you can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free by going to ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial. One more time, probably. Free trial at ZipRecruiter.com. Our thanks to ZipRecruiter, of course, for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, all I can say is that Homer nods and James Lilac says, speaking of which, I am. Oh, you mean the inelegant transition that I had to do before?

That was a good one. That was a good one. I felt bad interrupting it. Not that bad. Checking my Twitter feed, this is how fast things move there's no point to doing a podcast anymore unless it's live and it's immediately followed an hour later by a different one about the same thing and the stuff we've learned i mean stuff comes so that i mentioned that there's this lawyer letter and now i'm looking at this conversation between pod horitz

and annie mccarthy and somebody else saying that now there's a question of whether or not there's some money laundering going on in here whether the oligarchs were using the trump administration as dupes to get i it's it the amount of stuff that comes at you in in 24 hours i don't even remember what everybody was bent out of shape last week but i knew to this is that we have a press that is that has decided that the narrative is going to be impeachment and they're going to work for it however possible that's that's the goal so they have be impeachment, and they're going to work for it however possible. That's the goal. So they have to kind of work backwards from that in a certain way.

Because this is their watergate. They've been itching for a watergate of their own ever since they were little kids watching all the president's men. And so that's not going to happen. I mean, it's not going to happen. But that's their assumption. That's their desire. And I've never really quite seen anything like this. It doesn't have to do necessarily with politics. It has to do with, A, this imaginary narrative of this anti-LBGT Donald Trump troglodyte from the 19th century Robert Barron era.

And then, B, as a lot of people people point out there is just a simple revulsion at the guy himself that is class-based um and said no and c um there is also the hatred of somebody who doesn't seem to know or care how to play the washington game is that right guys um no i don't think so i mean i think it i think it's right does not play the washington game the guy who guy who knows how to play the game is to find anyone else to blame. I mean, the problem is, is that he's trying remarkably incurious and i think lazy when it comes to really actually affecting change so i suspect his uh the people who are on the fence thought they take a chance for him are going to start abandoning him pretty quickly unless he managed to do something everybody who wants a wall wanted a wall is going to have to sort of swallow something i don't know what they're going to have to sort of swallow something.

I don't know what they're going to get. They'll probably get E-Verify and they'll probably get drones, which is better and smarter anyway, but it's not what they were screaming for during the campaign. If they're lucky, they'll get that. But that's not playing the game. That's not playing the game. Playing the game is the retail politics of bringing people in, of flattering them. But that is that.

That's not the game. That is American politics. That's been American politics of bringing people in, of flattering them. But that is – that's not the game. That is American politics, and it's been American politics for over two centuries. Then call it that. The president who was, I think, in our – barely my lifetime, but in modern American history, who was the most effective at this was LBJ. LBJ managed to do enormous harm, but he did enormously complicated big things, and he did it legislatively. He did it in the way American presidents do it,

by twisting arms, by doing stuff that is in the history books. This president is not interested in that. He's interested in watching TV shows. On the contrary, speaking of tragedy by the way we have to be very careful about painting with too broad a brush about how the press has its narrative already written because we just interviewed two very good reporters bob cost is

a careful yes and skillful reporter you're right john allen no no i don't know but i just wanted to carve that out there are still very reporters, and good reporting is still a magnificent thing when you see it. And we saw some of it this morning. But I just interviewed yesterday morning Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget. And this was before Donald Trump tweeted about Comey. And here again, yet again, yet again, I meet somebody who has a high post in the trump administration and i am deeply impressed highly intelligent knows the budget spent six years in the house of representatives knows exactly how legislation moves understands the the difficult accounting of

the federal budget the congressional budget office how you score and is totally i asked him one question look the out the long-term prospect is for a growing deficit. You want to cut spending or raise taxes? And he said, no, no, no. Neither one of those is going to be sufficient. The whole game here is economic growth. We must get back from growth of about 2% or under up to 3% and above. So he, highly intelligent, had everything just exactly right and then i

we leave the studio and a couple of hours later i think it was just well in any event the trump white house starts messing up the comey narrative it's not just that and then trump tweets this morning there comey better be careful there may be tapes it's not just that he knows doesn't know how to play the washington game as james put it it's not just that he knows doesn't know how to play the washington game as james put it it's not just that he doesn't understand the intense work involved in actual politics although in my judgment both of those are true what we see here is this is my new thought my new fear is some weird self-destructive impulse. And that really rattles me because that in some fundamental way, that's what brought down Richard Nixon.

I think I just heard another. We just heard another story about it in a funny way from John Allen about Hillary Clinton, all the things that she did to sabotage herself. And now here we have this horrible psychodrama playing out on the national stage yet again. Donald Trump tweeting something so unbelievably provocatively stupid and ignorant that it can't help but make matters worse. And also interesting, like also fascinating. Like I do want to know if there are tapes. That's what we were saying, right. Why create your own bonfire? It seems crazy to me. It seems get that. But, I mean, at some point, you have to realize this is the preexisting culture, which you are not going to change with tweets and a couple of interviews and yelling at the shows. It's a long –

Yelling at the shows is a perfect – It perfectly encapsulates the problem. Yeah. I mean, you – encapsulates the problem yeah i mean you he made and the other and i mean i i just the sense of trap but he's got very good people in place mitch mcconnell has figured out how to work with the administration he seems to mick mulvaney said yesterday during our interview and again what i'll post needless to say i'll post it as i always do to ricochet so people can see the man for themselves but he said that he'd had some of the best conversations about economics and the federal budget with Gary Cohn, another senior official at the White House, whom I have not met.

But he said Gary Cohn is brilliant and they're having fascinating and important. So all Donald Trump needs to do is turn off the phone. Acting presidential is easy when in some basic way you've got your administration in place and all you have to do is be quiet just a little bit to rob's point some self-control the self-control that we'd ask of a 17 year old for goodness sake so i just i just have this horrible sinking feeling any other week i'd push back against you guys and defend Donald Trump. But this week I've developed this. I hope it's only subjective.

I hope it's only a mood. But I've got this feeling that we've got. Once again, we're in for a slow motion tragedy. Tragedy in the sense that so much could be done but won't be done. And we can blame the system. We can blame American politics as usual. But the truth is that this blame American politics as usual. But the truth is that this is how the presidency works.

And if you want the job, that's what you've got to do. If you want to be the lion tamer, you've got to put on a top hat and you've got to go in the ring. And if you want to be an opera singer, you've got to gain 100 pounds and you've got to sing. That's the job. You can't get into the job and then say, okay, I want the job to be something different. You can only do a few big things every quarter, especially if you want to effect change. It requires focus, absolute focus and discipline. And there is no person on the planet who can change that, and certainly not Donald Trump. You also have to be comfortable that when that deal is struck, when your great deal-making skills that you touted to the public, when it results in something good, you have to be willing to share credit with somebody else.

The point of the art of the deal is not to have everybody point at you and say how brilliant you are. When this great economic team that Peter is talking about comes up with something and we have growth, you have to be able to share the stage. Step away. Put down the phone. Let other people shine for a moment because it's not all about him, but it is all about him. It's always been all about him. And that's what's not going to change. That's not going to change.

It's absolutely baked into his marrow. And yet, and yet, just so we're not all piling on, and yet, one or two serious legislative victories that are comprehensible to the American people as progress

could turn it all around, could turn it all around. I mean, you know, that's the great thing about American politics and the American presidency is you can turn it all around, but they just don't ever seem to get that – they don't seem to ever get that momentum.

It's embarrassing. This is embarrassing. And before – I know we have to run. Before you go, I just want to say one thing. You know Hillary Clinton's reading that book. You know she's reading that book. I mean I was very – well, she read the first one. I don't think she she was the first one I think she's really so you know she's reading

probably under the covers probably whatever but she's reading every minute of it every page every word well everybody to uh to borrow a term from the president that he invented just recently you can prime the pump of ricochet by spending your money in wise ways that new two dollar and fifty cent tier will allow you to listen to every single podcast and the member feed and post on the podcast comment feeds. It's cheap. It helps support us. What are you waiting for? Sign up. We're also brought to you by HelloFresh, Casper Mattresses

and ZipRecruiter.com. You can use the coupon codes that you see there on the Ricochet page. Do so and that'll help them support us even more in the future. If you like the show, please head over to iTunes and give us a five-star rating. We're begging you, please.

Because, well, no, I mean, be honest. But that helps surface the show and more people discover us, more people join, keeps it all going. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. Rob, we didn't even get to talk about Cuber, but perhaps you can write a post about that for Ricochet. Could that be possible? Sure, I think so.

There you go. Everybody, we've now got Rob on record saying that he will, with photographs and all the rest of it. Peter, my regards to Clement, California, and we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 3.0. Next week, amigos. Shatter. Next week, amigos. Shatter Friends are so alarming And my lover's never charming Life's just a cocktail party on the street

Big apple, paper, dress Shirt and bags, undirected Shatter Some kind of fashion Shatter Life, the joy and loneliness Saxon, saxon, saxon, saxon Look at me

I'm in talent I'm a tatters I'm in shatters Shatters All this chitter chatter Chitter chatter Chitter chatter About schmatter Schmatter

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Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter

Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter

Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter

Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter

Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter

Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter

Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter Shatter I'm a shadow.

I'm a shadow. What does that matter? Does it matter? Uh-huh. Does it matter? Uh-huh. I'm a shadow. I'm a shadow. The election been on October 27th. I'd be your president. you you you