The Ricochet Podcast - Stone the Heretics!

Episode Date: November 9, 2018

Our traditional format is two guests per show, but when we have someone as smart and loquacious as Ben Shapiro, we toss our traditions and do it live. We cover the mid-terms, we look at 2020, take a gander at Trump’s management style and a host of other host takes. Also, another edition of “What Are You Watching?” and Rob Long hosts a contest for new members. Join today! Music from this week’s... Source

If you're with FBD Insurance and your van gets robbed, it's not a flippin' bloomin' disaster. That's not what FBD stands for. FBD stands for support. We support van owners like you by covering your work tools up to the value of €500 if they're stolen with your van. FBD Insurance. Support. It's what we do. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD Insurance team.

Requires valid van theft claim. It's what we do. This spring, escape to the Metropole Hotel in the heart of the Victorian quarter of Cork. Enjoy a city break with dinner, bed and breakfast, all from just €125 per person sharing. Wander the charming streets, soak in the culture and experience Cork at its finest. Book your perfect spring getaway today at themetropolehotel.ie. The Metropole Hotel, where timeless elegance meets city charm. 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.

That's enough. Put down the mic. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lylex and our guests today, Ben Shapiro, Ben Shapiro and Ben Shapiro. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast number 424. And you're just about to lean for that fast forward button to skip through the ads.

Don't do that. Rob's here. Peter's here. I'm here. I'm James Lilacs. I'm asking the question to both these guys. Post-election, what do you think? Was that the tsunami that they wanted?

Was it a ripple? Was it a puddledle was it a misting what what i know everything's changed now because the democrats have the house and that means as one bbc comment said uh this this could be a significant problem for mr trump and make it difficult for him to pass his domestic agenda through the house i thought what agenda right what does he what what what's locked up in the house the d's are not going to squat on so what do you think guys you want to go first oh i don't okay i'll go first give give peter a target i'll give you the chance to to correct and amend your remarks uh yeah exactly um uh two things one i think that the democrats did the the best i mean look this obsession and crazy freakout over the fact that the House has changed hands, that has been true for Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump now for a quarter century that's happened. And Reagan, the House didn't change hands because it was in Democratic hands all the time, but he lost 26 seats in his first off-term election.

You can include Reagan in other words. You can include Reagan, I guess, in that. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that American politics is not entering a new phase of gridlock. It has been pretty much this for a quarter century, and that seems to be what the people like. And I – by the way, I applaud them for it. If they don't do – not doing anything in D.C. or not getting anything done is music to my ears. So in a sense, that is exactly what happened. If you sift through the ruins there, you see, okay, well, the Democrats did well in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Those are important states for them. And they once again came squeakingly close to winning a governorship and frankly, even the Senate seat. I mean, who knows what's going to happen if there's a recount in Florida? That's also sort of interesting. What's interesting for Republicans is that they held in red states the way they were supposed to, that it wasn't really the drubbing that, frankly, I was expecting in the House. And that they're – that Republicans' secret weapon remains the inability of the Democrats to run anybody normal in states where it matters. So like the fact that Democrats just inflexibly and predictably go for left-wing liberal progressives when the path to victory is so clear for them. Moderate Democrats, especially southern moderate Democrats, are practically unstoppable in american politics like it's so clear to them suggests that despite the fact that the republicans are incompetent and chaotic and utterly without without uh uh this these days principle and completely without any particular uh uniform strategy they will still be able to

eke out last minute victories because the democrats are actually worse, actually worse at this than is really to be believed. So that's my takeaway. My takeaway is, boy, the Republicans are lucky. They have found the only political party probably on earth dumber than they are. Peter? I'm not sure I'm going to disagree with all of that oh no tracy tracy abrams would have won in georgia and gillum would have won in florida if they had not been just as rob said the democrats nominated people who were out of the mainstream of their own party

let alone out of the mainstream of those states bill Bill Nelson, who is as close to a zombie, as close to walking dead as the Senate of the United States contains. And that's saying something. This 76-year-old who has never done anything in his long political career is within four-tenths of a point in Florida. There's going to be, it will trigger an automatic recount of Rick Scott, who is an unbelievably accomplished businessman, a successful two-term governor of Florida, and now he can't even beat Nelson decisively. Okay, the Republican Party, the good news is we held on. And the good news, which really is good enough for a while, is that what the Republican Party – what Donald Trump stands – the Republican Party now stands for Donald Trump. And what Donald Trump stands for is not them.

He stands for opposition to rule by liberals. And he has succeeded for two more years. If you're not – and in fact, he may even be in a, they're going to start holding hearings. They'll make his life complicated in the house. But if you're Donald Trump, you may be saying to yourself, come at me, baby. This is going to give me something to run against in 2020. You may be happy if you're Donald Trump, but if you're one of the younger generation in the Senate, if you care about the Republican party, if you care about a conservative agenda, here are the things you're going to notice. What's the agenda? Very hard to say. The other thing you're going to notice is just make a list of the states that

were safe Democratic, that were just never in play, that never received any press because it was so obvious the Democrats were going to win. California, New York, and New Jersey, at a minimum. You could argue there are others that belong there, but for sure, those three. By the way, Ronald Reagan carried all three in 1984. Now, consider this – And Bush in 88. And Bush in – did Bush carry New York in 88? I won't dispute it.

I don't know. I'm not sure. But he certainly did carry California in 88. Now consider the safe Republican states, the states that are just locks for Republicans. Again, we could dispute this list, but here's the list I come up with. Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alabama, and Mississippi. You can't even include Louisiana, to be sure, in that list. And in the safe Democratic list, you come up with a population of 67 million Americans.

And in the safe Republican list, you come up with a population of 13 million. This is, Donald Trump is not taking pains to expand his base, to reach out, to try to grow a Republican party that can succeed in years to come. That task is going to fall to someone, to others. And they don't have that much time to start thinking it through.

He's treating the Republican party like he treated his creditors, right? True. It's true. Not terribly interested in their longevity, which, OK, that's fine. I'm not – no argument there because I kind of think that – I wrote the CNN Democratic partisan panelists were, how quickly they're not with you, they're racist. You can't insult people for years and years and years and then expect them to somehow do the right thing according to you despite what that – no one seemed to mention that Obama carried Florida in 2008 and 2012. So it's hard to say that just because now they didn't vote for your preferred governor, gubernatorial candidate, they are now sort of being written out of polite society. That is like – if I were a Republican, I'd think, well, we don't have a message. We don't have a messenger. We don't have anything that is appealing to the great gigantic country that's sort of exploding right now. We've got nothing, but nothing is better than what they have, which is repellent, toxic, angry, reading out of the culture,

reading out of polite society of anyone that disagrees with them, which this is why Trump – It's not a satisfying position, but it is true. It is true. Our nothing is better than their something. But I would love to compare what you guys are saying this week with last week because as we all know hindsight is 2020 unless of course you're wearing your glasses in the back of your head and you look stupid unless those glasses are really stylish which is why you should go to warby parker warby parker founded with a rebellious spirit and

a lofty goal to create boutique quality eyewear at a revolutionary price point available exclusively through warby parker's website and retail, their glasses start at just $95, including prescription lenses. You've been to one of those mall places lately? Get out of there for $95. Maybe you'll get a cleaning cloth. Look, Warby Parker, they have eyewear with a purpose. Almost 1 billion people worldwide lack access to glasses, and that means that 15% of the global population can't effectively learn or work which is crazy because glasses were invented 700 years ago we ought to be on top of this already right well warby parker partners with non-profits like vision spring to ensure that every pair of glasses sold a pair is distributed to someone in need because they believe that everyone has the right to see. Now, Warby Parker makes buying glasses online, well, easy and risk-free.

You say, how can that possibly be? Well, they have a try-on-at-home program. It allows you to order five pairs of glasses shipped directly to your door. You can try them on in the comfort of your own home. And since you probably have problems with your eyes, you can't see what you look like, so you can ask people around you how they look. You can try the frames for five days before sending them back with a free prepaid return shipping label, no obligation to purchase. 100% free.

So easy to do. I've done it. Sunglasses start at $95, and that includes polarized lenses. They're available with prescriptions starting at $175. Warby Parker sunglasses feature premium polarized lenses that are scratch-resistant and provide 100% UV protection. Peter Robinson, the most stylish man of course in california is here to tell you about his warby parkers you love them don't you i do love them i do love them i am wearing them at this moment

and i paid a little extra to get the um photo gray lens or whatever it's called the thing that sensitive to light so and i have done away with my sunglasses. I don't. I just went for a jog in these things. I came back. And this is, to me, this is it. This is the highest. I could aspire to nothing more. My son, my 25-year-old hip Manhattanite son, looked at the glasses and said,

Dad, you're making a statement. Cool. So Warby Parker has done it for me. You too can make a statement like Mr. Robinson here and do something well charity-wise as well. Free try-at-home program, as I mentioned, five pairs of glasses. Try them on for five days, no obligation

to buy. Ships free. Includes a prepaid return shipping label. Head to warbyparker.com slash ricochet to order your free home try-ons today. Glasses start at $95 including prescription lenses, and lenses include anti-glare and anti-scratch coatings. For every pair you buy, remember, a pair is distributed to someone in need.

That's warbyparker.com slash ricochet to order your free home try-ons today. And also, do you have an iPhone X by any chance? Make sure to download Warby Parker's app, where you can use their brand new Find Your Fit feature. Find Your Fit uses the iPhone's true depth camera to map and measure key facial features. And using these measurements, Find Your Fit recommends approximately 12 Warby Parker frames that are likely to fit you best. What a world in which to live. Process is seamless, takes only a few seconds. So so there you go warbyparker.com slash ricochet and our thanks to warby parker for sponsoring this the ricochet podcast to get back

to what rob was saying about the democrats choosing people outside of their own mainstream are they really do they have a mainstream any more i can't exactly figure out what they were running on in the first place other than love trumping hate and the end of the climate and and bad orange man and all the rest of that stuff i didn't there wasn't a lot of talk about agendas there was a lot of talk about tone as if we were just all voting on national matters this time around well but that's okay that that actually is okay that is how the opposition regains the house has has done traditionally um is to say i to stop the radical behavior of president x, to thwart the passage of terrible liberty-killing laws that President Y is doing.

That actually was a pretty solid playbook. Their problem was that when it got down to the ground, their marquee candidates were MSNBC candidates. And we do not live in an MSNBC nation. Kill him down in Florida. Actually, he did actually have some substance to his campaign. He came out for tax hikes. He wanted to increase the tax on corporations and wealthy people. It was a little bit vague, but he made it very clear he was going to hike taxes, and he lost.

He lost even narrowly even at that. And I would you would say he was a marquee candidate. Let it be noted that the Democrats did pick up seven governor's mansions, mostly up in the upper Scott Walker lost in Wisconsin. They lost in the upper Midwest. And those people ran on moderate agendas with the result, A, that MSNBC and CNN paid no attention to them and B, that they won. In other words, I am making Rob's point. As you know, I am loathe to do so, but I am giving Rob evidence to prove his point. And notice, though, I mean, a very interesting race in Missouri, right? Claire McCaskill versus Josh Hawley. Right.

McCaskill has already had a couple of near-death experiences politically. Her last race was a little tough. But the last two weeks of her campaign, she was arguing that we have to do something to stop the caravan. She really had kind of had a come-to to Jesus moment or a come to Trump moment. This spring, escape to the Metropole Hotel in the heart of the Victorian quarter of Cork. Enjoy a city break with dinner, bed and breakfast, all from just 125 euro per person sharing.

Wander the charming streets, soak in the culture and experience Cork at its finest. Book your perfect spring getaway today at themetropolehotel.ie the Metropole Hotel, i.e. the Metropole Hotel, where timeless elegance meets city charm. And realize what she needs to do to win in Missouri, because people in Missouri care about the border, whether they should or they shouldn't, whether they care too much or not enough. That is a separate issue. The primary

issue there is that there are people in America. They are they are predominantly white and they are rural. They voted for Obama in 08. Fewer of them voted for him in in 2012. But they are absolutely winnable. They are a natural constituency constituency for the Democrats, honestly, because, you know, what what populist candidate, including Trump, has not run for maintaining federal expenditures, maintaining entitlement plans? That's what Trump ran on. I won't touch your Medicare or your Social Security. It's a very popular position.

Whether it's right or wrong is separate. So to me, what's baffling is it's like an institutional failure. You have one of the most powerful political parties in the world, if not the most powerful political party in the history of Earth, and it has billions of dollars to spend. are trying desperately to tell them something. The voters are trying desperately to talk to them, and they refuse to listen. To me, it's almost like you have to rethink basic economics, because in a free market system, this shouldn't work. Yeah. I was grouching a moment ago that the Republicans have no agenda, which is true, and that Trump stands for not them, which is also true. By the way, I am grateful to him because he has bought us several years of not them. That's not nothing. It's a big achievement.

On the Democratic side, the numbers may change. The Republicans, frankly, may lose a few more seats in the House. There's some seats where absentee and early voting ballots are being counted. And a big question mark in Florida. And a big question mark on the Senate race and the gubernatorial race in Florida. But as matters stand right now, the Democrats have achieved a majority in the House. Frankly, it may have changed in the last hour. But as of this morning, they had a majority of 11 seats.

That's a very narrow majority. And in fact, it may even make it a little bit difficult for Nancy Pelosi to be elected as speaker. It's likely that there will be – there could be as many as a dozen Democrats who say, no, she's too liberal or there may be 15 progressives who say, no, she's not liberal enough. The point, however, is that the Democratic Party – and I believe it's the house where this is going to be worked out. At least it will be worked out most visibly in the lens of the press in Washington. The Democratic Party has to face up to the question Rob just posed. What do you guys think you're doing? The voters don't vote for – well, whatever – Ocasio, Occasionally Progressive or whatever her name is.

In Brooklyn, yeah. In Brooklyn. OK, in Brooklyn. But everywhere else, they want moderates. Statewide, there is something to be said for the statewide. The statewide bellwether elections have been going R, not D. And that suggests that when you get everybody up and they're starting to balance things and it's a little bit beyond their own neighborhood they um you know they not them not crazy not too far left is a very good uh position to take yeah the money the money is going to be at one final point then james

the money is going to be a problem for the democrats because rich people live disproportionately in california and on the island of Manhattan. And those are two of the most progressive places in the country. So even their rich – typically it falls to the rich people to say, now, wait a moment here. Let's not waste my money by running progressive. Let's run moderates. The strange thing about the Democratic Party is that even their money, in some cases, especially their money is progressive.

You know, just two interesting data points. So one sort of hilarious moment on Tuesday night when it was clear that the Democrats were going to take back the House, and I think CNN had called it. CNN was bizarrely late that week, that night anyway. They take back the House. They instantly cut to the jubilant Nancy Pelosi. And I just thought to myself, look, I know she's not on my side and I know I'm biased against her, but even so, this is bad.

These are, this is a bad optics to say we're having a historic night. Things are changing. We're taking back the reins of government or whatever they want to say and then to cut to the superannuated face that we've seen. Like, come on. That's just such terrible show business. Surely the Democrats have somebody else who's interesting and exciting and can run. And the second data point I would say is that Colorado, such an interesting state. Colorado has gone very libertarian lately.

But remember, Colorado is the place after Obergefell, after the gay marriage decision from the Supreme Court, that it was the baker in Colorado who got nailed because he refused to bake the cake. It was – he's a Colorado baker, refused to bake the cake. And that was a sign that – and by the way, people in Colorado at the time supported the baker. And here's the – I'd say this is sort of the line, the fault line of American politics. The people in Colorado elected the first openly gay governor on Tuesday. People of Colorado are basically normal in the sense of they are the mainstream of Americans. They have no particular brief or animus for this issue. They are generally in favor of gay marriage, but they draw the line at making the guy bake the cake. And the problem is the Democrats, just as more of an analogy, they're the party of making

the guy bake the cake. And that turns off a lot of Americans, even a lot of Americans who think of themselves as sort of basically socially liberal. And until Democrats sort of understand what that umbrella term means and how to thread that needle, they are going to have a very, very hard time taking the White House back. That's my prediction. The older, wiser, smarter polls, perhaps, but the people who are coming up, the people who are providing the most enthusiasm for the party are the ones who want to stone the heretics. They're the ones who see an inconsistency between being pro-gay rights or just indifferent to the

whole thing and wanting the guy to be free to serve whomever he wants. But the progressives insist that it's all of a piece and that you have to buy the whole thing. And if you don't believe in forcing him to make the cake, you're a heretic. And so this sort of intolerance of any sort of deviation from the new progressive ideology is going to do. I love to read the tweets from the people on the lefty left who hate the Democratic Party because it always gives in. It's always concerned with playing nice. It's so corporate.

It's so milquetoast. And the rest of us are looking at this and saying, are you crazy? Curious. Exactly. Get a different take on this. But I think more and more you're going to see them, as Peter mentioned, if you have L.A. and New York calling a lot of the shots monetarily, they're also going to be calling the shots intellectually. And that's where the enthusiasm and the love of all the new free things and rewrite the constitution comes from so i i mean yeah you'd think that they would realize that running modern southern democrats everywhere from north dakota to

portland to florida would would work but that doesn't get you to where some of these people want to be they don't they don't just want to be basic yes liberals doing doing basic wrote liberal things they're transformative and they want to follow in the light walkers steps and trends fundamentally trans america transform america some more and the only thing left for them to colonize right they've control they control the culture they control the academia they control these things the only thing they don't control is your brain is what's inside your head And now freedom and liberty and civil rights are now defined as I have a right to know what you're thinking and punish you if you're not thinking the right thing. So I have a right not just to get married as a gay man.

I have a right to sue you because you won't make bake my cake. That is crazy. I have a right to extirpate your presence from society if you state an opinion that personally offends me. Yeah, right. So when you mentioned before that presidents, why, loses the House because people believe that he curtailed liberty. Good lord. A program of curtailing liberty is exactly what the progressives are on board about now. That's the key.

Which is why they're going to have trouble but in the end it's interesting because the republicans have no ideology at this moment and are split over personality the the democrats have no personality and they're split over ideology oh i just came up with that you did that's brilliant whoa there's an you should try that out on our next guest speaking of which and now we bring to the podcast with pleasure Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, host of The Ben Shapiro Show. You can follow me on Twitter, at Ben Shapiro. And, Ben, it's a tweet of yours that I want to bring up. I've read your tweets. I've read your pieces. I've followed your controversial campus appearances.

But I've got to say, your credibility took a big hit online last week when you said that whiskey is turpentine and everybody knows that a strawberry daiquiri is better. So I think the end of your credibility will be traced back to that girly man moment. Given that, we still believe you've got something to tell us, and we'd like your take on the election. What do you think happened? to what happened, and this is a theory that I've been working on for the last couple of days, is that everybody has been operating in a land of myth, and the realities of electoral politics came crashing down on them. What I mean by this is that the Democrats were operating under the Obama myth. The Obama myth is that in 2008, Barack Obama came along and he completely realigned American politics with a durable coalition of intersectional ideology groups that could sweep to victory in an increasingly majority-minority country. And Democrats believe this. They believe that the country was inevitably shifting in their favor, that the future was

nothing but victory from sea to shining sea, and thus, when Donald Trump won, it was not just a shock to the system, it was a massive aberration. It was the American people basically vomiting. And then things would go back to normal in which Democrats would win sweeping victories across the land. For Republicans, they actually also bought into the Obama myth. It was, we've now reached the inevitable point at which the Republican kind of majority will become a Republican minority for now and for all time. And so when Trump came along, it turned into, he's a miracle man. Look at this broad new movement that he's created. It's a miracle. I mean, no one else could have created this miracle. It's just, it's incredible. And so the, and so the results reflect the reactions, the results of the election reflect this living in a land of

mythology. So the left was actually a little disappointed in this election because they figured, okay, well, it won't just be big victories. It will be historic victories in which we completely erase the memory of Donald Trump. We're just going to wipe out Republicans everywhere. And so when they didn't win in Texas, when they didn't win in Florida, when they didn't win in Ohio, suddenly it was, well, that's weird. Like, well, what happened? Maybe our theory wasn't right. And for Republicans, it turned into, okay, well, this is just a demonstration of the fact that the country was already trending toward kind of Obama tactics and Obama ideology. But Trump still has his magic. Wherever Trump visited, wherever he set his foot, suddenly gold sprung up out of the land.

Now, the reality is, looking at the numbers, what basically happened is that Trump is not the aberration and Obama is not the new normal. There was no new normal. Trump is normal. Obama is the aberration. The electoral realignment that happened under Obama was an Obama-only incident. And 2016 looks a lot like the map for 2004, and 2018 looks a lot like the map for 2004. In other words, Barack Obama was a unique political candidate, but he did not fundamentally realign anything.

And Donald Trump is being treated basically as generic Republican, except a little more toxic in the suburbs. So the takeaway for Republicans should be that the country was never getting away from them to the extent that it looked like under Obama. And local races proved that, even while Obama was president. But you've got to make sure that you're still competitive in suburban districts. It looks like Republicans instead are going to take away what they want to take away, which is more cowbell, right? More Trump, just more and more and more and more. And that'll save us. That's not going to work.

And Democrats are taking away from Democrats are taking away from this race idiotically that the Obama intersectional coalition is alive. If only we just push it a little bit harder because we did well in the House, but we just couldn't push past some institutional racist barriers in the Senate. Hey, Ben, Peter Robinson here. Thanks for joining us. Let me read you two sentences that Ross Dowdett published yesterday in the New York Times and see what you make of them. Quote, there is no conservative governing agenda at the moment. There is only a desire not to be ruled by liberalism. That desire will be fulfilled for two more years and possibly more. But meanwhile, the ability to move legislation

will be rightfully taken from a movement and a party that has no agenda. Close quote. Ben? I actually think there's some truth to that on the electoral level. I mean, I think that the part of the agenda that has been successful has been the judges and it seems like judges and tax cuts are the Republican governing agenda. I mean, they, they did hold the house and the Senate for two years and that's basically what we got.

Right. And that's great for what it's worth, but the major initiative that would actually reshape the future of American politics, entitlement reform, welfare reform, um, devolution of authority down to state authority,

uh, curbing the power of of the executive branch overall for the for the foreseeable future none of those things actually happened right we blew out the debt we blew out the deficit so i don't disagree with with that and i do think that the democrats have more of an agenda than the republicans but i think that what the election sort of showed is that nobody actually likes the democrats agenda all that much right this is the other the other theme from the election is that of the most progressive candidates in in purple areas, all of them lost. Nobody actually wants Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez outside of the people in her immediate family in her district. Right. Which is probably the same. Hey, Ben, it's Rob Long. Thanks for joining us.

So so can we talk about the suburbs for a minute? Because it used to be – I mean this is quixotic attempt to primary Donald Trump. challenger it's not going to be somebody uh terribly uh uh dangerous what what do you think what do you think that trump what do you think the republicans what do you think the conservative movement needs to do to get those uh suburban voters back i mean the economy needs to continue being good obviously and trump needs to i mean this is the biggest problem i think trump needs to shut up right i mean yeah i've been saying this for a while that the the benefit of donald trump speaking out and and you know polarizing debate is that the base shows up for elections. The base on the other side also shows up for elections, which is why the turnout was extraordinarily high on both sides. But the suburbs, not the same thing.

Suburban Republicans are kind of embarrassed by President Trump. The case in point from today is districts, which finally suburban Republicans gave up the ghost, and suddenly a Democrat was elected over Karen Handel in New Georgia six after all that hubbub over the special election that John Ossoff lost. Basically, Republicans got swamped in the suburbs. That is, Trump wants to take credit for all the Senate races. You know, I'm fine with him taking some credit for the Senate races. I think there's truth to the idea. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But he also has to take the hit for the House.

And the reality is that every seat that got lost, basically, was a purple district that he had alienated too many Republicans in. And for him to then get up afterward and laugh at the Republicans in those districts and say, well, if only they had embraced me, if only Mia Love had shown me some love, she'd still be in Congress. It's counter to every piece of available evidence, but again, it fulfills that Trumpian myth that suddenly President Trump is the great kingmaker in American politics. Again, he is very good at getting out the base. He's very good at revving up the base, but the base is not enough people,

and I think that we are fooling ourselves if we believe that Trump is anything but a slight underdog going into 2020 after 2018 and how Republicans showed in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio. I mean, not Ohio. I think in the White House what they're saying to themselves is in 2010, Republicans won 63 seats, a genuine wave, a tsunami, plus some state houses, plus a bunch of governorships. And that had nothing, had no effect on the 2012 Republican nominee. So I think that's probably what they're saying. There's a couple problems with that logic.

Problem number one is that Barack Obama did lose a significant number of electoral votes from 2008 to 2012. Donald Trump can't afford to lose anything. He won three states combined by 80,000 votes. If he loses Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan, he is not the president anymore. And right now, those are bad states. Republicans on Tuesday night. Yeah, exactly. And all in all those states, what was the common factor?

Suburban, suburban nonparticipation. And not only that, the people, this is where I really think it's a mistake to buy into the myth of Obama and the myth of Trump that I was talking talking about earlier the myth of trump suggests that he has some sort of mystical connection with voters in pennsylvania wisconsin and michigan and that he will somehow conjure magic out of thin air look at the statistics the percentage of the vote that he won in pennsylvania was basically the same percentage of those actually lower than the percentage of the vote vote that george w bush won in Pennsylvania in 2004. George W. Bush lost the state. The percentage of the vote that he won in Michigan in 2016 was basically the same as

the percentage of the vote that George W. Bush won in 2004 in Michigan. Bush lost the state. The percentage of the vote that he won in Wisconsin was basically the same as the percentage of the vote that Mitt Romney won in Wisconsin, and Romney lost the state, which is to suggest that there is no mass swell of Trump voters who have suddenly changed the face of these states. What happened is that Hillary Clinton was the world's worst candidate and everybody thought she was going to win. Right.

Which is conventional wisdom. And it's true. Yeah. Let me let me exactly. Let me let me just draw a couple ask you about those – about your general – what you just said, right? Because you're in sort of conservative media. You're very, very popular. Ricochet is – we do our part here on our podcast and our site. But there is this feeling among many true believers that if you're out there criticizing Trump, you're a problem.

And you and I have a lot of friends in common. We have a lot of conservative friends in common. We have a lot of longtime conservative friends in common who are best-selling authors who get nothing but you-know-what from people when they criticize Trump. Are we in trouble? Are we trying to live in a bubble here? Are we all in danger of becoming Sean Hannity sort of standing up there on the day as getting the embrace, as Trump put it, on Wednesday morning? I mean, I think the strength of what's going on, and that is actually a mistake, is we're critical of Trump. Our doings are not from the perspective of we want to see

Trump lose, we want to see Democrats elevate. We're not talking about Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot here. We're talking about people who would like to see Trump reelected on the basis of his policy, if not his character. And he's going to need to actually do some stuff. I mean, the first time I met Vice President Pence, he was very funny. His kids listened to my show. And so they suggested I come.

He had no clue who I was. And so we sat down and we started talking. And he me some questions and he said, do you have any questions for me? And I legitimately had no idea why I was actually there. So I, I just turned to him and I said, well, you know, between 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush had to pick up 11 million votes in order to win reelection. Do you have any plans to do any of that? And it, and that, that he was kind of struck by it because that's the question nobody's asking. We're acting as though this is a durable coalition, and we're acting as though Trump did win a sweeping victory. I mean, looking facts in the face does not mean you're anti-Trump.

He lost the popular vote by 2.5 million. It is the greatest statistical fluke in the history of the American republic that he's president of the United States. It's great for a lot of reasons, but to bury our heads in the sand and basically say, oh, well, you know, if push comes to shove, then he's just going to wave his magic wand and he'll be president again. Listen, Democrats could still blow it, right? This is the other theme of 2018. The Democrats are finding ways to blow crucial races. Like if they had not run Andrew Gillum in Florida, then a Democrat is the governor right now, right? If they had not run Beto as a full-on progressive in texas and had instead

run somebody slightly more moderate maybe ted cruz isn't the senator anymore but the democrats could make the mistake of nominating an intersectional candidate but let's say that they're not complete morons and they nominate somebody like joe biden right who we all laugh at and knows adults and and joe biden is terrible for us strong yeah i think that if joe biden is a candidate in 2020 there's a real possibility that it's that it it's just a swamping that it gets really ugly really quickly especially because trump's specialty is taking anybody down and dragging them through the mud well i mean biden like trump is sort of made of mud like you drag him through the mud it just doesn't show up it's black socks they never get dirty right the longer you wear them, the blacker they get. This is Joe Biden.

This is Donald Trump. And that race, I don't know what kind of damage Trump thinks he could do to somebody like Joe Biden that hasn't already been done by Biden's stupidity itself. Rob's right. I mean, in some circles these days, if you criticize Trump, you're viewed as somebody who, you know, one of those people who used to complain about fluoride in the water, a sign of insanity. Well, fluoride is good, but fluoride alone is not going to protect your teeth. You need to brush. And one of the most important things we do for our health is brushing. And one of the most important things we do is brushing right, which a lot of us aren't. That's why you need Quip. Quip is a better electric toothbrush created by dentists and

designers. Quip was designed to make brushing your teeth more simple, affordable, and even enjoyable. It's not a chore to brush with Quip. It's fun. Quip features sensitive sonic vibrations. They're very gentle on your sensitive gums. Many people brush too hard, grind it in there, and some electronic toothbrushes are too abrasive. Well, Quip's built-in two-minute timer pulses every 30 seconds to say, hey, time to switch sides, move to the other quadrant, and it helps you guide for a full and even clean. So when you're done, you know you have hit every spot you needed to hit. Of the 90% of us, do not brush for the first full two minutes, and we don't even do it evenly. You won't have that problem anymore with a quick. A multi-use cover mounts to your mirror, and it unmounts easily to slide over the bristles for

on-the-go brushing when you want to take a trip. That's what I did yesterday. Popped right off, and it went right back in the mirror too. Declutters your sink and your cabinet, makes traveling with an electric toothbrush much easier. Now quick, it does not require a clunky charger. You got to add that to your case to go. No, it runs for three months on one charge. The brush heads are automatically delivered on a dentist-recommended schedule every three months for just $5. If you paid for a toothbrush recently, you know that's pretty cheap, but it's really good. Three or four out of us use bristles that are old and worn out and ineffective. What if the brush could just come to you when it's supposed to?

Well, that's what happens. Quip is one of the first electric toothbrushes accepted by the American Dental Association and has thousands of verified five-star reviews. So as I keep saying every week, and I need say no more, when I go to the dentist, he doesn't even bother to give me that free toothbrush anymore because he knows I have a Quip, and there's nothing better than that. So we love it. Backed by 20,000 dental professionals. Quip starts at just $25. And if you go to getquip.com ricochet slash ricochet right now,

you get your first refill pack for free with a Quip electric toothbrush. That's your first refill pack free at getquip.com slash ricochet. And our thanks to Quip for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, Ben, what you said about Trump should shut up, I get that. And a lot of us who were Trump skeptics from the beginning, and still are to some extent, are annoyed by the tweeting, or roll our eyes at the tweeting, or just tune out the tweeting. It's just the tweeting, the tweeting, the tweeting. Okay, got it. Maybe what we mean, are just, tune out the tweeting, it's just the tweeting, the tweeting, the tweeting. Got it.

Maybe what we mean by shut up is to adjust the tone. But the problem, I think, is twofold. One, there's already so much stuff that he said that he could go silent, radio silent for two years and it wouldn't matter. The earthquake under the ocean is going to continue to generate tsunamis for the next two years. They can go back to the stuff that he said before the election. They can go back to stuff he said last week. There's such a body of things from which they can choose to nail him

that going silent wouldn't do anything. And two, if he does go silent, then the people who are his big fans and the people who have any sort of grudging admiration toward the way he treats the media would be denied the performance they had the day after the election when he took on the press. A lot of people love that about him, and a lot of his support is generated and continually renewed

by things like that i mean and even me who would like a civil discourse is somewhat gratified on an elemental level to say at least somebody is talking back to these people without the usual posture of curled in a ball whimpering please love me republican so i think is it too late to shift the tone? I mean, I think, I think it is. Well, I, you know, I think that there's a lot of truth to that, but I do think that there's a difference between shifting the tone, which I

don't think he's going to be able to shift and using it in a strategic manner. I think the problem for Trump is that, as I've said, literally for three years now, president Trump is a hammer in search of a nail and sometimes he gets a nail and it's super satisfying. And sometimes he hits a baby and it's a lot less satisfying. And the problem is that if he could somehow only hit nails or hit a higher percentage of nails, I'm not saying he has to bat 1,000, but if he could bat 300, you know, like that, that would be good. The fewer errors that he makes and the more that he directs the left toward, you know, sort of it's, it's stroking of itself, which is what he's done with the media. His hits on the media are fine.

I mean, if he, if he, like, for example, could he just go after Jim Acosta without calling him an enemy of the people? Like that would probably be a good thing. Yeah. Like I don't care. But, um, and, and, and that's, that's the problem is that Trump has a unique capacity to hit, but he uses that, that hit again, literally anyone who is just in his glide path at any given point. And that has ramifications.

As far as if he shuts up for two years, people will go back two years. People don't even remember what happened three weeks ago. Brett Kavanaugh was 9,000 years ago. And we have all aged. It's like we are up in the spaceship and President Trump is down on that water planet in Interstellar. And it's been like a day down there, but it's been seven years for the rest of us who are up here. He's going to come back up here. We're all going to be near death. And it really feels like that. I mean, every day is nine news cycles. So if he were

to actually deprive the Democrats and the media of oxygen, I think that he'd be much better off. But yet there are long-term shifting things in the firmament above us. And one that I've noticed in the last three or four weeks, longer than that, is that even though the left loves to say that Donald Trump is an authoritarian who has no respect for the Constitution, they demonstrate at almost every turn their desire to turn the Constitution into something completely different because they don't like what it does. Now we've been hearing about the popular House vote and a ridiculous concept that says that they get more votes nationwide for the House aggregate, that somehow they should have an equal number of seats.

They want to pack the Supreme Court. They hate the Electoral College. All of these things which they don't like because they interfere with the ability of some populations in the major urban centers from wreaking their will on every single county in America. Now, if they'd lost big, you would have heard a lot more about this. Since they won a little, I think you're going to continue to hear about this. How much traction on the left in the Democrat Party do they have for these ideas of undoing the constitutional obstructions to majority rule and direct democracy? You know, I think that they still hope that they're going to be able to use those tools to, you know, do whatever they want to do. So I don't think, I think at the point where hopelessness completely sets in, then you're going to hear a lot more of that. Like, for example, if they'd not won back the House, I think it would be 10 times louder today. If Trump wins re-election and Republicans retain the House, retain the Senate or win back the House in 2020, you'll hear a lot more of this.

It is fascinating to watch all the same people who said Donald Trump will never accept the results of an election. He'll start insurrections, basically urging people to do exactly that. And that obviously is incredibly dangerous. I don't think that it's going to reach fever pitch simply because I don't think that, you know, like they do run the House now. The Senate is going to be the target of their ire for the foreseeable future simply because it disproportionately weighs rural votes, obviously. But yeah, a lot really does depend on 2020. I mean, if Trump doesn't win reelection, then the left will have no reason to blow the gasket.

If, if, if he does win reelection, then they will lose their minds. And even before that, I think that the real hot point is going to come. If, you know, God forbid something happens to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I don't say God forbid, because I, I want her on the court. God forbid, because you never pray for somebody, something bad happened to somebody. She ain't leaving, uh,

except the first. So, you know, I'd like for her to remain healthy because she's an American. But if Ruth Bader Ginsburg were to be replaced by Donald Trump, then I would not be surprised to see some of the, some of these large public gatherings turn a lot more violent than we've seen before. Yeah. I mean, I sort of agree with you. So my question, speaking of violent gatherings, you go to college campuses a lot.

You're really popular. You're especially popular. I mean everybody – every right-of-center kid I know, and I say kid advisedly, under 30, knows who you are and they name you as somebody who they read regularly or follow regularly or listen to regularly in your podcast. Which to those of us who are not that age we think of that this is like this is crazy all we hear about is that people under 30 they're all liberal they're all very progressive uh there's a demographic time bomb about to go off for conservatives republicans in general um you're you're you're on a campus you go to campuses all the time is that true i mean how how bleak is the not the next two years or four years?

How bleak is the next 10 years or 15 years for conservatives in general? I don't think it's quite as bleak as folks are making it out to be. Now, the fact is that the younger population is not moving into the moderate to conservative category as they get older, the way that other generations have. Just statistically speaking, I think a lot of that has to do with media coverage, but I think a lot of it is exacerbated right now by the idea of toxicity inside the Republican Party. One of the reasons that I have a pretty solid base among young people, and not just conservatives, but there are a lot of people on the left who listen, is because I spend some time trying to explicate what I think is dishonest on both sides of the aisle. And if the Republican party were doing

more of that, I think it would, it would redound their benefit. It's very difficult to do that in an environment where the left uses any sort of remorse or self-policing as a sign of weakness. And so I certainly understand why politicians don't do it. I understand why older conservatives don't do it either. I wrote a long cover piece for the weekly standard specifically about young conservatives and the differences between young conservatives and old conservatives. I think that what has happened is that young people are still, for young people, politics is not really about policy. It's about how other people think of you. So what you think of Trump is not really about what you think of Trump. It's about what other people think of you for what you think of Trump. So if you are somebody who wears a MAGA hat on campus, people are going to have a certain perception of you. So what you think of Trump is not really about what you think of Trump. It's about what other people think of you for what you think of Trump. So if you are somebody

who wears a MAGA hat on campus, people are going to have a certain perception of you. If you don't wear a MAGA hat on campus, people are going to have a different perception. If you're conservative, but you don't love Trump, that's a different perception yet. And so people are making up their minds what they want to be to their group of friends in an environment where Donald Trump is seen as this Hitlerian figure. And to say that you support president Trump is to be likened to one of his Brown shirts. So that has created a real stigma for a lot of Republicans. And it's also created a problem from older Republicans in the sense that young Republicans hear all their friends talking all this stuff about Trump and maybe 85% of it is nonsense or exaggerated, but 15% of it is not, right? 15% of the stuff

that they say about Trump is kind of true. And so when older Republicans in sort of reactionary fashion go, you know what, this is all BS, who even cares what he does, who even cares about his character? Like, come on, this is politics, this is the nature of things. That's a cynical older people view. It's not the view that people under 30 have, who are still trying to define for themselves what is good, what is bad, and how they want to be perceived. Ben, last question, because frankly, I'm just sick and tired of trying to draw you out. It's just like pulling teeth, man. And it's this, you mentioned before Joe Biden going up against Trump, and that's a matchup that would be interesting. But a recent survey put forth Warren, Biden, Hillary, a couple other

names, and the most popular response was none of the above because people didn't want the old guard. And I'm thinking if the Democrats are smart, and I know we can argue that point, if they're canny, maybe Amy Klobuchar from my own state of Minnesota where I sit right here is tailor-made to appeal to everybody from the suburban women to the people who want a different tone to the it's time for, I mean, that would seem to me to be a matchup that would much better redound, at least optically and psychologically and the rest of it to the Democrats favor than a running uncle Joe as the old tired face of the party again. I think that's exactly right. I mean, Klobuchar wildly overperformed how she should have performed in her senatorial election. She is the only Democrat who acquitted herself even remotely decently in the Kavanaugh hearings. She's got this sort of Midwestern

progressive feel to her, but she is not completely out of touch in kind of a social justice warrior way. Yeah, she's a dangerous candidate. Now, will Democrats have the brains to nominate somebody like her? I have a hard time believing they would simply because the intersectional Olympics do not rank highly white women at this point. So Joe Biden still has name recognition. Klobuchar has basically none. And if you're in the way that Democrats seem to think these days, like, well, if I have a choice between Kamala Harris, who fulfills a bunch of intersectional boxes, and Amy Klobuchar, who fulfills fewer intersectional boxes and is not from California, then, you know, let's pick somebody

like Kamala Harris. But I agree. I mean, I think that of the candidates that we've talked about, Klobuchar is the most dangerous because she would feel on the stage like an adult in the room, even if she's wrong about a lot of stuff. And Hillary felt like the nagging school marm in the room, which is not quite the same thing. She's also the daughter of a newspaper columnist for the newspaper that I'm a columnist for, so I practically expect an invitation of the White House. The insider. You're an insider. Well, it's those cocktail

parties. Damn it. I'm tired of just having to do with the cruises. I want those cocktail parties. Ben Shapiro, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. It's been a great joy, and we hope to have you again as your schedule permits. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys.

Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Ben. So just to say, he's a supernova in conservative media, and I remember when he wrote a book, and he's just been sort of dogging about it and been really, really careful and very thoughtful, and it's kind of a cool thing to see. I don't think we've seen anything like this in a long time. Yeah, well, if you listen to what they're saying about him, he's generally a white suprem of a cool thing to see. I don't think, um, I don't think we've seen anything like this in a long time. Yeah. Well, if you listen to what they're saying about him, he's generally a white supremacist who pals around with his white darling, George Peterson. I mean, he's the worst of the worst.

I mean, it just shows you, you can be smart and fairly conventional and, and, and, and you're still going to be the worst of the worst because you don't subscribe to the religion, the religion that they have. Um, so that was fun. But can you imagine how exhausting it must be to converse at that rate for the entirety of your day? But you know what? Here's the problem that even a Ben Shapiro has.

He's everywhere. He's a good talker. He's a thinker. And then when he goes to sleep at night, he's got to be the most uncomfortable person because, of course, there's no such thing as a good night's sleep. You can't actually have one. Yeah, I agree with you, Rob. So what are you watching on television these days?

I'm watching a lot of cable. You know what you don't see on cable, though? What's on what? You don't see an awful lot of – well, I do watch cable, and I always enjoy the hotel commercials, for example, because they always show people at the end of the day smiling, a glass of white wine, and it's never a place that smells vaguely of cigarettes, and there's an ice machine down the hall and the rest of it. And guys like Ben who are traveling everywhere have got to put up with an awful lot of bad hotels. And you're never going to find in one of those hotels

what you can find at your own home, which is the bed that you love. And I've got to think that somebody as smart as Ben has probably got himself next to a Casper at some point. And all those days in hotel bedrooms will teach you that if hotels don't go and get the whole Casper experience, maybe you ought to start making your reservations at ones that do. Casper, as you may know by now, well, that's the sleep brand that makes expertly designed products to help you get your best rest one night at a time.

Now, the experts at Casper have worked tirelessly, which they can do because they sleep on the Caspers, to make a quality sleep surface that cradles your natural geometry in all the right places. After all, you know, me personally, I spend a third of my life prone and unconscious. And then there's sleeping, too. So if you want to be comfortable for that period, the original Casper mattress, it's got supported memory, well, multiple supportive memory foams for a quality sleep surface with just the right amounts of bounce and, yes, of sink. Its breathable design helps you sleep cool and it regulates your body temperature throughout the night. Well, it sounds great and it gets better. There are now two other mattresses, the Wave and the Essential. The Wave features a patent

pending premium support system that mirrors the natural shape of your body. And the Essential has a streamlined design at a price that will not keep you up at night worrying about what you pay. All Casper products are designed, developed, and assembled in the U.S. Prices are affordable because Casper cuts out to the middleman and sells directly to you. And when we say directly to you, it comes to your door in this box that mystifies your conception as to how they could get a mattress in a box that small. But they do it. Plus, free shipping, hassle-free returns in the U.S. and Canada. And you can be sure of your purchase, by the way, 100-night risk-free sleep on it trial.

So I was out of town yesterday, and I was going to stay overnight at the place where I was going to stay. And I was sitting outside the hotel and I thought, what are the chances actually that they have a mattress I'm going to like in there? Because this place looks like I'd be sleeping, frankly, on a cardboard box. I turned around, I went home, went home to my Casper. $50 toward a select mattress by, you really, New Ulm, Minnesota. I did not stay overnight. Casper.com slash Ricochet and use the promo code Ricochet at your checkout. That. Casper.com slash Ricochet and use the promo code Ricochet at your checkout. That's Casper.com slash Ricochet. Promo code Ricochet.

$50 off select mattresses. Terms and conditions, of course, will apply. And our thanks to Casper for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. We actually are going to talk about what Rob's watching. And the reason you want to know is that Rob is a canny insider of the industry. So his choices are much more informed and aesthetically informed. No, not at all. I don't have cable. I'm in New York and I don't have cable.

We're going to get to that. We want people to wait for that. Peter. Peter. Yes. I'm going to shake things up. I'm going to say to to you give us a member pitch because we're just everything's everything's just in flux today right usually is where rob

does a member pitch what if peter edited to the member pitch join ricochet join join ricochet because it gives you access to fascinating if i i have never a post, a thread. I've read a few posts. Rob puts up a post. I might not learn anything from it because I knew Rob already felt that way. But by the time you get to the bottom of a thread, even a short thread, you are absolutely guaranteed to have come across a viewpoint you weren't aware existed, to have learned a fact. It is an education. And by joining, you are supporting something that's important to the conservative movement. We were talking a moment ago about the need to flesh out an agenda. Ricochet is one of the places that that is going to happen. And we need your money. We

don't ask for a lot, but we need your money because there are costs involved. We're not trying to get rich. We want to make it self-sustaining. So join Ricochet because you'd be doing something you'd enjoy yourself and because you'd be doing something, a little something that's good for the country. Here's something else, too. Wait a minute. Aren't you going to grade that by comparison

with Rob's usual pitch? I'd give it an A. I would give it an A and I was going to get around to that at the end. Oh, sorry, sorry. Instead, Mr. Needy. I want to sorry. Teacher, I want to know my grade. I want to know my grade. So rude. Interrupting is so rude. Complete and instant gratification.

That was A-plus, Peter. That was very good. And I would mention that it's when you get to the member feed that you realize the truth, strength, and depth of Ricochet. That actually is true. Somebody mentioned in their member feed the other day that the main feed was what they go to when they've absolutely run out of everything else on the member feed. And I get that. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a wonderful community. And it's not all politics, for heaven's sakes.

If you can imagine some grim site where everybody is banging on the anvil of the same politic point every day. No, it's everything. Music, art, literature, life, love. It's it's a gorgeous place. It's a wonderful place. And help keep it with us for the 2020 election beyond by going to Ricochet and signing up. It's cheap. There are tiers.

It's cheap. So we're going to conclude then after all this heavy-duty politics with some light popular culture entertainment of what you're watching. Peter, you have some time to think about your answer. Rob, what are you watching that you would advise others to do? I'm watching some stuff, but I'll tell you what I'm really watching, what I was really enjoying watching the past day has been this action-adventure. It's a little violent, and it's a violent action-adventure show called Trump Press Conference where there's a hand-to-hand combat where Jim Acosta karate chops the intern

and the intern... There are now so many memes now on Twitter. Someone actually recut one where he pushes her hand down and her arm is dismembered from her shoulder and there's sort of like this splash of CGI

blood everywhere. That's just my funny little joke. I am still desperately trying to get Deutschland 86. I watched Deutschland 83, which I think I mentioned on the podcast, and it's fantastic.

Deutschland 86 is the new one. It's the first German language TV show ever in the United States on the Sundance Channel, which is a series of complicated and baffling things I have to sign up for and re-sign up for to get on my TV here in New York. And it's about the Cold War. And it's about the – well, 86 is really about the near end of the Cold War in East Germany. And it's really fascinating and very – moments of great, great humor and also kind of heartbreaking memories because you remember just how – two things. One, you remember just how horrible the world was when the Soviet Union was the evil empire and East Germany was was sort of monitoring controlling the thoughts and the actions of its citizens um and then how incredibly optimistic and joyful the world was afterwards when we realized that actually uh the the world can change for the better it can change for the

better because people stand up for what is right because people show resolution and they show leadership i'm thinking predominantly about ronald reagan but also margaret thatcher um and helmet cole exactly right uh in the face of enormous enormous protests i mean the great thing about deutschland 83 is they actually show – it's really part of that era, and they show it, the near-daily organizers and the supporters and the intellectuals behind that movement were bought and paid for by East Germany. Some of them were actual spies for East Germany, but also what's left unsaid. But if you're alive in 2018, you know what happened. You know how the story ends. The story ends that the missiles go in and the Soviet Union collapses and East Germans are free. So we know the ending of the story while we're watching it, and it's something great, great uplifting about it.

Someone is probably typing this in the comments, but I believe that the MX was not put in Europe. The MX was a domestically based system. I think it was. What's the one that was the MX MX was the one that was around? The Pershings. You're correct about the Pershing. Didn't they put the ones that move around in Germany?

No, no, no. That was for the interior of this country, up in James Land, North Dakota. There's really big train systems for them to go around. Yes, yes, yes.

That's where you pack your peacekeepers. Actually, you never built that. The Congress did anyway. Okay. Yeah. Well, I finished up

watching The Bodyguard, which is a British show, essentially. It it's like 24 except that people periodically pause to eat sleep and excrete it's pretty good and it's twisty and it's smart and i recommend it uh it's it's uh it's a political thriller it's a terrorism thriller it's an interesting show and then i started watching the second season of making a murderer a documentary the original which proves that if you put enough mournful fiddle music behind a story, people would become sympathetic to the person who actually got convicted. And then finally, Homecoming, which we should all hope for this, is based on a podcast, a Gimlet Media podcast, which was pretty interesting and fun to listen to. And as a television show, I'm not sure it quite does it. What makes it interesting is that for some reason, they change aspect ratios to the difference between then and now.

Then is always widescreen. Now is small, but it's not a – Rob, tell me what you think of this if you've seen it. It's not a 4-3 aspect ratio. It's like a 4-4 aspect ratio. I've never seen it. I've never seen it. A perfect square? A square aspect ratio. Well, I think it's I've never seen it. A perfect square? A square aspect ratio.

Well, I think it's intended to say that the narrower aspect ratio implies a modern era in which we're moving to vertical video, which is the sin and horror of our day. But I'll watch it. It has some favorite actors in mind. But what intrigued me was that every single aspect of the soundtrack has been lifted from another movie. So it takes advantage of all these great audio cues and puts them in, doesn't credit them at the end of the show. I'm watching it the other day and I thought, where do I know that from? I love that piece of music. It's been decades since – and it came to me.

It was from Body Double. It's a setting for a porn movie and the fantasy sequence in Body Double. So at least I'm having a reacquaintance with all these great old soundtracks, but the show itself. I just want to specify for people who are listening that Body Double is a Brian De Palma movie, right? Yes, it is. But it also has that Hitchcock vertigo thing where the camera goes counterclockwise around the people.

I just want to make clear that the way you said it, you sounded like you were talking about a porn movie you saw called Body Double. This music has haunted you for years. I just want to make sure. In the movie, they're shooting one, so there you go. Actually, come to think of it, the music

they used for the ridiculously over-the- top postures form right with melanie douglas um uh was melanie griffin it's not a bad movie it was um it was frankie goes to hollywood relax all things and craig watson was right as a man whose psychological trick is claustrophobic to psychological uh debilitation is claustrophobia, not like Jimmy Stewart's Vertigo and Vertigo. It lifts everything for God's sake. Yeah. Peter, what are you watching? Well, I have a story of domestic unhappiness because, as you know, I do nothing but take my cues from the two of you, which means that my wife and I made it through about the first three episodes of Ozark.

And then our youngest had a big test to prepare for. And my wife stayed up with her. And then she went, the little, our daughter went to, and my wife stayed up until two in the morning, watching six hours of Ozark. She finished the whole first season.

Then we got, and that was, I let it go. I just let it go because I can't watch this stuff without my wife. It's no fun. Then body. She did it to me. And we got through the first two episodes of Bodyguard and she stayed up and watched the following four. So I am just going to keep – what is it called?

Deutschland 83. What is it called, Rob? Deutschland 83. Deutschland 83. By the way, I was in a motorcade with George H.W. Bush in Germany in 1983 that was stoned. I had a brick come through the window of my car. It's true. It was really rough in 1983, but I'm not even going to tell my wife about it.

I'm just going to watch it on my own. So there. Thank you, boys. There you have it. The incredible dissolution of the Robinson marriage began here at Boss Guest 474. Massive, aggressive TV watching. I would like to say, speaking of television, I didn't do this before and I should do this.

I have just agreed as of two hours ago because I think somebody important canceled. I'm going to be on Gutfeld this weekend. So if you're watching Fox News and you watch Gutfeld, I'll be there. Fantastic. Can I just say one more thing? I think we did this once. I don't know if it worked.

The first say one more thing i think we did this once i don't know if it worked um the first uh the first person to join uh at the uh not the podcast level just say at the thatcher level okay um the first person to join at the thatcher level, I will talk. I'll figure out. I will say a word. I will use a code word to welcome you to Ricochet in my remarks. Didn't I do that once? Yeah, I think I did it once. On Gutfeld's show tonight?

On Gutfeld's show, yeah. So you'll be called out from Gutfeld's show. Wow, cross-platform meta-transformation. This is fantastic. We would also like to tell people that even if they don't get the secret little nod from Rob and the television show, and I know we're all going to be watching for that quivering eyebrow or something or whatever little secret message is that you can make your life better on a lasting level by going to casper.com,

quip.com and Warby Parker taking advantage of all the special offers with the coupon code Ricochet. And you'll see better. You'll sleep better. Your teeth will sparkle. Join Ricochet, of course, so you can bring that wonderful, marvelous, improved self into the member feed and entertain everybody and be entertained and instructed. And that's about all I have. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

James, may I come in? May I come in briefly? I forgot to say leave a review at iTunes, whatever was I thinking. I almost trashed the whole enterprise. Yes, Peter, what would you like to say? No, no, because Rob's being on Greg Gutfeld's show reminds me of this. On February, I beg your pardon, on November 27th, that is this very month in about two weeks, just after Thanksgiving, Fox is launching an entirely new entity called Fox Nation, a streaming service. Like Netflix, but Fox. Fox Nation. And Fox Nation is going to make Uncommon Knowledge available on Fox Nation. Oh, fantastic.

So you can stream. You can stream. We'll be right there. They actually had me pose for promo pictures. So Rob isn't the only one who goes to the Fox News makeup room. Fantastic. Well, then I've got to plug the fact that on Sunday I'm going to be hosting the Minnesota Youth Symphonies at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis. Are you making that up or is that true?

No, it's true. Wonderful. I think this is my 30th season of being the emcee for their three concerts of the year. It's really quite something. And they're great kids. And the guy who's the head of the year. It's really quite something. And they're great kids. And the trumpet player, the guy who's the head of the organization, is one of us. And you too

can be one of us if you go to Ricochet, right? Right. Rob, Peter, it's been a great joy, and we'll see you next week. Next week, fellas. In the two of us need look no more We both found what we were looking for With a friend to call my own

I'll never be alone. And you, my friend, will see you've got a friend in me. You've got a friend in me. Ben, you're always running here and there You feel you're not wanted anywhere If you ever look behind And don't like what you find There's something you should know You've got a place to go

You've got a place to go I used to say I and me Now it's us Now it's we. Now it's we. I used to say I am me. Now it's us. Ricochet!

Join the conversation.