The Ricochet Podcast - The Politics of Moore

Episode Date: November 11, 2017

This week, it’s the sexiest Ricochet Podcast in memory as we parse the continuing harassment revelations, and the troubling and bizarre saga of Judge Roy Moore. But before we get to that, former New York Congressman Chris Gibson stops by to talk about his book Rally Point: Five Tasks to Unite the Country and Revitalize the American Dream and his views on uniting the country and revitalizing the... 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. You and I, we have lots of fun. Don't we, Lisa? Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lilacs.

Peter Robinson is here. And we'll be talking to Chris Gibson, former U.S. Army officer and the author of Rally Point. And with Eric Erickson. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. a weak Wi-Fi signal? Of course you are. Well, there's a solution to this. Arrow's multi-point wireless routers, which provide a fast, reliable connection in every room of your house and in your backyard as well. Get free overnight shipping when you order a new Arrow wireless system

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a lot out of it and also to keep an important institution on the web thriving. Join Ricochet. Five bucks a month. James? I was reading some of the comments. I can't remember the thread, but a couple of guys

got salty with each other. They're just being a little snippy in their exchange back and forth. And they started apologizing. And watching the apology was like watching Minnesotan Lutherans try to go through a revolving door when somebody else is sort of kind of in front of them. I mean, it was wonderful to see that level of reestablishment of, no, I wasn't – no, you were – no, but I'm sorry. It was great. It was very ricochet where they recognized what they had done, which wasn't that bad, without a moderator stepping in and ta-ta-ting and the rest of it, and resulted in no hard feelings and probably more emotional attachment to the thing about which they were arguing,

which was the threat. Anyway. James, I should mention this podcast. We're recording it in the morning here, Pacific time, midday, your time back in Minneapolis. But it's going to go up in a couple of hours. Some people will listen to this today, Saturday, November 11th. This very evening, if you're listening today at 7 o'clock in the Tavern in the Square in Boston, there is a special Ricochet meetup. The Harvard Lunch Club Podcast's Michael Stopa and Todd Feinberg

will be hosting Michael Graham from Ricochet's Michael in the Morning Podcast and Ricochet co-founder Rob Long. It's free for Ricochet members. Ten bucks for non-members right there. If you join Ricochet for five bucks, you start saving money tonight.

Go to Tavern in the Square, seven o'clock tonight in Beantown. Brave the cold and go. Now, James, I will fall silent. Okay. Well, well pitched. So before we get to our first guest, a couple of questions here about the week that just was. A lot of people were talking about the first anniversary of the first of the anniversary of trump's first year or the anniversary of the election whatever it's been a year and then they

were talking about virginia both of those subjects like everything else these days seems archaic ancient history might as well be written on clay tablets in cuny forums because something new came along and the most recent thing was this welter, so to say, of everybody's a sexual abuser in Hollywood and politics in California, New York, et cetera. But this Alabama thing is interesting to me because reactions seem to go very quickly along tribal lines. Am I right, Peter, or am I wrong?

Did a lot of people just go on? No, no no no i'm just i'm just i'm trying to think through whether this business of tribal lines um i i have to say i was traveling right up until the middle of the day yesterday so i sort of i missed this news as it broke and as so i'm coming this is like tuning in on a conversation or joining a thread that's already underway judge roy moore has been accused by, I believe at this point, three different women of having molested them when they were minors and unambiguously minors. One of them, I think, was only 14 years old. These events, the accusations relate to events that took place, as I recall, is it three decades ago, 30 years ago, a long time ago?

But he was a grown man and then some. He was in his 30s at the time, and Judge Moore is denying them outright, and lots of people. Well, not all of them. Isn't that right or not? He said, well, if I recall. Fill me in. Fill me in. Well, I mean, the 14-year-old, he says, never happened.

That's what I understand, at least today. And then the rest of them, as he may have known them, but I think what was the question? Have you dated teenagers? And it was not – let's see. How did he put that? There was the line, I never – I always ask their mother's permission, which I think was – He said that? It's the line that stuck out.

I'm looking for it here, and we may have to edit that out if I didn't say it. This is the problem with remembering things that you saw at 1 o'clock in the morning on Twitter. We're doing a message. Go ahead. But the idea of being 30 and being interested in teenagers is – I don't care if it's legal. I don't care. It says something very, very wrong about you. And don't give me this, oh, it was the norm.

And don't give me this, oh, back in the days, 18-year-olds and 16-year-olds got married, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, they did. And they had babies at 15, and they died having their seventh child when they were 22, and that was then. Now, when you have an older man interested in a very young woman, it's for the same reasons as before, which is pure interest, shall we say, because they like them young. And that's a character problem. When you're in your 30s and you like them young and that's a character problem when you're in your 30s and you like them young it just is so whether or not this is coming but this is just reason not to have them in the senate uh you can leave that up to alabama who am i so here's what i mean i mean what i mean i'm with uh mitch mcconnell it seems to me most of the

republicans again i was just sampling google trying to catch myself up on the story. But Republicans in the Senate, that is to say the people who would be this man's colleagues if he wins the election in Alabama, have said if this stuff is true, he should step down. And now it sounds as if that is to say step down as a candidate, get out of the race right away. And now it sounds as though you're telling me he's admitted that at least some of it is true. And believe me, I'm with them. And I know some people are saying, no, no, no, no. We should still support him. And who what I can't figure out is what's the breakdown there?

Who is arguing? Why does that look to you like tribal? Well, to go what I was saying before. Yes. He said that asked whether he dated teenage girls the quote was not generally no oh you're kidding and then i've got from the week and from the washington post here roy moore says he never dated girls without their mother's permission so i'm not making that up okay so there are a lot of people who say who essentially comes down to the same thing

binary choice flight 93 what's the alternative the alternative is them and if you give them power then everything's over so we have to vote for this guy right um and it's if if you've decided long ago that character doesn't count personal character doesn't matter then this is what happened then you become inured to the presence of guys like this guy who before this situation you know before this came along a lot of people't like, and don't tell me it's about class and don't tell me it's about behavior and don't tell me it's about not knowing what the Southern, you know, telling the Southern people what they should or should not like the guys, a peculiar sort of individual. Okay. And if you want to grow, okay. If you want to grow, if you want to grow the party, if you want to grow the party,

maybe you don't have guys coming back in and saying we ought to recriminalize homosexuality. Now, we can have an argument about the moral direction of the country. Yes, we can. But this guy is not a particularly – what's the word I'm looking for? Complex thinker or a good person, shall we say, to advocate for the side that some people want. He's flaking a nut bag, okay? But people are saying we have to vote for him because the alternative is worse. And I get that.

I understand that. But that's the end result of the shrugging and saying, well, character doesn't matter because our tribe has to win. You get Anthony Weiner over and over again. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I do think that the majority in the Senate is only only the Republican majority in the Senate is only two votes. Having the seat go to a Democrat would be a very serious matter because, and I, and I think we're agreeing on this.

You can deplore judge Moore's character. You can deplore him as a candidate and as a public figure. And at the same time, say on the other hand, if we, if the Republicans lose the majority in the senate a great deal of very bad will occur to the entire nation and that is not an easy question but when you say but but donald trump himself endorsed judge judge moore's opponent in the primary it's not as if all of pro-Trump America is swinging behind Judge Moore. It's not as if all Republicans are swinging behind Judge Moore. On the contrary, Republicans,

at least again, I've read Donald Trump didn't support him in the primary and Republicans in the Senate are saying this guy should step. They said, again, I'm a little i'm a few hours behind on this but they said he should he should step down if it's true it now looks as though it is true he should step down okay so so it looks to me as though the general behavior of official republican is not that bad in this case now it's up to the voters of alabama to sort it out is that wrong yeah no no i think you're right all right um i I mean, I'm painting in broad brushes generally because it's early in the morning and I probably should have more coffee. And you're quite right. I mean, but no, this guy was not the first choice and the Trump people did want somebody else.

But once it came to this, yes, of course, they're going to throw it behind him because it's important to keep the Senate and the rest of it but you just keep wondering at what point where do you start saying this person you know this person yes because of what because of flight 93 binary but this person no even though it's flight 93 binary at what point there isn't any point anymore that's what i'm saying we we've just decided en masse that when it comes to our side getting the stuff that we want which we think is better for the country, but it's also because it's our side and we hate those guys, we're going to put up with everything? Then this supposed party of character and virtue and values and stuff is BS. It means nothing. It means absolutely nothing, and it never has. every single person who made a great fortune for themselves, including Roy Moore, advocating for morality turns out to be able to ditch it at the earliest possible opportunity or

to trim their jib and their sails and their cut and the rest of it if it means getting on board with something new. And I don't want to name names. I think it's pretty obvious. People who used to be great peregrines of virtue who decide that, uh, that matters less when it comes to flight 93 binary. So yeah, we've over the last few years just given up on being the whole point of flight 93,

by the way. Okay. I, this is the strangest thing that you and I are actually fundamentally agree with each other, but we're well, okay. So the whole point of flight 93 is doing that rushing the

cockpit may be bad uh bad things are about to happen here but if we don't do that even worse things will happen this is this is just political reality of the i mean this is the complicated position that people that many people who support donald trump i mean it's there's a certain sense in my view is that being a never trumper at this stage is just not useful it's not it's not well i don't know i don't know what it means it's it's it means well if you look at bill crystal's tweets he wishes nothing but to bring down donald trump and that's not useful what's useful right now is to fight for tax. He is the president of the United States. It's not conservative media that normalized him. It's

the Constitution. When that man signs legislation, it becomes law. He is now at the apex of our system. And to get any good things done, including tax reform, including scaling back regulations, require working with him. Now, doing that while refusing to praise the man, while insisting on the importance of character, while pointing out his own, that's a very hard thing to do. But that's the useful thing to do, in my opinion. Yes, I agree. All right.

No, I think it's entirely possible to have a, I keep saying this over and over, to make a distinction between how you feel about the man himself and the administration and what it can accomplish. And it would be great if one would be able to say that your opinion about the man and his character and his intellectual capabilities and temperament and all that can be put on a box on a shelf, but it's apparent that it can't because when it comes to getting together with Congress exactly, I mean, you as a Donald Trump advocate, do you see a great deal of deal-making being done, a great deal of skillful legislative sle of hand and uh you know arm twisting and coalition building do you see that in this this man here's what i hear as the answer is yes actually not in this man not in this man do i see politically useful things that could be done

now yes i spent part of the day yesterday. There was a visit yesterday to Northern California from Senator Rob Portman, who is on the Senate Finance Committee. And Rob Portman is no huge fan of Donald Trump. Rob Portman is a man of immense character. And at the same time, when he I was in a meeting with him with some Silicon Valley people and he was being pushed about Trump, Trump, Trump. And Rob said just that, look, he was not my first choice. And Rob wrote in Mike Pence rather than voting for Donald Trump himself.

But he said, we are now talking about a $1.3 trillion tax cut over the next decade. Hillary Clinton would have raised taxes. We have Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court. Hillary Clinton would have put liberals on the Supreme Court, and we would have lost the Supreme Court for a quarter of a century. And Rob – so tax reform is what he was out here talking about. As I said, he's on Senate Finance. He believes that tax reform is going to move and move quickly. He thinks it can get done this year. and he said uh secretary of treasury mnuchin and uh the white house gary cone who's in charge of

economics at the white house have been very good to work with the president is erratic but nevertheless there's an opening to cut taxes for the entire country and shore up economic growth because of donald trump and that just strikes me as an accurate analysis. At the same time, James, the country is going to sort this out. Democracy is still going to work. Ed Gillespie, who is a very good guy, I know him slightly. He's intelligent. He's conservative in all the ways in which both of us would he lost by, as I recall, about three points. He ran for governor and the election took place this last Tuesday and Ed Gillespie lost to the Democrat by nine points. Loudoun County, a suburban county in the northern toward the northern end of the state. When he ran when Ed Gillespie ran for the Senate two years ago, he carried Loudoun County very narrowly by only a little over 400 votes. But last Tuesday, he lost Loudoun County by more than 23,000 votes. That is the country that is a close state, a mixed state reacting to Donald Trump.

Down in Alabama, the latest polls I just looked this morning, the Republican candidate should be leading in alabama by at least 20 points that senate race is now tied so um the the country will sort all this out character matters to the country happy yeah well that hold on a second here i was cutting out there because of my bad interconnection. You don't have to have that happen to you. Your internet can be everywhere at any time at any place in your house if you use the Eero system. Well, it's my way of not addressing your question. Go ahead. No, but I have to tell people about this, and I want to tell people about this,

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Order your new system, select overnight shipping at checkout, and enter the promo code Ricochet for your shipping is free. And you will thank us for telling you about Eero for sponsoring the Ricochet podcast. Everybody will be happy. We now welcome to the podcast Chris Gibson. He's a former officer in the United States Army and a member of the Republican Party who served in the U.S. Representative for New York's 19th Congressional District

from 2011 to 2017. His new book is Rally Point, Five Tasks to Unite the Country and Revitalize the American Dream. Welcome, Chris. Hey, thanks so much. Great to be with you guys. Great to be back.

Five tasks. Tell us the first one. Well, it's to restore peace through strength. And, you know, sometimes when I do these interviews, the interviewers go, who could be against that? Well, you know, we really haven't been practicing that. We've been given false choices or really, I think, not optimal choices of weakness. That's what we had under the Obama administration. We didn't have peace through strength.

We had weakness, and it invited more challenge. And then I also think that we've been too quick to use force, and that's not really peace through strength either. I think we need to have the world's strongest military as a deterrent for those that would do us harm. And then we want to lead with our diplomacy, our commerce trade. And so very much a linkage to George Washington's perspective. Actually, one of our first mottos, don't tread on us, don't tread on me. What was implied is if you don't tread on me, I won't tread on you. So this is the first chapter. I actually lead off with a story, the stories of these paratroopers that we lost under my command. I commanded paratroopers in Iraq. And I do so really for a couple of reasons. One is I think people need to hear these stories

of these young Americans who lost their lives protecting our freedom. And it's really remarkable, their stories of courage and sacrifice. And then the other reason is to really point out the high cost associated with this. So that's the first task. And I lay out in the book, I draw linkage to Reagan. I think that President Reagan really set the example of peace through strength. And I lay out a series of policy reforms that follow the philosophy on how we should go forward. Let's talk about the ability to keep peace through strength.

Let's look four years ahead, three years ahead. At the end of the first Trump term, how do you think our military is going to compare to the one that he was left by President Obama? Well, I'm hoping it's going to be stronger, but I got to tell you, he is going to compare to the one that he was left by President Obama? Well, I'm hoping it's going to be stronger, but I got to tell you, he is going to have to work with both sides because, you know, we have a law in place right now, the Budget Control Act of 2011, the purpose of which is to force the parties to come together so that we get back to a balanced budget. And that is certainly in the best interest of America.

We've got to get back to a balanced budget. But we ended up stymied because we did not, as much as I tried hard and I voted for the Simpson-Bowles variant in Congress, which would have gotten us back to a balanced budget, but it did not pass. So we're stuck now with this specter of sequestration. So the only way we're going to get out of that is if we work together. So I'm counting on President Trump to exercise his leadership so that we can get this done. And if he can get that done, then absolutely, I think we're going to get the resources that are needed. And we will see a stronger posture. You know, right before I left the Congress, I led an effort to reverse, to stop

and then reverse the Obama drawdown. This was called the POSTRAC. I describe this in the book, Rally Point. But, you know, this was initially Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, they all opposed my bill. And in the end, Obama ate it. He signed my bill. He signed it within the context of the National Defense Authorization Act. But I got to tell you, the key was the bipartisan support. I mean, I co-authored this with the highest-ranking enlisted man to ever serve in the U.S. House, Tim Walz. He's a Democrat from Minnesota. And we are in the support of folks like Tolstoy, Gabbard, and Seth Moulton. So when Nancy Pelosi

put the hammer down for her Democrats to vote against this bill, that, as I've mentioned, stopped the Obama drawdown and actually reversed it, there was nothing she could do because some of her members or her key members, were already on record supporting my bill. So in the end, we outflanked her, and Obama, in his last 10 days in office, signed this bill. And that is the reason why we actually didn't go to, for example, in the Army, we were scheduled to go to 450,000 troops underfunded, and we actually went to nearly 80,000 troops fully funded for what they

needed for that requirement. So that's the first step, is the last year. In some ways, it's kind of eerily similar to Carter Reagan, right? Because clearly, Carter, we had a real problem with readiness in our military, but in his last year, because of some forcing function in Congress, he actually started to reverse that trend. And then Reagan, of course, took the military where it needed to go. So that, I hope, is a harbinger that with the Trump leadership, we'll actually get our military back to the strong posture we need so that we can be in a stronger position to lead with our greatest strength, with our ideas and our people. You're right. But what I wonder is whether or not it's time to perhaps talk to people, have a different conversation about what constitutes military strength,

because the traditional model in the back of our heads is how much we spend and how many boots we can put on the ground. But isn't it so that a lot of the wars of the future are not going to be fought by large, clashing, lumbering armies coming together with the old models of the Warsaw Pact versus NATO invasions or a replay of Gulf War I and II. But actually, you're going to have different kinds and styles of warfare that don't require that many people. I mean, we think of war with North Korea as involving tens of thousands of troops

having to go into North Korea. It's possible that we could wipe out every single one of their installations with, you know, space-based kinetic weaponry. I don't know. In other words, are we having a conversation about the military of the future or are we still thinking of it in terms of the military of the past? I think you just characterized that wonderfully.

It was well done. Two things. One is that to the extent that we need transformation, and transformation not only takes us to a higher plane of effectiveness, but also does it in a more cost-effective manner. I couldn't agree more. In fact, I know already there's a series of studies out there that we can find ways to glean savings, that we can make the requisite investments

to make sure that we have a transformational military. So I want to validate that point that you're making. But I would also say, I push back just a bit, to tell you that war is an intensely personal endeavor. We hope that we don't have to fight it. We hope that deterrence can lead to a better plane, a better plane of peace, but we can never count on it. So I would tell you that we would incur too much risk if we sort of expunge out through assumptions that we would never need a very effective land force again. So I've always been a balanced voice in this. I do see the larger point you're making,

which is that through our remarkable ingenuity and technology, we can actually have overmatch. And so I think you're absolutely right to point that out. But I don't want to see us in a situation where we don't have the requisite amount of land forces that ultimately can bring about the peace that comes after conflict. Because that's what we learned circa 2004 and 2005 is, you know, we really didn't put enough troops on the ground to secure the peace. We won the war quickly toppling Saddam,

but we weren't able to make an effective transition to a better peace for Iraq. So let's learn from that. Chris, Peter Robinson here. Thanks so much for joining us. Listen, you mentioned the Carter-Reagan example, that even in his last 18 months or so, even Jimmy Carter sort of wised up and began put in place measures that would help strengthen the military. And then, of course, Ronald Reagan greatly expanded on that. Here's what I want to ask. During the Reagan years, when child that I was, I was in the White House during those years. During the Reagan years, there were still conservative Democrats in Congress and particularly in the House, the so-called boll weevil Democrats, southern conservative Democrats who were going to vote for a strong military again and again and again.

I can remember in particular, well, this is a Senate example, but John Stennis, longtime Democratic Senator of Mississippi, and John Stennis was, if anything, to the right of Ronald Reagan on military spending. Those Democrats are gone, largely because the South has realigned and become Republican. And now we have, on the one hand, the notion that Tip O'Neill, Speaker of the House in those days, and Ronald Reagan would get together for a drink every evening and sort out the politics. That's nonsense. The partisan fights were very bitter, even in the 80s. But it was possible to work across the aisles because there were still Democrats who, whatever else they may have believed, believed in a strong defense for this republic. You served in Congress.

You term-limited yourself out after three terms, so to speak, by choosing not to run again. But you served in Congress. Is that still the case? Can you still find enough Democrats to put together a pro-defense coalition? You can. And by the way, just as your colleague there, Scott, well done in terms of, I think you characterized history very accurately in my view.

And I want to thank you too for your service in the Reagan White House. You played an instrumental role even at a young age. In fact, the initial author of the Berlin Wall speech, the famous Berlin Wall speech. He was 10.

I was 10. He was 10 years old. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Chris. But, Chris, you already have my vote. I'm already sold on you. No, but I do. It's important, I think, for justice. But I point this out that I just really appreciate the leadership that you went before us.

So let me say that there are fewer. So to answer your question, there are fewer Democrats with that disposition, but there are, there's still enough of them there. And I, a perfect example in the book, in this first chapter, I talk about how- Rally Point is the name of the book. Chris Gibson is the author. Rally Point is the book. Go ahead, Chris. So in this chapter, I point out how we outflank Pelosi and really quite frankly, Barack Obama as well. And the key was, is getting that judicial support. So we ended up, when we introduced the bill, there were about 20 or so co-authors. We made sure it was 10 and 10.

So before we put it in the hopper, we showed that this was strong bipartisan support. Now, candidly, if you get a show of hands on the floor of the House that morning, there'd be fewer hands in the air for Democrats than they apparently did. You're pointing out. But remember, Republicans now, we have 241 of them. We didn't have 241 back in 1981. Actually, the Democrats controlled the House. So I think if you actually did a nose count of the number of people who believe in peace through strength and will vote for the requisite resources to make that happen, you'll find that it's roughly about the same. It's a little over 300 in the House.

Really? Okay, that's very encouraging. Right, very encouraging. I do believe that. And you can find that in the vote pattern, even in the last couple of years. So I've got to say, though, what's key is that President Trump needs to get more involved. He has to get more involved here. He's going to have to actually roll his sleeves up and get involved in these conversations because it's actually going to take not just the National Inflation Authorization Act. Because of the budget control act of 2011, it's going to take an overarching bill,

and his personal investment in this is going to be necessary. Thanks, Chris. James? I'm just wondering if you see that happening. I mean, we would all like it to happen, but do you see that happening? Well, I'm concerned. I mean, I voted for Trump, but I've been underwhelmed. Look, I'm appreciative of Judge Gorsuch. I think that was a great pick. There's some work done with regard to deregulation, and I think that's important and very Reagan-esque.

But, you know, what we need right now is a master strategist and a people person, and that's going to really require a more strategic use of words. So, you know, we've got a math problem in the Senate, and I'm just talking the Republican side. When you're constantly going after folks like McCain and Flake and Heller and Collins and Murkowski, you've got a math problem. You're under the 50. Now, look, I'm not underwriting some of the behavior of the folks that he was upset with. I'm not saying that they're without blame here. I'm just saying that, as you saw, Peter, in your time, there's got to be a strategic approach. And so I don't know where this is heading, but I'm certainly speaking out. I mean, part of the passion behind RallyPoint is I firmly believe this, that even in an era when

somebody, when most people describe it as divided, 20 trillion in debt, with so many Americans feeling that the country's political system is rigged and losing confidence, I actually believe in us as a people. I think we can absolutely do this. That's the overarching message of RallyPoint, is to recover the founding principles that really enabled us to come together. The Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, you know, which was really genius in the way that, really, we escaped history. I mean, the history of political change before us was violent. And we said, we can actually listen to each other, treat each other with dignity and respect, and have peaceful evolutionary change.

But, you know, ironically, inasmuch as we need to bring more empowerment, reorder the separation of power so that the people's house has more power, I say ironically because that actually needs to get done, but then you need a president that will actually lead that. So a president that will actually, because oftentimes the house actually ceded power. This wasn't a heist. The Congress willingly gave away that power in a consolidation to the executive branch. So, look, that's Chapter 2 of RallyPoint. Folks can take a look. But to answer your question, I will tell you that I'm actually, I'm concerned.

And I hope that we see this leadership from President Trump in the days to come. Well, I hope that future versions and printings of your book, RallyPoint, Five Tasks to Unite the Country and Revitalize the American Dream, have big check marks next to the individual tasks. So by the time you're on printing number 20, it'll be, okay, we got four done, but there's just one task left to unite the country. And then we'll have you back on the show to discuss that one.

Chris Gibson, thanks very much for joining us. You can follow him on Twitter, at ChrisGibsonNY, as in New York. Thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you once again on the show, I hope. Chris, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, great to be with you. Appreciate the show very much.

It's time now for – wait a minute. Wasn't Rob Long supposed to be along here at some point? Were we expecting Rob to – no, no. Well, I'm not even going to bother to do a stupid segue if Rob isn't here to ruin it. There's no fun in that. I could do my best to ruin it, but of course I'm not as subtle as Rob.

That would be... As subtle as Rob? As subtle as Rob. I see. So you take a bowling ball, you hollow it out, you fill it with nitroglycerin, and then you throw it across

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We'll just look at the link on the site. It'll be there. Slash Ricochet for 20% off. That's thetracker.com slash ricochet. And we thank our friends friends at tracker for sponsoring this the ricochet podcast and now we move along to speak to eric erickson the host of atlanta's evening news with eric erickson broadcast on 750 wsb am and available as a podcast right here in ricochet he also runs the blog the resurgent it's got a great logo i love that logo previously he

served as the editor-in-chief and CEO of the conservative political blog Red State. And his new book is Before You Wake, Life Lessons from a Father to His Children. You can follow him on Twitter, at E.W. Erickson. Welcome, Eric. How are you doing today? I'm great. Thanks for having me. You got flayed alive on Twitter yesterday by everybody taking issue with one of your comments about how a three-year-old can choose his gender.

But remind me again what it was you said because Soledad O'Brien told you to stop typing. I mean, you're getting high-ranking salt stuff as anything, but please spare me the outrage from people who think – who are screaming age of consent while also thinking a three-year-old can pick his gender. Yes, and they will say you're conflating the issue, and this is the different conversations that we need to have, but I understand. So it's kind of what you do on Twitter. Some people just lay back, and they're very nice, but you tend to provoke. However, and I'm not saying this is a criticism, mind you. I mean I'm saying it's one of the things that makes your Twitter account interesting to read. But there's the voice you use to the adults in the room on Twitter, and then there's the voice that you would use to your children. I mean, I've always tried to talk to my daughter like she was grown

up so that she doesn't get accustomed to a condescending little, well, dear, tone of voice. But there's also the substance of what you say. And I assume that that's what your book is about, the lessons that you want to impart, what some of those lessons are. Well, so my wife and I in, gosh, the years blur now. Last year, 2016 it was, I thought I was having allergy problems, stress problems. We were having protesters show up at our house who didn't care for my opinions about the president at the time, not supporting him in his election. They had armed guards at the house. My kids were coming home in tears from school because kids were telling them my parents hated my guts. They were getting yelled at in the grocery store. And I just thought I had stress or allergies. It wound up getting put in the hospital with more than a dozen blood clots in my lungs.

And literally, as they were passing me through the CT scan to see what the problem was, my wife got a call from the Mayo Clinic saying they thought she had a rare form of lung cancer. A few months later, they did diagnose her with a rare genetic form of lung cancer. And I started thinking, you know, if something were to happen to my wife and me, what would we want our kids to know about life, particularly about this year being crazy? And if we weren't there, what would we want them to know about God and faith and family and just even their favorite recipes that we wouldn't be around to cook for them anymore? Wow. Eric, Peter Robinson here. Thank you so much for joining us. So the premise here, I mean, if Rob Long were able to join us today, he'd say, no, no, no, no, no.

Nobody would buy that premise. That's too melodramatic. That's just over the top. Let us repeat. This is true. You and your be strapped in. They rush me into the ICU and my scan is on the board. The doctor is there and he just points to it and asks if they had taken that body to the morgue yet, that they had somebody else coming.

Oh, you're kidding. No, I'm not. How many kids and how old were they at this time, roughly? At the time, they were 7 and 11, 8 and 12 now. And it was a really overwhelming experience for all of us. And give us – you're still here, obviously. So give us – I mean, readers, listeners right now who haven't been – who are unaware of this story are right now on edge. Tell us the medical outcome, and then we'll get back to the book if that's all right. Sure.

So I had to be treated as a stroke victim. I was in ICU for a week. The first 24 hours I was on TPA. I forget exactly what it stands for, but it's essentially what they give massive stroke victims within the first two hours. To thin the blood dramatically, to dissolve those clots, right? Yes. They were worried about the shifts in the clots and were there more. It was crazy.

So I was there for a week. My wife wound up flying out to the Mayo Clinic. They found one spot in her lungs. They went in to remove it. And on the day of the surgery, they found a second spot that hadn't been there the week before. And she does have a very rare genetic form of lung cancer. It is contained in her lungs. She takes a very small pill every day that's oral chemo. She has some weird side effects,

but not typical chemo side effects. Eventually, the cancer will mutate around. Eventually, they will run out of medicine to keep it at bay. But I think we have a clear path for the next several years with her. All right, good. So life is still unusually precious in the Erickson family. Yeah, we live in three-month increments now between my wife's CT scans. But she just got her last scan, and she's fine for another three months. So life moves on. Okay. And, Eric, it's a book and

this is a podcast so we're not going to have time to go through them but give us some flavor for for two of the first of all how did you write it uh this you're a busy man and you were concerned about your wife's health where did you find the time to write it and then just give us some flavor for how you felt what what you did for how you thought through what to write it and then just give us some flavor for how you felt what what you did for how you thought through what what what it was that you wanted to impart to your kids well it really started back in october of last year and i wrote a piece just at the resurgent on the things i wanted the kids to know about me if something should happen and that all came about the night before i wrote it i had had gone up to bed, was exhausted.

The president's Twitter followers were after me again. We were thinking we were going to have to guard at the house again. And I just said, you know, I don't think I'm going to survive. And she literally fell out crying right then and there. Said she had made a deal with God that one of us had to survive, and it was going to be me. And I just didn't sleep very much that night. And went downstairs the next morning. And just wrote a piece.

And the title of it was. If I die before you wake. And these are the things. I want my kids to know about me. That I've done bad things. And so when I tell them not to do things. Largely it's from personal experience. I want them to know that politics. Is not nearly as important as having a friendship.

With their next-door neighbor. Even if they disagree completely on politics, they should be able to get along on other things. And I want them to know that they're loved, even if we're not around. There is a God. He is real. And if they believe in him, we'll see each other on the other side of the eternal veil. By the way, I should say David Brooks saw the column and wrote about it in the New York Times, and a publisher asked if I would turn it into a book. And I literally – I wrote the – probably eight of the ten chapters in a week. So it's a – as you were writing it, it was a combination of last will and testament and story of My Life for My Own Children. Eric, James Lilacs is going to return you to current politics, but I have one last question about the story of your book, Before You Wake, Life Lessons from a Father to His Children.

And that question is this. Why didn't you quit politics? Why didn't you give up all of this and seek some kind of quieter life? You know, you were the first person to ask that question, and I ask myself that question a lot lately. And I'll tell you, it is because I believe very strongly in God and providence. And everything I have done in life, including being on TV and radio, has been by accident. It just happened. And I really feel like God has placed me where I need to be. And if I'm not supposed to be there anymore, he'll put me where

I am to be. But right now I think I'm supposed to be. I literally got a job in radio because someone got arrested in a crack house and I got mistaken for someone who had radio experience and was asked to replace the guy. And just everything has been providential, stumbled upon. So I think I am where I need to be right now. And when it's time to move on, God will move me there. Let's move back, he said inelegantly, to modern politics. Before you came on, Peter and I were having the usual predictable, tendentious conversation where I was up on my high horse,

spouting generalities and complaining about things. And then Peter was being rational and practical about where we are now. It's a conversation we're going to have over and over and over again. And it'll never get any more boring than it did earlier today. But it is relevant because here we are with more. You wrote at The Resurgent, I don't blame Roy Moore voters for sticking with him. Quote, Moore is a fighter for these people. He purports to share their values. And all the people his voters hate happen to hate Roy Moore.

They talk about innocence until proven guilty, but they're ready to run Moore out of town. You said, I don't blame Moore's voters, but I do have to blame those who are trying to defend Moore and dismiss the accusations or attack the women coming forward. Conservatism keeps being degraded by a bunch of like Satan. Yes, I stand by that. You know, one of the things that I realized last year in the run up to the election is that to degree, I was given everything that was happening with my family. I mean, literally people showing up on our

front porch to threaten us. I was a little more hostile to a lot of Trump voters than I should have been, realizing there are a lot of people out there who have every good reason to think there is an existential crisis in this country right now related to their culture and way of life, that they can't be left alone in their small community. If everybody in the community says a prayer before the football game and one person objects, well, then the whole community has got to give it up.

If one person comes into the community and thinks that boys should be allowed in the girls' bathroom, well, then by God, they've got to do it. So there are people who feel that way and they see a lot of people who are, for lack of a better term, culturally elite on the coast, Republican and Democrat alike, who tell them they're hicks, rubes and bigots. And they want someone who's willing to not be ashamed of their values. And unfortunately, the people who have latched onto that are some of the least savory people in modern American politics. But I don't blame them for looking for someone to take them seriously. Hey, Eric, Peter here. There's one piece of this story that is underreported in the media for obvious reasons.

And I'm going to quote you. This also comes from a piece you wrote, I guess, just yesterday. It was a quote. Explain that. The timing of it, it has come out a month before the election. These rumors have been there for more than a decade in Alabama. And the pile on was quick and furious from Republicans who hate Roy Moore and really don't want him there. I have no doubt that it is a media hit job, but that doesn't mean that it's not true. There are plenty of media hit jobs that are true. Timing is everything,

though, in politics. And I do think people have a right to be a little bit suspicious that this came out just after the Virginia election with a few days of breathing room to take in the Virginia results and now, bam, this. And so what I'm about to say is just based on telephone calls and talking to friends back in Washington. So it may be inaccurate, but the general word seems to be that just as you say, there were rumors of this kind floating around about Judge Moore and more than rumors, some evidence floating around. And in the Republican primaries, the press showed no interest in pursuing the leads and getting the story and now that judge moore is the republican candidate they're all over it is that generally your understanding as well yes i think so and i do have to say that there is after going

through 2016 and now this there is a market degree of unappreciated incompetence among the Republican establishment that they loathe this guy. He disgusts them. They want nothing to do with him, and yet they weren't able to get this – They couldn't take him out. In the primary. Even though Donald – even though the president of the United States endorsed one of his challengers, they couldn't take him out. So for James' sake here and for mine, but James and I were going through this, how do you reason – let's put – you're no longer in Atlanta. You're in Birmingham.

You are now doing your radio show from Alabama and you are a citizen of the state of Alabama. Eric, how do you reason this through you do not approve wait a second go ahead no i was just gonna it struck me what i was trying to say before it may be it may be relevant and pertinent that trump endorsed the other guy but how's that go ahead i mean yes oh i see it makes the point go ahead yeah got it got it because that that that's where the trump people, they correctly saw this was the way to go. But the voters in their burn it down and drain the swamp mode are going to go for the Trumpiest Trump, Trump, Trumpity, Trump, Trump character they can, which is the guy who throws deep, who swings wide. Right?

Isn't that what you should do even with this? Isn't that what we'd learn, that smash mouth and insult and saying the broad things and not being PC, that that's the new guy? So this guy is Trumpier than Trump, and that's why perhaps he has people sticking up for him because he fights, right? Right. And, you know, if I was on Burmese, you know, my show actually reaches into Alabama from the station I'm on. So your show should reach everywhere. I hope everybody listens to you. But go ahead. Thank you very much. And what I said last night on my show was that basically what I wrote, I don't blame people for sticking with Roy Moore. But I still think a lot of people are looking for political solutions to spiritual problems. And at some point, you compound the spiritual problems in the country by propelling

people into office of low character who claim to be one thing. You're harming your ability to draw people to your side by rallying them around, and you may get short-term gain and long-term damage. If I were in Alabama and I were an Alabama voter, Election Day would just be another day at the office for me because I would not be showing up at the polls. But alas, some of these spiritual matters – You would take a pass. You would take a pass. All right. Alas, some of these spiritual matters do have political solutions because, unfortunately, with the infection of everything by politics, that means that it enters the spiritual realm, i.e. the spirit of America, the ability to coexist and get along without one side demanding that things which are traditionally American be removed because they're offended. And I wondered, we talk about, you know, that the Democrats themselves are being swamped by the left, by the progressive side of it,

and I wonder if there's anybody who's going to be able to stand up in the drama on the democrat side and say no no we are not going to change everything about america in order to accommodate the complaints of a very small minority of people or whether or not they believe that they are required to go along with the entirety of the progressive agenda in order to catch that bernie bro wave and propel themselves into future political success. In other words, as Joe Biden. Yeah. I mean, he's a guy who may be very blunt about this in the past. It would be very interesting to see him run for president because he's taken a very no

nonsense position in the past, even as vice president, occasionally engaging against college students in the Bernie bro culture. Yeah, that's why I think he's going to run. And I think he's going to mount a not insignificant challenge to Trump in 2020. Interesting. So parting thoughts then. What do you think is what we just saw in Virginia, a foretaste of 18 – because presidents usually get their keister handed to them if things aren't going well. But if jobs continue to do well, if we're not in a major war, et cetera, do you think that 16 is a blip, a regional thing, or – I'm sorry, Virginia 17 is a blip, a regional, or a foretaste of things to come?

I think it's a foretaste of things to come. I think it's a foretaste of things to come. I mean, every president, all of the last five presidents have lost Virginia the first year of their election and then seen a wave of Democrats the next year, except for George W. Bush. But 9-11 caused an anomaly there. Typically, the other side does well. And the Republican parties have given no one any reason to actually go vote for them in 2018 with an energized Democratic base having plenty of reason to go find someone to stop the president. I do think, though, that the Democrats looking at this need to be careful they don't overplay their hand.

Tom Steyer running impeach the president commercials all over the country. Right. Thanks. You know, Barack Obama had a base that wasn't the Democrats and Trump has a base that's not the Republicans, but they'll probably turn out for Republicans if they think the Democrats would impeach their man. Probably so. Before you wink, Life Lessons from a Father to His Children is just one of the many products you can get from Eric Erickson. You can listen to his radio show podcast right here on Ricochet. You can follow him on Twitter. That's fun. And we thank you for joining us today and we'll see you down the road on another book, another election, another day, another topic. Thanks, Eric. Eric, thank you. Yeah, if there is... That's just it. I mean, there are people who don't like Trump personally or the administration or the way they handle things who will still vote for him.

I'm convinced if – well, I'm convinced like it's some great insight. I'm one of those. If the other – I mean but look at me though. Oh, sorry. I mean I – we know you are just a slavish Trump, you know, poll-poller Peter. Don't – I mean you don't need to convince me. It's those of us who don't and weren't and aren't who down the road say, well, the alternative is this series of maniacal people who want to impeach, who fundamentally want to reform America, as Barack Obama promised in the first few days of his term. So, yeah, there's a lot of us without a party, without a place, with just some ideas. But it's a lonely place to be. Help me out here, Peter.

No, no, I'm just watching you because I'm sure that you'll come out in the right place by, oh, two or three podcasts from now, James. It'll all be all right. But in the meantime, there's nothing I can do. I simply have to release you into the juices of your own anxiety. Yeah, well, thanks an awful lot. That makes me sound like I'm walking around with sloshing pants. But it is true. You wish you had a particular vessel in which you could place these things

because if you no longer belong to a party, then you are outside. Then you have no real standing for criticizing because you left, right? I mean it's like moving out of a house and then walking past a while later and looking into the front window and disapproving of how they did the decor. Well, you're the one who moved out. But at the same time, I, well, I don't know. It's Saturday morning and I should be thinking about, you know, common household things that I have to do. I've got to put a hose reel away.

I've got light bulbs that I have to change. What about the gutters? Aren't they clogged with leaves? The gutters? I have to call somebody up for that. I'm sure I do because it requires a big ladder and I don't have a ladder. Oh, that reminds me. Yeah, well, you may have this problem yourself if you're hiring somebody and you're looking around for somebody to do a job like your gutters or your

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recruiter.com slash ricochet and our thanks to zip recruiter for sponsoring this the ricochet podcast well before we go the last time i looked um louis ck's career was over this morning i didn't know if anybody else's career is over oh george takai i think it was uh suffering some some uh some for something that happened in 1981 the entirety of people's uh miscreant sexual lives are now being unearthed and overturned and announced, and careers are summarily being destroyed and removed. Retrospectively, it's fascinating to watch them take Kevin Spacey out of a movie that is already finished and replace him with somebody else. It's possible.

I mean, they're going to reshoot. In 10 years, it'll be possible to do it digitally, and you won't be able to tell the difference, if that. You're out there in california what's the uh what's how's the culture changing beneath your feet there at the hoover institute thanks to all these hollywood sex scandals not uh yeah so my my reaction to this is that it's good now now we're in the in the in a period of a kind of hysteria. I mean, Harvey Weinstein is one thing because as best I can tell, the activity was current and flagrant and illegal. activity that is in the distant past and that made someone uncomfortable and indeed may have been untoward and yucky but not illegal ruining people's careers what happened to the presumption of innocence in particular of course i understand presumption of innocence strictly speaking only

applies in a court of law but in journalism what what about the notion that you don't destroy somebody's career without checking the evidence? And of course, journalism scarcely exists in this regard now because we have Twitter and Facebook. And I guess what I'm saying is that there is a kind of instantaneous rush to judgment, a total credulity about every charge concerning every person. There's no notion of, well, frankly, possibly forgiveness or possibly the notion that people mature and can put bad behavior behind them. There's no notion of waiting to hear if there's another side. This is now unhealthy, I believe. James?

I'm torn. Yes, torn. In one sense, there is all such sound fred you want to you want to sing is let beethoven set that word to music because to find people who have regarded themselves as our moral betters and avatars because they subscribe to a certain set of political beliefs that they believe can be applied to achieve a wonderful egalitarian utopia in in which they will be the top little 1% managing for the rest of us, to find that these people who regarded themselves as betters because of their beliefs, not their actions,

to be skewered and held contemptible because of their actions, is, I don't know, it's gratifying in some strange way. When you've been lectured to by these people and told that you were a hateful person who wants to destroy people in the margins of society because you have a different set of economic principles and because you differ about the they have been treating individuals, which is the atom around the building block of the cult, that they've been treating people shoddily, that they're bad people, that they're nasty, selfish, egocentric, solipsistic, narcissistic people is satisfying. On the other hand – No, stop there. That's just too good for there to be another hand. Well, there is no other hand. On the other hand, you realize also that there's a seemingly inexhaustible supply of awful people in the entertainment world. And this is what's fascinating because here you have people who make movies that in combination with all of the skills of the craft, from the lighting to the set direction to the set design to the way it's framed to the scoring to the swelling music at the end of it, these people are capable of conjuring the finest emotions in people that you can imagine and make you make you get in touch with the most elemental things that it means to be human that they know

this but in their own life are incapable of not inflicting misery for some momentary self gratification is fascinating and you wonder how much of their art is an expiation an apology for what they know about themselves and whether or not they believe that their art in providing this for other people gives them cover and license to do what they want. I mean the disconnect between the high and the low is fascinating and I don't understand it because when I feel exalted by a piece of art, it doesn't mean that I've had deposited into my moral account now some amount that allows me to squander it on a low pleasure before, afterwards. So that's the fascinating part. We all know that because you're a great artist doesn't mean that you're a good person. But the self-awareness involved in creating the great art would seem to maybe perhaps

apply. And when you talk about Louis C.K., whose act consists of describing these things with a self-awareness that makes you think, oh, he gets it, he can't be that bad because obviously he understands it, and then to realize, no, not whatsoever. He's done nothing with this self-realization at all. It's a fascinating revelation of people

who have been given ultimate license, creatively, monetarily all emotionally all of these things it's just fascinating and finally it makes you look at people who can say well you know you know i i did sleep with my girlfriend's adopted daughter but in my defense in my defense i in my defense, I married her. I mean, when that's your moral avatar at the end of the day, then you know that Hollywood really has something of a problem.

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Get down on our knees and beg $5 a month for the other level, and that's nothing compared to a cup of coffee these days and it'll give you full access to all the joys of Ricochet Peter it's been a pleasure thank everybody for bearing with my

incoherence today my stumble tongue not knowing what I think or feel about anything but you know what Yeti will run it through the filter that makes me sound smart and reasonable and everybody in the comments will love me I hope see you in the comments will love me, I hope. See you in the comments, everybody.

Next week, James. Bye-bye. Young teacher, the subject of schoolgirl fantasy. She wants him so bad, he knows what she wants to be. Inside her, there's longing. This girl's an open page. But the market, she's so close now. This girl is half his age. Don't stand, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me Don't stand, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me

Her friends are so jealous You know how bad girls get Sometimes it's not so easy To be the teacher's pet get sometimes it's not so easy to be the teacher's pet temptation frustration

so bad it makes him cry what must stop she's waiting his car is warm

and dry don't stand don't stand so don't stand so close to me don't stand, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me. Don't stand, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me.

Loose talk in the classroom, to hurt they try and try Strong words in the staff room The accusations fly It's no use, he sees hope His thoughts do shake and come Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov Don't stand, don't stand so Don't stand so close to me Don't stand, don't stand so

Don't stand so close to me Ricochet. Join the conversation.