The Ricochet Podcast - The Prince of Peace

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

The executive branch's ambitious prosecutors have made first strikes against familiar, yet evasive, foes. That means it's time to bring back John Yoo — legal scholar, gastronome, Eagles fan — to parse through the Comey indictment, jurisprudence regarding domestic terror, and the legitimation of using military force against Venezuelan drug runners. Plus, Steve, Charlie, and James nod along to Trump's riff at the U.N. General Assembly but remain wary of the big warning against a common pain reliever. Sound clip from this week's open: President Trump goes off script at the U.N.Please visit this week's sponsors!Cozy Earth: Go to cozyearth.com/RICOCHET for up to 40% off your new favorite pajama set and blanket!Prize Picks: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/RICOCHET and use code RICOCHET and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup!

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall. It's the Rickusay podcast with Charles C.W. Cook and Stephen Hayward. I'm James Lillix, and today we talk to our old friend, John, you, about just everything. So let's have ourselves a podcast. And I don't mind making the speech without a teleprompter. because the teleprompter is not working.

I feel very happy to be up here with you, nevertheless, and that way you speak more from the heart. I can only say that whoever's operating this teleprompter is in big trouble. Welcome, everybody. It's the Rikoshae podcast number 759. I'm James Lylex in Minneapolis, which is absolutely stunningly beautiful at the moment, fall, just beginning to manifest itself in the tips of the leaves.

And in those places where the summer is eternal and nothing ever changes. California, Stephen Hayward, Florida, Charlie Cook, and as I say, we've got the whole country covered. Greetings, gentlemen, how are you today? Doing well. Good. I'm good to hear. Good, good.

Well, I assume now that the escalator is moving and taking us up and that we may enter the hall and speak and our teleprompters, well, we don't have them. But if we did, do either of you think that you could expostulate for 40 minutes or so? I tend to believe that the president could. I don't know how long his teleprompter was off during the U.N. address. I did read a good deal of it. I saw a tweet from somebody who had characterized it as a series of just, you know,

sort of self-aggrandizing little me, me, me, me, give me a award. And I thought, well, that might be so. And then I went and looked at the actual speech. there is a lot of putting the stick to some of the countries for various things that the president does not agree with but the end of it was a rather stirring call in defensive Western civilization. It was the scripted part you can tell but it was we have a beautiful thing that we have inherited

here and it is our responsibility duty and joy to maintain it but but but but but immigration that was one of the things of which the president spoke and here's a quote not only is the UN not solving the problems it should too often. It's actually creating new problems for us to solve the best. Example is the number one political issue of our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It's uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders. A lot in there to parse, whether or not

it's the number one issue, whether or not it's a crisis, whether or not it's uncontrolled, and whether or not the UN is funding it. So I will let either one of you leap in and tell me what you think. Well, Steve, you're in California. I feel like you should by definition get first dibs on this. Okay. I'm actually in Washington, D.C. today for a day. But, you know, so, well, I'm just quickly about the UN speech and then that point is, my first thought, excuse me, my first thought when I saw the elevator failed, the teleprompter failed is, I'll bet Trump's staff did that deliberately so that he would just run for an hour, right? Because the conspiracy people said, oh, this is the UN trying to monkey with, okay.

The immigration thing, he's absolutely right that, and even The Economist magazine recently, which is, you know, that's the authoritarian centrist journal for, you know, the greater Euro world, I suppose. They said Europe is really blown out on migration. This really is out of control. The asylum policies are wrongheaded and need to be rethought.

And what you see all over Europe is that the ruling parties simply refuse to heed the rising public. sentiment to say something needs to be done about this. And some like Britain are doubling down and making it worse. There's a second aspect to this, beyond just the recalcitrance of the ruling parties, is you also, because of the European Union and the various international tribunals of human rights and all the rest of that, tell individual nations, well, no, you can't close your borders. You can't limit immigration. So, you know, Italy is having to continue to accept asylum

seekers, even though the government would like to stop it under Maloney. I think, I forget all the menacing threats to Hungary because Hungary 10 years ago said, nope, no one's coming here. We're going to put a fence up on our border and we'll just transship people to Germany or whatever they did. And I think they're still under sanctions and monetary penalties and all kinds of other menacing things. So, you know, to the extent that the United States either follows or leads Europe, somebody's out of step here and I'm pretty sure it's Europe. yes for the economist to be centrist it's centrist in the European sense

I think is what we should say Charles I have a long-winded take on this if you'll indulge me I'm going to go get some coffee the way in which dual citizenship worked changed dramatically after World War II

it still is something of a mixed bag but the Western countries that were on the right side of World War II, and in fact on the wrong side, because we conquered them and told them what to do, changed their attitude toward citizenship, such that if you now become a citizen of the United States, the United States does not carry the way whether you retain your citizenship of birth. Some of those countries do care, and we'll strip you of it, but America doesn't. Britain doesn't, France doesn't. And the reason for that is that there was a hot,

an understandable horror of people becoming stateless because of what the Nazis had done. And this useful instinct has been extrapolated out into a completely insane system that pertains to immigration in general, in which any sort of enforcement or desire to retain the characteristics of the West, are conflated with the horrors of the mid-20th century. And I think we are now coming up against that in a really practical sense. The big problem the left has in the United States and across the world on immigration is that it has ceased to regard it as being a quotidian political question, how many people should we have, on what basis should they be admitted,

what do we expect of them, and they have come to see it as a human rights question. we don't debate human rights per se we don't debate the worth of individuals but we have to debate immigration and yet we can't and what trump said although it was haphazard and trumpian was correct in this regard that there is a big difference between determining that people aren't worthwhile or hating them for their national characteristics or the color of their skin or the language they speak and setting immigration policy as a country that works for the people who are already there and the constitutions that you already have. And I think that this confusion in the mind of the people who have been the architects of our post-war order

is crashing down now, finally, where the average person across the world is saying, no, it is not the same thing as what the Nazis did to say, we will make broad-based determinations as to who we want in our country. That is not the same thing as we were trying to avoid with the establishment of the United Nations and various declarations of human rights in the European Union and so forth. And the problem is that the people have got there, but most governments have not. I think you're right. Then what walks hand by hand, hand in side by side with that sentiment is the idea that when people say,

well, our national character is being changed or altered in ways in which we do not approve, They're being told that the national character is something of which they should be ashamed, and that it's archaic and it's based in a variety of isms and sins. And therefore, you're defending, by defending the past, by wanting the past to have continuity of the present and the future, you are defending ideas that now have fallen out of favor, and that makes you subject to a probrium in the public square. But most people aren't buying it. And I think as Stephen said earlier, is that this is a rising sentiment in Europe,

and we all know what happens when those things are not addressed. and not even allowed to be spoken about. Well, that was one of the things that the president talked about at the U.N. The other was energy policy, which I really didn't expect. Again, it's like these are settled issues. Why is he bringing this up? Talking about how the green energy is driving Europe off a cliff and leading to de-industrialization and eye-watering, as they say, prices for these things.

The fake energy catastrophe, is he correct? Is he over-emphasizing the importance of this? because I, you know, I think of the bullets that we dodged, the inscribed bullets that we dodged with a green no deal, not being fully implemented. And I am grateful that petroleum continues to be the wonderful Texas tea, Iker backbone that it is of the country. Is there any hope for Europe, though, in this respect?

Or are they just going to continue to play green while importing all kinds of dirty energy from elsewhere and claiming their hands are going to be clean? Well, my perspective on it is that Trump was twisting the knife because I perceive for a while now that while Europe and to some extent our country still talks green, they've been trying to beat a retreat from some of their crazy energy targets and climate targets. And so, you know, over the last three, four years, Germany has had to ramp up coal-fired electricity with some of the dirtiest coal in the world because they have a lot of the old, I guess, lignite coal. And here in this country, here's my favorite thing. First of all, there was a long article in the New York Times last week by Benjamin Wallace Wells. And essentially, it was the public declaration that the climate change crusade is over. So we're giving up on climate politics.

And Thomas Schatz, the very liberal senator from Hawaii, said Democrats should quit talking about climate and talk about inflation and affordability and things that people care about. And my favorite marker is out here, my home state of California, a year ago, Gavin Newsom and the Democrats were all, or maybe a year. and a half. They're all up in arms about our high gas prices are the fault of the oil refiners. So they set in motion an investigation for excess profits by the refiners, and of course found out it's nonsense. And then two of the largest refineries said Valera, one other said, we think we're going to close our last two refineries in California. And incredible predictions that could lead to $8 gallon gasoline. And so the latest thing is, first of all, the legislature just passed a bill that will allow an expansion of oil production and

Kern County in California. I think in the last two years, there have been 200 wills a drill. The state is now authorizing 2,000 new ones. And better, they're begging the refiners not to leave, and they're now talking about subsidizing oil refineries to stay open in California. So in 18 months, in crazy California, we've gone from, let's punish the oil refiners because they're evil people to, oh, can we give you subsidies to make sure you stay open? That tells me that in the real world, this whole circus is pretty much. over. Now, the climate cult, as I call it, they're going to keep yelling and screaming and blocking roads and throwing tomato soup on artworks and so forth and lying down the road now

and then, although even some of them are starting to draw back from that, especially as they're starting to get real jail sentences in several venues, including even in Europe. But I think in the real world, reality has finally caught up with this nonsense and is reversing in a real way and real time right in front of us. I won't be happy until California resembled the movies of the 40s or the two Jakes where you're driving around or you actually see a little oil rig in somebody's backyard.

Pumping out a couple of gallons a day back in the days when California did it. Charles, before we go to our guest, anything on Europe in their energy situation? Is Stephen Wright? Is the green fervor finally peaked and passed? Yes. It's funny, Steve, you mentioned this

because this was pointed out to me the other day as well, and I realized that I hadn't noticed it because the people who normally scream about it had stopped and I don't think about it so I wasn't looking for them to talk about it and when I wrote my book 10 years ago I got lots of rude letters from the left saying wow you know 200 pages and you didn't even mention climate

and I wouldn't respond to them but if anyone asked me in person I would say that's because I don't think it's remotely important and they would look at me like I had three heads well now yeah it's interesting that but people it's just In America, especially, they've just stopped talking about it. You just don't hear about this anymore. It's not the, everything is everything tweets that you get from the left. There are other things that have replaced it.

The important part of it, I think, is just that it be eschatological. Whatever it is that is the issue of the day, it has to be that if we don't do it, then the end of the world will come. So something else will fill that role. But it's been a fascinating couple of years where that dog hasn't barked. Well, something else already has, and that's, the imminent Hitlerism, the authoritarianism, the jack boot that has descended on the throat and the faces of all of us. And I get that, of course, from my social feed as well.

I read the other day, one out of five people in America get their news from TikTok, which to me was just stunning. And I instantly had a version of a purple-haired Walter Cronkite with a septum ring yelling in his car while he gesticulates like an electrocuted Italian. And yeah, I mean, everybody gets their news now from these sources. And if that's the case, you get this firehouse of panic and end-of-the-world nonsense coming at you 24-7, and yet we keep scrolling. Well, it's all the more important to keep a place where you can be sane while you're stepping away from the insane news cycles that dominate our culture.

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And now we bring to the pie, who we got... Oh. And now we bring to the podcast, John Yu, needs no introduction. Dda-da-da. John knows law. John knows McDonald's, John knows the fluffier eagles, and he's here mostly to talk about McDonald's and a little law. Hey, John, how are you?

Great, James. How are you? Couldn't be better, actually. I'm just firing on all cylinders. When are we going to do our special Star Trek science fiction episode with Hammer? Oh, we do have to do that. We absolutely do. I've got to finish season three of Strange New Worlds First, which I understand is a tad disappointment, but I love it anyway. but we will do that. The final episode was weak. I was disappointed.

Yeah, they say they're going to do better for the fourth episode. I think a little bit too much on the comedy side, but I can deal with it. I still love the chef and the crew and the rest of it. But James Comey, he said,

grinding all the gears to get to the topic. James Comey indicted by a grand jury, which may, of course, also looked at a ham sandwich. We don't know. For alleged perjury, and remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 30th, 2020.

Now, lying to Congress, miss speaking, saying things, we get the feeling, if you're watching up clips, that people do it all the time, but there's never any penalty for it. Is that the case? And what is your impression of the indictment of Comey at this moment?

So people should realize the crime is not lying in Congress, of which there would be many perpetrators lying to Congress. So I probably would have agreed with the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General and not brought these charges. Not because I don't think Comey lied to Congress or not, but because it would be too hard to prove. This is essentially a he said, she said case about one answer that Comey gave back almost five years ago to Congress when he was asked whether he had authorized or knew of the leaking of confidential law enforcement investigation material to the press. Comey's subordinate leaked the information to the press about the Hillary Clinton investigation

and he believed, he testified under oath that he believed Comey wanted him to but Comey said he didn't so it's really he said she said case really about that. A lot of people are going to think oh no, Comey's being indicted for all the other terrible things he did I mean if you go back and look at the record

Comey right if you remember tried to entrap president Trump, while he was the FBI director, tried to entrap President Trump into trying to block the investigation into the Russia hoax, because Trump, and he turned out to be right about this, knew the Russian hoax was actually a hoax. And so remember, Comey got it, was talking to him about it, and then he was running back to his car and typing into his laptop secret memos, which he then had a friend leaked to the New York Times, or they might think Comey's going to be investigated for all the shenanigans leading up to

the 2016 election where he, remember, he started an investigation into Clinton, then he closed it, then he reopened it, then he closed it. And then he announced in the, without consulting with the attorney general, that the matter was closed and that Hillary was clear just a few days before the election. People are going to think he's being indicted for all that. He's not. He's being indicted for this one statement he gave five years ago. And I'm not sure that the jury is going to convict. I think it's enough. I think there's enough there to bring a charge. But I think the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General Bondi must have thought, I think rightly so, that it's not clear whether a jury would convict and that it would be ultimately a waste of the prestige

of the Justice Department to lose in court on this. Okay. Well, John, first of all, three quick points for you to respond to. One is it's hardly unprecedented to bring a perjury charge for congressional testimony. I give you the case of Alger Hiss, right? I mean, that's right. The statute of limitations had expired on Hiss's espionage, so they got him for perjury. That took two trials. And okay, the second point is, and we've talked about this before, you and I, is in some respects, this resembles, I won't say payback, but a parallel to the, I think, really outrageous charges brought against Scooter Libby 20 years ago for lying to the FBI. When they knew that he was not the leaker, they knew it was Richard Armitage, but he was untouchable. Okay, I won't go through that whole history again.

And so maybe there's payback of the second kind, which is, you and I have said game theory would say, if you want Democrats to stop lawfare, make them suffer some of it themselves. And the final point in question is, who is the happiest about this indictment and why is that person Hillary Clinton? Oh, you're going to have to explain why it's Hillary Clinton. I would have thought it would be Donald Trump, although I'm sure Hillary thinks that all of the back and forth that Comey engaged in on the Hillary investigation lost her the election. Oh, yeah, no, I think she said that. that's pretty much confirmed that she blames Comey above everybody else for her losing so that's why i say she's the happiest about her right okay you know the democrats have a uh i think it was a hate love

hate relationship with comy because they hated him for the hillary clinton thing but then they loved him for trying to entrap trump into obstruction of justice keep in mind that muller as i thought he would completely cleared trump of any of these outrageous claims that there was some kind of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, though most of the investigation was these obstruction of justice charges that really were triggered by Comey. I mean, Comey really set off the whole Mueller investigation. That's all his fault.

And I totally by the point, I've mentioned it too, that the only way, I think, to stop the Democrats from not just conducting law fair, but escalating it next time they're in power, is to deter them by giving them a taste of their own medicine. I don't think prosecuting Comey is much, retaliation against the likes of Alvin Bragg or Letitia James for the cases. They're the ones who should be investigated, maybe.

You know, Comey is, you know, not really part of that. He's not part of the Democrat or he's not part of the Biden or Obama machines. I think, actually, I think, and I don't know what Charlie said. I think he's actually kind of a, in a way of more worrisome figure. He's like a Boy Scout who thinks he knows better than everybody else and is willing to subordinate the Constitution, all our normal rules of procedure, because he thinks he knows better than the American people, or even the way that the Congress and the president have designed our law enforcement system. So you can see that throughout his career. He just acts out and does,

oh, I think this is the best thing to do for the country or the FBI. I don't care what the president says or what Congress says. And he's like the ultimate bureaucrat in a way, he's more worrisome than these partisan infighters, right, that we're talking about now. So, John, I have one more thing for you, and then I'll turn you over to Charles and back to James. It's to shift gears a little bit. I'm reading your piece in the Washington Post from a few days ago about Trump's policy towards Venezuela. And I'm wondering, when did you decide to start letting AI write your columns for you? Because AI is smarter than me.

That's why. I acknowledge the robot overlords do better than me. I just said, please write me a column under my name and my voice. Too many m-dashers? No, it was better than my track. Well, I mean, well, first of all, I mean, listeners know that we're pals, but this is the worst article you've ever written. Oh, come on. Come on.

Well, oh, come on. All right. That's good. I'm going to give you one sentence here and then get to the serious part of it. But here's a sentence. Americans have died in car wrecks at an annual rate of about 40,000 in recent years. The nation does not wage war on auto companies. I think that's what magicians would call a category error.

But the serious point of your article is we're not clear on what the dividing line is between a criminal matter and in a matter of war. And now, you know, I'll concede to you, you know, more about the law that I do. And, you know, you've been in the middle of it from your time of the Justice Department back after 9-11. On the other hand, it does seem to me that, A, Venezuela is a hostile nation to the United States. and if it doesn't arise to the sort of clear tripwires of being in a state of war, that's because they're clever and avoid going that. But look, I can go through all the lists and I won't now of why Venezuela is actively hostile to the United States. And why I think, by the way, Steve, Steve, like a typical Straussian,

you did not read to the last paragraph of the text because you're searching for hidden meanings throughout. You didn't make it. Remember, the last paragraph says, We're at war with Venezuela. I mean, I argue that what the only way this is legal is if the drug cartels are arms of the Venezuelan government are intertwined with Venezuela, and then this is all legitimate. But then people should realize we are actually in open war with Venezuela, and they should just know that. Yeah. Well, by the way, John, if you're really going to throw the Strowsian card at me, you'll know that what's at the beginning and what's at the end doesn't count.

You've got to put it in the middle. See, every time I talked to, I learned something new about you crazy and Straussians. I suspected you didn't read the beginning or the end, but I wasn't sure. Now, you know, I saw that, but it just seemed to me that, you know, your logic in the middle was very wishy-washy. And at the end, you say, yeah, but of course, it seems to me that that's a quite compelling case can be made for that. And so what? I mean, you're usually very utilitarian. I always call you a grubby benthamite, right?

I am a utilitarian about this. And it seems to me that even that, you know, pleasure and pain and all that. I mean, I don't know. It seems, I'm a little surprised that you. wouldn't be saying, and also your fondness for executive power and national defense, that you wouldn't be more on Trump's side on this. That's all I'm surprised about. Yeah, I don't, well, you know, the simple line is I don't think we can use the military to wage war on something that's a social problem. So drugs is a social problem, but a drug cartel, just dealing drugs, I don't

think is an appropriate subject for war. I think there's actually a utilitarian basis for this, because I think actually it would cause widespread social unrest and overuse of force by the government. And deprivation of our, can I say natural rights, Steve? Am I allowed to say natural rights on this podcast? No, you aren't, but okay. But then you cross the line into war when you have, to me, the line is an organized entity with the power of nation state that's trying to attack us because of our political or foreign policy or national. security. I think drug cartels, a drug dealer is just out to use, to make money. They don't care what our foreign policy is or national security is. In fact, they probably like it. The country's

more stable. They can make more money out of us. If a knockoff effect of these drug dealers is increased violence in the cities, does that enter into your equation at all? Because then it's not a social problem. It's actual kinetic activity. But I think it's a, I think crime, drugs, they're these perennial social problems. We can't reduce them to zero the way you can, you have to use force against an enemy that's trying to change our policies or harm our national security. Now, look, if China is really behind all this fentanyl, and they're really doing it on purpose to attack us, I think that's something like an active war. But if it's just like a drug cartel running drugs to satisfy American demand for drugs, it's just like, it's just an illicit

business. I don't think that crosses the line into appropriate use of military power, you know, military force. I think that's, I mean, I would think everyone would agree that. Just a question is what, you know, these drug boats, are they on one side of the line or the other? I have a question that is, in a sense, the inverse of this. On the Comey matter, I, of course, load the man. And I'm extremely irritated reading this morning every newspaper that suggests that the Justice Department was perfect and virtuous until yesterday. And then introduced into our politics, these pretextual. prosecutions. Have they not been alive for the last 10 years? But I think the case is extremely weak and

will probably be dismissed pre-trial. So unless you have a disagreement with that, John, I want to ask you about groups that are engaged in domestic terrorism and where the lines are. So we've had in the last few weeks a number of examples of left-wing violence or perhaps violence committed by people who have left-wing views for political ends. The assassination of Charlie Kirk is one. Yesterday's attack on the ICE facility was another. And one of the things that I've seen on the right is we need to go after these people. And they point to examples of our having done this in the 60s and 70s with groups within the United States that were engaged in terrorism. And then I see other people say, no, you can't do that. There are First Amendment problems. These people tend to be

lone wolves, and so the networks are too broad. What can the federal government do if there are groups or ideological wings that are engaged in sustained violence domestically? So the only thing I disagree with your view on Comey is I don't think it's going to get dismissed pre-trial because it's so easy for prosecutors to get to trial. I don't, you know, judge will just say, oh, this is a he said, she said. It's just based on the facts. And that's up to the jury. So I think, fortunately, unfortunately, we're going to be treated to the circus of a trial where, you know, it'll just be like the Trump trials. Like Comey will come out after every day of proceedings make statements.

I'm envisioning Trump coming out too, standing outside of the courthouse making statements too every time Comey comes out. I mean, it could be a complete circus. I'm sure the White House is considering this. On the, I think on the actually the more important question about, you know, where the line between war and crime. I think the federal government could do more in terms of domestic terrorism, but Congress hasn't authorized it. So there's no statute like the one against foreign terrorists. You know, you can designate a foreign group, a foreign terrorist organization, you can launch investigations, you can convict people of what's the crime is called material support for

foreign terrorism. Congress has chosen, I think, Charlie, because of your reason, that they're the Congress was concerned about free speech issues, so they've never passed those kinds of laws for domestic groups. So even the weather underground, the bombings we saw in the 70s and even started in the late 60s, people were convicted, but they were convicted for trying to kill federal officers, trying to destroy federal property, and then they were convicted that their time, and then we made them tenure professors at the University of Chicago at the end of their, which is kind of like a sentence, I suppose, if you're in the education department. But there's no, you know, because of the first. And actually, what you say, Charles, this is very interesting.

Another point you made is, in prosecution, there is a problem that always leads to most of these cases getting pled out. It's called gray mail. Because what happens is when you go after people, like these people, they threaten to try to force a government to reveal classified information. Like, how did you know it was us? How did you surveil us? How did you surveil us? and they try to force the government to produce all this classified information about how they're surveilling these kinds of groups. And so usually the government would rather plead out these cases and have to go to trial. And so I bet even if we do have wide-scale investigations of the kind that President Trump is proposing, I'm not confident there's going to be a lot of convictions.

There might be some investigations about, you know, are people really behind this funding these crazy people and these crazy groups, so far, I don't see anything really there to support any kind of charges against anybody. And my follow-up question is, where is the line then between investigation and prosecution? Because although that law that you mentioned doesn't exist, Congress has never passed it, we have had organizations in the United States infiltrated by federal agents. And they went after the Klan, and then in the 70s, 80s and 90s, they went after white supremacist, groups in the hills of Idaho. That was what caused Ruby Ridge.

And then they were pretty worried a few years later at Waco about the huge, whatever you want to call it, organization, cult, religion dissenters there. And they had people who were occupying buildings close by and watching them. So do you have to have a law of the sort that you've described as not existing to be able to just send out investigators to look into domestic groups? No, I don't think so, but I think you need something tighter to justify the investigation. First of all, to investigate versus prosecute, the line is to investigate, you just need, you know, reasonable grounds to think that someone's engaging in federal crimes.

And so it depends what the federal crimes are. And we've actually seen cases that in the United States because there have been investigations of groups that were thought to be supporting foreign terrorist groups. And actually, there's a case that went to the Supreme Court about this. And the Supreme Court said that even groups connected to foreign terrorists that are just using money for lawyers and using money for media relations, if they're also helping the foreign terrorist group, they can be investigated. I don't think you could do that domestically.

I think domestically, you have to have, we think that they're planning to attack federal building. We think they're, in some of the cases you mentioned, the crime was depriving people of their constitutional rights. So it's hard to explain, but I think you need a tighter link for domestic investigations because I think Congress was worried after what came out about Hoover and all the investigations because he also, he did some of those investigations. He also launched investigations into what seemed to be legitimate activity like the civil rights movement.

Right, right. Congress never, I think, has always been careful about, and I think the courts have been careful too. I mean, the problem, and here's the thing about what's going on with, bring it back to Comey, too, is even if Comey's never convicted, right, the investigation itself in defending yourself could ruin him. And maybe that's partially what Trump is after. Even if a jury is almost certain to acquit him or to be hung, just making Comey go under this is the punishment. And that might be a worry here with your group's questions, Charlie, is that if you have a First Amendment concern, even being forced to defend yourself from these investigations can really be a harm.

Can you know, chill speech. I don't think there's anything that can be done about that until it gets to the courts when you present the charges and go to trial. Part of the problem maybe is that some of these relationships seem both tentacular and amorphous and there's so much plausible deniability. The Tides Foundation gives money to the Utah Committee for doing all the good things. and the Utah Committee for doing all the good things gives money to queer rifles Salt Lake City whose founder espouses the overthrow of the United States government and free Palestine and the rest of it.

And then somebody who isn't connected to the organization at all but has been adjacent to it online or hearing its ideas from other people and other friends that goes to decide to go and shoot somebody. So you can't draw a line from a guy who shoot somebody to George Soros. But there is this sort of money that spreads and flows throughout these organizations. And I think that's what they're trying to look at.

But again, you're right. That's exactly right. That's what we had to deal with when we were investigating the groups responsible for 9-11 and foreign terrorist groups. They would, and actually, you know who did this first? The Irish, the Irish Republican Army would set up in the United States, these fundraising groups, right? They would have clubs and they would raise money.

And the government, the U.S. government could not do exactly what you're saying, James, prove that there was a direct link to their fundraising and community building. And then, of course, they were in some ways getting money over to Ireland for their resistance to the United Kingdom. But you can't just say giving the one, you know, the grandma who gives $5 in the tip jar at, you know, O'Shaughnessy's bar in the north end of Boston is supporting terrorism. And so because of that, the government gave a lot of leeway for First Amendment reasons. if we truly were a repressive authoritative regime they would need no pretext whatsoever to go after all of these organizations shut them down confiscate their assets and kick them in the huskow but the people that are doing these things are convinced of course that were precisely the sort of authoritarian regime that must be deposed even though none of our act even though our actions permit them to flourish and do what they wish it is the damnedest thing i think stephen had something else on this well not really i mean i i mean antifa and that's the specific organization

being designated as a terrorist support or whatever, they're not really engaged in free speech. They don't really do that much speaking at all. I mean, they exist to violently disrupt things and damage things. And, I mean, they're really nihilists and anarchists, right? So I don't think that line is actually very hard to make out. And I think that line's pretty bright. Now, there may be a statutory lacunae, as you say.

But I don't know. If I went back, I got to think that the way we went after, as you say, the weather underground. But decades ago, the Communist Party, where, by the way, we never did uncover all the different money flows and all the rest of that, was until the Soviet Union collapsed and we got into the archives that we found out that there was lots of money coming in from the KGB to America that we never uncovered. So it seems to me that the case for vigorous action on these things, like the Venezuelan drug runners,

is pretty compelling. I agree with you. I think Antifa, going after Antifa, the group, although it'll be very hard to because they're decentralized, right? They don't really have a leadership in a conventional way. I don't think going after them is a problem because they commit the violence. They organize the violence. They organize the protests. They occupy the buildings.

They target officers. But if you want to try to get at the larger group of people who are just giving money, that's the harder. But, you know, James' point is that I think is that that's really the root of it. I mean, if you could cut them off from the money and the support, they couldn't do what they do. but I think Charlie, because of First Amendment reasons, you know, we have free speech protections for money. Yeah. I'll give the donation of money, and that's the problem.

As you over-prosecute, then you're going to suppress legitimate political. Well, we also have free speech protections for sedition under Brandenburg via. Right. Well, the only other thing to add, John, because it's in my contract that I have to, is if you're in our green room when we were doing the code, the earth spot, and Charles praised their breathability. Their breathability is, of course, the result of lower smog from the Clean Air Act. You must know that.

Oh, you mentioned the Clean Air and you've now ruined two podcasts. I have to do that to you, John. You know it. If you guys don't know this, I forbid, I forbid, Steve, from mentioning the Clean Air Act and other podcasts, because then it just descends into boredom in about 30 seconds, if not. Well, it's proof that speech is violence in this case, and violence of violence, of course, and violence is speech. I too would want to detail the minutia and the particulars of particulates in the air,

but we're not going to do that. Instead, what we're going to note before we get on to the next topic is John is in Washington. I forget John. I know that Charles is a football fan. Are you a football fan? Oh, my God. I am an Eagles fan, Boren, and Brett. Oh, that's right.

And I don't know if you saw the greatest play of all time last game. Three seconds to go, this 325-pound Eagles. The defense of Lyman blocked a punt and then ran it 60 yards for a touchdown. And people, I mean, the stadium went nuts. But one of the announcers said saying it was very funny. He's like, I'm not surprised he blocked a field goal. I'm surprised he could run 60 yards. Well, yeah, I mean, but he died at the end of that and they had to inter him in the end zone.

Well, here's the thing about, I mean, at that moment when that guy, when he tipped it and he caught it and he looked at the field ahead and he made the decision to run. and you and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, prize picks. Excellent. Being right can get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on prize picks where it's good to be right. Charles, you have a little bit to say

about football, ricochets, leagues, and prize picks. Well, I'm a huge football fan. When that happened to the Eagles, I was at the Jaguos Stadium, as I usually am, season ticket holder that I am, watching them win for once against the Houston Texans for once. Yeah, yeah. They've lost almost every game at home against the Texans for 10 years.

They didn't lose this one, but I got to see them win. So that's great. And I also do like betting on sports. I don't bet a lot. I just bet a little bit, but I like appside prize picks because the more that you pay attention, the more you win. And I've noticed that when I first started getting into football, James, I didn't really know anything about it, and I didn't really know what was going on.

I didn't know who the players were, and I didn't know how it worked. And now I know a bit more, and now I'm doing better. And so I'm a price pick sort of guy. Yes, price picks. It's the best way to get action on sports in more than 40 plus states, including California and Texas and Georgia. Simple to play. Just pick more or less on two to six player staff projections.

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So, download the app today and use the code RICOchet to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code RICOchet to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Price Picks, it's good to be right. And we thanks, Price Vicks, sponsoring this, the Rerkeshay podcast. Well, gentlemen, at the time we have left, do we want to keep this you guy around? Or is he, oh, that's right. I'm sorry. No, Stephen, you were saying, clean air act.

Do go on. Oh, no, no. That was a very good way to get me to sign off. Nothing's intended. Let's see. Well, John, you there. He's gone. You there didn't mean that.

Oh, he's gone. Oh, anyway, he left. Oh. And with that, John just swaned off. So we'll talk to him later. We didn't get to the McRib, which I don't believe is O'Carrant, but when it is, of course, you know that he is the judge of it. Anything else, gentlemen, in the week that we have seen, there's an interesting Tylenol, all of a sudden in the news. I imagine Tylenol doesn't want to be in the news much, because the last time they were didn't go well. And in this instance, we have all of these discussions about Tylenol and octal. and people have been surfacing John Hopkins and Harvard studies and tweets from Tylenol from six years ago, emphasizing or underscoring the point that the administration seems to be making about this. Now, as a layman on these and utterly ignorant of the matter, I really find it hard to believe that what they call an explosion in autism is due to Tylenol or vaccines. I think it just is simply due to additional screening and wider definitions and the rest of it. that's what I feel coming as somebody who knows absolutely nothing, but I kind of think there's a possibility I might be right, gentlemen.

Well, I think that there's a parallel here. No, I'm with you on this. I'm skeptical, although I've long been down on Tylenol and some of this research that suggests that there are risks we haven't fully judged. I think there's something to it. I think RFK Jr. likely takes it too far as he does with most things. But, yeah, the diagnosis has changed,

and the parallel there that I do know a lot about is asthma. And it's back to my whole clean air act fascination. You know, asthma cases exploded. And it turned out that we changed the diagnostic procedure for detecting it. And asthma is still somewhat mysterious. It's partly an autoimmune disease. And the clauses are still somewhat obscure and contested. But once we expanded the diagnosis of it, all of a sudden we had more cases of it.

And I think that's also happened with autism. And some people in the, I guess there's an autism community have been complaining about this for a while. that they're the lumping everything into just the spectrum is not useful or or you know has all kinds of problems with it which I think is right right because it tells you that the spectrum is infinitely you know stretchable in either direction there outside I mean so Charles your take on this I think Stephen has said it all but of course you're always free to come up with something else I agree I'm skeptical as well what I do think is that if there is indeed any link here, the way that Trump and RFK Jr. did this was not helpful. If you find something that changes

your conception of the consequences of taking a particular drug, the only drug in this case that pregnant women can take to manage pain, you should not release the information in that manner. You should not send out conflicting statements, as Trump did. And you should not scare people who are now going to have to choose between this unproven link and managing the pain that comes with pregnancy. So I am skeptical on the merits, but I think irrespective of that, I really think they got this one wrong.

What's interesting, though, is that a week from now, we will completely forget this because there will be something else of that ilk. Large statements, germ of truth, overreaction on both. It's frustrating these days to be caught, as it seems. in this constant maelstrom of reaction. But on the other hand, I suppose people say that, well, it's a sign at the swamp is no longer having its, you know,

its baleful effect on people that things are moving quicker than we would like. For example, we're going to be getting judges approved much more quicker, but are there, are there any knockoff effects of that of changing rules in order to do that? Can't bite the right in the keystone the future, can it? No, I don't think so. I mean, I think you had an asymmetry here where Republicans, they would vote no on Democratic appointees, but they didn't filibuster and block final floor votes, except in very rare cases. And here you had Democrats in the Senate blocking any votes on judges and a lot of other lower-level cabinet appointees.

And I think rightly, Senate Republicans finally said nuts to that. And so I don't think it actually, in other words, there are other areas where you can say, just wait until Democrats are back in power, like abusing the FCC. but this is not one of them. Oh, the FCC abuse. That is a dandy. That really is. Charles, I mean, we spoke about this last week,

and now Jimmy Kimmel is back to great accolades. The savior of our time has descended. But do you think Kimmel is going to stick around, or are they just going to wait for the brouhaha to die down and then just usher them off the stage again? Well, I don't know what's going on at Disney, but I do know that they're not going to keep losing money on Jimmy Kimmel to make a point.

they may have brought him back to make a point but you don't do it over multiple years especially when the president has now been set in the Colbert case I do think that it is extremely annoying and I say this is someone who's very critical of Brandon Carr for what he did and who doesn't want the federal government to wield that sort of power that the Democrats

how long did they wait until they started talking about going off to Sinclair and using the FCC themselves Elizabeth Warren can't help herself So they don't believe in anything on this question That doesn't mean we shouldn't and I do But they don't believe in anything on this Jimmy Kimmel is not a hero And Jimmy Kimmel is not the story of Charlie Kirk's murder

And it was thus not only a mistake legally For Brendan Carr to do what he did But it was a political mistake Because they managed to turn someone on the left Who is not good and did something wrong into a sympathetic figure, and when you have the world's attention, you should avoid that. Well, I hate when people say, I'm not going to listen to you complain about this because you didn't complain about this thing over here that I think you should complain about,

but I am going to do exactly that, because this week we got more confirmation exactly what the government was doing to strong arm pressure, Google, Facebook, every Twitter and all the rest of them, to take the COVID misinformation, you know, like our good friend, Dr. Jay, out of the picture. and that is something to be irritated about it is something to be angry about which you seem to have accepted it and sort of kind of moved along

I'm not crazy about that and that's 50 times worse that story is 50 times worse and it got no coverage it absolutely and I wonder why that could be well that's because the clock is reset every day what was done in the past doesn't matter

unless it's a good argument for why we should not do the things we did in the past before wonderful gentlemen, I think we've solved the world or at least wrapped it up to our own satisfaction here, and all I can say now is a variety of things, the nature of which you can entirely predict.

One, I am going to thank Price Picks, and I am going to thank Cozy Earth for sponsoring this show. Two, I'm going to tell you that if you support them, A, your life gets better, I mean, we're talking breathability, and of course, you know, it helps the show as well. Three, or C, if you would like,

I wouldn't, because I've been maintaining a numerical order here. I think that you should join RICOchet because there's something there you're just not going to find elsewhere. It's the member site where all kinds of conversations and friends form. It's a place where you have football leagues and movie talk and politics and religion and everything in the world. But it's not like those places like Facebook where people just, you know, screaming each other and froth. There's a code of conduct. We stick to it religiously.

And that's what makes it special. Four, I'm going to ask you to give us a D-Star review. No, I'm sorry, an e-star review. I'm sorry, a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. And if you do that, then you will win. How much is it, Charlie? What is the pot up to now? I think it's up to three cents if we actually find out that somebody did that and can prove it.

We're going to give them, you know, four cents or something like, what is it? Well, inflation's still with us, so it will over time change. So if you're listening to this two years into the future, then it's $10,000. Of course, I'm kidding. That would be payola, and I don't want to go all. all that on you. I was going to name somebody who was caught up in that scammer.

But, you know what? Times are different. Let him be. I want to say thank you. And I want to say that Ricochet is now up to what build, Charlie? Foh. Goodness, James.

You knew I was going to ask. I did. And I thought about looking it up. And then I thought, I'm just going to sit down and say 4.1.9.12.12.3.1. And I just, you know, people are going to be. that people who listen to me do it are going to be begging us to return to the topic of the clean air act.

Right. Well, we're approaching now not just an irrational number like pie, but we're approaching the singularity. Right. I said that only to remind you that the code is constantly being improved, as is the site, as is our contribution to the discourse of the internet and the world. Stephen, Charlie, it's been great fun as ever, and everybody will see you in the comments at a ricochet 4. You know. Goodbye.