The Ricochet Podcast - Tom Cotton and The 30 Percent Chance

Episode Date: January 20, 2016

After a week off, we’re back and putting our best foot forward with guests Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and our good friend and podcaster Professor Richard Epstein. The Senator talks to us about Iran, Guantanamo, and his controversial “endorsement” of Bernie Sanders. Speaking of Sanders, our hosts explain why they admire him and wish Republicans would emulate him. Yes, you read that right. Later... Source

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Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18plusgamblingcare.ie 6 commencing countdown engines on. 2, 2, check ignition. And may God's love be with you Hello, everyone. This show is terrible, and I'm really happy. I'm not going to get... I don't know what's going to happen here.

I don't have any information on that. They don't understand what you're talking about. And that's going to prove to be disastrous. What it means is that the people don't want socialism. They want more conservatism. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lanix, and we've got two guests today, Senator Tom Cotton and Richard Epstein, law genius. Let's have ourselves a podcast. There you go again.

Welcome everybody to the Ricochet Podcast number 288. We're brought to you by a fine gallery of fine people who do fine things for you, the fine audience. Harry's Shave. Overpaying for drugstore razor blades is a bad habit. You ought to break it. Harry's will help. And we're brought to you by The Great Courses. They're celebrating their 25th anniversary, and they offer lecture series in over 500 subjects.

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James, how are you? Happy New Year. And if you're listening to this podcast and you're a member of Ricochet, Happy New Year to you, and if you. Andy, if you're listening to this podcast and you're a member of Ricochet, happy New Year to you. And if you are not a member of Ricochet, we really need you to join. We do a lot of these podcasts. We do a lot on the site. We'd like you to check out the site, ricochet.com.

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for two months free and join to get 30 free days. I mean, you can't beat this, Dustin. You cannot beat that. You cannot beat it. You cannot beat it. Now, speaking of beaten, we have Peter Robinson, who has suffered the slings and arrows, the vagaries of life as he struggles to finish his book. And life intercedes in keeping him from that magnum opus that we can't wait to see. But, Peter, you know, you might have to update things because the world is ever-changing around us.

I remember seven years ago that I liked Sarah Palin because she had a bright look in her eyes. She was amusing. She rode a motorcycle, she rode a snowmobile and she shot moose. And if you can't get behind American women who run on snowmobiles and shoot mooses, well then get out of the country because that's just simply part of who we are. And now, and now that endorsement yesterday, that rambling mad babble of an endorsement, what happened? Were we all bamboozled and idiots at the start or has there been a journey that she's been on that didn't take her to a particularly wise place? Mooses is the plural?

Meeses. I think so. It's a murder of moose. So many mooses and mooses. Is it really a murder of moose? All right. No, it's a murder of crows. It's a murder of moose. So many mooses. Is it really a murder of moose? All right. No, it's a murder of crow. It's a murder of crows.

All right. I'm just trying to clear things up one step at a time. First, Meese. Now, Sarah. What is there to say? It's a Bristol of mooses. What is there to say about Sarah Palin? She's in Alaska.

I mean, within a certain range of possibilities, you want to be for her. I certainly would have supported her as governor of Alaska. But in recent years, what has she been but an entertainment personality? This is Trump world, right? This is where politics gets tighter and tighter and tighter with entertainment, which means that the substance of the political candidate becomes less and less and less and the entertainment value more and more and more. So, yes, the answer is yes. I believe Sarah Palin was much more admirable, much more substantive when she was still governor. I myself lost 40% of my respect for her when she stepped down as governor in the middle

of a term because she had to fight her legal battle. She could have – I can't actually remember what her explanation was except that it didn't satisfy me. A lot of people worked very, very hard to get her reelected, and it seemed to me she was choosing a new career in entertainment over her present career in public service before her term had even expired. I just think we got more of that yesterday. Well, if only we had somebody in entertainment to speak to. Oh, Rob. Rob, is she good in entertainment?

Is she actually good at that? No. I mean, Rob. Rob, is she good in entertainment? Is she actually good at – No. I mean look. I remember feeling – I remember seeing her in that airplane hangar when – really her introduction to the country politically when she made that speech. It was half-permanent and it was half-prepared. But I thought it was the most astonishing and incredible entrance into American politics I'd ever seen. It was a great speech. It's still on YouTube somewhere. And I thought, good lord, we are seeing the beginning of an incredible political career. And since then, I think she's just – look, I think she gets unfairly wrapped for the McCain campaign, which she joined in mid-chaos and mid-meltdown. I think she was the only thing that kept his campaign afloat.

I think she made a couple of big, fat errors that allowed people to think that she's stupid. I don't think she's stupid. But I think since then, she's just been inconsequential. And I guess what worries me about – I mean she's been consequential with certain Tea Party elements. But the Tea Party itself has morphed into something that unfortunately for me is like the Trump campaign, which is it's incoherent. I don't know what I'm supporting. I don't even know what I'm not supporting with the Tea Party.

I don't know what issues and policies I am espousing or opposing because I don't know what they stand for. I mean specifically. The problem is once you get in there, you have to do specific things and I suspect what those specific things are with President Trump, which may happen

like with Sarah Palin are kind of a mishmashy, wishwashy anything goes because it's all about my rhetoric. That just makes me nervous and I feel like she has been a hugely useful political force for a while, right? I mean she went around and she got a lot of people. Ted Cruz himself said, I'm in the Senate because of Sarah Palin. And it just doesn't seem to have been for anything except – in the same way that Trump doesn't seem to be for anything.

Except this kind of larger celebrityhood. So in that sense, that's what I think about the entertainment part. Sorry. But he – no, I understand that, and I feel that too, but then you drill down into some specifics because Trump does give them. And in one of his recent speeches, he said that when he is president, all the department stores will say Merry Christmas, and people applaud. Now they know.

They have to know. So please tell me that they know, that there's no way that he can do that, he can make that happen. He's just saying there will be a cultural shift and this will be okay again. And somebody who proposes that and makes it a good thing to be had, everybody cheers. Likewise, when I'm president, there won't be any gun-free school zones okay and how exactly doesn't matter there will be a the very act of electing trump will be so seismic so shattering to the establishment that these things will fall into place there will be a great yeah i hear that great awakening as people realize that they can

now slough off the chains of political. I am faithful enough. I am faithful enough that I believe that even the people who are supporting Trump don't want that kind of president. Well, that's the question of the hour. That is really the question. closer and closer to the caucuses in Iowa and the voting in New Hampshire, how much of the support for Trump is people, well, not indulgent, sending a message instead of genuinely choosing a president. And now I revert to Rob Long's theme, which is the closer we get to the actual voting, the more practical voters will get.

By the way, you ask about Trump's specifics. Sarah Palin's endorsement of him yesterday was only one of two pieces of Donald Trump news yesterday. I'm sounding pretty negative on Trump whom I had sort of warmed to. But the second piece of news turned me against him hard, instantly. And you have to understand it in contrast with Ted Cruz who, to his immense credit, in my judgment, is running in Iowa and has made it clear he wants to eliminate the ethanol subsidies, which of course should be eliminated, but that's a hard thing to say in Iowa. It's a heroic thing to have said.

It is a heroic thing to have said and now with Ted Cruz eclipsing him in some polls by a point or two in Iowa. Yesterday, Donald Trump, for the first time, made his position known on ethanol. He wants to keep the subsidy. He said it. He arranged to have the sitting governor, the very longtime sitting governor of Iowa, Terry Branstad, come out against Cruz. And who happens to run the pro-ethanol lobby, Terry Branstad's son. It was Donald Trump caving in to an important lobby in Iowa purely to get an extra point or two in the caucuses.

Just like a regular politician. Regular politician. Exactly. It's not that he wants to keep the subsidy, which he does. He wants to increase the amount of ethanol in your gas and performance be down. And that's a federal mandate. So here, Mr. We're-going-to-get-the-government-off-our-backs-smaller-government is saying that we need to spend more money on corn, which itself is a distortion of the corn market. It uses huge amounts of energy and water.

And we want to force the government to increase the percentage of ethanol in your tank. But before you say it's a small government, there's nothing small government about Trump. He's explicitly said that he's not going to touch federal entitlements. So there will be no changes in Social Security, no changes in Medicare. Medicare is the largest part of Obamacare. It basically is Obamacare. Social Security is going to bankrupt us. Any person who stands and says I'm not going to touch it is either lying or is simply not even a moderate is a liberal.

I understand. But but the people behind him believe that they are small government types and that and that Trump speaks for them. Now, you can say if you want to, that Cruz advocating the diminution over time of the ethanol subsidy is the usual nonsense because nothing ever gets diminished in Washington on any timetable. It's like trying to wear down the grand – Mount Kilimanjaro by using exfoliating hand soap or something like – right. But if you wanted to use an exfoliating substance, you might find – I helped you out. I know. I know... I helped you out. I know, I know. I know you saw it coming. But I have to say this.

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Tom Cotton, he's a junior United States senator from Arkansas and has been serving in the Senate since January 3rd, 2015. Welcome, sir, to the Ricochet podcast. Thank you. It's great to be on with you. Senator Peter... Oh, I'm sorry, James. At LiveScoreBet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football. The excitement, the roar, and the chance to reward you. That's why every day of the festival, we're giving new members money back as a free sports bet up to 10 euro if your horse loses on a selected race that's how we celebrate the biggest week in racing cheltenham with live score bet this is total betting sign up by 2 p.m 14th of march bet within 48 hours of race main

market excluding specials and place bets terms apply bet responsibly 18 plus gambling care.e go ahead no go ahead peter all right senator peter robinson here the other evening the president Go ahead. Now the sanctions against Iran have been lifted as a result of the nuclear deal. While the president was speaking, Iran was holding Navy – United States Navy sailors and two of our vessels, two small vessels. And apparently the White House wanted to indicate that it was such a small matter and so well in hand already, Iran would release them within 48 hours, that the president didn't even need to mention them. Did that strike you as a breach of some kind of keeping, a breach of faith between the commander-in-chief and our servicemen? Well, the president and secretary of state's conduct during the time the sailors were held hostage was disgraceful, in my opinion.

And it was not much better after they were released, when the Secretary of State was thanking the Iranians and expressing gratitude for them. And I agree that the President should have cited this incident in his State of the Union when he's commanding a full audience. And presumably some of the family members of those 10 sailors were probably watching that night. There was no justification for the way Iran's shock troops treated our sailors, even if they did inadvertently enter Iranian waters, about which I have my doubts. The proper and customary procedure under international maritime conventions

is to simply hail them and then to send them on their way, not to board their craft, put them on their knees, point guns at the back of their heads, take them hostage, and make the only woman on the crew wear a headscarf. So, Senator, one more question about the State of the Union. The chamber that evening, and I know Rob Long and James Lyle likes to want to get in. My last question then. It felt to me almost, watching it here at home, it felt very odd because the chamber seemed strangely almost uninterested in the president. It was his last State of the Union address granted, but you might expect that to add a certain emotion, almost sentiment at least among the Democrats. Instead, we had this usual political theater of the Democrats standing up to applaud at some point, the Republicans far fewer times, but they would stand up and

applaud at some point. And yet the president seemed, he seemed a little bit disengaged until he got to the final third of the speech when he began hectoring everybody about the need for civility in American politics. It just, I thought to myself, 80% of the people in that chamber, and they all matter, and something like at least 80% of them will be there next year after the elections, they're writing him off. You can see in their faces that they don't think he matters anymore. Was that just me imposing my own thoughts on the television screen?

Or was something like that going on? And what was the mood in the chamber? Peter, it may have been simply disappointment that the president started by saying he'd keep it short, and then he continued to drone on for almost 50 minutes. I do think that if you look on both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican alike, many congressmen and senators are ready to look to the future. The past seven years have been so divisive, so partisan, so uncivil, contrary not only to what the president said in his State of the Union, but contrary to what he promised in his 2007-2008 campaign, contrary to the speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention

that helped him burst onto the national stage. That's one reason, I believe, that the president has been such a disappointment to so many Americans, is the promises he made and the standards he'd set for himself. He is far, far from attained. Senator, it's Rob Long in Los Angeles. Can I just shift the theaters right now for a minute from from overseas to domestic? Dow is down 500 points right now. It's been taking a lot of slides.

The mood of the country is nervous. It's angry. People are angry at Republicans or angry Democrats. One thing we hear from Republicans a lot is what they're really mad about is they're mad about the establishment. What is the Republican establishment, Senator, and are you

a member of it? Well, I would say that there is a lot of anger and frustration in America. I share that, and I see it a lot in Arkansas, whether I'm out traveling the state, visiting with Arkansans, or frankly, whether I'm just in my little hometown of Dardanelle. However you define the establishment, I think people who are out in the country look at elites in both parties, not just in politics, but in business, in the media, and so forth,

and feel that they have been failed by those elites over the last seven, eight years or so. A good example of this, in my opinion, is the ongoing focus on immigration reform that would not only grant amnesty to illegal immigrants without securing our border and enforcing our immigration laws first, but would continue to focus on increasing levels of historic mass immigration at a time when we're at record high levels of immigrants in our country, and at a time when millions of Americans, especially working-class Americans, are struggling to find work or who have seen their wages stagnate. It's a kind of deep disconnect between the people out all across America and the elites of all stripes, Democrat, Republican, political, business, media, and so forth in Washington, D.C.

But as a senator, I mean there are times when you're there – I mean especially foreign policy I can only imagine. And you think, you know what? The people of America or my constituents, the voters, we'll put it that way, they mean well, but they don't have all this information that I have, and they're wrong. And I've got to vote the right way and sometimes the right way goes counter to what maybe the polls are saying. What do you do then as a leader? How do you fix that?

Because here's what I mean. I think that if you're a democrat, you see a president now who – or even if you're an independent, you see a president now who's sort of enacted all sorts of things that you don't like, starting with Obamacare. He's – I mean there's not a – there's no ambiguity in the polls about Guantanamo Bay. People don't think that we should be turfing those people out. But the Obama administration is going to do that. And the Republican side, as you mentioned, immigration reform. What do you do if you genuinely believe that the people are wrong?

How do you handle that? Well, we live in a democracy, but it's a constitutional democracy. And I like Margaret Thatcher's short way to summarize the meaning of that. The majority cannot make a wrong or right or vice versa. Our constitution recognizes that because we're all created equal, that the people must rule and the way they rule is through majority votes. But there needs to be mechanisms to ensure that a democratic majority is sustained and durable and respecting of the very natural equality on which our democratic government is based. That's why we have separated powers. that's why we have separated power so why we have checks and balances that's why we have a federal system so simple

majority rule has never been never been the principle of government in this country going back to our founding and my take on this is that the the people of Arkansas elected me in large part because our views are sympathetic, whether it's foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy. If they weren't, I wouldn't have won my election. To the extent that my views diverge at times from what I hear from Arkansans, and they always do, even on something like Guantanamo, there may be 10 or 15 or 20 percent of the people of Arkansas who disagree with me.

That may be a small percentage, but it's still several hundred thousand people. They elected me to do what I think was right and to explain it to them at the next election. I'm sure lots of the Democrats who voted for Obamacare thought it was the right thing to do. Well, a lot of their voters disagreed with them, and they were held accountable, and that's the way our government is supposed to work. Do you think it's working now, or do you think we're in trouble? Well, I don't think that Washington has created the kind of policies that we need for either durable prosperity across all Americans from the richest to the poorest or the kind of policies abroad that are going to keep America safe and help defend world order. But because of our system of government with separated powers, with checks and balances,

it does take some time to correct the course. So the American people will always achieve the kind of change they want if those majorities are lasting and durable if it spreads over multiple multiple elections for instance we had a big election in 2014 that said in part stop to the Obama administration stop right the higher taxes stop with the record debt stop with the mass immigration and amnesty proposals stop with turning churning out regulation after regulation after regulation. But the president plays a large role in our system of government. And if the American people want to continue the path they started to set the government on in 2014,

we're going to have to elect a Republican president in 2016, and we're going to have to preserve Republican majorities in the Senate and the House. So last question. I have to ask it since you brought it up. Who do you like? We probably both agree. January 2017, one year from now, it's going to be a mess.

The country is going to have lots of things that's going to have to get fixed. Who do you want taking the oath of office a year from now? Well, I'm surprised you have to ask

since it's been fairly well known that for months I have strongly supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. And I don't want to take the credit all for myself. I don't want to take the credit all for myself. I know Bernie has been campaigning hard. I'm just going to point out since my endorsement got widespread attention, he has surged in the polls in Iowa and in New Hampshire. All right. You're welcome, Senator. In all seriousness, though, we still have many capable, accomplished Republicans running for president. Every single one of those Republicans would make a better president and a better commander in chief than Bernie Sanders,

the vowed socialist, or Hillary Clinton, who I think has disqualified herself through her mishandling of classified information and her handling of the attacks at the Benghazi compound. Any of those Republicans would be a better president than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, and I'm confident that whoever our voters nominate will be the next president. Senator Cotton, James Lallix here in Minnesota, home of your colleague Al Franken. The next time America gets hit with a terrorist attack, everyone's going to look back and say, why didn't we find that out beforehand? Why weren't we cracking phones and tapping the terrorists? And somebody will say, well, it was encrypted. We couldn't get to it.

You had a bit of a dust-up with Apple CEO Tim Cook the other day about Apple's encryption of their iMessages service. Tell us exactly what you think that Apple should do in the realm of security. And also, isn't it likely that whatever we do to find out what's on that platform, the terrorists will find another platform that like Apple and Google and Facebook use to encrypt data, not just on a particular smartphone, but data moving between phones. There's many good reasons for that. Smartphones now are an organizing device that so many people use for their lives. It's got financial information on it. It's got health information on it. It has personal and family information on it.

So it's very sound reasons to have encryption on those devices, and that's a good innovation for the American people. However, Apple and other companies are designing their systems intentionally so they cannot provide access to a valid law enforcement directive or subpoena. And it's not just terrorism, James. It's child pornography and sex trafficking and drug trafficking. So Apple has designed its smartphones in a way that if the FBI has gone to a federal judge, an independent judicial authority, and received on probable cause a warrant under the Fourth Amendment to say, get the data on James Lilac's phone because he's suspected of committing a crime, Apple cannot access that data.

In fact, Apple even has taken the position in federal courts that they shouldn't be forced to access data that they can access on older operating systems because it would create what they call reputational harm. We don't let telephone companies do that. To extend the metaphor, if the FBI wanted to have a wiretap on James Lilacs because they had probable cause he was committing crimes, the telephone lines over which we're conducting this call have to be designed in a manner that allow the FBI subject to a valid warrant to listen in. I think we should apply the same standard to data and Internet companies that we apply to telephone companies. We're not looking for a back door, as the director of the FBI has said.

We're looking for a front door, something that will allow a valid law enforcement warrant or other directive to work in conjunction with the company and the government, protecting that data from hackers or from cyber attack, but also giving law enforcement and intelligence the access to data they need. Do you know anything about me and the FBI that I don't know about? No, but I just infer from listening to you over many long years of listening to you on

the Hugh Hewitt Show, I just infer what might be happening out there when you're not on the radio. I do run my own server, but it's got only messages from Peter Robinson. To say nothing of what Hugh Hewitt is doing when he's not on the radio. Absolutely. Senator, Peter Robinson here one more time. You raised a point or you touched on a point obliquely, and I'd like to ask you about it. You talked about the good people of Arkansas. The good people of Arkansas one generation ago elected and reelected and reelected Bill Clinton as their governor.

Today, it's inconceivable that they would elect a figure. Well, of course, Bill Clinton presented himself as a centrist. Even at that, Arkansas, I think everyone would agree today is a conservative state. California has gone in the other direction. It's inconceivable that you could elect Ronald Reagan here in California today. New York, which Reagan carried, it's inconceivable that a Republican would be elected to a statewide office in New York. Texas is like Arkansas. There was Ralph Yarborough in the 70s. Texas could. At LiveScoreBet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football. The excitement, the roar, and the chance to reward you.

That's why every day of the festival, we're giving new members money back as a free sports bet up to €10 if your horse loses on a selected race. That's how we celebrate the biggest week in racing. Cheltenham with LiveScoreBet. This is total betting. Sign up by 2pm 14th of March. Bet within 48 hours of race. Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18plusgamblingcare.ie. To become a liberal state, Yan Richards, as late as the 1990s. Today, it's inconceivable that a liberal Democrat would be elected to statewide office in Texas.

Political cultures do shift. They do change. How does that happen and how can conservatives ensure that it happens more places? How can they prevent it or to put it in a negative way, how can we make sure we hold on to Texas and prevent that culture from shifting? What's going on there at that grassroots level that enables a state like Arkansas to move in one direction while California is moving in the other? Peter, there are idiosyncratic factors in a state like Arkansas. You say it's conservative today. It's always been conservative. Bill Clinton, during much of his time as governor, did the best he could to hide his root liberalism. And that was in part because he had a very conservative legislature, even though they

were all Democrats back in those days. So public opinion hasn't shifted in Arkansas that much, even though the parties have. But you're also right that public opinion does shift. And I would say that if you look at a lot of the arguments that liberals and Democrats are making today about the demographic destiny they they face those are the exact same kind of arguments that we heard in the 19 teens and 20s and 30s the last time we had the same levels of immigration mostly at that point immigrants from southern and eastern europe right those those immigrants or their children grew up to be reagan democrats and now they are a core part of the Republican coalition.

So there is no predetermined destiny when it comes to politics, when it comes to elections. It all depends on the quality of leadership we have and the advocacy for the ideas that work. If I could go back to what Rob mentioned earlier about the Dow falling today and about the economic uncertainty that we're facing and the world is facing, a lot of that goes back to China's slowing economy. They said they grew at almost 7% again last year. If you look at proxies, like for example, the consumption of electricity, it's probably closer to 0%. And because of the size of China's economy and the amount of commodities they import, the amount of finished goods they export, that's having ripple effects around the world. There's a reason that China is doing that, because China is run by a communist party that for all of its intent to modernize still keeps control tightly in the hands of a small little elite in Beijing.

That's because central control doesn't work. The central insights of people like Frederick Hayek, the central political insights that leaders like Ronald Reagan built upon. Conservative ideas are the ones that work. Free markets and individual liberty and limited government and peace through strength. Those ideas are always going to work. It's incumbent upon Republican leaders to have the courage of those ideas and advocate them to all voters and not write off any voter, not write off any state. Yes, it may be hard for a Republican to get elected in California or New York in 2016. That doesn't mean it's always going to be the case, as you point out. Senator Cotton, thank you for being with us today. We hope to have you on the podcast soon and in the White House in eight years. Thank you all very much.

Great to be on the show. Or as Bernie Sanders running made before then. Yeah, exactly. It would be a true unity ticket. Thanks again. Bernie Sanders may moderate his position once you get somebody. Once he gets into office, right, he can't do everything that he wants. So he wants $15.9 trillion in tax increases. It's possible that he'd be willing to settle for 15.

So I mean don't tell me that Bernie isn't amenable to reason. But of course that's – Aren't you pleased that Bernie is in the – I mean I am just because – not because he's a socialist but because he's real. He really believes this stuff. And I think it's good that we have that. I think – I mean I wish we had more people who had strong ideological consistency running and we could really have it out rather than having these sort of fake Hillary Clintons running around pretending to all sorts of things that she doesn't really believe just to get elected. This guy – I think he's a good model. Well –

Go ahead, James. Sorry. No, I defer, Peter. Go ahead. Well, no, no. I just – I was struck by insomnia the other evening. I happened to watch an entire Bernie Sanders speech replayed on C-SPAN or some such channel that puts on boring material.

And you know what? He's really very good. He has a lovely voice, kind of a sonorous voice. He speaks well. The rhythm is good. He's enjoying himself. He's good with the crowd. And he has the total authenticity of the complete and utter madman.

He does just deeply, sincerely believe what he's saying. And it's just so refreshing to listen. Frankly, in a funny way, he's a kind of bookend of Ronald Reagan. When you listen to Bernie Sanders speak, you don't have any feeling at all of a distance between what he really believes and what he's saying. I know that sounds crazy, but it's a clean fight with Bernie. Cruz is doing that a little bit. He's going to Iowa and saying – he's going to win. He could easily win Iowa and he's going to be an American politician, a republican who went to Iowa and said no more ethanol subsidies. And even if he comes in second in Iowa, that running around the state talking about small government but including in his plan a subsidy for this absurd railroad in northwestern Iowa. Like pandering to Iowans is something that all politicians do and sometimes they do it to extreme lengths.

And it didn't even work. George Bush won Iowa. It didn't work. Right. He didn't do it enough uh and i feel like there's something there's a the the good news for bernie is that he believes it and i hope he wins the nomination not you know in the senator cotton way that because i think he'll go down in flames i mean i think he will go down in flames if he wins the nomination but i think that these issues need to

be heard and i i'm i'm thrilled well yes and it would be spectacular if we could have a reasonable, smart discussion about the things that he believes, which we wouldn't have. What we would have would be the media doing their very best to prop him up because in their heart of hearts, they like the fact that the guy's an unalloyed socialist because in their heart of hearts, they think that's kind of a cool thing. And if we're all like copenhagen hurrah so you have bernie sanders there who right now is up there no doubt talking about how the market's going down 500 500 we just have to try to do larry try to do larry david having a bad day um if bernie sanders would look at the market dropping 500 and say that this is a failure of capitalism as opposed to as tom cotton was pointing out the market is reacting correctly to finally somebody realizing that China is a shell game and has been for some time and that that bubble is popping.

But Bernie's not going to look at this. His instinct is to look at what's happening in the market and figure out some way for the government to take a little piece of what's being sold at the same time the government should figure out a little piece of what's being bought. That's his idea, to skim off some more, to slosh around the country, to spread it like loam in the hopes that little green shoots come from the manure that he's spread. He doesn't understand investments at all, which is why he needs these great courses. That's fine.

The great courses. I'm sorry. I interrupted your segway. Oh, we were going someplace like that. You have – that's the thing. Some of the segway things are so good, they sound like you're making a point and then – I mean you are kind of making a point but you're also making a point to get the segue. And then I want to jump in and have a conversation about it and then – so I want to stop your segue in the middle. We really have to start using webcams during these things because I want to see James' face right now. Go ahead, James.

I used to be asked about my book and my child. Now people just ask about the segues. That's all I ask. It's a signature. But I was going to point out that if you want to understand investments, you can do so by getting a great course just on that fact. It's presented to you by the award-winning professor of financial economics at Duke, Conal Fullenkamp.

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The great courses, of course, they've got this great courses plus video learning service. It's unlimited access to a huge library of the great courses, lecture series, and all the subjects we've been discussing for these years on the podcast, science, art, history, cooking. Now we haven't talked about cooking much,

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which on a day when the market's down like it is, is a good word. Stream from any internet-connected PC, TV, or through The Great Courses Plus apps. But free offers only available for a limited time, as we like to say, so hurry. To stream Understanding Investments from The Great Courses Plus for free, you must go to thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet. That's thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet and do so to thank them for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. Robert, Peter, you had a point before we go on to our next guest or have I just driven it out of your mind? No, no. I was just going to say that you're

right. I disagree with Bernie on those issues, but I would feel that Bernie on a dais against Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Chris Christie or – I mean Donald Trump I don't know about because I don't know if he's as fluent with free market economics as he should be. Maybe he'd get fluent with it in time. But I feel like that would be good. Let's have that conversation. I'd rather than having them talk about how we're basically all the same and I want prosperity and I don't want to tax you, I like having a Democrat say I'm going to tax you. It's not so bad. That's the truth. Well, Trump's free market bona fides I think can be traced back to his desire for a tariff.

Does he want the cost of an iPhone to go up for absolutely everybody? Let's make that case, Donald. Let's make that case and show everybody what a right winger you are. Well, you know, it all comes down to law, doesn't it? China is not a nation that has the rule of law. I mean, China can manipulate their markets. They can manipulate their information. They can jail journalists, which they've been doing.

And it's no big surprise. Hello? Hello? Richard is on. I hear a voice from back in the cave shouting at us. Hello? A figure emerging with the Sibylline prophecies and scrolls of Roman law. Could it be Richard Epstein coming out of the wilderness to tell us what's going on?

Of course, you know Richard. He's the Justin Bieber of Roman law professors. He's an expert in constitutional law, contracts, corporate law, real estate, torts, labor law, and as mentioned, even Roman law. He's reputed to be more knowledgeable about Justinian's code than anyone since and possibly even more than the emperor Justinian himself. He's a filthy humorist. Don't talk about the code, guys. Well, that's what I've been told, so we won't hold you to it. Hey, we've had a little dust up here about Donald Trump using Lawrence Tribe to hit Ted Cruz in his Canadian birthplace.

Let's say somebody said to you, you've got 90 seconds to tell us why Ted Cruz is indeed eligible to run. What would you do? I lost a little bit of the conversation when I was putting my earplugs in, so I'm not quite sure where we are. Here's where we are, Richard. It's Peter here. I'm going to quote Donald Trump. Lawrence Tribe and numerous other faculty of Harvard said that there is a serious question as to whether or not Ted can do this, okay? And the

this that Trump was referring to is become President of the United States. This is an intellectual joke played by so many people that it's hard to really disentangle the threads. I did have the misfortune to go back and read the article that Lawrence Tribe wrote, and it didn't say what Mr. Trump said it said. What Tribe said was if you were a terrible originalist on matters of constitutional interpretation, then it turns out that you would find it very difficult to say that Mr. Cruz was a natural-born citizen. And he cites to a very learned article with full of information in the Boston University Law Review, which he claims supports that contention. But it does nothing of the sort. Or what happened in that particular article was that these two ladies, I forget their names now, reviewed exhaustively all the relevant data on this subject and said that the appropriate way to think about this is to look at the common law of England in 1787 persons born lawfully in a country or people whose parents or grandparents, one of whom, is a citizen of the country in question. So even by English common law of 1787, Ted Cruz would be qualified to run for president.

I mean, it wasn't nobody ever thought this was a close question. This was a cheap shot designed to basically expose and embarrass Ted Cruz for his so-called originalist philosophy. And in the end, it only embarrasses Professor Tribe because he just did not realize that this is a case where originalism actually seems to work pretty well. The sources out there that he cites cut against the conclusion that he reaches. And there's nothing in particular dispute in this case. I mean, essentially, the argument is if you're a total alien with no connection to this particular country, given the debates that they had at the time of the founding, people came to the conclusion that we can't trust foreigners even after their naturalized become the leaders of this country.

I think that this sort of kind of global suspicion is somewhat anachronistic today. And there've been lots of calls by lots of people to get rid of the particular limitation in question, given all the immigrants to the United States who an originalist philosophy, is what Lawrence Tribe wants and what Lola wants isn't necessarily what the Constitution provides for. And there's a big difference between proposing a policy change on the question of whether or not we should expand eligibility for citizenship and saying, in effect, that the words that we have in the Constitution means everything that the clever non-originalists can tell us. I mean, Professor Tribe, as best I can tell, has never developed a coherent philosophy of constitutional interpretation. It's a series of one-offs, very clever remarks.

Sometimes I agree with them, sometimes not. But essentially, the view which says, at least with respect to the textual elements of the Constitution, we try to figure out what their ordinary and accepted meaning was at the time of their adoption. I don't think that's bizarre. To sum up the argument to this point, Larry Tribe is playing intellectual games. Donald Trump is playing political games. And there is no doubt that Ted Cruz is qualified under the constitution to serve as president. Have I got that?

Yeah, this is a no-brainer. OK. Next question. I want to ask you one more question, Richard. One more question. You talk often. You and John, you talk often in Law Talk, your brilliant podcast, free plug there for you. Thank you.

About – if I can quote you, I'm not sure that I can get it quite right but I am sure you'll correct me if I get it wrong. You talk quite a lot about the intergenerational damage that Barack Obama has done to the constitution but also to the small C constitution, to the processes of government, to our understood relationship between the executive and the legislature, giving far too – doing far too much by executive order, rolling Congress again and again, taking actions that are at least borderline questionable with regard to the constitution, if not outright unconstitutional, all of that. How does the next president begin to repair this damage to the fabric of government, to this series of precedents that have built trust, that enable the government to function, and that Barack Obama has now ripped here and here and here? How does the next president stitch the fabric back together?

Well, I mean, first of all, what you have to do is to acknowledge the fact that the difficulty has taken place. And if it's a Democratic president, I don't think that that's likely to happen. Even some Republican presidents as a danger will be exhilarating and say, you know, the president had the right idea about executive power, but simply had the wrong programs to implement. I would hope that after the immigration case that the president will be slapped down in the judicial setting. Jerry Smith wrote an extremely powerful opinion in, I guess it was the Fifth Circuit, on this particular question. And so what's happened is the government is coming up, having to try to dissuade them on this. But if I were the president going forward, what I would do is I'd first take out all the executive orders, which I think simply went beyond the power of presidential

authority, and I would remove them forthwith from the books. And I would do so whether I agreed with their content or not. It seems to me that if you believe that the process is what matters and that the process is what determines long-term trust, then what you have to be prepared to do in order to reestablish that trust is to essentially kill some of your own darlings and to make sure that even things that you like don't get put forward in ways that are impermissible under the Constitution. And then, in effect, what I would do is also, at a personal level, start to try to reestablish personal ties with key leaders in both parties on this particular point so as to make it clear that you're not going to engage in this kind of thing going on in the future. And the quid pro quo would be when you do this, you have to now tell Congress that they have to stand up and act where only they can start to do some kinds of things. I do remember when, John, you and I talked many times about the various issues trying to get the authorization

of military force to go into Iraq in 2003. The position that John took was the Congress came to him and said, you know, I don't know whether it's presidential authority or not, but, you know, I don't really want to put my neck on the line by supporting one of these things. So you go ahead and do it, and if it works out, that's fine. And if it's not, I can criticize you. You can't have a situation where Congress has extensive powers over foreign affairs and have everybody take the rope-a-dope position that will leave it all to the president and ratify it if it works and attack him if it doesn't. They have to be prepared to step forward. So if I were the new president, for example,

and I was worried about the authorization for the use of military force in the Middle East, I would really put the screws to Congress to make sure that they came up with something, and I would not want it to be some namby-pamby type of resolution which says, you can do this on Thursday and that on Friday. I would want it to be a fairly broad declaration. And then in order to make sure that you keep the bonds of trust going, I would report on a rather consistent fashion to the Congress exactly what it is that I was doing so that they would have some sense about the way in which this goes on. This is always very tricky

because some stuff can be made public and other stuff cannot. And therefore, what you have to do is to understand when you go in secret and when you don't. And one of the problems about Obama is I don't think anybody had any confidence that he made the right kinds of judgments on these things because nobody really believed that he had the right standards in mind on the way in which these various issues should work. I mean, this administration has been, as best I can tell, a nonstop catastrophe on both the domestic and on the foreign fronts. Hey, Richard, Peter, here's one.

Rob and James and I were just having a conversation before you came on, and I wonder whether you'd agree with us. Rob and I, I think James was actually a little more divided in his mind about this, but he'll speak up if I get him wrong. Rob and I agreed that we find Bernie Sanders admirable. And we find Bernie Sanders admirable for the very reason that you have just been advising the next president, whoever he is, to take a certain number of – to take certain actions. And that is because of clarity. Bernie Sanders is a clarifying presence in American politics. He's also admirable because he seems genuinely to believe what he says.

But do you in some strange way admire Bernie Sanders or at least would you grant that he serves a – if he's the nominee, he'll serve a very – he's already serving a very useful function in clarifying just what one large segment of the American populace wants. I mean this is the most baffling candidacy ever. Let me just start with the simple point. The reason why you find him so refreshing – Wait. So that's a no? I think that's a no. No, it's not a no. I mean it's a long answer unfortunately. So I'll try to make this short as possible. But look, the point is he comes

up there and he is in some sense a breath of fresh air because he's campaigning against the most staged and stiff individual who's ever graced the stage of modern American politics, which is Hillary Clinton. I mean, she absolutely has concrete boots. She cannot inspire anybody. She's tedious in every way. She has this hypocritical past that she has to sort of talk down. She's moving to the left after taking all this money from huge banks and corporations and so forth. Bernie has done none of that stuff. He's got no historical baggage to fight with. So he can just bob and weave and belt her. And she simply does not know how to respond.

And I think the contrast is what explains his meteoric rise. My guess is he will win New Hampshire and has a very good shot at winning Iowa on the Democratic side. So I think in that sense, it is nice to watch somebody who speaks in simple declarative sentences. But, you know, the other part is you actually have to listen to what this man says. And this is just simply unbelievable. I mean he has the ability to think that the top 1 percent of the United States can fund every spending spree he wants to make for the bottom 99 percent. And he doesn't realize that, A, the money isn't there even if the current levels of production remain, and, two, that he's got a set of policies that will make us look more like Venezuela or Cuba than the United States.

But in his defense, he is saying that he's going to raise taxes on the top 25 or 30. I mean he's fairly honest about whom he's going to soak. Yeah, but he's going to – but what he's not honest about, what he does not understand is you start putting the taxes at the level that he wants, the productivity grinds. That's right. That's right. Well, he doesn't believe that. There's nothing left to tax. He doesn't believe that kind of economics, but that's correct. He doesn't factor that in. Can I ask one question? I mean, I know that among your many experiences and expertise in the law, Richard, it includes

criminal law. And since we're talking about criminals, let's talk about the – well, who's the – Bernie Sanders' opponent for the Democratic primary. Hillary Clinton had kind of a bad day yesterday. The inspector general came out and said, no, there was a lot of juicy stuff in those emails, unsecured emails. How much trouble is she in? I mean what's the TikTok here for the legal thing?

I mean I have friends who say Bernie Sanders is going to be the nominee or Joe Biden is going to be the nominee because Hillary Clinton is going to get indicted. Is that – I mean first of all, can that happen? What happens if that happens? Okay. My God, you have so many questions. Let me just see if I can answer them one at a time. I mean, they're all fair questions. First of all, when you're trying to figure out

what's going on in here, there are always two things to separate. One is what the original offenses were, and then all the various kinds of things that take place by way of cover-up after the original investigations start to begin. I think that whatever you think about the original behavior, the cover-up has been nothing short of scandalous. I mean, whatever you think about the original behavior, the cover-up has

been nothing short of scandalous. I mean, if you look at the statutes on obstruction of justice, you can obstruct justice even if you're innocent of the underlying crime. And to obstruct justice, it doesn't mean that you have to blow up everything. It means you just simply have to take steps that slow down the nature of the investigations in question. The Wall Street Journal this morning had a piece on David Petraeus, and of course, his leaks got him into real trouble. Now the Pentagon, presumably the president's lead and behest, is chasing after him again. Her cover-up is much more serious, and I think, in effect, it's very difficult if you actually go down element by element to the offense to say when you basically destroy your email tapes at the time you give people paper copy, which is what she has done in at least some instances, that this is perfectly okay. You can search emails a lot more easily than you can concert paper.

And the proposition that she makes in public to the effect that she never conducted confidential business. My email simply boggles the mind. I mean, this woman's on the telephone 102 hours each day. Nobody ever gives her a map or a graph or a chart or a document. Of course, all this stuff went through that. Richard, how does it work, though? The FBI is conducting an investigation. It then makes public its results. It quietly sends its results over to the department of justice how does it work well i mean certainly it can make public the results of its investigation or it could hand it over to the attorney general and leave it up to her to decide whether or not she wants to indict under these circumstances okay so if you james told me if you're the

director well it makes it more complicated at the federal level is that the attorney general is not a free agent. She basically serves as the president of the president. And God knows what the president wants under these circumstances. He and Hillary have no love lost for one another. Timing question. director of the FBI, and your agents are conducting an investigation. From what we know and from what Richard Epstein believes, this investigation is finding things. There is a serious decision to be made here about what to do with the accumulating evidence that there was a cover-up and that indeed the original actions may have been criminal. The question of timing has – what is he thinking about timing?

If there's an indictment today, it blows up a candidacy for president of the United States, but at least it leaves one major party, the Democrats, time to scramble. Biden could still get in. It might be too late to get on certain states, but he could still get in and run a campaign. The longer Comey waits, the longer Comey and the attorney general, the longer the people responsible for all of this wait, the greater the likelihood that they will be blamed for electing a Republican president of the United States. In other words, they're placing themselves in exactly the same position the Supreme Court was in. People still say, oh, that court, it elected George W. Bush, right? So isn't that a serious consideration? First of all, the attorney general is the one who has to order the indictment. It's not the head of the FBI.

And Lord knows what the differences are. Comey was a student at the University of Chicago, and I know him reasonably well. He is by and large a pretty tough-jawed, independent guy who's not particularly responsive to politics. And so my guess is that what he's thinking is, do I have enough to go forward on this? Do I need to investigate further? Maybe he's come to the conclusion that there's no indictable offense. Then he has to decide, well, maybe should I write a report which explains why I'm not going after this? Or should I do it the other way? If you'll recall, for example, when the question came about what to do with Darren Wilson after the Ferguson situation, what the government did is it ran a

very exhaustive study, exonerated him, and then buried it by publishing on the same day this all-out critique of everything that was wrong with the city of Ferguson, all which was wrong with 99% of the cities in the United States in terms of their willingness to rely on forfeiture money. So I think, in fact, Peter, you're asking a lawyer, and I could tell you what I think the merits of the case are. You're not asking a political pro. And my own view is nobody's a political pro on this one, really, because we're really never been in this kind of a territory. You read the various kinds of statements that she made, and then you correct them against the record. And it's quite clear that she has not been completely truthful on this. The fact that the emails are coming out so slowly instead of all at once is just another source of difficulty. And we know no reason why it is that they can't release them all at a given point in time. So my basic reaction on all of this situation is that for her, it's festering as an open wound. And it's pretty clear to me that it's going to cost her five, 10 points in all of these various primaries, because there are a lot of people who think that it is a cover-up, not only

by her now, but also by the Democratic administration. And the great advantage that Bernie Sanders has, he comes to this with clean hands. Nobody thinks that he has any part in this particular kind of an arrangement. So he's a free agent. And he doesn't have to say anything because everybody else will say it for him. I mean, the man is crazy. You're a guy who's not a political pro. You're pretty political. I'm sorry to cut you off, James.

Yes, without elaboration or anything else, we're just going to make you make a prognostication. The percentage chance of an indictment. Thirty percent. That's pretty good. I'll take that. I'll take 30. Look down the road for you. Listen, we got to let you go only because we have to talk to Peter, who has a story about David Bowie. And unless you have a story about David Bowie and I'm sure you do, but we have to. We are asking the wrong guy when it comes to pop culture. Right. Bowie. And unless you have a story about David Bowie, and I'm sure you do, but we have to, we have, you're asking the wrong guy when it comes to pop culture, right? I mean, you know, I remember the Beatles and Perry Como, but I don't,

it's a start, right? Okay. All right. We'll talk. Thanks Richard. Take care Richard. Bye bye. Take care. Take care. Thank you Richard. My pleasure. It was fun. Yes indeed. And you know somewhere there is a. It was fun. My pleasure. Yes, indeed. And you know somewhere there is a picture of Richard Epstein and David Bowie. A one in three chance of an indictment is a big deal.

That's a lot. If you're running Clinton's campaign and there's a one in three chance that a bomb could explode at more or less any moment, that's a big deal. Yeah. at more or less any moment. That's just – that's a big deal. Well, the extraordinary thing is we've learned that the IG had to have the security clearance jacked up because the stuff that was coming across the transom that they were reading was so hot. And you have strange – strangely worded stuff from Sid Blumenthal about oil machinations in Africa that bear the stylistic telltale signs of NSA material that somehow made it to him and back. I mean, it's just – it's an absolute nightmare for her.

But everybody's email is a nightmare probably unless you use the inbox. You know how that works. You know, somebody emails you and you email them back and before you know it, you know, you've got a new correspondent or a fan or a friend or a colleague or a customer. But then those emails pile up like they all do. Ten become a hundred and then five hundred. For long, you've got thousands of messages clogging up your box and no time at all to sift out the conversations worth having. Does that sound like your email box?

I'm guessing it is. And I'm guessing you might say, please, there's got to be a way out. There is. It's SaneBox. It does the sifting for you. It diverts the trivial stuff to a separate folder so all that's left are emails that matter. I use it. I've got my email box that tells me what I need to know now from work,

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A couple of things before we go out. I enjoyed V the K, who wrote a little post in the member feed about who knew that New Yorkers had such thin skins. I enjoyed that. After decades of looking across the rest of America, the benighted dark lands beyond the Hudson is a place of knuckle-dragging clingers.

You know, for them to all of a sudden rear up on their high horse. And the points that Trump made about New York values being those that came together after 9-11, I get that, but that's sort of an American thing. When people talk about New York values, they talk about a couple of things. One, predominantly liberal. And you can look at all the great Republicans and conservatives and mayors that New York had, but the last guy they went for was de Blasio, and you can kind of hold them to that particular value. Two, the New York Daily News, I think, in a picture responding to Mr. Cruz's assertion,

had the Statue of Liberty flipping the bird to the rest of America, which is another New York value. Not particularly cultured, crass, boorish, and loutish. So take your choice. But as he says – As a sometime resident of New York, I can say the problem really there is that everything that Ted Cruz says is a New York value is something that New Yorkers are usually proud of. Like they go to New York and go, hey, this is not America. OK, this is New York City. Yeah, it's not America.

We we don't. They give you all sorts of litany, a catechism of things that New York is not about America. And then when somebody says, yeah, you're right, they go, hey, wait a minute. That hurts our feelings. Yeah. It's like when you talk to them about their pizza. There's just no talking to them about their pizza, but they believe that it's the finest pizza on the planet,

and I can't take them seriously just for that. Nice architecture, but lately the buildings have been getting tall, silly, and filled with Russian plutocrats. More importantly, though, is to tell the tale that we have to tell. Apparently, Peter Robinson, in his glam rock gender bending days. Cause we all know Peter's got that thing that, you know, he wanted to take the British stage and do drag somewhere,

somewhere during that period, you had dinner with the man who fell to earth. Explain this please. I was present at a dinner. Yeah. And it was wasted on me because even to this very moment, I've never listened to a David Bowie song from beginning to end. 1987, Reagan administration.

I was a speechwriter in the White House. Bill Buckley wanted somebody to be a research assistant for him in Switzerland. And I, never having taken any vacation time for the previous six years, had a bunch of vacation time coming to me. So I went and worked with Bill on a book that became On the Firing Line in Gestade, Switzerland for about two months. And what that meant was that we would work during the day, ski in the afternoon, come back to another couple of hours of work, all of this in the Chateau de Rougemont. And then we would go out to dinner and Bill let it be known to the people of Gstaad that he would like it if I were invited to these social events along with him. And I have no idea what Gstaad is like today.

I've never been back. But in those days, it was a scene and a half. I got to – James Clavel, the author of Shogun, became a pretty good friend. Roger Moore, I was once given a lift home from a ski slope by an archduchess of Austria. This was the scene. There were dinners in different rich people's chalets each evening. At one evening, I found myself seated next to the king of – former king of Greece. A couple of evenings later, I found myself seated next to David Bowie.

How is it pronounced? And he might as well have been the secretary of commerce. He was quite mild-mannered. He was quiet spoken. He couldn't have been more interesting. But there was zero, zero sense that this man who at that very moment was at the top of his fame was a rock star. And that is my dinner with David Bowie. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're wondering, who is the GOP establishment today?

I think Mr. Ski Slope Blow Phil Davos there just told us. That was Phil Buckley's world, not mine. National Scottite. Yeah, exactly. Well, the famous thing about David Bowie was he lived in New York City for years and walked around the city and never really made a big commotion. People didn't really notice him. When he wanted to disappear, he could disappear. When he wanted to be on stage, he was on stage.

By the way, is that what starts our light rock? I would say, Peter, that you're wrong. You have heard a David Bowie song. What's that? Well, you just have. You've heard them. Oh, I see what you mean. But they've been in the ether for a long time.

He wrote a lot of great songs. So explain, I having had dinner with David Bowie many, many years ago and still not appreciating his significance, I was really very surprised. I mean the sendoff he got was extensive. Somehow or other, he touched all kinds of people, including to a remarkable extent conservative. I was reading appreciations of him on conservative websites, on Ricochet. Why was that? Can you explain him to me? Well, first of all, he was really good. He was always interesting.

I should say – but more than really good, he was always interesting. He didn't write a lot of pop – love pop songs. He wrote like complicated songs with like weird little stories in them, completely idiosyncratic. You never didn't know you were listening to a David Bowie song. And he lasted a long time and he was smart. He was a smart guy. He was smart. He was well-read and he was smart. He was a smart guy. He was smart.

He was well-read and he liked ideas and he was interested in art and he was never a bore. Someone said the great thing about David Bowie was this guy was a rock star for 50 years, James? 45 years? Close. And never said anything really, really stupid, which is hard to do. He knew when to smile charismatically and keep his mouth shut, but he also reinvented himself constantly. And it was always something interesting to see which persona would come next. And a lot of them were ones that you didn't necessarily think that somebody successful

in pop music would do. They were difficult and they were gutsy. He allied himself for a little while with this Berlin music scene where you had Iggy Pop and Kraftwerk and Brian Eno and all these other guys who are just stewing with ways to invent music. And he would come up with tunes

that I heard in the jukebox in a University of Minnesota 3-2 beer bar constantly, V2 Schneider, B-side for Heroes. And Heroes itself was sort of an anthem for the people on the other side of the wall when they heard it played at a West Berlin concert and heard the strains of We Could Be Heroes just for one day wafting over the divide.

It was something. It was a man who crossed many lines, did many things, and we just lost a lot of people at the beginning of the year. I mean, for heaven's sakes, Mott the Hoople's drummer died. Well, you know, 2016 has really gotten everybody's attention and for all the wrong reasons. It's just no fun.

And right here, it's cold and bitter. But it can only get better, right? I mean, this year is either going to end with a great sigh of relief on our side or the most – I don't even want to start there. But I – You started a sentence. I can hear your – the spirit leave you as you started that sentence. It just did. It just did. Because I just imagined Rob and myself and Jonah on the stage and on a ship on the night owl after the election and just trying to gin up some laughs.

If Hillary wins, it's going to be just the ship of the dead and a metaphor perhaps for the country. But let's not say that's going to happen. Let's work to make it. Well, 30 percent chance she's going to be in leg irons, right, according to legal mind Richard Epstein. Look, I think you have to give it credit, right? Whatever you want to say, the greatest thing about the last nine months and the greatest thing about the coming nine months or ten months, whatever it is, ten months, is that everyone is going to make predictions and everyone is going to look like a fool. I don't think we're going to revert to mean.

We're going to revert to something that makes sense I think in retrospect. But if you're not paying attention, you're going to miss some stuff. So I think some people are just going to say, you know what? Forget it. You guys figure it all out. I'm going to bury my head. Call me the day after Election Day. But it's going to be a great show.

It's going to be a great show. I don't know if it's going to be a happy ending yet, but it's going to be a great show. And if the market continues to take it in the shorts or indeed has enough shorts left to take it in, Hillary is going to have to run the third term of Barack Obama's wonderful economic policies. And when she's talking for more confiscation, that's just not going to fly. Get somebody up there who wants to release the animal spirits of the economy, and I think they'll have a better rhetorical shot. Hey, you there who's been listening, thank you. What you should do, however, is make your life even better.

Go to harrys.com and use the coupon code RICOCHET to get some money off the best shaving experience you'll ever have. Go to thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet, greatcoursesplus, and you can get some streaming video and learn some lessons on investing, which we all need, no matter how much, you know. And of course, SaneBox.com slash ricochet

for free trial to start making your email less of an impediment, not an impediment at all, but something, dare I say, you actually look forward to opening in the morning. It's possible with SaneBox. And of course,

you can always look forward to Ricochet, where between the member feed and the regular feed, there's always stuff to listen to and read and respond in pop culture and join and join listen to the man he's right peter rob we'll see you next week next week well i'm running down the road trying to loosen my load i got seven women on my mind for the one on me to the one who stole me once she's a friend of mine I've got seven women on my mind Four that want to own me Two that want to stone me

One says she's a friend of mine Take it easy Take it easy Don't let the sound of your own wheels Drive you crazy Lighten up while you still can don't even try

to understand just find a place to make your stand and take it easy well I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona in such a fine sight to see

It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford Slowin' down to take a look at me Come on, babe Don't say babe I gotta know if your sweet love is going to save me We may lose and we may win But we will never be here again So open up, I'm climbing in

So take it easy Ricochet. Join the conversation. Take it easy. Take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy.