The Ricochet Podcast - Unix Servers

Episode Date: November 13, 2020

This week, John Yoo, the Ricochet Podcast Senior Election Fraud Analyst and the Joan and Ray Kroc McRib Scholar at Hamburger University sits in for Peter Robinson and kicks the show off with a deep dive on where we stand with all of the current court cases and challenges around the election. Then, Avik Roy (listen to his American Wonk/COVID in 19 podcast right here on Ricochet) stops by to science... Source

I don't know why I'm talking like Stephen Wright. I have a dream. This nation will rise up. Live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal. CNN projects Joseph R. Biden Jr. is elected the 46th president of the United States, winning the White House and denying President Trump a second term. I'm the president and you're fake news.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with John Hughes sitting in for Peter Robinson. Rob Long's here. I'm James Lylex. We're going to talk to Elvick Roy about COVID and Jim Garrity about, well, you know, the election. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you.

Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number 521. I'm James Lylex in frigson frigid frosty clear blue sky minneapolis minnesota rob logs in new york and peter robinson is off on a sweater tying seminar so he's not with us today but in his stead of course happy to take over angling for that permanent position that edges peter out into the tundra uh is john you john welcome you're in california as well in in crazy berkeley i'm so happy to be here. You know, I love getting promoted to the big show from the minor leagues. Yeah. So, so I have a question for you, John. Are you, are you preparing a SCOTUS brief? Are you preparing, is, is, is anyone preparing a SCOTUS brief?

Oh yeah. SCOTUS one more time. Oh yeah. Rudy's at, well rudy's out there you know in pennsylvania on the ground at the four seasons landscape but no there's some serious people actually very serious people working on appealing to the u.s supreme court what appealing what about what yeah the uh pennsylvania legislature set the election date right to november 3rd and the pennsylvania supreme court switched it to november 6, so at least to set aside those three days of ballots that came in late. But I don't think it's enough to make up the difference in Pennsylvania. I mean, we're talking maybe

10,000 to 15,000 ballots. The Pennsylvania situation doesn't seem to be much of a brainer. It seems obvious that they usurped their authority, and you would hope that the Supreme Court would come down with a crushing majority in order to legitimize their decision how could liberal judges look at that and say no no i think the courts in pennsylvania had the absolute right to override the the legitimate decision of the legislature i mean what would be the liberal argument in favor of that oh i give you a lot of them. Unfortunately, I swim amongst the sea. Seriously, I'm curious. Aside from your living, breathing, platex elastic constitution, what? So they would say that when the state legislatures have the power to pick the electors, set the time, date, and manner of elections, that then turns it into a state constitutional question. So then each state, under its own constitution, gets to sort of rearrange all the building blocks. So for example,

the Supreme Court, for example, has upheld all these redistricting commissions, right? Arizona has one, California has one, Virginia has one now. The constitution actually says the state legislature draws the congressional districts every 10 years after the census. But a lot of states, by initiative, have moved that over to these boards of retired judges. And the Supreme Court has said that's still the state legislative power. I think that's total baloney. And it was 5-4, and it was Justice Ginsburg wrote that opinion. And actually, the great thing is John Roberts wrote the diss dissent and he said that makes no sense at all he says actually john roberts said when it says state legislature right it means

only the state legislature so actually i agree with you james if this this issue gets the supreme court i could see roberts and the conservative like a six to three win for conservatives i can't even see it yeah i mean isn't this a classic conservative-liberal distinction? I mean, conservatives in general think that whenever possible, it should always be deferred to the elected representatives. And in this case, it's the state. And they elected the elected representatives, and they said it's going to be November, doesn't matter, November 11th, 11th. It doesn't make that much difference. And the judges can't say it's not that

date whereas liberals say well you know judges they're like they're like kind of like the ultimate so we have and judge liberal judges are always finding new ways new rules so it seems to me that the crack in this and i we're focusing on this particular case in pennsylvania correct me if i'm wrong because it's the only one that's non-bs right yeah it's the only one that's going to and it's the only one that could swing tens of thousands of votes but even that even like the principle yeah the principle of it is actually serious and probably it doesn't actually depend on you know having spies inside the counting center it's just a clean question you don't have to like right right but there's something else rob there it's not just that the liberals believe all oh, judges, they have wisdom.

There's the idea of count every vote, that it's disenfranchising and probably disproportionately and adversely impacting. If you don't, what's the matter with you conservatives that you do? I thought you believed in the system. Don't you want to count every vote? And, you know, the Republicans say, yeah, if it's a legal vote by a certain date, that's not that hard. Those are the rules but that's isn't that going to be ultimate i mean john you should tell us it's not going to be ultimately the question the judges have to decide is even if the even if you say well look uh the judge so state supreme court judge can't extend the dates you still are on the side of those people who cast those votes cast them in good faith they were following a process

that they were told was going to be legal they expected to be casting a legal vote and a legal one not an illegal one a legal vote you can't now disenfranchise them in retroactively is that kind of what yeah no that's exactly right rob's proving uh once again that he saved a hundred thousand dollars by not going to law school. Because anyone can do it. Somehow absorbed all the ideas. Anyone can do it. That's why. Absorbed the ideas. No, but that's exactly right. The second argument on the left, and this is the same argument they made during Bush versus Gore 20 years ago. This is the same

argument, James, they make at every election from dog catcher all the way to president is what matters is someone voted and we count their vote we want the intent of the voters to matter even if they don't comply with all the little rules about signing the envelopes and getting the witnesses that's all just voter suppression that's all designed to reduce the number of people can vote and it's linked into historic efforts in the south to stop people what i'm saying is could just a fancier way to do this is one last this is one last issue this pre-court resolved uh it's crazy you would think people would fight about uh showing your driver's license to vote right just so voter id but you see those voter people on the left consistently say they took it all the supreme

court they lost that even requiring an id to vote is a form of voter suppression of a kind with the jim crow south right so is it possible you could this could go to the supreme court and it could be upheld i mean the the the move could be upheld nine to zero or it could be of health some you could conceivably win the issue but in the actual decision be that those votes should still be counted and it seems to me that's the most likely right i'm not the most, but in the actual decision be that those votes should still be counted. I mean, it seems to me that's the most likely, right? I mean, not the most likely, but probably the most, I don't know what the word would be, the most, it seems to be the most clear answer to me. Is that- Well, actually, so what John Roberts and then, you know, Rob's classmate and buddy, Brett Kavanaugh, because he also does not want to be handing off

the presidency to anybody, is that the votes don't matter at all, but they make the decision. It's clear for the next elections. They should have decided this before November 3rd. They had the opportunity. Well, that's the great thing. They wanted them to and they wouldn't do it. Everybody's learned their lesson, of course, from this. The media did a very bad job of this election.

The polling was awful and the voting was awful. So by 2024, I think we're going to pretty much have it nailed down then where the polling was awful and the voting was awful so by 2024 i think we're going to pretty much have it nailed down then where the media is right down the middle the polling is absolutely accurate voting nationwide is a perfect thing uh you know people are saying well this happened before with bush v gore max steyer the uh founding partner of the ceo the non-partisan they say partnership for public service uh which you might recall was a player in the brett kavanaugh story that's right that's right remember him he's the one who allegedly well robs the expert on all this

since he was there i think he was the whole thing i think he was deposed by the fbi about this i refuse that steyer doesn't think the current situation is analogous to bush v gore which you know dragged on for an awful long time 27 days etc, etc., etc. John, do you think that's the case? Do you think, or is it needless to even say that it has to be analogous? It's just a different situation. It's, I think it's analogous. It's just funny that the positions are reversed. Now, Trump is in the position of Gore, and Biden's in the position of Bush, because remember, Bush versus Gore, the first count, the recounts, the official count from the second, remember the secretary of state, that woman with the big, you know, general epaulette

kind of outfit on, with all the makeup, who was crying on air, she certified the vote for Bush. And remember, Gore was in the position of saying, no, we got to keep it going, we got to keep counting, we got to reopen everything, which is essentially the argument Trump is making. Biden is the one who's saying, I'm going to be certified. Once they certify the vote, I win. And there's just no way to overcome it. But the reason it's different, although I don't think it's what Steyer is talking about, the reason it's different is this shows why I think it's really hard to hack into the American electoral system, because this is not one state with a 500 vote difference right this is arizona wisconsin georgia pennsylvania to have corrupted the election

means you'd have to right get many of these states to count all the votes for biden or overcount votes for biden and many of these states are republican right this that's that's the difference i think versus versus Bush versus Gore. Well, I mean, as far as having to coordinate it, Rob will tell you, right, that Dominion is responsible for this. Dominion, which was the original name was the Soros vote adjustment algorithm system, but they said, that's a little too on the nose. And they changed it to Dominion, which makes nobody suspicious at all. And then with just a few little manipulations of the code and trilling the dials they shifted the votes right rob i mean that's that's what you well that's that is i mean if you if you if you just switch the words around that's exactly what people said in 2004 about on the on the on the

other side on the on the carry side and the democrats in 2004 I know because I was living among them, were devastated by the loss in 2004. They could not understand it. It didn't compute to them. And I actually, I mean, I actually, a few people actually reached out to me the next morning and said, can we have lunch? I need you to explain to me why the country hasn't falling apart in 2004. And they had all sorts of play out of the computers and diebolt and there's connected to halliburton and it was all going to be smart people believe these crazy things because they couldn't accept that george w bush had been re-elected even though it seemed

like it's not that hard to expect i mean it wasn't an outcome they wanted but it didn't seem like an outcome that was outside the realm of possibility not even wasn't even unlikely it was seemed to be the likely outcome all inputs understood and that's kind of where we are now we're sort of the fat girl at the inaugural screaming no the minute uh donald trump took office that's kind of where i think the trump supporters are where they're just kind of like you know replaying the the hits of yesteryear from 2004 and and frankly i think in some cases 2008 and the other disappointing for some election and uh and kind of hoping that it all isn't true um and i hope that's over by the time that's over in time for the for for the the the conservatives in america

to do you know get some work done i just want one thing about this computer system thing because i've been getting so many emails i don't know about you guys but yeah i'm getting flooded by rumors of this i saw that the only one that seemed serious enough to cause a systematic uh vote fraud would be right hacking into the vote counting systems themselves um but on this one i'd say that doesn't depend on you know crazy people filing hundreds of lawsuits the justice department that's what they're there for that's actually the kind of thing the justice department can investigate would be right someone hacked and that's a that's a federal crime right okay let me actually hacked into a computer system and change the vote tabulations and they're they're good at this

i mean they're good at computer crime okay but as a as a former doj deep state attorney deep in the swamp oh i was so in the deep state you have no idea i know i will believe me years to get back to the surface as someone who was who was tainted by that uh embrace it i love it okay how do you mr state mr state please how do you um mr deep i think how do you miss my friends just call me deep how do you explain not explain but how do you address those concerns if we believe the department of justice is essentially a deep state cabal operating on an anti-trump bias which isn't 100 insane by the way i mean i think we know from following the russia story that you know that the the problem for the left is that a whole lot of things that

donald trump said were happening to him were in fact happening to him how do you explain how do you then rely on the doj to actually investigate this if we have no confidence in the department of justice and no confidence in the fbi and no confidence in um state uh uh election officials and elected state election officials and republican elected state election officials how How do we get past this? So just as the DOJ part, if you go back and think about the Russia collusion investigation, and I've always wanted to say this, it was not the ground level agents out in the field who are hardworking, patriotic, generally conservative people. I'm sure they vote a majority for Trump. If the terrible distortion of the Russia collusion investigation, that was the people at the headquarters, Comey, his whole headquarters, the very top people who are twisting, I think,

the powers of government after Trump. I think the people, now that's been corrected. Right now, you have Bill Barr in charge of the Justice Department. I mean, this is not a guy who's going to put his thumb on the scales against Trump. And so I think that those ground level agents, the people out in the field offices, if they sniff anything funny about the computer systems, they're going to pursue it, you know, like bloodhounds. I have no doubt about they're not deep state people who want Biden to win at all. And that was I think that's the difference between that. But the bigger question, you're right, right rob is politically and culturally i think um actually it's been the left that for 20 and this is the other thing that's weird about by trump is more like acting like um uh the gore and the left here is that it's been liberals ever since bush versus

gore who've raised doubts about the you said rob in 2004 before they claimed a deep old election election machines were broken in 2000 they claimed that funny ballot caused everyone to vote for ralph nader little jewish grandmas and boca raton are voting for ralph nader instead of uh gore right so it's actually been liberals who for the last 20 years have been attacking the integrity of the elections uh so now it's almost like a bipartisan cultural phenomenon that everyone questions right integrity they set the table now we're all eaten um so because that's ultimately what i was trying to get at which is that if you wanted to hear uh conspiracy theories right if you wanted to hear for me as my in my lifetime if i want to

hear conspiracy theories about corporations controlling things and about big big uh unix servers uh spying on me and about my vote not counting all unique servers i'm sorry unique servers you know what i mean you don't need i'll keep saying may instead of just servers yeah yeah all i needed to do was to go to college right or for that matter read the national press if i want to get into like weird right-wing conspiracies i gotta kind of go to reddit or i gotta i gotta really search them out. And now it seems like, certainly on Fox News at nighttime, there's a whole bunch of nonsense being served up that seems to me a lot like the nonsense that I learned in college. And the

general liberal media is having a freak out about this. And I despair. They will not connect the dots. But at least privately, I can nod and say, oh, some of these songs sound familiar. I think I heard them from my political science graduate student teaching assistant at Yale in 1984. Oh, God. That guy's probably teaching

in primary school in Manhattan somewhere right now. Or he is your dean. That's true, too. He could be the president of the university at this point. Well, it's nothing new. In 1874 election, I'm sure that somebody was accusing somebody else of getting up in the telegraph lines and splicing them out and dot dot dashing for other candidates for the election results. Whatever technology comes along that they use, somebody is going to accuse some nefarious force of having using it.

I'm still just hooked up, hung up in my head, like two comments back from Rob, where he was discussing that I think the overweight woman at the inaugural. I do, I do whatsoever, but it's the, it's the body shaming there, Rob, that I find really uncharitable of you. And I, and that's odd because I know you're a charitable guy. And a lot of people have a charitable urge themselves with the problem is how do they simplify it? How do they know where to give something to? Well, I'm more than happy to tell you that today we're sponsored by Donors Trust, which is what? It is a principled and tax-friendly way to simplify your charitable giving. Imagine a guy named, let's call him Paul. Maybe you're a bit like Paul yourself. Paul is an investor who likes to get things done, both in business and in philanthropy. He wants to

put his charitable giving to work, solving society's problems, and fighting important fights now, now when he's dead. So he sought out the most tax-efficient and simple way to make sure that his giving would be as effective as possible. Paul found Donor's Trust. So can you. At Donor's Trust, he opened a donor-advised fund. What's that? Well, it's a fund that acts like a charitable savings account that lets him give in a smart, tax-advantaged, and private way. Now, he spends less time on administration and more time having an impact. But Donors Trust is more than an administrative tool for Paul. It can be more than that for you. With its unique mission, he sees it as a critical cog in advancing freedom because Donors Trust works with a wide range of donors who share a commitment to the freedoms and the principles that strengthen America.

Donors Trust philanthropic advisors can help you sharpen your giving, discover new groups, and define your charitable legacy. So join the community of liberty-minded donors at Donors Trust. To see how a Donors Advised Fund could benefit your giving, as well as Paul's, yours, go to DonorsTrust.org slash Ricochet for their six reasons to use a donor-advised fund. That's DonorsTrust.org slash Ricochet for their six reasons to use a donor advised fund. That's donorstrust.org slash ricochet. And as ever, we thank Donor's Trust for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Now we bring back to the podcast, Ovik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on

Equal Opportunity in Austin, Texas. And I assume, Ovik, that that's equal opportunity everywhere, not just Austin, Texas. It's one of the foremost healthcare wonks in the country. He is and the host of two, count them, two podcasts right here in the Ricochet Audio Network, American Wonk and COVID in 19, the latter of which covers all the news on COVID twice a week for 19 minutes. Welcome to the podcast. And even the people who are listening to this won't see this, but you have an extensive set of acoustical baffles behind you, which indicate that you are really stepping into this role of explaining to the rest of America what's going on. Never mind the wonkery. Let's talk about COVID. I'm here in Minnesota where apparently we're in the eye of the hurricane, a world of hurt, lots of things

happening. We've been wearing masks for an awful long time. They're blaming the yahoos and the toothless rubes and the outstates and the kids who go gallivanting in the bars. But is this seasonal and inevitable and was going to happen? Is this the last big punch before COVID finally shambles away? Well, the right answer, James, is we don't know. We don't know. Thank you very much, Oleg Roy. He's been with us. That's what I feel like all these conversations come down to at the end. We don't know. And then we continue on to talk. But we don't know. But what's the best science telling us?

Well, let's be clear. I mean, a big part of the problem with COVID in general, COVID policy, has been the relentless declarations of certainty by people who claim to be experts on things they actually don't know anything about. So saying we don't know is an affirmation of the scientific method and of the real state of knowledge. So, it is important to say we don't know when we, in fact, don't know. Having said that, there are some plausible hypotheses as to what's going on. The first is that colder weather could lead to an increase in cases because when we have drier throats, that's generally when we're more susceptible to viral infections. Another reason why cold weather can drive infections is because particularly in the pleasant northern climes like yours, James. Excuse me. Is that a dry throat? I just had lunch, so that's lunch rather than COVID, I, you know, like in parts of I know that the Minnesotans are hardy, scanty Nordic stock people, but even even the hardy Nordics of Minnesota like to be indoors when it's cold outside.

And so that can lead to increased transmission. Right. Because we know that about accelerated cases in cold weather parts of the country. Having said that, I haven't dug into the geographic data to be able to declare that that's true. We're seeing a rise in cases all over the country, even in the places like Austin, where I had dinner outdoors yesterday very comfortably because it was 70 degrees. So I don't know if that's driving things. It could also be that there's lockdown fatigue, right? That there are people out there who are just tired of being cooped up and they finally had it and they want to party with their friends, especially now that democracy has been saved or something like that.

Lots of people are celebrating the restoration of democracy. So maybe that's driving transmission. We don't know. Is it the same virus, Ovik? Is it the same? Is it, there's been talk about how, well, you know, it's different now. It's been nine months, 10 months.

It might be a different virus. It doesn't, is it as deadly? Is it as dangerous? Is it, are we replaying March and April or are we in a new phase? I'm clutching desperately at straws so you can give us some good news. Well, there are variant strains of coronaviruses in general.

Coronaviruses, just because of their genetic structure, mutate all the time. Most mutations end up leading to a much less virulent form of the virus. So mutations aren't usually good, unlike in the movies where mutations always make things more dangerous. It's not like that in the real world. That's how Rob got to where he was. Exactly. I failed up. I failed down.

So we don't know. Again, the answer is we don't know. of plays against the mutation type theses as being really important is that if this pfizer vaccine is as effective as the as the reported data that would suggest that there's enough genetic stability in the virus that you can generate an immunity to it which is encouraging um but i i would say and the other thing that's encouraging is that while the cases have risen and that's been a big driver of the news we have not seen the same level of of rise in deaths yet now that's encouraging is that while the cases have risen and that's been a big driver of the news we have not seen the same level of of rise in deaths yet now that's going to be a lagging indicator but the point i'm trying to make is that a we're getting better at treating covet 19 when someone gets hospitalized with a serious covet illness and also the the virus the people are

getting infected now are generally younger and people who are generally younger are not dying in nearly the frequency that older people are. So overall, we should be less alarmed about this wave than we were about the first wave. But it's still something to be concerned about, and we should wear masks, wash your hands, deploy distancing, all those things that unfortunately are more controversial than they should be. So just go through the controversies. We all understand washing your hands, right? Actually, you should. I have friends who wash their hands constantly and have been rolling their eyes. We've all been saying things like, we really need to wash our hands more.

And they're like, we wash our hands all the time. You're washing your hands? Germaphobes. Germaphobes, yeah. Nuts, right? But it turns out they were correct. Masks. Germaphobes and introverts are the winners in 2020 that's right arnoids are always right once in a while right uh masks are effective or not effective yeah you know they are effective and i know there is a uh a a band of

hardy contrarians on this topic who cite various statistical analyses to make the argument scott's definitely one of them to say that masks don't work using certain kinds of social science analyses here's here's the way i would put it um if you look at hospitals if you look at dental clinics if you look at airplanes places where in theory the transmission should be quite high, they're not. And the big correlator is the adoption of masks. So, again, like that doesn't mean you need to wear a mask when you're out playing soccer or when you're taking a walk on the street. But when you're in a crowded indoor setting, especially when you're encountering people for a long period of time, and you're an adult, meaning you're not like a toddler, you know, because toddlers aren't infectious, masks do reduce the risk. There's a fair amount of evidence at this point, and I know that there's, again, this countervailing theory, and people just, I have to say it, and, you know, if you've listened to COVID-19, our podcast on Ricochet, you've heard me say this, is just to be really puzzling how passionate

some people are in the anti-mask community. I remember a couple weeks ago, I tweeted something like, guys, please wear masks. Just please. And I think I lost like 300 followers that day. There were so many people just mad at me, like, I don't want to hear from them. Okay, sorry.

Mask-related. I mean, a guy that I follow on Twitter is Ian Miller, and I don't know what his stats are. I know that masks are his thing. And while I wear one constantly all the time, I'm always intrigued by these charts, endless number of charts that he's able to show where mask mandates were instituted,

and then still things took off. Instance after instance, country after country after country. So it doesn't affect my behavior, but it makes me think that there's some other element at work here. Now, could you say that things would be worse if there weren't masks? It's entirely possible. But so it's maybe people are skeptical of not of masks, but of the mandate itself, that they regard that as an overreach. And if we're to have a national mandate, a national mask mandate, what exactly are the legislative constitutional prerequisites that

that falls under well i mean uh you know judge you don't need me when you have when you have john you on the on the podcast to talk about the federal police powers i mean the substance i'm just a sub today just call me or i think my other name tonight is deep mr deep state so i'll go by i was gonna say like the thing i really want to talk about with you, John, is the Korean takeover of Southern California. That's a little bit more interesting. I know. We just got to run more Korean women all across the country. Really?

I mean, it's going to do a lot for the Republic, I think, to have more Korean women in charge, at least based on the ones I know. At least the food will be better, even though the interior decorating will be worse. Well, kimchi for breakfast, I'm here. Kimchi for breakfast, kimchi for lunch. So, I'm sorry, John, did you want to finish? Oh, yeah. This is just really more of a pro-Korean thing. I have a social science-y question.

You know, I love how Avik just put down the entire economics profession there. The dismal science. Yeah, if you're right that, and I think you're right, if you're right that the mortality rate is going down, then doesn't that mean that the trade-off for lockdowns doesn't make sense anymore? Because if less people are going to die, then you don't need to have the draconian lockdowns that everybody is suggesting we need to go to in the winter. And in fact, then you've got to take into account all these other people who are dying. I think the finish,

they're losing life years because they're not getting surgeries they're not going to the gym they're eating badly at home you know they're probably smoking indoors they're gay you know there's high rates of violence at home people aren't going to job loss job loss yeah job loss education losses you've got this huge uh cost that people aren't measuring clearly in the public that are the result of lockdowns. And we're not saving as many lives as we were, say, in April. Well, you know, so let me answer your question and James's question sort of together. So first, James said, well, there are these charts that show mask mandate is here and the cases kept going up.

As we all know, there are a lot of factors that can drive the cases going up, right? The mask mandate is just one of many factors. If there's a massive transmission because of a super spreader event, or if there's just people aren't distancing, or there's a mask mandate that people aren't following, right? There could be a lot of reasons why a mask mandate doesn't yield the policy results that you want. But there's clearly a lot of evidence at the micro level that in places or in occupational settings where masks are widely used, the transmission rate is very low. Just to give again the example of airplanes, flight attendants in airplanes have a lower rate of

transmission and infection from COVID than other workers who like grocery store clerks and things like that. So now airplanes have certain other advantages. They have the UV filters and the air circulators and things like that. But it just goes to show that in that barely enclosed setting where you're in a tube for three hours, the transmission isn't happening. So there are many other examples I could give. I don't want to bore people with a long discussion of this, but that micro evidence is pretty compelling. And to your point, John, about the lockdowns, this is a big part of why I think masks are important, right? If we don't want to strengthen the case for lockdowns,

then it's especially important that we do the easy voluntary things like hand washing and mask wearing to keep the virus at bay. This is why, for example, in Germany, while Germany has had a rise in cases like many other countries have, compared to the other big European countries like the France and the UK, Italy, Spain, which have generally basically had the performance of the US, tons of cases, tons of deaths, Germany has not. And it's not because Germany had more stringent lockdowns. It's because Germans are just more orderly people, we might say. They like to follow rules, no matter who gives them. So that's another example that goes, you know, kind of, if we want to be social science-y, that's the kind of social science-y example. And the Pacific Rim countries, same thing, right? Yes, the Pacific Rim countries did use certain aggressive tactics like contact tracing in South

Korea, for example. But in general, the big success of east asia has been um you know discipline wearing masks washing hands hygiene you're gonna you're just kissing up to rob because rob's whole theory for everything is culture first politics second so your argument is called national cultures made a difference i think there's a strong case for it i think i think i think you're right i think i have made a strong case for so uh does it bother you ovic that um as you said before does it bother you that if i am talking to somebody about on the right if i'm talking to somebody about masks or the uh or the or the vaccine or um uh the lockdowns and i refer to you as an authority it helps if i say ovick roy who actually is a well-known conservative is it is that a problem for us now that we actually can't accept a fact from somebody who's

on a different partisan side well i will say that i feel like we at free up at the foundation for research on equal opportunity my think tank i feel like we have beenEP, at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, my think tank, I feel like we have been able to effectively make the case. Of course, we are a minority view, right? The majority view in the elite community has been lock everything down, keep the schools closed, et cetera. But look, we were able to publish two major white papers on this topic that were read by policymakers, both at the federal level and at the state and local level. One on reopening the economy back in April, another on reopening schools that we published in July. Those were both turned into cover stories in the weekend Wall Street Journal. So we've been able to get our case out there. And I think what's been particularly helpful is that we've been

vindicated, right? So we said in April, the Scott Gottlieb claim that we're going to have a magical treatment for COVID-19 and the lockdown is only going to take two weeks. We argued that that was deeply flawed on multiple levels and that we actually had to find a way to live with this virus and maximally reopen the economy while being prudent with the risks. came to school reopenings, actually, we should be more aggressive with school reopenings because the evidence from Europe and elsewhere is that school reopenings are not leading to an increase in transmission, particularly for children under the age of 12. And both of those arguments have been vindicated, right? So like when Texas reopened, when Florida reopened in June, July, you know, there were all these people predicting, you know, that there was going to be a Holocaust and there wasn't a Holocaust. Yes, we've seen a rise in cases, but there has not been a Holocaust. The statistics have been coming much lower than what was predicted back in april and may by by the atlantic and new york times etc on the school side we're totally vindicated right

every the places that have reopened schools have done very very well we have not seen a rise in infections and in fact now you're seeing headlines in the washington post the new york times say things like contrary to expert consensus there are not infections. And in fact, now you're seeing headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times say things like, contrary to expert consensus, there are not infections taking place in schools and scientists are puzzled by this. I love your NPR voice on it. That was really good. So, I mean, all that to say that, you know, are we persuading everyone? Of course not. But I feel fortunate that we haven't been completely deplatformed. I'm sure that Twitter is not promoting what we have to say and helping it circulate as widely as it could,

but we're getting the word out there and people who have a healthy skepticism for expert opinion are getting to hear what we have to say. Thanks to people like you having me on the show. Well, thank you. He's speaking to me. I think he's speaking directly to me. I think he's speaking to all of us. You're not involved with that. No. All of us sensible,

healthily skeptical, and we all wear masks. Can we say goodbye to Avik? Can I say, Avik, will you stop writing about this flu stuff and get back to our book? Yes. Avik and I are writing a book. Before the flu hit, Avik and I were working on a book called Why Are Asians So Stupid? Well, they're getting smarter, aren't they? Hey, this Supreme Court case coming up, we definitely have to. Oh, yeah. We have a lot to work on yeah yeah it's going to be six three for us yeah i'm i am uh i'm eager for that i mean i have uh

i've spent my entire adult life fulminating against the true institutional racism in higher education which is the incredible uh and relentless discrimination against asians um uh and and that's something that uh that I know John also feels passionate about. So, yes, John, I will email you later today and we will, we're going to, we're going to, no, we got to, we should, we should write something on the election, John, on the election results and to talk about that piece of it. A.K.A. why our moms should, why our moms should be,

Asian moms should be president. And everybody in the country is going to study and there'll be no more organized sports. And no democracy, let's be honest. Way too many piano lessons. What I want now are the secret memos between the two of you, because John's saying, look, I'm angling for a permanent shot on the podcast.

I want to get rid of this Peter Robinson guy. I don't know if you can just help me with this. Set the stage for future podcasts where I pop up in Peter's stead. It's a very nice little deal. You guys got going. Well, you know, that time that John was on Comedy Central with Jon Stewart and just made him. Right.

That was like one of the great moments in 21st century television history. I think about it often. Drove him off the air. They'll be saying that in 2099. Thanks very much. I look forward to having you at some point to say, okay, it's over. It's a long time gone. What did we do that was right?

And what can we look forward to in the future? But unfortunately, everybody stay tuned and keep listening to his COVID-19 podcast for the latest information from the Ricochet Audio Network. See you later. Thanks, everybody. Bye, Avik. The problem with the lockdowns is that the first round of them were so hard, so long, to so little effect that they killed so much.

And this is this ripple effect that keeps happening now. Every time I talk to somebody, they're not going back to work. Well, they're not going back until the spring. Some of them are just not going back at all. I heard about another organization that they just said, well, you know what? Our lease is up. We're not going to go back. Everyone's going to work at home.

And this sort of rolling readjustment of what our life is, is one of the things that's driven me absolutely crazy about this. I read the other day that dry cleaning stores, I may have mentioned this last week, dry cleaning stores are starting to drop because nobody's got clothes that they want to have clean anymore. It's fun because I still go to work in a shirt and a tie to keep up the old standards. But the fact of the matter is, is that most people aren't and the old uniforms are gone, but here's the thing. You still need underwear.

This is not a world in which you can go absolutely commander 24 seven, even if you're zooming in with a tube. And because you get, I mean, there's a certain standards that you have to maintain and maybe because you haven't gotten out to the store as much as you can, because we're all locked down and you're, you know,

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He is, of course, senior political correspondent for the National Review. Yay! And writes the must-read morning newsletter of the morning. Joel, subscribe to it. You must. You should. You ought to. In his spare time, of course, he's a long-suffering Jets fan.

He's a Vikings fan. I get that. And apparently does an uncanny impression of Ted Cruz. And if you're not following the video feed, you will see that he actually has the facial hair of Ted Cruz himself to make the bit even more believable. Follow him on Twitter, Jim Garrity. And welcome, buddy.

How you doing? You're really good to see you. It's fantastic. I almost believed you there. I wish we were all on a cruise ship bobbing along somewhere that would earn us all the cruise icon wouldn't it we'll we'll get to that in a second here because i have the feeling that there's a sort of cruise ship ahoy rhino uh squish division that's forming

in the party between those who believe that this was stolen and those who think that there may have been irregularities but it wasn't so you wrote a you piece in NARC, tough love, shall we say. Trump was not stabbed in the back, let me quote. Besides, if never Trump Republicans did cost Trump a handful of electoral votes, just whose fault was that? Should those Republicans who voted for Biden be berated for not recognizing the dire consequences of electing a Democratic president, or does some of the responsibility fall at Trump's feet? So do you think that there was a stab in the back i gather not but i'm just giving you a setup to repeat what you said in the column um in your inimitable style yeah you know the one of the great ironies is that this morning

uh tim miller of the bulwark took exceptional objection to the piece uh and i believe called it stupid and the analysis was specious uh because my first was how do you define somebody who's never trump and the measuring stick that i use looking at the election results as of late last week it's possible that the exact numbers that are quoted in the story you want to adjust them a bit i don't think proportion really changes very much i used people who had voted for uh a republican in either the gubernatorial race or the senate race but not trump for president and one of the objections i've heard from tim is that no no

some of the people who were never trump have become never republican and thus the true definition of a never trump voter is someone who voted democrats top to bottom now i call that democrats yeah you know and at this point your definition you know you know because if you want to say oh um max boot right and uh was he the one with the fedora yeah yeah you know i think he is republican i think actually the fedora is part of his his persona and the lincoln project and the guys at the bulwark if you want to use did they affect did they swing the election no no if you wanted to find a little more broadly to say okay how about voters who are generally and usually vote

republican but could not bring themselves to vote for trump is that a better definition of never trump now the question is if that's your definition how do you measure it when i looked at okay i decided to look at down ticket some people have said you should use house races okay i guess tim miller's objection is like well there's variants of candidates in the senate races but there's not variants he didn't seem to worry about variants of candidates in the uh in the house races i'm not sure i don't really follow the logic of that one but that was my measuring stick it's like okay and i looked at if every single person who had voted for a republican senator or voted for republican governor had voted for trump well how would that be different how

different would the results be it would be 11 11 electoral votes. That would be it. Now, if you want to say, you know, where did a never Trump voter make a big difference? I think probably the best example you can find would be the congressional district around Omaha, Nebraska. Trump got four of the electoral votes out of Nebraska. He got lost one, kind of like it happened back in 2008 as well. Omaha did not vote for Donald Trump. They voted for Joe Biden. Now, the intriguing thing is that the Republican House member who represents that congressional district got reelected by about five or six percentage points. There was about a five or six ticket splitting amount there. So there's one more. Look, it's Omaha, it's Nebraska. It's not necessarily

Wyoming, but it's a fairly Republican-leaning, conservative-leaning congressional district as far as these things go. And it voted for Republicans. It just didn't vote for Donald Trump. That's probably the best example you can find of that. When I use my measuring stick of Senate races and governor's races, I'll be the first to tell you, Olympia Snowe is not the same as Donald Trump. And they appeal to a really different kind of, you know, group oflympia snow won re-election donald trump won one congressional district in uh maine and then lost the other one and he lost the statewide vote so maine is the other state that splits the electoral votes by congressional district trump got one biden got the other three you know uh the other two cases where you saw a republican winning the top of the winning

down ticket uh were vermont and new hampshire for the governor scott in vermont and sununu in new hampshire won re-election by a landslide uh and trump lost both those states and by the way new hampshire which had been kind of close in 2016 was really not that close this time um you add that up but the thing is is that again i will, I will recognize, first to recognize, the appeal of a Governor Scott or the appeal of a Governor Sununu is really different from the appeal of Donald Trump. But so that by, I'm looking around trying to say, my conclusion of, actually, Never Trump was really not that significant pro or con. It's pissed off two demographics. The first is being people who like to identify as Never Trump, including Tim Miller, and I assume the rest of the crew over at the Bulwark. And I suspect it's also really pissing

off the people who hate Never Trump, who want to use it as a scapegoat and who thinks these guys are the root of all evil. Announcing, actually, they didn't make that big a difference, certainly on a consequential level of the broader election. I have managed to piss off everybody, which seems to be my trademark lately. So, Jim, can I ask you, I got three questions here. The first one is sort of a broader one. How interesting is this election? Because it seems to me that we've come up with a lot of phrases and terms to use. But a huge portion of the people who decide the next president do not really loyally identify with any particular party. They're not never Trump.

They're not pro-Trump. They're not Democrats. They're not Republicans. They kind of go in and they vote the way they vote. Is that, I mean, is that fair? Are we just making a lot of noise? Look, I think this is a,

you know, as you said, intriguing, significant, and obviously very consequential election. I think one of the things we need to take, we should take away from this, and I say this as somebody who's been very critical of Trump.

I guess this is the right crowd to do this. I didn't vote for him either time. And I was extraordinarily unlikely to vote for him at any point this time. I also think he didn't do that bad. I think there was a point on election night where, like, okay, Trump has won Florida, and by a much bigger margin than he did last time. He won Ohio. It wasn't that close. He came very close to winning North Carolina. He came very close to winning Georgia. much bigger margin now but yeah did he the last time he won ohio it wasn't that close he won came

very close to winning north carolina he came very close to winning georgia and he wasn't all that far away from winning arizona either if he had oh and pennsylvania all of them were within two or three points that could throw a michigan in that category right so you're looking at we have three points better in each one of those states and we're looking at a second term for true yeah hundred thousand hundred thousand vote difference in three states and we'd be talking about what a wizard he was in the establishment of a new republican dominant coalition for another four years i mean the only benefit that joe biden has right now is he got one or one or two more states but it's still a hundred thousand votes across four four states right and he's going to come in with a house democratic majority that's actually

dwindling but it's still there so he starts his term slightly in a slightly better foot than donald trump started his term but these it feels it doesn't feel like the results on uh on tuesday night election night were all that earth-shattering so so my other question to you is this. What is interesting about what happened? I mean, is it you talking about the ticket splitters, which, again, is the kind of phrase that I mean, in terms of like, you know, it's kind of like it's like the privileged language that people who are partisans use to describe people who aren't partisans, that somehow it's weird that they ticket split. how important is that that that those people went against the republican against the against trump if you're a republican if you're the rnc what do you what conclusions are you drawing right now yeah i feel like there's two different conversations going on in the country right now right and there's one that you hear a great deal of if you're paying attention to what we usually call the mainstream media uh cnn new york times washington post time magazine you know uh you can throw in buzzfeed axios those kind of guys and the the dominant tone of the coverage for most of the year for

understandable reasons was god look at the pandemic look at the economy this is gonna be a blue wave trump's gonna lose by a bunch uh republicans are gonna be slammed in the senate this conversation loves to fall in love with what i call the great southern democratic hopes uh whether it was going to be uh harrison in south carolina uh there's a little less hype about the the challenger to mitch mcconnell this time but basically at least every cycle there's at least she raised a lot of money i mean she raised a whole lot of money there there are a lot of people who thought she was going to win and jamie harrison was going to win what they spend they spent 170 million dollars between yeah um harrison broke the record the previous record

which was by brado o'rourke two years ago and it was a very similar phenomenon it was it's never that you know ted cruz or mitch mcconnell or lindsey graham you know uh it's not like they suddenly broke with their voters or or anything like. What it was is that Democrats outside of those states really, really hate Ted Cruz. And I don't understand this because I have done so much. I became a conservative because of two things, Jesus Christ and the Constitution. And I did that because Jesus Christ wrote the Constitution. That's pretty good, by the way. I lapse into that every now and then. Yeah, right. Well like you know that south carolina suddenly decided they hate lindsey graham it's not like you know kentucky suddenly decided they hate mitch mcconnell

you can go in and say do you approve of your current congressman it's always grumbliness but it's not these states turn blue what it was was democrats like oh i really hate that guy let me give some money to the guy running against him regardless of whether they have any particular chances did it help lindsey graham that he had walked in a pro-life supreme court justice about a week before the election in south carolina probably um but i have extensive network of sources in south carolina okay mostly that i'm related to you know my parents retired down there my dad's very active in the Cottenhead area Republican Party groups. And they were fairly confident the whole time. They were kind of surprised by the polling.

And we should point out, Quinnipiac polling deserves to have rotten fruit hurled at it as it walks through the streets because three times they said the Harrison-Graham poll was tied. Graham won by 10 points. There's really no indication this thing was ever that close. And you could, you know, because I really thought Harrison was going to give us one of those,

Beto O'Rourke, like I enjoy making fun of the guy because I think he's an overgrown guy. Yeah, Beto O'Rourke. Beto, who's that? Who's that guy? But yeah, three points, coming within three points in Texas is nothing to sneeze at. No, no, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. Yeah.

Yeah, Harrison didn't do that. He's going to be the head of the Small Business Association or some other tiny agency in the federal government yeah but anyway so so there's this conversation going on in the mainstream media and left circles that wildly overestimates the success of democrats and always expects a blue ray blue wave and all that stuff maybe beto expects a blue rave um and below it there's this under conversation maybe some of it happens in places like national review and ricochet but even like further out like you know fox nation and maybe it you know where the expectation was trump would win in their landslide and we're going to win back the house and and things are going to be and that wasn't really

realistic either and that there's this idea of, you know, Hunter Biden's laptop is going to be this huge game changer. It's a very online conversation. It's very, you know. So what accounts for the big failures then? Because this is real money involved, right? Because if you could do this, you can do marketing, you can sell products. I mean, I can see your point, Jim, where you're saying that some polling places just become echo chambers for the people who are buying the services but if you actually produce accurate numbers you i mean you would make them in all the incentives are for you to be accurate right so why do they get it so wrong again the hero of this election is kalahi

over to falder group and they were pretty darn you know they were closer than everybody else in 2016 uh probably about a couple weeks before the election he did i think a really revealing and useful interview with my boss rich lowry yeah and by way, it's always a good idea to call your boss's interviews revealing and useful and must read by everyone. But even if he wasn't my boss, I think this was, you know, because a lot of said that pollsters call generally in the evening time. You got somebody who's trying to get your dinner into your kids. You're trying to get the kids ready for bed, help with homework. All the kids are learning from home right now. You know, and a lot of these questions,

answering a lot of these pollsters, answering all their questions would take 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes. You know, a lot of people don't, first of all, a lot of people don't want to answer the phone because of the caller ID issues. And the way pollsters had always overcome this is, well, we'll just call more people. We'll just keep calling and keep calling and keep calling

until we have a large enough group in our samples. We'll make sure the sample has the right, it's racially balanced, it's gender balanced, it's age and geographic balance and keep calling until we have a large enough group in our samples we'll make sure the sample has the right it's it's racially balanced it's gender balanced it's age and geographic balance and all that and we'll try we'll just we'll just overcome it by making a lot more calls well this is just this is just this is not a trade secret this is not like the formula for coke or the mcdonald's how to make the mcrib which should be a state secret i mean everybody they've done this after four years ago can i try out a theory with you jim just to just because there's a there's two kinds of pollings going on this with polling that's done by people that then release the polls to the press and then they kind

of have to release their cross tabs and do it and show their work which the powder did not do to be fair um and then there's the other kind of polling which is the campaigns do themselves that is proprietary information strategic information they don't really they don't release it it's like their playbook they're not gonna let anybody see what they know, right? It seems to me that the campaigns, both of them, had very good polling, very accurate internals. The reason that the Trump people went apoplectic about Fox's early call from Arizona

was that they really thought that they had a shot there, and they weren't wrong, right? There was a lot of mystery in Arizona, a lot of late ballots, all that stuff in Maricopa County. they weren't wrong, right? There was a lot of mystery in Arizona, a lot of late ballots, all that stuff in Maricopa County. They weren't wrong about that. And the reason that the Trump campaign was so incredibly confident about Florida was that they had good, they had better numbers.

But those are their numbers. They're not the numbers they're going to release to everybody else. They don't want to let the Biden people find out. So it isn't really polling so much as it's free polling. The kind of polling that you do and you're just not going to get paid for it. It's like, well, you got to call 16 to 20 people to get one response. It's like, you know, it's easier to call fewer people and then just put some pixie dust over it. And doesn't that create this kind of weird moment where all the

polls seem to be converging? Yeah. We can lament how bad this is and how frustrating this is. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which obviously is going to be covering these Georgia runoffs a great deal, reported earlier this week about a new poll about how things are in the runoff, and they said Republicans were up by a narrow margin. I think Perdue was up by like three or four, and Loeffler was up by one. Now, here's the thing. That's a perfectly plausible result. I can't say, say oh that poll is definitely wrong but this same pollster was pulling missouri this up until november and they had trump winning the state by five or six points from one by 16 points right so the exact

like this pollster has just gotten something that was kind of off by a bunch and the atlanta constitutional constitution is like hey look what they got look what they said and there's no stop there's one didn't mention in the article there was no no indication of Constitution is like, hey, look what they got. Look what they said. And there's no stop. One didn't mention in the article. There was no indication of this is a poll. Pollsters just had a real problem of getting the right kind of response. There's no Surgeon General's warning. Right. You know, Rob, James, John, we've got kids out there on the streets who are reading polls

and getting addicted to this stuff. We've got any type of intervention program. Well, I think in California, we just legalized that, didn't we? In Oregon, you could buy it on the street yeah you only need a doctor's note you need a seven day waiting period before oh yeah so so i just two more questions about polls one is the uh the cliche is or whatever it is the boilerplate argument is the reason that you want to manipulate the polls is because it manipulates turnout that messed messed up polls are a way to, in some way, distort the actual result because people react a certain way to certain polls. Is that even 2% true?

It doesn't seem true to me at all. We just had the biggest turnout election in history after the second biggest turnout four years ago. It seems to me that these polls up, down, they may be emotionally disturbing and disappointing for you if you were a Democrat in 2016 or a conservative in 2020, but they had no effect on turnout. Yeah. And I think a lot of the emotional significance of polls is based on this and people probably remember concrete examples from long ago like the networks calling the race for reagan on election night 1980 before the polls had closed on the west coast right right and down ticket democrats getting slaughtered because a lot of democrats like well the race is over

um the florida florida 2000 right where the the polls were still open on the panhandle and the networks called it and people were discouraged. So based on those very vivid examples, it's understandable people say, ah, every bad poll is discouraging turnout. I think you'll look at the turnout for this one. And I just I can't picture people who are not interested, although maybe one very intriguing close to home example. I live in Fairfax county virginia this is pretty darn blue it's it's two to one democrat it's not you know they're republicans exist i think trump is a bad match we generally like our bob mcdonnell keep the trains running on time

establishment republicans um but turnout was less than it was in 2016 and you you know if i take this camera and we walk up and down the square a bunch of people took down their biden harris signs by now but like yeah this this is this is this feel it's government workers it's a lot of immigrants it's a lot of young people this is the the the fruit basket of votes for uh for the biden campaign and it turned out was about 77 it wasn't low right but turned out was 82 when it was trump hillary So I'm kind of looking at that and scratching. I was a little surprised by that because, like, what, the stakes weren't high enough for you in this election? It wasn't big enough? The only thing I can think of is that if Joe Biden being Joe Biden, whether people were a little less enthused about him and maybe on the margins, you saw a little bit of a drop in some likely Democrats. But again, by sheer scale, the the other things if you say oh people

think if people see uncompetitive polls and they don't think their vote is needed right maybe that happened here i don't know okay i just two last questions for me one georgia if you're running the the recounts for the republicans in georgia which is better for you is it better for you to say as soon as possible hey republicans in georgia we have president joe biden is crazy marxists you have to vote republican if you don't you're giving away the store or is it better for them to say you know what donald trump is it was was fairly elected and it was stolen from him and there's been a lot of chicanery and create a kind of an uh i don't know what kind of a protest vote movement.

I don't know what that would be. Which is the better, speaking of just Georgia and Georgia Republicans specifically, because a lot of them voted already. Which is the better argument you think to make to get them to vote now on January 5th? I was very, I don't say encouraged, but you probably saw the video of Chuck Schumer up in New York shortly after the networks had said yes biden now has 270 electoral votes and chuck schumer being the warm effervescent and charming figure that he is uh had said that today you know then we win georgia and georgia for the

world or something along those lines then we change the world and it's going to show up in a bunch of ads for purdue and law but this this message of georgians right the future of the country is on you and the democrats will have completely unrestricted control over everything is exactly that's a that's a very compelling message to drive that new york democrat chuck schumer yeah i can i think i can hear the dog whistle um oh by the way i have terrific news i apparently alexandria ocasio-cortez genuinely thinks she's going to go down to Georgia to help drive Democratic turnout. I believe the National Republican Senatorial Committee has already agreed to pay for the tickets. Oh, yeah.

You're kidding me. I'll fly the jet. AOC wants the Democrats to win. We'll be on the side of the bus. We'll just drive all across the state. Paul Krugman wants them to come down like freedom riders and buses and established residents there you go yeah as for the idea of like you know oh do you want people fired up believing the election was stolen from trump um you probably saw the other day president trump jumped onto twitter and said dominion deleted 2.7 million trump votes nationwide

data analysis finds 221 000000 Pennsylvania votes switched from President Trump to Biden. 941,000 Trump votes deleted. No offense to Cruz. Cruz is better. Cruz is better. I'm trying to do Trump anger. You've got to learn Biden now. You've got to learn a Biden. Biden's hard. Well, anyway, so

finish your... Sure. But the general gist is, out of all... Someone's decided that they really don't like the Trump impression. That's Trafalgar. That's Trafalgar. They want to talk to you for 30 minutes. They got a 30-minute poll for you. Yeah.

So the short version is, out of all the messages, the machines are going to steal your votes, and all your votes for Republican candidates are going to be switched to votes for Democratic candidates. Does not strike me as optimal messaging to get Georgia Republicans to go out if, you know. Can I ask you a question about how this ties in with what Trump should do? So Trump's not conceding. It sounds to me like you think he should concede. But why isn't he conceding? Does it have anything to do with Georgia? Do people in D.C. think that maintaining this sense of outrage is going to help us win the georgia

seats or it seems to me it's going to be harmful because both of the candidates are just going to be asked every day from here till the first week of january do you agree with what trump said do you agree with what trump said do you right there do you think do you agree trump saying that the georgia electoral system is corrupt and you know the republican secretary of state is corrupt and the Republican secretary of state is corrupt. And I mean, doesn't this hurt the chances of winning in Georgia? Trump would do something that would hurt the rest of the party. God, I got to get my head around that idea. I guess it could happen. On the one hand, you've got the idea that this is some sort of deliberate strategy or four level chess or something else like that. Or it could just be him acting like an angry toddler and sore loser and just venting his spleen.

I'm going to have to weigh which of these two options strikes me as more likely. But no, look, if you were, yes, I do think Trump should concede. I think we should go forward with all this. I'm not, I have no problem with George doing a recount. I have no problem doing recounts in any of these. So for the purposes of accuracy of the vote, I don't think a recount or any of these, and John, you maybe know more about this than I do. Trump is making these sweeping statements on Twitter that the election is being stolen

and the machines are changing votes and all that kind of stuff. You look at the actual Trump lawsuits. Generally, they are smaller scale. They're generally talking about a couple hundred votes here, a couple hundred votes there. A lot of them are about poll watching and being able to have access to counting the votes, which, by the way, strikes me as all perfectly legitimate issues to raise in court. A couple of them are about kind of echoing the Sharpies in markers in Arizona theory that this was causing overvotes and stuff. It didn't work. State Attorney General looked at it and didn't see any issues there.

But, you know, if you want to use the courts, go right ahead. But don't fool yourself into thinking that anything that happens in the courts or any recount is going to change. 12,000 vote margin in Arizona, 14,000 vote margin in Georgia, 21,000 vote margin in Wisconsin, 37,000 Nevada, 60,000 Pennsylvania, 146,000 in no i didn't i had to write that down um i didn't have a pin on a on a is there a sticky note by your monitor i hope it is sticky note under my eyelid so okay so i got a question uh and then i know we got to let you go um the republican some republicans are going to eventually have to go and say to donald trump you got to leave it's over you got to leave i think we we think we assume that's going to happen. It's going to happen sooner than later, but we assume it's going to happen. Just on the other side, don't you think that some smart Democrats

should be going to Chuck Schumer, who had a terrible election night, or Nancy Pelosi, who had an equally terrible election night, and say, you both got to go. I mean, there doesn't seem to be any move on the Democrats to refresh and change their leadership, which now seems super annuated and failed. I mean, we're talking about Donald Trump, and it's true, he's locked in his bunker and tweeting nonsense,

but we all know how it's going to turn out. We know that Joe Biden's going to take office on in January 23rd, whatever date is right. But it seems like the Democrats are going to re-up Chuck Schumer after his terrible performance and re-up Nancy Pelosi after her terrible performance. Good for Republicans. But what what on earth is going on in the minds of Democrats? Yeah, I think the case is stronger for Pelosi than for Schumer. Schumer can justifiably say, look, I thought we had a good chance in North Carolina, and we got the reincarnation of John Edwards. I could have been more off-color there.

That's fair. I saw the zoom in with tube in line from James, and I want to go, you know, but I kept it clean. Yeah, you kept it clean. A bunch of these other Democratic expectations were basically getting high on their own supply. I talked about South Carolina. You're going to need the inside straight to elect a Democrat in Kansas. Didn't happen. There were a bunch of ones where they really should have recognized that, no, these were never going to be that competitive.

You're going to have an uphill climb against joni ernst in iowa she's a pretty darn good candidate you know um but in the house um kind of fascinating because i this is what i'm kind of clicking refresh on every couple of minutes so right now democrats have republicans have 202 seats in the house that are the races that have been called right they're leading enough enough to get them to 213 now some of those might flip towards the end but a bunch of them i went through this in the corner earlier this week they're pretty sizable a couple thousand you're not going to find necessarily them in one pile of votes somewhere um and oh by the way most of the counts aren't counting a district in louisiana

where they're going to a runoff but both of the candidates in the runoff are republicans so republicans can feel pretty good about that one. You add it all up, that gets you to 214. Remember, it only takes 218 to lift the chain, right? That's enormous. Right? It's reaching the point where somebody had the sharp observation yesterday that if you're the Biden administration, you're looking to staff the executive branch,

you really can't afford to pick any House Democrats because if a House Democrat resigns to serve in the cabinet, you have to have a special election, and it takes a couple of months and oh by the way every house of representatives loses a few along the way some of them die some of them get a good opportunity in the private sector and decide to jump some of them resign in scandal if you one delayed flight out of california and the democrats may not be we're gonna have to postpone votes because they're not gonna have enough people to have a majority conceivably so know, that's kind of the secret story of this. And what's baffling to me is that it is now November 13th.

Right. Not just are we not, you know, I haven't heard about anybody talking about challenging Pelosi. I mean, maybe it'll take, you know, it'll take root in the next six weeks. But so far. So if you're an enterprising Republican minority leader in the House, you're thinking you could be speaker in 2022. Yeah. If the traditional pendulum effect and the bad effects for the president's party kick in, then yeah. The one kind of asterisk I might put to that is that usually when we've seen these big midterms go badly, it went badly for Republicans in 2018, badly for the Democrats in 2010, 2014,

98, it was the lone exception, know 2006 against bush the one exception is usually you've got a majority party the president's swept into office they're doing all kinds of crazy stuff that were not part of their mandate and are freaking out voters and that's what generates if republicans keep the senate the biden administration will probably not be passing crazy things and that will probably mitigate that backlash effect in the i love love this. But it won't be enough. McConnell's going to save the Biden presidency. Oh, yeah. I look forward.

Yeah, sure. I look forward to speakers. Lucky stars. I look forward to Speaker of the House AOC standing behind Biden at the State of the Union address and tearing up his speech because his draft of the Green New Deal does not include the immediate grounding of the entire airline. Right. The elimination of private cars. Well, Jim, we'll have you on again, of course, and we'll discuss all these things again, of course. I just have the feeling that saying that polling is dead after this

is sort of like the people who said that irony is dead after 9-11. These things tend to reassert themselves, and once again, when we find polls that confirm our priors and seem to say something good for our guy, we're going to believe in polls. I want America that believes in polls again. So we'll probably get to that point and have you on to tell us why we're wrong. All right. Thanks for having me, guys.

Remember, it's like Monty Python said of the parrot. It's only resting. It's only resting. It's Joe Biden you're talking about, right? Yes, it is. Joe Biden, a parrot nailed to a perch. That somehow is a fine analogy for the four years to come talk to you later jim good luck to you jim um we got some other stuff

to talk about but before we do i have a harbinger of things to come literally that's a different kind of sponsor for this episode the jordan harbinger show it's not often that we talk about other shows because we're a show when we want you all to listen but there are other important things out there. Harbinger's one of them. Apple named the Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best of 2018. It's aimed at making you a better informed, more critical thinker so you can get a sense of how the world actually works and then come to your own conclusions about what's happening. There's an episode for everyone, no matter what you're into.

The show covers stories like how a professional art forger somehow made millions of dollars while being chased by the feds and the mafia. Jordan's also done an episode about birth control and how it can alter the partners we pick and how going on or off the pill can change elements of our personalities. In other words, it's wide ranging. You won't find one set of viewpoints on Jordan's show. No, the podcast covers a lot, but one constant is Jordan's ability to pull useful pieces of advice from his guests. So you'll find something you can apply to your own life, whether it's an actionable routine change that boosts your productivity, or just a slight mindset tweak that changes how you see the world. Go to jordanharbinger.com, subscribe, or search for The Jordan Harbinger Show. That's

H-A-R-B as in boy, I-N as in Nancy, G-E-R, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you happen to listen to podcasts. And we thank the Jordan Harbinger Show for having the faith to sponsor this, the Ricochet Podcast. And now before we go, we've got a couple of things we always do. Can't just drop off a guest and sally off and saunter away. No! We've got to bring John into something

that we do every week. I don't know if John's ever been present for what we proudly call The James Lydon Member Post of the Week! that we do every week. I don't know if John's ever been present for what we proudly call... The James Lylex Member Post of the Week. Did everybody hear that sounder? The first notes cut out as though the recording apparatus was so stunned that it just shut its ears in horror.

Can we hear that again? We paid for it. The James Lylex Member Post of the Week. And this week. That's what POW is. Yeah. LPOW. I thought we were going to talk about prisoners of war.

Well, it's often the same. It feels the same way while you're waiting for the theme, that's for sure. Rob looks like he's got a little striped prison garb on right now. He's been a trap by Lilacs' prison post of the week for years. Rob's striped shirt is more to me of a Russian sailor uniform. I was going to mention that, but since this isn't a visual medium, a radio medium, and so it is a radio medium, John realizes that once the sounder for the Lilacs post of the week

has been sounded, that he should immediately interrupt with his own voice instead of mine. That's that theme of tension to radioformatics that ensure Peter Robinson will be back here next week. I don't know, Peter does that too, by the way. Yeah, that he does. He makes sounds. I've heard him

make sighs and sounds. And you know what? It's rude, James, and I really feel for you. I know what possible thing. And I'm, it makes me sad to think that it is, or you had nothing. You just had an interruption for the sake of interrupting. Just exactly that.

Okay. Well, this would be the point in a courtroom drama. Then where somebody stands up and accuses Rob of his patented podcast theatrics, like a Hamilton burger used to do, which brings us to the post of the week. It's from Mark camp who asked, and I'd love to and I had to read this as soon as I saw it,

was Perry Mason a great TV series? It's like, well, do we even have to talk? What is he going to say? So he said this, without going through the details, I'll summarize. I think it was seriously flawed, but nevertheless, a great TV series. It could not be great if the fictional character Mason was not a great fictional hero. He could not be perfect. He would have to raise hard questions. Was doing this or that dodgy act morally justifiable? And did Perry care? Then Raymond Burr and the actors portraying Delistreet, Paul Drake, and the others would have to project these questions to us, even create little creative variations on the questions and the proposed answers to us. Did Mason put forth inber's interpretation create an identifiable human character for us, even if we never read the book? Now, I think he's trolling us here, because without question, the Perry Mason television show

is great, and I think Rob would agree. It presented an iconic character, a completely dependable staff, second characters, and it delivered every week on what it promised there were no arcs there were no 12 seasons stories there was a crime there was an unjustly accused person and then there was the drama that concluded oftentimes of course with somebody in the in the speaker's gallery standing up saying yes i killed him and i do it again which never happens but in the mason universe it works so why is this the post of the week? To show that in Ricochet, we talk about more than politics. B, to show that we can have interesting conversations that bring in all of this information from the audience, because all

of a sudden, you had people saying, well, you know, the William Warren version in the 30s had a character of Mason that fit the book. And then you had somebody saying, you know, when I watched the HBO version, I was wondering whether or not there was going to be a sexual dynamic between Perry and Paul as befits the modern world. So Ricochet contains multitudes. And we're not just politics. It's culture as well. And to compare the Masons of the past century and this one is just something that people had a little bit of fun with.

So, John, you're a lawyer. You guys probably regard the Mason show with amusement because it's ridiculous. Those weren't actual courtroom dramas. Those were grand jury hearings that we we were seeing so a lot of that stuff could be waved away but uh when you were a kid and you wanted to be a lawyer was perry a hero or was he some stolid uh perfect thing walking around like a human a human embodiment of a law book that could be taken seriously because he was james this is i'm not uh I'm not kissing your butt here but I learned everything I know about law from Star Trek there is so much law in Star Trek oh come on remember I mean remember when uh Captain James T Kirk was put on trial right court-martialed for allegedly injecting the tube with his friend in it right and in the 24th century

we learned that nobody had thought that visual records could be manipulated and faked, which I just is like, okay, well, we figured that one out a long time ago. Who was James T. James Tiberius's Kirk's lawyer? Yeah, he was a Perry Mason

to take off, wasn't he? No, he was Elisha Cook Jr. Elisha Cook Jr. Always had a nice character. In his later years, because he was always a nervous little popeye geek who was always uh suffering some indignity in the old noir movies but he had this great role as a as an old country lawyer who comes to the defense of uh of kirk and proves his case

yes elisha cook and then there was in the new in the new generation which i really don't like that much but in the new generation remember they put data put data on trial. That was a good case. That was a great lawyer. Captain Picard was the defense attorney. Right, and the person who was trying to establish the data was not a human being, actually turned up in the Picard television show with the opposite idea about the sentient life and whether or not androids had sentience, and therefore the provisions like protection of the Constitution. This will tell you about the world I live in is that there have been several scholars who have written long long articles about whether the legal system of star trek makes sense and whether we should adopt it rather than our own those people are seriously deluded but i would like to have a podcast about that because the whole economic cultural social

religious milieu of that roddenberry fantasy uh you take it and you hand it off to all these other creative people and it takes 30 years and it flowers into something quite unusual. Right now, Rob is rolling his eyes. Our producer is bored as sin. I'm literally now answering emails. Yeah, because we've strayed out.

So I'm going to tell you this before we go, however, the podcast was brought to you by, by Mack Weldon, by Donors Trust and the Jordan Harbinger Show. Support them for supporting us. And you can also listen to the best of Ricochet. There's no way you can possibly catch everything on the Ricochet Audio Network.

So check your local listings to see whether or not the best of Ricochet airs on a station near you. And yours truly hosts it in as much as there's hosting to do. I just get in and out of the clips, and it's a lot of fun. You can catch up on what our guys are doing. If you go over to Apple's podcast thing, leave us some five-star reviews. I would prefer that you are honest about it. But if you want to set up your own little farm like they have in China with 50 iPods being touched by mechanical hands to give us five stars, I'm all about that. No, I'm kidding. I want you to truly tell everybody how much you love it so more people discover the show, more people discover Ricochet, and on and on we go.

And that'll do it. Usually at this point, I have a final question for everybody, but I lied. I don't. Because we're over budget. We're over time. And as much as, John, you would love to go on and on and on about the mysteries and the wonders of the world outside of the law, which in his case consists entirely of rapturous odes to the McRib, we'll stop right now.

Thank John for his service. Thank Rob, of course, as ever. And say, as we always do, we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 4.0 next week. Next week, fellas. Not for me. Not for you. No, no, not after today. Good Lord.

Out of here. Get the hook. Ouch, that hurts. A better place to play You said that you'd never been But all the things that you've seen Slowly fade away So I start a revolution from my bed Cause you said the brains I had went to my head I'm out. You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out And so Sally can wait

She knows it's too late As we're walking on by Her soul slides away I heard you say. Take me to the place where you go Where nobody knows If it's night or day Please don't put your life in the hands Of a rock and roll band

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She knows it's too late As she's walking on by My soul slides away But don't look back in anger I heard you say Ricochet. Join the conversation. guitar solo So Sally can wait

She knows it's too late As we're walking on by Her soul slides away But don't look back and I know I heard you say So Sally can wait, she knows it's too late As she's walking on by My soul slides away

Don't look back in anger, don't look back in anger I heard you say. At least love is your name