The Ricochet Podcast - Winged Unicorn Flatuence

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

This week — UNICORNS. Well, James mentions one. Also, the great Kori Schake on how we ought to deal with North Korea. Republican Congressional candidate in California’s 52nd District Michael Allman on using software to figure out what constituents want, some thoughts on Think Tank personnel changes, and a Ricochet Podcast host joins the Trump administration (no, Rob Long has not become Secretary... Source

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson. I'm James Lalix. Today we talk to Corey Schanke about North Korean negotiations and Michael Allman about winning California as an R. Let's have ourselves a podcast. It's the Ricochet Podcast. Everyone, welcome.

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James? Well, exactly. And there are so many podcasts out there for free that ask nothing of you other than perhaps sitting through their commercials, which are the same as everybody else's. What's different about Ricochet, as you may notice, is that there's this body, this organization, this community behind

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Whether or not you believe the 2018 is going to be the most important election of your lifetime or not, there's this thing called the outside world out there with its own concerns and its own agendas, like, for example, North Korea. Let's talk about that and what challenges the presidents face with Cori Schake. She's the Deputy Director General of the International Institute of Strategic Studies. She was previously a research fellow at Stanford at the Hoover Institution, and she blogs regularly for Shadow Government on Foreign Policy, and she's on the editorial board of Orbis and the board of Center for European Reform. Welcome, Corrie.

Hello, my friend. Corrie, I'm sorry. Go ahead, James. It's Peter Robinson here. I just want to say hello so you know who you're on with. Peter is here and James. James, go. Corrie, yesterday the president said about South Korea that maybe their military isn't pulling their weight

and we're spending a lot of money on it. And perhaps it's a situation we're losing. It seemed to be that before we even began to negotiate with North Korea, the concessions are being made that perhaps don't need to be. What are your expectations for this North Korean summit, if indeed it even happens? So first, let me say you are exactly right. The president seems incapable of giving messages that support his positions and suggesting that the South Korean burden sharing arrangement is detrimental to American security is the worst possible thing he could say in advance of negotiations with North Korea. So yes, you are exactly right, James. The expectations for the summit with the North Koreans. You know, most of my fellow chattering class are derisive that the president's doing this, think it's going to be a disaster. And I have to say, I'm a lot less worried about it than people who think, oh my God, unless we have 12 Sherpa

meetings and the Foreign Service gets its say, the president can't possibly make a good decision. Because first of all, I think that's elite snobbery. But second of all, none of us actually know very much about North Korea. And so that the president took a big strategic initiative to try and break a deadlock on a very dangerous problem strikes me as actually good leadership on his part. As you guys know, I'm not prepared to defend him on a lot of stuff, but I am prepared to defend the president on this one. Corey, Peter, could I go back? And I'd like to spend a moment or two just going over the basics, really, frankly, the military basics. We're talking so much about diplomacy that I think some time, well, let's just put it this way. I'd like to have a refresher course on what's at stake here. So North Korea, what could they do to us?

What could they do to the Japanese? And what could they do to South Korea? Just very briefly, how much power do they have to hurt people? Quite a lot. I want to take it in the reverse order that you asked it, Peter. So first, what could they do to South Korea? The majority of the South Korean population lives in the capital of South Korea, Seoul, which unfortunately lies in artillery range of the demilitarized zone that marks the border

between North and South Korea. And the North Korean military has somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 heavily fortified and hidden artillery tubes aimed at South Korea. That has been the main military threat in this problem, and it continues to be the main military threat in this problem, and it continues to be the main military threat in this problem. So they hold hostage, they effectively have a gun to the heads of 20 million people, roughly. Yes, 20 million people, including 134,000 Americans, about 34,000 of whom are, excuse me, 150,000 Americans, 34,000 of whom are American military folks stationed in Korea. The other 125,000 are business people, people married to Korea, you know, all the usual reasons somebody lives overseas. So, yeah, that is the principal risk.

And it is unchanged by the fact that for about the last 20 years, the North Korean government has been putting a disproportionate amount of its effort and its resources to develop long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles. So, excuse me, that's redundant to you. Intercontinental is by definition excuse me that's redundant to you intercontinental is by definition long range and also to develop nuclear weapons to put on those missiles they have clearly developed the nuclear weapons they have clearly developed the missiles the question is whether they have been able to mate the uh missile sorry there was a motorcycle going by, whether they have actually been able to mate the warheads to the intercontinental ballistic missiles. They have not yet proven the ability to do that.

It doesn't mean they don't have the ability to do that. And they've been making fast, good progress. So they started lobbying missiles over the Sea of Japan 10 years ago, 12 years ago. Right. And now they claim to have the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. And if they do not already have that ability,

they're very close to it. And very close means single-digit number of months, single-digit number of years. What does very close mean? It certainly means single-digit number of years. Got it. I think when Mike Pompeo was the director of central intelligence, I believe he thought it was a six-month time frame. All right. And then the next – again, I'm just asking for the basics here.

So if we were considering any kind of military action against North Korea, is there any way – if we're going to use the – continue the metaphor of their holding hostage hostage having a gun to the heads of these 20 million people is there any kind of uh is there anything we can hope to do to prevent them from striking south korea if we if we do whatever kind of attack we do they hold it in their power to lob thousands of artillery pieces in the direction of Seoul. There's no way we can stop that. Well, wait a minute. Hold on about that, Corey. Go ahead. I mean, the gun to the head metaphor is one thing, but you have to imagine that there's

somebody else watching the situation with deadly aim who can possibly shoot that gun out of the person's hand before the trigger is pulled. It's naive and optimistic to think that the North Koreans would never be able to get a shot off if we struck first. But first of all, how old is that stuff they got buried? B, we have to know where the majority of it is. And C, it's not as if we are without our own ability. South Korea, what, 2013, 2014, ordered a whole bunch of bunker buster missiles, 170, 200.

They just ordered a bunch more as well. We've got massively ground penetrating ordnance. Is it possible that that gun to the head threat is overstated? It's possible, but I do not personally believe it is overstated. What it looks to me as though in the best of all possible worlds, an American military operation of extraordinary virtuosity in which we were able to accurately identify and target all of their nuclear weapons infrastructure

and the mobile missiles that they have that can range Japan and South Korea. And if we could destroy all of that, prevent North Korean special forces from conducting effective assassination campaigns of South Korean political leaders, and in the space of, say, three hours, take out all of those artillery tubes, you're still probably talking a couple of hundred thousand dead South Koreans. That's if everything goes perfectly. Yeah, that's in the best of all. I mean, it'd be a beautiful world if we had the cyber ability to cut the leadership

off and we had that. But I think that is an extremely risky basis on which to make policy because it is likely or not truer than true. Then what's Trump's strategy? What does he have to bring to the table then? If they know that we can't do that, we won't do that because of the casualties. They've got us. They've got us over a barrel.

It's not clear to me that – so there are lots of things the North Koreans could want that might cause them to make that tradeoff. One possibility would be that what they're looking for is stature and what they're looking for is political legitimation, being treated as a serious power, a peace treaty, which as you guys know, the Korean War did not conclude with a peace treaty, only with an armistice. Maybe there are things we can offer them, asymmetric things that would cause them to give it up. But whether or not the North Koreans give up their nuclear weapons, negotiations are worth having for a couple of reasons. First, we don't know very much about North Korea, its leadership, or what's going on inside the country. And negotiations are a pretty good way to figure it out. Second, our key advantage is keeping the Japanese and South Koreans and Australians and others aligned with us as tensions rise. The Trump administration has done a terrific job of doing that, but ultimately we can't have a policy more alarming or more draconian than the South Koreans will support,, we're going to need to have a public conversation among Americans about whether and why and the risks to our own country.

And negotiations are essential to persuading my mother that we need to proceed with whatever needs doing. Corey, Peter here again. I guess I have another couple of questions. If we stick with the hostage metaphor, I don't know. My reading, not to open a separate and now historical controversy, but my reading of Waco is that the reason Waco went wrong was that the FBI went in. If you've got a hostage situation, you starve them out, right? And so if military, why is it? So as best I can tell, putting sanctions on the North Koreans represents, roughly speaking, the effort to starve them out, to force them.

Yes, that's exactly the right metaphor. All right. Now, why don't the Chinese help out? Why is it impossible for the Chinese to respond to the following, which as far as I can tell, you'd know better than I, which as far as I can tell is something that has been said to them, although not as crudely as I'm about to put it. Look, Chinese, this is untenable. Stick your own guy in. Take these lunatics out. Stick your own guy in. Make him entirely loyal to Beijing. We can live with that. If we can live with a divided North Korea, and we have for half a century, we can certainly live with a guy loyal to Beijing, and at least he won't be starving his own people. You'll look good in the eyes of the world, a serious problem will have been averted. Just fix the problem. Why haven't the Chinese done that? Because you have not been the negotiator on

this, Peter Robinson. True enough. True enough. So your country needs you. Get along. And second thing is you dramatically overestimate how much the Chinese want to solve this problem right they're actually fine with American attention being distracted by the North Korean problem they're actually fine with our attention being focused on a problem that's likely to split us from our allies if it comes to the use of force they're very likely like there's a lot they like about this problem and so you shouldn't overestimate how much they are willing to help us the only thing that appears to have gotten china's attention on this at all has been um the concern that we are going to flow military forces to the neighborhood

of the Korean Peninsula permanently, and that that will make it harder for the Chinese to do what they want to do in terms of intimidating countries on their periphery. All right. I'm sorry. Go ahead, James. And, of course, China doesn't want a flow of refugees. They would prefer that everybody stay in North Korea and starve. I mean, when Peter asked before about starving them out and using the hostage metaphor,

we can put sanctions and sanctions and sanctions on them, and it really won't matter, will it? Because there's a class of people who are just at the bottom of society and are written off and destined to die Because there's a class of people who are just at the bottom of society and are written off and destined to die whenever there's a shortage. It's the leadership, the top tier that you have to target. And here's my question. Is it possible to make life so

uncomfortable for that top tier that they say it is time to just jettison the whole Kim fiction dynasty and put in our own form of military zhuzh? That's certainly possible, but it seems to me that likely overstates Chinese influence. So, fellas, I am so sorry.

I got things going on in the background. Is either a news crew or the movers have come? I have been shuttling to Hugh Hewitt's TV show. Oh, you're in Washington. I thought you were in London. No, I am actually in London, but doing it from their studio here. So that's what's going on in the background. So would you please now, if you have to leave, you have to leave. But could you open by telling Hugh what's going on in the background. So would you please now, now, if you have to leave, you have to leave, but could you open by telling Hugh what's going to happen?

Because James and I won't be able to sleep tonight until you tell somebody today, what's going to happen in Korea. Corey, thank you. Thank you, Corey. Thank you, my friends. I really appreciate you giving me the privilege of being on the program again. We'll talk again. That's hilarious. Well, you know, I hope she gives you our fondest regards. He's coming to town soon. And if he doesn't give me a call and come over here with his usual compliments of scotches and whiskeys,

I'm going to be appalled. I'll have some things to tell him. I'll have some learning to dump on him. And by the way, if you are in the mood for things, extra knowledge that you would like to just deploy at will in a party like our guest just did there. For heaven's sake, she was talking about the history and the strategy while she was presumably in transit in a subway on a cab heading to the studio. Well, the studio can be taken with you.

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URL, what does it stand for? I think the U is universal, and the L is language locator. No, what does it stand for? I think the U is universal and the L is language locator. No, I don't know. I don't know. We'll leave this for the comments. You know, and people can Google it if they want to. Okay. But, you know, why not? Let's leave it for that.

Alright, and now we bring to the podcast Michael Allman, a long-time San Diego County resident who is an experienced businessman with a distinguished career. Mike worked for the San Diego company Sempra Energy for 14 years and rose to become the CEO of the Southern California Gas Company. And while at Sempra,

Mike launched a new industry to bring large-scale solar power to California, building one of the largest renewable energy businesses in the country. He's now running to represent California's 52nd District in Congress. And we have to ask, Mike, you're running against a Democrat, Scott Peters. When was the last time that an R won in the 52nd? Four elections ago, Scott Peters has won the last three. It's an evenly distributed district. About one-third of the voters are registered as Democrats,

one-third as Republicans, and and one third are no party. But Mr. Peters won the middle no party in the last three elections. It's Peter Robinson here. I'm looking at a map of the district and you've only got one third Republicans. Jeepers creepers. It looks like a pretty rich chunk of San Diego country. You've got Coronado, La Jolla, and Deepers. You've got Mitt Romney's California home, I think, in your district. And then what happens... Go ahead. I was going to say there's maybe a bit of an analogy to the national. When you look at the

national map, it looks an awful lot red. Of course, the issue is that the density isn't the same everywhere, right? The coastal tends to be much more democratic. Downtown in La Jolla, as you get further out to Rancho Bernardo Pauway, and of course, Coronado is traditionally Republican strongholds, and much less density out there. And then one last question, just about the geography of your district. Again, I'm looking at a map. So you run from the coast, from Coronado and La Jolla, inland, north of San Diego. And I have to say, I don't know much about that country. Does that turn into ranching country? Is that rural? Is it agricultural?

What's that country like? That's where it's mostly red, I'm assuming. It is mostly red. It's interesting that you can plot a correlation that's a pretty good correlation distance from the ocean, determine how Republican you're going to be. If you're right on the coast, it tends to be Democratic, the further inland. Yes, there are some rural parts. You can think of horses and ranches and farms and things like that, but not mostly. It's certainly a majority of the people, I call it suburban housing development. Suburban is much more of the people than sort of rural. To get to the ranches and the farmers, you need to go a little further east. Okay.

And now, Michael, here's what's been happening. There's been an off-year election in Virginia in which the Republicans got wiped out and there's been some off-year elections in Georgia to the state legislature in which Republicans did historically badly. And then we just saw a 10-point swing in a district in eastern Maryland that Donald Trump carried by 20 points. So it went 60-40 to 50-50 and the Democrat eked out a victory in a district that the Republican should have won by 20 points. And now Michael is popping up and saying, over here, folks, I want to run as a Republican in California. Michael, persuade us that you're not a lunatic. What are you doing? What are you doing? It's very easy for me to persuade you

because of my platform. So what we have in Washington and what you're seeing now and what you just described is the result of hyper-partisan politics where it's us versus them. And it seems that many of these elections are referendums on President Trump. You either like him or you don't. People have lost faith in Washington, D.C. Many people have lost faith that it's just hyper-partisan, nothing gets done, and they're tired of it. They want people who represent who they are. Take a look at our district. Again, it's one-third Republican, one-third Democrat, one-third no party. Yet the sitting Democrat votes with a Democrat 92 plus percent of the time. So here's my platform. If you elect me to Congress, I will vote the way the people want me to vote.

I've developed a computer system where I pose questions. It's safe, secure, confidential, and I'll ask policy questions. And if enough people from San Diego in my district say, Mike, here's what we think about this issue, that's the way I'm going to vote. It doesn't matter what the party thinks. It doesn't matter what special interest thinks. I'm going to vote with the people. That message is why I will win a majority of the independents who are tired of picking one column all D or one column all R. Very few people buy into the party platforms completely. They want to be able to go issue by issue. That's what I'm going to give them.

Michael, James Lilix here in Minneapolis. And it sounds great. I mean, we want responsive government. But let's say that the people have spoken to you in the issue of, oh, pronoun choice, that what the people want is they want the people of California, the businesses of California to mandate transgender appreciation sessions to stamp out transphobia and also to mandate criminal penalties for misgendering somebody and using the wrong adjective. So here we have forcing companies to do something on a social issue and forcing people to speak and use certain terms. That may be what people want or the loudest people want, but is it right? Is it good? And is it a correct application of the power of government? So what my platform does is it allows, it changes the role of the congressman. So I now become an advocate. So I look at something like that and say, that's not the right thing to do. And my job is to convince the people of San Diego

that that's the right thing to do. And I tell them that that's the way I'm going to vote unless you veto me. So it would take a substantial participation of people to say, Mike, you're wrong on this issue. So don't underestimate the value of the bully pulpit that I'll have. And, but I'm going to give the people a veto. Now, let's suppose I do get in your example, very good participation. A lot of people weigh in 20, 30, 40 percent of the voters and say, we hear you, Mike, but we want to go the other way. Then I failed. And at the end of the day, they win. The alternative to majority rule is minority rule. And people are tired of minority rule. It's where special interests don't have

the people in mind and they tell the congressman how to vote and they do that. So it's time for a change. Give the people a voice. We can try to find these edge issues and think about how things might unfold in certain questions like that. But really what's important is for the first time, a voter is going to be able to be fiscally conservative and socially moderate. That's where my constituents are. They don't have that choice today. Well, one of the things that defines being a social moderate today, oddly enough, is where you stand on energy policy, because it's a moral issue to many people. And you got a great position here in that you were the head of the gas company, and you also had a lot of dealings with renewables, with solar solar so one of the issues that a minority of people care about really is renewable energy because

most people want their energy cheap and they want a dependable and if somebody puts up a wind turbine great if somebody's got geothermal fantastic but what they want is dependable cheap power so let's say then um that you've got to make the case that more fracking, more pipeline construction is necessary. And the people of California are saying, no, no, no, no. We want more renewable. Is it possible really today to run as a Republican without without really saying renewable is the future? And that's where the majority of our resources can go. Or can you be honest with people about what the infrastructure needs? Oh, absolutely. And a big portion of this,

so picture my webpage again, where I'll propose a question about environmental and let's say, are you in favor of fracking or not? I'm going to have arguments on both sides, but there's going to be Mike's view here. When you click on the button that says Mike's view, I'm going to tell you with my expertise after having studied it and read everything I can, I'll tell you why I think it's not a good idea to ban fracking. The fracking revolution has created untold wealth in our country. We use about 25 trillion cubic feet of gas a year. We're saving $100 billion due to the fracking revolution.

Now, do we want to do it right? Yes. So let's have common sense regulation, not a complete ban like New York has done. That's just insanity. They're destroying the economy of their own people there. Go right across the border to Pennsylvania where they do allow fracking and gas is flowing. People have jobs. They're getting it. So I will educate my constituents on that. And it's up to me to say, look, let's have common sense regulation. Yes, let's protect the water tables. Yes, let's make sure that developers and the drillers do the right thing.

But an outright ban on fracking is the wrong thing to do. And I think I can convince many. Peter Robinson here once again. It's Michael Allman who's running for Congress for the 52nd Congressional District of California, which is the coast just to the west of San Diego proper and goes inland to the north of San Diego proper. Michael, explain to us, if you would, the nuts and bolts of what happens. I'm a Californian, I guess, after having lived here for a good long time. And I have to say our electoral system as it now stands even confuses me. You've got to tell us the steps that you've got to go through to get to the general, the general election.

Okay. About 10 years ago, California restructured the way that many of the elections happened and essentially took the primary away from being a partisan primary where the parties choose their representatives to what's called the jungle primary colloquially, or it's an open primary. So on June 5th, anyone who qualifies for the ballot for, let's say, my race in the California 52nd Congressional District will be there. And the top two vote getters, independent of party, will go to the general election in November.

So right now the ballot is set. It was set last Friday when all the paperwork had to be in. The sitting congressman is a Democrat from La Jolla. He will be the only Democrat on the ballot, six Republicans and one independent. So the voters will choose one person, one vote. Whoever gets first and second will go to November. Wow. Now, are you running as a Republican or are you the independent, Michael? So I'm running as a Republican. There is one independent. But one of the things I've learned is in order to change the system with the platform that I just described to you, it's got to be done from within. It's clearly an independent message that I have. But I learned very early that independents aren't going to win. I'm not in this for fun. I'm in it to win it.

So I'm running as a Republican. Okay. By the way, I'm totally persuaded that you're in it to win it because people who are in it for fun haven't given as much thought to it and don't sound as determined as you do. All right. Next question. So how do you, running as a Republican, you've got five Republican opponents and an independent opponent, the sitting congressman is for sure going to be one of the top two finishers because all the Democrats will vote for him. That means he gets a third of the vote right out of the gate, which is all he's going to need if there are six others of you splitting up the other two thirds. How do you handle that problem? How do you make sure you're one of the top two finishers?

Correct. He will get first. Yes, he'll get 50 percent or so. So it's two things. It's outreach and message conversion ratio. So think about, you know, votes. People need to know who you are unless they just pick randomly and then they need to like your message. I'm the number one name recognition among the rest of the Republicans by more than two to one. That also gets reflected in financing. So I've had a much better fundraising season than they have. This is all public information, but I've got a quarter million dollars in the bank. No one else has $50,000 in the bank.

I will outreach them. And then here's the killer. I will convert 85% of the people that I talk to. I've been moving around the county and the city for several months now. And the response I get when I describe what I just described to you is things like, isn't that the way it's supposed to work? I thought it was working that way. Why hasn't somebody done this before? I want my voice listened to.

When I call my congressman, I can't even get through. This is great. I'll vote for you. I'll support you. Eighty five or 90 percent. Now, to be fair, when I when I don't convince people, it tends to be on the ends of both spectrums. So even frankly, the hardcore Republicans, for example, say, wait a minute, Mr. Allman, are you telling me, you know, you're going to vote with them? They're Dems some of the time. I said, well, listen, if the people speak loudly and enough of them and it's clear, then yes, I will because they elect me. Because that's the deal you're setting up. You're making. No, I want the whole platform and they run away. Got it. Got it. Michael, a last question from me. I think James may have one last one as well.

Just what, give us one or two sentences, two sentences tops, because we've got you've got to go campaign. What would you hope to accomplish in the final two years of Donald Trump's first, perhaps only term? What I would hope to accomplish if I'm elected to Congress is to break the hyper-partisanship. It's us versus them on everything. One more sentence. In the tax bill, there are 12 states in the country where there's one Republican and one Democrat. All the Republicans voted yes. All the Democrats voted no, even though they have the same constituents in the state, senators.

That's the problem. The Democrats voted no because even though they have the same constituents in the state, senators. That's the problem. They voted – the Democrats voted no because they're Democrats. We need to look at issue by issue, not along partisan lines. I want to break that mold. Well, and great. Partisan lines can be as stultifying as they are clarifying. The question is, from an outsider's perspective, California looks like a political monoculture, that even the people who call themselves Republicans are pretty much so besotted by or energy sanctuary cities all of these things that there's nobody there to advance a different idea that breaks the mold of the leftist ideology how is it possible then for any republican really to change the culture of california

isn't it easier simply just to go along with the political culture of california eke out a few little wins here and and then just essentially resign yourself to a state that's fundamentally different from what it was founded to be and what the rest of the country is? Right now, California is fundamentally different and in some ways very positive. In some ways, not positive. What are those positive ways? Some of the positive ways that we have a beautiful state and the air quality is improved dramatically. One of the negatives is that we

can't get our budget, much like the federal government, sorted out and the state is spending too much money. Both of those issues can be attacked from people who generally are on the left side of the spectrum and on the left side of the spectrum and on the right side of the spectrum. There isn't anything unnatural, in my view, of someone who cares about clean air. At the same time, they wish the government wasn't so big. There's a lot of people out there like it. Today, they don't have this place to land. They choose the Democrats, which not only gets you, perhaps, if you will, the clean air, but also all the social programs that spend us in the big deficits and big debt. Or if you will, the clean air, but also all the social programs that spend us in

the big deficits and big debt. Or if they go with the Republican, maybe they can be more physically sane, but they, you know, they might not care as much about the environment. And a lot of people feel that way, don't know what choice to do. Now they can elect someone in me who will say, you know, I don't have a problem being green and fiscally conservative. They have no place to land today. Now they will. What does it mean, though, to be green and fiscally conservative if it requires the power of the state to take money away from people to make things?

I mean, if somebody has to use public transportation or their own car to live way outside of San Francisco because they can't afford to live inside of san francisco that's i mean either people will say then what we need is laws that make it easier and cheaper to live in san francisco or we need to take more money away from google millionaires and give it to people so we don't have the homeless problem which ruins the air quality because they have feces on the street etc in other words the argument common sense things you can do. There's some common... Like, for example, one of my pet peeves is the...

I don't know if you've heard about the California bullet train. It's a disaster. Oh, good, Michael. Good, I was kidding. It's going from... Look, it starts off at $15 billion. Now they think it's then to $30 to $50. The latest estimate I heard is $70 billion.

Let's not waste money on a boondoggle like that when you can fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco on Southwest. There's 15 flights a day for as low as $49. That is a complete waste of money. So we can be fiscally conservative and say, stop the madness. They've already spent several billions with no track laid, and they're never going to get the permitting to get it done. Let's just realize it's a mistake. Let's do a deal. How about half of that savings back to the people anditting to get it done. Let's just realize it's a mistake. Give even, let's do a deal. How about half of that savings back to the people and half to something that's more practical

to push the environment forward? Encourage the research into new solar panels or lots of things we could do other than waste it on this public transportation boondoggle. Amen. Folks, watch the 52nd in California. Michael Allen, thank you for being on the podcast today michael thank you very much for your time michael before you leave what's your website allman for congress a-l-l-m-a-n for congress.com thank you michael good luck

thank you the problem with coming out against the bullet train and saying that it's cheaper to fly, which it is, is that there's always going to be somebody greener slash holier than thou who will be able to point to you as a despoiler of the environment, a dumper of massive carbon, because we all know that bullet trains run on some magical sort of winged unicorn flatulence that doesn't pollute the environment at all. And they live for trains. Oh, James. Oh, even I, who have sort of gotten used to your verbal – the way you can just toss off sparklers. What was it?

Winged unicorn flatulence? I don't know. I may have trouble recovering. I have to mute myself. What was it? Winged unicorn? I don't know. I may have trouble recovering. It's not an original locution to bring unicorns into it or their flatulence. All right. But for the progressives, the train is a sign of enlightenment, and we should all be very much like Europe, where everyone takes the trains and everyone bikes to work and the rest of it. And when we show them the size of their countries and the size of their continent and the size of the distance that people have to go, that's what they want.

They want us all to pack into those areas. In Minnesota right now, Minneapolis, my beloved town, we're having an argument about zoning. They want to make it possible to put fourplexes anywhere. Wait a minute. What's a fourplex? An apartment building with four units in it. Right now, residential neighborhoods in a certain part of the city, which is regarded as single-family home only, there are laws that say you can't put down a fourplex anywhere. But that's what they want to do. They want to take – so a developer can go to the middle of the block and raise a house,

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the day before yesterday with Thomas Sowell. Here's one of the questions I asked. I read a list of five titles, five books, and I said, Tom, do you know what that list is? Five books by Tom Sowell. He said, no, I don't. I replied, Tom, do you know what that list is? Five books by Tom Sowell, and he said, no, I don't,

and I replied, Tom, that is a list of the books you have published since turning 80. Tom Sowell is now 87, and he's just out with a brand new book called Discrimination and Disparities. It's brilliant. He's brilliant, and this is to me something of a puzzle. I said to Tom, you haven't had anything to prove to anybody for at least three decades. And yet here he is, 87 years old, seated across the table from me, appearing in part to promote a brand new book.

Why do you keep working so hard? And do you know, I asked that question some years ago to Milton Friedman as well. And Tom Soule and Milton Friedman both had the same response. They couldn't even understand why anybody would ask. Hard work represented such a part of their makeup. Milton thought about it for a while and said, well, I was just raised that way. And Tom, the question didn't really compute. I mean, he just couldn't understand why anybody would ask. And then he said, well, you know, I have given up my column.

He used to write a column twice a week. But I still like reading books and writing books when I can get facts to write about, when I can get the facts, when I can do the research. So that has been much on my mind. There I sat 48 hours ago from a man who's been extremely hardworking all his life and who could have just knocked off to garden and play golf and actually Tom Sowell's great love is photography a decade and a half ago when everybody would have said he'd earned it. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, I have children whom I sometimes – teenage and in their early 20s children whom I sometimes – it's a question of motivation, James. What has struck me this past week is the perplexing question of human motivation. I don't have any answers, but that's what struck me.

You asked, I answered. That is what struck me. Why do you work so hard, for goodness sake? You don't have to write as much as you do. I was talking to a colleague who's retiring, who's leaving the paper, and I was saying, so what now? Are you going to write the stuff you really wanted to write that you couldn't get in the paper, perhaps a novel, nonfiction? What?

And the colleague said, no, no writing. That's it. I'm done. And I couldn't – I can't understand that. You just didn't even compute. Right, right. It makes no sense to me. Why would you not want to continue to write as much as possible?

Because, I mean, I enjoy writing for the paper. I enjoy writing for my website. And I enjoy when I get those things out of the way when I can turn to something else and write the other thing that I wanted to do that I don't have time for. I mean, I'm working on a novel now. And at the end of the night, I go downstairs and try to get 700 to 900 words out every night before I sit down and watch television because I love to do it. And I have to. It justifies my tenure this side of the dirt. And the idea of not doing that sort of – my meaning for taking up resources, my excuses

all evaporate. So wait a minute. Let me understand that I've visited your – I've been fortunate enough to visit your beautiful home. You have an office upstairs and a separate office downstairs for writing? Well, that's interesting. You have an office upstairs and a separate office downstairs for writing? That's interesting. I write upstairs, and then after everybody's gone to sleep, I go down to the kitchen, and I stand at the kitchen table, the island, and work and wander around and sort of have my own little space to watch some television.

That's right. I mean, I have many places where I write. I write at the office. I write downstairs. I write at the office. I write downstairs. I write up here. Upstairs here at my main control center with all of my monitors is mostly website work, which is visual and editing and design and the rest of it. Most of my writing gets done in very concentrated bursts, standing at the kitchen table, clattering away. So let's say, for example, I had a column due for a national review, and the lead time for those is long. Oh, it is? Okay. Well, it's not like I get... It's a magazine, so it's not like I...

So you're reduced to sort of being oracular and general. You can't write about things that happen right now. That's what Ricochet is for. And Ricochet, for example, has been talking about, well, you know, this Pennsylvania election, which did not go the way the Ars wanted it to go. What do you think about that?

What can you draw from that? Well, I'll tell you what I thought the day before the Pennsylvania election. It seemed to me that the probability distribution, to put it in the most pompous possible way, was barbell-shaped. I figured that if the tax cut took effect and people – investments started to be made. The economy continued to pick up. We were over 3% growth. By November, one likely outcome was the Republicans would do pretty well. But the other likely outcome was a catastrophe. I just didn't see much middle ground.

And now it seems to me – you heard me make this case to Michael Allman just a moment ago. We have a pretty good record now of what's happening. In Virginia, Ed Gillespie, who came very close two years ago to winning a Senate seat, ran for governor this time around. Ed Gillespie, a Republican and a very good guy. And he got wiped out. He lost by eight points. In Georgia special elections or off-year elections, I should say, the Republicans did much more poorly than they ought to have done. And we just saw a 10-point swing in a Western Pennsylvania district. It just looks to

me as though now you have to say as an analytical matter, it pains me to say this, I don't want this outcome, but I think you just have to say as an analytical matter that the likelihood that Republicans will lose the House, that is now by far the most likely outcome in November. When Donald Trump is the issue, Republicans lose, and Donald Trump is going to be the issue in November. And the next thing that will happen is the impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives. It looks to me as though it's too early to say for sure, of course, but that's now the likeliest outcome. It is likely that we're in for a rough ride.

That's what I think. What about you? No, I agree. The impeachment will be just jolly fun. Can't wait for that. That's going to be horrible. It's going to be wonderful for the country. At that point, I expect a lot of celebrities to say, oh, I'm so ashamed of my country.

I'm going to have to move to Australia, Matt Damon style. And probably not. But, hey, I want to tell you this before we get to our last question for Peter, that if you do plan on leaving the country for any reason because you've decided that the political makeup is not your liking, Matt Damon style, you fear for your life, take a good suitcase, okay, and take it from me. Take an away travel suitcase with you. High quality materials, much lower price compared to other brands. Middleman, he's cut out. They sell directly to you. Let me tell you about this suitcase.

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And our thanks to Away Travel for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, Peter, we've seen a lot of people coming and going. Tillerson's out, boo-hoo. And Larry Kudlow is in. Larry is in. Our own Larry. Arthur Brooks is out. In the world of think tankery, what does the loss of Arthur Brooks mean?

Impossible to say until we get some inkling who's going to replace him but Arthur had turned Arthur was let's put it this way Arthur turned the think tank model upside down in the following sense heritage

the Hoover Institution it's been the case that directors tend to stay just one step off stage. They are kind of stage managers. That's the way the model has worked most of the time. Arthur was one of AEI's main stars and a great star he was. So we'll miss him. And it's a good question. I don't know what the AEI board intends to do, but whether they intend to look for another Arthur or to find – to go back to the older model where the director or the top guy is in effect manages the place, runs the place.

I just don't know. But my hope, my – let's put it this way. Whatever AEI chooses to do next, I'm interested in what Arthur is going to do next. I don't want him to go back to music and disappear from public policy. He's a wonderful voice. I hope he keeps writing and stays with us. Well, they're all wonderful voices, and people are saying that Paul Ryan might take it after he gets bounced out. But here's the question. For all these wonderful voices, who's listening? Do people want the message of the conservative message of limited government or do they want somebody to give them a nice ideological justification for believing in our kind of statism, statism that we like. Yeah.

Well, you touch a sore point with me because I have lived my whole life making the bet that small audiences, small but dedicated, devoted audiences do matter. It's the bet that Bill Buckley made, not to compare myself to Bill, but it's the bet that Bill Buckley made. National Review never had a circulation of much more than 150,000 at its peak. I don't know what the circulation is now, but Bill's bet was that a small circulation magazine could nevertheless, if it was the right people reading it, it was a point of departure for getting ideas talked about in the rest of the country. His show Firing Line was not a network show. It was a PBS show. It never had a gigantic viewership.

And yet it remained influential. So who knows? Who knows? think tank as I do. You feel as though you're just putting one message after another into one bottle after another and pitching them overboard and hoping that somebody finds them. The feedback is not immediate many days, but that's, I don't know, not to stray into too much of pomposity, but that's sort of the bet that America's founded on that somehow or other democracy will work because at any given time, it's sort of, you can't fool all the people all the time, as Lincoln put it. At any given time, there will be enough people who are interested in sustaining and grasping American history, the principles of the founding.

There will be enough to hold it all together. So that actually is an act of faith, and I'm making it. Good. It's whether or not it can be characterized as sort of the Irish saving civilization by copying the ancient text in their monasteries while the world went to barbarism or the Isaac Asimov nightfall model where the scientists get together and the world goes dark and up in flames. I'd like to think that it's not going to be that, that there will be a time when these

ideas seem pertinent and important because the ones that have been operating for the last 20, 30, 40 years are the principles of statism. And I don't want to say globalism because that's stupid. But who even knows what that means? Well, it depends on who you're talking to. For some people, it means trade that enriches the Better Business Bureau. For others, it means this sort of Davos, to use another buzzword, idea of an intellectual transnational class that knows better than the rest of us and is happy, completely happy to dissolve national identity into this stew, this farrago of wonderful multiculturalism that they themselves never have to live amongst.

That's the globalist thing to me, the European project and the Obama idea that would wrap the West into that. It's very Star Trekian, and it all depends on human nature being rewritten and recoded somehow. It's not going to happen. But at some point, when it comes down to the basic American ideals of citizenship, of belief in a common civic identity as opposed to a racial and ethnic identity, you hope that there will be a moment when we realize how precious that is and how rare that is in human history and how lucky we are to have it. But it's like we have to get through 20 20 30 years of the generation coming out of college to shutter their way

through the system until they've completely erected and we're bifurcated into this this you know this world where the plutocrats of san francisco live well and everybody else is paying five million dollars um to live in a small little house with the hobos outside. So who knows? Who knows? Who knows? I don't know. But I am hopeful because I have to be because what's the alternative? The alternative is simply to turn your back and to tend to your garden

and the world goes to hell and there's no great grim satisfaction in that. But there is great grim satisfaction in knowing that the podcast is over and that I can shut up. And you unfortunately won't hear Peter's charming laugh anymore. Hey, Peter, you know who brought this podcast to you? I think you're going to tell me. It would be The Great Courses. It would be Casper.

It would be Away Travel. And Peter, what should people do now that they have finished listening to the podcast? They should go to Ricochet.com and join up. Why, it's only $2.50 a month, I hear. $2.50 a month to listen to the podcast with a totally clean conscience. Right. That is a deal. And how many podcasts that are out there can you say,

oh, and that guy that we were listening to a little while ago, he's a member of the Trump administration right now. We didn't get around to talking about Larry, but that's probably because Larry will get around to talking about Larry in his own venues. And we wish him well. We wish you to go to iTunes and give us a couple of nice reviews. That'll be great. Visit our sponsors, and thanks

for listening. Peter, we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 3.0. Next week, James, and in the meantime, I happen to know that the Blue Yeti, within seconds of the news that Larry Kudlow was joining the White House, sent Larry a note saying, you owe us the first interview, buddy. We'll see how much pull he has.

Take care, James. Bye-bye. When I was growing up, my best friend was a unicorn. The others smiled at me and called me crazy. But I was not upset by knowing I did not conform. I always thought their sea must be hazy. The unicorn and I would while away the hours. Playing, dancing And romancing

In the wildflowers And we'd sing Seeing is believing In the things you see Loving is believing In the ones you love Seeing is believing In the things you see. Loving is believing in the ones you love.

Ricochet. Join the conversation. When I was 17, my best friend was the Northern Star. The others asked why I was always dreaming. But I did not reply. I found my thoughts were very far away from daily hurts and fears and scheming. Girls don't laugh and they don't buy cigars. Dutch Masters is going to drop us like a hot potato.

Hey, hey, kids, let's see what's in the news. I see we've reached a soft timber agreement with Canada. We want the princess! Don't forget the unicorn!