Tyler Boyer wears a hat that was supposed to be at AmericaFest, and the guys discuss whether or not he should be a precinct sheriff. They also discuss the Maine Secretary of State's decision to kick Donald Trump off the primary ballot, and how the Republican National Committee should respond.
00:02:46.260So, just breaking in the last – about an hour ago, the Secretary of State, Shanna Bellows, unilaterally kicked Donald Trump off the ballot in Maine, declaring him an insurrectionist who is not allowed under the 14th Amendment.
00:03:02.060This was not a state a lot of people were watching.
00:03:04.520Obviously, there has been legal challenges in a lot of states.
00:03:16.700And then you have a few lawsuits in other places.
00:03:19.960But there was not a lot of attention on Maine.
00:03:22.280But apparently, just a few days ago, they had just a hearing about it because some people brought a complaint.
00:03:28.540And then the Secretary of State, who was appointed by the legislature there to – so, this woman was just appointed by the Democrat-controlled legislature.
00:03:37.320And she just unilaterally announced that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist, so he's not allowed on the Maine ballot.
00:04:35.980So, the fact that the RNC isn't more vocal about this – I mean, you would think that this would be like a slam dunk for the RNC chair to be out every single day and just be like,
00:04:44.540this is stupid, this is stupid, I'll tell you why it's stupid because you'll just hold caucuses and then the RNC is going to nominate our presidential candidate and then what are you going to do?
00:04:54.420You're going to keep them off the ballot and the Supreme Court is going to be like, no.
00:04:56.720So, this is an angel tradition that we've done since the beginning of time where each of the parties nominates a candidate and then they'll go.
00:05:04.860Now, the fact that the RNC isn't coming out and talking about this more vocally is exactly why people are losing their minds going,
00:05:11.700oh my gosh, the RNC is in on it to try to keep Trump off the ballot.
00:06:35.480So, Jack, for those of us that don't do this for a living, well, I guess we do, but in the audience where they have nice, purposeful, deep lives that don't involve following politics for 18 hours a day, walk us through Colorado, Michigan, Maine.
00:09:03.280So, you're talking about only a couple of months now where the Trump campaign – and, look, I hate to say it, guys, but you need to start to have a legal strategy.
00:09:16.780You need to start to have a legal strategy to put forward in terms of just basically every state.
00:09:22.220You need to have a spreadsheet up of when the primary is and what the status of the ballot is and then also cross-reference out legal challenges.
00:09:32.920So, Charlie, and as you're saying, they are just going to keep doing this throughout the entire year.
00:09:37.700And what they're going to try to do is time it so that you will have Trump stripped from the ballot without enough time for him to fight it in court in terms of when the primary date actually takes place.
00:09:50.560Guys, you're talking about this as if this was a democracy, okay?
00:11:39.500So, that option is technically off the table by their own admission, right?
00:11:44.700So, at this point, then it would be a Republican – yeah.
00:11:48.440I mean, they could decide not to print Trump's name on the ballot, but you still have to print the name of the electors on the ballot who they're technically voting for to send to Congress.
00:12:01.920I think we might be getting ahead of things because I think the most likely outcome is just that this will go to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court will smack it down.
00:12:09.300And then once the Supreme Court smacks it down, they can't really just ignore it without nakedly inviting, like, a serious civil disruption, which – that is our second topic if we want to get into it.
00:12:21.020Blake, before we – well, before we go there, let me ask you this just to follow up.
00:12:24.140So, if the Supreme Court does rule – and I think it's a given the Supreme Court is going to rule in one of these quickly – the question is, will that be a blanket summary judgment or will they try to continue to find other ways to keep bringing this up?
00:12:42.380I feel like the first pass, it's pretty likely the Supreme Court might pretty quickly say no and they'll find some way to dismiss it.
00:12:49.980But if this is getting – you know, if it's clearly taking over the whole election, I think there will be more pressure on the Supreme Court to issue a relatively firm ruling on it, which I think – you know, the Supreme Court always, under John Roberts, likes to mostly do what's safe.
00:13:06.120And I feel like the safe thing for Roberts to do is to say, no, you can't say someone is an insurrectionist unless they're literally convicted of the crime of insurrection or some set of offenses.
00:13:39.980Well, I think that the entire game plan here, what they were trying to – what they're trying to goad us into was for a Republican Party to accept this because once a Republican Party accepts this, then what it does is then it puts pressure on the RNC to accept it.
00:13:57.060And once the RNC accepts it, then the RNC has to try to make – they're trying to force a move before the RNC convention, right?
00:14:04.680And so I think ultimately what is not going to happen is that they're not going to fall for this.
00:14:11.380I can tell you, like, Rana is, like, shaking in her boots right now.
00:14:14.220She's not going to be, like, playing games here of, like, going along with removing Trump.
00:15:11.180If they – if the Democrats thought this out more, they would have tried to bribe everyone in the GOP with a giant foam hat before attempting this.
00:15:20.980Because I would probably give in if they offered me an even bigger hat.
00:15:25.320Here's – to throw out there, and obviously, you know, when – I want all the Trump lawyers, Alina Haba and everyone, to be wearing hats like this in court, particularly before the Supreme Court when this goes up.
00:15:38.460But, Blake, isn't there an argument to be made that – I've seen some people circulating this already – that the 14th Amendment doesn't even apply to the president because they're talking about specific offices and, obviously, that the president is covered under impeachment.
00:16:15.500No person shall be senator or representative in Congress or elector of president and vice president or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any state who have previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or as an officer of the United States or as a member of any state legislature or as an executive or judicial officer of any state
00:16:40.660to support the Constitution of the United States shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof, but Congress may by a two-third vote in each house remove such disability.
00:16:59.500The court in Colorado at the trial court level, which was a Democrat-appointed justice, held that based on what you just read, Charlie, this does not apply to the president.
00:17:08.400That's what the court held at the lowest level there.
00:17:11.820The argument is essentially that officer of the United States means like a created position within the executive branch, whereas the president is not an officer of.
00:17:23.980It is a literal constitutional position and not actually called an officer.
00:17:29.260I think you can kind of go either way on that.
00:17:32.660I know that – I glanced at the ruling and they dig into the argument that the president is considered an officer of the United States.
00:17:41.220I don't think – as far as terrible reasoning in that ruling goes, I don't – that didn't stand out to me as something that just seemed incredibly dumb.
00:17:50.900I do think like at a minimum politically, Trump getting away with it by just saying, I did insurrection, but I wasn't actually an officer of the United States, so it's okay.
00:18:04.400It's not the argument you want to carry the day.
00:18:06.360What you want is to say this is BS because there's a million reasons it's BS.
00:18:11.180And you want to focus on that rather than – it's kind of an angle shooting on a technicality to say he's not an officer.
00:18:16.900But you don't – but that's the point, though, is if it doesn't apply to the president, then you don't even need to necessarily get into the insurrection side.
00:18:24.660And that's why I say that for the Supreme Court, this could just be an easy out for them to say, well, we don't want to get into the insurrection question, but we can just get – simply get into the textual question of whether or not it applies to the president.
00:18:39.700You might get the Supreme Court willing to do that.
00:18:41.940I don't think it would be politically ideal for Trump because it would be accurate then to say that he got off on a technicality, and that wouldn't be good for us, I don't think.
00:18:52.240I mean, I think if he's off, he's off.
00:18:55.840It all makes sense, and this is why what we were accused of as nitpicking on words, Jack and I, especially Jack, it actually has legal significance.
00:19:07.680We were always taken back by the fixation on the word insurrection, insurrection, insurrection, insurrection, insurrection.
00:19:16.340It was to set the narrative war, set the op-ed industry so that a secretary of state says, well, I've been hearing about insurrection for the last couple of years, and here we are.
00:19:27.180Even though, Jack, how many people have been even indicted for insurrection?
00:19:42.120Yes, and yes, it's not at all clear whether or not there was a seditious conspiracy, especially when most of the people that were convicted of that were not actually in the Capitol on January 6th.
00:19:56.120So I suppose, kind of to put a cap on this, guys, and then we can kind of get into the next couple topics, can we anticipate more states to follow suit California before the Supreme Court comes in?
00:20:09.220And is it, here's the question, Blake, what if the Supreme Court is indifferent?
00:20:14.280What if the Supreme Court says, states, you guys decide yourself?
00:20:19.220That, it would definitely, I think, just be disastrous for the country because I think what you would immediately get is, well, obviously you'd just get retaliation by red states.
00:20:29.120We would just start kicking Biden off the ballot.
00:20:31.340And at that point, I mean, why even have an election?
00:20:35.160You're really just, you're just totally throwing it into chaos.
00:20:38.100You would never be able to hold a presidential vote that anyone would regard seriously.
00:20:43.480You can't have an accurate popular vote in any measure at all.
00:20:48.040It would just, it would be functionally impossible to have a real election.
00:21:45.140I mean, I think deep down with Newsom and all, I think a lot of Democrats realize this has excellent possibility to really backfire on them.
00:21:54.820Because, one, it's not a great look to have any, you know, a Democrat official unilaterally kicking Trump off the ballot.
00:22:11.500A lot of them probably think we can do this as a defiant, you know, F you to Trump because the Supreme Court will, like, you know, throw it out.
00:22:19.520And so we don't have to be held accountable for the insane things we're doing.
00:22:23.400It's three-dimensional, too, Blake, because they also – they know the Supreme Court is likely to overturn them, but they want to also deteriorate trust in the Supreme Court, of which is what –
00:22:53.280So I see all of it, and it's all – Supreme Court is about to strip – the Supreme Court has stripped women of their rights.
00:22:59.580The Supreme Court has, you know, allowed – or they're basically telling you that the Supreme Court has illegalized, criminalized abortion in the United States, that the Supreme Court's out of control.
00:23:11.520And it's – I'm telling you, it is like every other YouTube ad in D.C., which means the liberals of the liberals are getting this.
00:23:19.020I think that it's clearly going to be a huge part of the Democrat playbook going into 24.
00:23:26.660We know there's a lot of initiatives that are already coming up for this.
00:23:30.440But I got to say, you know, when I look at – it's kind of like what we talked about last week, about how Blake was telling that story about, you know, when they put up the pro-life crosses and some lib just came and ran it over with their car.
00:23:42.580You know, the Democrats are willing to do this in this country.
00:23:45.200They'll just unilaterally strip you from the ballot.
00:23:55.380And that gets us into – like we were actually going to talk about this even before the main news broke, but it makes it far more – it stands out more.
00:24:04.420So there's a lot of articles just in the last couple weeks even like is America headed towards a civil war?
00:24:11.320Is America going to just permanently break apart?
00:24:13.980And obviously there's that movie that's coming out in the spring, which we talked about last time.
00:24:18.660So setting aside whether a civil war will happen, the topic we wanted to have to close the year is which side would win a civil war?
00:24:29.320And I kind of wonder if we're even going to disagree on this one.
00:24:32.560So let's define the parameters of the civil war.
00:24:38.880So, Blake, just throw out the scenario that you're talking about here because in the movie it's like only two states versus the government.
00:24:45.320It's like not really clear what's going on in this new movie that's coming out.
00:24:49.320The new movie is dumb because it has to be like anti-Trump, but they can't say Trump.
00:24:53.980So it's, yeah, California and Texas are united and there's a Florida alliance and it's like a three- or four-way civil war.
00:25:01.060It's all very dumb and they just are kind of making it up as they go.
00:25:04.760So I think, you know, if we want the most reasonable one, let's actually, let's imagine the one where the Supreme Court, you know, abdicates itself from the results.
00:25:15.520So we have this kind of bogus election where Biden isn't on the ballot in 15 states and Trump isn't on the ballot in 15 states.
00:25:22.440And there's a bunch of shady crap that goes on even in the states where they're both on the ballot and let's say giant pile of dust and you can't even really tell who won.
00:25:32.980But somehow, you know, the powers that be say, oh, actually, Joe Biden got got reelected and you have to deal with it and accept it or even vice versa.
00:25:41.220Let's say Trump gets elected again and a lot of blue states just flip out and say, like, no, we're literally not accepting this.
00:25:49.440And they convene, you know, a convention of a convention to secede, actually, which they talked about doing in 2020.
00:25:56.760So let's just say they did that again.
00:26:00.260And then you'd kind of have you'd have a situation where there's a disputed presidency and where you would go from there is difficult to imagine, to be honest.
00:26:10.920People will talk willy nilly about a civil war, but I think the first thing you have to grasp is it's so difficult to envision what the battle lines would be.
00:26:18.160You know, in 1860, a civil war is South Carolina secedes, Virginia secedes and, you know, 80 plus percent of the state's population basically goes along with it and is even willing to fight over it.
00:26:31.300But the number of states where you even get over 70 percent for one presidential candidate is not very high, let alone people who are literally willing to, like, shoot anyone over a political question in the U.S.
00:26:42.160And, you know, I don't think you could assume every military unit would go a certain way or even every police department.
00:26:50.940Well, what what you're saying is that it's it's it's not as clean or, you know, as it was in the most people when we think when we mentioned civil war, people want to go back to 1860 and talk about the situation at the time.
00:27:03.240But in 1860, you had state militias that were that were organized.
00:27:09.000You had National Guard units that were directly targeted to the state.
00:27:43.220And so what that would lead into, in my opinion, is if you imagine any sort of violent civil conflict in America, what's going to immediately stand out as important is literally who gets organized more quickly.
00:27:56.140So who is able to figure out who is on our side?
00:28:01.080What do we need to do to assert ourselves?
00:28:03.300And I'll be honest, I feel like the obvious answer to that is the left.
00:28:08.660Like there's going to be way more institutions in America that can just assume they are 95 to 100 percent aligned with what the left wants.
00:28:17.540And then they can muster those institutions to do things that they want.
00:28:21.520You know, every university in America, most like big city local governments are going to be like this.
00:28:28.440Large, you know, entire departments of the federal government will be like this.
00:28:32.940And then on top of that, they still have, you know, relatively experienced, you know, street agitators like Antifa and all of that.
00:28:39.340And when you compare this to, you know, if you've ever been at some barbecue with conservatives where they'll just think like, yeah, you know, they'll they'll try to pick a fight, but we own all the guns.
00:28:50.060And I would just say owning all of the guns is not that useful against owning all of the organization, for lack of a better term.
00:28:58.320Well, and you also I mean, you have this question of which side is more willing to use violence.
00:29:04.980And I mentioned this on the space that I was on last night, which went totally nuts.
00:29:09.320But, you know, Blake, you and I were co-hosting the Chronicles of the Revolution, which has been just racing up the charts this whole week.
00:29:24.020We're, you know, all about Franco tomorrow.
00:29:26.000We're doing the 1960s in the United States.
00:29:28.520And one of the key sides of this is that you see the left is like almost always the first one that's willing to use violence.
00:29:36.320And we also what did we see over the weekend?
00:29:39.200The left was able to shut down elements of the left were able to shut down for a time, both JFK and LAX this weekend, Christmas weekend.
00:29:48.600So one of the most traveled weekends of the entire year, the two largest by far airports and traffic hubs, transportation hubs of the entire country were shut down by leftists.
00:30:00.840And if you look at the strategy they used of hitting the expressway, going into JFK, so, again, looking at those critical choke points, these were paramilitary style operations, which I would argue are being used as testing or, you know, testing situation stress tests on our systems going into 2024.
00:30:21.340And you see the left doing this with impunity in various parts of the country, and it's clearly organized.
00:30:26.780I'm sure they'll say, oh, this is in the name of Palestine, just like it was in the name of George Floyd, just like it was in the name of whatever before that, you know, Ferguson, Michael Brown or Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
00:30:39.760The fact of the matter is they're they are organized and they're willing to use violence, whereas the right is always kind of like I just said before in vapor lock on a lot of this stuff.
00:30:48.560Yeah. And I just I like how many people actually showed up in Kenosha.
00:30:54.380Yeah. I mean, just a couple of things. I first, what would it look?
00:30:58.600I mean, what I think people mean by civil war, Blake, I just think they mean pockets of mass chaos.
00:31:03.280I don't think there would be in our lifetime some sort of unified resistance or sort of army that would come together.
00:31:11.180And I mean, we're having trouble getting people to knock on doors.
00:31:14.340I mean, you think all of a sudden we're going to get people to take up arms like, OK, I mean, theoretically, if this actually were to happen.
00:31:24.240So but secondly, who would win in this scenario, Blake?
00:31:59.100I get I get whistleblowers all the time.
00:32:00.920I know people right now, Coronado in San Diego, that said I'm on two week disciplinary action because I misgendered some freak that was on a flight simulator.
00:32:08.000And this guy, like, dreams about being on a drone, you know, terrorizing MAGA republicans.
00:32:12.800By the way, they fantasize talking about killing white people.
00:32:48.640I think police departments in general do lean in our favor.
00:32:52.300And you can tell just a lot of them were very disaffected by 2020, for example.
00:32:59.500And again, you know, there's lots of small towns that have their own police departments.
00:33:04.160So you can kind of imagine those being on our side.
00:33:06.820But that, you know, that makes no sense in the sort of decentralized chaos sort of situation where you would just have, you know, thousands and thousands of rural police officers announcing that they're not going to enforce this or that law or this or that decree from the central government.
00:33:22.300And that that might really be what any form of civil conflict would look like.
00:33:25.880It might just take the form of, you know, Biden wins a super disputed election.
00:33:31.660And then what if 10 red states just announced, you know, we don't regard Biden as a legitimate president and we are just going to ignore anything that comes out of Washington for the time being.
00:33:43.880Well, now, what is conceivable is if if what if very theoretical, if whatever the American right or conservative world had a pocket of actual resistance, if a foreign adversary or like Russia came in and started to actually help that pocket of resistance, then all of a sudden it would be that would be interesting.
00:34:02.100But I mean, would you want to accept that?
00:34:04.140Again, we're talking so hypothetically and theoretically, but honestly, I'm with Blake.
00:34:07.000I just roll my eyes when people are like, we're going to a civil war and, you know, we have guns and arm up.
00:34:11.980I'm like, I don't think you have any comprehension of what that even means, how sad that would be, how dark that would be, how irreversible that would be.
00:34:20.540And in some ways, the bad guys want us to talk like that for some sort of massive power grab.
00:34:25.360But also on the on the police side, excuse me when I say I love some police.
00:34:51.960I don't want to, you know, I don't want to resist.
00:34:54.700And so, look, I don't want to be too dark about it.
00:34:57.500But if you're, if you're, let's say, solution is that somehow this is going to get into civil conflict and right wing America is going to rise up.
00:35:17.140The best case scenario would be like a million dead people and an irreconcilable schism of a country where every, like, every third person, you know, is dead and every male under 30 is destroyed and the country is permanently ruined.
00:35:34.920That, why would we, like, even entertain this idea?
00:35:40.760Well, a lot of, I would say, a very common impulse on the right is I feel like a lot of, a lot of conservatives would rather stand on a pile of ashes screaming, I told you so, than actually win, unfortunately.
00:35:54.220But, um, otherwise, I, I mean, otherwise I completely agree.
00:36:03.840Yeah, and I, I think the people in charge are inviting it through what they're doing.
00:36:07.320It's almost like they say, we control the electricity, we control the water, we control the internet, we control the drones, we control the nuclear power plants, we control the military.
00:36:16.980They're very, they're very wretched people.
00:36:19.460It's like, I think it was Smallwell who just bragged, like, if you resist, we'll just drop a nuclear bomb on you.
00:36:24.540There's, there's a lot of people who are.
00:36:32.120Yeah, and then it's funny because we lose wars to a bunch of tribesmen with AK-47s, so.
00:36:37.580Well, Blake, Blake, um, I think, I think.
00:36:41.940Hold on, I want to ask Blake about this.
00:36:43.080So, Blake, you, you talked a lot yesterday on the show about the Russian Revolution and how the whites were just, like, totally, uh, disorganized and they were all over the place.
00:36:53.940And when I look at the situation we're talking about, we're like, okay, you might have, like, a couple of, like, FOPs here and there, maybe a few National Guard units, this and that thing.
00:37:03.220But there's no central organizing force.
00:37:05.740It just reminds me of the Russian loyalists going up against the Red Army.
00:37:11.000I mean, that's basically what it turned down to.
00:37:12.540If you have maybe one spot and then, so how does that play out?
00:37:15.900I mean, just think of how much power and importance is just concentrated in Washington, D.C.
00:37:21.380And, okay, who controls Washington, D.C.?
00:37:23.840Well, you can look at an electoral map and it'll tell you that.
00:37:26.580And now take that for every major nerve center of the country.
00:37:30.180And it's like, you know, politically it is relevant that, you know, we do better in places that are further from the rungs of power.
00:37:37.600That, you know, that's kind of what makes us a populist movement.
00:37:40.000It makes us kind of a dissident movement.
00:37:42.460But it definitely is not great if you want to win any sort of irregular conflict because winning an irregular conflict is based heavily on control of institutions, proximity to sources of power, proximity to sources of legitimacy.
00:37:57.420And we're massively deficient in all those things.
00:38:00.860And you just, again, you have boomer cons who cope with this by just, like, say, you know, owning 100 guns that they have in their attic.
00:38:17.360No, but I want to say this, though, because the one thing I would point out, Jack, is that the Russian Revolution happened in a vacuum while World War I was going on.
00:38:26.920So you had a situation where you didn't – the men weren't there.
00:38:31.940You know, the white army wasn't there.
00:38:34.300You had all the loyalists essentially were not there.
00:38:39.540The whole world didn't really even know what was going on at the time.
00:38:41.760And Charlie has a really great point, which is that there's a likelihood that it wouldn't happen in a vacuum.
00:38:47.900There would be a number of different interests that would show up.
00:38:53.080And, yeah, someone in the chat just put, like, yeah, I mean, look at what's going on in Ukraine right now with Russia between Russia and Ukraine.
00:38:59.700Like, this is not – this would not be a simple, you know, run through the country.
00:39:06.060You have literally millions of people with guns and divide that's happening in every state, including the deep blue states, the, you know, the people that would be loyal to that, to the D.C.ites.
00:39:38.620We've talked about this a number of different times.
00:39:41.180I think if – I think that's part of the reason why they want to send us to war, to be honest with you, is because, again, it would be easier to do this, right, to dominate a civil war if all our men are gone.
00:39:53.780And that, to me, is the scariest part of the Ukraine conflict, to be honest with you.
00:39:58.500Because they know that the people who would get sent to a major conflict if we did – if one of these did kick off, whether it be China, whether it be Russia, whether it be Iran, whatever, like, sort of the, you know, the war of the week is.
00:40:10.180Venezuela, I think, is probably on the list.
00:40:12.680That would be sort of – and I'm not going to just necessarily say Trump supporters.
00:40:16.380I did say that in a tweet once, and it got – went, like, super viral, and all the neocons were really mad at me.
00:40:20.420And I was – well, I said, don't put it past them to start a war so they could send all the Trump supporter males off to fight and die so Trump can't win.
00:40:32.520But it – that what I'm saying is, essentially, to your point, that the military-age males who are likely to go and conduct that combat are the same type of people who would participate in a reactionary backstop here in the United States should something like this kick off.
00:40:50.920And to Charlie's point, and your point as well, those are the exact type of people that they'd want to get rid of.
00:40:57.800Yeah, and I mean, just finally, it would be so – I'm afraid that there's a little bit too much of a romantic quality to how people think about this.
00:41:10.020And, again, I haven't actually ever been to a country at war.
00:41:28.900And once you cross that delta, there really is no going back.
00:41:32.440Now, while I say that, I will simultaneously agree I don't know how we coexist with these 50 million people, or let's just say 20 million people of insane radicals.
00:41:45.420I don't know, other than there needs to be a live and let live, I'm not going to get into your business.
00:45:40.120Yeah, that's kind of going short of it.
00:45:41.720And so the calendar had been out for a little bit and, you know, really Bryson Gray was one of the guys that kind of started this iteration of it.
00:45:52.060People coming in and saying, you know, he came out and said this never should have been done.
00:45:56.040He said it was unchristian, specifically calling it demonic.
00:45:59.120I had him on the space and he – you know, Charlie, you would have appreciated he was going chapter and verse, Old Testament and New Testament, against this thing.
00:46:08.120And he was asking for anyone – he was challenging, could anyone come in here and say that I'm biblically incorrect and none of you conservatives will.
00:46:15.200This was sort of the thing he kept going back on.
00:46:17.420And other people came in and had a more libertarian type of attitude towards it, saying, look, you know, these are girls.
00:46:26.940Why shouldn't we have good-looking girls in a calendar?
00:46:29.900My brother came in, and this is kind of what started us on the whole path, was he actually had said – and this is a bit more nuanced, I think – he had said that he wasn't against the calendar in and of itself, but he was against the inclusion of a crucifix in the calendar, which is Josie's photo, as you can see here.
00:46:49.880Now, Josie eventually comes on there, and Kevin and her, before it really got out of control, kind of had a conversation about this, and she said, look, you know, this was just – you know, that's just a crucifix that's up in her kitchen.
00:47:02.040I have one up in my kitchen, and, you know, she didn't even think anything of it.
00:47:06.040Also, the photo of her is just her – she's just, like, in the kitchen.
00:47:12.940I don't think there's anything necessarily – I mean, it's a short skirt.
00:47:16.180That's probably the – if you want to really go –
00:47:18.100I mean, honestly, in the kitchen is probably the most appropriate – I mean, it's, like, opposite of all the other stuff that we were seeing.
00:47:23.960Yeah, she's clearly trying to do, like, a 1950s style.
00:48:59.200I think that was a question that people had.
00:49:01.800Number two, some people say, oh, they didn't know what they were signing up for.
00:49:05.560You know, Riley Gaines, who I really respect and like.
00:49:08.380You know, she's there awfully provocatively there.
00:49:10.980And she's a swimmer, so you could argue it both ways.
00:49:13.220But a lot of people – a lot of young ladies look up to her.
00:49:16.300But also, it says on the website, 10% of the sales will be donated to the Riley Gaines Center to protect women's sports from extremist ideology.
00:49:24.100So the Leadership Institute is raising money off of this.
00:49:58.880I'm asking some – so the question is role models of what is a conservative female.
00:50:04.480And I think that there's this tension where some of the females say, well, we're not men, so let's own our bodies.
00:50:13.560But isn't that kind of feminine mystique 1960s liberalism?
00:50:18.060In some ways, I look at more kind of like Allie B. Stuckey or Lila Rose, who are very successful mothers who are in the movement that both vocally – verbally and vocally, I think, embrace much more of a piety to themselves, which is certainly missing in this calendar.
00:50:37.960And you can make your own argument with it.
00:51:01.880Like, they do this as like a very nominal compliant, and it's like a little tiny thing.
00:51:05.340But no, like, you have Orthodox Jewish women who cannot show their hair to anyone who is not their husband.
00:51:11.460They actually shave their head, usually.
00:51:13.340Yeah, they shave it and wear wigs because they do their, you know, Talmudic reasoning.
00:51:17.620But there are other groups where they just, you know, they do that straight up.
00:51:20.900I mean, Islamic cultures, of course, they'll have women aggressively cover themselves.
00:51:24.940And I think it feels a little weird for the right, which – the American right, which generally doesn't embrace those principles.
00:51:33.340Like, we're basically okay with women, like, frankly, dressing to look good in public for people.
00:51:40.780Maybe, you know, maybe not, like, getting naked.
00:51:42.660Maybe not wearing really revealing stuff.
00:51:44.300But we're basically okay with the idea of them looking good in public.
00:51:47.720And then we're kind of trying to say, well, this really – this calendar, which has no nudity in it, and not really even any, like, salacious content.
00:51:56.140Like, there's nothing, like, that you'd see in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue where, like, they'll be in a swimsuit, but it's falling off and they're covering themselves.
00:52:03.920You know, we've all seen that sort of thing.
00:52:28.020I, like, literally didn't even give this two thoughts.
00:52:30.180I thought it was crazy that people were even talking about this beyond a sentence.
00:52:33.800I actually think that part of the reason – I thought that the most provocative photo in all these photos that I saw was actually in the bathtub.
00:52:44.400I thought that was a little over the top, and I saw the video, the behind-the-scenes video that she posted, and I saw him scooping up the bubbles, and I thought – I was like, oh, no.
00:53:15.840And so I got a little bit concerned that this became a secondary play on top of the calendar sales, and that Morton maybe was taking a percentage of the bathwater, too.
00:54:09.520So is Jack, and so is Tucker, and so is Trump, and so are some of the more high-performing people in the movement.
00:54:13.920I don't really want to take it this direction, but we have some friends over at Old Row, and there's some other places that have much more provocative things that are being posted every single day on the site.
00:54:24.140There's just a niche community of Americans who find that acceptable and non-offensive.
00:54:51.340So I think that – I think Riley is the one that received the most feedback here because they say, Riley, you are kind of America's sweetheart in some ways.
00:55:39.980They try to cancel the Victoria's Secret stuff and everybody was, like, bring it back.
00:55:44.920Yeah, like, we make fun – we make fun of the left when they do weirdo freak show stuff where they're, like, Miss Universe is going to be a dude.
00:55:57.260So, look, what I'll just say is this, is, number one, I do think this is ultra cringe.
00:56:04.600I don't think that this calendar should have been done.
00:56:07.580And if it was done, it shouldn't have been done in this way because it's simple, right?
00:56:12.420But conservative influencers, female and male, supposedly are, you know, being – or have their positions and platforms because of their ideas and their thoughts and their words and who they are, not what they are.
00:56:28.600So, you know, I don't care if other people wanted to put out a, you know, a swimsuit edition calendar or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that what you're doing is you're taking these conservative women who go around and their entire Twitter feeds or X feeds or wherever they, you know, post their – hang their thoughts are – is about being conservative and being traditional.
00:56:54.500And then you go and do something like this, which is the exact opposite of that.
00:56:58.760And so it totally just tarnishes everything that you've been saying.
00:57:02.200And then on the flip side, it also – it's very reductive.
00:57:06.000It's very reductive because it is now reducing you to, you know, just your body or whatever.
00:57:11.060So, you know, that's why when this thing first came out, I wasn't planning on talking about it.
00:57:18.100I'm sure they're selling a lot of calendars off of it.
00:57:20.320So, you know, I guess you guys got to make money and different organizations are making money off of it.
00:57:25.520It's just, you know, it's honestly something that I wouldn't have wanted to participate in if, you know, and nobody had reached out to me, you know, to participate in it.
00:57:33.640But had they, I would have said no thanks.
00:57:36.240And, yeah, just the second thing is we've been actually, I think, very fair in how we're covering this.
00:57:41.860You know who's the most ferocious is conservative women on Twitter, like aggressive towards this.
00:57:47.480I mean, Peachy, Keenan, and many others, they're going like 10 out of 10.
00:57:52.300I think some of it is vitriol towards some of the people.
00:57:55.800Peachy towards – Ali Beth Stuckey also, who you mentioned, Charlie, came out strongly.
00:58:11.280I bet she wishes that she had waited into that.
00:58:13.880You can probably guess – you can probably guess what I think about a calendar branded for conservative dads filled with pictures of women, many of them married, and many of them very scantily clad.
00:58:26.360I also find the discourse ridiculous as if we're all supposed to pretend we don't understand the purpose of a calendar of posed full-body pictures of women.
00:58:33.340You can call me a prude, puritanical, or jealous of these women's beauty, whatever makes you feel better.
00:58:38.160I just don't see the value in marketing, what's basically in some photos, soft porn to married or unmarried men.
00:58:44.580Of course, the women are gorgeous, and of course, I'm all for celebrating true femininity in an age that can't define woman.
00:58:50.180In my view, this doesn't accomplish that at all.
00:58:53.120I'm not trying to cause drama with the participants, some of whom I think are doing great, and I'm aware there may be bigger battles to fight,
00:58:58.300but I happen to know there are many Christian conservatives who share the same perspective behind the scenes.
01:00:26.320So, like, it's cringe, but it's cringe in like a, it's kind of cringe in a, it's like male, there's a line I used in a revolver piece once.
01:00:47.040And like, you know, it's like those black rifle coffee ads that are just all about like bacon and hot women and machine guns and more bacon.
01:00:56.480And like, it's, it's sort of this, you know, what liberals would call like reactionary, like threatened masculinity.
01:01:03.260Like we would say like conservative men feel threatened by trannies.
01:01:07.700And so they're going to like push back by buying this, this calendar of conservative Twitter personalities in swimsuits.
01:01:17.180I don't think it's so much cringe that like there's very tame photos of people in swimsuits.
01:01:22.960So I have, yeah, and I have a question for everybody because it's just, it kind of reminded me, it had kind of, it wasn't obviously done this nicely, but it had like kind of a throwback to like pinup models of like the 30s and 40s.
01:01:38.940And Jack, I know you're a big fan of like that era and the classiness of like that entire era.
01:01:47.760Yeah, traditional gender roles, like, like Hollywood in the 30s and 40s.
01:01:52.000Like you watch some of those movies and there's a lot to be like, if we could kind of harken back to societal norms back then, I think America would be a lot better.
01:02:01.980But like pinup girls were like very popular, right?
01:02:05.040Like that was, that was a thing in that, in that era that was very, very big.
01:02:10.340I would even argue that we probably got more conservative after that for, for a hot second before, you know, going barreling down this road in the 80s and 90s to where we are today.
01:02:20.920But, but I mean, maybe politically, but this isn't new stuff is my point.
01:02:26.560Like we used to, but they would paint these pinup girls up on like on the bombers that we sent into World War II.
01:02:55.480But again, the, it's cultural though, like pinup girls were not like, again, I'm saying because it's conservative influencers and you can't take that out of it.
01:03:05.560And I'm sorry, you just can't because what you've done now is you've gone completely off brand with all of this and gone cross purposes.
01:03:12.500So now it's like everything that you do after this, it's going to be, oh, weren't you the one in the pinup calendar?
01:03:20.320So every time, whether it's Riley or Josie or Ashley, who I'm friends with all of them, by the way, it's still going to be like the ultimate comeback, which by the way, is what, when, um, what's the guy's name?
01:03:31.940Brian Atlas from the whatever, uh, podcast came onto my space last night.
01:03:35.840And that's immediately how he started attacking Ashley.
01:03:38.720That's immediately what he went in on.
01:03:43.580Which I think is just like a creepy thing, right?
01:03:47.280Like, why would, again, I, I just, you know, again, I, I agree with the entire sense of that.
01:03:52.680It might be, but why get what, but you've, what you've done is you've now made yourself vulnerable to that kind of attack for the rest of your career.
01:04:04.540It's possible, but you know, maybe that's.
01:04:06.820In, in general, you can diversify your, is insert anyone who's going to stand as like a, you know, for a morally rigid position.
01:04:17.280We'll always be vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy.
01:04:21.600Uh, now I do think that if you're taking the position of Cal of basically PG rated calendars being bad, you're probably pushing a political position that is very far outside the mainstream of the U S or basically.
01:04:37.380Obviously my views are outside of the mainstream.
01:04:46.360The very idea of a conservative influencer is that there's someone who's more plugged into, you know, mainstream culture than conservatives of before.
01:04:55.040Like what will people even praise like turning point events for?
01:04:59.460They'll praise them for having like actually attractive women at them.
01:05:03.180And there will be people who are on stage who dressed up to be attractive.
01:05:07.480And I don't think that it's that insane that they would also have photos of them that are basically what can go on a calendar.