00:10:55.720But that doesn't change the fact that what Trump was talking about in the early days
00:10:59.860of this has not come to fruition. And he misjudged his own or the American public's willingness to
00:11:06.200take this to its conclusion. Yep, I agree. We could have had the bombing of the nuclear facilities1.00
00:11:12.840and an Obama style JCPOA Trump version without launching this war. We were negotiating it
00:11:19.740when we bombed them. You know, that was the frustration of many of us. Like, what are we
00:11:23.800doing? The June strike was good. We took out the three facilities. We like that. The nuclear dust0.99
00:11:27.680is buried. We like that, too. Why are we going back over there? Like, we're going to think
00:11:31.220they're Navy. Were we ever really worried about the Iran Navy? I don't think we were. I mean,
00:11:35.520Rich, I'm pretty sure that wasn't like something that kept the Pentagon up at night.
00:11:39.120That was one of the weakest talking points through this whole thing is a total strategic
00:11:42.520irrelevance. And we fell into the trap. We've fallen into it before during Vietnam. I'm
00:11:47.940comparing this to Vietnam, but there's a trap of just counting up how much stuff you've hit
00:11:51.840and therefore saying you're winning and you're achieving your strategic objectives when those
00:11:55.920things are not necessarily related, as we found out here. So I think there are at least three
00:12:01.040key misconceptions here. One, you take out the Ayatollah and the regime falls and ended up not
00:12:06.340being true. Two, that you just do a four to six week campaign and then just close up shop when0.71
00:12:11.860you're ready to and, you know, say goodbye, we're done, which we couldn't do once they'd taken the
00:12:18.280straight. And then three, in some ways, the original sin of this was not making any public
00:12:23.460case for it, not going to Congress for a vote. Because when you're engaged in kind of a limited
00:12:28.060war like this, one of the key constraints is how much political support you have. And when you
00:12:32.740don't have any political support or limited political support going in, it's going to limit
00:12:36.900your options. So again, reopening the strait would have been kind of the crux of the war as it
00:12:42.500developed, but we couldn't do it because it would have probably required troops on the ground. You
00:12:46.640might have lost a ship or two, God forbid, helicopters, maybe you lose a POW or two.
00:12:52.020And just there's no way Trump was going to do that on behalf of what was at the outset, an unpopular war that was steadily becoming more unpopular.
00:13:01.120Now, look, I agree with Charlie. I think the core achievement here is destroying their nuclear infrastructure, such as if they just wanted to start again right now, they couldn't.
00:13:10.140Now, you could have done that with a more robust 12-day war, something short of what we did here.0.97
00:13:14.700And just final point, I think killing the Ayatollah, even though I was glad when it happened, and I understand the temptation to take that shot.0.94
00:13:22.020I think it was a key mistake because we got nothing from it strategically.0.97
00:13:43.400But if you go after the strait, then we target your leadership.
00:13:46.120Then we know where all the bunkers are.0.99
00:13:48.060And you guys are going to die in the middle of the night.
00:13:50.120Then maybe they don't close the strait.
00:13:51.620But once they closed the strait and we hadn't properly prepared for it, a mistake that really goes to the top and Trump's over-optimism about everything.
00:14:08.820I mean, the number one reason that we, I think, are lamenting the fact that this was launched to begin with is the loss of our troops, our 13 military personnel.
00:14:17.780But the other thing is the strait was open before we launched this war.
00:14:23.400So after that June bombing 12 months ago of their nuclear facilities, we had what we needed.
00:14:28.480There was really no reason to go back in there.
00:14:30.520And we could have just said, we could have continued the negotiation that Whitcoff and Kushner were doing,
00:14:35.200come up with some, again, like JCPOA, Trump version, where they agree and we have monitoring,
00:14:41.620which we haven't been having since Trump tore up the JCPOA that Obama negotiated.
00:14:45.200We haven't been having monitoring, which is one of the reasons why we had to bomb them.
00:14:51.340We could have had like some sort of we could have done all these deals like with the carrots and so we could have done that without all the carnage.0.93
00:14:57.320And we wouldn't have had to worry about the strait now being open, open, but controlled by Iran.0.95
00:15:01.920You know, like prior to this war, that wasn't a thing.0.99
00:15:04.960And now we're going to have to deal with this forevermore.
00:15:06.760And unfortunately, it's almost like set an example for the world around that the waterways are a leverage point in war, in international relations.
00:15:20.120You know, Charlie, that wasn't a thing prior to now, and now it is a thing.
00:15:24.520So, I don't know, if you were talking to Trump a week ago, would you have said, do this, like, let's just wrap it up? Or would you have said, we have to wrap it up in a prettier way to appease more people, because you're going to lose support if you don't, if you can't clearly emerge as, quote, the victor?
00:15:46.920Well, I don't think it would have mattered what I said to Donald Trump, because quite literally every single thing that he does, he casts as the greatest thing that has happened since the creation of the earth.
00:15:55.700So this is very much in his wheelhouse.
00:16:00.240This will have been a smashing victory.
00:16:02.540The war will have been a smashing victory.0.97
00:16:04.760The peace will have been a smashing victory.0.74
00:16:06.420And if you look back a few years ago, he basically re-ratified NAFTA, but called it the Donald Trump free trade deal and wrote how beautiful it was and how awful the status quo ante was.
00:19:22.940Is everything that you said, I think the president would say?
00:19:25.940I'm just wondering if the people that negotiated this have informed the president about what's in the page and a half he's going to read publicly on Friday.
00:19:34.020And I would just say we were in a much better place before we saw the details of this MOU.
00:19:39.580And unless President Trump can change this at the last minute and get good deals here, I would say that this memorandum of understanding is is worse than not having it.
00:19:48.360Right. Next 24 hours, he could go in and do that. I hope he does.
00:19:51.400Sorry, that wasn't actually the soundbite that I was referring to.
00:19:55.540But there was one earlier on the curvy couch where Brian said it was the Vance peace deal.
00:20:08.280The MOU stipulates, quote, that Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days.
00:20:21.200Just back out of there. We'll pick up the mines, not best efforts. That's it. That's a specific vague language.
00:20:28.480And what happens after 60 days? Word is they're going to get together with Oman and Iran's going to get together with Oman and charge tolls.
00:20:36.360If that's the case, that's unacceptable for everybody.0.63
00:20:41.140Well, the good news is gas prices have gone down. So that's great.
00:20:43.940If the strait is open, that helps. That helps with gas prices globally.
00:26:12.520And then I say he's really bad on this.
00:26:14.480And that's how you're supposed to be as a free citizen.
00:26:16.420If you do anything else, you're just offloading your conscience and your mind to someone else,
00:26:21.500which is a really bizarre and really evil thing to do.
00:26:26.920So the phrase, you know, well, I'll just trust the president.
00:26:29.320That really should not leave the lips of anyone, especially an American, given our mistrust of government.
00:26:37.740It's odd, though, that Trump has been trying that line out.
00:26:42.300He's never quite expressed what it's for, but in recent weeks, he's been putting it out on social media where he says, be quiet, you know, trust me, it'll work out.
00:26:53.920It always does. That's an almost verbatim recitation of these strange tweets.
00:27:04.100You could say that at election time, you have to make a decision.
00:27:08.100It's yes or no. And you can say that you should respect the office of the president.
00:27:13.260But the president should not be telling people to stay quiet and trust him because it will always work out either.
00:27:19.940That's the thing. You can't silence dissenting voices or just overcome objections to the president reversing himself on a campaign promise that was explicit and made repeatedly by saying, trust the president.
00:27:35.660Just trust him. And if you don't, you're some sort of hater. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:27:41.820I heard all the promises that we weren't going to do this. I understand he always said Iran can't0.99
00:27:46.960have a nuclear weapon. But there are some of us who don't believe that's what we're going into
00:27:50.940Iran for, because we know he bombed their three nuclear facilities the previous June. We backed0.93
00:27:56.500him on that. We supported that. There are many people who said that was a good idea, but this
00:28:01.320war wasn't. And you can't just overcome legitimate objections by being like, I trust the president
00:28:06.420and you don't, and therefore you're a hater. It's just, it's been a very annoying thing.
00:28:09.940But here's what interests me, Rich, about the divide now between Republicans, right? I mean,
00:28:15.880we're always going to be fighting the left for all the reasons the three of us have been discussing
00:28:19.600for six years. But what's going to happen? Because as I said to J.D. Vance yesterday,
00:28:25.300as soon as those midterms are over, 2028 is on. And the candidates are going to start
00:28:30.880claiming their lanes, going on book tours, some are at it even sooner, you know, going to state
00:28:39.740fairs and what have you just to make sure they're out there and they're getting their name and so
00:28:43.160on. And at the moment, the right is incredibly divided. And I think, you know, my short form
00:28:50.400judgment is the neocons would prefer a Marco Rubio and the non-interventionalists would
00:28:56.760prefer a J.D. Vance. And that fight will play out. But I do wonder whether the right can come
00:29:03.160together to support any candidate, like whether the neocons could ever vote for a J.D. Vance,
00:29:08.800whether the non-interventionists could ever vote for a Marco Rubio or a greater hawk,
00:29:17.760you know, someone like a Tom Cotton or a Ted Cruz. I like I just don't know. Maybe I'm being
00:29:23.960naive. Maybe they've come together over fights bigger than this in the past. Nothing's coming
00:29:28.440to mind. I don't remember one where the right was this divided as we head into election season.
00:29:34.580There have been lots of divides over time. And just in a general election, when you have two
00:29:38.380choices, the partisan gravity to get on board with your candidate, because let's say it's
00:29:45.120marco and non-interventionists aren't particularly happy are they really going to prefer aoc or gavin
00:29:49.920newsom or kamala harris same thing with jd he has the highest chances obviously of winning the
00:29:55.380nomination but are you going to be happier with an aoc let me just throw let me just throw one
00:30:01.040other curveball for your analysis before you go any further i agree with you the vast majority
00:30:06.480of republicans would prefer a righty to a lefty but there's also a contingent that would stay home
00:30:11.300Just like I'm not motivated at all and I can't cast a vote for this person. But but putting that to the side, I predict there's going to be a third kind of candidate. And I think the person will probably run as a Republican. And I think it's going to be a Tulsi Gabbard.
00:30:26.960Oh, as an independent general election candidate.
00:30:30.400Yeah, even like a Tucker Carlson, somebody who represents the more isolationist wing, who's going to say a pox on both their houses.
00:30:38.580These were campaign promises that were near and dear to millions of people's hearts.
00:30:43.720And that person could they're not going to get any neocon support, but that person could get Democrat support if they were to get the nomination.
00:30:53.000But I predict this will be a new and important strain in the 2828 election versus what we've seen in years past.
00:31:00.240So, yeah, it wouldn't shock me if there's an America-only MTG-style candidate in the Republican primers.
00:31:08.720It's unlikely to see who could win the nomination coming out of that wing.
00:31:15.540But J.D. wants to – he's more over on that side than he is with the neocons, obviously.
00:31:22.020But as he said with you, I disagree with John Podort's criticism of this deal.
00:31:27.620But, of course, he has a place in the Republican Party.
00:31:29.080So someone who wants to be president of the United States needs to sound like that.
00:31:35.500But again, I just think that the threat from the Democrats is going to be so grave next time around.
00:31:40.520If they get unified control of Washington, there's going to be a serious attempt to eliminate the filibuster, impact the Supreme Court, and add states.
00:31:48.460I mean it's a near existential question for our system.
00:31:53.520And I also think most ordinary voters, we care a lot about these foreign policy questions.
00:32:50.440They're mostly mad over the economy, Charlie.
00:32:52.660And they might be open-minded to somebody who's even more of an economic populist than
00:32:58.580Trump and also is promising not to get us into any foreign entanglements and could really sell the
00:33:05.080I can't be bought by any interest group, you know, Thomas Massey style. I don't know. I'm not sure
00:33:11.340whether that person can win on a national level, but I do think it could be a potential spoiler
00:33:15.200in the Republican primaries. Well, I think that the risk is much greater in the general election.
00:33:21.340the primary election is going to be fought between people who are really interested
00:33:30.460in politics i would push back against your groups because i think neocon versus non-interventionist
00:33:39.940those are those are groups but they're not the only two they're not the biggest two
00:33:46.160I would say most people now aren't neocons. Neocon was a really, it was a particular point in time. Not only are neocons and non-interventionists not the main categories, but I would suggest that most people who identify as conservatives or who vote Republican sort of sit somewhere in the middle, don't particularly care, but they sit somewhere in the middle of those things.
00:34:12.800um and trump himself depends on the conflict well it does but also trump himself uh sounds like both
00:34:19.720of them you know sometimes trump sounds very hawkish as he has here sometimes he sounds like
00:34:23.980a jacksonian sometimes he sounds like a non-interventionist or even an isolationist
00:34:27.980he's been called all sorts of names and that's because he contains multitudes so um i don't
00:34:33.360particularly like the the the setup because i i don't think those are the groups what i do think
00:34:39.280is possible, not necessarily because of this Iran war, but the situation you suppose, where a third
00:34:47.060party comes along, I think it's possible as a general matter, because more and more Americans
00:34:53.760have moved into a non-partisan camp. And that has left the two parties more on the wings. And
00:35:03.380primaries tend to elevate the people who are the most enthusiastic about politics within those two
00:35:09.260parties so at some point it does seem possible to me that someone will come along in the middle
00:35:13.780maybe using some of this populist energy uh and spoil an election i don't think they'd win but
00:35:19.940spoil an election that said the u.s does have a two-party system not because there are some
00:35:25.480shadowy figures on the wings who are dictating that but just because the way our system is set
00:35:30.960up um and it's quite difficult uh for that third party i mean ross perot tried twice he may have
00:35:38.160played spoiler well elon if elon musk can't get it going with his trillion dollars which he did
00:35:42.920consider you know well i mean elon musk it's not the average joe is not going to make it happen yeah
00:35:47.440and and elon musk has the unfortunate uh position megan of of uh taking the view of politics that i
00:35:54.120hold which is shared by about three percent of the public right which is that we need to get our
00:35:58.560fiscal house in order um which involves uh balancing budgets and uh cutting benefits and
00:36:05.260reforming social security no one wants no one wants to do that uh and and so you know elon musk
00:36:10.000is looking at it as an engineer uh but engineers don't make good politicians so um yeah it could
00:36:15.820happen uh but i i just think i don't want to discount politics as somebody who writes about
00:36:20.440it for a living but i'm not even suggesting a third party run because i mean maybe you could
00:36:25.000get on the ticket by going green party or libertarian but i i'm thinking this will happen
00:36:28.680within the republican party in the fight and it'll especially happen if jd chooses not to run
00:36:43.280It was someone who came along, looked at all of those people on the stage, the other 16 people, and said, yeah, yeah, all of your categories are bunk.
00:36:50.960I'm a populist and a common sense guy, and I'm taking over the party.
00:36:56.160I guess what I'm saying is this person would really mean it.
00:36:58.700Like, this person really would be a non-interventionist across the board, would definitely be making Israel an issue, which it is now for all Democrats, most independents, some Republicans, and run as an economic populist as well.
00:37:14.700I mean, like, those three I named, I think all three of them would do it, and MTG, too, and Thomas Massey was another.
00:37:21.380I'm like, anyone could fill this particular niche.
00:37:24.020And if they do do it, J.D. Vance is going to have to fend off that challenge more than a Marco Rubio is.
00:37:30.100It's almost like I think there's only one spot for this person.
00:37:33.720I want to keep going because to your point, we're going to have that contest.
00:37:39.180We're going to come up with a Republican nominee and some faction of the GOP is going to be unhappy and thinking maybe I'm just going to sit on my sofa come November.
00:37:47.440That'll be my middle finger to the world.
00:38:11.820As the governor said, it's where we should be unstoppable in knowing that there is so much that has already been done.
00:38:19.140and can be done what to make the difference in a way that builds industries and creates
00:38:27.960efficiencies and creates leadership around helping the people see what can be unburned by
00:38:37.460is she drunk she sounds drunk totally do you know what that looks like it looks like a parody
00:38:48.160of public access television from the 90s the background that they're switching out the mics0.95
00:38:53.940even though the mic was working did they think that the microphone was making her slow her words
00:39:00.020it's a quick get her a new one the mic was the problem she actually needed a coffee she was with
00:39:04.500arnold schwarzenegger at a climate speech in austria and who the hell knows what point she
00:39:12.200was trying to make with if you listen to the longer version it doesn't get any better but
00:39:16.260she hasn't changed charlie she has not changed at all you'll be glad to know and you know people
00:39:22.700think the reason she's doing these events is because and the book and the book tour she really
00:39:28.120does believe she could get out there so to your point that would be a big motivator no matter who
00:39:32.580they nominate on team red yeah and and also i mean not to relitigate the last conversation but i
00:39:38.360think that the parties are not entirely rational, but they're quite rationally sorted. And so what
00:39:46.620you've described probably doesn't have enough purchase within the Republican Party to win the
00:39:51.940Republican nomination, precisely because it's so well represented on the other side. And
00:39:58.280partisanship, negative partisanship, which I don't think it's a bad thing, incidentally,
00:40:03.040I think I'm not in favor of mindless partisanship. But you hear this line in our politics that being against things is bad. You need to be for things. You should be for things. I'm for things. Being against things is also totally fine. It is totally rational and acceptable within a democracy to say, I don't want that. I don't like that person. I don't want to change this. I don't want to increase that tax. I don't want to open the border. You don't have to be you don't have to provide some alternative. You can just say no.
00:40:30.320in fact it it's often a sign of great satisfaction a lot of uh politics in the 1990s when people were0.99
00:40:37.660pretty happy and the economy was well was just don't do that um so i think she she would provide
00:40:43.380a massive don't do that uh for anyone who's on the center right whatever you do now while we're
00:40:50.840on the subject of presidential politics rich i've got to ask you about the obama library okay you're
00:40:56.200not going to believe this. I don't know if you saw this, but the Obama library is going to be
00:41:01.980the official home of the latest Obama portrait that has just been unveiled. It will be hung in
00:41:07.740the museum's hope and change lobby. Hope and change lobby. It opens on Thursday. It's going
00:41:17.540to cost you a mere $30 to get in so you can see this in person and you will be greeted,
00:41:23.280Wait until you see this by a nine by 10 foot work by artist Jideka Akunyul Crosby.
00:41:33.360It's a drawing. All right. Now, at first blush, I don't know if you've seen this.
00:41:39.500You tell me, does anything jump out at you as a little off about this portrait, which is for the President Barack Obama Library and Museum, Rich?
00:41:51.880are you referring to the figures not being quite completed towards the sitting at the back
00:41:56.180he's in the back oh yeah yeah she looks like she was president and he looks like he was first
00:42:03.080partner as jennifer newson calls herself typical in presidential portraits to have the first lady
00:42:08.580with you maybe it is yeah but she's very prominent and it's so self-important with all the symbiosis
00:42:12.820the symbolism about plants you know there are certain plants associated with the obamas it's
00:42:18.680It's all about things in her past, you know, or in the background or dad's car.
00:48:58.720Because this is the thing that annoys me the most about the Obamas is that the thing that I like the most about Barack Obama is that he's black.
00:49:08.620by which I mean that I really do think it was a remarkable and beautiful thing that in 2008 a
00:49:14.840country that had had Jim Crow and slavery elected a black man as president I think that was an
00:49:20.080affirmation of the Declaration of Independence and the American creed that's the thing I liked about
00:49:24.760him and then everything else he ever did I hated so it's really quite irritating being told oh well
00:49:31.140you just did we used to get this in the Obama administration at National Review people say well
00:49:34.660whatever obama does you'll oppose it and i wrote this piece once saying just think about what
00:49:38.860you've just said do you really think that if barack obama woke up tomorrow morning and said
00:49:42.740you know what i've now realized that my politics were wrong i'm now a pro-free market pro-life
00:49:48.780pro-constitution conservative i love the second amendment i'm for small government and federalism
00:49:56.880and i think we should do the paul ryan tax plan do you think we'd have gone oh no now we have to
00:50:02.460be against all of those things. I mean, it would have been the greatest day in the world. We'd have
00:50:05.960got the champagne out at 11am. So this idea that the reason that people disliked him was because
00:50:10.720of that, I just think it's very annoying. That was the thing I liked about him the most.
00:50:14.920Here, our crack team, since we do cover this beat a fair amount, it's not my fault. They keep
00:50:19.500putting themselves out there. Remember when Barack Obama went and lectured all the men in
00:50:23.760was in middle America about how they were misogynists if they didn't get behind Kamala
00:50:27.880Harris? Like, they both had prominent speaking roles at the Democratic National Convention.
00:50:32.380He was out there this week ripping on Trump in this Iran deal.
00:50:35.360Like they keep putting themselves out there.
00:54:34.480and i don't know who she looks like but i can tell you this it's not michelle obama i maybe
00:54:40.440sally phil yes oh you're two for two two for two that's what i was going with yeah
00:54:46.660right i don't i knew some someone once who was uh uh he is a fairly wealthy successful businessman
00:54:54.100he liked art so he he got all these replicas of famous pieces of of west famous western paintings
00:55:01.280But they're all done in China. So so everyone had slightly slanty eyes in the Mona Lisa was slanty eyes.0.89
00:55:06.940So this guy, yeah, he must not have been working off pictures of Michelle and Barack or I don't know what happened.
00:55:14.200I mean, at least in these they're smiling. You would think they'd want to smile for their official portrait in the hope and change lobby.
00:55:21.680Like you want to telegraph hopefulness, which is not the dour, angry, you know, grimace.
00:55:27.800But it was true to life. I'll give him that. Now, Michelle Obama is kind of in the news in connection with our next story, which is the meltdown over the UFC event on the White House lawn continues on the left.
00:55:42.160The latest is from Sheryl Crow. So people are mad. They're mad that that one fighter said Michelle Obama is a man at the end of his fight. They don't like that. I get it. That's not a nice thing to say. And if you're a Michelle Obama fan, you definitely don't like it.
00:56:40.080What happened on the lawn of the White House was disgraceful and void of decency.
00:56:43.960Powerful, rich people filled the lawn to watch a violent sport that ended with a vile and racist comment, all while the average American cannot afford health care, gas and cost of living.
00:57:19.300There is a guy posted this on the Daily Wire.
00:57:22.980it was a great article called leftists hate americans who love america and he pointed out that
00:57:28.580a mark teason back to mark had been praising the ufc event as trump opening the doors to regular
00:57:36.180americans the kind who enjoy motocross rallies and monster truck shows new york times columnist
00:57:41.860michelle goldberg we've discussed her before responded by sneering that if you're okay with
00:57:48.260that, you're an elitist snob in reverse. Quote, like ultimate fighting, porn is extremely popular,0.63
00:57:55.440but I somehow doubt Thiessen would defend a Democratic president who invited a bunch of
00:57:59.620OnlyFans creators to the Oval Office while he was losing a war. Then there's Jim Acosta,
00:58:06.420who had on his show historian Heather Cox Richardson, who's extremely popular with leftists,
00:58:13.000who said the following, quote, it's not really a stretch to say that the same impulse that created
00:58:21.080the UFC fight on the White House lawn is the impulse that really pushed lynching in the late
00:58:27.80019th century. Wait, we have that on camera. Let's watch that together. In the Gilded Age,
00:58:33.360you did not have this open display of denigration of American symbols and American values.
00:58:42.560And that, you know, for all the facts you might have disagreed with Carnegie about how you should build up the United States or with J.D. Rockefeller, they still argued that they were offering a way forward for the United States that would make it better for everybody.
00:58:58.340Now, and they were quite open about that.
00:59:00.320I mean, again, you don't have to agree with them, but they at least said that.
00:59:03.160What you are watching Trump do right now is deliberately tear that apart.
00:59:07.740And he is doing so on the same cultural argument, of course, that people use to back the first Gilded Age.
00:59:15.220That is these culture wars that turn white Americans against marginalized people of color.
00:59:23.580So, I mean, it's not really a stretch to say that the same impulse that created the UFC fight on the White House lawn is the impulse that really pushed lynching in the late 19th century against black Americans overwhelmingly.
00:59:37.740i love acosta's react make it make sense oh yeah yeah so wise look we talked about this the other
00:59:47.980day in our podcast i wouldn't do it i think it's a little gauche i would just do easter egg rolls
00:59:52.940and christmas decorations and signing ceremonies but we passed that a long time ago they light up
00:59:58.300the white house for different colors for different events etc and the imagery around this thing is
01:00:03.820just extraordinary. The ones you showed, they're so well done, right? They're so patriotic.
01:00:10.280And this is a mainstream American sport that's extremely popular, overtook prize fighting a long
01:00:17.220time ago. And it wasn't just Jeff Bezos there. I know Zuckerberg was there, but it wasn't
01:00:21.280billionaires. It was a lot of military guys. A lot of military guys. People who got tickets
01:00:27.160through a lottery or whatever it was. We have a colleague in Washington, D.C., who's not a big
01:00:31.480UFC fan, but managed to go. Her boyfriend invited her and had a great time. And by the way,
01:00:36.840something that's been weirdly underappreciated or underplayed, there was no kidding, really
01:00:41.660serious, as far as we can tell, terror plot around this event to attack this event. And not just a
01:00:48.000lone wolf, one crazy person, but apparently was a really serious cell that had a multi-layered
01:00:53.960plan to create mayhem and death around an event that ultimately, yeah, it's about Trump and0.82
01:00:59.400glamorizing himself and doing what he likes that's his character and his persona but also
01:01:05.360the flyovers and the flags it's it's patriotic imagery that shouldn't be partisan but unfortunately
01:01:12.220is yeah it's just like i what slavery and jim crow to have the ufc so okay what do you think0.95
01:01:23.420of it charlie all of those people are crazy with the exception of heather cox richardson1.00
01:01:27.640who's a disgraceful cynic. Heather Cox Richardson's job is to tell credulous, upper middle class1.00
01:01:33.960white women, including Jim Acosta, that their conception of this president is backed by the1.00
01:01:41.180worst parts of American history. That is what Heather Cox Richardson does. She finds things1.00
01:01:46.600from history and then connects them to what's happening today and tells people who've never
01:01:50.800thought about history in any serious way that their instincts are correct. Now, I wouldn't
01:01:56.740have done this because i don't want our imperial presidency you know my views on this i'm a calvin
01:02:01.620coolidge guy i would like the president to be quiet but it didn't matter i don't like it but
01:02:08.740it didn't matter it's a bit like the kennedy center i don't think trump should have put his
01:02:13.100name on it i think it's probably illegal but it's not the most important thing in the world
01:02:17.720jim acosta did you see the video of him outside the kennedy center when they were supposed to be
01:02:23.080taking trump's name off it so this behavior you've just seen with this ufc fight is is now
01:02:29.080reflexive jim acosta was there late at night waiting for the construction crew to take trump's
01:02:35.000name off he's got a camera on him and he says two things in quick succession one he says this is
01:02:40.440just like being at the fall of the berlin wall and then he says it's unbelievable and then he says
01:02:46.440that this shows thought what we can do when mankind and then he corrects himself and says
01:02:51.320i mean humankind because of course you can't say mankind he says when humankind stands up to
01:02:57.000tyranny so the problem is not people who are criticizing having a uf site uh ufc fight on
01:03:04.360the lawn and it's not people who don't think the kennedy center should be the trump kennedy center
01:03:09.080the problem is the escalation of these very small and unimportant things to that comparing them to
01:03:16.280jim crow and lynching and the east german walls and tyranny i mean it's it's this is one reason
01:03:25.320incidentally i think trump was president twice it's just no one can ever hold their fire they
01:03:29.400can they can never put what trump actually does in context and tell their allies to shut up about0.98
01:03:35.720everything else it's it's just stupid i mean well the whole kennedy center thing like it didn't go1.00
01:03:41.960well, I grant you. But Trump was trying to fix a center that had been pandering to the left for0.99
01:03:48.880decades. All the acts that went there were Democrats who had supported the most recent
01:03:54.780Democrat in whatever election we'd had. The people who got honored every year were open and committed
01:04:01.100Democrats. Once in a rare blue moon, you'd see a right leaning person over there, but almost never
01:04:06.280nothing's coming to mind. I think the reason I mean, yes, Trump loves to have his name on
01:04:10.240everything. We all know that about Trump. But I think he was also trying to telegraph.
01:04:15.260There's a new sheriff in town. This is not your grandfather's Kennedy Center. Like,
01:04:19.140hey, conservatives, give us a shot because you're going to see your people here now
01:04:22.620that we've renamed it and Rick Grinnell is running it. We're trying to get the word out.
01:04:28.280But of course, his worst detractors always go to the most negative place with him. It's all
01:04:32.360about self-aggrandizement. And I realize with Trump, there is an element of that. But
01:04:35.560But no credit for just trying to actually maybe reach out to a wider audience, which, again, is what he was trying to do on the White House lawn with UFC, not in any way some homage to Jim Crow, which is like freaking crazy talk.
01:04:50.260Now, speaking of Crowe, Sheryl Crow, this isn't her first foray into politics. I was at the 2008 coronation of Barack Obama at Invesco Field out in Denver when he accepted the nomination with the Greek columns, remember?
01:06:02.360Okay. So now she wants us to understand, like, she's the person who's going to be the spokesperson rich for, like, working class Americans and their plight. And that's why this whole thing was so inappropriate at the White House. Meanwhile, she waved goodbye to her, what, $70,000, $60,000 automobile because of the politics perceived of the owner of the company. Not many people can do that.
01:06:25.740Yeah, your car shouldn't be political. It's a wonderful car. If you liked it enough to buy it, it's quite pricey. Not that the price matters to her. It's probably subsidized by the government. Why are you getting rid of it just because you don't like Elon Musk?
01:06:39.420And by the way, the idea that Sheryl Crow is lecturing us about how a UFC fight isn't working class, you know, someone who's never been to a UFC fight, whereas this is a sport that indeed has a lot of working class appeal, it just gets to how this celebrity politics is so twisted and so out of touch.
01:06:58.620You know, another element of the Obama Plex, Obama Library thing we could hit on.
01:07:02.900He's got legit like A-list singing talent performing at the opening or whatever it is, right, in a way that Trump never could score.
01:07:10.780So it's always good for them putting on shows, but it also misleads them because they think that's the real world.
01:07:16.940And they think people actually listen to what those people say and follow their political directions.
01:07:48.060Tyson Proper, 19 year old Ohio man charged in connection with an alleged plot to attack the UFC event at the White House on Sunday, citing court documents.
01:07:55.920Investigators said the alleged plan involved explosive-laden drones near the arena and shooters who were then going to target people as they fled.
01:08:05.980There's some scuffle between the Secret Service and Kash Patel at the FBI.
01:08:10.320They're mad he, quote, jumped the gun on disclosing details of what had been a sealed and continuing investigation.
01:08:15.360But in any event, the FBI disrupted the alleged plot, thankfully.
01:08:19.320thankfully. And it says that it was a detailed plan that these guys had with these drones and so
01:08:25.800on. Let's see. The complaint was signed June 12th, two days before Trump hosted the event. So they
01:08:33.220were on to these people. They never actually got onto the White House South Lawn, but they report
01:08:39.240that a search of this guy proper's iPhone revealed encrypted group chats that laid out detailed plans
01:22:12.380People are extremely very proud of America is down, I think, a new low, 56% if you had those two categories up.
01:22:18.880And the Democrats' numbers are just in the toilet.
01:22:22.340You know, this kind of goes back to the Michelle Obama conversation.
01:22:25.000You should just be so filled with gratitude for being here in this country at this time and place.
01:22:33.080And if it takes Europeans coming over here and discovering free refills and that you can actually get ice in your soda to remind us of it, so be it.
01:22:53.220You go to the Waffle House, like whatever your heart desires, it's right there.
01:22:58.440And the all-you-can-eat buffets, it's like you could keep going.
01:23:02.260And honestly, for me, too, having spent the last 17 years in Manhattan, so many wonderful little shops, less thanks to de Blasio and now Mom Donnie.
01:23:12.520It's really, I can't blame Mom Donnie.
01:23:13.940It was really Bill de Blasio would try to ruin New York.
01:23:16.200But those mom-and-pop shops, those small delis, the bakeries, the small shops that the shopkeepers put up, whether they're bookstores or clothing stores, just so much charm, so much character.
01:23:28.880I love that stuff about our big cities as well.
01:23:30.960We don't have the European age in terms of the buildings and so on, and not all of our modern architecture is that beautiful.
01:23:39.880But, man, we have culture galore, and it's ours.
01:27:51.300And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations.
01:27:58.660I've set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
01:28:04.260When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.
01:28:11.020and the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds,
01:28:17.380I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature
01:28:21.260of all flesh that is on the earth. So this is obviously some Christian players deciding to0.94
01:28:28.820reframe what the rainbow that was forced upon them in those letters means to them,
01:28:35.680which seems perfectly reasonable they didn't get to decide whether they had their logo changed
01:28:42.800and here was the reaction from the worst person in america truly this guy is my least favorite
01:28:53.300politician or soon to be american um u.s congressman he's going to win nancy pelosi's
01:29:00.800old seat scott weiner the vile awful scott weiner here's his response oh sorry no it's written
01:29:11.120this is those are actually old those are actually old um quotes from him i'll find it but he is0.86
01:29:18.180angry where is this is this an am update you guys trying to find it um he's very pissed off
01:29:25.100that they've done this and he thinks the san francisco giants need to do something about this
01:29:29.340that they need to crack down somehow on these players.
01:29:32.540I'll find it, and until I do, Rich, your thoughts.
01:29:35.000Yeah, so he said something like, of all days, why couldn't they have done this on 364 other days
01:29:42.800rather than writing this Bible verse on this day, on Pride Night?
01:29:46.120Which gets totally wrong who the aggressor is here, right?
01:29:49.800These players are being made to wear a social and political symbol that they don't support,
01:29:56.860that counters to their Christian values. So it's a form of enforced speech, and this is their
01:30:03.300dissent from that enforced speech. So look, if you're San Francisco Giants, you're probably
01:30:09.080going to have a pride night. I wouldn't do it. I don't particularly like it. But changing the
01:30:14.780uniform and making that a symbol, NHL teams have done this as well, that's a step beyond. It's
01:30:20.700making these people assent to it. And at the end of the day, that's a big part of the point here.
01:30:26.400There's a council member out there who had a tweet thread on X where he was saying, if you're not okay with this and you're causing so much dissension on the team that you're writing your Bible verse or one of these guys just wore the traditional cap rather than wearing the rainbow cap, maybe you don't belong in the major leagues.
01:30:45.380Like, how crazy and despicable and authoritarian is that?
01:30:50.680These guys worked their whole lives, literally since they were kids, to get highly proficient at this sport that's extremely difficult to perform at the highest level.
01:31:00.000And they're not supposed to play for a major league team unless they're on board with rainbow symbols.
01:31:07.500And these guys, they are taking a career risk because two or three years ago, there's a Blue Jays pitcher who just liked an Instagram post.
01:31:16.220Remember, there was an anti-target boycott having to do with this sort of stuff.
01:31:22.160And he was literally cut from the team.
01:31:29.540He's criticizing the Giants and the several players who he claims defaced their Pride Night ball caps with a biblical passage that the biblical passages defaced the pride messaging.
01:31:46.960He goes on to say several players defaced their pride caps with a biblical passage that it has been hijacked by homophobes to take back the rainbow from LGBTQ people.
01:31:59.620I'm pretty sure he's got the order of events wrong.
01:32:04.020I just think the argument in general is disingenuous.
01:32:07.780The argument runs a little bit like this, that it's a private institution.
01:32:12.960They do have a federal exemption from antitrust law, but it's a private institution.
01:32:16.960and this is the uniform and if you play for the team then you wear the uniform okay sounds
01:32:24.320innocuous enough but the next step is well there's nothing wrong with adding the pride night
01:32:31.180paraphernalia to the uniform because it's a constitutional right okay well so is the second
01:32:39.380amendment but if a team put you know second amendment stuff on their uniform and then told
01:32:45.040everyone to wear it i think some people would would disagree they would dissent that's fine
01:32:51.100um and the same people who are now complaining would say that that was their free speech right
01:32:55.480that's why you don't do this right that's why you shouldn't accept in extreme circumstances
01:33:01.680something that genuinely ought to be completely unifying and uncontroversial like you know
01:33:07.140america 250 or july 4th patch or something that's why you just shouldn't do this as institutions
01:33:14.660And as Rich says, there is a big difference between hosting a theme night, whether that's pride night or not, and changing the uniform.
01:33:20.860It's the uniform part of this that makes this a bit ugly.
01:33:24.360And then Major League Baseball saying that there'll be consequences for further altering the uniform.0.97
01:33:30.740I think that, and I say this as somebody who's pretty pro-gay and has always been in favor of gay marriage,
01:33:35.520although I thought the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell was a disaster and is wrong.
01:33:39.640but i'm not somebody who is is hostile uh toward gay people but i think some of the skepticism
01:33:46.820you're seeing not just toward pride month but toward gay marriage that has popped up in the
01:33:52.320last five years a reversal of approval of such things is the product of exactly this sort of
01:33:59.000conduct because the winning argument was why do you care you do your thing we'll do our thing
01:34:05.240let's leave each other alone that prevailed that was quite popular and now there's a lot of coercion
01:34:12.480and you get representatives saying that this is a disgrace and you get people calling for
01:34:17.880major league baseball to kick these people out and i think people hate it and i think they should
01:34:21.700yeah you will celebrate my thing right that's that's the new messaging you you must uh okay
01:34:28.400got to get this in before we leave. Emily Ratajkowski. She's a model. She's an actress
01:34:35.060too. She was in Gone Girl. She has 28 million Instagram followers. And she's out now with0.94
01:34:44.060this new magazine piece in New York Magazine's The Cut. And it's entitled Mother Effer.
01:34:53.680After becoming a single mom, I began compulsively dating in order to figure out what kind of woman I wanted to be.0.63
01:35:01.120The cover of the piece shows her topless.1.00
01:35:04.220She's got a top on, but it's open and her breasts are hanging out.
01:35:06.680And it looks like a real baby, but we're told it's actually a doll who she has posed as though he's breastfeeding off of one of her breasts.0.70
01:35:14.820And the whole piece is about how after she gave birth to her son, six months later, she and her husband stopped having sex and she became the thing she never wanted to be, which was a single mother.
01:35:32.720And she writes about this process in the most vile and crude terms.
01:35:39.720I mean, honestly, like, I don't even know if I can read her description of having her son.1.00
01:35:43.960And she makes it so disgusting and awful.0.57
01:36:12.140she's now become a slut, really, is that that's what she's decided to do to as a soothing balm,0.98
01:36:20.680I guess, and talks about how she never had had a one night stand prior to her separation. But now0.99
01:36:25.860she wants to be a whore. I decided to F my way into a new kind of woman. I wanted to destroy1.00
01:36:33.360the Madonna, the special girl I'd worked so hard to be before an eight pound baby had torn my1.00
01:36:37.960vagina in two and replace her with the whore. And she's celebrating how now she goes to bed1.00
01:36:45.000with anyone, but she does make it home in time for her son to wake up at 6 a.m. no matter how
01:36:51.740many martinis she's had and how many men she's had. And I guess, Rich, we're supposed to celebrate
01:36:59.200this as an example of female empowerment. And by the way, it's from the same woman who wrote a
01:37:06.080whole thing about how she hates, hates being sexually objectified by men, contrary to the
01:37:13.680photos you're seeing on your screen, which you would be forgiven for misunderstanding as a1.00
01:37:17.680desperate request to be objectified. Yeah, this is clearly a luxury lifestyle. I don't think this
01:37:24.160is a reaction of most people to becoming single moms as having this extraordinary run of
01:37:29.500promiscuity as she describes it. Also, most people don't have available to them just being able to go0.78
01:37:33.940out to bars and sleep around and someone else, some unnamed person is watching their children.
01:37:40.260It's also kind of laughable when she says that what these guys find attractive about her is
01:37:46.120actually her motherhood, it turns out. I'm not sure that's what they're really attracted to here.
01:37:51.680So this is bizarre and unworthy. And let's hope she has enough wisdom 10 years from now,
01:38:00.340whatever it is to look back at this piece and and her behavior and be ashamed let's hope her
01:38:05.480can i say charlie shame on the cut for running this it's like the young girls who don't have
01:38:09.940emily emily's followers on instagram or her money or her name sadly some faction of them may be0.97
01:38:17.160inspired by this like oh yeah she seems much happier now in her own words becoming a whore0.86
01:38:22.140maybe i should try it well i agree with you i'm not sure you can put shame on the cut the cut is0.97
01:38:28.780a source of the most crazy and silly stories of the last five years. Do you remember that story
01:38:34.940in the cut about the lady who put $50,000 in a shoebox because she got some scam text message?
01:38:41.720That was a great one. You and I discussed that. Yeah, but she was like a finance writer. She was
01:38:47.840like a financial advice writer. So the cut really does find these stories and puts them out there.
01:38:54.820So I sort of expect it from them. The bad behavior is more from her. And I really don't know much more to say than that, Megan. I think we all instinctively agree it's gross.
01:39:09.360um yeah i'm just looking at their headlines right now the obamas still believe in hope and change
01:39:16.920um let's see how does calista gingrich's hair do that i mean that's a legitimate question0.99
01:39:23.880my first orgasm cost ten thousand dollars that's why she wrote a book to convince you his wife
01:39:31.980doesn't hate him that's basically what you're going to get over there what do you say charlie0.84
01:39:35.420They said if it's $10,000 in orgasm, she put $50,000 in a shoebox.
01:39:39.520Maybe that piece now makes more sense.
01:39:42.720Do you see the picture of Callista and Trump?
01:39:44.220I'm not even sure you get to 10 grand.
01:39:45.840Do you see the picture of Callista and Trump the other day
01:39:47.700with their hair looking exactly the same?
01:40:25.360I don't I feel like Michelle Obama thinks we're obsessed with her braids and we're not.
01:40:29.700and Calista Gingrich doesn't think we care about her hair and we do, you know, like it's actually
01:40:35.420something to be respected, honestly. Well, I'm worried about this kind of messaging because I
01:40:39.740feel like with the reboot of Sex and the City, which was terrible messaging for an entire0.98
01:40:44.460generation and just this new class of, I don't know, modern day feminists who want to kind of1.00
01:40:50.220dump on the right that says, hey, consider being a mom, consider getting married, consider that as1.00
01:40:55.140a viable option for you at a young age, by the way, before you develop infertility problems and so on.0.99
01:40:59.700You got the people on the other side saying or or just become a whore or talk about the birth of your child like it was human torture.0.95
01:41:07.160And that's the only thing you remember.1.00
01:41:08.600And then tout the martinis, the sneaking into your home at six and or not only that, but she points out that the man she was dating says she looks like Cleopatra when she gives a blowjob.0.96
01:41:18.720So I'm sure there are a lot of options, as you point out, men who would like to understand that firsthand.0.97