Episode 860: Deal or No Deal?

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Are we near a deal?

For ground troops in Iran, and as Trump is them dead, we'll discuss all this more.

On this edition of the editors, I'm Rich Lowry, and I'm joined as always by the right

Honorable Charles C.W. Cook, the grill master, Phil Klein, and the notorious M.B.D.

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I said anything.

So M.B.D., we've got the Iran War and this classic kind of ambivalent state where Trump

has everyone guessing.

We have a five-point peace plan that we've offered to the Iranians, and also ground troops

are streaming towards Iran as we speak.

I guess we'll arrive sometime next week.

So this deal, if they're reporting about it, is accurate.

It seems very unlikely to be accepted by the Iranians.

It would be not unconditional surrender, but it would be a form of surrender, most importantly,

giving up their enriched uranium and limiting their missile forces and stopping their support

for proxies and exchange for an end to sanctions.

Very unlikely they're going to accept that.

And then we'll see what happens next.

Trump may know that they're unlikely to accept it, and this may be a way to string things

long or to show people that he's the one being reasonable.

And regard to the ground troops, there's a lot of speculation they could be headed to

Karag Island.

And Island, you mentioned a couple episodes ago, major transit point for Iranian oil.

So the theory there is that you choke off oil revenue to Iran, and then you get them

to loosen their grip on the straight-of-formos.

They also could be headed for various islands related to freeing up the straight islands

that the Iranians could use to launch fastboats and the like to really contest the straight

militarily.

If it comes to that, I would just say, I think most of us would have been shocked.

Maybe you wouldn't have been, because you think everything's going to go sideways.

That's your reflex.

But I think most of us would have been shocked that there's a possibility it will take

ground troops to extricate the U.S. from this in a way that seems reasonable.

In other words, freeing up the straight prior to any cessation of hostilities or any piece

deal.

But what do you make of it?

Yeah.

I mean, it's, you know, used the word ambiguous to leave this off, and, you know, I've

tried since the start of this war to withhold, you know, sweeping judgment about what the

state of things is, when I can't know that, I can't know in a deep way the condition

of the Iranian regime and how firm it is, what further blows it can take before it rattles,

or if it might fall, like the Libyan regime did under, you know, combined air assault and

popular pressure of some kind.

So I'd, and I still feel that way.

However, you know, I have to confess, it's a sinking feeling watching the headlines

week to week where it appears to me as an observer that Donald Trump is literally ramping

up the rhetoric as soon as the market's closed on Friday and then ramping it down Monday

in the morning before the market opens.

And you know, it seems like he wants to get out.

He keeps declaring forms of victory, like we've completely destroyed them.

We've done this.

We've done that.

There's regime change.

So we've killed him.

There is a regime change, you know, you know, he, he, you know, we should be done soon,

you know, a couple of weeks wrapping it up and yet we're sending round troops, you know,

for what purpose it's hard to know.

And I think it is, I think the effect is bewildering on those who aren't fully committed

to this policy already for whatever reason.

And I think it's being reflected in the polls.

Yesterday, there are really ugly polls about independence and Hispanics, you know, and

they're declining support for Trump and the Republican Party.

You know, we're seeing splits, you know, reports of obvious generational split or revealing

itself at CPAC over this issue.

You know, I think it's just, I think it's as bad news politically.

I don't think the American people have been told what to expect, what kind of conditions

will be counted as victory and how to assess them.

And yeah, it's like this, this thing is kind of just happening.

And at the same time though, you have to say, you know, when you look at the price of

Brent crude, it's not even up to its 2022 highs, it got up to like $139 in 2022 at the

kind of the height of the Biden inflation.

Yeah.

And if you, if you, if you just for, for current dollars, also there, there are many episodes

throughout history that we don't even think about anymore where it was, was higher.

Right.

Which is shocking, like as well, because every other time, you know, you've, it's been

put to the, you know, the quants in the hedge funds who study oil prices, what would happen

if there is a blockage of the straight of our moves, they basically predict, you know,

the opening of the seventh seal in the book of Revelation, you know, it's, it's pure

armageddon.

And weren't, but that we're not there yet.

And anyway, honest analysts has to confront that that like in a sense, like the market verdict

on this is either positive or like sanguine, you know, you know, one person said, you

know, that it seemed like the market analyst was, analysis was that US policy was so crazy

it can't continue, therefore nothing bad is happening.

I don't know if that's true, but, you know, again, I just want to say I, as, as much as

I instinctively opposed this action, it's, it is difficult to impossible to declare it,

you know, a disaster already.

I think it's politically dearle of deleterious.

I think involving ground troops has real risks, whether they're along, they're trying

to free up the straight along the mountainous coasts or whether they're on car to island.

I just don't see, could we do on car to island for a second.

And again, I don't know anything about car, car, car, island, it's one of these things

that pops up and everyone has expert opinions about it.

But even if you, you're hermetically sealing off the ability of Ron to get any oil out,

which you wouldn't just by taking car, no doubt it would hurt them, but there are other

ways of getting stuff across and, and the ultimate fail safe is, is just, you know, driving

trucks across the border into a rock or whatever it is.

But even if you can hermetically seal off this source of revenue, why would that, would

the Iranian regime, which is demonstrated so far, an amazing ability to absorb punishment?

Would that change their attitude instantly or, or cause them to collapse instantly?

I think it, you know, it hurts.

And if you did that for six months, could they cry uncle or could the regime fall?

Yeah.

But I don't know why just having it is, is going to instantly change the facts on the

ground.

I mean, people have to, like we're dealing with the regime that survived the Iran or

Accor, you know, like, which put a ton of pressure on it and was really nasty and drawn out,

you know, this, I don't know that this is, this regime is that weak or weak and again,

it's hard to know because we've killed a lot of, you know, we've killed a lot of regime

leaders and don't know, you know, what, what resources they have to command, but it seems

like they don't have to do much to keep the straight closed.

It seems like that really is a choke point over which they can, they can just say like,

well, you know, we have some shahedrons in reserve.

So you don't, and if we're threatening to fire them, you don't want to come through.

And, you know, those choke points are, you know, they're a huge feature of history and

why battles turn out the way they do, you know, and why geography just isn't something

you can solve for with technology.

So yeah, I'm, I have a lot of trepidation about this, this policy and about the ability

of Trump to just walk out of it and looking like a winner.

And I think he, he won't want to walk out of it unless he looks like a winner.

So, so Phil, feel free to react to anything MBD said, I know you might have a different

take on a number of things that he said there, but let me throw it to you with, with this

observation.

We've had a lot of arguments about how Israel forced Trump into this, Trump is de facto

kind of controlled by Israel, but another data point that puts the light of that is when,

earlier in the week, Trump started talking about a, a piece deal and, you know, it, it

does seem as though their intermediaries kind of working towards some sort of talks.

Israel changed its targeting, stopped going after the regime, targets to weaken the regime

and just started going after the weapon systems, again, in a big way, obviously kind of panic,

this, this could end a little sooner than we had expected and we better get to these targets

before Trump declares the whole thing over showing clearly they do not control Trump.

Because they did control him, they would just say, well, wait, wait another month or weeks

or whatever it is and we'll keep working the regime targets and we'll keep going as things

are scheduled, but clearly they don't entirely know what he's up to and he's not controlable

by them.

Yeah, and I mean, I think one of the many dishonest things that people pushing the idea that

Trump had no choice, BB forced him into this war. One of the dishonest things that they do is they

conflate the reality that Netanyahu is wanted to go after Iran for a very long time with the idea

that he has some sort of control over Trump. So there's no secret that the war in Iran is

overwhelmingly popular in Israel. Iran is more of a direct existential threat to Israel and that

BB has been arguing consistently to go to war with Israel. Those things are all true, but what

is happening is people are saying they're pointing to statements that BB is made over the years

advocating war against Iran and saying, aha, this shows that Israel forced Trump to go into it.

There's a distinction between saying that and acting as if there's some form of sorcery,

some secret Jewish sorcery that Netanyahu has that forces Trump's hand.

And I mean, Trump has staked one thing that, you know, for better or for worse, if you're a critic

or you love Trump, one thing that's consistent about Trump is that he's going to do what he wants and

what he thinks is in his interest and he's not going to sacrifice things politically. If it's not

something he wants, the idea that he take what's probably the biggest political risk of either of

his presidential terms, that he'd do this and he'd commit all of the US military might into

this situation just because he felt that he couldn't oppose BB. I mean, we're not talking about

well, he let BB extend the Gaza war when he wanted it to be wrapped up or BB wouldn't agree to

some element of the Gaza peace plan or something like that. We're not talking about something like

that. We're talking about committing the might of the US and taking this tremendous risk. It was

legacy really for something. So I think that, you know, people, you know, if you don't like this war,

then take it, you know, the problem is with Trump. He could have said no to BB at any point.

As he did last time when BB wanted to continue hitting Iran and Trump said no, it's time to wrap it

up. So in terms of the other broader points, I, the one area where I'd agree with MBD is that we

should all, no matter what side you're on, have a bit of a humility in trying to assess these things

in real time because right now we've had, we have two simultaneous narratives, credibly reported

by major news organizations, one in which Trump is is looking for a way out and he wants to wrap

this up. And Israel, like you said, is changing its targets to try to hit as much of the defense

industrial base of Iran as it can before this wraps up. And this, this narrative is developing

simultaneously with the narrative that we could be sending ground troops and, and Trump's gathering

more ground troops to go in for a major ground offensive. That's not normally consistent with

something where you're going to wrap it up quickly. So I, on top of it, there's just ex

and other social media channels have been completely unreliable. And people who have

invested interest in one narrative or another could find anything to, I mean, you could find

information claiming that there's major defections within the IRGC, the, the various elements of

the regime and Iran are at each other's throats and on the brink of collapse, you could find the idea

that, on the other hand, all of American bases in the region have been destroyed, Tel Aviv

is in flames, which we know not to be true. So there is just a lot of, and some less sort of

conspiratorial and more straightforward leaks based on administration of offices, not everyone

even within the Israeli government. And within the American government, 100% agrees on everything.

And so different people are leaking stuff to the media to support their various ideas.

So I think that all of us should be relatively careful about projecting, well, we've won

or this is a complete disaster. But I think some of the coverage that makes it out is if it's a

fate, it's, it's already determined that the war is a complete disaster and catastrophe.

When, you know, right now, if it ended today, Iran would have very little navy left. They'd have

very few rocket launchers left. Their defense and industrial base has been broadly weakened. They've

lost several layers of their leadership. The entire Arab world, which it had, there had been

some thawing in relations between the Arab world and Iran. There was even an agreement

in diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabian Iran that had been established. And that's all off

the table in these countries. Iranian diplomats have been declared persona non grata. Even in Lebanon,

Lebanon's turned, the Lebanese government has turned against Esbla and said that Iranian

diplomats are persona non grata. So it's hard to see these interpretations that Iran just by,

it seems when you're saying like Iran's just by surviving winds, you're, you're creating such an

unrealistic bar that you're basically trying to say that whatever happens America loses,

which is to me, it's ridiculous. The country that alienates all of the other countries in their

region and manages to have most of their military completely degraded substantially has very limited

ability to launch successful attacks. I mean, we're two wars into it now combined over a month

of fighting. Iran has thrown hundreds over a thousand missiles at Israel. It hasn't destroyed

anything in Israel of strategic importance where Israel and the United States have, you know,

have had very direct targeted hits at military facilities of immense importance to Iran.

And so I look, the true story of this war whenever it ends is going to be told over the years

and possibly decades. The Berlin Wall didn't fall the day that Reagan said tear down this wall.

And the Soviet Union didn't collapse right after immediately after the Berlin Wall fell.

So we could be in a situation in which the war ends and the Iranian regime is still intact,

but it's incredibly weakened. And over time, it does collapse on itself. So again, this could,

this could end in so many different ways. And we might not even know the answer once we declare

our operation is over. So we should all have a certain sense of humility. But at the same time,

we should recognize that there have been a lot of achievements by the US and Israel.

So Charlie, even if demonstrated admirable humility about this war, even agnostic listeners are

on tender hooks, though, waiting to hear what you say next, whether it provides any signs of

growing hawkishness or growing dovishness or optimism or pessimism. Our listeners are like the

rest of the world trying to read Donald Trump's tea leaves trying to read yours, Charlie.

I really do. Thank you, Rich, for describing my ignorance as humility. That's kind of you.

I've become more hawkish in one sense. The

revelation that Iran was in possession of weapons with a range that violated their agreements,

I think, does matter. If the case against the war in Iraq was that the Iraqis did not have the

materials we said they did, then it should matter that our case against Iran, the argument that we

have made, the characterizations we have offered up are true. The other, and I admit this is anecdotal,

the other thing that has made me slightly more hawkish on this is speaking to veterans.

I would say over the last month or so I've spoken to 20, 25 veterans. I haven't sought them out,

but I live in an area with a good number of veterans, and I've spoken at various events, and you

meet people afterwards, and there's a disproportionate number of veterans in the audience, and a good

number of those veterans served in Iraq or and Afghanistan, and every single one of them is pumped.

Now, I'm not suggesting that all veterans believe this, or that veterans have to believe this,

and I agree that the sort of people who live in North Florida or who come to events at which I'm

speaking are probably right of center. There is a selection bias here, but what has been

interesting about it is not that they are in favor of the war, but why? Every single one of them

is said to me, Iran killed my friends. Iran was the problem in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I want

to hit them back. In fact, I met one guy who's in the Air Force Reserve, he said he does one week

out of every two months in the Air Force Reserve, and he flies B-52s, a crew of five, on a B-52, and

he said that he had begged to be sent over there. He didn't get sent, but he wanted having thought

in Iraq and Afghanistan to go and take out that regime, because he said that they had fought with

their hands behind their back. And I think that that substantiates the why. I remain skeptical

about the how, and I ascribe a lot of blame for that to the president, who simply hasn't made a

coherent case and does not, in my view, have a coherent plan. We assume all agree that however strong

the case may be for this action. There is a chance that Trump will simply cut and run because of

the bond market, or the stock market, or oil prices, right? And I think that's a huge problem,

because it means that those of us who are humble, rich, who wake up in the morning, not really knowing

what's going to happen, who don't have grand theories here, who don't have a high level of knowledge

of the sort you would hear from say now. Think every day is the war going to end? That's a really

weird feeling, historically. Nobody in the big and small wars in the last century woke up in the

morning wondering if the war is going to end. Politically speaking, structurally speaking,

this is more like tariffs. Well, you kind of wonder if 405 on Friday evening, the president's

going to say, all right, that's it. We've won. We're done. So I have many problems with the how

that have persisted, but I am more hawkish on the why because I think that there is no doubt that

from top to bottom, the regime is, as it's been described. So I would say, before we get to the

ex-question, which I'll throw to you first, MBD, that one of the advantages I thought of of this

war at the outset was that Trump could kind of turn it off when he wanted to. So you'd do

great a bunch of stuff, flatten a bunch of stuff, and then he stopped. But there were two problems,

though. One, regime change has sort of kind of been a goal, and you should never enunciate a goal

that you're not sure you can actually achieve. That seems like a very bread practice, and then you

have the straight. And it would be one thing if I've had this argument with Noah going back and forth

about, you know, is it closed? How is it closed? How much does that matter? One problem with the

straight, not being formally blockaded, or mind, or anything like that, is that'd be very bad for

Iran, too. If there's just formally closed, and that's it, you'd have to say, well, the Iranians

is unstandard for the Iranians. Eventually, they'll have to loosen their grip. But it's not totally

closed. They're just tolling through what they want to toll through, and not letting through what

they don't want to let through. So they control the straight. And it just, I don't know, see how we

end with that remaining in place. That's a huge enhancement of Iranian power if we let that

stand. And then the potential downside is, I hope is not true. I don't know. But what if it's

like really hard and or impossible on any reasonable timeframe to reopen the straight? That's when

this whole intervention begins to look much, much worse. But exit question to you, NBD, there was

a headline the other day, an opinion piece in Foreign Policy Magazine that got a lot of attention.

Why US victory in Iran would be bad for Washington and the world. The possibility of Trump imposing

his personal whims on another nation is even more frightening than we were earlier. And then

some line came up with a satirical version of this headline. Why SPQR victory in Gaul would be bad

for Rome and the world. The possibility of Caesar imposing his personal whims on another nation

is even more frightening than Roman failure. We might come back to Caesar actually, our third topic

this episode. But what would your version of such a headline? I came up with two. I'm not sure if I

annealed the assignment, the nature of the headline, but try these two. Stop calling it an

invasion. Engle Saxons built an opportunity society. Undocumented Normans are just seeking

opportunity here. We all fell down as anti-racists. Who's communicating it to who? The case for calling

it the white death. White death. I have Hitler defeated Jews hardest hit.

The New York Times formulation. Charlie. Well, you know, I actually, I ran this through AI because I

wanted to see if it were capable of doing it because it can't do the sort of thing it can't make

jokes, but it's actually a little bit scary. This is what it wrote, Richard. Artificial intelligence

will never rival human thought. So it took the assignment and then put out a grievance.

Like there's joke. I love that. Or it can't be that. No, it's saying that's the wrong headline,

right? That's a stupid thing to say. That's the false prediction. That's brilliant. So that's

what it thinks is the wrong prediction. It's having a go at human beings. Well, it's not, of course,

a fake headline, but the Beatles were told that groups with guitars were on the way out and they

would never make it in the British charts. You can just bring anything back to the Beatles and

MBD can bring anything back to an immigration restriction point going back to the Normans,

apparently. My headline would be, why Frederick the Wise's protection of Martin Luther is very bad

for the dissenting cleric. It'd be much better for the reformation for the cause of

individual conscience and for the priest himself if you were burned at the stake. So with that,

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So Charlie, we had a verdict in this social media case where it was alleged that social media

companies were responsible for the mental and psychological distress of a young woman who started

using these social media platforms at age six and lo and behold, they have been found liable,

not not a massive settlement, not not even a rounding era for Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk,

but notable all the same because this would be the stands. This would be a roadmap for basically

every parent of a child that has some distress or alleged distress to sue social media companies

off of it about it. I hate this. Yes, I am somewhat libertarian when it comes to the internet.

Yes, I dislike rules that in my view, route the complaint to the wrong entity. I think speakers should

be punished for speaking, not those who convey or facilitate the speech, but I dislike this structurally

more than anything else. There is no law that was invoked here. This case was not brought under

a statute. This law does not exist. And in fact, this case had to get around two laws,

one, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and two, the First Amendment.

The plaintiffs, in the case, did so by proposing that this is not a restriction on or response

to speech, but is a restriction on or response to the engines that matter in Facebook and Google

and YouTube use to feature or offer up speech. I think that's weak. I think that Section 230

should have applied here. I think Section 230 was designed to prevent exactly this sort of litigation.

The reason that we have Section 230 is that in the 1990s when the internet was opened up to

commercialization, the federal government decided that it wished to hold speakers liable if

they slandered or liable someone, civilly, or if they violated the law, criminally, which is rare,

but does happen under Brandeburg. But they didn't want Tom Dick and Harry to file lawsuits against

internet service providers, hosting providers, the owners of websites with comments. And yes,

although they couldn't have imagined it, social media sites. I think Section 230 should have applied

here. That it did not, as you say, potentially opens up the floodgates. And I have a problem with that

because if the floodgates are to be opened up, it should be at the behest of Congress,

or if preemption doesn't apply, and the First Amendment doesn't supersede it, the states.

We should determine the role that social media companies play within our polity legislatively,

not via the courts. The courts would of course be involved subsequent to any legislation being passed.

But this is an end run around the system. And it reminds me of the habit that began in the late

90s and was foreclosed in 2005 by Congress of anti-gun activists, taking gun manufacturers and

gun sellers to court if people misused firearms that had been bought legally. Why did they do that?

They did that because they couldn't get the restrictions that they wanted passed into law,

either at the state or federal level. At the time, Congress was resistant to new gun control measures.

And so the activists, with very good lawyers, often try to use common law concepts,

dangerousness, recklessness, and so forth, to get judicially what they could not get legislatively.

Congress, quite rightly and on a bipartisan basis, said, no, you're not doing that. That law

incidentally, although it applied to guns, was widely supported by manufacturers of all kinds,

who reasoned fairly enough that there is a big difference between being hurt because a

product you've bought is faulty and being hurt because you or someone else misused a product you

bought that is dangerous, but does what it was supposed to do. I think the same rule to apply here.

Congress ought to respond to this, and I know that it won't, because it doesn't do anything,

but Congress ought to respond to this by reiterating or changing if it wishes what it means.

It ought to say, yes or no, social media sites have or don't have this or that protection.

This is not for a single jury to decide absent the strictures of our constitutional order.

So I dislike this. The one saving grace here, I think, is that, and we saw this again this week,

in a case which was decided 9-0, I think per Curiam at the court between Sony and Cox,

which is an internet service provider. The Supreme Court has a habit of looking unfavorably

upon cases that punish the providers or conduits of information purely because they are misused.

Even if they knew ahead of time that the provider or conduit could plausibly be misused.

So I would be surprised if this ruling stood, but ultimately we're going to need a 2005 style

law that refines what is at stake, because although I think the principles of section 230 apply to

social media, social media is different in some ways, and Congress ought to clarify in what ways it

is affected. So it feels pretty good principle with regard to the rule of law that if you can be

held liable for something, you should know in advance that you're breaking the law. It shouldn't

be ambiguous or something that sprung on you, and that does not. That rule has been violated here.

Yeah, and I think that this has been likened to the suits against big tobacco in the 1990s,

in which nicotine was found to be addictive, and the idea was that tobacco companies covered

it up in sort of spiking cigarettes with nicotine. That famous whistlebrower described cigarettes as

a nicotine delivery device. But in that case, which I was skeptical of, and still

skeptical of the argument in that case, you can point to something where there is a physical

chemical addiction associated with nicotine. So even though it's kind of spurious and there are

questions about how much the dangers of nicotine and how much nicotine was used, and was it fully

disclosed so that individuals were operating under all the information when they made decisions

about whether it's a smoke or not. However, in this case, it seems like it's much more of a stretch.

I mean, there are all sorts of behaviors and aspects of human society where things are

potentially addictive. I would say that video games are addictive and have, you know, in

access, used in access, have deleterious effects towards individuals and young kids growing up,

if it, you know, if they're literally just doing nothing but playing video games instead of

going outside and playing with friends and interacting with real humans, that also has various

effects. It's, of course, a matter of balance. So it seems to me it's a bit of a leap, and

in addition to all the points which Charlie made that I agree with that, ultimately,

there are arguments to be had about the, do we remedy the effects of social media by, say,

capping, as some states have, or have looked into capping social media use at 16 and saying nobody

under 16 could have a social media account. As far as I'm concerned, that wouldn't violate

anyone's first amendment rights. And so it's probably more paternalistic and sort of gets my

libertarian side of me kind of tingling a bit, and it sort of upsets that, the idea of

government inserting itself in a kind of parental role when I think that ultimately it's up to

parents to both monitor access to social media and to teach their children about the dangers of

social media. But it's certainly valid for legislatures to have that debate if they determine that

this is something they want to do and make certain roles trying to address that. But for a jury

in California to de facto end up setting social media policy if this were to hold for the whole

country is just the wrong way to go about. And I'm kind of skeptical of the whole legal theory

surrounding this. So MBD, there are a few more fiercer scourges than you. Social media, what do you

make of this case? It's interesting. You know, with, you know, can you accuse social media of being

addictive in the same way nicotine is? I don't know. I mean, obviously, I think that you, I

don't know. I think it's possible though when you can uncover documents showing the social media

companies having studied the chemical effects of certain software design choices on users.

You know, that this does have a huge dopamine effect in the brain.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, we've gone, our law system used to criminalize these sorts of

things. Like I think a kind of an example of as many states used to have laws against like

seduction, right? Like you're not allowed to fool someone against their own interests. Now we

hold that, you know, you know, all adults are like fully in possession of their faculties such

that like seduction isn't considered a crime anymore. But this kind of is in that line of sort of

saying like you've created a situation which in some way, it degrades or impunes the will of

the user itself in a way that it manages you. You know, it's different from say like

accusing a casino of misrepresenting the odds and a game. Although I think they do in effect

in their advertisements. But yeah, I don't know. I think the social media

issues should be handled by legislators. And I think that there's just, I think there's likely

simple age restrictions. You know, are kind of the standard proven American way of dealing with

this. Whereas with adults, we have to let people be responsible for their own use.

You know, I don't see the harms of social media rising to the level of like drunk driving or

anything like that where you have, you know, regulations on adults where you actually monitor how

much they've used in determining whether a crime was committed. Yeah, I just, I'm a little bit

nervous about these torts that they're kind of spacious or they're reviving a legal doctrine

that we left for good reason. Next question you'd surely cook. There was a viral report on the

Jesse Waters show from the beaches of Florida. I don't know, maybe somewhere not too far from you

where spring breakers were asked very basic questions about contemporary affairs and had no idea

what was going on. So question is what disturbs you more? The ignorance of such spring breakers

or the evident contempt that Jimmy Kimmel has for plumbers shown and a couple of jibes against

Mark Wayne Mullin who made his fortune with plumbing businesses grew a family plumbing business

into a plumbing empire in Oklahoma, which, which bothers you more. Looking down on plumbers.

I wrote a piece yesterday defending those beach gears for a number of reasons. One, I don't think

it's obvious that they are more ignorant than your average young political activist.

That's because someone is indignant, doesn't mean that there was. Two, I think that

they looked pretty happy and happiness is important, especially when you're 19 or 20,

there's plenty of time to get involved in politics because you have to. Three, the

beach girls are living in a free country and a free time, which is the ideal. I don't know why we

would look at somebody who says that the main decision that she has to make in the morning is

which bikini to wear and say, oh no, that's the point of politics is to allow for that.

I'm not celebrating ignorance, but could you imagine telling someone in the Depression or World

War II that's a problem? So I have really very little time for going after 19-year-olds

who aren't making political statements for not knowing about politics. If you start making

political statements and you know nothing about politics, well of course I'm going to come down

on you like a ton of bricks, but they weren't, they were on a beach. But culturally that's a small

matter. What is absolutely toxic culturally is the snobbery you're seeing on display against

Mark Wayne Mullin. Now I'm not a fan of Mark Wayne Mullin politically necessarily, but to claim

that there is something less impressive about building a successful business than going to college

is terrible. That is the fast track to a two-tier society in which credentials are the key to

acceptance. And I reject it. I think there are so many different ways of proving yourself to be

a full and worthwhile member of society, being a state-of-mother, working for a charity, serving in

the military, forming or working in a business. And yes, academia, there's nothing wrong with it.

I went through it. But I hate this. You know I hate this. I've written piece after piece

about this and I think Kim will should be utterly ashamed of himself for contributing to it.

Go on. Yeah, I would say definitely Kimmel. I mean, there are a lot of reasons for Kimmel to be

embarrassed. He's sort of perpetually saying things that should bink him embarrassed. But

yeah, I mean, the thing is about the spring break video is I feel like there are plenty of

reasons to worry that younger generations aren't being educated properly by our system and are

ignorant about many things of importance about American America and the world. However, I don't

think that that's the most the best example. I think back to the 50s and 60s, those movies like

Gidget and Beach Blanket Bingo with a net funichello and Frankie Avalon. And I think if you

went to beaches like that in the 60s and started asking them about Nikita Khrushchev,

you'd probably have similar responses to the spring break video. So I don't know that

that video says much. And in a large enough country's ours, it's probably healthy for some people

to not necessarily feel they have to worry about world affairs. Most of us who are on the show

or work in this field are more the weirdos. I mean, I was watching political conventions

at 10 years old. Is that normal? Is that normal thing to be? Is that what we should want people

to strive for? But I mean, I just find it in general the contempt for people like plumbers to

be bizarre. I mean, first of all, plumbing isn't tremendously lucrative position. And much more,

I would say, talking about AI, I feel like it's much more immune to AI than a lot of other professions.

And there's a lot of, you know, complicating elements with doing plumbing work. And even more so

with at 20 years old, you think of what you were doing at 20 years old. The idea that your father

dies, you have to take over this plumbing company and you turn it into a huge company. I mean,

there are so many issues with plumbing liability issues trying to have reliable staffers

that do a good job maintaining, you know, running staffs. I mean, there's just so much involved

with running a major plumbing business that it's more impressive to me than anything that Jimmy

Kimmel does in terms of just you're repeating bad jokes written by a team of writers.

So I don't know, I'm more impressed when like, you know, a plumber, you know, figures out how to

like, repipe everything. Then I am by anything that Jimmy Kimmel does. Yeah, MBD, the Kimmel attitude,

of course, goes to just people who make a living in various manipulating words in various forms,

think that that's the highest kind of labor and have a little regard for people who have other

forms of intelligence and acumen. Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm going to try to surpass both Charlie

and Phil. I mean, I am a huge fan of plumbers. One of his friends, JB, is a plumber,

shout out to JB who probably is listening. And, you know, civic engineering around sewer systems

and plumbers are the reason your relatives aren't dying of shilagasis, dysentery, color,

type of civilization without it. Typhoid fever, hepatitis A, or in tropical

finance malaria. I'm sorry, but like, we should get rid of president's day and have like civil

engineering day and plumbers day, because like, I'm serious, because these people do more to preserve

civilization than the politicians do. I mean, like, honestly, like, civil engineers make cities of

tens of millions of people habitable by humans. Like, without them, like, without their expertise,

cities of that size would be death traps. And like, in possible civilization would be impossible.

So just, yeah, you are crazy to look down on this. Like, this is, this is like the number one

thing you would miss if it were gone. Like, you know, people think like, what would I do without

my phone? What would you do without modern plumbing and sewage? Like, you would die in a week,

probably, because you're pathetic like the rest of us. Like, you're a word cell. You're not a

shabro teacher. Army is prior to the modern era. They all died of dysentery, because there was

no plumbing, right? That beyond campaign, it wouldn't be combat. That was the main thread. It was

disease. So I can't talk what you guys have said. I agree with with all of it. I'm with Phil. I was

a weirdo. There's a picture I have of me somewhere here on the beach when I was in college,

reading a copy of the American spectator. So that's not what we should expect of most college

aged beachgoers. And I just had one thing on plumbers. It requires a real education. It's just not

a college education sitting in a classroom. There might be some classroom work, but it's an

apprenticeship where you go and actually do it. And it helped make something happen or solve a

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Thanks so much, Charlie. So, MBD, I want to discuss this final segment, a couple notable articles

one by our friend, Chris Caldwell, brilliant guy, wonderful guy, just a lovely guy. So great to be

around. He wrote a piece on the end of Trumpism for the spectator. And then John Judas, I don't know

him as well, but I've had pleasant interactions with him over the years. Senator left very thoughtful

as well. So, let's start with Caldwell's piece, which I just do not find convincing. He says the

the Iran War is just so repellent to Trump's base. And everything Trump has stood for and said

that it represents the end of Trumpism. I just don't don't think that's true. You see it in the

polling, you know, 80% mega Republicans or 90% of mega Republicans favor this action because Trump

is at the end of the day, Trumpism. And Caldwell also says that Trump, the Trump phenomenon was a

small, de-democratic phenomenon aimed at the deep state. And their risks involved in this

kind of approach to politics, because you need someone of good character and you need someone

who has respect for rules and the constitutional system. If you don't want this to go off the rails

and this war just demonstrates that Trump doesn't have either of those things, or at least the

character is very limited. But I think if these are your problems with Trump, these were evident

all along. It's not as though all of a sudden it's come to the surface in the Iran war. And I think

for a lot of supporters that he didn't have character or has a certain kind of character, however

you want to put it, and doesn't want to abide by the norms and the rules was was a huge

strength of Trump. So it was one of the reasons they supported them in the first place that he

was an animal. So I do not think that the Iran war hailed the end of Trumpism, but what do you

make of it? I'm not sure. I mean, is Trumpism the the person who identifies today as the

mega voter, or was it this unusual coalition that came together in two elections and kind of

changed over two elections. I shouldn't say three. To include a shocking amount of young men

of Hispanic voters, et cetera, who are defecting. And I think when Caldwell's talks about

Trumpism as this democratic movement, I think like me, he is locating Trumpism in a kind of global

context of national populism, where that is the, I think, the dominant theme. And I think Trump

plays into that. But you are right also to observe that there are unique features to trump

himself into the American context. And you know, his, I think the biggest reason to avoid the

declaration of the end of Trumpism is that so many people have made this declaration before and

been wrong. You know, it was, it was made during, you know, like he'll never recover from insulting

because you're a con like he'll never recover from the Hollywood access Hollywood tape. He'll

never recover from COVID law fair, you know, losing to Joe Biden. And yet he comes back and comes

back and comes back and has this, you know, will to rise up again that I feel like, you know, is

going to go down in our textbooks. It's, it's, he's going to go down like a figure like Jackson,

like one of the most notable creatures of American politics in its, in its history.

So yeah, I mean, I like, I love Chris Caldwell, but I just, there's no evidence of this at all.

And I just kind of feel like a lot of the sort of anti-war types are who are declaring this the end

of Trumpism or saying Trump betrayed his base and so forth are, you have no greater idea of the

pulse of conservatism than sort of the never Trump conservatives of 2016 or 2015. There's no,

there are all the polling shows that there's overwhelming support for the, for among conservatives

or among Republicans and particularly among Magal Republicans for the Iran War. They're the,

they're the strongest supporters of this war. It's, it's overwhelming. And I just think that like

the fact that never Trumpers were overrepresented in the conservative media in 2015, 2016, I think that

anti-war Republicans are overrepresented online. But in part because the younger generation

tends to be more skeptical and they tend to be more active online. Now, there's no doubt that

Trump certainly part of the sort of, the sort of coalition he cobbled together involved people

who were against the Iraq war and don't want to see us be involved in a lot of foreign

wars and saw his America first message as one that was closer to them. But look, Trump was never

uh, Ron Paul. He was never Papu Kenan. He did criticize the Iraq war. He did say he doesn't want

to get involved in stupid wars. He also said he was going to bomb the, you know, blanket out of

ISIS. He called Ted Cruz a was because Ted Cruz was equivocal about waterboarding. He is

consistently said, Iran could never be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. Has consistently spoken

very hawkishly and forcefully in terms of projection of US power. A lot of his criticisms of the

Iraq war were that we didn't take the oil. That why would we go there and do all that and not

take the oil. And so I just think that got conflated as if, you know, he ran like Ron Paul

and then suddenly declared war. And I just think that that you have so the idea that he's

it's sort of a huge betrayal. And I mean, people like Trump because he's sort of in your face and

he's funny. He makes people laugh. He's entertaining. He doesn't act like any other politician. I mean,

you know, he was on Fox and friends or one of the Fox shows yesterday. Talk about the Iran war.

And I did somebody asked him about the rumors that I had a holochamani son who might be in charge,

might be gay. And Trump says, well, you know, many's off to a bad start because they throw

gays out the the window there. And many started talking about how his theme song was the gay national

anthem. And I'm sorry that there's just certain things about Trump that people just like and

find entertaining. And that kind of meeting yesterday when he was talking about sharpies. And

it depends on whether you caught that. But yeah, there was that. There was also some woman

asked him if he was going to use ground troops to take cargo island. And he's like, even if I

were, why would I tell you? He's like, he turns to his the other cabinet people. He's like,

oh, yeah, we're going tomorrow at 3 p.m. Yeah, like, why would I tell you that? And it's just

we're never, you know, going to have another president like that. And I feel like Trumpism,

like that, the essence of Trumpism is Trump. And intellectuals like Chris Caldwell, who's

obviously super brilliant, oftentimes try to reverse engineer and distill it to some,

something sort of greater. And certainly there were certain messages that he had that resonated

with certain people. I'm not discounting that. But at the end of the day, Trumpism was successful

because of Trump. And it's about Trump. Yeah, another great moment for the cabinet meeting was

Doug, when Doug Bergen said the Venezuelans are thinking of putting up a statue of Trump and Trump

said, oh, that'll be such an honor. Then Bergen went on about all the good things that

are happening in Venezuela. And then Trump came back to you. But yeah, but what about the statue?

So Charlie, what about this notion? MBD mentioned world historical. And that's the argument that

John Judas makes in this piece. And he means world historical, not just in the sense that we often

use it important. He means it in the hegelian sense. He went back and read his Hegel, something that I

hope never to do. I read a little Hegel in college and couldn't make anything of it. But Hegel's

argument is basically have these figures who represent a break from one age, one error to another.

And they, you know, they're going to break a lot of eggs to make an omelet. And they

hailed a change that's never going back. You know, Caesar meant that the end of the republic didn't

matter whether the people are saying that they're going to bring back their public or not or that

they'd restored it the way Augustine did their public was was gone similar Napoleon fundamental

changes in France and in Europe. So Judas's argument is that Trump is world historical in this

sense that our relationship with NATO and Europe is knowing that never going back to the way it was

our trading arrangements are never going back to the way they were the kind of a respect for the

rule of law or the constitution. Even if you thought that was honored in the breach over the

the decades that that's not coming back either. Trump Trump is a world historical figure and a

hegelian sense. Well, I think there's some truth to it. I won't pretend that I'm an expert on Hegel.

I would put it this way. I have a friend out in California who

I think used to be more of my persuasion politically but has moved left. We were talking

a few years ago and he was saying that he's become fonder of FDR and when I finished throwing up

I said that's interesting. Tell me why and he said that whatever you think of him he was obviously

touched with greatness and then he said like Reagan but Reagan also was touched with greatness and

he could just tell. They changed things but they also had something about them. Now in some ways

I would very much not put Donald Trump in the same category but in other ways I think you have to.

He has clearly dominated our politics for the last decade. He's the single figure not only domestically

but on the world stage who has been the center of movement. That's around which the rest revolves

for better or for worse. I think about this in the same way as time magazine thinks about

man of the year. People get very upset because they chose Hitler or something. It's not an endorsement

so much as a recognition. Trump is clearly great with a capital G where I perhaps

slide away from the full version of that argument as made by Judas again as a non-Hagel scholar is

I think that American politics is quite cyclical and I think it's Newtonian. We tend to see reactions

and I don't think that's changed. We saw a reaction after FDR. We saw a reaction after the mid-1960s

high tide of what was called liberalism with Richard Nixon and then after Richard Nixon we saw a

reaction against the presidency and toward Congress and we like to Jimmy Carter because he seemed

on Nixon like. Then we reacted against that and chose Ronald Reagan because he was everything Jimmy

Carter wasn't and then the Republicans were in the ascendancy and told people that I'm just a bit

tired of the Republicans and so they chose Bill Clinton and then we were very much in favor of

the Iraq war and then we weren't and then Barack Obama won in this big hope and change spasm

and two years later there was a backlash against that and so on and so forth and I don't think

the fact that we are currently in an era in which one person has dominated changes that. I don't

think we are likely to see all of the presumptions or habits of Donald Trump ratified. In fact

if we go back to where this particular part of the conversation started with Phil and Michael's

answers we were arguing where we not that Trump is MAGA. Well I think that's true. In fact I'd go

one further and I would say against the Christopher Caldwell view one of the problems that Trump has

is that he looks at the approval rating among Republicans of what he's doing and then he stops

thinking because he thinks they are all that matters and they're not. He is MAGA, he is at the moment

the Republican party but if we believe that then what happens when he's dead? Surely there isn't

a scaffolding or a framework underneath it and I find it very difficult to believe that this one

faction let alone those that are indifferent toward him or don't like him are going to be

permanently shaped by his quirks but he is great. He's a great man of history for better or for

worse. I did not see that coming in 2015 in a hundred years time and goodness me do I upset the

hysterics when I say this but in a hundred years time I think historians will look back at this

period and find it rather boring. I don't think it's going to be reported on as if it were this great

epoch because from the perspective of history you know what Trump's done on the Iran war you know

what's happened on any given day so I just don't think any of it's very interesting and it's obviously

the case that we have strong political disputes and I argue within them but they did in the late

1890s as well and I just don't think that's very interesting that's just not what we talk about

a hundred years later we're not particularly interested in it and I think that the one thing that

will survive from this era is Trump himself much in the same way as say Teddy Roosevelt was larger

than life. Yeah I mean I just think that the world historical figure it just sort of underrates

what somebody like Alexander the great did where you basically I'm in the territory that he conquered

was I mean it's pretty much from Greece to parts of India I mean it was just an insane

amount and that unleashed way smaller and greenland way smaller and it just unleashed a period of

you know a Hellenization of the the transportation of Greek culture learnings all throughout this

massive regional world to me it's it's I don't know if any American president other than maybe

George Washington given the effects of the sort of American experiment plus you know the inspiration

of sort of guerrilla warfare tactics that you know even motivated people like Mao and other guerrilla

fighters throughout the ages you could basically say maybe George Washington but as far as

presidents I mean Lincoln you wouldn't put in that category obviously a tremendously

transformative figure for the United States but you wouldn't put them in a kind of world historical

figure category I would you would I mean on the scale of of a sort of Alexander the great

Napoleon yeah I'm just saying in terms of if we're not talking about people who are important

but people who completely change the world you know and that is still discernible hundreds of

years later I mean what Napoleon unleashed during his you know let's say decade or you know

decade or so and change of influence I mean the changes that he unleashed for I mean even if you

include the Louisiana purchase in that yeah Napoleon a code yeah Napoleon a code and the I mean

the the I mean so and you know Napoleon was also I mean he was in the Middle East in Egypt he was in

what now is Israel he was all over I mean so I mean as Andrew Roberts you know he justifies the

title of his biography in the course of the book Napoleon the Great there's no doubt he was a

great figure the thing with Lincoln and let Charlie give us his Lincoln take as this since the

United States was still young and relatively powerless in world terms you know he wasn't going to

have effect everywhere around the world but saving the Union had had enormous consequences every

week it seems on this podcast I sit through this Napoleon propaganda that I can only assume it's

been designed to vex me so so I have a little trouble with the the trumpisms same law

line of argument for a couple of reasons like one it just seems like you know point to yourself

identified Maga and say oh 88% but that population itself changes over time and right now Trump is

at his lowest ever approval rating and is very harshly rated even within the Republican Party for

his handling of the economy which by the way isn't so bad I mean if if if if there weren't an

Iran war we would have gotten more headlines last week about Morgan Stanley saying they they expect

corporate profits to go up and like you know actually the the the economy is looking

rosier than it did to a lot of experts a few weeks ago you know if I also think it's weird to say

like he in a sense like all of the controversies he brought into politics will disappear the moment

he exits the stage and and anyone who attached themselves to them will find themselves a totally

irrelevant minority just a bit there I'm not saying anything okay okay well it seems to be

implied sometimes at like the the the the the the true majority of that's not what I'm saying what

I'm saying is that for example one of the examples rich gave was that you know the rule of law

would no longer be important and I'm saying I just don't think that because Trump has been

you know weird about it that that's going to be suddenly picked up by Republicans independence

and Democrats in perpetuity I wasn't saying that didn't represent anything real yeah I mean I

just saying that I what what I'm saying is just that a lot of people grafted onto Trump things

that they support and act as if he was popular because he took certain positions that they liked

um and I think people on all sides of the argument are completely missing it I mean if it were

just about or you know he was anti-war and this is the card of the Trump coalition then Ron

Paul and Rand Paul would have done better and I just think that people who are anti-interventionists

are getting ahead of their skis and overly arrogant I wouldn't accuse UMBD of doing this I think

your temperament really too pessimistic about about being to make these accusations to make

these crazy accusations feel unworthy of the spot but I'm just saying in general there's a lot

of triumphalism on the anti-war right that you know that they've got the next generation and

that they've won the argument and this is sort of the death rattle and once Trump you know Trump

has lost everyone by betraying this and then Vance is going to take over and and ride us into our

tafty and you know future and I just seeing no evident I just think that some of this some of

that is a little bit like well after Iran how many more Middle East wars can you get involved in

but then of course like I actually I'm shocked and seeing stuff coming out of you know some

accounts saying like turkey next so maybe I've been totally wrong so your reason to think the

restrainer view is going to prevail at some point you run out of countries you run out of

countries to invade so we better move on I'll just leave one thought that occurred to me as Phil

is talking and talking about why people thought Trump was popular it's certainly true that Trump

is the most consequential persistently unpopular president we've ever had he's basically never

been popular ever if you just just go by approval ratings you know it was close maybe the beginning

of the second term here what is that 48 but but otherwise he's been living you know mid mid 40s

or lower so MBD different topic baseball has started again Wall Street Journal had a great article

they have great sports coverage very very very interesting things you you haven't considered

and they point out that there's a crisis in the MLB MBD because doubles and triples are down because

alphillians are playing deeper so you're the commissioner of baseball and you're looking at these

figures and it's it's it's just astonishing we're heading to historical lows in these exciting

plays doubles and triples what do you do about it I don't know if as commissioner I would do

anything about it but I I do personally wish that stadiums like city field went back to their

original more cavernous dimensions I'm not a fan of the Philly style or or a band box dimensions or

you know short right field in the Bronx you know I do I do want to see some balls bouncing around

and people chasing them it's always been a short right field in the Bronx there's just just

they used to be literally impossible to home hit a home run to center or left center right but like

you know they they had like they've really moved in the walls in city field from when they started

I think originally they had this idea that they were going to keep reas and get rid of right and

have like a gazillion triples um but it didn't work out that way um but I like those those plays

and yeah I wanted action on the basis is good for baseball um you know you have to see though

hitters and pictures are still adjusting to each other and it's not clear that it's always

going to go in one direction um like we had for years this like incredible uh increasing K-Ray

and and hitters are still kind of suffering I mean you're you're seeing the disappearance of the

300 average in uh in baseball um but you know there could there maybe adjustments to come you know

might change the amount I agree a great a great stadium for triples was the Royals Royals stadium

back in the day was artificial turf and pretty big dimensions and a fast team the Royals maybe

the Cardinals as well and old bush stadium fill client your commissioner what do you do about it if

anything I mean if I wanted to do it I think if the goal were to do it I'm not saying I'd want to

change the game in this way but I think the most practical way is to do it would either be to

work on the baseball field dimensions and it's not just the dimensions sometimes in um you know

like there are certain ball parks like um I think Fenway and then Houston where there are certain

sort of like the field kind of juts out a little so you might be able to get a ricochet effect

where it bounces off and then ricochets somewhere where it's harder for the fielder to get

so I think some element of moving the field back or designing it in such a way that there are

certain nooks that you know it could hide in or bounce off of and the other more drastic thing

I would say would be you could make a rule where you know the outfielders have can't play deep

essentially they can't you know if Aaron judges up they can't just you know hang out by the warning

track they have to move let's say in the middle of the outfield and not until the ball is hit can they

start running so the question is would you of course that is my solution would you impose that as

commissioner I would oppose it I just because I'm a pure and I pretty much opposed all rule

changes so you wouldn't do it sure I think that I'll do nothing I think Michael is right the

game is evolving we've just made a bunch of changes some of them I like rich some of them I don't

I know you go for every change suggested and want to micromanage baseball I'm half with you

as opposed to the purists but I think you have to give it a little bit of time to shake out

and then maybe touch it again if necessary so I right now I would do nothing I would let it evolve

of four or five seasons I'm and I know this isn't the question so I am in a sense rejecting the premise

but I am much more worried about accurately scoring and umpiring the game

so if I would go robot umpires first oh absolutely all the way if we can accurately measure

the game we should there's nothing romantic or noble about getting it wrong so Red Sox fan friend

of mine texted me last night we challenged a call it was called a strike and it was actually low

and scored two runs as a result of it and I was like fantastic but that's great Dominic you know

is one of his arguments against it is that no one no one wants to correct calls I just want

call to go their way I want I want Red Sox to suffer I want them to lose a hundred games but I

want I want them to I wanted to happen legitimately not as a result of bad calls so I hate big

dimensions and ball parks I think they're boring I hate I hate Detroit so I would not move the

fences back I do think this is a problem I need a draw line where you keep there's a certain

distance from the fence so you can't play further back than that or do the lily pads just like draw

a circle and in all the outfield positions and the outfielder has to have one one foot in there

to increase doubles and triples but if I had to choose I go straight to robot umpire and totally

agree with you on that thoroughly so with that let's hit a few other things or we go MBD

you can baseball you enjoyed opening day meds victory in the seven I believe

yeah meds victory and it was one of these things where you know the first two badders for the Pirates

single in a home run and we got immediately into uh meds kveching of of a kind of classic sort like

see you next year uh but then we scored five runs and knocked out the sia youngward winner

in the bottom of the inning and it's just um it's just a great ritual it's such a marking of the

passing of time opening day um and this one was kind of bitter sweet because beloved radio

and answer how how he rose is making this his last season with the team and it's like you

suddenly realize like oh I've been listening to a voice for over a quarter of a century and it's

part of the furniture of life in some way and I'm gonna miss it and um you know I'm starting to

like more in a whole era of meds baseball that's much larger that started 20 years ago with

the the broadcasters they have now and um it's gonna come to a close in the next couple of years

um and and it's like you just you look at that and you're like oh yeah I've suddenly gone

into middle age like I'm not I'm not young anymore all right it's gonna great

for your terminal for your terminal MBD and you did it with opening day not even October baseball that

yeah but it still is the same I mean it's the it's the the marking of seasons right

well Klein turns out your father was a big time amazon reviewer yeah um my um father is some folks

know passed away a few months ago and um this week I discovered that he was a prolific amazon

reviewer of everything from razor blades to geo political bucks um so it's been fun to go

through his archives um because his his voice really comes out so it's like uh spending some time

that's nice Charlie you had to fix a motherboard uh well you know I told you before in a light item

about making my pool a smart pool well it was a little less smart yesterday when the power

washes we had power washing our house sprayed one of the digital components at a hundred miles

now with gallons and gallons of chlorine filled water and I thought yesterday evening and this morning

and I must confess to him having been very cross I thought that it was dead but with the help of

chat GPT and a toothbrush a microfiber cloth some q-tips and a bottle of isopropyl I managed to

do coax this motherboard back to life clear off the water the residue the minerals that it had left

and then with my wife here the loving care in your voice Charlie oh I know and then with my wife

semi broken hair dryer on cool mode I made sure that it was dried and would you believe it

I went out wide it all back up and it's working again so I am actually very very pleased now

so I have started eating uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they're so fantastic

and and it really though it upsets me that I spent I guess years being totally unaware of

uncrustables no friend bothered to mention to me that there are frozen peanut butter and jelly

sandwiches that you can just thaw on 20 minutes or maybe less if you put a heavy book on top of them

and I went I wasn't totally ignorance about this for so long until a friend mentioned it

last summer a faithful thoughtful friend and it took me a while to pick up on these I actually have

knockoff versions from from a certain grocery store but they're fantastic so the the main problem

with food especially food in the middle of the day is prep time so this basically makes the prep

time zero you just take them out of the freezer and it go do something else and come back 20 minutes

and they are delicious with that it's time for editors picks and midi what's your pick

my pick is three times in a row Daniel J Flynn revisiting the Buckley Rothbard feud

this is I'm not gonna take the Rothbard side here I'm taking the author side Daniel Flynn

in just knowing all the ins and outs of their relationship years before the insult started flying

and I just I love Daniel Flynn bringing this historical account of our movement to us every week

you really have to subscribe to his work so climb what's your pick my pick is know his piece this

morning on how vulnerable america is to an operation spider web at home very it's sort of

less you know amid all of this stuff going on with the run there was a smaller story this week

that should be a big story which is that the barkstail air force base in Louisiana was actually put

temporarily out of operation which I think is according to one reporter the first time

that it that has ever happened during a war when a bunch of unmanned aircraft started flying over

it and they were triggered as shelter in place order and so this seems to have been a deliberate

attack and there's been sort of a lot of fears about our adversaries trying to replicate the

type of droni to count that happens attack that happened in that Ukraine successfully youth against

Russia and Israel did against Iran in the first strikes of the last June war were basically

they smuggle in different drone parts and assemble them and they're waiting in the enemies

territory to strike when needed and so it's sort of a worry from possibility that it seems like

we're vulnerable to it's a relatively low tech Charlie I'm going to take Jim Garrett's magazine

piece which argues in effect that there are no moderate Democrats the impetus to the piece was

Abigail Spanberger in Virginia who ran as the nice respectable moderate but really isn't doing it

I think this is a general problem in politics but I do think it's particularly acute on the democratic

side and I suspect many voters who in November are going to think that they're voting for moderate

Democrats are going to find quite quickly that they weren't so my pick Charlie is your magazine piece

against misery making the case that we shouldn't be feeling so bad when things are going quite well

so that's it for us you've been listening to an actually a podcast and you re-broadcast re-transmission

or account of this game with the out-express written permission of National magazine is strictly

prohibited this podcast has been produced by the incomparable Sarah Shuddy who makes it sound

better than we deserve thank Phil thank you mbd thank Charlie thank the donors trust and

there and thanks especially all of you for listening we're the editors we'll see you next time

you

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