‘You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 181: Maduro

Summary

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Federalist Radio Hour – “You're Wrong” with Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi

Episode 181: Maduro
Date: January 7, 2026
Host: Mollie Hemingway & David Harsanyi
Producer: Radio America

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into U.S. foreign policy focusing on the recent high-profile military operation — “Operation Absolute Resolve” — in Venezuela that resulted in the capture and extradition of Nicolás Maduro. Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi unpack the success and implications of the raid, discuss American interests in Latin America, critique the regime change debate, and shift into concerns about domestic policy including immigration, welfare fraud, and broader questions of American identity. The discussion closes with their trademark cultural recommendations and a spirited exchange about movies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Operation Absolute Resolve: The Venezuela Raid

• Opening Salvo: David considers the operation “impressive”, noting the U.S. extracted Maduro and his wife Cecilia Flores with no American casualties (00:59).
• Mollie emphasizes the operational precision, contrasting it to previous military missteps like Afghanistan:
  • “This was not easy. This is a guy who understood that he was wanted in the same way that Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden understood they were wanted … it was just really impressive and well done.” (02:01)
• Strategic Merits:
  • Venezuela as a hemispheric threat—“an important part of countries that are sworn enemies of ours... China or Iran or Russia.”
  • The efficacy of Chinese/Russian defense systems, which “completely failed” against U.S. action (04:20).
• Domestic Distractions:
  • Mollie raises concerns that despite military victories, domestic issues (like welfare fraud) threaten U.S. strength long-term (05:45).

Notable Quote

“When you look at how botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan was, it's a good comparison to remind the rest of the world that our military is fierce... you do not want to come up against it.”
–Mollie Hemingway [03:00]

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2. The Regime Change/Nation Building Debate

• David distances this operation from Iraq-style occupation:
  • “We have not taken over this country. There are no real boots on the ground. Also, this is not the duly elected leader of that country.” (08:26)
• Mollie: Skepticism about U.S. track record on regime change is legitimate, but this looks different under Trump. (07:38)
• Pressure not occupation:
  • The strategy is pressure via oil, pushing for real elections and expelling Russian, Cuban, Iranian influence.
• Legal Grey Area:
  • Both wrestle with questions about constitutional authority and legality, referencing historical precedent (e.g., Noriega) (18:51).

Notable Quote

“Donald Trump has gotten us past that where he hasn’t embraced the kind of idealistic neocon view but he certainly is not the type of isolationist … He is driving international events in a way that is very aggressive.”
–David Harsanyi [09:00]

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3. America’s Approach to Foreign Policy and Strength

• Rules-based order vs. National Interest:
  • Mollie critiques the naive faith in international “rules,” favoring a Monroe Doctrine-esque focus (12:30).
  • “A rules based order isn’t going to protect us from Venezuela, particularly when they’re working with China and Russia and Iran.” –Mollie Hemingway [13:59]
• David dismisses “international law” as toothless:
  • “International law is never followed by these rogue regimes ever...” (14:29)

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4. Communism as a Foreign and Domestic Threat

• From Havana to Home:
  • The threat of communism abroad (Venezuela, Cuba) and as a metaphor for leftist policies domestically.
  • Mollie: “We have a growing threat of what they call it gay race communism... We need to take it very seriously and take it out.” [16:40]
• On “commie” regimes:
  • David: “Anytime there’s a commie dragged in front of a court and handcuffs, I think that’s a good day.” (14:29)

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5. Domestic Policy Pivot: Immigration & Somali Welfare Fraud

• Transition to Homefront: Mollie and David pivot to welfare fraud, specifically the Somali community in Minnesota (35:00).
• Vast fraud cases:
  • Reports that “half of all money sent” to Medicaid may be fraudulent in some centers (36:25).
• Media’s defense reflex:
  • CNN attempts to discredit whistleblowers instead of investigating the scandal (36:28).
• Assimilation vs. Ethnic Enclaves:
  • Debates over the failure of immigrant assimilation, and the role of non-profits that set up unassimilated “mini Somalias.”
  • “We have a responsibility to bring people into this country who are. Who are successful and who assimilate and who embrace.” –David (37:47)
• Systemic breakdown:
  • Mollie warns: “I’m worried about the breakdown of entire civil society... These Somalis do no work and they get your money...” (43:12)
• Public charge principle:
  • David: “The reasoning for it is because it’s antithetical to American principles to be a dependent on the state.” (44:03)
• Critical of blanket immigration cheerleading.
• Humorous banter about Somali celebrities and pop culture references (46:33).

Notable Quote

“There’s this cultural force feeding of this idea that all immigration is good, all immigration is equally good ... And they don’t realize how much of earlier immigration stories did not involve welfare and involved a lot of effort and assimilation.”
–Mollie Hemingway [41:40]

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6. American Identity: “Ideas,” Borders, and Religion

• Soil, blood, or ideas?
  • David: “We are a country of ideas and principles with borders, and we have to protect those borders. By protecting those borders, we protect the ideas inside.” (50:19)
• No magic in naturalization:
  • Mollie: “Being American is not just paperwork. It's about norms and ideas and cultures.” (49:00)
• Concerns about importing incompatible cultures:
  • “You can’t... import the entirety of the Muslim world and expect that they're going to have the same ideas about rule of law that we have.” (50:43)

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7. Culture Segment: Movies & Media (53:20 – end)

• Most heated feedback: Mollie’s Grinch take
  • She received “the most negative email ever” for disliking the animated Grinch. (53:41)
• What They've Watched:
  • Movies:
    • Amos and Andrew (1993)
    • The Ref
    • Crazy Rich Asians
    • One False Move (early ’90s, Billy Bob Thornton)
    • The Phoenician Scheme
    • F1 with Brad Pitt (liked for its simplicity)
    • Mission Impossible 7/8 (“boring and bad,” per David)
  • Notable banter: Both hosts joke about old movies, actor scandals, and the formula of sports/action films.
• Sports:
  • John Elway documentary discussed (54:28).
  • Mollie: “Kind of a childhood hero of mine.”
• TV & Podcasts:
  • Molly plugs Issues, Etc. podcast for thoughtful interviews (24:04).

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Notable Quotes & Moments by Timestamp

• On Op Absolute Resolve’s Precision:
  • “When you look at how botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan was…it’s a good comparison…” –Mollie [03:00]
• On Trump’s Foreign Policy Doctrine:
  • “He’s not the type of isolationist that a lot of people pretend he is…he is driving international events in a way that is very aggressive.” –David [09:00]
• On International Law:
  • “International law is never followed by these rogue regimes…can’t exist because we haven’t voted for it.” –David [14:29]
• On Communism at Home:
  • “We have a growing threat of…‘gay race communism’. This communism that’s happening right now in our country on the left...” –Mollie [16:40]
• On Immigration & Assimilation:
  • “I’m worried about the breakdown of entire civil society. When you look at how these Somalis do no work and they get your money and then you have to work really hard and follow all the rules or your life is destroyed.” –Mollie [43:12]
• On American Identity:
  • “We are a country of ideas and principles with borders, and we have to protect those borders. By protecting those borders, we protect the ideas inside.” –David [50:15]
• Cultural Hot Take:
  • “The most negative email I’ve ever gotten on this podcast was when I said I didn’t like the animated version of the Grinch.” –Mollie [53:41]

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Topic Timestamps

• 00:16 – Show Open; Venezuela Raid Overview
• 02:01 – Mollie’s military operation analysis
• 06:24 – David & Mollie on domestic priorities
• 07:38 – Regime change and lessons from the past
• 08:26 – David on administration’s real aims
• 11:31 – Political hypocrisy, Monroe Doctrine debate
• 12:30 – “Rules-Based Order” critique
• 14:29 – International law and U.S. morality
• 16:40 – Communism, foreign and domestic threats
• 18:51 – Legalities, Noriega precedent
• 21:22 – Presidential alignment and personal politics
• 24:04 – Issues, Etc. podcast plug
• 24:38 – Greenland: Strategic joke or serious pivot
• 29:09 – Public opinion & polling post-Venezuela
• 32:34 – Iran protests and their authenticity
• 35:00 – Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota
• 43:12 – Welfare, assimilation, American identity
• 50:15 – Defining “American-ness”; ideas vs. culture
• 53:41 – Culture Segment: Movies, TV, Sports
• 61:07 – Episode closes, culture picks wrap-up

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Tone & Style

The conversation is incisive, witty, and pointedly critical of both foreign adversaries and domestic policy failures — all in The Federalist’s confidently contrarian tone. Debate is brisk, with plenty of side commentary, self-aware jokes, and rhetorical jabs at the bipartisan foreign policy “blob” and media hypocrisy.

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Transcript

[Molly Hemingway]

Foreign.

[David Harsanyi]

Welcome back, everyone, to a new episode of you're Wrong with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of the Federalist, and David Harsanyi, senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Just as a reminder, if you'd like to email the show, please do so at radio the federalist.com we'd love to hear from you. Hope you had a great new year, Molly. We haven't spoken in a few weeks. A lot has happened in that time. I think this episode will be very foreign policy oriented. I think we should start with Venezuela and Operation Absolute Resolve. The entire operation took like 90 minutes. We bombed a bunch of infrastructure.

[Molly Hemingway]

We.

[David Harsanyi]

Extracted the fake Venezuelan president, Nicholas Madaro, and we brought him to New York where he was indicted on narco terrorist charges. He and his wife, whose name I forget, Cecilia something, maybe.

[Molly Hemingway]

A lovely lady, Flores, a lovely lady who's been involved in trafficking and crimes herself.

[David Harsanyi]

Right, so there's, there's a lot to talk about here. I think we should start by just. I, at least I'd like to note how impressive the operation was. I mean, Venezuela is not Granada. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a country has a military. It's not nothing. And we, we didn't lose a single person. I think that a bunch of Cuban mercenaries, around 30 were killed who were bodyguards, I guess, of the Venezuelan President.

[Molly Hemingway]

So just first off, like you said, this was an absolutely amazing operation that was executed according to what we know currently, seemingly flawlessly. I mean, this was not easy. This is a guy who understood that he was wanted in the same way that Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden understood they were wanted. These, you know, and, and Venezuela has many more capabilities than rogue terrorists or the heads of Iraq. And it was just really impressive and well done. And that level of excellence is important in a military operation. When you look at how botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan was, it's a good comparison to remind the rest of the world that our military is fierce, you do not want to come up against it, and you will lose if you come up against it. Like all of that is really important stuff. And then as for the operation itself, you know, it's funny, I was seeing all these people on Twitter opining, and I didn't say much because I didn't have the strongest feelings. Now let me say what I think is great about it or good about it. Venezuela has been a problem for our country. Not just, you know, I think there's like the public facing claim that they're exporting a Lot of drugs. It is true that they use drugs. We talked about this actually a few weeks ago. Right, like, you don't like the phrase narco terrorist. You think that's like a unwise phrase. And I think, I think you have some, you have some good points there. So the public facing thing is that it's all related to quote, unquote, narco terrorism. But the reality is that Venezuela is a problem for many more and much deeper reasons. They are an important part of countries that are sworn enemies of ours, of their ability to keep fighting us, whether that's China or Iran or Russia. And one of the things I loved about the operation is that Venezuela supposedly had all of these amazing Chinese and Russian defense systems and they just completely failed, which is another great thing for America. And then we've just kind of been operating for decades as this entity where anybody can do whatever they want and they can do whatever they want in their own country's interests. And we frequently are subsidizing it as opposed to advocating for our own. And so I don't, you know, hate this. Like, I might hate a similar operation with less strategic interest for us. I mean, there's so much about, yes, the oil. Sorry, I'm remembering Code Pink's like no blood for oil. As if wars haven't been fought over resource allocation and protection of region and spheres of influence for, like, a really long time. But strategically, from the oil standpoint and the ability to thwart China, I think it's pretty good. My concern would be that our country is having a lot of problems, and I want to make sure that the Trump administration is able to keep its eye on the ball of what needs to be done domestically. Like, our country is not in the best shape. Yes, we're powerful. Yes, we have, like, reserves of wealth, but we're having breakdowns inside of us that are really serious. And I'm hoping we'll talk about that, too, like the Somali fraud situation and other things. And so I want Trump, the Trump administration to be understanding that far more than even this action abroad, we need to be taking action here to save the country, like, or else we won't be able to do these things in the long run, like, long after you and I are dead. But it's important to have a strong country going forward, too.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, I guess, I guess. I, I, I, I think there are fewer problems than other people doing inside the country. Not that I don't think there aren't problems. And I think that having federal investigators going after Somalis won't be hindered by us.

[Molly Hemingway]

Well, there are other things. Like, you know, there's a mass deportation project going on right now. Like, one of the things people said is like, oh, well, now we can deport all these Venezuelans. It's like, well, we could have done it already. You know, we don't need to wait, I think over another country to deport people who shouldn't be here.

[David Harsanyi]

But yes, well, okay, well, let's talk about a few other other things. I mean, thanks for mentioning the weapon systems. The Chinese and Russian weaponry has taken a massive beating over the last 12 months. I mean, obviously they're not up to par in Ukraine, frankly. We know where Russia hasn't done as well as everyone assumed they would do in Iran. Now here, you know, they're just, they're just America's way. You know, I've reading about this situation, it just seems to me like America is just way ahead technologically as far as warfare goes. But also, let's talk about taking, you know, a lot of people say we're taking over this country. Regime change I see used by a lot of people. Well, I think that's a false, I think that's false.

[Molly Hemingway]

I just wanted to say in defense of people who are making that, who are concerned about that, a, it's totally legitimate to be concerned about taking over country and wasting a lot of time with that because of how we handled it in the past. I personally think Trump approached, approaches the military like, completely differently than all of his predecessors left and right. But we have failed so much with regime change and nation building and stuff like that. And then Trump kind of, you have to listen to the whole thing. But he kind of was saying, yeah, we love, we love regime change and nation building, boots on the ground. And then he, and then, you know, other people in the administration and Trump himself were like, I'm just trying to make the point like, we, we won this little skirmish and we're controlling things. But, like, people weren't crazy to think that that might be happening because Trump himself was saying it. Right?

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, well, again, I think we've had this debate before. I, I don't think our regime change efforts has, have been as big a failure as other people do. I think if you think, you know, most people today, you know, around for Iraq, so that's what everyone's focused on. And I've written about this before. I think Donald Trump has gotten us past that where he has, he hasn't. Surely he hasn't embraced the kind of idealistic neocon view but he certainly is not the type of isolationist that a lot of people pretend he is or speak for him on the, in the podcast verse, claim he is or will be in that. In that movement. He is driving international events in a way that is very aggressive. Right. And so that's one thing. But my regime change point is merely that we have not taken over this country. There are no real boots on the ground. Also, this is not the duly elected leader of that country. So he was arrested because we have indictments against him, the vice president still there, that government is still there. It is clear that the plan here, and I think there was a Wall Street Journal story about Marco Rubio, I think was speaking to some elected officials about how they're going to go about this, which is to pressure that country through oil to essentially get rid of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and build. Have real elections there. We'll see what that happens and build bridges to the United States. We have every right to act in our interests. I don't know. You know, I've been kind of mulling over the legalities as far as the Constitution goes. Whereas, is this a war? Is it an action? I don't know. I'm not. I don't have a fully formed opinion on what Trump would need to do here. But the fact is that we've been doing this for a long time, engaging ourselves in military action. So this is in the interest of the United States. Unlike, say, the bombing of Libya, which Barack Obama did without any congressional approval and had nothing to do with our best interests. This clearly does. And I don't know if you saw, but today the. The United States has boarded not one, but two tankers. One of them a Russian tanker, I believe. I'm not sure about the second one, to try to evade the sanctions on oil. So obviously step two here is going to be to put a lot of pressure on Venezuela to. To act in the way that we decide. I think that's great. And I think Donald Trump's foreign policy, as far as military actions have gone, have always been in the interest of the United States, not the interests of other nations. He's. He's like, people forget not only Iran, which I think was great, but he's also basically been the first president, even though others have talked about it, to pressure Naito into actually taking more of a role in defending themselves after, you know, 70 years.

[Molly Hemingway]

So speaking of what you just said about the last 70 years, I was seeing a lot of really stupid, stupid commentary out there. Some of the commentary that was Stupid were Democrat leaders who claimed that the fact that Trump hadn't gone into Venezuela and seized Maduro during his first term showed that he was a puppet of Vladimir Putin. There is no greater proof than the fact that he's done nothing to arrest Maduro. And then the moment he went in to arrest Maduro, they said this is a horrible thing that never should have happened and this is a lawless president. And it just was a great, like sometimes the very, very same people like Chuck Schumer or Kamala Harris were saying completely opposite things there. But there was also this idea, I think, that a lot of people had, that what was going to save the United States from invasion or attack was the rules based international order. And we all agree to certain rules and we won't break those rules. And it was unclear exactly what those rules were. But, but there's a rules based order and that's the key to success. And Trump has this very old school throwback. You know, he loves reminding people of the Monroe Doctrine. I saw CNN was calling it the Don Row Doctrine, this notion that we really have a sphere of influence in this hemisphere, that other countries such as China and Russia and Iran should not be meddling, using Venezuela or any other country in this hemisphere to go after us. And a reminder that. Yeah, I mean, it kind of relates to me to this issue that we should probably devote another episode to which is whether our country is a country that is an idea or a people. And I tend to think it's got aspects of both. But here's a great example to me of a country isn't just an idea and it isn't just controlled by ideas, but it also has just interests and it needs to take action to ensure those interests. And a rules based order isn't going to protect us from Venezuela, particularly when they're working with China and Russia in Iran. And we do have a lot of power in our country because we are the reserve currency of the world. And that's based entirely on all sorts of things that can change. Not quickly necessarily, but like the sale of oil in US Dollars. And Venezuela was really trying to make a play for attacking us in that area, as have been other countries. And we're letting it be known that that's not going to happen. I mean, there's a point to being a strong country that represents its interests. And, you know, a rules based order isn't going to explain all of this.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, I mean, I don't believe in international law at all. First of all, international law is never followed by these rogue regimes ever. So what happens is it's the same thing with like gun policy in the United States. You, you, the law abiding citizens follow the law for gun ownership and then you can't defend yourself while the criminal doesn't care and does whatever he wants. But also, international law can't exist because we haven't, we don't have, we haven't voted for it. We can enter into agreements and if the other side upholds them, we can. And Venezuela doesn't uphold any of its agreements, so why should we? Generally, we're a moral country and our, our intentions aren't to hurt other countries. I know, I know that's out of style to say, but I think it's true. Generally, I think we're a generous country and we're not doing this to punish the people of Venezuela. We're doing it to help them, frankly, and ourselves. So I agree with all that and I hope it works. I don't know. You know, it seemed like there was a lack of a plan. And that has a lot to do with Donald Trump and the things he says. But, you know, I have to say this again. My, my view of Marco Rubio has been a roller coaster over, like the last, whatever amount of years he's been around, but I'm incredibly impressed by the job he's done. By the way, we don't have to let communist. Anytime there's a commie dragged in front of a court and handcuffs, I think that's a good day. We have no, we, we don't have communist regimes to exist in the Western hemisphere. And more than that, we've been involved in this stuff forever. We have gone. The United States government going all the way back has been involved in the politics of Latin America. I don't think we need to change now. I think those, they don't always work out the way they should, but I think we do it in our interest and I think we should continue. And Donald Trump's continued in that tradition for, to some extent. So I don't know, I'm happy with it. Again, the legality, I don't know. But otherwise, I think it's good for America so far. And I'm impressed. It's like someone used the metaphor, metaphor, the Gordian knot thing. I'm sorry, I just want one last thing where, where you know that the myth with Alexander, he sees this intricate knot and he can't open it and he just takes a sword and cuts right through it. I think that's what Donald Trump is about someone. I'm taking credit for someone else's thought there.

[Molly Hemingway]

But most of what I do, my friends will always send me great images or texts and then I just like steal them and post them. And people are like, you're so smart on Twitter. Well, I did steal that from my friends, but. So there's a lot that I wanted to get into there. But one of the things I was thinking of, related back to the domestic policy is communism really is a threat to our country and we have long understood that and we've taken it very seriously. But we have a growing threat of what they call it gay race communism. This communism that's happening right now in our country on the left and it's gaining power in American cities. And I think we need to take it, we need to call it out for what it is, which is not whatever fancy term they've used to avoid the legal implications of being commies. But we need to, we need to take it very seriously and take it out. So, I mean, this is a little bit of a morose or a wrong joke to make, but I was thinking like, I would like to take out a mom, Dani, as much as a Maduro. I mean, he's damaging the country. He is a communist. It's actually not something you're supposed to be. If you're an immigrant, you're, you know, being a communist is one of the reasons why you should not be allowed in as an immigrant. If you're lying about being a communist, that's a problem. And just because they call themselves something else doesn't change the fact that they are. That it's an insidious, evil, violently dangerous ideology that can destroy lives. And we should not just be like, oh, isn't that cute that the democrats are now just embracing full blown communism.

[David Harsanyi]

Hugo Chavez was a democratic socialist himself. He ran for elections. It's the. When you get into power, when communists get into power, when they strip people of their rights, not before, usually. So anyway, sorry.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay. The other thing I wanted to point out is that for people who are concerned about the legality of what went on, and again, I don't get mad when people are concerned about these things. I think it's legitimate. And for what it's worth, we went through this before when we seized Noriega. Is that right?

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, actually was on. I think we did this on the anniversary of that. Maybe we're very close. Yeah.

[Molly Hemingway]

And that was litigated through the courts and it was found to have been a lawful action to go in and Arrest him. So the final thing. Oh, sorry.

[David Harsanyi]

No, I just saying there's going to be a trial, right?

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah. And he's got really good attorneys, it sounds like, so. And that's how, you know, that's fine. And then the other thing I just wanted to say, related to your Gordian knot thing, is that I saw someone saying on social media, like, I don't like Donald Trump. I don't like the way he talks. Like, for instance, I hated the way he went after Rob Reiner, after Rob Reiner died. He's like. But I think it's time for everyone to just kind of be honest that we are living in the midst of a great presidency and a great president, and he's really effective at what he's doing, and he's doing it under difficult circumstances. And, like, could we all just acknowledge that? And I think there's an aspect to that, that the hysteria of the media and other Democrats have held us back from just acknowledging, which is, this is a remarkable presidency we're living through. It has had tremendous success. And I get that you and I both might say there are things about it that we really don't like, but that's sort of a different issue than the greatness of this presidency.

[David Harsanyi]

I don't know. I. There are a lot of things I like very much, and there are things I don't like very much. It's very. It's. It's weird because typically when you. When you have a president, you generally agree with most of the things they're doing or not. You know, so for me, but as a foreign policy president, I just. I've been incred. It's incredibly impressive, especially the second term, more than the first term. And I. It's just the way you just said.

[Molly Hemingway]

Just struck me. You said, you know, usually you agree or disagree more with them. Yeah, I think that's one of the issues that has made me feel so out of place in D.C. the last decade, is that I have never felt large agreement with any president prior to Trump. Now, I, you know, just this week, President Trump said we've got to be flexible on whether we pay for the killing of unborn children in the womb with taxpayer money. I hate that. So there's plenty to hate, and that's fine. But I've never actually agreed with someone as much as I agree with him, particularly on large issues and the need to go after them.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah. Now that I'm thinking about it, I mean, I just generally disagree with all presidents. I liked George W. Bush before he Was president a lot more than I liked him as president. I think he was a failure as a president, frankly. Not just because of Iraq, but the growth of government. So. Yeah, I don't know. But my point. Yeah.

[Molly Hemingway]

Just yesterday, Shaun Davis was saying how he thought that he, you know, George W. Bush was not a good president, but he was a really nice guy. And it was reminding me that I was at like a. You know, they talk about Georgetown cocktail parties. Yeah, I don't go to Georgetown cocktail parties, but I do have occasional social interactions with people. And I always feel like I'm putting my foot in my mouth, like with these people, because I forget just how different I am. Thank you. The Washington, D.C. consensus. And at a recent such event, I was going off on how bad George W. Bush was to someone who had just like, written at length about him being one of our best presidents. And I was like. Or like the time I. And I, I totally repented of this. But the time I tried to take on Bill Bennett about drug legalization and Mark was like, you got to pick better antagonists. Like, don't go after Bill. Like, you know, is in one of those, like, green rooms at Fox. Like me just being. Trying to tell Bill Bennett something about drug legalization.

[David Harsanyi]

I saw that Bill Bennett now works for. Is an agent of Qatar or something.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah. Yes. It's very. I mean, I. And on that note, in Georgetown cocktail parties, I was talking with some friends about it who are. Who are more friends with him, and they were very disappointed that he was doing that. And I do think, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I have a hard and fast rule about working for foreign governments for other people, but Mark and I just kind of decided early on that we would not take money to do work for foreign governments. And it's kind of sad how much that affects your income. You know, I joke, like, we have the house size to prove that we've never taken money from a foreign government. But a lot of people do, they lobby for them or they write for them. And I just kind of decided that's not gonna.

[David Harsanyi]

Not only won't I take money from a foreign government, I won't take money from this government I want to take money from. Yeah, I just, I feel like puts you in a position where you can't. You can never really honestly write moving forward. I don't know. Whatever. I hate with that. I make myself sound like I'm some saint. I just think it's a normal thing for a journalist not to take Money from governments, even their own, but especially foreign governments. I don't care if you love that country or you hate it. Like, doesn't really matter.

[Molly Hemingway]

This is Molly Hemingway encouraging you to listen to my favorite podcast issues, etc. Every day you get in depth interviews with host Todd Wilkin asking expert guests substantive, thought provoking questions on all of the important news and issues of our day. The expert guests are in culture, law, ethics, philosophy, theology and apologetics. Expert guests, expansive topics, always extolling Christ issues, etc.

[David Harsanyi]

Let's talk about another potential invasion that might be on the horizon, and that is green land. Donald Trump talks about Greenland all the time. Right. He wants to buy it. He's threatening to invade it. Basically. I'm all for. Listen, I saw what, what's. Who's the guy? There's a senator in Arizona. Not the, Not Kelly, the other guy. Is it Gallego or something?

[Molly Hemingway]

Ruben Gallegos.

[David Harsanyi]

Gallegos. He had a. He's trying to push through this law that, that or bill that will stop Donald Trump for. From invading Greenland, which is fine, whatever. But in his tweet he said he doesn't want us to be involved in another forever war. There are like 50, 000 people, I think, in Greenland. I don't think they have any kind of military. We have a military base there already. We have an agreement from the 50s where we basically can do what we want. Now, obviously people laugh about this Greenland thing, but there, I think there are actually very good reasons not to allow the Russians and Chinese to gain footholds there. The minerals are difficult to get to. I think people think we want to steal those. Maybe in the future, as the earth warms, we'll be able to get to them or in the future when technology lets us do that. But I think there are good reasons and it's clear to me that he's putting tons of pressure on Denmark, which kind of nominally runs the place. I guess it's kind of a welfare state. I think they. They invest a bunch of money. But Green Greenlanders, is that what you call them? I think they can have a referendum on whether they want to join the United States. I think we should just bribe him into doing it the old fashioned way. Just drop a bunch of money and give him some promises of infrastructure and so on, and, and take it.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah. I think Zero Hedge was pointing out we could just give everybody a million dollars and get this for much cheaper than normal methods that it would take to acquire a place like this. I am on record from the moment this started so when, when Trump first said something, corporate media used it as an example of how he was losing his mind and how crazy it was and how that was the craziest thing they'd ever heard. And from that day forward I have said I think this is a good idea. So I continue to think it's a great idea for again, the strategic interest reasons. Just people claim that they think Russia is this huge threat all the time. Well, if you really believe that acquiring Greenland is, would be a really smart thing to do just because of how easy it would be for Russians to come over the pole after us and other things. And they're. Yeah. Resource rich. They're very Lutheran. Right? I'm Lutheran. I like Lutherans. I hope they're not like the bad lefty Lutherans.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, but I mean the Danes colonized that place a few hundred years ago. Are Danes generally Lutherans? They might be, right?

[Molly Hemingway]

They are.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, they are. You are like the Danes.

[Molly Hemingway]

I'm not a Dane.

[David Harsanyi]

I saw a great story where these Danish politicians were talking about how they have to stop taking US weapons now and start, I guess, going to the Chinese. And in my head I was like, this does not, that's not going to work out for you. Also I think we're both in NATO so we're not going to attack Denmark. But I think they're, you know, it's just dumb. But I have to say something. Donald Trump says a lot of crazy stuff, obviously, but sometimes he says, oh, someone had put it so well. Donald Trump doesn't do all the crazy things he says he will, but all the things he does, he's talked about doing do. I'm saying there are no real surprises. So he's like, I'm going to come.

[Molly Hemingway]

In and get you Maduro. And then he does, I'm going to bomb you Iran. And then he does. Yeah.

[David Harsanyi]

So we'll see what happens with Greenland. I think that would be, that would be good for the nation.

[Molly Hemingway]

Well, just a reminder, again, he was elect. I think people are very, very, very happy with the pivot in foreign policy from Biden, Obama, Bush years. But as happy as that makes them, people vote for domestic policy reasons and he needs to understand that people voted for him to fix this country. And I believe that a lot of his foreign policy actions are designed to help this country survive and thrive and even like economically they're wise going forward. But he just, you know, just keep his eye on the ball and his team.

[David Harsanyi]

I saw a poll pre operation in Venezuela that showed most Americans didn't want to be involved there after that poll just flipped on CNN that most people were for it. Now you can believe these polls or not. I see you credulous.

[Molly Hemingway]

Well, I just, I don't think it's, I don't think polls matter in the aftermath, period, but they particularly don't. You can't do a real like high quality poll. But I do think there's truth to what you just said, DAV David, which is people don't want nation building forever wars. And what the reason why I don't like freak out as much as other people who don't want that when Donald Trump takes action is he tends to go in, get the bad guy and get out. Now I understand that because of what Venezuela did with taking over US Companies a long time ago, there's a lot to work out there. But if this becomes some kind of nation building exercise that's not in the country's interest, that involves a lot of death of Americans or something like that, which I don't think it will, that would be a problem. But people, people just still have trauma associated with how poorly we prosecuted wars for a while. But that doesn't mean Trump's gonna, and Hegseth are gonna do the same thing.

[David Harsanyi]

Well, well, the, the reason I brought up the poll was, and I think you're right about that is this just show that people aren't very ideological about foreign policy. They want successful foreign policy, which is essentially what you just said they don't want. You know, if you do it right, there will be for it. I mean most people were for Iraq in the beginning when it looked great and then when it didn't, they weren't. So what I mean is, yeah, I, I just don't think they pay the sort of attention to it as, as you also said, and they just want successful operations. The problem I do have though, a little bit is like you're like there's a lot of this. And I see from JD Vance and others who are like, yeah, well Donald, you have to trust that Donald Trump's going to do it the right way. Well, we have to have a sort of doctrine of foreign policy in essence and we have to not just trust that one person isn't going to get us into trouble and that we have types of politicians who aren't going to get us in trouble. I don't think there are a lot of neocons in the real sense left who are out there wanting to build democracies elsewhere with boots on the ground. I don't but this is nation always lurking. Yeah, but this is nation building in a sense. I mean, we're pressuring this nation into being a more hopefully democratic place. Let's talk about another thing. In Iran right now, there are. There are protests everywhere in the country. I see a lot of excitement about it. I have a few qualms. Like one is we've seen this before. I think there have been three basic nationwide protests and they haven't worked out. I'm not sure this one will. And also, I always worry about what comes after some sort of populist revolt. Right. I mean, I don't know that's going to be better. I don't know what's going to happen. I do think that we should always be. I think that American foreign policy should be in for our interests. But there has to be a little bit of idealism in there that we will try to help people who want to help themselves be free. Because the world is a better place for us when we have countries who are friendly with us, when we have countries who are democratic in some sense. So we'll see what happens in Iran. And I would never want to drop boots down there at all. But I wonder if we should be doing a little more somehow to help them. I don't know.

[Molly Hemingway]

Oh, what I wanted to mention about that is this weekend when we went into Venezuela the next day, there were a lot of videos that were presented as if they were people in the streets of Venezuela celebrating the ouster of Maduro. Now, let me first off say that Venezuela has an incredibly well organized, well funded, vibrant and massive opposition movement. So it is in fact something they've been working quite hard for was the ouster of this dictator who straight up stole elections. And that is true. And at the same time, the videos that people kept posting, I'd be like, why are all these people wearing MAGA hats? And then it would be like, oh, this is the Venezuelan diaspora in Miami, or something like that, you know, And I am so distrustful of video that supposedly, or something. I saw another one that said, like, actually this is not Venezuela, this is Colombia and it was 10 years ago or something like that, you know, I.

[David Harsanyi]

Mean, quickly, you know, when you see Gaza stuff or pal, you know, the Palestinian stuff, there's so much AI and everything that you should not trust a lot of those videos for sure.

[Molly Hemingway]

What I want someone to explain to me is that particular footage, evidence that you see on social media, supposedly of Iran protests. I have never seen such poorly done footage. It seems like an op. It's always like shaky cameras, shaky, shaky. You can't zone in on anything. People are running, it's dark, you're told what you're seeing but you can't actually see it yourself. And I'm like, maybe. And then also because you just said there have been mass nationwide protests in Iran before, maybe or maybe we were told they were, I don't know. But the footage is so non compelling and it angers me to see people sharing it like they're so willing to be told what they're seeing without verifying themselves and I would like them to do a better job with that.

[David Harsanyi]

We, we know though there are protests, I think, I don't know about all the videos but there are economic problems there and it's clear that there is something going on. I don't know to what extent it is. Maybe, maybe it's exaggerated by, by because there is a well organized anti mula movement, you know, as well outside of Iran from Iranian diaspora. So I get that. But I do think something's going on there. I, I, it's going to be hard to dislodge that, that government. So we'll see what happens there. But in any event, let's talk now a little bit about domestic, domestic problems that you mentioned before about the some, is it Somali or Somalian or is it, I don't know, some, I'll say Somali community in Minnesota, especially around Minneapolis that has been involved in widespread fraud. We don't exactly know, I don't know the entire story yet, but one prosecutor said that it might be that half, half of all money sent to, I think it was all Medicaid money, something like that, but like $9 billion since 2018 has been fraudulently taken. So you have programs for autistic kids that don't have autistic kids. You have all kinds of charitable programs that have employees that have, you know, infrastructure but not, are not actually doing anything. So obviously. And what's the guy's name?

[Molly Hemingway]

Nick Shirley, surely.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, right. So he released a 40 minute video, I think the day after Christmas maybe of Somali run child care centers that it looked like we're fraudulently taking some, you know, taking funding and people weren't showing up and so on. That went viral. You know, listen, I'll just say this. I think the guy has made some mistakes but he's, he's like an, you know, he's just starting out as a journalist. It is what it is. But it is funny to watch, especially CNN attempting to discredit the GU rather than Moving the story forward, considering their atrocious record at journalism recently. But that's the reaction quite often from the left. When you see any kind of story that. That puts immigrants in a poor light, they immediately try to, you know, marginalize the people who brought it up or diminish it. And there. There's this. I don't know how to put it. I guess there's this, like, obligation everyone feels to celebrate immigrants. All of them, all the time, like, share identical values, like they all have the same motivations, like they're all just the same, have the same successes. And it's just not true. We have a responsibility to bring people into this country who are. Who are successful and who assimilate and who embrace. If everyone says that we're a country of ideas, and I think that that's true in large part, and, you know, we're also people and all that. But if it is ideas, then, and they're not accepting those ideas, then why can't we talk about it? Right. And obviously there's a problem here. And I just want to say it's not just the criminality that's the problem. Of course, that's the thing we focus on. It's that, like, 81% of Somalis in Minnesota are on welfare to some extent or whatever. The numbers, it's huge. We have immigrant groups where they're like 5% are on welfare from Kenya. We have Christians come here, and they're on the low end of welfare, and they're quite successful. So it's obviously a cultural thing, and it's something we should be allowed to talk about and not be called racists immediately.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah. And many states are refusing to share their welfare data with the federal government precisely so that the federal government cannot accurately understand the level of fraud in different immigrant populations. And that is a huge red flag that various Democrat governors and Democrat leadership of states don't want people to know about the level of fraud. There have been benefits to Democrats in Minnesota of turning a blind, of creating systems that enable easy fraud and then turning a blind eye to the fraud or maybe even participating in the fraud. They have gained control of what used to be a purple state pretty decisively. So we know the motive of Democrats to allow mass fraud of U.S. taxpayer funds because some of these monies are from Minnesota taxpayers. Some of these monies are from you and me, federal taxpayers.

[David Harsanyi]

More and more from federal taxpayers. The states take on less and less of the burden over the years.

[Molly Hemingway]

So I'll just first off, note that Tim Walls, the. The Great white hope of the cisgender white dude of the Democrat ticket was forced to step down from running for reelection.

[David Harsanyi]

Another commie gone over this fraud that.

[Molly Hemingway]

He had been warned about, he'd been told about, and he did literally nothing to stop it. He's now claiming he did a ton to stop it. Clearly that's not true. And he's been forced to step down because Democrats need to keep this state to keep this operation going. And so he understood, like, the best chance his party has to keep this crime happening is to step down. So he did that. It's a big scalp, though, for this young journalist. I want to just say the dude who was working with Nick Shirley was my favorite. I think his name is just David. Like we don't have a last name. And he was the one who had seen something and said something. He noticed that all of these government funded centers had no actual clients in them when he was just driving around and living in his neighborhood. And so he dug into it. And I think that guy's a hero and I love that he was interested in it. And I hope more people are interested in this type of grifting.

[David Harsanyi]

Can I quickly add that Chris Ruffo did a story not long ago about how some of the funding from these Somali people had gone to a terrorist organization, Al Shabaab. Yeah. There have been almost 100 indictments, you know, and I think around 90% of those indictments over this sort of fraud were Somalis or already. I'm not saying that this isn't a big story by him, because it is, because it brought up a lot of attention to this. But it has been simmering on kind of for a while and people knew it was happening and they haven't done much, especially, I mean, you know, Democrats and Democratic politicians in Minnesota.

[Molly Hemingway]

But like, the two big picture issues I think are one, you're absolutely right that this brings out much needed thought about our entire idea of immigration. There has been this cultural force feeding of this idea that all immigration is good, all immigration is equally good, or some immigration is more equal than others. In other words, much better to come from Somalia than South Africa, if you're. You know what I mean? Like, there's that thing on the left that they say, and there has been this thing where we tell ourselves, oh, yes, we all become American when we get here. And that's through this like, beautiful process where it's like a magical process. You just become American when you come here and you get your papers and they don't realize how much of earlier immigration stories did not involve welfare and involved a lot of effort and assimilation. And that doesn't happen anymore. These, you know, the Catholic Charities, the Lutheran Charities, which I think have dropped Lutheran from their name because they're so not Lutheran anymore. They, or maybe they still do, I don't know, but they just take money and then they set up little mini Somalias or mini whatevers where there's no assimilation taking place. There's no effort to. And to convert, like, apparently that would be a dirty word to convert you ideologically or religiously. And it's not surprising that we have this horrific situation. And then I think that's combined with bureaucracies that are designed for fraud and designed to make it difficult to catch fraud. We talk about this all the time with voting systems. And like, the more complex they are, the harder it is to even, you know, there's no way you would even know or be able to find out. Sometimes it's a crime to try to find out whether a vote is a legit vote from a legit person. And we do that with all sorts of public good systems. And so I'm worried about the breakdown of entire civil society. When you look at how these Somalis do no work and they get your money and then you have to work really hard and follow all the rules or your life is destroyed.

[David Harsanyi]

Well, you mentioned before that when immigrants come here, they have to reject communism, which my parents, I know I mentioned that many times, but when they came here in the 60s, had to do, but they also had to have to promise not to be a public charge. Public charge doctrine requires, you know, immigrants to say they're not going to be a burden on taxpayers, they're not going to receive public assistance until they become citizens. But the reasoning for it is because it's antithetical to American principles to be a dependent on the state. Right. I mean, and it also undermines the ability to assimilate. So the, the reasons we have public charge doctrine are still in play after you become a citizen. So if there's a group that's coming here and 80% of them are, are, are relying on welfare, and then there's a country nearby where people come here and they don't rely on welfare. We should be limiting immigration from one place and move, you know, and bringing people in who are going to be good citizens. Because I do think, you know, I'm, I'm probably a bigger fan of immigration in general right now than you are. I'm going to go out on a limb and Say that. But we have, we need, we need, we need self dependency and if we're going to bring in people who are, have extraordinarily high levels of dependency, then something's wrong there. And now they're involved in criminality. I mean there's no way to go. I'm not saying every Somalis that way, but the number is massive. And like you say, you know, in Europe we had, in Europe you have areas around Paris for instance, there are virtual ghettos filled with Muslim newcomers. And they have been newcomers, they've been around generationally. Also in, in Germany you have Turkish families that came in the 50s and they still live in the same ghetto generationally and have no jobs. Like we're going to create that sort of dynamic here. It's going to be terrible for this country in the long run. So we should be avoiding that. And I think that that's really the big issue here now. People tell me like they someone made fun of me on Twitter saying oh, you think other immigrant, immigrant groups haven't engaged in criminality? You know they mean like the mafia or something. Yeah, of course they do. But by the way the mafia was took advantage of other immigrants. In essence that's how they really became power. But where is the Somali Joe DiMaggio or Frank Sinatra Fermi or anyone? Like there are not, there's not a Somali mafia. And then also another kind of group of Somalis that are really doing well in this country. Right. That's the problem I think. I mean I don't know.

[Molly Hemingway]

Everything I know about Somalis is like David Bowie's wife with Somalian.

[David Harsanyi]

Was she not Ethiopian?

[Molly Hemingway]

Wasn't she?

[David Harsanyi]

No, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, no, I don't know. What was her name?

[Molly Hemingway]

Iman.

[David Harsanyi]

Iman, yeah.

[Molly Hemingway]

And then, and then I was thinking about yeah, Somali like that, that really America hating member of Congress. What is her name? She's also very pretty. So they might be really like a people that are, that have an over representation in the criminal or fraud element. But they also make lovely ladies, don't they?

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, I mean do you remember that.

[Molly Hemingway]

Ali G episode about or doing immigration based on hotness of chicks?

[David Harsanyi]

Maybe that's what we're doing.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yes. I'm like okay, if you're really hot you can stay. But the Ilhan Omar is evidence that being hot is not sufficient for being a good American.

[David Harsanyi]

Somalia is the most corrupt country on earth. Right. You can look at lists. It's literally will be number one on almost every list. There's A reason for that, by the way. I blame us, too. We have. We do not. We have no expectations anymore that people will come here and learn civics and be American, good Americans. Right? I mean, it's. It's. And I think it's mostly on the left, but it is us.

[Molly Hemingway]

There's a lot on that. And that video that was really interesting by Nick Shirley, I watched all 42 minutes of it after my kid brought it to my attention. There's a woman in there, a white woman, who is trying to defend and protect the fraudsters. And I'm like, that's the. That's one of the most evil people in this entire video.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, it's like the. It's like the. You know, I keep hearing Mamdani became mayor because of immigrant groups. Probably partly that's true. But there are tons of heritage Americans living in Brooklyn, very expensive lives, who are social, supposedly socialist, who. Who. Who. Who make this happen and ruin. Are ruining the future of immigrant groups and other poor people, in my view. You know, we. We have to have an expectation. If we're a country that believes in itself, it's perfectly fine to have the expectation or. Or the. The idea that we. And our culture is better than other cultures. That's why we don't go to Somalia and they come here and that we should expect them to act like us.

[Molly Hemingway]

You just said, though, Somalia. Somalia is on the top of the list for corruption. And that. That is a culture that. That doesn't work with American culture. And I do think that's what people are trying to say. Being American is not just paperwork. It's about norms and ideas and cultures. And there are certain groups and belief systems that are incompatible with that. And that means that America isn't just like an idea, but a really complicated thing about our culture and norms and ideas. And I don't like when people get too rigid on either side of things because we are better because of our ideas, but also because of who we are as a people.

[David Harsanyi]

I think people say that we are a country of ideas because we are definitely not a country of blood and soil, meaning there are many different ethnicities here. It's not like you have to be Hungarian to live in Hungary. We have all kinds of people here. That doesn't mean that everyone is compatible with being an American. And obviously, we are a country of soil.

[Molly Hemingway]

If you mean by that we have.

[David Harsanyi]

I mean we're.

[Molly Hemingway]

I mean, we. We.

[David Harsanyi]

But you.

[Molly Hemingway]

You have to be inside of here to be American.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, I know, but blood and soil, the Concept meaning like Germans for germ, you know, Germany for Germans and Hungary for Hungarians. Yes, we are more flexible on those things. Of course. I, I, We're a country of ideas and principles with borders, you know, and we have to protect those borders. By protecting those borders, we protect the ideas inside. But I don't believe half this country around, half this country really cares about those ideas.

[Molly Hemingway]

You can't have those ideas when you're importing people who don't culturally understand or have the capacity to, you know, have self government. And like, we are, we, we're not Christian in terms of having an official religion of our country. But what made this country was people being Christian and the people within it being Christian. There is, of course, a tolerance for people who aren't. But you can't like, import the entirety of the Muslim world and expect that they're going to have the same ideas about rule of law that we have because of our particular philosophy, Western civilization, all that. Right.

[David Harsanyi]

No, I agree. It's, it's, it's clear, like, Germany can become a fascist state tomorrow. It's still Germany if we become a fascist state tomorrow. Communist state. We're no longer the United States of America or something else. That's all I'm saying. That it is based on princely. When you come to this country, you, you vow to uphold the Constitution. Right? And I don't think these people are.

[Chris Markowski]

Pay it off. Pay it off now. The Watchdog on Wall street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. If you have thousands of dollars of credit card debt, you cannot start investing until you pay it off. There is no financial advisor that is cheaper than your credit card's interest rate. With all that debt, whether it's happening in D.C. or down on Wall street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdog on Wall street podcast with Chris Murkowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.

[David Harsanyi]

All right, let's do something else. Culture.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay, well, you told me we were going to get to talk about Cassidy Hutchinson, but maybe do you want to.

[David Harsanyi]

Save it for next week or do you want to do it? Let's just do it next week. Yeah, save it for next week.

[Molly Hemingway]

I have a lot of culture.

[David Harsanyi]

Oh, good. Well, why don't you start then?

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay, so first off, I'll just say that on tv, the most negative email I ever got was when I said that I hadn't seen evidence that Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself. And the most negative email I've ever gotten on this podcast was when I said I didn't like the animated version of the Grinch. I mean, I was getting email this morning about it. Just people on the street have been talking about it. People in my neighborhood, they're really upset. But I just want to say I read them all, and that's about all I have to say about it.

[David Harsanyi]

Oh, did you say. You said that on the With Mark episode? So when you say you don't like the animated version of the Grinch, you mean the real. Like the. The old one?

[Molly Hemingway]

The old one, yeah.

[David Harsanyi]

But like Boris Karloff or whatever.

[Molly Hemingway]

By the way, Mark was screaming at me. It was so great.

[David Harsanyi]

Even I don't know how I love to be contrarian. Even I don't know how you could. Not like that, but go on. Okay.

[Molly Hemingway]

And I'll just say, like, one of my friends who's. Or one of my neighbors and friends who's not even Christian, he was. Because I said I didn't love the message when it was confusing. He's like, the message of forgiveness and, you know, Christmas being real, even if the Grinch tries to take away all the material goods, is actually quite Christian.

[David Harsanyi]

Molly.

[Molly Hemingway]

It's like. Okay, got it. Anyway, I just wanted to respond to that. What have you watched?

[David Harsanyi]

Oh, me, I probably watched more, a lot more than this, but this is what I remember. I wasn't writing it down, so I watched. You might be interested in this, a documentary on Netflix called Elway.

[Molly Hemingway]

Oh, I want to see that so bad.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, it's pretty good.

[Molly Hemingway]

Is it good?

[David Harsanyi]

It's okay.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay.

[David Harsanyi]

I mean, it's weird. Obviously, he's one of the great quarterbacks ever, probably, and. But it's a pretty straightforward story. You know, you get picked, picked high, kind of struggle a bit, you win some Super Bowls, finally you retire. Seems like, you know, a guy obsessed with football. And I think, actually there's some interesting stuff about how that affected his. His life, his real, you know, his everyday life and stuff. So I watch it.

[Molly Hemingway]

I mean, it's divorced after a long period of time.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Molly Hemingway]

I don't like that. But other than that, I really like John Elway. Kind of a childhood hero of mine. And the Broncos are back on top right now and kind of with one of these. Like, the quarterback that we have is not, you know, considered one of the greats, but he keeps on pulling victories out of nowhere, and we are number one seed.

[David Harsanyi]

Congratulations. Yeah, Yeah, I remember. Wasn't there. Didn't Elway have A restaurant, like in Cherry Creek or. So I remember. There was a big Elways.

[Molly Hemingway]

I don't know if you go into the Denver Airport terminal, the second terminal, RB terminal, I think is right there.

[David Harsanyi]

And I think he owned car dealerships too, when I was there, but I don't exactly remember. Yeah.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay. So I watched a bunch of movies. I have been sick. You might hear that in my voice. And that always decreases my ability to work late into night. But I watched a movie called Amos and Andrew. Have you seen that?

[David Harsanyi]

No.

[Molly Hemingway]

I mean, it was really interesting. What year? 1993. And it stars, like, a petty criminal named.

[David Harsanyi]

I gotta ask you something. Yeah, we came out in 1993. It says here, why. How do you like. How do you pick the movies you watch?

[Molly Hemingway]

I don't pick any movies. My husband picks all movies.

[David Harsanyi]

Okay.

[Molly Hemingway]

The secrets to our Happy Marriage. I just let him guide the way.

[David Harsanyi]

I've never even heard of this.

[Molly Hemingway]

You'll have to ask him. But, yeah. So it's a. It's. I thought, kind of like an interesting discussion. It's about a wealthy black academic name, and he's played by Samuel L. Jackson. And then a petty criminal, Nick Cage. And then the racism, like the casual racism of elite white lefties. And then it tries to do a lot, is what I will say. And it's not entirely successful, but it's really interesting, I thought. And I would still probably recommend it.

[David Harsanyi]

Okay.

[Molly Hemingway]

You also wrote the screenplay for Something Wild.

[David Harsanyi]

Oh. Jonathan Demme movie or whatever it was.

[Molly Hemingway]

Huh.

[David Harsanyi]

Wasn't there a movie recently with Jeffrey Wright where it was. Had a similar kind of plot line? Do you remember that movie?

[Molly Hemingway]

I mean, I remember that it came out American. Something.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah. Right. American fiction. Yeah.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah. Okay. I have more. Yeah, I saw the Ref, which I do believe I'd seen before, but didn't love. But this time I totally loved it. I thought it was fantastic.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, that's with Dennis Leary, Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis, who I used to love.

[Molly Hemingway]

Oh, yeah, she's fantastic. And I was telling Mark that I'm sad about Kevin Spacey's problems with harassment of younger men because he's really a fantastic actor.

[David Harsanyi]

He really. He really is.

[Molly Hemingway]

Then Mark was like, you know, like, on the scale of Me too, it wasn't rape.

[David Harsanyi]

I. I don't know. You know, I mean, a lot of. How can I say this? Isn't it? Do we know for sure what he did or didn't do? Like, I. I don't. I. I didn't follow it that closely.

[Molly Hemingway]

But I'll just Say one of my friends hands when he was a handsome young man did get groped by Kevin Spacey at a Bloomberg party after the. Was that like, awful nerd prom thing. Oh, with the White House correspondence.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah.

[Molly Hemingway]

Dinner. And Bloomberg used to throw these amazing parties, which I have crazy stories from. And that's one of the crazy stories. Okay. I also watched Crazy Rich Asians.

[David Harsanyi]

Okay.

[Molly Hemingway]

Loved it. Thought it was fantastic. Like, very fun. Have you seen it?

[David Harsanyi]

No.

[Molly Hemingway]

It was very popular.

[David Harsanyi]

So I know it didn't look like something I would enjoy, but maybe I'll watch it.

[Molly Hemingway]

I don't know. It was just well done in like every. Every Asian is in the film. And I.

[David Harsanyi]

Should. I. I just want to say it's not because it's Asian themed. I didn't watch. Is because it just didn't seem like it had this kind of subject matter that would intrigue me.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay. And then I think my final one is one false move, which came out in the early 90s, I think it was written by Billy Bob Thornton and he's also in the movie. And.

[David Harsanyi]

Oh, I know this movie. The guy who Passed Away is in it. Bill Paxton or whatever. Paxton.

[Molly Hemingway]

I love him so much. And I mean, he's. He's big in this.

[David Harsanyi]

I saw this in the movie theater, by the way. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I remember liking it quite a bit.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah. It was directed by Carl Franklin.

[David Harsanyi]

You know, just remember snow. There's a lot of snow in this movie. Is that this one?

[Molly Hemingway]

Anyway, there's no. There's no snow.

[David Harsanyi]

All right, I must have it confused.

[Molly Hemingway]

Are you thinking of A Simple Plan?

[David Harsanyi]

Yes.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay.

[David Harsanyi]

That have the same people in it.

[Molly Hemingway]

I love A Simple Plan. It's one of my favorite movies. But no One False Move is about violent drug criminals, like these two guys who are violent drug criminals. And Billy Bob is dating this girl, and she kind of gets him, and she's kind of an accomplice to a horrific crime, and then they're on the run and it's about that and the efforts to catch him, but it's also about race in really interesting ways. And I. I really. I keep on thinking about it. That's my metric for, you know.

[David Harsanyi]

A Simple Plan also had Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton in it.

[Molly Hemingway]

Well, maybe. What year Was that made?

[David Harsanyi]

98.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah, so maybe they met on this other move. Like, this is not. Not the finest screenplay I've ever encountered, but it was still worthwhile. And Billy Bob is terrifying in it.

[David Harsanyi]

Okay.

[Molly Hemingway]

What about you, David? You've had two weeks of probably Nothing but watching Elway documentaries.

[David Harsanyi]

Here's what I remember. I watched the Phoenician Scheme.

[Molly Hemingway]

Oh, what'd you think? I kind of like used to love that dude and then I got got tired of him.

[David Harsanyi]

I actually thought this was better than the last few movies he did. And I think, I think it's better because Benicio Del Toro is so funny. I didn't like Asteroid City, was it called very much. This one I liked. Okay, so the, the, the woman who stars in it is, is Mia Threepleton. And that is a daughter of Kate Winslet. I found out. Oh, so I feel old. Then I watched two old fashioned, like action, you know, testosterone fueled movies. F1 with Brad Pitt.

[Molly Hemingway]

I loved F1. Did you not?

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, I did. I didn't think, I didn't think I would. I did kind of annoyed that Brad Pitt takes his shirt off. He's 60 over 60 and he's just like ripped. And I'm like, it's just annoying. It's a good looking fella.

[Molly Hemingway]

I loved how simple that movie was. It was literally like, we're just gonna race cars.

[David Harsanyi]

It's a car similar to like Days of Thunder.

[Molly Hemingway]

Barely a plot. And I loved every minute of it. And then also every time I get behind the wheel now I'm like, room, room.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, it's. I see they're making a sequel. I think it's one of the highest grossing, quote unquote sports movies ever made. Or maybe the highest grossing. So it just gives you what you want. And speaking of lack of plots, here's the thing. I want to preface this. There are movies that have no plot, that have a lot of hand waving to make you think there's a complex plot, but there's nothing. And that is the last Mission Impossible movie. I just watched like 7 or 8 or whatever it is. I thought it was so boring and bad. I mean, it really has this kind of AI story going, but it's really just a chase and they end up on a biplane, like fighting on a biplane, like Raiders of the Lost Ark. But you know, it was just, I don't know, I, I, I think Tom Cruise has moved on and I think he should. Those movies have gotten really boring. That's what I remember. But I think there's more and I will save them for next week. We can talk about some TV that I've been watching. Yeah, okay. Well, it's nice to be back. I hope if anyone has any criticisms of our cultural choices, they can email [e-mail]. we'd love to hear from you. And we'll be back next week. Until then, be lovers of freedom and.

[Molly Hemingway]

Anxious for the Frayland.