‘You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 183: Abigail Spanberger

Summary

Federalist Radio Hour — ‘You're Wrong’ With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 183: Abigail Spanberger

Date: January 21, 2026
Host: Mollie Hemingway (Editor-in-Chief, The Federalist)
Co-Host: David Harsanyi (Senior Writer, Washington Examiner)
Main Theme: Dissecting the political shifts in Virginia under new Governor Abigail Spanberger, the unraveling of Democratic moderation, media double standards, debates about immigration, law enforcement, and the state of contemporary political discourse.

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the rapid policy changes under Virginia’s new Governor, Abigail Spanberger, focusing on the contrast between her moderate campaign promises and the sweeping progressive—often radical—actions taken in her first weeks in office. Mollie and David explore Democratic strategies, media complicity, the role of government, and broader implications for political culture, including the media's role in shaping narratives, immigration enforcement, and the nation’s growing political polarization. The latter portion of the episode dives into recent films and shows, alongside a discussion on political memoirs and the state of contemporary culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Abigail Spanberger’s Governorship: From Moderate Image to Progressive Action

[00:00–05:51]

• Overview of Spanberger's Policies:

  • Immediate introduction of “hard left” policies: tax raises, abortion expansions (“kill babies after they're born”), stringent gun control, lack of election accountability.
  • Purge of moderate staff and state university leadership, replaced by progressive activists.
  • Media portrays these shifts as normal, glossing over broken campaign promises of moderation.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Mollie: “Her first day in office... every kind of foundational progressive idea to weaken the country has already been embraced by Democrats in Virginia.” [00:27]
  • David: “She fired anyone who was good in the state universities and is replacing it with hard left activists... so they can do the most damage most quickly.” [01:23]

• Republican Response:

  • Mollie critiques Republicans for not running strong campaigns, making Spanberger’s win easy, despite Glenn Youngkin’s previous popularity as a moderate.
  • Despite Virginia’s Democratic tilt, the radical policy leap is seen as potentially undermining Democratic popularity.

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2. Media Complicity and Narrative Control

[04:12–07:28]

• Media’s Role:

  • Hosts argue the “corporate media” shields Democrats by not acknowledging dissonance between Spanberger’s campaign and her governance.
  • Media’s history of avoiding accountability for misreporting—climate change, Russia collusion hoax.

• Notable Quotes:

  • David: “You can do a lot when you have corporate media at your beck and call.” [04:12]
  • Mollie: “Climate extremists... their doomsday predictions haven’t come true... all of the media participated in this. And there’s no reckoning.” [06:28]

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3. Immigration Enforcement and State-Federal Tensions

[07:28–13:37]

• Virginia's Policy Shift:

  • Spanberger’s administration ends ICE cooperation—seen as a form of “rebellion” against federal law.
  • Massive influx of illegal immigrants and criminal incidents attributed to lack of enforcement.

• Media Framing:

  • The focus remains on accusations of excessive force by ICE, rather than the legal and social consequences for citizens.

• Notable Quotes:

  • David: “She’s in rebellion in a very Virginia sense ... against the United States government over enforcement of immigration and borders.” [08:04]
  • Mollie: “The essence of the debate is that states don’t want to enforce a federal law... but we can’t ever talk about that.” [09:08]

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4. Partisan Double Standards & Political Culture

[13:37–18:26]

• State Cooperation and Law Enforcement:

  • Other states (e.g., Tennessee, Florida) praised for cooperating with ICE.
  • Democratic states, by contrast, are accused of encouraging lawlessness or even “insurrection.”

• Culture War and Religious Rights:

  • Discussion of an incident in St. Paul, Minnesota, where leftist activists disrupted Christian worship—media and Democratic leaders allegedly condoned the action.
  • Mollie links this to broader protest culture and a basic disregard for others' First Amendment rights.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Mollie: “Leftist protesters always... believe that their First Amendment rights trump the rights of other people’s First Amendment protections...” [16:48]

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5. Trump, Leadership Styles, and the State of Political Discourse

[18:26–29:55]

• Trump vs. Other Leaders:

  • Hosts discuss Trump’s directness as refreshing compared to the “backstabbing” style of the Democratic establishment.
  • Acknowledge polarization: one must be “pro” or “anti” Trump; question the sense of total loyalty.

• Decorum and Debate:

  • Mollie laments the loss of policy debate and the rise of personal attacks and coarseness in politics, as well as the superficiality of performative swearing by politicians.

• Righteousness vs. Politeness:

  • David debates where the line should be drawn: polite Christianity vs. fierceness against destructive ideologies (e.g., radical trans movement, “communism is unacceptable”).
  • Calls for more forthright (even “mean”) opposition to ideas harming society.

• Notable Quotes:

  • David: “Men fight by punching each other, but... [Democrats] fight like girls. They gossip... and Trump is just like, ‘I’m going to say out loud that I don’t like that person.’” [23:38]
  • Mollie: “I think you need to be able to call someone evil. You need to be able to call what is wrong, wrong. What is truth, truth.” [28:11]

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6. Greenland, Geopolitics, and Trump’s Negotiation Tactics

[29:55–38:54]

• Trump's Greenland Obsession:

  • Debate over the fascination with potentially acquiring Greenland for strategic reasons.
  • David notes every president has considered it; Mollie finds the obsession politically self-defeating and diplomatically risky.
  • Discussion of negotiation tactics: “great outsized threat followed by completely reasonable negotiations.”

• Notable Quotes:

  • David: “Trump seems to be the president who does what everybody says they’re going to do—but doesn’t do—or that takes action everybody just talks about.” [31:56]
  • Mollie: "Running a country is not the same as running a business... you probably need to approach it differently than... a hostile takeover of another company." [38:05]

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7. Political Memoirs, Anti-Semitism, and Vice Presidential Vetting

[38:54–48:16]

• Josh Shapiro’s Memoir & Democratic VP Vetting:

  • Shapiro’s claim: he was asked in vetting if he was “a double agent for Israel”—viewed as an old anti-Semitic trope, overshadowing real policy credentials.
  • Walls' questionable China ties implicit in the discussion; skepticism that similar scrutiny applies in vetting non-Jewish candidates.

• Reactions to Anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party:

  • Observation that Democrats coordinated anti-Semitism statements in response to polling, not principle.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Mollie: “If someone asked me if I was a traitor, I would not go campaign for them... He said nothing until now, when he can make some money.” [45:46]

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8. Culture Segment: Movies, TV, and Recommendations

[48:16–58:08]

• Recent Watches:

  • Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964): Praised for visual style and emotional impact. [49:10]
  • Room with a View: Enjoyed, but hosts now side with older, “wrong” characters with age. [51:05]
  • The Rip (Netflix): Mixed review (David liked, Mollie found implausible and boring). [53:15–54:21]
  • Seven Dials (Netflix Agatha Christie adaptation): Recommended for solid genre adaptation, though somewhat predictable. [56:39–57:24]
  • The Closer (old series, Netflix): Mollie binge-watching; a solid procedural. [58:08]

• Notable Quotes:

  • Molly: “I hate when I get pulled into something like that. I'm like, how many seasons are there? Oh, seven. I'm in it for seven seasons." [58:08]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes—With Timestamps

• “This is, this is disconcerting. It's scary, actually. It's downright. Yeah, it's downright scary.” – David [02:30]
• “Even if [Republicans] do the hard work of winning elections, it doesn't seem to result in the type of change that Democrat voters get when they put the hard work into winning elections.” – David [05:03]
• “ICE does enforcement operations in all 50 states. You're not hearing about horrific problems in Tennessee because the government of Tennessee cooperates with the federal government.” – David [13:37]
• “Leftist protesters always seem to believe that their First Amendment rights trump the rights of other people’s First Amendment protections.” – Mollie [16:48]
• “I have no problem saying that I am happier with [Trump] as president than I've ever been of any president in my lifetime.” – David [22:07]
• “You need to be able to call someone evil. You need to be able to call what is wrong, wrong. What is truth, truth.” – Mollie [28:11]
• “He's threatening the Danes and others with all kinds of massive tariffs if they don't go along with this... you're just pushing these people towards China. It is not worth it. It's backfiring in a way.” – Mollie [34:22]
• “If you agree with me on 7 out of 10 things, vote for me. If you agree with me on 10 out of 10 things, seek psychiatric help.” – David, paraphrasing Ed Koch [21:22]
• “I'm going to gossip about this person and really hurt their reputation... and Trump is definitely more just like, ‘I'm going to say out loud that I don't like that person.’” – David [23:38]

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Segment Timestamps — For Easy Navigation

• Spanberger’s Policy Pivot & Media Enabling: 00:00–07:28
• Immigration & Law Enforcement: 07:28–13:37
• Religious Rights Incident & Protest Culture: 13:37–18:26
• Trump & Political Discourse: 18:26–29:55
• Greenland & Foreign Policy: 29:55–38:54
• Political Memoirs & Democratic Vetting: 38:54–48:16
• Culture Segment (Film & TV): 48:16–58:08

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Tone and Language

Consistent with the hosts’ style—wry, skeptical, and frequently irreverent. The conversation incorporates humor and cultural references, even when discussing heavy political topics, and maintains a sharp-tongued, debate-oriented attitude throughout.

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In summary:
This episode is a comprehensive critique of the Democratic Party’s shift away from the center, as epitomized by Governor Spanberger’s Virginia administration, layered with broader reflections on immigration, the media, modern political culture, and the cultural products shaping the American psyche. The hosts draw connections between daily political drama and deeper currents in law, society, and values, finishing with a dose of pop culture commentary to round off a densely-packed hour.

Transcript

[Molly Hemingway]

Foreign. Welcome back, everyone, to a new episode of youf'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 love to hear from you. So, Molly, we have a new governor here in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, who ran a campaign promising moderation, She, I believe a few years ago during a Democratic Party meeting, said that the party should never use the word socialist again. Her first day in office, what do we have? Or first week in office, what do we have? We have a slew of hard left policies. Tax raises, abortion, abortion bills, gun control, lack of accountability for elections. Like every kind of foundational progressive idea to weaken the country has already been embraced by Democrats in Virginia.

[David Harsanyi]

Well, all that and more. She fired anyone who was good in the state universities and is replacing it with hard left activists. Activists. All the hard left activists are being put throughout her administration so that they can do the most damage most quickly. And because of the information warfare environment we're in the corporate media, which love what she's doing, they're not saying like, oh, this person lied when they said they were a moderate. We lied when we said she was a moderate. They're just kind of acting like these are totally normal things that are being done. And, and it's a very worrisome situation. For it is true that Virginia is a pretty Democrat state, but this is coming off of a rare occurrence of where we had a Republican governor, lieutenant governor and Attorney general. And it's not just Abigail Spanberger, by the way. You might remember that the attorney general had wished for the death of his political opponents and for their children to witness it.

[Molly Hemingway]

Jay Jones, was that his name?

[David Harsanyi]

It is his name and that's my Attorney General of the Commonwealth. So this is, this is disconcerting. It's scary, actually. It's downright. Yeah, it's downright scary.

[Molly Hemingway]

She Spamberger is a weak politician in a lot of ways. Like, I, I don't find her very impressive at all. She won easily because Republicans did not run good candidates, did not run good campaigns here in Virginia. I do wonder, though, if they would. Here's the thing. Youngkin was actually a popular governor of Virginia despite this being a blue state. I think he was popular because he could reach out and because he was gave a moderate face to conservative ideas that I think are actually quite popular and he could express them in a way that maybe like Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania can do on the other end of it, you know, and these are popular governors. Spanberger is not going to be popular Governor if she raises taxes on all deliveries that she's going to do, if she raises taxes on businesses, as she's going to do on new businesses if she has. The abortion bill the Democrats are talking about is exactly what was the governor's name who said that we should be able to kill babies after they're born?

[David Harsanyi]

Ralph Northam.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah, this is like essentially going to make that reality. It's just incredibly radical. A lot of people have guns here in Virginia. Second Amendment is not an unpopular thing here. And there's a gun bill that's going to, going to attack that as well. So I do wonder how if this will help Republicans. I mean, I don't. It doesn't really matter because they're going to ruin the state by that point.

[David Harsanyi]

But I don't know. I mean, this is pretty standard MO and you can do a lot when you have corporate media at your beck and call. And she does. I mean, none of them are saying we lied to you when we said she was a moderate or she lied to you when she said she was a moderate. They're just acting like these radical positions aren't a big deal. And then when they take effect years later or when the, when the effects are felt years later, they're not going to tie it to their lies or, or political party differences. It's a very powerful thing that Democrats and the left have with control of nearly all the media. And I think this is no exception.

[Molly Hemingway]

Can I tie this into. I'm sorry, go on.

[David Harsanyi]

Oh, sorry, I was, I just. Go ahead.

[Molly Hemingway]

No, no, please go on.

[David Harsanyi]

I was talking to a friend we were driving in Virginia on Saturday and she's a, you know, very moderate, Bushy type Republican and she was saying that she feels like when Democrats are in power, they act like they will never lose power and when Republicans are in power, they act like they're not in power. And I thought that, I mean, that's how I felt for a very long time, but that I was hearing it from her really spoke, I think, to the general frustration that a lot of Republican voters feel that even if they do the hard work of winning elections, it doesn't seem to result in the type of change that Democrat voters get when they put the hard work into winning elections.

[Molly Hemingway]

Well, I know that that's a popular sentiment, but I think there are reasons for that. Beyond that, Republicans are just more cowardly or something. It's that if you are still, and there are fewer of them, a small government conservative, you don't view government, you don't want government to be an act. You don't want it to be as activist as a left wing person does. So you're always fighting a defensive battle if you're that kind of person. And it becomes very difficult. But just something you said about the media and how there will be no real repercussions for lying to people. I was thinking about, I don't know if you saw this story where a bunch of these climate extremists from 20 years ago are, have admitted essentially like Bill Gates and others that their doomsday predictions haven't come true and that they need to take a more moderate tone on this stuff. Like they put this country, we have so many terrible laws and regulations on the books undermining our prosperity and all of that. And all of the media participated in this. Climate deniers, all of that other the kind of rhetorical tricks they use to, to demean and undermine people who didn't believe climate doomsday predictions. And there's no, there's no reckoning. There's nothing, no one has to pay a price. The same people are on the television. The same people are lecturing us in a different way now. There is never any reckoning. There was. We've talked about this with the Russia, Russia collusion hoax and all of that. So it's, it's a, it's a tough fight on that flank as well.

[David Harsanyi]

Speaking of, you know, Spanberger, one of her first acts was to rejoin. I think it's called Reggie. It's that greenhouse gas initiative, it's total scam nonprofit that you pay the non profit for carbon credits. And the effect on consumers in Virginia is to dramatically increase their energy costs. And yeah, just for these completely ridiculous, outmoded ideas that don't work. Oh, she did we also talk about how she ended ICE cooperation.

[Molly Hemingway]

No, we did not mention that.

[David Harsanyi]

She's in rebellion in a very Virginia sense. We're good at this. Over the years she's in rebellion against the United States government over enforcement of immigration and borders. And this is a big issue because Virginia has brought in, I mean, just unbelievable numbers of illegal immigrants, including according to the news every single night, a ton of criminal illegal aliens. It's a major issue when you're involved in an accident, which I've experienced in my family and among my friends, where you're involved in an accident with an illegal alien and you're on the hook for everything. It's. It's a major issue. And to say we're not going to cooperate with our laws that were democratically passed and we're not going to cooperate with the enforcement of those laws, it's just an open rebellion, open insurrection, as they say, against the United States. And again, not a moderate position.

[Molly Hemingway]

I feel like we have never or we're not getting to the essence of that debate. So it's always how, you know, the left is always pointing out some excessive force allegedly used by Ace or whatever. But the essence of the debate is that states don't want to enforce a federal law having to do with the border and with immigration, which is under the federal government's purview. You remember during the Obama administration, Obama went to the Supreme Court against Arizona to argue that border enforcement is a federal concern, but yet now states simply ignore it. And I would love to ask Spamberger or someone like that, what does she want us to do about illegal immigration? But we can never talk about that because ICE has been, you know, become villains in the eyes of all progressives. But we can never. I've never really heard someone get to the essence of that debate. What exactly do Democrats want to do about illegal immigration? How are we supposed to enforce those laws? Or do they think that we shouldn't enforce those laws? In my view, they don't think that we should enforce those laws at all.

[David Harsanyi]

Well, Mark. Mark Hemingway, who I am related to by marriage, wrote a piece on just that at the Federalist talking about how that is the crux of. Of the issue. Democrats do not want to enforce any immigration law because they support completely open borders. And they get mad when you say, wait a minute, sounds like you support completely open borders. But if you ask them, okay, so what should be done? They literally think nothing should be done. And I think we talked about this a little bit, but when the, the shooting of that woman who was interfering with law enforcement in.

[Molly Hemingway]

Renee Good.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah. When that happened, people said, I've never seen anything like it. People have completely different viewpoints of what they're seeing with this cop shooting into the car, it's like, sort of true. It's kind of a stupid point, but it's sort of true. Because if you think that immigration law is. Is illicit or whatever, you know, like, corrupted, and you can't. You shouldn't have any of it. You see that cop enforcing immigration law as the worst thing in the world. And if you do believe in borders, and if you do believe countries have the right to police them, and if you do believe people shouldn't be here illegally. And if you do believe that police do have a monopoly on force in situations, you see something totally different because your view of the world is totally different. And yeah, Abigail Spanberg, who presents as a moderate and never was, she was always a left wing radical and she did, she was smarter about how she ran it than some other people are in that she hid that. But the former CIA operative is a radical who does not believe, does not really care if I'm assaulted by an illegal alien. She just doesn't care. She doesn't care if my kid gets in a car accident with a criminal illegal alien and has to go to the hospital. She doesn't care. And neither do any other Democrats. And like, I feel kind of crazy about it because to me it's so obvious you should care about the citizens of your state and how they are being hurt by a failure to enforce the laws. But she's just adding fuel to the non enforcement fire.

[Molly Hemingway]

The kind of dishonest trick media plays and the left plays with this issue is that they have an undue focus on alleged excessive force by ice. So that becomes the main story rather than the suffering of like you say, a normal citizen here. So that the whole debate is about is ICE using excessive force rather than what do we do and how do we most effectively fix this problem. The most effective way to fix this problem is for states to cooperate with federal agents and ICE to get illegal immigrants out of the country because they shouldn't be here in a humane way. Right, I'm all for that. But still, to enforce the law, there are states that do that and there are no problems there. And there are states like Minnesota and I guess now Virginia that are going to try to stand in the way of ice. And I bet you that that will lead to tragic, some kind of tragic circumstance somewhere. Right.

[David Harsanyi]

Well, that was another point that Mark made in his piece, which is ICE does enforcement operations in all 50 states. You're not hearing about horrific problems in Tennessee because the government of Tennessee cooperates with the federal government in the enforcement of our immigration laws and they don't encourage insurrection against the federal government. It's happening all the time in Florida. Florida is actually kind of getting a name for itself in how well it is supporting the federal law enforcement officers if anyone tries to obstruct them. The Florida system is on top of it and taking people out of the way who are trying to obstruct federal law enforcement. So yes, the problems are caused by confusing messages from Democrat politicians or out and out encouragement toward insurrection. And we see this, I think, also with the terrifying thing we saw in, I think it was St. Paul, the twin Cities in Minnesota this weekend, where a group of left wing terrorists openly bragged about how they violated the First Amendment rights of Christians in the city by invading their worship space and taking over their worship. To this point, not a single elected Democrat of note in Minnesota has condemned this violation of religious rights. In fact, the mayor of St. Paul sided with the people who went after the Christians. And their whole reason for doing this, which they bragged about, which Don Lemon had foreknowledge of and participated in, was that one of the pastors at that church during the week is a law enforcement officer. And they, I guess, have a weird religious view that Christians can't be engaged in law enforcement, which, you know, is something certainly that people have talked about and I would say is not a view held by literally any Christian of any note. And so they said that because they personally don't think that a Christian should be in law enforcement, that they had the right to terrorize a congregation in St. Paul. I mean, that's where we are. And nobody did anything. The police weren't there, even though they were like broadcasting what they were doing. The. The state government has done nothing about it. And still, I mean, as the time, as of the time of this taping, no one's been arrested for what they did.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah, it was called the city's church in St. Paul. Later I saw Don Lemon was somewhere. What's that? Crazy Jennifer Welch? Is that her name? She's like some kind of off unhinged podcaster or whatever, isn't she?

[David Harsanyi]

I think she's actually the Grape Welch heiress.

[Molly Hemingway]

No, I don't know. Honestly, I can't take like more than surgery. I can't take 10 seconds of that voice. Sorry, I know, call me misogynistic if you like, but he said he basically called the people in their white supremacists, which is just insane because first of all, a lot of the people in that church weren't white, but moreover, they were worshiping. And even if they were white, it doesn't make them supremacists anyway. But yeah, I. There's this. I have a. I'd like a broader problem with protest culture in general. I think it's kind of un American. But leftist protesters always seem to believe that their First Amendment rights trump the rights of other people's First Amendment protections. So they can just shout you down, they can prohibit you from speaking if you're a comedian, if you're at a school, wherever, that they can just shut you down. And they did that here where people were worshiping, which is gross. And I just would say, Donald Trump, this isn't a throat clearing thing. This is to make a point. But he does a lot of things a lot of people probably don't like. He speaks in a way a lot of people don't like. But when you see the other side storming a church, shutting down church services for, to, in, in defense of illegality, are you really surprised that people are going to vote for the Republican over whatever, you know, people who defend this kind of, this kind of protest. And not just, and it's not even a protest, it's just an act of criminality. And not just here, but you have this happening in different ways across the country.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah. Heather McDonald had a piece about how refreshing it was to have a president just speak like a normal person when it comes to some of the horrific crime that has been taking place and how we'd gotten used to politicians having this weird, distant way of talking about it. And she was quoting what Trump said when that Ukrainian immigrant was brutally slaughtered on public transportation in North Carolina, and how he just was like, yeah, this is a monster. We can't have that. We can't let this type of stuff happen. And I think there is something very refreshing about someone just being like, yeah, these people are, these people are acting crazy and we can't have it. So a lot of Americans do feel that way. Can I say one more thing really quickly? You said this wasn't ritual malediction or whatever, but I was on X this week and that Frank Fleming guy had tweeted something about how so many. So much criticism of Trump fails to acknowledge the context in which he is speaking. So they'll say that he's bad without noting just how horrible some of our other leaders are. And I just agreed with him. I'm like, yeah, I, I frequently agree with criticism of Trump, but when you, when you are like so focused on it while not acknowledging how horrible are all these other so called leaders are, you just seem unhinged. Right, yeah, of course. I just want to say people got so mad at me for saying that I frequently agree with criticism of Trump. And they were like, we knew you couldn't be trusted and you're the worst. And I was just like, wait, I thought we all agreed that, you know, like the thing that kind of comes to mind is after Rob Reiner was brutally murdered by his son, and he's like, that dude's the worst. Do not agree with this. You know, and I say that as someone who was personally, personally targeted by Rob Reiner for destruction as part of his Russia collusion hoax, because we were the publication that was doing the most to debunk that. But I just. Because of my own code, I do not believe in that. But I didn't think it was, like, that controversial. And I was like, okay, everyone, just calm down. I think I like, I genuinely like Trump and his policies. You know, that doesn't mean that I agree with everyone. It reminds me of that Ed cock, is that I say his name, the mayor of New York. You're from Koch. Sorry, Ed Koch. How he was like, if you agree with me on 7 out of 10 things, vote, vote for me. If you agree with me on 10 out of 10 things, seek psychiatric help. Like, nobody should agree with any, you know, politician, of all people, on everything.

[Molly Hemingway]

Anyway, I've always found it very difficult when it comes to Trump, and maybe Obama had a similar kind of hold on people. Where you are either pro Trump or anti Trump never really makes complete sense to me. I mean, I get it, I get what it. What. What's happening, but I just don't understand why I have to have any kind of loyalty to anyone other than my family or whatever friend. Tomorrow he could turn around and do a bunch of stuff. I even hate more than I hate what he's doing. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know what he's going to do. And especially someone as mercurial as Donald Trump. You can't say I am pro or anti Trump, but there's a lot of this thing where, oh, I trust what he's doing here, even if he sounds crazy or he's off, off the hook or whatever.

[David Harsanyi]

I don't know. I mean, I'm pro Trump. I have no problem saying that I am happier with him as president than I've ever been of any president in my lifetime. So that doesn't mean, again, that I agree with everything he's done. And I do understand a little bit of the defensiveness of him, which is because of, again, this cartoonishly hostile environment in which he operates, where you have people just act like it's okay and normal to do things like the Russia collusion hoax or multiple impeachments or all the judicial insurrection stuff like, you people act like that's normal. And so when. When someone who they trust is also piling on, they're like, really? Can you not, like, think of the Larger context. So I get it, but it just kind of, but to be fair and getting it, it's like too extreme if you can't say, I do not agree with this approach he's taking here.

[Molly Hemingway]

But to be fair, Donald Trump himself is sort of cartoonish in the way that he conducts himself sometimes. So it's, it's, it's, it's a weird world we're living in. But I saw someone, so, so at NR said I forgot who it was. Said like he liked a lot of what Trump was doing or something, and that we needed to put, we needed to elect people. We need to get back to electing people who are also sort of morally better. Right. Whatever it was not one of these people will take even a moment to consider that these norms were destroyed by Barack Obama and later by Joe Biden, even though they used very polite rhetoric.

[David Harsanyi]

I'm trying to avoid saying any bad words. They're the whiniest little girls when dealing with conflict. And they backstab and they think they're so cute because they do. They don't do it like men fight. Men fight by punching each other, but they, they fight like girls. They're like, I'm going to gossip about this person and really hurt their reputation. And Trump is definitely more just like, I'm going to say out loud that I don't like that person. And it's so unlike the way things are done in D.C. because he's not really a creature of D.C. that they don't know how to handle it. But to hear the commentariat class be like, I so preferred when we were acting like little girls about our political enemies, it just is impotent and embarrassing to me.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah, but, you know, I mean, shouldn't, shouldn't the people who run this country, like, for instance, I noticed this trend, I'm sure you've noticed as well, or maybe we even spoke about it, where everyone and politicians curse now all the time. And they do it as a shortcut to, to exert some kind of earnestness. But it's all fake. Right? And it, it comes off like they're being. I think, I do think Donald Trump does not think much before he speaks. And if he has a problem with someone, he says it. And maybe, you know, he overstates it. And sometimes I think it's kind of disgusting. But, but I think a decorum, a certain level of decorum is something we should have from our leaders. I'm not, I agree with you. It doesn't need to be this, like, you Know this, what is like Tip o' Neill and Reagan meeting for breakfast type of thing all the time. And you hate each other, then you can, you don't need to hide that. But we should treat each other with a certain level of respect. I say that as you know, everyone always tells me it's a Christian country. I agree. I mean, we need to have a certain amount of respect for each other. Everyone is always running around, I think, picking the worst moment their enemy has and defining him that way. And it makes us kind of hate each other and this coarseness in how we speak to each other. I like a good debate, I like a good insult. Like, I'm not against any of that. But I think there's this ugliness that isn't really about debate anymore. It's like so personalized that it's weird. Weird to me, I don't even see anyone debating policy anymore. Left, right, it's right on the right. People might debate right wing policy on the left, but I never see that crossover. I don't know. I don't even know where I'm going with this.

[David Harsanyi]

One other thing about this, which is it's just, this is a topic that I'm personally conflicted on. You look at something like the radical trans movement, which involves people denying reality, harming bodies, removing healthy body parts, forcing everybody into like a fantasy realm where you get to change your sex, even though sex cannot be changed. It's innate and unchangeable. And what happened is a lot of people in this country, probably based on Christian heritage and not belief, but that background, were very polite about the whole thing. Polite to the point of destruction and polite to the point that children were being mutilated, permanently sterilized and having their lives destroyed. And there is this issue of how far do you take being polite? I do agree we should treat each other with respect and love. And then I also think that people are taking advantage of that to destroy the republic to the point that we are going to be vulnerable to war, civil war, massive amounts of conflict, and that we should be loving but much more forthright about how unacceptable some of these positions are. Like, communism is unacceptable. And much of the Democrat Party is just embracing it fully and thinking that if they call it democratic socialism, the. That people will be nicer to them. And then they are. Because a lot of this stuff is very damaging to the lives of Americans. What people are doing to our cities is horrific. The taxes, the crime, the complete lawlessness happening in many cities. And we should be more forthright about Opposing it, I think. And that does mean being, being intense.

[Molly Hemingway]

And sometimes mean probably, no, I think that's fine. I, I don't exactly know where the line is. I mean, that line is. I mean, ad hominem attacks, I don't like. And you see them all the time now as a kind of way to, to dismiss someone, you know, mocking them for whatever. And even that's okay. Sometimes if the person's really evil. I think you need to be able to call someone evil. You need to be able to call what is wrong, wrong. What is truth, truth. Like 10 years ago I wrote a column for the Federalist where I said something like, we have to start calling people who lie liars not call. Because all these euphemisms. And NPR had me on and it said like conservative columnist says, you know, we need to start people calling people liars. Like it was some kind of revolutionary act to just say what things are. Now maybe I'm wrong. You know, you can disagree, but there is a kind of ugly underlying ugliness to a lot of this. And it, and it, I don't, I don't know. I don't know that. That I think harms the case that maybe people are trying to make sometimes. Will Washington's housing fixes backfire? 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. Trump plans on purchasing billions in mortgage backed securities as well as allowing people to use retirement to make down payments. Does adding more cash bring down the price? Or add fuel to whether it's happening in D.C. or down on Wall Street? It's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watch Start on Wall street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Let's talk a little bit about Greenland.

[David Harsanyi]

Okay?

[Molly Hemingway]

Now we have mentioned this in passing, I think a few times, and I am actually a fan of trying to obtain Greenland for the United States for geopolitical reasons. I don't want the Chinese there, I don't want the Russians there and all of that. Donald Trump has made this something of, I call it an obsession. I mean, he tweets about it a lot. He'll tweet about it in the middle of the night. He'll have memes where there's, you know, an amer, you know, the green lens of this American just puts American flag over the whole thing. What I mean, every poll shows me, and you can believe in polls or not that like 75% of Americans have zero interest in any kind of military expedition there. Yes, and I agree. And I think today in Davos, Donald Trump says that he would not take it by force. He's, I, this is just like the way he wheels and deals. I think he's trying to exert pressure and leverage and all of that. I think he's thinking about Greenland too much. Like, let's make an offer, let's make it if you want. I saw a lot of people complaining that, you know, we suffer here and Americans suffer. Now we're going to give 10, $10,000 to every person in Greenland, you know.

[David Harsanyi]

Oh, but that would such a deal.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah, yeah, I think it'll, it would be good for the United States though. I should. And if people don't know Denmark, Greenland is, is day in territory. But we, we have carte blanche basically to do what we want there. We have military there. We signed a deal, I believe in the 50s to that the, the Danes allow us to do essentially whatever we want there. So I, I feel like he's just, the obsession with this place is just does not comport with its importance. I don't know. What do you mean? I'm just mentioning this because it literally like dominates the news. It's like he talks about this 90% of the time.

[David Harsanyi]

So. Okay, first off, I'll just say that obtaining Greenland has been on the wish list of presidents going back like 100 years. Its geopolitical significance is massive relative to like what it is, which is a country with not many people that's very icy and poorly named as Greenland. And Trump seems to be that president who does what everybody says they're going to do but doesn't do or that takes action that everybody else like just talks about. And so I'm not surprised he was talking about this during the first administration. And when he presented it, everybody acted like it was the craziest idea. But it really is something that Americans have thought about for a long time. I do not believe I need to study more, but like, just, you know, cursory. I'm glad he's saying he doesn't want to use force because if you subscribe to just war theory, I don't see the case for at least at this point of a war of expansion that would involve the loss of life and all that. But I do see a reason why we could have a good alliance here. You know Bjork from the sugar cubes?

[Molly Hemingway]

I do.

[David Harsanyi]

So my brother and I were talking about her because he for some reason didn't realize that she had been in the sugar cubes. And I remembered the first time I saw her, which was on Saturday Night Live in 1988, and I was babysitting and I was very young, and I immediately went out and bought the tape, the cassette tape for Life's Too Good. And I've always just kind of liked her. I think she's got a really great vibe and voice and all that. And so I was just looking into her because of this conversation, and I saw that she was encouraging Greenlanders to throw off all of the colonialism and become independent. And I was like, wow, does she have a death wish for Greenland? Like, if they didn't have support of Denmark or the US they'd be done right. Like, it would be so easy to take them over if they were just independent. Like, the whole reason why this is a challenge is because of the Danes involved with them. Right.

[Molly Hemingway]

I just want to say I don't think there would be a single person would lose their lives if we wanted to take Greenland. We would take it very easily. There's 30,000 people there. Here's the thing. You know, Donald Trump's out there. He's threatening the Danes and others with all kinds of massive tariffs if they don't go along with this. And that you're just pushing these people towards China. It is not worth it. It's backfiring in a way. I just think the over, like, this is the sort of thing that you should be doing quietly, not embarrassing another country. The, the Danes can't be like, oh, we got bullied into this and we have to do it. You're going to create a kind of, and I'm not this pro NATO guy. I actually think that, that Europe needs to take care of itself far better. The Danes actually aren't bad. I mean, they, they, they have withstood the, the immigration or migration stuff there. Their, their, their tariffs aren't very high. They're, they're, they're a good country in a lot of ways. I just don't get what this, how this benefits the United States to, to, to, you know, push on this to such a degree. But, yeah, I agree with everything you said. Other than that.

[David Harsanyi]

I do think that people don't give credit to. Donald Trump's negotiation strategy has worked really well for him over the course of his life, and it usually does begin with some great outsized threat followed by completely reasonable negotiations. He wrote about it. He's, you magnificent bastard. I read it in your book. Like, he put it in the book what his whole negotiation style is. And everyone acts like it's the craziest thing in the world every time they see it. And it's getting kind of lame. I saw. Oh my gosh. I saw someone say that because of what he'd said about Greenland needing to like, you know, bow down to us and come our way, that it was 25th Amendment time. I think anyone who says that we should be looking at the 25th Amendment for Donald Trump should themselves be institutionalized. Like they are losing grasp on reality to such an extent that their loved ones should care for them and put them in a safe place. Particularly when you see people who are ostensibly on the right or who previously claimed to be on the right who said word zero about Joe Biden and the 25th Amendment and then they're out there re upping it. It's embarrassing. I feel badly for them. I feel bad for them. I feel like they should get help and that their loved ones should get them out of public life.

[Molly Hemingway]

Everybody who Talks about the 25th Amendment is engaged in kind of wish casting for any at any point. It's just never probably going happen unless there's a president who has, you know, who literally runs naked through D.C. you know what I mean? Like, there's just. It's never going to happen.

[David Harsanyi]

People talk about literally be Joe Biden and nobody brought it.

[Molly Hemingway]

Exactly, exactly.

[David Harsanyi]

And he, I do think his friends had died.

[Molly Hemingway]

I mean, he, I do think though, like his letter text or whatever it was to the Norwegians, I mean, he's just. I don't know why he does stuff like that. Like, it's. So to say that Donald Trump is egocentric is a massive understatement. I don't. We need a better word than that. The Norwegians didn't give him the Nobel Peace Prize, so now he's angry about that. Like, this is the kind of stuff that I think probably turns off a lot of people because it's not about America. Yeah, we'll see what happens.

[David Harsanyi]

I just, again, this is, to me.

[Molly Hemingway]

I mean, we can't, we cannot pretend that this is normal. Right.

[David Harsanyi]

Nothing about Donald Trump.

[Molly Hemingway]

And also, I just want one. I'll let you talk. But one thing you mentioned the book. I get the book. I get what he does. Running a country is not the same as running a business. The Danes are not looking for profit here. The Danes. Greenland is a welfare state for the, for Denmark. And it's been that for a long time. It's a prestige thing. So you probably need to approach it a little different than you would a hostile takeover of another company or whatever he wrote about in his book? It's different. Sorry.

[David Harsanyi]

Okay. I just. Back to the. You didn't give me the Peace Prize, so why should I care about peace? To me, that reads as obvious humor and also, I don't know. I mean, does that not strike you as funny or.

[Molly Hemingway]

No, a lot of the crazier things he says strike me as very funny. I just don't know if I want my president doing it. I. I don't know if that was a joke. I feel like probably not, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I don't know. I do know. Listen, it's not a 25th Amendment thing, though. It's just a bad, bad text or letter. Okay, let's talk a bit about, if you like, about Josh Shapiro. I don't know if you saw this story. He has a book coming out. It's called Where We Keep the Light. God, is there anything worse than. Than political memoirs? I mean, I. I would say 90% of them are just insufferable. Just so difficult to read.

[David Harsanyi]

He.

[Molly Hemingway]

In. In that book, which I have not read, I've just read excerpts, he tells the story of his vetting process for the Democratic Party's vice presidential nomination in 2024, where he had a meeting with a woman named Dana Remus, I guess is her name, and she was with the Obama administration, who was, quote, unnecessarily contentious with him and then asked him if he was a double agent for Israel or whether he communicated with an Underco or agent of Israel. A lot of Jewish people, including myself, immediately took notice because the dual loyalty smear is not new. In fact, it's quite. It's an old trope. It's been around forever. But hearing this happen to him makes all the sense in the world because there was no reason that he shouldn't have been the VP taking the vp. Not unless he didn't want it, which it seems to me he did. He was. His approval rating. Again, these are just polls, but it matters. His approval rating at the time of this interview, I looked it up in Pennsylvania was between 57 and 59. In all polls, he won 56% of the state. In 2022, Pennsylvania was won by Donald Trump. Walls, on the other hand, who eventually got the nod, was pretty unpopular in his own state of Minnesota, which has not gone to a Republican since 1972 when Richard Nixon won it. Meaning, like, Pennsylvania is a very important state. It is the, in many ways the pivotal state in the last election. And they did not go with him. I believe they didn't go with him because he was Jewish. I, I'm not saying that Kamala Harris is an anti Semite. I'm not even saying the people who asked him these questions are anti Semites. I think they were actually trying to do this. They're trying to chill your, your pro Israel views which they asked him if he would apologize for speaking out against these pro Hamas protesters. But he was a better candidate in every way. Walls was a, one of the worst vice president presidential candidates probably in history, certainly in modern history. There was no reason not to pick him that I could see. So I think it's fair for him to be offended by these questions. I just want to say I don't think he's any kind of hero because at the time and I again I was at the Federalist and I wrote about this, he cowardly walked back, you know his pro Israel positions. He was a coward. He apologized for a column he wrote when he was 20 years old in college where he said that the Palestinians could never have a state because they were warlike people and didn't weren't up to it. Which he, history has proven him correct his 20 year old self. And so he clearly wanted to be the vice presidential candidate today. When it's financially expedient for him, when it's politically expedient for him because the stuff has subsided somewhat now, he speaks out.

[David Harsanyi]

So I am just thinking about this in the context of he has a book coming out that he's trying to sell. And so when you do that, you take things that are juicy and you, you go with them. And it sounds like what he went through was what when it's in the federal judiciary you call an sdr, Sex drugs and rock and roll. Is that what it calls sex drugs? It's like an interview where that we've written about, that I've written about a few times as it relates to Supreme Court nominees. Before someone nominates you, they want to find out what is going to come out during the campaign. And so you get asked all sorts of sensitive questions. Have you ever paid for an abortion? Have you ever cheated on your wife? Have you taken any illegal drugs? And the reason why is because you might remember that under Reagan there was a nominee who was had to have his name pulled because he had smoked marijuana with his graduate students or like law students. And it's a common occurrence like do you have any tax problems? Do you have anything like that. And so I could see them asking questions like, have you ever had any dealings with any foreign agents? What were they, you know, being more specific about it. And it. Not necessarily. I know that. I know that Kamala Harris has some issues in the Democrat Party, has some issues with anti Semitism. But I could also see a case for this just being a due diligence that they were performing.

[Molly Hemingway]

Do you believe, first of all, I want to say it is completely legitimate to ask someone, do you have any financial entanglements with this other country? Have you ever lobbied for this other country? Do see any conflicts of interest? That's not what they asked him. They literally asked him if he had been a traitor. Right. Do you think that, you know that Walls went to China in 1989 when Tiananmen Square happened? The protesters were killed. He went there 30 times. He was a fellow at a Chaicom University visiting fellow. He had a lot of ties to China. Now, by the way, where was. Where was all their vetting on all the fraud and everything else he's probably been involved in? Do you think they asked him if he was a Chinese spy?

[David Harsanyi]

No, but I don't know.

[Molly Hemingway]

I doubt it very highly. Now, the reason, supposedly, that they asked Shapiro whether he was a Israeli agent, guy who's been in government forever is that he had. When he was a kid, he went to a kibbutz and learned there, and there was IDF there and he had done something with the idf. Like supposedly this was the impetus for it. I don't know. Looking at what was going on in the summer of 2024 within the Democratic Party, the pro Hamas faction, that they were scared to insult the other questions they supposedly asked him. I think it's. If someone asked me, well, this is why I'm mad at him. If someone asked me if I was a traitor, I would not go campaign for them. After I would speak up for myself. He said nothing until now. When. When he can make some money. But I don't know.

[David Harsanyi]

Well, Republicans should thank their stars that he was not chosen because he would have been much more difficult to beat. Maybe Trump would have won no matter what. Probably so, but he would have been more difficult. I wondered if you saw that. I think it was last week. Within a few hours, all sorts of leaders on the progressive left started tweeting against anti Semitism.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah.

[David Harsanyi]

And I had to imagine that they just like brought everybody into a room and said, here's the polling. You're going to say something right now. You got to do it. Like, we have Got to change this image of the Democrat Party as embracing anti Semites. Did you see that or no? Like aoc.

[Molly Hemingway]

I did.

[David Harsanyi]

One of the people.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah. I mean, because the wording was almost exactly the same on all those tweets. It's obviously that some group told them to do it. They probably see what's going on with. With some of the people, you know, and I hate to call them far right, because I don't even think that that's the true. But these podcasters that are popular now and they want to make, you know, the juxtaposition would be. It's difficult for them to try to. To. To hang those people on the Republican Party or tether them together if acting a certain way. But for me, the Democrat Democratic Party is still far worse because they have elected officials who act in this way, not just a podcaster for young people. It's gonna. It's gonna be crazy. Let's talk. Do you want to talk about culture now, or do we have anything else? You do. Oh, see excitement there. What. What. What'd you watch?

[David Harsanyi]

So, first off, I just wanted to say, because I. I was thinking about it at the start of the new year that we have so many generous donors at the Federalist and a lot of listeners, even of this podcast, who came through end of year giving gifts, becoming monthly givers, and it means so much to us, and we are able to. We're able to accomplish a lot through that generosity. And I just want to thank those who have joined with us and encourage anyone who has not yet joined with us to do so. It is greatly appreciated. That has nothing to do with culture. So I will also tell you, I forgot last week to tell you about a movie I had watched the previous week.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay.

[David Harsanyi]

Again, I should say, which is Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Cherbourg? Is that how you say it?

[Molly Hemingway]

I don't know. I don't know. This movie, 1964 film, like, one of.

[David Harsanyi]

The most famous movies out there. It's a musical, but it's French. The cinematography is unbelievable. Like, I would just like to have it on in the background all the time. You just look at any shot, and the shot is composed perfectly, and Catherine Deneuve is in it. You. You've not seen it?

[Molly Hemingway]

I have not seen it.

[David Harsanyi]

Okay, well, I mean, it's a. It's a musical, so I'm not, like, going to encourage you to necessarily watch. Well, just feel about that.

[Molly Hemingway]

Just pulling it up on the Internet. Here it is. Obviously, it has been. It was nominated for five Academy Awards. It's considered like one of great films of all time. I don't even think I have ever heard of this movie, which is weird because I'm really into film and movies. So I will probably go watch it. Even though it's a musical.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, Catherine Deneuve is great in it, but my favorite was the woman playing her mother, Ann Vernon, who just turned 102. This.

[Molly Hemingway]

Really.

[David Harsanyi]

And it's a love story of a sort of. That is so, you know, just like, touching. Like, I keep thinking about it, about the complexity of love. And again, it's all sung and then it also. Who did the. The. The score? You will know the. The song. I think it's. I will wait for you. Because it's been recorded by many, many artists. But.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay.

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah, so that was good. I would. I would just recommend it. Okay. And then I have seen a bunch of other stuff in the last week as well. I saw. I re. Watched Room With a View.

[Molly Hemingway]

I saw that years and years ago.

[David Harsanyi]

So I liked it a lot. I thought it was well done. Although I. I definitely have that problem. Like, the older I get, the more movies fail to work with me because I start siding with the wrong people. You know, like how young love is frequently so stupid. You're just like, these people are stupid. Like Romeo and Juliet when you're a teenager reading it. It's very different when you're an adult and you're like, oh, gosh, get it together, guys. And I felt a little bit that way. With Room with a View. Who's the guy that was in My Left Foot?

[Molly Hemingway]

Daniel Day Lewis. Yeah, he's so.

[David Harsanyi]

He's in this movie as a very young, like, evil guy. But I was like, ah, maybe she should have gone with him instead of to the other guy.

[Molly Hemingway]

Of course. Of course she should have.

[David Harsanyi]

And there's a scene that is the only scene I remember from when I watched it when I was a teenager for understandable reasons, where three men are enjoying a swim naked and things are just flopping everywhere. And Mark was like, this is ridiculous. It's just ridiculous to see this many naked parts on men just flopping around. And it's not sexualized or anything. It's just they're playing in a spring. But it was kind of like, okay, here we go.

[Molly Hemingway]

Men are always getting naked and jumping into springs together.

[David Harsanyi]

I was like, but it's not really sexualized. And he's like, molly anytime. He's like, maybe in UK and we know, like, all we need to know about their boarding school system. He's like, let me tell you, in America, men don't get naked and wrestle each other. Like, just not what we do.

[Molly Hemingway]

We're quite puritanical in that sense, for sure.

[David Harsanyi]

And then we watched a Netflix movie that I can actually recommend. I think the first time I can truly give a recommendation for a Netflix movie. And I can't remember what it's called, but I think it's called the Cut, and it's with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

[Molly Hemingway]

It is not called. It is not called the Cut. It is called the Rip. And the Rip.

[David Harsanyi]

Thank you.

[Molly Hemingway]

It's okay. You like that movie? I did not like it.

[David Harsanyi]

Oh, really?

[Molly Hemingway]

Really. Through a number of reasons. The whole one is it felt like. Like an expensive episode of, like, Law and Order or something. Like. And. But more than that, the implausibility. First of all, I just found it in. The whole story is just ridiculously implausible. I don't want to give it. I'm going to give away some of it, but that the cops show up and that, no, there's no backup and they have to kind of like, it's Ford Apache, the Bronx there, and they have to fight off all these other forces. It's just kind of. I just never bought it. But more than that, I just felt like I actually don't dislike Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and I just didn't feel like. It just didn't feel like there was much acting there, in a way. There was no real. I don't know, it just. It bored me kind of. I don't know. Why'd you like it? I know it's gotten good reviews, so I'm probably on the outside here, but.

[David Harsanyi]

Well, I. I just enjoyed. Yeah, I thought it was. I don't know, I just thought it was pretty good. Like, it's a mystery. What's going on? Or what do you call it? Kind of a mystery. There is.

[Molly Hemingway]

It's a mystery thriller.

[David Harsanyi]

Things aren't as they seem, and you don't know who to trust. You don't know who the good guys or the bad guys are. And I. I'm going to talk about another thing. I saw where that was not really the case, although there was finally an ultimate twist, I guess. And I just like it when you're kind of, like, not sure exactly what's going on. And I'd like to figure it out.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah, it wasn't. It was. It was okay, I guess. I just. Maybe my expectations were higher because people were saying how good it was. I don't know.

[David Harsanyi]

Likewise. Maybe my expectations were extremely low. I was like, netflix movie. I did do such a horrible job. It's not worth it. And then I was like, oh, I'm kind of into this. So there's that. And it was also fun to see Matt Damon and Ben Affleck together. I have a friend who worked with them on a project. And like many, this is like 25 years ago. And at the time, Matt Damon was seen as the brilliant one and Ben Affleck is kind of the cute, good looking, but stupid one. And she had said that's not entirely accurate. Like, Ben Affleck is brilliant for what it is.

[Molly Hemingway]

Do you ever see the Family Guy thing where it pans to Matt Damon? He's typing away writing Good Will Hunting, and Ben Affleck's just smoking a joint, laying on the couch, and he goes, why don't you throw that. My name on that thing? That's how people viewed it. But when I saw longer interviews with them, it's clear that Ben Affleck is kind of maybe even a more creative force. I think Ben Affleck is a very good director. I've liked the movies he's directed quite a bit. I find him as an actor, though. I think Matt Damon's probably a better actor. I just think Matt Damon has more range as an actor. But I don't know. I don't think about it too deeply. What else?

[David Harsanyi]

And then my final thing is that we watched the limited series, Seven Dials.

[Molly Hemingway]

Oh, the Agatha Christie thing.

[David Harsanyi]

So Netflix. Yeah, so it's one of Agatha Christie's lesser works and they do a really good job with it. Like, I thought it looked great. Really enjoyed the lead actress in was scary in parts. You know, it was violent in parts, in all the good Agatha Christie ways. But I didn't like how it was, like, so obvious what was going on for the longest time. There was a little bit of a twist at the end, but not enough to satisfy the whodunit. The lack of a whodunit, because you know who did it.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yeah. I've been debating whether to watch that or not. But you think it's like, on the whole, worth seeing?

[David Harsanyi]

I do.

[Molly Hemingway]

Okay.

[David Harsanyi]

I guess it was Helena Bonham Carter weekend or whatever, because I do.

[Molly Hemingway]

Oh, yeah. She was in A Room with a view, right?

[David Harsanyi]

Yeah. I like how unique she is in her approach and how that's worked for her for so long.

[Molly Hemingway]

She's great. She's never boring to watch. I mean, she was in, like Fight Club, I remember. Right. And she was. But she's she was also in the Queen. Like, she. Yeah, she. She's great.

[David Harsanyi]

She's got range. Yeah. There are those people who, like, everyone loves Meryl Streep, but to me, she's always Meryl Streep in whatever she does. And I kind of like that. Helena Bonham Carter. Just she's talented.

[Molly Hemingway]

Yep. I the only thing other than the rip that I watched, I've been I've been binging this show that's old called the Closer that I saw on Netflix with Kira Sedgwick, Kevin Bacon's wife. And I like it. I didn't think I would. Each episode has not every episode, but many of the episodes are quite well done. As far as a murder, you know, procedural murder mystery thing goes, there's nothing revolutionary here. But she's good and the show's pretty good. And I've been binge watching it. I hate when I get pulled into something like that. I'm like, how many seasons are there? Oh, seven. I'm like, I'm in it for seven seasons. Anyway, if you'd like to reach the show, please do [e-mail] we love to hear from you, and we will be back next week. Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray if it takes.

[David Harsanyi]

Takes forever I will wait for you For a thousand summers I will wait for you.