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This episode of the Dispatch Podcast is brought to you by Pacific Legal Foundation. Since they were founded in 1973, PLF has won 18 Supreme Court cases defending the rights of ordinary Americans from government overreach nationwide, including landmark environmental law cases like Sackett vs EPA. Now PLF is doubling down and launching a new environment and natural resources practice. They're on a mission to make more of America's land and resources available for productive use and to make sure freedom drives our environmental and natural resource policy, not fear. To learn more, visit pacificlegal.org flagship hi.
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B
I'm here to pick up my son, Milo.
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A
There's no Milo here who picked up.
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B
My son from school.
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A
Streaming only on Peacock. I'm going to need the name of.
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C
Everyone that could have a connection.
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A
You don't understand.
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C
It was just the five of us. So this was all planned.
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B
What are you going to do? I will do whatever it takes to.
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C
Get my son back.
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A
I honestly didn't see this coming.
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C
These nice people killing each other.
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All her fault. A new series, streaming now only on Peacock.
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B
Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Sarah Isger. That's Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg. I want to start with foreign policy, something Steve, you know, I never want to start with on this podcast because I think it is so deeply affecting the views of the Trump administration here 44, 45 days into it, which is the fallout from Trump's meeting with Zelensky, the change in the administration's posture towards Ukrainian refugees here in the country just had news that the 250,000 people in the United States on temporary status from Ukraine, in theory, the administration's thinking of pulling that status aid to Ukraine. Just the, the realigning of the United States toward Russia and away from Ukraine or at least away from Ukraine, such that that makes it towards Russia, if that makes sense. Steve, will you take, tell us where we are, what's real, what's not?
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A
Sure, Let me start with your last point. None of this is accidental in my view. You don't do the kinds of things that we're doing, take the kinds of steps that we're taking, and accidentally, accidentally end up on Vladimir Putin's side. I mean, if you look at the things that have happened since the meeting with Zelensky, and I think it's worth spending at least a moment on, on the meeting itself. But you look at, as you say, suspending our aid. Now we've apparently suspended intelligence cooperation, which is a huge, huge problem for the Ukrainians in the day to day conduct of the war. If they don't have the United States cooperation on intelligence issues. We remain the world's premier country for intelligence operations broadly, whether we're talking about our ability to intercept, whether we're talking about human intelligence, not having visibility on the war based on our withholding our intelligence, I think could have a pretty significant impact on the war itself. But kicking the Ukrainian refugees out, which is not a targeted action, we should be clear this would be part of the Trump administration's broader effort to boot. Refugees or people here who do not have legal status. But it would affect, as you say, hundreds of thousands of people, Ukrainians. None of this should be seen in isolation. I think the, the, the problem with a lot of the analysis on what happened sort of before the Trump, Zelensky, Vance blow up and after is that we're looking at sort of discrete developments and analyzing them as if everybody's reacting to, to day to day events. I think this is the strategy. You know, you have Donald Trump and J.D. vance on a near daily basis. Marco Rubio as well, Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, on a near daily basis, airing in public grievances with Ukraine. When was the last time any of us can remember them doing that on Russia or chastising Vladimir Putin? A ballistic missile hit a hotel in Ukraine last night. The United States government, as far as I can tell, has said nothing. Killed four people, injured 30. The United States government has said nothing. But you've heard repeated complaints about Vladimir Volodymyr Zelenskyy not wearing a suit to the Oval Office. This is the White House repositioning itself on Russia's side. And there's just no way to dress that up. It's, I think it's, it's, it's hard to, for people to come to that realization because it's such a shocking development or it's so at odds with what we think the role of the United States ought to be. But it's very clear whether you're talking about Marco Rubio touting economic opportunities and economic collaboration between Russia and the United States in a post war environment, whatever. Marco Rubio today in an interview, or maybe it was last night on Sean Hannity, Wednesday night on Sean Hannity actually spouting Kremlin propaganda that this is a proxy war between the United States and Russia. Those were Marco Rubio's words. This has been the Kremlin line for the past three years. And a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, after hearing this from Marco Rubio, said in effect, yeah, that is what this is. We've been saying this for years. We're glad to have the United States recognize that it was in a proxy war with Russia. These are shocking developments. And we're now squarely on Russia's side.
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B
I mean, isn't part of the reason that some are so bullish on staying in Ukraine is to stop Russia? So it is in some sense a proxy war with Russia. Right. Where. How is that wrong?
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A
No, I don't think it's a proxy war with Russia. At least that certainly wasn't the beginning. The cause of the war. The cause of the war was Russia invading Ukraine.
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B
Right. But what was our interest? Our interest was stopping Russia.
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C
Sure.
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A
There's no question that we have been providing arms, that we have been helping Ukraine both for, I would say, selfless, altruistic reasons, but also for reasons of pure, cold, hard national interest. And that is preventing Russia from its aggressive and expansionist efforts. But that does not alone make it a proxy war for Russia. That's not why there's a war, which is what the suggestion was from the Kremlin for the past three years and I think from Marco Rubio yesterday.
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C
Yeah, if I could just explain, I, I get Sarah's point on the question because it can seem that way because it's kind of become a proxy war. But in a sense, the reason why the Russians have been saying all along it's a proxy war is they wanted to claim that basically the drug addict Nazi regime of Ukraine were our puppets and that they were. They had to be toppled and Ukraine needed to be liberated because it basically was a NATO US EU project. That was what foreign policy experts call a lie. And the reality was that Putin wants to reconstitute as much of the old Soviet or Russian empire as he can. He hates the Ukrainians. He hates the idea that they're a separate people and a separate nationality. And so he invaded them and he thought it'd be a cakewalk. And so the pretext argument about proxy war was false. You can now say, yes, we are helping the Ukrainians because they're on the side of national liberation and freedom and all these kinds of things. The proxy war argument, the rhetoric of that helps Russia.
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A
And it should be stated that we're not fighting.
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C
Right? That's right.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. But that's how proxy wars work. Right? If it, if we were fighting, it wouldn't be a proxy war. It would just be a war war. Proxy wars are when we have someone else do the fighting and we provide the arms, munitions, intelligence, all the things that, in fact, we are or were doing in this war. That's the proxy part of it. Jonah, I want to move to this conversation happening at National Review between Luther Ray Abel and Mark Antonio Wright. And I want to read a piece of Abel's argument here. It is, in my opinion, neither in their nor our best interest to treat with one another when Ukraine isn't ready to accept the high price of peace, one imposed on them by a vile aggressor. Yes, one usually doesn't make peace settlements with collegial neighbors. Furthermore, the price we're paying to keep Russia's offer on the table, pretending away Russia's culpability is too high. We can't contribute anything of value without selling our souls. So I prefer we withdraw and see what Ukraine, Russia and Europe can manage among themselves. However, according to Mark and those of a similar mind, a reset of American obligations in Ukraine is apparently the same as surrendering the world to communism and nascent America to Britain. And what really drove home his, his a metaphor for me was he said, you know, I'm a military guy. You're a military guy, but you're a Marine. And Marines whole thing is that basically like the enemy dies or I die, there's, there's no moving on to the next battle. But that's not what I do in. I think he was, he's Navy, right. Other guy's Marine. So he's like, and the Navy, like, maybe it is a draw and you move on to the next battle. And he points out, you know, Vietnam to some extent, Korea, these were all battles if you were in the Cold War and it was better for us to walk away, be able to fight another day and eventually win the Cold War, even if we didn't win or stay till the final end of those wars, why isn't that what's happening in Ukraine and that the best thing we can do now? Right? We fought the, we fought the fight. Now it's time to leave and we'll fight this, you know, proxy fight another day.
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C
I have grudging respect for, for Luther rebels argument. I disagree with it, but I think it comes from a sincere place. It's not done in bad faith. Right. There's so much stuff out here that is basically just water caring for Trump. I don't think he's doing that or sort of the, the right wing version of Blame America first, which is all over the place like it was our fault that this happened a lot. He's just saying discretion is the better part of valor. This is not the Hill to proverbially die on, blah, blah, blah, blah. One of the points I think is important to remember is that the moral corruption to the United States of Trump's engagement is a real price that we're paying. I agree with that. It is the corruption of America's reputation, America's honor, of Marco Rubio's soul. As far as I can tell, these things, I mean, some of these things are more valuable than others, and you can guess where I put my list. But at the same time, the simple fact is that if you give Putin a third of Ukraine, which is basically the offer right now is he gets to keep whatever he took, you know, and as Trump says, so oblivious to the moral and international norm shattering damage he's doing, he says they fought really hard for that land, so you can't expect them to give it up.
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B
It's sort of too gross to really even contemplate. Yeah.
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C
You know how long those robbers took trying to get that safe open? You can't expect them to put all the money back in the safe. Right. And the Luther point is cut bait. Right. Don't engage in this. That's not what Trump is proposing. Steve is right here. Steve is basically, you know, what Trump is basically doing is at minimum, the least bad thing he's doing is equating, is making a moral equivalent argument that he's the mediator between two sides that are fighting. Who cares who started it? I don't know. No one really knows they're equals and we gotta cut a deal here. That's the moral equivalence thing. But the reality, and that's why, that's why the administration now doesn't call it the Ukraine, the Russian invasion or the war. They call it the conflict. Because conflict just makes it sound like it's this thing. Right. And, and Vance talks about ethnic conflicts as if that's all that this is, even though Putin's position is that Ukrainian isn't even an ethnicity. The real sin here is that Trump is siding with Russia rhetorically, procedurally, like if in fact we have a. I don't know if we're going to get into it, but this idea that a ceasefire is a peace is just such hot garbage. It's very difficult to get my mind around that. Serious people are making that case. But there's talk now about a month long ceasefire where both sides sort of stand down. That is a gift to Russia because Russia has the industrial capacity to load up on more ballistic missiles, more bombs, more drones, all those kinds of things. And we've cut off aid. So we're basically giving Russia a month to reload while giving nothing to Ukraine. In this scenario, that is a gift to Russia. That is the equivalent of giving aid to Russia. That is Trump's position. That is the position of his biggest supporters. And I find it morally and intellectually reprehensible.
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A
And it's not accidental. It's not as if they don't know what the effects of that ceasefire are will be. Just going back, Sarah, to your big picture question about Abel. And I agree that that piece makes the case in an intellectually honest way, which is refreshing. One of the big problems with his sort of framing of the issue is that in the Cold War, we made it clear that we were opposed to the aggressive, expansionist power and that we were going to continue to fight the Soviet Union and expansion and speak out about it, even if we weren't engaged in these various conflagrations. We're not making that case now. In fact, we are on the other side. And I think that's what makes this a huge difference. Yeah, it's just a massive difference. And if you look at the thing that I find so stunning about all of these developments is what's not being said. There's no talk of punishment. I mean, we're ending. The United States is seeking to end Russia's international isolation. As I said, Marco Rubio is talking about economic opportunities, we're talking about resuming flights, you know, restoring diplomatic relations. We're asking Russia to serve as the peacemaker in our fraught relations with Iran. That is crazy. Were elevating Russia in this instance, treating them, rather than the pariah state that they are, just invaded a neighbor responsible for a million plus deaths. We're elevating them as if they are part of this sort of civil world. And it's a huge mistake. I think it's offensive.
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B
Steve, I do want to talk about the meeting in the Oval Office between Zelinsky, President Trump and Vice President Vance. It's been now several days. There's been lots of ink spilled on who started it and who was the petulant one and all of that. I guess I want to start with a more basic question. Did that meeting matter? Will we look back and say that that was a turning point, or was the whole thing a little bit kabuki theater, where both sides sort of saw the writing on the wall and played their parts, and the meeting itself, itself was a reflection of the new reality. Did it create the reality or was it reflecting it?
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A
No, I think it's very much the Latter, the meeting will matter because it was, you know, it's been such a topic of discussion and debate. And I think what it did, in effect, is it allowed Trump to bring Republicans to his side who had been reluctant to be on his side before, you know, Donald Trump. It was hard for Donald Trump, even Donald Trump, to convince Republicans who had been speaking out against Vladimir Putin, had been warning about Vladimir Putin for, in some cases, decades, that suddenly he wasn't the bad guy in this scenario. And I think what the meeting did for Trump, and I don't think this was accidental either, was it gave all of those Republicans, including sort of, we need Republicans like Lindsey Graham who are just going to say whatever Donald Trump wanted him to say, but other Republicans as well. It shifted the. The sort of source of the blame for our tensions or for. For whose side we were on. So it was no longer about, yes, Vladimir Putin. Putin started this war. It was. Did you see how Zelensky disrespected our president and vice president? Even if I think those arguments are. Are phony. So I think in that sense, the meeting mattered because there's been a political shift that we've seen in Washington among Republicans, people rallying around Donald Trump's position, which is the pro Putin position. That is no small thing. We've seen Trump's ability, I mean, he has a remarkable ability to do this, to take sort of observable reality and flip it. We saw him do this on January 6th, right? I mean, where we had every Republican in the country condemn what had happened, cast blame on Donald Trump. And now Donald Trump talks about the January 6th pardons, the January 6th rioters. He talks about them as hostages, some of them he calls patriots. And Republicans have basically rallied around this Trump position, even though we watched it all unfold on video in real time. I think he's in the process of doing the same thing on this. But I think your point, the way that you ask the question, is exactly the right way to ask the question. No, this doesn't matter, because Donald Trump was where he was before the meeting happened. I think what you saw play out through those 50 minutes was the White House, particularly J.D. vance, looking for things that would offend them. They were looking for things to be upset about, to blame Zelensky about, whether it was in the actual back and forth on the substance, the security guarantees or those things, or whether, frankly, it was about the suit. Carolyn Levitt, the White House press secretary, gave a quick interview to Eamon Javers of CNBC shortly after the meeting ended. And gave what I think was the initial White House spin on this. And he asked her, what did he. What did Zelensky say that you objected to? And she said, well, he didn't really say anything that we objected to at all. It was his tone, it was his body language, and we were really mad that he didn't wear a suit. I mean, that's sort of an extraordinary thing to say when you're talking about Vladimir Putin's invasion of a sovereign country and the White House being upset about the suit. They were looking for things to create this kind of divide, and they did it.
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B
Okay, so, Jonah, my question to you is, I know that both of you think everything Zelensky said was factually correct in the meeting, but do you think it was a blunder for him to do it?
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C
Let me focus on the word blunder for just two seconds. I think.
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B
Oh, God.
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C
I think we can all agree that the Oval Office, since the Oval Office meeting, is quite a Rorschach test for a lot of people, right? I directionally agree with Steve on a lot of that stuff. At the same time, I can't help but believe that some of this was just incompetence. I mean, we'd probably still be where we are, right, for the reason Steve lays out. But, I mean, you're the comms person here. When was the last time there was an Oval Office spool spray? Right. A pool spray in the Oval Office where they Talked for over 40 minutes and the Vice President starts chiming in like it's a cable show. Right. This thing should have been one, maybe two questions, Great to be here. And then you argue about all this in private. And I think that this was a. The way the Oval Office meeting was handled amateurishly led to a lot of these problems that probably would have come out in different ways eventually, but.
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B
Problem for who? It seems like Vance and Trump are very happy with how it came out.
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C
The thing is, I put. Normally, I think you guys know, I am not reluctant to put blame on Donald Trump for various things, but. But I really do put this more on Vance. I think that Vance egged on Trump, egged on Zelensky, and turned the issue into something it didn't need to be in an unprofessional and unserious way. And if this was the plan all along, why did Trump say all the fairly congenial, conciliatory things he said for the first 40 minutes? He could have sparked this thing earlier. I don't know whether Vance's Monkey wrenching was 100% deliberate and cynical. Or if it was just like, let me impress the boss and be cavalier about it in a way that sets the boss off. I honestly, I don't know. I go back and forth. I think it's probably a little of both or a lot of both, but who knows? But in terms of the blunder.
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A
I.
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C
I'm sympathetic to the idea that Zelensky should have gone in and done more of a Macron. You know, you're a brilliant leader. You're going to save the day, yada, yada, yada. I find that stuff humiliating and gross, and it's one of the reasons why I'm not in politics. But sometimes it's necessary, right? I mean, Winston Churchill sucked up to FDR before FDR got America into the war, like you would not believe. I mean, just like, you know, like, just he studied FDR at home to, like, court fdr. And sometimes that's necessary if your country is on the line. I get it. I don't really care about the not wearing a suit thing. But if, if, if there's reason to believe that a suit would have made a marginal difference for getting this thing done. Sure.
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B
So I want both of you to answer this, because it's the superficial stuff, right? Zielinski was appearing with Harris, Vice President Harris, who was also candidate for president in I. It was either September or October before the election. I think it was September in Pennsylvania, swing state. And yes, she was the vice president, but she was also a presidential candidate. That is an appearance problem to me. You don't hear about Churchill appearing with Wilkie in 1940.
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C
Wilkie had no shot.
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B
Wilkie had all sorts of issues. And the not wearing a suit thing, I don't care one whit. But I do find it a bit silly for Zelensky's pushback to be like, I'll wear a costume when the war is over. Yeah, but this is a costume, too. All clothes are costumes. That's kind of the point. Right.
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A
So can I make a pedantic point there?
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B
Yeah.
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A
The word for suit in Ukrainian or Russian is like costume, something very similar. So I think he was actually saying suit rather than like costume. I don't think he was pushing back. Which goes to Jonah's point about the language barrier that raised.
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C
Another point about the blunder is that his English isn't great. And he could have defeated. He could have insulated himself with an interpreter in a way that would not have been more gritty. But look, I just wanna make this the basic point you can make all sorts of points about how he blundered. If you believe Donald Trump is serious that all he wants is peace, then he failed in that Oval Office thing. That was a disaster for his foreign policy. Unless you agree with Steve and basically me. Well, because by letting it go 40 minutes and starting this fight right, if he thinks the win is peace.
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B
But hasn't that pushed Zelensky publicly now into saying like, yes, of course I want peace, something he was not really saying before and sort of putting Zelensky on his back foot. Having Zelensky now have a more contrate attitude publicly, he's now sending thank you videos and tweets to everyone in the world. I don't know, it looked pretty effective for that. I hate it.
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C
That's fine. Yeah, right. But you have to. But the presumption there is that, that that was the plan, right. Zelenskyy was there to sign a document. They had a plan that day to sign a document that day. And Instead they went 40 minutes in this self indulgent nonsense and, and blew the whole thing up. So their plan for that day got blown up. Now, either it was pretextual and they never planned on having that, or they did plan on having it. Either way, I think we can all agree, at minimum, even if it's part of some four dimensional chess bs, it looked pretty bad for America. It was not the best way to. You could have had that whole argument away from cameras and still not had a document signed and it would not have. It might have been worse tv, you know, which Trump said he cares about.
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A
But he, but he does care about it. I think that, to me that's sort of the key point here. Look, I'm not making the claim that the entire thing was scripted like you know, an episode of Law and Order, but I think the entire thing was designed to play out on camera. And that's why Trump said at the end. I mean the line he used when he left was, this is great television. I think there's.
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C
Do you think they told Rubio in advance? Look like you have a bowel obstruction.
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A
I don't know what they told Rubio. And I, again, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not suggesting the entire thing was scripted like that. I think there were moments. I've now watched this 50 minute video. I think I've watched it four times straight from beginning to end. And there are clearly moments in there where the thing kind of escalates. But, but I think the way to look at not just this incident, but the Trump presidency in general, and this is not a unique or original insight necessarily, is as if it's all a television show. That's how Trump sees the world. Do you have, do you remember the show Dream on was an HBO show, you know, 40 years ago, 30 years ago. Brian. Ben. Ben. Was that the name of the actor? You know, he had grown up watching so much TV that everything he saw was like it was in television. I think that's how Trump is conducting the presidency. And we've seen there's, there's plenty of additional evidence of this. Look at the arrival of the terrorists that the United States captured who was responsible or played a role in the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan. He's flown back to the United States the night of Trump's speech to Congress. There are cameras there when he arrives. You've got Cash Patel wearing an FBI jacket. You've got senior Trump officials there sort of watching him do the perp walk. This is how Trump operates. This is why they do a lot of the things they do. And this is why I don't think it was like an amateur mistake that this played out on television. I think the goal was always for this to play out on television. And Trump came in on Putin's side and he ended on Putin's side. But it gave J.D. vance. I agree with you that J.D. vance was the main provocateur here and was just looking for things. At one point he said, you know, can't you just say thank you? And at that point, Zelensky has said had said thank you in one context or another three different times. Vance just wasn't hearing it. Aura frames are my favorite gift to give. I gave one to my mother several years back and I hear from her on a near daily basis that she loves seeing the pictures that I upload. But more than that, she loves seeing the pictures that her grandkids upload. And I get feedback about what she's observing in their everyday lives. What I really love is that Aura Frames comes packaged in premium gift box with no price tag. It already feels like a thoughtful gift even before they open it. You don't have to wrap a thing. And I'm not one for wrapping presents for a limited time. Visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code Dispatch at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code dispatch. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best deal of the year. So order now before it ends, support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.
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B
Before we move on, just one other question on this. This is to the able point, right? If we can't win in Ukraine and we also can't side with Putin without selling our soul, perhaps pulling out and seeing what Europe will do now is an interesting option on the table. So you have European allies starting to militarize and get more directly engaged. That seems like a good thing to me. No, yeah.
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A
Look, I mean, I think this is a positive development. This is, you know, this is something I've been, I've talked about for a while. I, I think Europe should step up. I think it's good for Europe to step up. I think Europe should be doing more to provide for its own common defense. I think the stronger Europe is, the better able Europe will be to shape or at least influence the events in close Close to Home. I would say that that's a silver lining in a rather dark cloud. It's not at all worth doing this to get Europe to step up because the effects of this will far outstrip and outlast whatever benefit comes from Europe militarizing or getting serious about its defense. The way that this is unfolding with Donald Trump effectively abandoning our ally in Ukraine makes it far more likely that Europe will not only militarize, but have to use the weapons that they are that they seem intent on building. And that's not a good development for anybody other than Vladimir Putin.
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C
The UK is talking about putting troops in Ukraine as a You know, sort of like the South Korean model as a tripwire, as a. As a backstop, that is not in America's interest, because if British soldiers start dying, we have a pretty good history of finding that it'd be very difficult to stay out of those wars. Right. And we should not want our European allies to have boots on the ground in there as just targets. Right. I mean, it'd be one thing if there was a concerted effort to actually kick Russia out, and then it's a different strategic picture, but no one's talking about that. The cascade of policy problems that come from the Trump approach to this, because they haven't thought it through, are enormous. I wrote my column about this, my LA Times column this week, and I just want to get the point out there. The premise of your question, Sarah, like so much of this debate, like the premise of Luther's Thing and the premise of all these people, both sincere and just, professional turd polishers, trying to make the Trump position seem really smart and sophisticated, is that it's not smart and sophisticated. Trump does not care about Ukraine. Vance clearly doesn't. He's said the words. What he wants is a talking point, right? He wants to be able to say he got peace. And so that's why they consider ceasefire and peace to be the same thing. The first Trump impeachment, Trump told the Ukrainians, look, just say you're investigating Biden for corruption, we'll do the rest. All we want is the press release so that we can run with it. His second impeachment, right? He sells Bill Barr and all those guys. Just say that you're investigating corruption in the election. We'll do the rest. We just want the press release. Trump wants to say he got a deal. He campaigned saying it'd be so easy to end this thing. He may be right that Putin will not reinvade while Trump is president. Now, if you're President Zelenskyy, that's a really stupid thing to gamble on, because Putin could very easily reassure America, hey, we won't touch your economic interests. We'll go right around them. Don't worry about that. But second of all, Ukrainian national sovereignty and national security is dependent on a timeline longer than the rest of Trump's term. And Trump's whole argument rests on the idea that while he's in office, Ukraine would be safe if they cut a deal, not that they'll be safe under any other president. And it would be a total violation of, and betrayal of trust for a president of Ukraine to agree to a deal that the deal maker, the deal imposer says really will have no security guarantees. And we can't guarantee your safety beyond the term of my presidency anyway. And this is what you get when you have a presidency that conducts foreign policy in pursuit of TV pictures and talking points rather than actual substantive and constructive things. Marco Rubio said on ABC last weekend, people keep saying you need security guarantees to get peace. That gets it backwards. You need peace before you can have security guarantees, which is just profoundly stupid and contradicts everything he's ever said about foreign policy for the last 30 years. It's just they'll say or do anything in pursuit of politics as the crow flies. And the nest that the crow is pursuing is a press release, not actual sustained foreign policy in the American interest.
- [35:32]
B
Jonah, can I ask you just about one other potential silver lining? Could we see the end of the United nations due to all of this and that that will actually be better than the sclerotic organization that it has become, regardless of the high minded ideals that it was founded on?
- [35:49]
C
I would love to say, look, I despise the United nations as currently constructed. I've written a gazillion columns about the un. I don't think that's what we're going to see. Because at the end of the day, you know who doesn't want to get rid of the un? Vladimir Putin and President Xi because they confer status to them. And Trump will like that idea of sort of meeting with the powerful people in Washington. I would much rather see a campaign of real reform of the UN because I think that's more achievable. And I've argued for years the US should lead the effort to create a league of democracies that put some competitive pressure on the UN to be better than it is. Because you know what the criteria is for being a member of the UN right now? The full criteria is existence. It's like a country club that says as long as you're a carbon based life form, you can be a member. It's not a very exclusive club, but no, I don't think we're going to lose the un. It's a source for too good tv, as Trump would put it.
- [36:46]
B
And Steve, one last question to you. I mean, you talked about the ceasefire being in Russia's interests, but it was proposed by Zelensky and Macron and Russia is the one who rejected it. I just wanted to push back on that point before we left the topic.
- [37:00]
A
Yeah, I think that was before we had suspended aid. I think what Zelensky was trying to do was buy some time to have real negotiations that included the Europeans. If you look at the way that the United States started this process, the they excluded the Ukrainians. Now, Marco Rubio has been on, every time he makes a public appearance, he complains that people are saying they excluded the Ukrainians because he's talked to his counterpart and, you know, other people have had conversations with other Ukrainians. But the fact of the matter is they met with top Russian officials and sort of set the framework for negotiations to come after the United States had conceded many of the things that the Russians had been telling us for years that they wanted as a result of these negotiations. So the Ukrainians were right to feel excluded. I think what Zelensky wanted to do was, in effect, I mean, you can't say reset in this context at all anytime you're talking about Russia. But I think what he would have liked to do was reset the negotiation, the framework for negotiation, and to say, hey, let's have a bigger conversation that includes the Ukrainians, that includes Europeans, and actually weigh through some of these issues. And I, I think it, you know, it speaks volumes that he felt like he couldn't, in effect, trust the United States to be good faith brokers on this or arbiters on this.
- [38:30]
B
All right, I want to talk about Trump's speech to the joint session of Congress that also happened this week. You know, my opening question is basically like, does this speech matter? Did it tell us anything? Did we learn anything substantial that we didn't learn in the last 45 days? I'll read just a couple lines from the speech for those who didn't watch it, about Greenland. We're going to get it one way or the other. We will keep you safe. We will make you rich, and together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before. On tariffs, they are about protecting the soul of our country. Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it is happening, and it will happen rather quickly. There will be a little disturbance, but we are okay with that. It won't be much on the economy. Joe Biden, especially, let the price of eggs get out of control, and we are working hard to get it back down. Immigration, illegal immigrants heard my words and they chose not to come. Much easier that way. In comparison. Under Joe Biden, the worst president in American history, there were hundreds of thousands of illegal crossings a month, and virtually all of them, including murderers, drug dealers, gang members, and people from mental institutions and insane asylums, were released into Our country. Who would want to do that? I missed the Panama Canal Power. We'll put that up with Greenland. To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal. And we've already started doing it. And lastly, which was a bit interesting in Republican circles, you should get rid of the CHIP act and whatever's left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce the debt or any other reason you want to. Jonah, if you had a time machine and you could go back and have that hour and 40 minutes to stare at a wall or listen to the speech again, which would you pick?
- [40:23]
C
Oh, the wall. I mean, do I get to pick the wall? Because, I mean, some walls are more interesting than other walls, but yes, the wall, no. I mean, in fact, it is in particular kind of Sisyphusian curse here, right? Because my stated position for years is States of the Union or joint addresses to Congress, whatever we're calling this thing, need to go right. They're monarchical, they're nonsense, they don't serve their original purpose. They're in many ways a legacy of Woodrow Wilson. And Woodrow Wilson sucks. And yet we are now, what, three days out from this thing. Two days out when we're recording this. This is like my fourth podcast on it, and I did two hours of late night television on it. It doesn't deserve any of this. That said, it does illuminate some things about politics that do matter. Right? And I suspect the line that we are going to look, I think it was a political win for him. Most people didn't watch it. It'll play off. And sound bites and clips. That's good for him. He telegraphed that he was going to try to humiliate the Democrats and force them not to clap for kids with cancer and whatnot. And he succeeded. And that was smart. There's my rank punditry. All that's going to be largely forgotten. The thing that I think has real legs to it is where he says, we're going to have some fun. There are going to be some small disturbances with tariffs, but it's all going to be great. And that he thinks tariffs protect the soul of the country, which I have to tell you, is one of the dumbest frigging ideas I've ever heard as a matter of economic policy. And the reason why that's going to matter is I think that the tariff stuff is going to cause severe economic dislocation. And every news channel is going to, in practice, even Fox is going to constantly refer back to him making light of this as if it wasn't gonna be a big deal. I mean, it's remarkable to me how much Trump seems to be replaying a lot of Biden's mistakes in terms of his messaging, talking about things that people didn't really vote for him for, downplaying problems, seeming out of touch. We have two parties that misread the electorate once they get into power, and they, they shoot for the moon on things that the base cares about or, or the Twitter cares about, but not the things that the median voter cares about. And they get, they, they get out of step with the voters and they act as if there's no reason to try to build a majority coalition.
- [42:49]
A
Yeah, I, I agree with Jonah on that being the most memorable moment for the night or the one that we're likely to see again and again and again and again. As you have stories about businesses dealing with, and farmers dealing with tariffs and the fallout, everybody's going to be contrasting, you know, people losing their jobs, people losing family farms, businesses going under as a direct result of the tariffs, and Trump calling it a little disturbance. You know, look, he had every right to take the victory lap that he took on immigration. I don't love some of the language that he uses on immigration. I don't love some of the policies. But, you know, it was interesting. He pinned the change in migration flows to his rhetoric and basically said, you know, this took a change in president, and I was the one who told them not to come, and they didn't come. And I think in all of our discussions about immigration policy, that's the biggest, biggest thing is Joe Biden, in a sense, came in, said, this isn't a problem. We're welcome. We love you. Come on in. And Donald Trump said, I'm, by the way, I'm exaggerating for a fact. He didn't actually say, come on in. That was, I think, the broad message from his administration, with some caveats. And Trump has said, we're going to stop you. If you come, we're going to find you. If we find you, we're going to send you back. And I do think that that is the reason that we haven't seen the crisis, the power of presidential rhetoric. And again, I don't like all the ways he talks about it, but he's right. It's been effective, it's worked. He deserves credit, I think, for stemming the flow of, of illegal migrants. I do think in some of the other things, people have pointed out some, you know, some. The kind of exaggerations with his Social Security rant, you know, the number of 200 year old people who are getting Social Security, which wasn't true. But I think the other sort of biggest takeaway on the speech in general is these are speeches where a president goes to Congress, appears before Congress and asks Congress for stuff. And Trump didn't do that, which I think is reflective of his I alone can fix it mentality.
- [45:04]
B
Oh, that's because we no longer engage in Congress.
- [45:07]
A
I think that's right. But if, but, you know, if you're talking about, you know, there's been talk of, of legislation to codify some of the changes that Doge makes to make them more lasting. Because anything that Trump does by executive FIA can be undone by executive fiat. And he seems not really to care about this, I think, because he doesn't really care about the policy details. He wants to win. And so these, he's, he's taken these as wins. If Congress wants to do their role, fine. But he didn't make many of these kinds of requests, which is consistent with the way that Trump handled these speeches to Congress in his first term, where he didn't go in and ask Congress to do a lot for him, which I think is, you know, is a, is a problem for him in terms of the durability of the changes that he's breaking. And one last point. Just because this drives me nuts, and it will always drive me nuts, and I'm going to be a curmudgeon about it, the idea that they are going to balance the budget is so incredibly preposterous on its face. It's amazing to me. I mean, it's not amazing to me that Trump would say it. Trump says stuff that's crazy and preposterous literally every day. But he now has his top economic advisors fanning out on television making this case, and it doesn't, it doesn't come close to being true. One, they've taken entitlements off the table. There will be no entitlement reform. You can't balance the budget unless you reform entitlements. This is well established. People know this. You can go back. The absurdity has been taken sort of to a new level by Howard Lutnick, Trump's Commerce Secretary, who was suggesting yesterday that we're going to balance the budget because of the tariffs, which is just. There's not enough money to do that.
- [46:54]
C
No, but that's, that, that, that doesn't even get close to how stupid what Lutnick is saying, because Lutnick also says that the terrorists are going to raise so much money. We're going to get rid of, we might be able to get rid of the income tax, get rid of the.
- [47:05]
A
Income tax, balance the budget. He doesn't factor in the effects of tariffs on, on growth, which is sort of the one way we might be able to at some point get out from under our 36 to almost $37 trillion debt burden is by growing our way out of it. It will require robust economic growth along with these serious minded reforms. And tariffs aren't going to enhance our economic growth. I mean, this is sort of silly. I think we'll be playing that clip back. Unfortunately, as you know, as we approach $45 trillion in debt at the end of Trump's second term, we'll be playing back the we can balance the budget in a couple of years clip as well.
- [47:50]
B
Jonah, you know, I much prefer the big picture, how we look back in 10, 20, 30 years than the day to day punditry on this. But I think Steve struck on a really good important point, which is what the purpose of these speeches used to be. I mean, the original, like constitutional purpose is for the President simply to give an address to Congress on basically what he's doing. Interestingly, we're kind of back to what that is, but for the middle 150 years or so, well, let's call it the hundred years that they've actually been going in person since Wilson. It was like you come with your wish list to Santa. Congress being Santa in this case because they've got the toy shop. Well, if Congress is no longer going to be a separate branch of government with its own will, separate from the partisanship of the president, either with him or against him, there's no point in going with your wish list. So the sort of Clinton version of the State of the Union we don't see anymore. And what an amazing sort of real life example of the fall of Congress as the first branch of government, then that they serve no purpose except to be an audience. Not an audience that you're trying to persuade an audience literally to clap as your ally or boo to be a helpful foil. I mean, there's a line in Trump's speech that is sort of fascinating. I mean, the whole speech was a little more partisan than I think, a little more overtly partisan than past speeches have been. But this is my fifth speech, sorry, this is my fifth such speech to Congress. And once again, I look at the Democrats in front of me and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud. And that was actually good. That was the point, right? Was like, look at my foes and how they behave. You had Congressman Al Green being escorted out of the chamber. You had Democrats holding little round signs saying musk Lies. Democrats played their part perfectly for Trump in a way. That was just incredible. So I guess with our, with our few minutes remaining on this topic, we haven't talked about the Democrats and we haven't talked about Elise Slotkin's response. Do you have any thoughts on that to share?
- [50:19]
C
So, first of all, I thought she did good, right? I thought she was a perfectly good counterpoint to the way the Democrats in the room responded because she was measured, she was sober. She was Normie. She seemed like the cool assistant, you know, the vice principal at your kid's middle school that everyone likes that sort of is, doesn't, doesn't get too worked up about anything. And that's, I think the tone the Democrats should take, right, is that they should pretend at least that they're the grownups. I think your point is exactly right about Congress, and it's particularly true about these joint session addresses, which are not states of the union, as we all know, and are required by the union to say, like Reagan was on the Dispatch Live, that we did about all this. I heaped some criticism on Reagan for basically inventing the trope of having human props in the gallery to use, and I think it's gone way, way, way too far. But he's basically also the innovator of this joint session thing to a certain extent. I mean, they've happened before, obviously, but, like, now it's considered like, you just get one, you're, you know, a month after you're elected because, you know, the media loves them, right? It makes the media seem more important and Congress thinks they're fun. But the point was, please pass my tax program. Give me, you know, it was to expressly. And they were shorter. It was like, this is what I need from you, right? So like States of the Union, these kinds of addresses were once like the CEO going to the shareholders and asking for some major reform or going to the board and asking for some major reform. Now they're more like halfway between the president of a think tank going and trotting out some new material on some interns and a Jerry Springer audience. It really just does show how gelded and devoid of purpose Congress really is at this point. Fortunately, Congress still has, even if Congress doesn't want its responsibilities and it's outsourced so many, including we should keep pointing out the only reason Trump can do any of this tariff crap is because Congress voluntarily gave of its power to do anything on trade, which it has sole authority to do under the Constitution and could take back tomorrow if it wanted to. All the rich car dealership guys and all these guys in these Republican districts screaming at their congressmen, you should know that your congressman does in fact have the power to fix this stuff. Tell him to vote for taking this authority away from the president. Stop asking him to lobby the president and start asking him to be a legislator or her. At the end of the day, though, Congress is still the one that has to pass a budget. Right? Congress. There's just no getting around that. Which is why that at some point the story is going to move to what Trump is doing to what Congress is doing. And I don't think that's necessarily good for Congress or for Trump, but that's where things eventually have to go because the Constitution requires it.
- [53:10]
A
I agree that Democrats behaved badly. I don't think it's likely to be to have significant, lasting political impact. I saw some Republicans on social media suggesting Democrats are going to lose the midterms now and never be elected in 2028 because they didn't applaud at the appropriate times. I mean, it's really so silly. But I do think that they didn't respond well, they didn't behave well. And I agree that Representative Green should be censured. He should be punished for doing what he did. You shouldn't stand up and disrupt a president, even of the other party, no matter how strenuously you disagree with him. I will say I find it a little difficult. Mike Johnson's House speaker sent out a tweet today, a furrowed brow tweet, you know, very disappointed censure for Representative Green. We shouldn't behave this way. It's a little much to take from Republicans, not because of what they've done in Joe Biden and Barack Obama's speeches to Congress, but this is the same Republican Party that can't be bothered to even question Donald Trump's pardoning of the rioters who were a little bit more aggressive in their behavior in Congress on January 6 than Representative Green was. I just find it the whole fake disappointment or frustration or outrage at the lack of decorum is sort of silly.
- [54:42]
B
Well, let me just take a moment here to get on my hobby horse about campaign finance reform and everyone who's worried about Citizens United, who doesn't know what that case actually said or Large dollar donors, big money, dark money in politics. What Al Green did was absolutely an Al Green's interest. Al Green raises money by doing stuff like that from small dollar donors. They are the problem in our politics right now. And all that this did is continue the escalation of trying to stand out with increasingly outrageous conduct, because then you raise a ton of money, you become a fundraising powerhouse in your own caucus. You can fend off primaries that way. And the guy who actually is working on legislation and trying to compromise and make things work and fix problems, that guy doesn't get small dollar donors. And the large dollar donors can't possibly compensate anymore for that. So congrats everyone. Every leap in American history has needed breakthrough energy.
- [55:50]
A
Ignition, Liftoff.
- [55:53]
B
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- [56:15]
A
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- [57:44]
B
All right, it's time for the anti woke wokeness movement, and in this case, woke chili. So this was a post originally sent to Am I the Asshole? A popular subreddit that allows users to judge the ethics of the poster's dilemma. Which is all to say there's no real. You know, we don't know if this is real, right? Like, we don't know this guy. But the story feels like something we've seen play out in various contexts in the last few years. So the original poster was sick and tired of his cousin's obsession with what is or isn't woke. So he decided to convince his cousin that beans in Chile are, quote, so woke. I told my cousin, yeah, beans and chili are woke. The original conservative Texans who made chili only used meat and chili. San Francisco liberals started adding beans to chili in the 60s because so many hippies were vegetarian. Now all the woke scientists are saying beans are a better protein source than meat. When family chili night rolls around, there were no more beans in the chili. This guy has been making his chili with beans for 15 years. I was like, what's up? Where's the beans? My cousin said, I don't f with that. Woke. Beans and chili are woke. Even you know that. I was like, dude, I was just messing with you. He got really angry. He dumped his chili in the sink and told everyone to go home. I thought he was pranking me back or something, but he was serious. The dude totally lost it. He texted me later and said this exact thing. I researched this online and it turns out you really were lying to me. Beans are not woke. How could you do this? Even if the story's not true? Hilarious. And it's a well done little short story, and I appreciate good short stories. There is sort of this anti woke wokeness that has now taken on on the right that feels in some ways very similar to the stupidity of the wokeness movement on the left. So, Jonah, is there something about our lizard brain tribal ness that just needs to have this sort of language policing and tribal identification such that we're always going to have the woke tribe and the anti woke tribe. You can call them whatever you want, but that is just how it will.
- [60:10]
C
Always be to a certain extent. Yeah, I remember I did a. I did a piece about Whole Foods 25 years ago when it was first sort of coming around, when it was still like half of them were still called fresh fields or whatever. And it was amazing to me the degree to which Whole Foods was basically trying to create a almost fake ethnicity out of like organic food, you know, with all these sort of Name checks to, like, fairly mythical Indian Native American tribes and philosophies and all this kind of stuff. If you actually go and you look at the social science on ethnicity, like food and association with food is like off the charts the most important thing for ethnic identity. And I think that so some of this stuff in a multiracial, multicultural, polyglot nation, people want to have this attachment to the kind of identity that ethnicity gives you. And they're constantly kind of creating these things. I remember when I was on the board of trustees with a young trustee at Goucher College, My alma mater, given its history, is an all women's college. The mater really fits. We were coming up with some new diversity statement. This was at the dawn of like diversity statements kind of thing. I was a huge. Sarah, you would have appreciated my earnest pain in the ass ness back then. I was not nearly so jaded and cynical as I am now. And I did my full. This is not what the liberal arts are about. Like, you know, liberal arts have always been about embracing different ideas and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I wrote this memo and gave it to all the board members. And I remember this very left wing lawyer from Washington came up to me and she said, jonah, I found your letter really interesting and very persuasive within the four corners of the page, but I'm worried that some of the phrases you're using, like tolerance and liberalism and free speech, that these might be coded as right wing code words and I wouldn't want to incorporate them if that's the case. And it was like, what are you talking about?
- [62:13]
A
Right.
- [62:14]
C
But that was sort of. That. It was a really interesting glimpse into this sort of mindset. And I think that, like, that is a wiring thing, right? Shibboleths, all these kinds of things. We are more bigoted towards people with accents than we are towards skin color in a lot of cases. And that's because there's something about our brains that picks up on the way people talk. And so I think, yes, it's going to be permanently here. It doesn't have to be as stupid as this, but it is going to be. It's part of the human condition.
- [62:43]
B
All right, Steve. I also think this is important for everyone to hear me say beans and chili are by definition a liberalization of chili. Forget woke, not woke, but I'm from Texas. You don't put barbecue sauce on your smoked meat, and you don't put beans or any other vegetable in your chili. It is meat and it is chili. Everything else is a liberalization in the truest sense of that word, of correct chili. However, I'm not sure that was the point of this, either the chili maker or the chili pranker. But nevertheless, Steve, I know you also care about meats, and I wanted you to hear that.
- [63:25]
A
Yes. So no onions and chili. I mean, onions are a vegetable. No. So you're talking about basically, Sarah, meat soup.
- [63:34]
B
Yeah, it's basically what it's supposed to be, meat soup.
- [63:36]
A
I couldn't disagree with you more or.
- [63:39]
C
With the state of Texas. Like, I like Texas, but Texas is so full of crap when it comes to this chili stuff. I just. I have no patience for it. But go on. I'm sorry. Yeah.
- [63:48]
A
I mean, it's not to say I haven't had good chili made with only meat. My family for several years used to host a chili cook off in the fall, and, you know, we'd have 15, 20 people bring different chili recipes. And there was one by my former editor at the Weekly Standard, Richard Starr, that was essentially. It was basically like filet mignon soup. And it was terrific. Look, I think beans are great in Chile. The best beans are dark red kidney beans. Pinto beans are okay if you're doing sort of a Mexican version. And I speak with some authority on this. You know, I believe that God gave each of us very special talents. I don't have many of them. I can parallel park. I can make a clover with my tongue. I'm really good at grilled cheese. And I can make chili. The best chili I make, and I make a lot of chili, is with dark red kidney beans because they offer different textures, they enhance the overall flavor, they fill out the profile of the dish that's actually optimal chili.
- [64:53]
C
So first of all, Sarah, when you say liberalization, in large parts of my life, liberalization means reform or improvement. Let's liberalize markets, right? Let's liberalize the culture. That's another way of saying improving. And so, first of all, the whole idea that Texas invented chile is garbage. It comes from Mexico. Chile. Texas popularized chile at the World Expo or whatever. Just so you guys know, my chile is two kinds of meat and three kinds of beans. And I stand by it. I work very hard on it, and I think it's fantastic. And you can all go to hell.
- [65:31]
B
There's the Davy Crockett bumper sticker that many of us have. You may all go to hell. I will go to Texas. And with that, listeners, thank you for joining us this week. We'll see you again next week.
- [65:45]
C
Go to Texas and sit in the heat and eat hot meat soup. Great plan.
- [65:50]
B
Meat soup.