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Visit LifeLock.com podcast terms apply welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On this week's roundtable 2025 a year in Review, we'll look back at the most important and the most undercovered stories of the year. We'll also discuss the most overexposed people in the news over the last 12 months, as well as the best pieces of journalism we've read. And finally, some good news. What's the best piece of news this past year? Personal news for the United States, for humanity. Joining me for this important conversation are my disposal Dispatch colleagues Jonah Goldberg and Michael Warren, as well as Dispatch contributor Megan McArdle. Let's dive right in. Welcome everyone. A bit of a different format this week for our year end show. A full disclosure. I want you all to know that I shared these five questions with the panel beforehand, but we did not of course coordinate our answers. So we may have some overlap. And that is just fine. We're happy to have overlap. Let's start at the top with what we think was the most important news story of 2025. And Mike, I'll start with you.
- [02:21]
C
So when I thought about the answer to this question, I wanted to think about sort of what was in totality had sort of the most impact and maybe even the longest tail as well. So I think the most important story is the Trump administration's immigration enforcement, border enforcement and deportation policy. And as big and blanket as that is, I think it incorporates a lot. I think the first thing to think about is it is more than anything that the Trump administration has done in its first year. It is the it is the actual fulfillment of a Campaign promise. Donald Trump promised a lot of things on the campaign trail and he has not really delivered on most of them. But this one he has, this is something that he has, he has sort of done exactly what he said he would do. And more and more we've seen that from the actual executive orders in the first week that he was in office, all the way to the beefing up of border security, the mass deportation push going into these cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, Charlotte, North Carolina, or you have CBP and ICE out there rounding up people. There's the whole story of what to do with people that have been deported. And we've been, you know, there's a lot of talk, even just this week as 60 Minutes has spiked a story potentially permanently, potentially not, we don't know about that, that El Salvadoran prison that a lot of those people who we were deporting were sent to. And also it's a story about, about the sort of political ramifications of that. There was a poll from CBS News this week, I think, late last week, Trump's approval trends among Hispanics In February of 2025, 49% approval, 51% disapproval of Donald Trump among Hispanics. And that is basically as sky high as you can get for a Republican. In December this month, that same CBS poll, just 29% approval of Donald Trump, 71%. That's a 42 point difference and a 40 point swing against Donald Trump. If you look at the sort of political state of the Trump administration, a lot of reasons why people are disapproving of it, but you've got to include this one. So it's got to be that.
- [05:01]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think if you, if we were to ask anybody listening today, or people who do what we do for a living, or people who cover the White House, or people who pay attention to this stuff casually, I don't think there's any question that that would have to be, you know, if we ask people for a top five, at least in the top five, and I think, Mike, you've made a very good case for why it ought to be considered number one. Megan.
- [05:27]
D
This is a story that sort of just popped, hasn't gotten a lot of coverage yet. Uh, but it looks like China has basically managed to make a high end photolithography machine for making semiconductors. Now, for the high end semiconductors, more than 90% of the machines in the world come from one Dutch company called asml. They are extremely protective of their process, the machines. My understanding is they have to check in Basically with headquarters once a day. And if they don't, they just brick them. China looks like played a long game, had workers on the inside, probably in multiple different verticals to get around that they had a secret process, Reuters reported, where, you know, workers had fake names, no one knew what they were doing in the building, and now it looks like they have gotten one of these machines. Why this matters. Look, if you think that we're in an AI race or where it's winners takes all, where this thing is self accelerating doesn't necessarily mean it becomes super intelligent in the way some people talk. But simply where AIs can code other AIs and being ahead in that race means that the other people basically can't catch up. If you think that is the case, China has one big advantage, which is electricity. They've also got a lot of people and so that means more engineers to do stuff. Where America is ahead is in computer. So China developing the ability to make its own compute. That's why we've been doing export restrictions or at least the most compelling argument for export restrictions on these chips. If China can make its own compute, it's very hard to see how we can catch up because we can't build electricity as fast as they do. We could in theory. There is nothing stopping us except a zillion NIMBYs and bad regulatory laws. And so this is a major, major setback. Now that doesn' mean they're going to be, you know, pumping out semiconductor chips tomorrow, but it does mean that, that America just suffered a major blow in the race to, to win AI. So I guess we better hope it's not win or take all.
- [07:47]
A
Yeah, that, that's extraordinary. And I might have to amend my answer for most undercovered story because I have not been paying attention to that story. But you've convinced me that it's as significant as, as you suggest. Jonah Most 2025 okay, just with the caveat.
- [08:06]
B
I've made this point a bunch of different ways that in the past but like the future often changes our understanding of the past and it is entirely possible that news events in six months will make it seem like something that seemed like a fairly minor story. All of a sudden we'll look back in hindsight and say, oh, it should have been obvious that it should have been a major story.
- [08:30]
A
Now that's bs. I mean we expect you to know right now what important story is. No caveats.
- [08:37]
D
Who knew making fun of Donald Trump was going to turn at the White House?
- [08:42]
B
I rest my case.
- [08:43]
A
That is a that is a perfect.
- [08:45]
D
Such a consequential story.
- [08:49]
B
But your harangues and expectations roll off me like water off a duck. Steve. So, all that said, I think we're going to look back on 2025 as the year that the climate consensus, not in terms of whether climate change is happening, but how to respond to it, completely fell apart. It's a moving date. I'm sure you can find some symbolic thing in 24 or 23 or 22, but if you just look at the broad sweep of things, the EU has just punted on its plan to basically get rid of internal combustion by 2035, and now they're like, never mind the. You're seeing coal power plants and gas power plants look much more attractive in a lot of places in the US and elsewhere, just to maintain the capacity. A lot of this is driven by the AI stuff that Megan is talking about. We didn't go to the big climate conference, meaning the United States. And you can go down sort of a long list of. Of backlashes about high energy prices, particularly in Germany, with these crazy policies that make home heating crazy expensive and all these kinds of things. And I think it maps over.
- [10:12]
C
The.
- [10:12]
B
Broader sort of populist nationalist backlash stuff that we're seeing in the UK and throughout the west, really. And none of those movements are going to be climate change. Let's throw a wet blanket and switch entirely to solar. The irony is that solar is actually now becoming a competitive thing in its own right, which I know is frustrating a lot of people. So I think when you think about what the international order looks like and the international economic order looks like, when you remove the peer pressure to do this sort of fundamental reorganization about climate change, it just makes things in one way look a lot more normal, but another way a lot more sort of unpredictable. And I think many of the things the Trump administration has done to dismantle are the scientific work on climate change has been outrageous, like getting rid of stuff that measures CO2 and whatever in the atmosphere. We should know that because we should know that whatever you think about climate change, climate change, some of that stuff I think is just pure vandalism. But I also don't think all of it can be restored, not to the status quo ante. I think the. The center of gravity on this stuff has just moved. And I think the inflection point came in the last year.
- [11:36]
D
I really hope this means that this issue is going to be less stupidly polarized. Right. I drove a Tesla across Washington State a couple weeks ago, and it Was great. Charging was a little nerve wracking in that I was worried that something would go wrong. Nothing did. It was great. I went in, I had a coffee, it charged, I came out, I went on with my day and I think, you know, there are, there are still lots of wrinkles to be ironed out. But this shouldn't be a political issue. Who likes smog? Who likes internal combustion exhaust? Who likes noisy vehicles? I mean people in them and like car enthusiasm, but most of us, I.
- [12:15]
C
Like noisy, noisy muscle cars or yeah, sure, sure, sure.
- [12:19]
D
But I'm like, but it shouldn't be about banning them. It should be about like this is a cool product that solves some problems. It, you know, it does make long range trips a little more challenging logistically at the moment as we build out the EV charging infrastructure. But on the other hand, when was the last time you got to gas up your car at home overnight while you slept? Right, this is true on solar and wind. Why people, it's, it's one thing to not want to subs it or to quarrel about how much we should subsidize it. It is another thing to just be glad that we're killing solar projects because you hate the environmentalists, which has been a real issue and so on and so on. On the environmentalist side, the polarization against nuclear, totally ridiculous, right? It would be nice if as environmentalists realize what a complete dead end the whole degrowth strategy is if they stopped being so like I am taking away your toys, you will eat the mulch and like it and started promoting actual solutions like nuclear, like renewables. In lots of cases like EVs that aren't jammed down your throat but that we enable by for example reforming permitting for electric vehicle state charging stations, then I think conservatives might be more amenable to like yeah, I guess I actually don't like pollution. It's not my favorite. And I hope that this means that we are actually looking forward to a better, less like what's really important is that I hate you and your way of life kind of political debate over this.
- [13:58]
C
I'm going to, I'm going to short civility in this discussion that just, that's.
- [14:03]
A
Just going to say that's my, it's my position. If we're getting to the point where facts matter more than emotions in our political arguments, that could be the story of the year, actually. Yeah, well, the big not saying we're there of the year. No, I agree, I agree. I mean, look, I think we've seen, you know, just in the past several months, we've seen some progress on that score where some people who I think we would have long regarded as climate alarmists have kind of stepped back from that and said, well, okay, some of the things that we warned about didn't come to pass. And it's worth taking a second look at this. I do hope that it occasions a smarter, more thoughtful discussion of this. I have to say, just listening to the three of you with your answers, I think we need to lead this show at this time next year by revisiting these three. Actually, not, not as a sort of, you got this right, you got this wrong. But I think that's, that'd be really interesting just to see where we are.
- [15:01]
D
And I do want to clarify something that I think I didn't say and I should have said, which is that this machine that the Chinese have, it's a prototype. They have not, as far as we know, produced any chips with it. So maybe we'll come back in a year and be like, well, actually, they couldn't make it work. And then Megan will have egg all over her face and it will be gloriously joyful egg I will ever wear. So that's good.
- [15:26]
A
I would, I would, I'd be with you if, if that happened. So my most important news story of the year is bringing us a little bit back to, to what Mike said, but, but going broader, and it's the erosion of the rule of law in the United States. We've seen this in so many stories that we've written about at the Dispatch, that we've discussed on this podcast, on advisory opinions on the Remnant. But whether it's the blatant corruption of the Trump administration's personal deals, all the deals, the undisguised targeting of political enemies by the president who goes out in public in speeches and brags about his targeting of his political enemies by government entities, prosecutors, etc. The nakedly political pardon regime we've seen over the last year, beginning with the blanket pardons of the January 6th attackers who showed many of them zero contrition. There was no question that they had done what they had done. We saw them on video doing it. But they were pardoned largely because they did what they did on behalf of Donald Trump. I think you can extend this argument to, to the unapologetic quid pro quos in foreign policy. If you look at the Qataris giving us a plane for potential Air Force One, to permanent security guarantees, we will give you something like what we've provided NATO, we've seen this, I think pretty dramatic erosion of the rule of law. And it's so hard to keep up with on a day to day basis. I think there's just a scramble of people who cover the White House or cover politics, covered these stories generally on a day to day basis. It's so hard to just keep up with that. That putting it proper perspective, I think is virtually impossible. I think it's hard to know, to Jonah's point earlier, just how significant this erosion has been, but we're seeing it on a near daily basis. There are stories, they're good reporting about it on a near daily basis. And I think, think it's contributing to increasing questions about the impartiality of justice today because of the stories that we're seeing, because of the things that come out of the president's mouth. But I don't think it's at all possible to assess the longer term damage to the rule of law and to our sense of the rule of law and to sort of the collective American experiment that we're seeing. And I don't think we'll probably even be able to appreciate that at this time next year when we revisit some of these stories.
- [18:14]
C
Yeah, Steve, I have a question about that, because the Trump administration and certainly its allies seem to act as if nobody cares about this. Right. I would say that they seem to be doing all the things you're talking about with impunity. Nobody's going to come after them. They're not going to face any political retribution for it. I'm curious if you think that's the case. You describe how sort of it's impossible to kind of distill it and follow it all. But do you get the sense that that has seeped out into the larger understanding of the Trump administration, that it's got this feeling of like, yeah, Trump's paying off his cronies or he's getting his kind of, he's getting. People are coming to him and giving him what he wants, so he gives them what they want. I don't have a good sense of that. I don't know what you think.
- [19:05]
A
It's a good question. I don't know. I mean, you'll hear, and we've talked about this before here, you'll hear defenses of what Trump is doing that essentially take the position that because he's doing it in public and because he's aggressive about it, it makes it less suspect. We don't have to ferret it out. You don't need investigations to find out that Trump wants to punish people because of their political party or their political positions. He tells us that that's what he wants to do. We had his chief of staff in the interview that we discussed last week effectively say, like, yeah, I thought that we'd give him a little time for retribution. I didn't think it was going to last this long. But, I mean, she didn't deny that that's what he's doing, and that's what he's doing. She's confirming it. It's the kind of single story that would have led to her resignation, would have led to impeachment pleadings against the president in the past. And people do just shrug it off. I don't know that it's that people don't care, although I'm open to that, possibly. Certainly people care less than I do. I mean, that I thought after January 6th, like, anybody who was sort of on the fence about Donald Trump by that point would be off the fence at that point, and he would have been sort of cast aside. Obviously, a lot of people didn't feel the way I felt about it. So it's definitely the case that, that people don't feel as strong about this stuff as I do, or many people don't. But I don't know that we can say that they don't care. I mean, we may see this sort of the cumulative effect of this show up in the November midterms. Right. I mean, there may be some, some payback for, for Trump for some of this. I guess the, and we, again, not to, to revisit themes that are part of these discussions more often than I would like to. I continue to be surprised. And I just, just admitting that makes me naive that so few Republicans seem to care. This stuff is so obvious. And I understand that there's very little political upside for them in calling him out or raising protests. But I mean, at a certain point, on some of the obvious ones, don't you have to just register that this is improper, that we don't, don't do this this way? And the fact that they don't, I don't know if they're, you know, if, if that sort of cowardice extends to a lot of Republican voters or most Republican voters. But I suppose we'll, we'll find out soon enough.
- [21:21]
B
But you see, like, this is a, I mean, like, I, when you were talking about the stuff going on in the Caribbean, I was tempted to say that it may turn out that that's the most important story of the year because it signaled that, that America has basically gone to this neo Monroe Doctrine nonsense and sphere of influence nonsense and is turning a blind eye on Europe. It's not clear. It is right now, but it may be clear in hindsight going forward. Similarly, if we were doing this podcast at the end of 1972, some of you wouldn't be born. I would be teething on the microphone.
- [22:00]
D
But I would be waiting in my mother's womb.
- [22:06]
B
But the idea that this obscure break in at the Watergate would have been the most important story of 1972, it would be absurd. But by 1974, it's like, duh, right? And so some of this lawless stuff, some of this foreign policy stuff, it takes time to mature. And then people retroactively connect dots and say, oh my gosh, this trend's been under our nose for a really long time. And, and I'd say of insights that I have repeated on this podcast the most, it's the observation that we say the straw that breaks the camel's back for a reason. And it's not because straw breaks camel's backs. It's because things accumulate. And then all of a sudden this country's like, wait a second, look at what we had to put up with here. And then they get pissed off about stuff that they let go six months earlier. And I think, think the British have a nice expression. It's like storing up trouble for the future. I think the Trump administration has been storing up a lot of trouble for the future for the GOP and for the country.
- [23:16]
A
I mean, I do think the corollary. I agree with you. I mean, and that's, I think it's a very important point. The corollary on foreign policy would be in addition to the Korean boat strikes, in addition to the sort of deals for Qatar and others, you know, would obviously be Ukraine, in my view, where it's hard. I mean, we talk about it a lot, we spend time on it for a reason. I think it's a hugely important story. But, you know, will we appreciate that the United States has shifted its foreign policy from one that, you know, and you could argue, you know, there's plenty to criticize about the bipartisan foreign policy establishment that's derided as the Blob, you know, having some combination of sort of morality and US Interests drive foreign policy. But, you know, the other big argument would be that we've shifted away almost entirely, in my view, from a morality based foreign policy or a foreign policy that has much to do at all with morale. We're not even making those judgments. It's not like Donald Trump is stopping and saying, wow, Vladimir Putin is really an evil person. And what he's done in the raping and pillaging of Ukraine is morally reprehensible. We don't even like that's not really part of the conference. We're having that conversation. Other people are having that conversation.
- [24:40]
C
The only person even bringing that up is Melania Trump in these very limited moments where she can kind of pull her husband back from the brink.
- [24:48]
A
And it seems like a person in.
- [24:49]
B
This administration, by the way.
- [24:50]
A
Right. It's such a profound, profound shift. And, you know, I think it's profound now in the moment. That's why we spend as much time talking about it as we do. But I don't think we'll really have appreciated that in a year, maybe even in five years. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast. Shopping is hard, right? But I found a better way Stitch Fix Online Personal styling makes it easy. I just give my stylist my size, style and budget preferences. I order boxes when I want and how I want. No subscription required. And he sends just for me, pieces plus outfit recommendations and styling tips. I keep what works and send back the rest. It's so easy. Make style easy. Get started today@stitchfix.com Spotify that's stitchfix.com Spotify.
- [25:45]
B
Thursday Night Football is on Christmas night and it's only on prime video.
- [25:49]
A
Wide open touchdown.
- [25:51]
B
This week the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs meet in a Christmas night showdown.
- [25:56]
A
Has the league ever seen anything like this?
- [25:58]
B
Coverage begins at 7:30 Eastern with football's best party teeing up tonight. Presented by Verizon. Not a Prime member, Not a problem. Simply sign up for a 30 day free trial. It's the Broncos and Chiefs Christmas night at 7:30 Eastern only on Prime Video. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com Amazon prime for details.
- [26:15]
A
You know, every year when we hit December, I start thinking about everything in my work life that could be running just a little smoother. I spend a lot of time time thinking about that. And honestly, payroll and HR tasks are always high on that list. I know our team spends more afternoon that I'd like to admit buried in forms, double checking tax details, tracking down onboarding documents. It's the kind of stuff that eats up your entire day before you even notice. And that's why I really appreciate what Gusto brings to the table. It gives you that okay, we're getting our Business act together this year. Feeling like starting with a clean desk and an organized inbox. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire onboard and support your team from anywhere. And here's a big one for small businesses. Unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. You know exactly what you're paying for, which is pretty rare in this space. It's also genuinely quick to switch to Gusto. You just transfer your existing data and get up and running fast. You don't pay a cent until you run your first payroll. Try gusto today@gusto.com dispatch and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll@gusto.com dispatch one more time. Gusto.com dispatch we're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump right in. We want to get to our second question and we'll just go in the same order. Mike, I'll start with you. The most undercovered story of 2025.
- [28:06]
C
Well, this is a little self serving because it's a story that I've been covering, so I just think everybody should be following my lead on it. But I do think it's a big story and it will be bigger. And I think the discussion right now that's happening online is a part of this, which is the kind of crack up or shake up within the conservative movement and within conservative institutions. You know, John McCormick and I have written about this quite a bit over the past two months. Things keep developing that keep confirming kind of my thesis about this whole thing, which is that that Donald Trump has not created more unity within conservative institutions in the conservative movement. He's just set things up so that when he leaves the stage, or actually even before he leaves the stage, but when he can kind of see the wings in the distance, he's about to walk off those kind of in fights and discussions and debates about what it means to be a conservative, what it means to be right wing, what it means to be and sort of down the line, a Republican. That's a story that is, I think it's underappreciated and undercovered because so much of it is happening in these obscure, relatively obscure places like the Heritage Foundation. Yes, it's a big think tank, but sort of what goes on there doesn't necessarily have a lot of impact on sort of a normal American Americans everyday life. But it's happening there. It's happening in the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. It's happening at places like Hillsdale College. It's happening in local Republican parties and college Republicans and all of these places where conservatives are sort of trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for. And some of what that some of those people are arguing for is getting pretty ugly. And I just think it's a story we should keep following.
- [30:15]
A
Yeah, I agree with you entirely. I hope you do keep following it. I, I think it also has been undercovered. I, I know we sometimes.
- [30:23]
B
Is it undercovered or poorly covered? Because there is a difference. Right. And I feel like we hear a lot about this stuff. It's just that it's most of the.
- [30:30]
C
Stuff maybe it's maybe poorly covered is. Yeah.
- [30:32]
B
A better way to put it.
- [30:33]
A
Megan.
- [30:35]
D
I'm going to keep on the techno futurist theme and say that I think the most undercovered story this year was autonomous vehicles, given how far they've come. And it's not actually that the vehicles themselves have made huge advances in the year, although it's more that Waymo, which is the leading company in this space in that they have now they've been operating a robotaxi. They keep expanding. They've been trying to expand to D.C. and have been blocked by some combination of our city council transportation committee or ddot, which was supposed to produce this report and do rulemaking and they just didn't. And then they've had years to make this report. And then they announced, when people asked them where it was, they finally announced, oh, well, we were, we, when Trump cut our money, we, we didn't do that report. It's like really, really? You've been working on it for years, but then Trump got your money and you were like why would we embrace the technology of the future? I think this story is undercovered because the safety profile is incredible in these things. You were talking about five fold reductions in serious accidents. And not only that, when you dig down into the accidents, as Tim Lee, who full disclosure, personal friend, also writes the fantastic Understanding AI newsletter, he dug into the the event, into the actual crashes and it's basically they're almost all the faults of the other driver and people. Now the Washington Post editorial board has, I should say, done some fine work on this topic. But in general, people are not paying attention to what a big deal this is. 40,000 people a year are killed on American roads. If you could take that out of the equation. And we are look a long way from that. If you are terrified that they're going to come tomorrow and take away your car and make you use a robot. Right now, these cars are very expensive, they have high maintenance requirements, and it's going to be a long time before they are widely deployed into people's homes. But nonetheless, every human piloted car that you take off the road is a serious reduction in the potential for accidents. And you could see kind of snowballing effects, as when there are more of these cars on the road and fewer humans, you'll see even fewer accidents than the current number numbers would suggest. Because often what you'll see is, for example, the cars will behave lawfully and other cars that are not expecting a car to, for example, stop at a red light will then crash into the back of them. But they've now done a million miles, which is about where we should start to see, sorry, 100 million miles it's about to see. They're close to that number. And that's about where we should start seeing whether we can reduce fatalities. We have so few fatalities. I mean, we just take a lot of trips, but you only get about one fatality every 100 million vehicle miles traveled. So they're now approaching the threshold where we can start to see are they also having fewer deaths. And this would be just an incredible advance for people. And it's not just about what it enables for reducing car deaths. It's about what it enables for electrification, which I do think is good. And having fleets of these things, or even car that could just drive itself home to charge just changes the worries about range. If you think about other things it could enable, we don't even know yet the kinds of vehicle form factors it could enable. Eventually it could do things like have convoys of trucks who can draft off of each other, which will reduce the amount of fuel needed to take them and make the trucks faster and more efficient. You can think about in some future, 20 years from now what having a lot of these cars would mean for the ability to manage track traffic congestion. Right. Like rather than letting Google Maps route you, you sort of just automatically adjust to traffic conditions. Just a whole lot of stuff that can be done with this technology. It's incredibly exciting. I am incredibly excited. It's going to empower disabled people, old people who can no longer drive. Just an amazing advance for humanity this year. I'm very excited about it. And while there was some coverage, a lot of it was like a Waymo hit a cat in San Francisco. Do you know how many cats are killed in San Francisco every month by human drivers? A Waymo has Killed one. And suddenly this is a front page story.
- [35:15]
B
I was amazed Steve didn't say not enough. I mean, I just, I thought.
- [35:18]
A
I don't.
- [35:19]
B
I thought that was coming.
- [35:20]
A
Like, you can't. I don't. I mean, I love cats, but I don't want them to die. Jeez. Just harsh, by the way, I hope. But it's amazing. It's amazing. Megan, to your point, point, we're here. Like, this is this moment. Like, I spent a weekend in, in Phoenix this fall, and weimos are everywhere. And if you haven't had that experience, I think a lot of people, you know, who haven't traveled or haven't been in the city where they're prevalent, it's. It's hard to imagine it. And just being in the city, walking around, it's like everywhere you go, people are being picked up and ferried about by driverless cars. I mean, it's really happening.
- [35:57]
C
And the experience is very. That I've ridden in one several times in San Francisco. You feel safer in it, and you can see sitting in the back of one how unsafe other drivers are around it. And it totally changed my opinion about them having.
- [36:16]
D
Yeah. I mean, one thing too to contemplate for all the people who are like, they will take my car out of my cold, dead hands is that you could go a lot faster in robot cars than you can go in a human car are. Right. Because if no one's behaving erratically and if everyone's obeying the law, you might actually be able to get traffic moving quite a bit faster than we can safely allow it to move right now. I mean, there's all sorts of things.
- [36:39]
B
So, Megan, I feel like we gotta do this because we will hear from people. If we don't, I get unalloyed technophilia and how awesome all of this could be. And I for one, relish the days where I can go to a remote roadhouse and not worry about drunk driving or drunk drivers. But like when in a country where, what, 1 in 7, 1 in 10 people, men particularly, have jobs involving driving stuff, we should at least take a second and mention that the dislocations from this are going to be politically significant and royal. We already live in an economy where men are getting, let's put it this way, feel increasingly screwed. And the amount of jobs that pay well for a strong back and physical effort are deteriorating by the day. There's going to be some pain sociologically and politically that comes with this glorious era.
- [37:46]
C
Era.
- [37:47]
D
There is always some pain. Although I Will say that like Boston has basically made this argument directly and their city council is fighting basically for an ordinance that it would make it functionally impossible to operate a self driving car within Boston city limits. The Teamsters are also pushing people to require a driver in a self driving truck, which is like what? And, and on the one hand, I'm.
- [38:14]
B
Sorry, it's like requiring an elevator man and elevators that are automatic.
- [38:17]
D
And on the other hand, imagine if we made this argument about medicine. Well, if we cure cancer, what about all the hospice nurses? And what about it's like I feel like we can find something better for those guys to do than doing a thing that kills 40,000Americans a year.
- [38:37]
A
Yeah, that kind of disrupts the good news.
- [38:39]
D
If we cured cancer, it would also actually be a pretty significant economic dislocation for a lot of Americans. But first of all, the other thing we should remember, this is not going to happen overnight. This is going to be a gradual process.
- [38:53]
B
I agree with you. I just think recognizing that there'll be arguments.
- [38:58]
C
Right.
- [38:58]
B
It's like if we cured cancer, anybody who said oh this is bad for the oncologists would be pelted with rocks. But yes. And that's how we should we found a cure for truck drivers. They now can go home and not drive trucks. The response is going to be different.
- [39:15]
D
In some ways it would be fun to live in a world where we drove around on horses instead of in cars. They are, I find them much more appealing in many ways. But also that would be ridiculous and we'd all be really poor. And I don't think that's on nat a better world. And that's how I think about this is like yes, it put horse grooms out of work, buggy whip manufacturers, all sorts of people had to learn, had to get entirely new jobs. Often, you know, this was quite skilled work to be like a head groom at a stable. That guy lost his job, there was no benefit to him. He was probably net worse off. But I mean how many of us want to go back and save that guy's job now?
- [39:56]
A
And if I can just weigh in as the curmudgeon in the group, the sooner this happens the better. Because my semi official assessment of the number of people driving while on their phones, it has tripled in the past three years. I mean when I drive three minutes in D.C. amazing. It's unbelievable. And you now have increasingly people watching shows while they are driving places. Have you actually seen this all the time? Like all the time?
- [40:27]
B
I saw a guy parking because like.
- [40:29]
D
I will say I do sometimes pick up the phone and I do my. I switch a podcast really quickly but that's like a two second like next, you know, hit the next button. Button.
- [40:40]
B
Watching a basketball game. He had the phone underneath the rear view mirror so that he could watch the basketball game while he was moving. As he was, as he was like backing into a parking space.
- [40:52]
A
It was so people are not even. People aren't even pretending anymore. They will just have the phone out as they're cruising down the highway. I just did. As it turns out. I just did. Let's see, it was only 18 hours and then than 17 hours. So 35 hours of driving in the last four days. And the number of people who are just driving with devices out like they're reading a book is extraordinary. And I know that makes me sound like, like an old man. And maybe there's a reason for that.
- [41:24]
D
You can't see anything but the road while you're driving.
- [41:28]
A
It's incredible. It is incredible.
- [41:29]
C
What did you say?
- [41:31]
B
I'll just very quickly make the point. We don't have to follow up on it. I say this personally because I kind of stumbled into it about how important it was. The Chinese Japanese diplomatic crisis of the last 90 days over Taiwan is really undercovered. I have not and I do a lot of CNN punditry these days. So I'm also watching a lot of that stuff, stuff in the green room or whatever. I haven't seen an ounce of analysis about any of this. And tensions between Japan and China are pretty fraught right now. And it's largely over statements by the new prime minister about Taiwan. And the only thing I'll bring up is we talk about how future events can change the importance of this things. The debate about whether we defend Taiwan is always about whether we defend Taiwan. What if we have to defend Taiwan because Japan is fighting for Taiwan and we have to defend Japan? Like some of these decisions can be made, I don't want to say without, you know, without deliberation. But like you can get on a cascade of geopolitical conflict conflict because of our entangling alliances, which I'm not using as a negative thing here in ways that people are completely unprepared for. No one's done any polling on should we protect Japan if Japan gets involved in a war with China. But that's a real live question. And even if we said no, then we don't honor any security arrangements. And also our economy goes know careening into a ravine very quickly and it just hasn't gotten the kind of coverage.
- [43:24]
A
It deserves, and we probably haven't done enough at the Dispatch. Jonah, you're the editor in chief. Can you do something about that?
- [43:32]
B
I'll. I'll make a phone call.
- [43:34]
A
Can you. Can you assign some stories?
- [43:35]
B
Well, if only we had a writer with years of experience writing about national security stuff on staff.
- [43:41]
A
It was always going to go back there, wasn't it?
- [43:44]
C
Stop fighting.
- [43:45]
D
Stop fighting.
- [43:46]
C
It's Christmas time.
- [43:51]
B
Make Mike start smoking again.
- [43:54]
A
We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back shortly.
- [44:00]
D
This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan. Real United Airlines customers.
- [44:05]
B
We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he.
- [44:08]
A
Wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew.
- [44:11]
D
I got to sit in the driver's seat.
- [44:13]
A
I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.
- [44:18]
D
That's Andrew, a real United pilot.
- [44:20]
A
These small interactions can shape a kid's future.
- [44:23]
D
It felt like I was the captain.
- [44:25]
A
Allowing my son to see the flight.
- [44:26]
C
Deck will stick with us forever.
- [44:28]
A
That's how good leads the way.
- [44:30]
D
Deck your homewithblinds.com. DIY or let us install.
- [44:41]
C
On free design consultation.
- [44:45]
D
Free free free free free free free plus free samples and free shipping.
- [44:51]
A
Head to blinds.com now for up to 45% off sitewide plus a free professional measure. Rules and restrictions may apply. We're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump right in. Those are all very good examples of unrecovered stories. We should do more of them Here at the Dispatch, we encourage our colleagues them more and cover them better. The correct answer, however, is the national debt. We are approaching $39 trillion. We have two major political parties that aren't even interested in talking about entitlement reform, which is driving the national debt. There's not really much discussion about it. We cover it pretty regularly, but we probably don't cover it as often as we should. I've said this a million times. Feel like a broken record record. Not enough people care about the debt now. And at some point soon, everybody will care about it. We should cover it more. Okay, now, moving on. I'm sorry, Jonah. You know, Jonah, since your feelings were hurt on that, I'm going to let you go first here. I do this with my kids. Who is the person in 2025 who was the most overexposed? And the alternative version of the question is, who is the person? You just don't want to hear from in 2026 or maybe in perpetuity.
- [46:12]
B
Oh, gosh.
- [46:13]
A
I mean, aside from me. Yeah.
- [46:16]
B
I mean, they're kind of different questions in some ways, right? Because there's some people who just really annoy me personally and then there are other people who are like wildly overexposed as a sort of political media matter. I would say. I hate saying. I kind of hate saying this because you could also argue he's the most important person alive. Right? So it goes both ways. But Elon Musk does not generally benefit from sustained media exposure and neither do the people around him. It used to be this cliche among conservatives to say about Hollywood people just shut up and sing. Right? Just shut up and tell jokes. Don't stay in your lane. In effect, this is the guy who is the only person that we know of right now that is already a household name, that has a non trivial chance of being remembered by name 5,000 years from now after. After everything that we think of as civilization is gone. But the guy who launched us as an interplanetary species is the guy who got so red pilled and distracted by Twitter he bought it and took his eye off the ball in ways that are just staggering. And so I feel like yelling at him, shut up and make rockets. I mean, that's what the guy is there for. Or since Megan is such a voluptuary of driverless cars, shut up and make Teslas. But I think the rocket stuff is more important. And his involvement in politics hasn't been good for the Republican Party. I don't think on net it has been good for the deficit and debt that you were talking about, which was the ostensible reason why he did Doge. And I don't think it's been necessarily good for Elon Musk. And I also just don't find him as fascinating a figure when it comes to his political opinions, as a lot of people do. The guy ain't Tony Stark. And Tony Stark's political opinions were not particularly impressive to me either.
- [48:44]
C
I am am really tired about hearing about Olivia Nuzi and RFK Jr. We can't say that RFK Jr. We can't hear any more from him because he does lead the Department of Health and Human Services at the moment, and so he is a important government figure in that respect. But the whole sort of of psychodrama of Olivia Nuzzi, who is a talented writer and someone who has gotten too caught up in mixing her personal life and her professional life, there's just been too much digital ink spilled on this story. And hopefully this is the last time that I ever have to professionally mention her or that whole mess.
- [49:43]
D
Yeah, I will say the newsy thing. Newsy Lizza thing makes me sad. I have refused to read the either American Canto or Ryan Lizza's 98 million part subtext series on their relationship. I think they're actually both in many ways incredibly good reporters and, and journalists in terms of like they had flair and style and sources and they did the job. And also that maybe the characteristics that made them so good at that job, like a willingness, a brazen willingness to take personal risks were also the thing that has made them, led them to this place. Let us say my candidate for overexposed is Candace Owens. Because not that I don't think that it is important that there is a raging anti Semite who is influential in the conservative movement or that she is. Her raging anti Semitism is amplified by other people in the conservative movement. That's a really important story that should be covered. But Owens herself, and like I say this to MAGA conservatives, 0% of Hume watch this, listen to this podcast. But she's crazy. She's not just an anti Semite. I don't like, I, I don't want to suggest, you know, I don't want to suggest that there's something mentally healthy about other kinds of anti Semitism. But when you watch what she does it. This is disordered thinking. It is the kind of obsessive, spurious pattern matching that you see in people who are having serious breakdowns. I cannot diagnose her from afar. I could not even if she were close because I am not a professional psychotherapist. However, I think there is something really. This is kind of Kanye west stuff. There is something deeper going on. Tucker Carlson, what he's doing is vile and despicable. But he. She is sane, just making evil choices. She is in some other category of, you know, her stuff about Brigitte Macron where she is claiming that she is a man and now being sued for it and doubling down on it and all of this. Like when you watch it, it's like watching people who have a problem who are muttering to themselves as they accumulate. Well, you know, and then the CIA, you can see it was the CIA because I read the, this, you know, the ingredients on this can of corn and they're sending secret messages. Although actually I will say that it turns out, I guess that the CIA was in fact running a Star wars fan site that was where, where informants could pass information through the fan. The fan site so like I guess I don't want to feed any of.
- [52:41]
C
This but that's so crazy now is she Wow.
- [52:45]
D
I I so I get is that.
- [52:47]
B
How we got plans? The exhaust sports on the yes yes boffins had to die to get that website set up.
- [52:55]
D
Yeah so I just think like the like even if you want I I guess this is not going to be taken well in the same way as when I tell the the left that blue sky is not helping them and they're like obviously blue sky must be the best thing ever because Megan McArdle hates it. It's like no, it's really not helping you. Also if you look at the data the site is slowly bleeding to death and is not going to be around for that long. But I am going to issue this advice anyway which is that having people like that who are not just bad or in as as you would good if you are a white supremacist and raging anti Semite but having people who are crazy they will eventually blow out in some way and take you down with them there is it only ever ends one way because the craziness is not controlled. It's not strategic. It is is totally sincere and it's going to go wherever it goes. So anyway I would like to never I would like her to get some help actually and then I would like to hear from her when she comes back and is like I now realize that the this the anti Semitism was a sim was a symptom of my mental health problems rather than and then recants it and tells everyone why she was wrong. But I'm not holding my breath for for that.
- [54:14]
A
Yeah the reinvention narrative leads nicely to to mine and we won't spend much time talking about her because mine is Marjorie Taylor Greene. I don't need to hear about her. I don't need to read about her. I don't need to hear from her. And I certainly don't need to hear from resistance types who are now embracing her and lionizing her because she's saying some negative things about Donald Trump these days. It's preposterous. She's overexposed. I've already said too much. Let's move on.
- [54:44]
B
I'll not just because it does show how some people are incredibly cheap dates politically.
- [54:51]
A
Yes.
- [54:52]
B
That if you if you just change one position that they really really care about all of a sudden you're a hero. And I have to say that even reportorial mainstream journalism thinks that story story about Green is so much more interesting than it actually is totally right.
- [55:09]
A
Absolutely right. Okay, next topic. The best piece of non Dispatch journalism in 2025. And Megan, I'll start with you this time.
- [55:22]
D
My favorite thing was something that Graham Wood wrote for the Atlantic on the AfD, which is the far right party in Germany. You went to some rallies, you talked to people. And I think the thing that Graham does that's so great is that he really has a quite firm moral center, but he also really goes out and attempts to put himself in the mind of people that he really disagrees with and try to see the world the way they do and show you the world the way they see it. It's a rare gift. I thought this was a terrific piece and I recommend it to everyone.
- [55:59]
A
We will put all of these pieces in our show Notes. Jonah?
- [56:04]
B
Yeah, so I had, I was going to actually say the New York Times, which they wanted a Pulitzer for, for explanatory journalism about Afghanistan, but actually I, I got to say my favorite piece of the year was also a New York Times piece, favorite non dispatch piece of the year, which was the retroactive autopsy of what happened to the Sierra Club. Insofar as the Sierra Club had decided in amidst the George Floyd Covid era, peak wokeness era, that they just couldn't be the Sierra Club, right? They couldn't just do Sierra Club stuff about like preserving wilderness and expanding green spaces and conservation. They had to be full spectrum fat burger progressive on every single issue. And you know, we've talked about this phenomenon in the context of a lot of different, different things about how much better off the NRA would be if there were pro NRA people in the Democratic Party, how much better it would be for American capitalism if there were more Democrats, if support for sort of conventional chamber of Commerce policies were in both parties. Right. If you want to protect a mainstream basic issue is you want to want it to have broad bipartisan support in some way, and I think that that applies to a lot of these kinds of institutions is that if you make your institution sort of like what has happened with the ACLU into just a Progressivism Inc. Kind of thing, then you are only as popular as your least popular position. And you start roping in, you start shackling politicians in all sorts of ways. People forget I brought up here maybe last week, but the reason why Kamala Harris got into so much trouble with that she's for they them, he's for you stuff is that the ACLU demanded that she fill out a questionnaire along with all the other Democratic candidates in 2020. And one of the questions was, do you support government funded transgender reassignment? You know, transgender surgeries for illegal immigrants and for prisoners? And, like, that's not what the ACLU is for and it's not what the Sierra Club is for. And I just think that, like, it was good that the New York Times recognized it. And I'm hoping in some ways the New York Times applied the lessons of that piece to itself about asking, what would you say you do here? And not trying to get involved in things that the New York Times doesn't need to be involved in either.
- [59:15]
D
It has been really remarkable. A close runner up to my favorite Graham Wood piece was the Nick Confessori piece on Chase Strangio and the ACLU and how they basically allowed Strangio to pursue this strategy that really backfired. So for people who were not necessarily following all the Supreme Court cases, although I know many people listening to us probably also listen to the excellent advisory opinions where this was covered. But, you know, activists sued the state of Tennessee to overturn their puberty blockers ban. They also sued Alabama. Alabama for a state ag, had the best press operation I have ever seen. It was amazing. And one thing that they did was they got a ton of discovery, which then turned up in the Tennessee case, which went all the way to the Supreme Court and just did unbelievable damage. A lot of what we know about how bad the epistemic process on trying to figure out whether these treatments are good and help anyone comes from that Alabama case. These were phenomenal own. This is possibly the worst own goal I can ever think of in constitutional litigation history. Which is not to say that it is. I am, unlike David and Sarah, not an expert on this. But they did such damage, not just to themselves legally. They pursued a case that there was, it was pretty clear very early on, 0% chance they were going to win. Right. The minute that Joe Biden didn't get reelection, that was the end of it. And even if he had, he could not like, he would have had to, like, expand the court in three weeks. And that was not going to happen. And so they did. They, the court upheld the ban, set them up for other bad things to happen to their goals in the future. And they produced bad discovery on these cases that they were bringing. Just terrible, terrible, terrible for the aclu, for trans rights. And the Nick Confastoria did this incredible piece for the Times on it. And I was reading that, I was like, would this piece have run three years ago? Right. And maybe three years ago, not four. It would Never have gotten through editorial four years ago.
- [61:41]
A
We will put that piece as well in the show notes. And just to echo Megan, your point about Graham, what he is unparalleled at putting himself in a position to understand.
- [61:52]
D
So remarkable.
- [61:53]
A
You know, I have a list of.
- [61:54]
D
Writers who I need to kill in order to not feel bad about myself. And he's near the top of it.
- [62:02]
A
Yeah, Yeah. I once asked him how he did it. I. What he does so well. Which, which you specified. I asked him how he does because I can't. I'm not good at it. You know, if I find people that odious, every part of me wants to not engage them. I do sometimes for reporting purposes. But I fear I don't do it as well and as convincingly as. As Graham does. He's. He's terrific. What did I say, Mike?
- [62:30]
D
What's the secret?
- [62:31]
A
So, I don't know. Well, I was. I don't think Graham knew that this would potentially be shared for public consumption.
- [62:41]
D
Sorry.
- [62:41]
A
Okay. So I. No, but I mean, I don't think he would object to me saying bas be a really, really good listener. And we got into a philosophical debate about sort of judging sources and not judging sources. And I tend to. If I'm sitting across from somebody and they're lying to me about something and it's obvious that they're lying to me and I'm sort of insulted because they're lying to me, it's virtually impossible for me to not let them know that. Like I want to say, like, you're so full of shit. Like I know that you're full of shit. Like, don't do this to me. It's insulting to me. It's degrading to. And you know, I think it takes real restraint to sort of nod your head along or ask the next intelligent question seeking some additional insight for why there is this lie. It was fantastic conversation.
- [63:36]
B
So my only problem with all this.
- [63:37]
A
Shows up in his thing.
- [63:39]
B
I'm pretty friendly with Graham. I think he's a unique talent and all that. The problem with this, he's such a good listener. So stuff is that when you sit there talking to him and he just sits there quietly listening to you, you wonder does he think I'm as crazy as one of these Taliban guys that he talks to? Because he's just listening, he's not responding. I'm trying to bait him. It's very disorienting.
- [64:06]
A
It's good. I would think you would like that. Just a one sided conversations where you get to do all the Talk, talking. I mean, it's basically like a ruminant, but with an audience.
- [64:15]
C
Friday on the Rent.
- [64:17]
B
That's right. I actually, what I do is I have a little portrait right behind the camera on my computer of Graham and I just do the, I do the ruminant straight to him.
- [64:26]
D
Very smart.
- [64:28]
A
That's good. Graham is going to be so disturbed when he listens to this podcast. Mike Best piece of journalist not in the Dispatch not in the Dispatch.
- [64:41]
C
The New Yorker's Antonia Hitchens wrote a story, a profile of Howard Lutnick. I think the headline is Donald Trump's Tariff Dealmaker in Chief. And it is an example. There were so many good pieces this year, but this one just keeps sticking out to me because More from As a practitioner of writing and reporting, I loved to read this story and pick up, as we were just discussing, pick up ideas about how to do it better. She does a fantastic job. She spends a lot of time with Howard Lutnick, who's the Commerce secretary and was all over TV cable news this year talking about and defending Donald Trump's tariffs. She spends a lot of time with him and, and observes and sees and hears things that just make for great profile writing and magazine writing. And you should absolutely read the whole thing. There's a couple of moments where she's kind of with Howard Lutnick at some conventions or conferences. There's one where she's walking away with Howard Lutnick from a green room. There's a CEO of a very big company which she does not name, lingering and waiting for Howard Lutnick and like getting a, you know, having a discussion with him. And this is what she writes. As he clasped Lutnick's hands, I heard him say something about a supply chain issue and $2 billion. Lutnick, who had just wrapped up a panel discussion, was already running 10 minutes late for an evening reception at the White House. They would settle the matter later. Lutnick held out his iPhone with the screen facing down. Take a picture, he said. A sticker with Lutnick's phone number and email address dress had been printed with a label maker and affixed to the back of his phone. The CEO snapped a photograph. I mean, that is an anecdote that a writer just dreams of. And the story is full of them. There's one where he's talking with it's something called the Hill and Valley Forum, which is held in D.C. and lots of different policymakers. And Lutnick is waxing about about the trade deficit. When I have a trade deficit with my barber, he said, saying that that was unfair. I have a trade deficit with my grocery store. Right. I just buy stuff from them. That's ridiculous. And that this was supposed to be a defense of tariffs. And she sort of describes the audience as being these are like sophisticated economic and business folks who are very confused. But he was like doing the same shit dick in front of them as he does on cable news to kind of hawk for for Donald Trump. It's great. It's terrific. I love a profile where somebody spends so much time with them they get all of their little personal ticks and great anecdotes that you'd never get otherwise. It was just a master class. I loved it.
- [67:42]
A
It's funny, I remember reading excerpts of the piece when it ran, but I don't think I ever actually read the piece. So I will go back and take it in my my entry is from Derek Thompson at the Atlantic, a piece that he published almost a year ago called the Antisocial Century. And the subhead is Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It's changing our personalities, our politics and even our relationship to reality. And it's a big long thumb sucker piece that combines on the ground reporting with social science research looking at long term trends. It's certainly the case that Derek Thompson is not the first person to recognize this fact or write about it. I mean Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone an entire book looking at some of the same phenomena. But I thought this piece is one of these pieces that you read and it changes the way you think about something. You know, I had long thought spot there. I'd read Putnam. There was a drift away from socializing, away from friendships, particularly away from male friendships. The pandemic accelerated this. I mean this was sort of the slow drift and kind of an interest isn't this interesting thing that we're seeing. And I think this article made it pretty clear that it's something that has to be really reckoned with and that it might require some real societal pushback. And you can imagine all of the things that contribute to such a thing. But one thing he wrote in the piece is that self imposed solitude might just be the most important social fact of the 21st century in America. And the piece makes a very compelling case that he's right about that. So again we will put that in the show notes for you. And finally I want to wrap we are not going to do not worth your time today. But I want to finish by asking each of you for your thoughts on what Is the best news that happened in 2025 or that you read in 2025 that we should be happy about for the United States, for humanity, even for you personally? Megan, I'll start with you.
- [70:11]
D
Gene editing for Huntington's disease. This is a terrible, terrible. You probably learned about it in high school biology because it is an example of a dominant trait that is passed down from parent to child. If your parent has it, you have a 50% chance of getting it yourself. And what it does is cause progressive decline. Very young, loss of motor control destroys your brain, and then eventually you die very young. And it's just tragic because, you know, if this happens to you, do you not have children? Do you have children knowing that you might inflict this on them? It's a really, really terrible curse. And this year, researchers announced that they had done a gene editing in the brain treatment using CRISPR that did not totally eliminate it, but slowed it down by about 75%. Now, we're in early innings yet, but the reason this is hopeful is not particularly Huntington's, which is relatively rare. I mean, I'm thrilled for people with Huntington's. I hope this works and we get it to all of them as quickly as possible. But it's that we are. We are now working with harder and harder diseases, right? We're working with instead of high blood pressure, which we've been controlling for decades, or cholesterol, or these big chronic killers, there's a lot of money in them, and we've hacked them pretty well. And we're now getting into smaller problems, often genetic problems. We're learning that Alzheimer's may have an element of an infectious disease element. I don't know if anyone has seen this, but the shingles vaccine appears be to. To protect against Alzheimer's. And if you have not got your shingles vaccine and you are over 50, get out there and get it. Not just because you don't want Alzheimer's, but also because you don't want shingles. It's really terrible. But we are in a biomedical revolution right now. And this is before AI Hopefully AI can help with it. But even before that, it's that cancer is getting more tractable in a lot of ways as we have developed these advanced kind of gene and biologic treatments for them that are much more targeted rather than just trying to poison someone and hope that the cancer cells die before you do. We are getting more and more targeted treatments for that. But it's also for these genetic diseases. We have almost cured cystic fibrosis in the past few years, and there is, we hope, a lot more where that comes from if we don't kill off our biomedical research establishment by, on the one hand, putting price controls on their products, and on the other hand and killing off the basic research that is not. Is part of what they do. Right. You know, there's often a fight with, especially with lefties who hate the pharmaceutical industry, but increasingly with conservatives who hate the pharmaceutical industry, where they will say, well, you know, the taxpayer paid for all this research and all they did was monetize it. It's not all these things are compliments. The things that research labs do are not the things that pharmaceutical labs do. They're different parts of the delivery chain. They're all really important and they're helping live longer, healthier lives to save kids, to do all of these great things. And all I can say is more, please, but thank you for everything we have already. To all the researchers, whether they're in industry or anywhere else.
- [73:40]
A
Amen. I'm going to jump in there because mine is the same. Mine is overlapping with yours. Mine is revolutions in gene therapy and cancer. It is one of the big ones. The progress has progressed, been gradual. It seems to be accelerating in part due to AI and the kinds of things that these cancer researchers and oncologists can do that would have taken them in some cases years to do, they can now do in months, perhaps even days. But the progress has been absolutely extraordinary. I will pop in the show notes a short BBC story about a young girl in England who is in near complete remission from an aggressive form of leukemia because of what they've done with her, with donor cells that they provided her, they effectively trained her cells to fight cancer and they're reprogrammed to fight what was mostly incurable cancer. And the results are incredibly promising, with 70 plus percent of patients, particularly young patients, ending in either deep remission or complete remission. It's extraordinary. And there's no reason, I mean, we're not. But there's no reason to think that these things can't scale. And if they can scale, they will truly be revolutionary. So I'm with you on gene editing and gene therapy.
- [75:06]
D
I really Hope that in 50 years we will look back on the way we used to treat cancer, the way that we now look back on the people who used to treat syphilis with arsenic, which was more bloodletting better than the alternative of nothing. Well, the bloodletting was, except in very rare cases, not a good treatment for anything. The arsenic. My understanding is did kind of work also maybe left people crippled and didn't work all the time or my grandmother had gold treatments for her rheumatoid arthritis. Those sometimes work and then they sometimes cause terrible, terrible side effects and they don't know how to tell which patient is which. So I hope that we will look back as we did of like removing, you know, amputating limbs for gangrene without anesthesia like that. Those are tragic things that used to be done in the primitive past, but now we have a better way.
- [75:59]
C
Mike, I'm gonna take sort of some personal privilege here and just say there have been a number of births and pregnancies in my circle, people that I love, people in my family and friends and it's just been wonderful every single time. It's been wonderful news and it just warms my heart. And it's a reminder that for all the things people like to talk about how terrible things are in the world today, you can't think that when you're holding or seeing a new life. And just in my own circle I've been blessed to, to be sort of witness to that and will continue to be witness to that going into next year and hopefully for many years after that.
- [76:58]
D
Amen. Babies are hope in a onesie indeed.
- [77:03]
B
Jonah, just as a reminder, the official policy of this media company is babies are good. That's how we put it in the beginning was how can we and make up have policies that reflect the fact that we think babies are.
- [77:20]
A
And little did we know that we would contribute to a baby boom. I mean it's been.
- [77:24]
B
No, it's true.
- [77:25]
A
People have taken seriously.
- [77:28]
B
So I like Mike's correction or qualification that a lot of the most important stuff is happening outside of also going with Megan and Steve, stuff outside of the realm of politics and whatnot. I think you could point to a whole bunch of good trends. Fentanyl deaths continue to trend down. Homicides continue to trend down. I know that this is something that concerns all Gen Xers who are fed a steady diet of fear mongering about it. The ozone layer continues to. I mean the hole in the ozone layer continues to shrink.
- [78:11]
D
In fairness, the fears were real. And then we dealt with them.
- [78:14]
B
And then we dealt with them. Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's fair, right? Like it shows you that actually this is my argument about climate change is like I think climate change is a real problem. Work the problem right. Don't use it as an excuse to bring in ridiculous sort of wet blanket economic policies like try to fix the problem. But we don't need to do geoengineering here. I will say as someone who is been required to do a lot of talking and writing about politics in 2020, I'm tempted to just say the best thing about 2025 is it's almost over. But I will say that continuing on a theme here, that I think this is the first time in 10 years, other than right around January 6th, where I don't feel like a fool for saying you can see the post Trump era on the horizon, horizon. And I don't think that will solve everything. I don't think he's the cause of or source of all of our problems or anything like that. Some things will get worse with whoever replaces him, including conceivably his vice president. But Trump has been singularly able to thrive in an environment, to contrive, an environment that makes arguments feel like serious arguments, feel like a sucker's game, like you're the idiot for trying to have a real argument. And I don't think anybody who can replace him on the right can sustain that in the way that Trump can. And that I think is actually a really good sign of optimism for not to get all froofy, but of democracy and the future of the country. Because once you can act once, once. Another way of saying that arguments are going to matter again is to say that to some extent reason is going to matter again. And I don't mean the magazine, which is a wonderful magazine. I mean the actual concept of reason. And so I'm entering 2026 a little bit more hopeful because you can kind of see how this is going to play out.
- [80:25]
D
I would also like to add that I am entering 2026 more hopeful because I joined the Dispatch family this year and it's been very exciting for me. And thank you all. Thank you all for having me. And I am looking forward to more in 2026.
- [80:40]
A
We are thrilled to have you. As you know, this was a long courtship and we're glad that she finally said yes.
- [80:48]
B
I stepped outside the Washington Post with that boombox over my head for years.
- [80:56]
A
It was a good look. It was a good look. Thank you all for joining us. We have only one podcast episode this week. We will have one podcast episode next week, so we hope you will join us for that one as well.
- [81:09]
D
Happy Holidays, everyone.
- [81:14]
A
If you like what we're doing here, there are a few easy ways to support us. You can rate, review and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us and we hope you'll consider becoming a member of the Dispatch, unlocking access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up@thedispatch.com join and if you use my promo code Roundtable, you'll get one month free and help me win the ongoing, deeply scientific internal debate over which Dispatch Podcast is the true flagship. And if ads aren't your thing, you can upgrade to a Premium membership at thedispatch.com/premium. That'll get you an ad, free feed and early access to all episodes, two gift memberships to give away, access to exclusive town halls with our founders and a place in our hearts forever. Shout out to a few folks who joined as Premium members this week. Michael Lawrence, Peter Sherwood and Richard Maxton. We're glad to have you aboard. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us@roundtable dispatch.com we read everything, even the ones from people who want to hear more from Marjorie Taylor Greene. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in. And a big thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible. Noah Hickey and Victoria Holmes. We couldn't do it without you. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
- [82:38]
C
Sam.