The Cadres and the Cabal (#563)

Summary

The Fifth Column, Episode 563: "The Cadres and the Cabal"

Date: June 26, 2026
Hosts: Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, Matt Welch
Episode Overview
This episode dives deep into the shifting political landscape of New York City and beyond, focusing on the ascendance of DSA-aligned (Democratic Socialists of America) cadres, their ideological vision, and the reactions from both political insiders and the hosts themselves. The conversation covers the recent primary results, the efficacy of prediction markets, the implications of anti-American rhetoric among new electeds, plus a quick detour into the fever dreams of "secret societies" like Peter Thiel’s supposed Miami cabal. As always, it’s part policy debate, part banter, part culture critique, with sharp moments of outrage and plenty of irreverent humor.

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Main Episode Themes

1. New York's Left Turn: DSA Victories and What They Mean

[08:11] – [26:53]

• The hosts dissect the recent successes of DSA-aligned candidates in New York City and State primaries, with particular focus on newcomers like Claire Valdez and DAC.
• Iconic Quote:
  "All around us, the cadres of the revolution are arresting people who wear glasses. We're declaring year zero. It is Cambodia on the Hudson." – Michael Moynihan [08:11]
• They note the emergence of a new ideological block within the Democratic Party, one intent on “remaking” politics far more radically than previous progressive waves.
• The discussion highlights the rhetorical gamesmanship of these candidates—often dodging direct questions about communism or support for groups like Hamas, and instead cloaking positions in academic, moralizing language.
• Notable Moment: They play and deconstruct audio clips of DAC and Abba Kawas, spotlighting their reliance on buzzwords and a reframing ("word cloud") style:
  • "And so like...the system of capitalism and racism and white supremacy, et cetera, have all been used, you know, to colonize lands..." – Abba Kawas [17:55]
  • "I like by the way that she said 9/11 was done by a couple of guys. Couple of guys who were up to no good..." – Michael Moynihan sarcastically [20:27]
• Moynihan laments: “They don’t even get people who are good at it. Like that woman is a complete moron.” [20:56]
• Welch observes that the current moment is “the first era of campus radicals actually making it to Congress… it’s a train wreck.” [20:59]

Political Leadership and Affirmative Choices

• Welch expresses dismay at how figures like Zoran Mamdani are affirmatively backing radicals, setting up a realignment within the party even as establishment stalwarts (like Hakeem Jeffries) lose ground.
• Broader concern: the DSA movement’s rhetoric signals an anti-American worldview that may ultimately erode the city and state’s political and economic dynamism.

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2. The Hypocrisy and History of Anti-Americanism

[26:53] – [39:00]

• Hosts reflect on generational changes in leftist attitudes toward America, connecting the current "DSA energy" to older tropes of anti-Americanism and self-flagellation.
• Moynihan: “If you don’t like anything about this country… Why not just choose a different plot of land? Well, there’s an answer. Because you don’t want to acknowledge that this is the best fucking plot of land to live because of the political freedoms you have…” [29:07]
• Discuss motivations behind opposing borders, national pride, and capitalist economic structure.
• They assert that left radicals want to flatten society, bringing everyone “down lower, not for people to get ahead,” mocking calls to nationalize the airline industry and abolish TSA PreCheck.

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3. Policy Satire: Airlines, Deregulation, the Myth of “Flattening”

[31:05] – [39:00]

• Moynihan launches into a history lesson on airline deregulation, TV set prices, and how market competition lowered prices and expanded access—contradicting the “nationalize everything” rhetoric of the DSA set.
  • “The issue is, of course, not the TSA being run by bozos... She wants to nationalize the airlines.” – Moynihan [31:12]
• “They want to flatten everything, whether it’s borders, the economy... They can’t think when they’re waiting for a subway that maybe the system that they want to beef up… is in fact the problem.” – Moynihan [34:16]
• “The capitalism that they hate is the thing that democratizes everything that they use. Flying on an airplane.” – Matt Welch [35:01]
• Concludes that affluence created by capitalism is precisely what affords radicals their current freedom and platform.

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4. Prediction Markets & the Democratic Machine

[50:13] – [63:56]

• Kmele and Matt provide a detailed look at prediction markets (Polymarket) and their relative accuracy in the recent New York primaries.
• They compare real-world polling and market trends for key races in NY-7, NY-10, and NY-13, analyzing cases where markets outperformed polls and where they whiffed.
• “If you had some questions about where this race was headed, following the market would have been a useful tool. The volume here is many times larger than the volume on the market…” – Kmele Foster [55:57]
• Observations about how internet and Twitter “buzz” sometimes correlates well with outcomes, but not always—reminding listeners, "Twitter is not real life."
• Discussion of high-profile endorsements, funding (e.g., Levi Strauss fortune), and the limits of both money and name ID in these deep blue districts.

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5. Broader US Politics and Republican/Democrat Dysfunction

[65:46] – [69:10]

• The group notes that the US is developing two "one-party parties" in different geographies, leading to increasingly unrepresentative candidates on both left and right.
• They lament the lack of competitive elections, particularly in large urban centers, citing nostalgia for the days when Republicans could still win traditional Democratic strongholds (e.g., NYC).
• They discuss implications for the Democratic Party, especially as the DSA’s maximalist positions on issues like borders and Israel get “into the bloodstream.”

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6. Iran, Inflation, and the Trouble with Bipartisanship

[69:10] – [75:27]

• Brief rundown of current events—including the (stalled) bipartisan housing bill, Iran’s political fallout, and the impact of inflation on electoral prospects.
• Highlights skepticism (and a bit of dark humor) regarding both sides’ capacity to govern responsibly or learn lessons from past failures.
• "There have been Republicans who have taken some swings because of Iran...I don't see any silver lining in this Iran deal. And it's funny, they're having the funeral for the Ayatollah on July 4th." – Michael Moynihan [72:01]

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7. Tech Regulation, AI, and the Nationalization Craze

[75:27] – [81:27]

• The hosts marvel at current bipartisan flirtations with nationalizing Big Tech, specifically AI labs—mocking the idea and recognizing the self-interested lobbying behind some of these proposals.
• Details on the power and risks of new AI models (Fable, Mythos) and the ways in which open-source, free competition yields innovation and risks alike.
• “But if all these companies are sewing those up very quickly, a lot of this hacking goes on...because they're zero day exploits that people don’t know about. And, yes, it’s a vital tool in both exploiting those and patching them.” – Michael Moynihan [81:10]

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8. Cabals, Secret Societies, and the Mythos of Elite Power

[81:27] – [94:00]

• In classic Fifth Column style, the latter half pivots to a deconstruction of the latest “cabal” conspiracy—Peter Thiel’s “Dialogue” network, recently breathlessly reported as a “secret society."
• Both Kmele and Michael recount first-hand experiences attending Dialogue events—describing a mix of pricey, somewhat performative gatherings, and a membership far more ideologically diverse (and left-leaning) than breathless headlines suggest.
• “Phrase ‘secret society’—it’s absurd...If it was a secret society, they never told me to be secret about it.” – Michael Moynihan [88:39]
• References to Ezra Klein’s defensiveness about attending one (“800-word tweet”), and lambasts media like the Miami Herald for sensationalizing what are essentially “chilly, boring networking events.”
• Matt recounts the far less glamorous reality of past "powerful" clubs (like Bohemian Grove): “That looks like the least fun party that I’d ever go to.” [91:07]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “We are in New York City. And, you know, those of you who subscribe...We’ve done a couple episodes about this. One was vaguely with Raihan Salaam, very old friend of mine. And I didn’t get to tell the story...” – Michael Moynihan [08:21]
• “She was asked to condemn Hamas and she was like: ‘Look, the reactive vicissitudes...’” – Michael Moynihan, on DAC’s evasions [16:39]
• "That was Jason, I think that queued up producer, amazing Miss South Carolina. But that is the amazing thing about it is they don't even get people who are good at it." – Michael Moynihan, after a mock ‘beauty pageant’ answer [20:27]
• “These are people that if you have the wrong opinion, if you don’t say the right word, if you don’t say the word genocide, you’re done.” – Michael Moynihan [48:11]
• “The capitalism that they hate is the thing that democratizes everything that they use.” – Matt Welch [35:01]
• “If you don’t like anything about this country...you don’t like the history of the country, you find nothing to be proud of... Why not just choose a different plot of land?” – Michael Moynihan [29:07]
• “If everybody in the DSA...ran City Hall with them...would we be an economically more dynamic city in five years? Does anyone truly believe that? They don’t even believe that.” – Michael Moynihan [41:32]
• “Twitter is not real life.” – Paraphrased throughout Polymarket discussion [57:29ff]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [08:11] – DSA’s rise, candidate soundbites, left rhetoric analyzed
• [13:54] – DAC on television, evasion of “communist” label
• [17:55] – Abba Kawas’s explanation of colonization, critique
• [20:27] – Miss South Carolina parallel, “word salad” critique
• [26:53] – Questions about belonging, anti-Americanism
• [31:12] – Airlines, deregulation, capitalism’s benefits
• [50:13] – Polymarket & the NY primary election autopsy
• [69:10] – Iran, inflation, bipartisan housing bill pause
• [75:27] – Nationalization of tech, open-source AI debate
• [81:27] – Debunking dialogue “cabal” / “secret society” stories
• [94:00] – Closing remarks, membership pitch

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The Fifth Tone

Mixing wit, weary cynicism, and policy wonk precision, the hosts vent their frustration at the rise of shallow leftist rhetoric, the hollowing out of meaningful debate in politics, and the ways media and culture are subsumed by clickbait and exaggerated narratives. Occasional forays into personal storytelling and the recurring celebration (and self-mockery) of their own eccentricities keep the podcast lively, approachable, and fiercely independent.

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For listeners (and non-listeners):
This episode is especially rich in both comic relief and hard-nosed analysis of the new New York left, the fate of big-city democracy, and the never-ending search for sanity (and honesty) in media and politics.

Transcript

[Camille Foster]

I'm sold. I like her.

[Michael Moynihan]

What the fuck you like her glasses?

[Matt Welch]

What you like.

[Camille Foster]

I mean, I like her whole situation. She seems nice. What is the problem, Moynihan?

[Michael Moynihan]

What did she just say?

[Camille Foster]

She's not a communist. She sold.

[Matt Welch]

No, she did not say she was not a communist.

[Camille Foster]

Oh, she did.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

We know of new methods of attack. The Trojan horde, the fifth column.

[Matt Welch]

When's the last time you didn't get

[Michael Moynihan]

counted in an event?

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

Can we.

[Camille Foster]

Let's talk about that in a minute.

[Matt Welch]

What do you mean? Are we talking about something else before we start? No, that's. That's an opening bit.

[Camille Foster]

Oh, you want to start there?

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

When was the last time I didn't get drunk before I came in to shoot? Yeah, that was before I knew you guys.

[Camille Foster]

I mean, the night before. Moments before, though.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. Night before. Yeah. Well, it used to be all this morning recorded, too. Then we. The during professional.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And so now I just do it the night before.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And so now I'm totally useless.

[Camille Foster]

I suppose that's an improvement.

[Matt Welch]

Irascibility can be a virtue.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. Yeah, that's. Well, we'll see if it comes out. It's also, at this point, though, I'm just old, and I just get tired. I used to get irascible. Now I'm just like, oh, I'm exhausted by all the drinking. Yeah, I gotta stop.

[Camille Foster]

Okay.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, I don't. That's stupid.

[Camille Foster]

Well, should we do a podcast?

[Michael Moynihan]

Do a podcast. Let's do a podcast.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

All right.

[Camille Foster]

Greetings, and welcome back to another exciting installment of the Fifth Column podcast. This is your weekly rhetorical assault on the news cycle. The people that make it, occasionally ourselves. Often ourselves. Very frequently, surprisingly. I'm Camille Foster. Michael Moynihan is here. He is not drunk. Maybe a little hungover. Matt Welch is here. Definitely not drunk.

[Matt Welch]

Not drunk at all.

[Camille Foster]

Floral shirt. Can we say floral? I suppose it is floral.

[Matt Welch]

This is.

[Michael Moynihan]

Has anyone in the comments pointed out that as you get older, you look more or dress more like Charles Nelson Riley?

[Matt Welch]

More like our listeners. More like Andrew Wimsett.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

That's actually.

[Michael Moynihan]

This is a throwback.

[Matt Welch]

This is a Father's Day present. My kids obviously have really high opinion of me, and so they are.

[Michael Moynihan]

You better wear it. I better wear it. Yeah, I better wear it. Give it to Mikey. It's a Life cereal comm. Sorry to date myself.

[Camille Foster]

That's beautiful.

[Michael Moynihan]

Although we did start before we started. We were talking about Laura Brannigan's Gloria.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Which I didn't know was a cover.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's a Cover of an Italian song. Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

So that's definitely in your top 20 of songs that you didn't know or

[Camille Foster]

a cover for sure.

[Matt Welch]

I got my mind set on you.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yep, a great song. The original one's great. And the guy who's like, an American guy from, like, Memphis, put out, like, two records back in the New York groove. Ace Fre, Ace Freely, which I just found out. This is a weird one. The Happy Mondays. You might remember them.

[Matt Welch]

Sure.

[Michael Moynihan]

The British baggy Manchester band from the 90s. Their big single was Step On. That's a cover. And I just found this out. You're twisting my melon, man. You talk so hitman. You know that song?

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

No.

[Michael Moynihan]

You'd know if you heard it. Yeah, you wouldn't. It's.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know.

[Michael Moynihan]

Dave Matthews never covered it. So. Yeah. There's a bunch of weird ones that I, late in life have figured out were covers. That was the most recent one. Okay. So send in your ones you didn't realize were covers.

[Camille Foster]

Can we go back to Father's Day briefly? Because I kind of know what you did. I saw a photo of you with your daughters, and I see this splendid shirt, which you either got this year or whenever. It doesn't really matter. It is interesting.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's interesting.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know where you were. You were.

[Michael Moynihan]

I was not with my only child.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Wow.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. She's done with me. No, she was in Puerto Rico on a trip that I had to pay a ton of money for.

[Camille Foster]

Okay.

[Michael Moynihan]

So she could work. Do you know, it's like, I earn money. No, no. The trip's called Puerto Rico's Revenge. They get white kids from the city to come build their houses. But, yeah, she went.

[Camille Foster]

That's what they do with drinking their water.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. Well, she went down and she's gonna. We should get mad. She'll get mad at this. I don't give a shit. And she called me the other night. Was I out drinking? Maybe. Was I seven drinks in? Possibly. Should I, like, answer the FaceTime call? No.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

No.

[Michael Moynihan]

I was like, what's up, baby? What are you, Puerto Rico? Well, yeah, I'm a bunch of Puerto Ricans, which I literally said I was with some Puerto Ricans. And. Yeah, so as Mick Jagger said, some Puerto Rican girls are just dying to meet you. And she was with her friends, and they were telling me all what's happened? And they both said. They got very grave at one point and said, it's really poor here. And I was like, yeah. Why do you think all the Puerto Ricans Come here. It's like nicer weather there. There's beaches and they're like, fuck this, I'm going to the Bronx. I'm going to South Williamsburg. Not anymore. But yeah. So she's. She was there. I think it's like a college application thing. She claims she's just a do gooder, but yeah, they do like good works and, you know, do all this stuff and they go swimming. And I was with our friend's Puerto Rican wife who we. Who we all know. And I said to her, I said.

[Camille Foster]

Which is what we call her to her face.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's kind of hard not to. Yeah, she is like Rosie Perez on speed.

[Camille Foster]

Little stereotypical.

[Michael Moynihan]

Stereotypical.

[Matt Welch]

Wonderful.

[Michael Moynihan]

And she was like. I said, oh, she's in Puerto Rico. And she said, why? I was like, okay. And I said, no, because your country is such a disaster that you have to import 15 year olds to build your houses. And when I talked to her last night, I said, oh, you know, I was with. I went over to the house of the girl that she went with to. They're good friends of ours, and she was telling a story and I looked at the other girl's mom and I was like, this is like watching Clueless. Cause she's like. So we were like, we like hammered like a nail into a wall or whatever. And I was like, what? I was like, is this fucking house still standing? Is it falling down already? So she was doing that on Father's Day, but she sent me a bunch of nice notes and a video and all this stuff. So she made up for.

[Matt Welch]

What I'm hearing is that he was just drinking alone. Very sad. Listening to Laura Brannigan.

[Michael Moynihan]

I was mostly B. Sides of Laura's stuff. You haven't heard. You wouldn't know it.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, it's great.

[Michael Moynihan]

But yeah, it was fun.

[Camille Foster]

Sounds Father's Day.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. With the kids, I assume.

[Camille Foster]

Well, actually, Sunday was not. I mean, it was wonderful. We went to a movie. We went to see Toy Story. So this was not about me at all. This was just about being a dad. We went to the Lincoln. What's it? Lincoln center, imax. The really huge.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, yeah, it's a good one.

[Camille Foster]

The biggest ones on the planet. Yeah, kids were fine with that. We went to the NBA store because Cohen is a. Is a junkie now. Leah too. But she didn't get anything.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

And then Leah, what did he get?

[Michael Moynihan]

Did he get like a jersey or something?

[Camille Foster]

He actually, he already has a Steph Curry jersey by choice. I didn't choose that for him. And he had an opportunity to choose an SGA jersey or something else. And he decided to get the shorts for Steph Curry jersey. So he has the matching Golden State set. And later that night, he got to the house. He puts on all of it all at once and is like doing his hair in the mirror. And this is the thing. He's doing all these moves. They look terrible falling on the floor. He's.

[Michael Moynihan]

He's doing moves.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Like doing his hair in the thing and he's getting a matching outfit. Okay. Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

He wants to be a basketball player.

[Michael Moynihan]

Sure he does.

[Matt Welch]

Was there a basketball as part of those moves?

[Camille Foster]

He was doing basketball.

[Michael Moynihan]

No. He's literally in his head going, if I just put the basketball clothes on, they won't notice. I love sports. He's like, curling his hair. You know what? Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Love wins.

[Camille Foster]

I have Jamaican family members who would not like that. But I will say love wins. I don't care. I want my children to be happy and healthy and, yes, of sound mind.

[Michael Moynihan]

I was actually asked that question this weekend.

[Matt Welch]

If you would care if you had

[Michael Moynihan]

a gay kid, would you care? And I was like, I don't give a shit.

[Camille Foster]

Well, you have a dog.

[Michael Moynihan]

I just don't give a shit about my kids in general. Why would I care if they were gay? It's like, I like the plural. Yeah.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't know. Who fucking knows? It's like one in Puerto Rico. It was like, papi. I'm like, no.

[Camille Foster]

Well, this is good. This is good fare for us.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, the reason that we are starting in a sort of light way.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Is because all around us, the cadres of the revolution are arresting people who wear glasses.

[Camille Foster]

The real red witch.

[Michael Moynihan]

We're declaring year zero. It is Cambodia on the Hudson. We are in New York City. And, you know, those of you who subscribe. And if you don't subscribe, what the hell is wrong with you? Exactly. We the fifth.com and do it. We've done a couple episodes about this. One was vaguely with Raihan Salaam, very old friend of mine. And I didn't get to tell the story that one of the last times I saw Raihan, it was me, Raihan Salaam. And Larry Flynt from Hustler literally says

[Camille Foster]

this as soon as the cameras go off.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was such a nerdy policy episode.

[Matt Welch]

Raihan, he has a lot of ideas.

[Camille Foster]

So many ideas.

[Matt Welch]

Someone in the comments said that he used the word fascinating more in the first 59 minutes than he's heard in, like.

[Camille Foster]

Well, that's because considering the company, I

[Michael Moynihan]

thought it was effervescent. He said that a lot, too.

[Camille Foster]

Well, that too. Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

But he was great. He's a brilliant guy. But at one point, weirdly people, he did a bunch of stuff for Vice.

[Camille Foster]

Mm.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, really?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Mostly rapping, I hope.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, he did a lot of. He was like a Mumdani prototype. He was doing his rapping and. No, we went to interview Larry Flynt. I imagine that exists somewhere. But I agreed to produce it.

[Matt Welch]

So it's Raihan interviewing Larry Flint and you as the producer.

[Michael Moynihan]

As a producer, yeah. And I think that he asked him. So there's. One of my favorite Vice things was Vice had a deal with that movie, Project X. Do you remember this movie?

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Right?

[Michael Moynihan]

Anyone remember this? It was like a kid. Like a party. No, it was like a party movie. Like, kids, parents, go away, party. So the deal that the Vice Virtue, the in house ad agency said, oh, we'll interview famous people about their best party stories. And they'll be animated, partially animated. So the best one is the guy from d', Antwoort, the South African rapper who's very, very funny, who's at the Chateau Montmartre telling a story about Kanye, straight to camera, going to Kanye. I remember this, and it's so fucking good. But they said, you're going to interview Larry Flynn at the end. Can you tack on and ask him his best party story? And so Ryan forgets. And I was like, we're going to ask him about the party thing. And he said, I'm just imagining Ryan. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have a policy question for you. And he said, like, you know, what's your best party story? And Larry Flint. Oh, no. Behind his desk in his gold wheelchair. And keeping in mind that Larry Flynn's office in that Hustler building, you know, the one that in. It's on, like, La Cienca, I think a huge. Like, he's on the top floor.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Like, mirrored building.

[Matt Welch]

Wilshire.

[Michael Moynihan]

Actually, he was on Wilshire. It's a big mirrored building. And everything inside was like the roadmap for Donald Trump. Like, everything is gold, gold leaf, gold. Like bad gaudy statues everywhere. And he said, you know, what's your, like, best party story? And he paused and he got. And he said, well, it was a fucking 70s. I don't remember shit. But they're all fucking fun. You guys done? I was like, that'll work. I guess it's not going to work because they were like 10 minute stories. And that Was. But I don't remember anything about that beyond talking about the JFK conspiracy with him because I think he was a big jfk, the Hustler. Had a lot of article of conspiracy articles in it. But yeah, Ryan had a brief stint doing freelance stuff for Vice. Yeah, it's just totally forgotten about. Somebody find that and random thing. Totally. I don't think anyone knows that. It's not on his Manhattan Institute bio or anything. I remember. But no. So we did talk about that with Raihan. This is my members only episode and we did a quick one hitter, which actually wasn't that quick. We did a long one yesterday. Michael A. Cohen.

[Camille Foster]

I didn't realize it was the other guy until he walked in.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, I was like, oh, it's the longtime commie one. Not the. I'm just the recent commie one who said he was fascinating. And we were a bit incredulous during it when he said Donald Trump was an anti Semite. I was like, huh, Really? I don't think so. At least asked him to.

[Matt Welch]

But we're not sure about John Omar.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, he was like on the fence about a couple things. I think he walked that back a little bit towards the end of the episode. But. But so yeah, the election's here and look, it's been pretty. It's been like the only story on CNN too. Like, oh shit, are we talking about this? Because we're from New York and blah, blah, blah and. No, no, this is national court press, national news. And one of the things this morning that I was thinking about is, you know, all the conversations about Gaza. Most of the conversation yesterday was about anti Semitism because that's Michael's kind of concern. Hobby, horrors, et cetera. Is that one of the other things I think about? What do these people believe? Right. Because why are they. This is like, you know, James Carville saying, you know, what is our acronym for CHEVALIER now?

[Matt Welch]

Dac.

[Camille Foster]

Dac.

[Michael Moynihan]

Dac.

[Camille Foster]

I think we're supposed to say dac.

[Michael Moynihan]

Dac.

[Matt Welch]

Dac.

[Michael Moynihan]

The notorious DAC DAC did the rounds yesterday and was talking and James Carville said she shouldn't be seated because she has these bananas ideas. But the conversation of course is about Gaza, her saying genocide. And so she was on Ali Velshi. He's been on our crosshairs recently a little bit.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, he's the recently naturalized Canadian American is unsure about how to celebrate the 250s.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, that's right. That's what we're talking about. But I want to play this clip because it was DAC on Velshi. And Velshi has a good question. I'm not giving him a hard time, but I was fascinated by this answer, and I wanted you guys to hear it. And you're going to appear in all sorts of people's ads, all sorts of

[Camille Foster]

Republicans ads, to say, this is what

[Michael Moynihan]

you're going to get if you vote for the Democrats.

[Camille Foster]

A Communist.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

You know, I think that is. That framing is one that I've been very proud to be able to say. I don't respond to, one in which I have been very intentional to say. I won't be reactive. We are presenting a vision of what we're fighting for. And I think for far too long, we have had politics that is reactive to what Republicans are doing. What we need is Democrats who are actually going to present a positive vision, one that sets the tone for what we should be talking about, which is the issue of affordability, which is the issue of how our budgets are moral documents. If we say that we want to invest in working people in this country, then we need to do that, and our budgets need to reflect that. If we say that we value immigration and immigration justice, we need to make sure that that is also reflective in our policy. And so I'm very proud of a campaign that we built that centers those ideals, that centers those values and that vision for what we need as a community. And that's how I'll continue to move forward.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's only a few more seconds, but I'm sold.

[Camille Foster]

I like her.

[Michael Moynihan]

What the fuck?

[Matt Welch]

Glasses. What do you like?

[Camille Foster]

I mean, I like her whole situation. She seems nice. What is the problem, Moynihan?

[Michael Moynihan]

What did she just say?

[Camille Foster]

She's not a communist. She's smelling.

[Matt Welch]

No, she did not say she was not a communist.

[Camille Foster]

Oh, she did.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, she did not.

[Matt Welch]

Look at this guy. He's just blinded by like an eight.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, an eight, please. I was trying to.

[Matt Welch]

Point of view.

[Michael Moynihan]

Sorry, you brought it up.

[Camille Foster]

I'm not scoring, but do you have any.

[Michael Moynihan]

Okay, so you just heard that. Both of you just heard that? Yeah. Here's the quiz. For $100 on Polymarket, to wager on something to what?

[Matt Welch]

Invest.

[Michael Moynihan]

Invest, invest. You can lose your investment. It's all a little bit. I invest at the roulette list. Yes. Okay. For $100 on polymarket.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

What did she just say? You just heard it. What did she just say?

[Camille Foster]

Well, I've already got wrong once.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, I already got it wrong once.

[Camille Foster]

The hope and affordability.

[Matt Welch]

The problem is we're just not going to be reactive to other people's frames.

[Camille Foster]

Reactive.

[Matt Welch]

And so therefore I'm not going to answer the question about whether I'm a fucking commie.

[Michael Moynihan]

Seems like a. Like a layup to me. But even she also was asked to condemn Hamas and she was like, look, the reactive vicissitudes of the. The great thing about this is it's.

[Camille Foster]

I wish she would ask if he opposes white supremacy. Does she oppose it? I imagine she would have said yes.

[Michael Moynihan]

I. No. She would say everything's white supremacy and I oppose everything. Because she doesn't seem to have any affirmative message on her own. But this I thought was amazing because it's this great blending of the politician changing the question and answering something else which is what everyone does. And academic nonsense language. And I have said I am not going to do. And like this quadruple negative. I don't know. I can't follow what she's saying. The other one I want to play is very similar. And the woman's name is Abba. What's her name? I gotta look at it. Aber Kawas. And this is a woman who won the primary and will be in the New York State Senate and one of

[Matt Welch]

a good half dozen or 10 even.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

I think about seven or eight.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. This is a amazing answer to. I don't even know the question. But it doesn't even matter.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

And so like. And finding that like, you know the system of capitalism and racism and white supremacy, et cetera have all. And Islamophobia have all been used, you know, to colonize lands. Right. To take resources from other people. And so this is like a long trajectory and we're just seeing the manifestation stations of that continuation. Right with 9, 11. And so a lot of times when people are asking us to respond about attack. Right. When if we look back historically a lot of us come from lands that were colonized. Lands where wars are being waged a lot of times because of U.S. policy or the policies in Europe. And so I find that we can connect over that. But then also that the idea that we have to apologize for like a terror attack that like a couple of people did and then there is no apologies or reparations for genocides and for slavery, et cetera is something that I kind of find like reprehensible.

[Michael Moynihan]

That is unbelievable. A mad libs of this kind of DSA thinking.

[Matt Welch]

Pop quiz. How many people on the planet don't live in lands that were colonized?

[Michael Moynihan]

000. Most of them had slavery too.

[Camille Foster]

Well yeah.

[Matt Welch]

All of them.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

And so now What?

[Michael Moynihan]

And by the way, it's not as if you're getting people that are particularly good at this. It's happening, actually.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yes.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

This is her other answer.

[Camille Foster]

Polls have shown a fix of Americans

[Michael Moynihan]

can't locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so.

[Camille Foster]

Same energy.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

Because some people out there in our nation don't have maps. And I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and Iraq, everywhere like such as. And I believe believe that they should. Our education over here in the US should help the US or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries build up our future for our children.

[Camille Foster]

Honestly.

[Matt Welch]

Shout out to the Asian countries. We've got a last minute insert there.

[Michael Moynihan]

What she was saying was that capitalism means that everyone doesn't have maps.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

You know what is we should help those people.

[Camille Foster]

I like it.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Here's the thing.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. I like by the way that she said 911 was done by a couple of guys. Couple of guys. A couple of guys who are up to no good. Started making trouble in our neighborhood. Flew two fucking planes into the air. Wow. It like unbelievable. And that's the thing about it is that. But I want us to take no credit for that. That was Jason, I think that queued up producer, amazing Miss South Carolina. But that is the amazing thing about it is they don't even get people who are good at it.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

No.

[Michael Moynihan]

Like that woman is a complete moron.

[Matt Welch]

Robbie Swabi had a point this week from our colleague at Reason, my colleague at Reason who's been on the show a couple of times before that DAC and maybe some of these other state people. But DAC in Congress at least is the first of this era of campus radicals to actually make it to Congress. So these people who have been part of all this stuff that's happened, particularly since 2014 and Greg Lukianoff and other people have talked about. Jonathan, I grew up old enough to get your seventh year in the doctoral program at CUNY to get into Congress. And so now we're seeing what that looks like and it's a train wreck.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's amazing. I found a piece that she wrote, dac, which maybe I should put up because I don't think anyone's discovered this. It was on the CUNY website and they have some like faculty idiot newsletter. And it is incoherent. I mean it literally. Google Translate was like, I have no fucking idea. She wrote a piece about Ukraine and blackness. And I was Like, I see the point. This is literally the fucking seal tank. It was like picking Ukraine. It's like, what is the last one? Skateboarding Colonialism. Okay. It's a vice piece from 2019. It's like so unbelievably stupid that I love it because there's nothing to grab onto. You can't make a counter.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, it's vaporware.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's really just vaporware. It's a series of. It's like a word cloud of things that these people like to say. And then, you know, that's masquerading as a policy. And it's like 911 happens. I mean it's essentially saying 911 happened because America's a bad guy. That's the capsule version, I think. And I have for so long really recoiled from the overuse of the word, particularly the hyphenated anti American on the right. I thought there was like, there's European anti Americanism is a thing. Right. I talk about that with no problem whatsoever.

[Matt Welch]

Domestic anti Americanism is domestic.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't.

[Matt Welch]

Vanishingly rare.

[Michael Moynihan]

Cause it's rare. And it's like I see people talking about this now and I'm like, yeah, that actually makes sense for these people. Yeah, I mean it's. Who would have thought we're up against the 25th anniversary of 911 in that the New York State Senate would have a Muslim woman. And I say that not because we shouldn't have Muslim. Just like I remember the time after people were a little skeptical of this stuff.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

In the Ground Zero Mosque and thing like Ground Zero Mosque, which is a bullshit fake controversy, was going to be something that was like six blocks away in some Islamic center and people freaked out about it. And now we have a woman going to the State Senate of New York from Queens, from this city that was attacked by a couple of guys who were up to no good and saying, yeah, that was, we kind of, that was our fault. And then we, I mean we brought it upon ourselves. And then Hasan Piker going out stumping for all of them, introducing people, being at all these rallies, who also said America deserved 9 11. Kind of a long road we've traveled, isn't it?

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. And that, I mean similar to what Michael Cohen was saying yesterday, that none of this is disqualifying, I mean broad lessons that maybe nothing is disqualifying in American politics. And so which again leads to the follow up question of now what? For me it's just that it's the affirmative choice by particularly Zoran Mamdani to know that these are who these people are and say yes. That is why we need to unseat a five term congressman in the same party. This is why I need to go against the wishes of Hakeem Jeffries and create a new kind of ideological block within the Democratic Party. It's a choice. And he's telling on himself by doing that. I'm not a fan of Mom Donnie, although I've always appreciated his sort of like public facing, smiley eye Persona and stuff. And he's got.

[Michael Moynihan]

I'm the only person you've hated that, I think. Total fucking bullshit.

[Matt Welch]

You've hated that from the beginning.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't know how people don't see through that. Like Smiley, he just. He seems like a politician. People think he's so good at it. I don't think he's particularly good at it.

[Matt Welch]

I think he's talented enough to win in a place that was.

[Michael Moynihan]

Bill de Blasio won here.

[Matt Welch]

Bill de Blasio doesn't have political talent. He won because he was Democrat. I mean, Bill de Blasio was not going to get three members into Congress after being in office for five months.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, no, no. As. No, I mean this in a very different way. Is that his. The kind of machinations of DSA and now mayoral politics. He's good at that stuff. And I think he's brought in a lot of people who are hatchet men and are pretty good at it. It's like you can hate Lee Atwater and say that he was good at it.

[Matt Welch]

Right, right.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't think that the personal magnetism doesn't appeal to me and I don't know why it appeals to anyone. I think there's a lot of wish casting there. They like this guy and they, oh, he's so great. If you met that guy at a party, you wouldn't be like, what a fun, amazing conversationalist he was. I don't think so. No.

[Camille Foster]

Apparently political.

[Matt Welch]

My preamble was just to say that whatever it is that I might have some like, grudging respect for or whatever, or see the game in. In it.

[Michael Moynihan]

He plays the game well, for sure.

[Matt Welch]

By his actions in supporting people like this, by making the affirmative choice that that's the person I want to back. And you're not nut picking with dac. Like, it's what she says every time she talks. That's how she is. By saying, that is what I want, then my estimation of you just lowers by a whole lot. Like, you have to be able, in my opinion, to look at A Ken Paxton to look at, a Graham Platner to look at a DAC and some other people and just say, no, no, just not this fucking guy. Not this fucking gal. This.

[Michael Moynihan]

They had. I was going to say my pal Brace Belden. I don't know if he likes me anymore, but. But Brace said something to the effect of. I think it was the first time I interviewed him, like, oh, you want Cuomo to win? And I was like, yeah, because of stuff like this. This is the long tail of this stuff that I worry about. It's not just one guy. There is a movement here, and he's a part of that movement to remake New York politics and American politics. And I don't agree with that frame, to put it very, very mildly. But I think one of the things I was thinking about this morning when I saw somebody's clips and we had discussed the hilarious thing that nobody wanted to say, that they wanted the US World cup team to win, right? And when I was on the subway and I have photos of this is true that all these white kids who look like, you know, DSA supporters, we're wearing Senegal, like full Senegal. I'm like, what is that? Why are you Senegalese? Is no one's Senegalese. Clearly no one from Senegal here. There's always like blonde kids from Ohio and it is to the anti American point. They grew up and it's their mother's milk. Is that this country? And this is the. Claire Valdez was saying this the other day when this interview. She's like, well, this is a country that was founded on genocide and slavery and basically saying, there's nothing to be proud of here. When I think of someone like this woman in state Senate. Her father was deported, by the way. She said her father was detained and deported by ICE. It was long before ICE, I think he was deported in 2004 for multiple criminal convictions. They're Jordanian. She says she's Palestinian. American. Okay, Palestinian refugee camp and Jordan. Fine. And her father is in Jordan having been deported. This is part of her set piece. She doesn't explain why. Because he was in court and some fraud charges and the rest of it. And he also was not here legally. He came in on a tourist visa in 1989 in state. Gives you some incentive to want to abolish ice. Right. But the thing about it is that she can go to Jordan. Chevalier is Dominican. She could go.

[Matt Welch]

She's Haitian, isn't she?

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, that's a slur, apparently.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, oops, sorry. Didn't mean to say.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's what people said she was Haitian. I think Dominicans were saying it because she has a very Haitian last name. Right. A French last name. And I found myself in this point where I always used to sneer at that, Go back to Russia. Well, if you don't like it, leave. And it's like, in a way, I kind of understand that a little more now in the sense that you don't like anything about this country. You just don't. You want to change it. Root and branch capitalism, the kind of foundational economic system of the country. You don't like the history of the country. You find nothing to be proud of. And if it's just a plot of land like dac, I don't know what to call this fucking woman. They want no borders, no prisons, no joke. It's like, I'm not being hyperbolic. They're being hyperbolic. Don't believe in borders. Okay, so you don't believe in it as a nation state either. So it's just a plot of land. Why not just choose a different plot of land? Well, there's an answer. Because you don't want to acknowledge that this is the best fucking plot of land to live because of the political freedoms you have, because of the financial freedoms you have, because you can spend seven fucking years in graduate school and someone else will pay for it. Right. I go to coffee shops that Dan Goldman would not be allowed into and is not allowed into. In the middle of the day on a Tuesday, Wednesday, it's just everyone sitting around talking about Gaza. What a country. Right? You don't have to do jack shit. You have rich parents because they're exploited the system that you hate. So you can do what you want.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

I want to play a clip from Valdez about eight seconds long. And this is a zoom that she did the other day. This is amazing to me, the smile.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

My.

[Camille Foster]

My hot take is we need to abolish pre check.

[Michael Moynihan]

I've got like a million beefs with

[Camille Foster]

the airline industry and the process of having to fly.

[Michael Moynihan]

We need to like nationalize the airline industry. Let's start by abolishing precheck because for $85 you get. But it's special treatment and everyone should be.

[Camille Foster]

Moderately better treatment.

[Michael Moynihan]

Moderately better treatment. The issue is, of course, not the TSA being run by bozos and the government.

[Matt Welch]

Government.

[Michael Moynihan]

She wants to nationalize the airlines.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

And get rid of the.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

This woman is going not the csa. And I want to point out to her the reason she goes to the airport and that people who apparently can't afford $85 for PreCheck. Can fly is because the government does not regulate and control the airline industry, which it did in 1976. Right. So let's look 40, 50 years ago. 1976, more expensive 50 years ago. Yeah, I, I have to go to LA soon. I said, what is the ticket? Today or tomorrow? Does make a difference. There's no time difference because the government regulates the fares. Right. This is before it's of deregulation around trip ticket. And I did research, made sure my numbers are right, asked all the chatbots. Round trip ticket prices controlled by the government would be $2,400.

[Matt Welch]

Adjusted for inflation.

[Michael Moynihan]

Adjusted for inflation. It was 500 bucks or something. It was $2,400.

[Camille Foster]

This is a coach fair.

[Michael Moynihan]

A coach fair. And that was a coach fair. Round trip, $1,400 one way. And so then I said, oh, I'm on this Jack now. What is. What would it cost to get a Basic Decent television? 21 inch Shitty quality tube television In 1976, before Japanese competition, before Sony, Panasonic and everything comes into. And I think the 21 inch one was $3,000. Yeah, $3,000.

[Matt Welch]

No, the.

[Michael Moynihan]

Because it was Zenith and It was Zenith and whatever the other rca. RCA was the other big American one and Zenith and I think they were both sold to.

[Matt Welch]

We got our first color television in November of 1976 or October of 1976 to watch the World Series, to watch the Red Skunk, the Yankees. And I remember seeing that, you know, you turn it on like, yeah, yeah. It takes a long time and then it comes on.

[Michael Moynihan]

This is $2,300. The television set that I was looking at was $3,300. Not the top of the line one. It was a good one. Not the portable one, but the good one, you know, have it in the piece of furniture. Piece of furniture, $3,300. All of that stuff is why they don't want to live in another country that they can.

[Matt Welch]

They would not want to live in my childhood. They would be intolerable to them. A couple of points. One is that that podcast, for those who couldn't see it, who are listening to this was called the Bituation Room. Yes. And that the co host who was listening to these idiotic answers while both of them were beaming in a kind of happiness that I've yet to attain was. She had her eyes closed and her hands. She was in ecstasy. Hearing about nationalizing airlines, but getting rid of Precheck.

[Michael Moynihan]

I guess that's supposed to be a Joke in some way.

[Camille Foster]

I don't think it is a joke. It's flattening it so that everyone experiences the same awful suffering.

[Matt Welch]

Before you, before.

[Michael Moynihan]

What was the Margaret Thatcher quote is that, you know, that. Well, you know, so the socialism, the equal sharing of miseries.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And that is, you know, that was. I think it was her last prime minister's questions. You can find the clip of this when she's talking about, you know, people. There's people up here and there's people down here. And my opponent across the aisle wants everyone to go down lower, not for people to get. No one should get a better wage and that everything is flattened. They want to flatten everything, whether it's borders, whether it's the economy, whether. I mean, God knows what you would think of. Clear. Clear is probably the ultimate fascism at the airport. But they can't think when they're waiting for a subway that maybe the system that they want to beef up and put more money into is in fact the problem.

[Matt Welch]

The capitalism that they hate is the thing that democratizes everything that they use.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yes.

[Matt Welch]

Flying on an airplane. I flew my. Took my first flight when I was 12. How old was Livia when she took her first flight? How many flights did she take before the age of 12?

[Michael Moynihan]

Three months old. Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

To Europe.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. To see her family.

[Matt Welch]

It was not possible. My parents were upper middle class or middle. Upper class or something like that. Both professionals. But it's like, you're not going to fly around a whole bunch of places because that shit's expensive. When you did all this, you democratized the ability to travel. Southwest airlines existed in 1976, before the deregulation of airlines, because it was in Texas, and Texas is a big fucking state. And those federal rules that made it a whole cartel didn't apply to in the state flights. And they figured out how to do it cheap and to open it up for actual normal human beings.

[Michael Moynihan]

And I think it was twa, it was one of these airlines at the time who had applied to the government in 1968 to have cheaper fares cross country. And they were denied in 1976 or 75, like six years later. And one of the things, I was reading about this the other day, one of the reasons was because the data was out of date. It was like, this data no longer applies. It's like, yes, we applied seven years ago. And that's how long it took for them to get around to it, dragging their feet. And again, this is during the Nixon administration, which was the administration of wage and price Controls and not very to market size.

[Matt Welch]

If you had four airlines that were locked into place by federal cartelization in the late 20s, early 30s, forever four airlines. And if you were a fifth, you had to apply for them to decide whether you could come in. They had to, all four of them say, yes, we want Southwest to join.

[Michael Moynihan]

And weirdly, they said no. They kept saying no. They kept on saying like, do I want more competition? No.

[Matt Welch]

So that's literally what she wants. That's what she's talking about. Europe in the 1980s, most every single Western European country had a state owned airline and didn't have much competition. And prices were pretty hellacious. And what happened was, as part of EU integration, part of the prices of it was that when you join the eu, we're all going to get rid of our state run airlines and get rid of all these subsidies. What the fuck happened? Right after Ryanair, Ryanair, EasyJet, and suddenly

[Michael Moynihan]

you can get all these Polish one

[Matt Welch]

places went bankrupt and like back and forth, but suddenly you could get anywhere in Europe for like 99 bucks.

[Michael Moynihan]

But it's so funny, people don't like, it's. You feel like, do we have to be this remedial? Apparently, yes. And we do. Because you see these politics, I talk to people about this stuff. I talk to people a lot in New York who disagree with me on these things just to get a sense of why they're attracted to these. They don't even think of the most basic concepts. And it's not even that the cartels were broken up in Europe and in the United States and the prices went down, which is exactly what happened. But services became better too. And what is the most sneered at airline in Europe is Ryanair. Sure, because they charge you for everything. And everyone used that as a way of competing with them and saying, no, you're not going to be humiliated like you are in Ryanair. We're going to do like you. There's different classes, you get different things. You get lounges, you get. There's a million things that come with the competition. Because you're competing on price and service. Right when it's a flattening and there's. Was there service in the Soviet Union? No. Why, why bother? Why would you bother? Why make the MTA run on time if no one cares about how much money they're making? Nobody cares how much. They just ask for another handout. When the union says, I get $270,000 a year to push a button on a train and now we need nine guys on the car to do that. No one's gonna say no because there's the power of the labor union. It's all intertwined. And they want to make that not in even more Gordian. They want to make it trickier and bigger and bulkier, and we will never unravel it. It's just amazing to me.

[Matt Welch]

You asked before, like, why would you want to be. Or you intimated before, why would you want to, like, be a member of Congress or a politician in a country that you don't like? Well, there's a question, there's one potential answer is that you get to wear it like a skin suit. Like, we have so much success in this country, governments have so much money. She's talking about how the DAC was talking about how budgets are a moral issue. Okay, we spend $6 trillion on the federal level. Spent $125 billion a year just in New York City. $125 billion. So she's presumably saying that should be more. The only way that you can get.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's more moral, the more zeroes on

[Matt Welch]

it, I assume, which you get by charging fees or taxes and extracting them at the point of a gun from the population and thereby making their lives less affordable because they're paying money to you instead of the other thing. But we are successful enough that we can survive that. Like, there's still enough capitalistic churn that we can kind of deal with this. But what we're seeing in place after place is that people like, oh, guaranteed revenue stream. In private sector, you don't have a guaranteed revenue stream unless you lock it in by the government. You don't. You go out of business if you don't serve your customers here, there is going to be a budget no matter what you can do with it what you want. You can create a $53 million a year, like, housing bullshit agency that Reinhaum was talking about that Mohamdani wants to do, and give it to your friends who are in the, what was the mass mobilization group or something like that. You can do that because New York just throws off enough wealth that you can get away with it. But none of that's helpful. You're not actually helping the people that you're claiming to want to help. And you're free riding on a system that otherwise is knocking down the price in every sector that isn't the government.

[Michael Moynihan]

If the, if the Internet was, you know, this is always the case from the DSA types is they go back to arpanet and say, you know, it was a government project. And it's like, yeah, so was the Minitel in France. How did that go? When it was let loose amongst, you know, capitalists, business people, entrepreneurs, it became what it. What it is today. And imagine if we had just put that and left that in the hands of the government, like, much like the government wants to do with. With AI. It's like, we should control what happens here.

[Camille Foster]

Bipartisan consensus.

[Michael Moynihan]

Bipartisan consensus. And it's not a parallel in any exact way, but just the instinct's the same. But imagine that had happened. Would we be in a place where we'd have Zoran Mamdani? No, because. Why did Zoran Mamdani become successful? Because he was very good on social media. Where would social media come from? Social media was a great enterprise.

[Matt Welch]

People like, French.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, he would have messages on your Minitel to everyone. Be like, you know, I love socialism. Like, oh, everyone is so inspired. Like, all this stuff is like, you can roll your eyes at this. Not you, but people can roll their eyes at this. But if you track down everything that has made them successful, it is as a result of the system that they want to control and ultimately destroy. Maybe they don't want to destroy it, but their control will destroy it. I think that's inevitable. Does anyone say if everybody in the dsa, all of these bozos that we've been looking at, say we carbon copied all of them and ran City hall with them, which we're close to doing now, ran the state Senate and all the legislatures here in New York with them, that we would be an economically more dynamic city in five years? Does anyone truly believe that? They don't even believe that.

[Matt Welch]

Seattle just charged. Made it mandatory to have $26 minimum wage per hour for delivery drivers.

[Camille Foster]

That'll work out fine.

[Matt Welch]

That's gonna definitely help affordability.

[Michael Moynihan]

Have you ever ordered Uber Eats or anything in the city?

[Matt Welch]

No.

[Michael Moynihan]

And you ever look at the breakdown? What is the euphemism they use? It's like regulatory adjustment charge. And it's like $5. Like, literally $5 on top of an order.

[Camille Foster]

That's the branding from the platforms themselves. The companies decide on that because they want you to know it's them and not us.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's not us. And it's like when you add everything together, you just walk to the store, walk to the. You know, if you are trying to destroy these jobs, you're doing a very good job. Because I don't. I don't have the money to order like that and have these insane charges on Everything, all the time. So, yeah, good job. But they believe because they're all rich, downwardly mobile people. I mean, we saw those charts again, another one today of Lander in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. And it's just like, these are just rich areas. They're rich areas. They're not poor areas in Brooklyn Heights. They're not poor areas in Park Slope. There are in Boreham Hill and Cobble Hill because there's some housing projects there in Red Hook, too. But who didn't. Yeah. And they didn't vote for these people. And this is the game of the rich. And they assume that it's just going to keep. They're going to still get their parents money. They're still going to get, you know, their crypto, their 401ks that they have, whatever it is. I don't know where these people get their fucking money, but they live in $20 million houses. So they don't worry as much. They can just sell these apartments. But I suspect that those values, their desire is to drive the values of those houses down. Right. That's the desire of Mohamdani.

[Camille Foster]

I do wonder. There's a couple of things that we probably ought to do. We've been talking about this race now for three days, and it makes a lot of sense that there is so much interest in it because the Democratic establishment is very nervous about it. You've seen these utterances in the reporting from elected officials in the Democratic Party who are screaming, who believe that chaos is coming to them, who believe this is a problem. This is true. There are some.

[Michael Moynihan]

Who. Some are accommodation already. Yeah.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

And it isn't clear that this is where the voters are. This does appear to be, at least in the concentration of DSA candidates who've managed to get themselves elected to the state or the federal office, or at least they're in the primary now. They're very likely to win their races because these are deep blue areas. That's a big deal. But it also seems to be the case that lots and lots of people still have some of their scruples and are appropriately nervous about the rhetoric, and they're nervous about the rhetoric in a way that they haven't been with Maine. And I wonder if the principal reason why Platner hasn't inspired the same sort of the scope and scale of kind of discomfort and even backlash, I think it's fair to say, from establishment Democrats, is it just because they desperately want to win the Senate?

[Michael Moynihan]

It's mercenary. It's 100% mercenary. This is Actually an attempt at a party takeover. This is an attempt at the accelerationist idea of getting these ideas into the party, normalizing them, spreading out across the country. They are stupidly putting all their chips on Platner because they want Susan Collins gone, they want the Senate and they need that. I mean, you see the derangement this is causing in otherwise kind of normal people. There was a clip the other day of Seth Moulton, who we've defended on the show for a couple of things actually, when he went to Afghanistan when he said the trans thing and people got really mad at him. Someone asked him a question and said, are you gonna support Graham Platner? And Molten's a big guy. He was a Marine, I think.

[Camille Foster]

Wild video.

[Michael Moynihan]

And he walks straight to him and slaps the camera out of his hand and says, oh, you have a hard time holding your phone.

[Camille Foster]

He said it before he slapped the phone, which is the crazy part.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, like that is kind of disqualifying. And then Hakeem Jeffries today, someone next to him and saying something about these races.

[Matt Welch]

But look at James Carville.

[Michael Moynihan]

He said the same thing. He was like, ask me a stupid question. Walked away. They don't like these questions.

[Matt Welch]

They don't. Carville reacted yesterday after this by saying, I don't want to be in the same party as these DSA nut sandwiches in New York. Carville also defending Platner last week full

[Michael Moynihan]

throated because he's a political animal and he believes that he can keep that lion on the chain. Right. Like we can control it. And there's a million examples in history of people thinking they can control in 1932 and early 1933, the bad person they're going to put in office. But you can never control them, particularly when there's an infrastructure being built around them. Not in Maine. That is going to have a pretty significant effect on the party. That's going to. Even if it's a small number, it's going to be arrestive. The squad has already punched way above their weight. They're getting bigger. They're going to punch way above their weight now. And the media loves them. And they're supposedly telegenic and they're supposedly good debaters, which they're not.

[Matt Welch]

Camille got a little dazzled there.

[Camille Foster]

I mean. Yeah, a little bit. Maxwell Frost, we sat down and talked to him in dc. I feel like there is a substantive difference between him and dac. I can't imagine having the sort of conversation we had with him, with her.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, he's in Florida too.

[Camille Foster]

There's just a degree of sophistication.

[Matt Welch]

But he's learned how to talk to Republicans. I don't think that she's ever going

[Michael Moynihan]

to learn how to respond in Congress. I mean, these people are going to try.

[Camille Foster]

She barely wants to talk to Democrats.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, no, this is another wild thing she said in that interview with Ali Velshi. You know, we just care about the, you know, the people, and we're trying to be, you know, social justice. And it's all the same stupid tropes that you hear that are utterly, you know, airy and pointless babble. And there's always the thing of, like, you know, bringing people together and all this stuff. And it's like, these are people that if you have the wrong opinion, if you don't say the right word, if you don't say the word genocide, you're done. They don't want to talk to you. They think you're, you know, she was asked in that interview, one of them was, is they all blur together? Because they all say the same stupid fucking things. But it was something about, can you work with John Fetterman? You're in the same party as him. Oh, no, that was Valdez on cnn and another nonsense answer. And the answer is no. Basically. Yeah, I won't work with him.

[Matt Welch]

It's like Brad Lander suggested on election night that maybe John Fetterman should leave the party.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah. And then James Carville is saying, maybe I'll leave the party. Maybe you guys should leave the party because you're not actual Democrats. It's not a great position to be in before what has been looking like a wipeout in the midterms that everybody within your party is in this, you know, Mexican standoff. Can I say that now? Global south standoff.

[Matt Welch]

I'm just. I'm just really excited for.

[Michael Moynihan]

About who should be in the party,

[Matt Welch]

about Republicans suddenly getting mad at communism and socialism. It's really like, better late than never. Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Not that there isn't a degree of hypocrisy there as well.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, it should. No, no, it's crazy.

[Michael Moynihan]

Like, what was Trump's response?

[Matt Welch]

My God.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, no, he was like, something about. About Mamdadi being a very handsome guy. He's been charmed. For real.

[Camille Foster]

He's been charmed.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's so crazy. It's so crazy. But, yeah, I mean, this is where we are in this stupid fucking world.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Well, we.

[Camille Foster]

We have been talking for a couple of weeks now about our engagement with Polymarket. And before we leave this topic, I did want to take us through a couple of races because as we've discussed a few times now, there are a couple of instances where these prediction markets may have some unique value and at a minimum, offer us some insights that polling can't because the polling is virtually nonexistent. And in the major races that we've been talking about a bunch. New York 7, New York 10, New York 13.

[Michael Moynihan]

Right.

[Camille Foster]

Because New York 12 is the one that Mamdani didn't in 13, I think,

[Michael Moynihan]

and I presume you'll go over this, or maybe, maybe you will, is if you're watching polymarket, you were not going to be getting a good return.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, well, I wasn't even going to get into that one because there's so many races to go through today. But I definitely wanted to talk about

[Michael Moynihan]

a couple of Atlanta.

[Camille Foster]

And let's at least talk about the three where Mondani endorsed because those are the ones that have gotten the most attention. And in 10, it's interesting, there's two polls that were conducted there, one in September 2025, one in May of 2026. And the polls there told you what, what the market seems to tell you, 57% and 52% for Lander Goldman was at 33%. Worth noting that that September 2025 poll was way before Mamdani endorsed in December.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

So that was a very safe race for him to get involved.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's exactly why he didn't get ever in jeopardy.

[Camille Foster]

And the prediction market bears this out quite well. Had you been following it, you would essentially be following the polls. One presumes the polls are reflecting what's happening in the prediction market. So no surprise there. But there is again, a huge, huge gap between September and May. And what is happening in the race? Apparently not much. It was a blowout from the outset. It continued to be a blowout. There was a large undecided number and Goldman's odds actually got worse between September and May.

[Michael Moynihan]

And also keep in mind, also reflected on the market, we didn't we talked about this after with Michael A. Cohen yesterday, is that we didn't talk about it when we were recording is that none of these races were about Trump. The presumption that everyone hates Trump. It just didn't come in. Even though, I mean, that's what Michael said after. He's like, well, you know, this is New York. Everyone hates it. It's like, yes, but even though that is true in so many races of the past, Trump was always the drum that everyone was beating. Right. It didn't come up a lot. But you also notice in this, in why I think Polymarket, which is a reflection of people's sentiments and they're betting with. They're voting with their money, which is, in a way, what we're trying to test here is that more trustworthy people tend not to do the Bradley effect when it's their own pocketbook. But Goldman didn't. You didn't see him out there.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

Those numbers were in his head, too. He was not out there, you know, banging the drum, going out there doing stump speeches.

[Matt Welch]

Those numbers. Polymarket had lander at above 90% for weeks.

[Michael Moynihan]

For weeks. For weeks. Yeah. And that in. That was. The polling was. Was right. And this one was right, too. I mean, there was no. There was no mystery about that.

[Matt Welch]

And Lander, just to reiterate what people should know, is that the district that he is. That he ran in, he served as city council member for a long time.

[Camille Foster]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

He has good name recognition there. But Goldman does, too. And Goldman is an extraordinarily rich guy.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Rich.

[Michael Moynihan]

And I thought it was interesting.

[Camille Foster]

They put in a million dollars of his own money to.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. I mean, he's an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune. And it was funny, the last. I should look this up, and this might be my own bias, that the New York Times article about him and the coffee shop business that we spoke about the other day said, lander, heir to the fortune of Levi. And I was like, I don't know if they always said that or if they're just dropping that in this article to explain why people hate him so much.

[Camille Foster]

Well, we should hop over to seven, which is another race that was being tracked on Polymarket. Similarly paltry in terms of the number of polls that were available. You've got a Data for Progress poll in January of 2026 and an Emerson poll again in 2026. March. I'm sorry, May of 2026. So right before the race, and it was a much tighter race.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was a tighter route.

[Matt Welch]

This is to be clear, Claire Valdez, who won dsa Mamdani versus Antonio Reynoso. Reynoso, who was backed by Hakeem Jeffers. This is an open seat that was vacated by Nydia Velasquez.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yes. And Reynoso is quite a progressive guy and he's a known quantity in New York politics. This is not some somebody out of nowhere.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And she is an artist from Texas.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Mamdani gets into the race January 9, 2026, again, similarly. So from January to May, there are no Additional polls. And in January, Reynoso has a lead by several points in the race over her. A lot of undecideds in this race as well. By May of 2026, Valdez has a slight lead in the polling you're talking about now. In the polling. She has a slight lead now. Does polymarket reflect that? I think polymarket, if you read this correctly, is generally giving you the sense that there's a tight race until February.

[Matt Welch]

Until February. I mean, not long. You see the effect of the Mamdani endorsement.

[Michael Moynihan]

So the Mamdani endorsement is what. When did you do that? What day?

[Camille Foster]

That was in January 9th.

[Michael Moynihan]

Okay.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

So.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, so we can look back here. So it's. It started after that, for sure, but there's a widening that takes place.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

This is a period when there isn't a lot of polling. And if you had some questions about where this race was headed, following the market would have been a useful tool. I didn't mention it before, but the volume here is many times larger than the volume on the market that we

[Michael Moynihan]

were looking at at Lander. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Camille Foster]

So that's. That's interesting. There's more. There's more volume. I mean, you know, slightly more accurate.

[Michael Moynihan]

Potential outcome problems with Lander. I mean, note that Mamdani's horrible wife, who I literally say terror supporting wife because she was liking videos of October 7th of Hamas going across the board. I mean, this is not. I'm not overstating this. I mean, it's absolutely insane that she did that, but she gave her Instagram endorsements and didn't mention Brad Lander. Yeah, interesting.

[Matt Welch]

Go out there and support Valdez, Brad

[Camille Foster]

Lander, who left the dsa.

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean, this is like an astonishing thing, but this is like a clear one because, look, you're talking about a 60, 30 race for most of this on polymarket. And the polls were a little narrower.

[Camille Foster]

They were pretty tight. Yeah, they were pretty tight. They were within points of each other. One poll, again, like the initial poll, had Valdez down by a few points. The May poll, which, again, much closer to the race itself, has Valdez with a slight lead. So.

[Michael Moynihan]

Astonishing. Astonishing difference. And look, I mean, we'll see how this plays out throughout the entire race outside of New York and a bunch of other races we're going to be looking at. But that kind of sentiment, I always, I assume in some ways could. Is when polymarket is not the good weather vane, which is. It is the Internet making people excited about things. And the reality on the ground is much different. Because voters don't care about, you know, Twitter's not real life kind of stuff. But in this case, that is Definitely true. New York 13, on the other hand,

[Camille Foster]

New York 13 is kind of fascinating, actually. And in this particular case, we didn't have two polls. We had the three, but they were concentrated in a pretty tight period. So you've got June, you've got March and two in June. All of these are from different outfits, but they're across. They're all over the place.

[Michael Moynihan]

They're all over the place.

[Camille Foster]

So you've got. So DAC only manages of those three to win one of those. And it's one of the two June polls, and it's by four points.

[Michael Moynihan]

By four.

[Camille Foster]

Not much. It is a close race. The eventual results of this was like a win by a hair kind of situation in the actual polls. But early on in the race, you've got. Help me with the pronunciation here, Matt.

[Matt Welch]

Adriano Espaillat.

[Michael Moynihan]

Espaillat.

[Camille Foster]

Figured you would know. With Espaillat, who is in Congress, he's the incumbent. He is four terms, the head of.

[Michael Moynihan]

Five terms.

[Matt Welch]

Five terms.

[Camille Foster]

Is it five terms?

[Michael Moynihan]

I thought it was. Oh, he was. I think he. He was chair of the Hispanic Caucus. Yes. Four of those.

[Camille Foster]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Chair of the Hispanic Caucus. I think what's happening here, because there's nothing in the polling, really, that suggests that he's not going to win. And there's nothing in the polling that suggests DAC has much, much better odds either. But you do see this kind of loosening and tightening across Poly market until

[Matt Welch]

the May 29 endorsements by Mamdani. He's got a very, very clear lead. And then. And she'd been spending money for months up until she had name recognition and was in there. And Pauli Margaret didn't give her much of a chance.

[Camille Foster]

Mom.

[Matt Welch]

Donnie enters the race and suddenly what was a 30 or 40 point gap becomes contested. And they're going back and forth for a couple of weeks.

[Camille Foster]

And towards the end of the race, it shoots up in exactly the wrong direction and predicts the wrong person will the wrong person wins here. My suspicion is, if I'm just guessing at what was influencing people, is that the smart money is thinking he's an incumbent. This is a tight race to the extent you're gonna give the edge to anyone. You probably give it to him. And they turned out to be wrong.

[Michael Moynihan]

It turned out to be wrong.

[Camille Foster]

The election machine that Mondani has built seemingly made all the difference in this particular race.

[Michael Moynihan]

I'll give them. And by the way, if you didn't listen to an episode that we did last week, or was it last week, the week before, talking about this. This is not a relationship with polymarket in an ad way. This is our experiment that we pitched to them. Are you guys good at this? Is this useful as a tool?

[Camille Foster]

They were fine with it.

[Michael Moynihan]

And they were fine with it. Which credit to them. So I can. I feel very happy criticizing them particularly. Can you guys fucking change the colors? Yeah, so close. It's like the blue one and then the Prussian blue one. It's like, it's too confusing, guys. We don't have a direct line to them. So please, if you're listening, change the bloody colors. It's too annoying. But yeah, I would say. And so my slight defense of them has nothing to do. It doesn't come from them or anything. I know the response is this is measuring sentiment.

[Camille Foster]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

They don't have an internal polling structure, et cetera. This is what the people. And I think that one of the things that we've been trying to figure out is how much is the Internet affecting people's ideas in these markets, you know, in the sense that like, you know, you can have some, you know who. Like George Conway is a great example.

[Matt Welch]

Right. Was that New York seven zillion. A zillion followers on social media?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, I sent that.

[Camille Foster]

New York 12.

[Michael Moynihan]

New York 12 12.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And that was the one that I sent over that it was absolutely inverse the results to the number of followers you had on social media in general because it was Schlossberg, that dummy, and George Conway who I think got what, 6, 6% of the vote?

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, not much.

[Michael Moynihan]

And you know, the. Yeah. So at the end, I don't think. Did Conway ever, ever have any action on Polymarket?

[Camille Foster]

Not on this one, but that.

[Michael Moynihan]

Cause that's kind of the interesting experiment is like how much is. You know, we talk about Instagram and Twitter. It affects mental health and all this stuff. It's like, okay, what is it doing to election outcomes? And people are money on these things. And I don't know at this point because we see a lot of difference in a lot of these races.

[Matt Welch]

I would, I do wonder. The last week of the campaign, there was a series of pieces that came out in New York Post. There are a series of high profile exchanges where she was playing defense on her tweets because they were finding that stuff she tweeted, I don't know, like last week.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Which is crazy. Like wipe my ass with The American flag type of stuff, that's, that's the best thing ever.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't know why we're always showing this, but that's fine.

[Matt Welch]

It's my tomato, that's my heart.

[Michael Moynihan]

I am not responsible.

[Matt Welch]

But so there was a lot of news and it was her backpedaling.

[Camille Foster]

Right.

[Matt Welch]

And so maybe people overreacted to that and thought that that stuff matters.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, that's an. I mean there's a lot to be looked into on very specific events and how. And I think that rather than doing every race every time, the most enjoyable part of this will be doing the wrap up after the election, you know, after the midterms. Cause again these are fucking primaries and we live in a state where there are no competitive Republicans in these districts. So the races are over, right? This is finished. I mean they're talking, they talk about being in Congress and they don't do that in like, well, we'll see. Kind of aspirational way or being confident. They just know it's true.

[Matt Welch]

It's just a darn tootin shame. I mean I asked Raihan about 90s Republicans in Big cities, mayors and stuff, partly out of a sense of nostalgia. Like we just take for granted now that a Republican can't win anywhere in New York City and the suburbs on the outskirts, the, you know, George Santos Republicans, there can be some backlash in swing districts, but that didn't used to be the case in most any big city. Chicago's probably accepted but like you still held the idea out. That's why I always bring up Joe Loda as the point of dread because people generally say like about like California Republican Party. Well they're so crazy. They always like bring up crazy people so no wonder that they lose. But part of, and you know, Spencer Pratt was half crazy and just like a weird candidate and forwarding weird AI Slop videos. But also even when they have a normie candidate, they don't do well. It's like assumed.

[Michael Moynihan]

I think a normie candidate would have done less.

[Matt Welch]

Well, it's baked in that you won't have a normie Republican or a normie Democrat in Wyoming or wherever is a very strongly Republican bastion. And that's just bad. We've gotten. Dave French had a piece today about it. We have two one party parties, which is kind of a weird thing to think about. But like it makes a bit of sense. And that's not good because then what's your option? Like, you know, I'm never going to have, I mean generally I'm never gonna have anyone who represents what I think, and that's normal. But like there should be an ops, an option for when your one party system coughs up a Brandon Johnson in Chicago DAC here, just anywhere, like you should, There should be some other way that you could like throw money at the problem and have a normal candidate run against one of these dingbats. And I just don't think it'll work. I'm not subtweeting anybody in this room.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, I'm not subtweeting anyone either, but I don't see it working either. But no, New York has been a weird place because big cities are like this, right? I mean, there was a time when to be a Democrat in a big city, you had to be slightly more conservative, right? Cause you had to deal with crime problems and people wanting, particularly when crime was out of control in the 70s. Ed Koch, Ed Koch today would be a Republican, right. He was conservative in his way. The Daily Machine in Chicago. Right. I mean, even in, you know, I was mentioning this the other day to someone in here, you know, when Bill Buckley ran for mayor of New York City and the famous line of what would you do if you won? I demand a recount. But he ran on the Conservative Party. Take it. The Conservative Party was, you know, a force in this. I mean, they were.

[Matt Welch]

It still exists.

[Michael Moynihan]

It still exists. They were not cleaning up and winning elections, but they were a force. Bill Buckley didn't do horribly and actually wrote a phenomenal book about it, by the way, called the Unmaking of a Mayor, which is a terrific. It was reissued fairly recently. And it's a very, very fun, funny book about how city politics works and about his kind of travel through it. But yeah, that's like right now is no different than the times in the past in New York, I mean, you had a Republican. Why did you. Why did Buckley run and why did he run as a conservative? Because the Republican was John Lindsay and he was as good as a Democrat. And so we need an actual conservative choice. This kind of churn in parties happens in big cities, but it is unique in the sense that it's happening in a very, very dramatic turn to the left where it's not higher marginal tax rates. Not just that, it's. It's no borders. It's abolish ice, not reform ice. I mean, I agree with them in the sense that ICE needs to be dramatically reformed. But they don't want to abolish ICE because of what happened in Minneapolis. Come on now. They would have done that before they're not anti Israel because of what happened in the war. They were out on the streets on October 8th. There's a timeline thing with all these people. You can realize that they're not reactive to certain things that are happening in the world. It's baked into the ideology which is to get rid of borders, get rid of border enforcement, take all the money you can get from the rich people and there's never going to be any backlash to that because it's New York and they'll stay. I don't buy that because empires come and empires go, cities rise and they fall. And yeah, it's gonna be a slow trickle, but there is a point of equilibrium. Right. If you go up to $26 an hour in Seattle, what is going to happen? Do you think that's going to be a positive thing? I mean we have decades and decades of studies on minimum wage law, which is one of the few things that economists tend to agree on, that there is an inflection point. These people don't believe that there are inflection points. And that is a huge problem for the Democratic Party. If it gets further into the bloodstream of the Democratic Party and we'll see. I'm not confident that this is going to end well for the Democrats.

[Matt Welch]

No.

[Camille Foster]

We could probably move on from the New York situation, the Democrats broadly. Plenty of other stuff that we could talk about. The Iran deal, to the extent that there's any real deal there, has been enforced for a little bit. Things haven't really improved in the straits.

[Michael Moynihan]

No.

[Camille Foster]

There is a housing bill that is stalled that the President was supposed to sign and it seemed like all systems were go for. This bipartisan bill would have made Warren and Maga very happy despite the President really filled with great ideas. But it is not clear what's going to happen to that piece of legislation now or even really what the spat is about.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, it's about the voting, the ID stuff.

[Matt Welch]

The Save Act.

[Michael Moynihan]

The Save act, which they don't have the votes for.

[Matt Welch]

So they want to have a tantrum and shout out to all the Mike Lee's of the world who like, you know, we don't have a democracy unless we pass the SAVE act because the Democrats want to import the Mexicans to do voter fraud that just like you don't have the votes in the Senate, you're good enough to do math. And it's getting.

[Michael Moynihan]

And apparently he had a shouting match with Bill Cassidy about this in a meeting yesterday. Yesterday, yeah. To which I say I don't give a shit. You're gone. That's when you have a fucking shouting match. They're all a bunch of cowards. And it's like there's a bunch of new Thom Tillises and congratulations for doing it now. But you turned on the leader when the invading army was ringing the city and you're like, now I'm opposed to them.

[Matt Welch]

You voted for rfk.

[Camille Foster]

But beyond.

[Michael Moynihan]

Exactly.

[Camille Foster]

Beyond the.

[Matt Welch]

I didn't care about childhood vaccines, like, what the fuck are we talking about?

[Camille Foster]

But beyond the dispute about the SAVE act, is it safe to assume that some of the newly found confidence, or perhaps just the dissatisfaction amongst Republicans who aren't willing to do what the President is asking them to do just because he asked them to do it, is because of some of the very recent bad news and bad experiences, in particularly the way that the Iran situation has wrapped up, at least for the moment.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, it hasn't wrapped up. It's going to be with us and with them. And it's going to be reflected in prices, I presume. Oil prices. One way or the other. Inflation is as high as it's been in three years. He ran against inflation. It's just not good to be an incumbent anything when there's inflation in the country.

[Michael Moynihan]

And Biden had a excuse. It was a bullshit excuse. And it was the long tail of COVID Right. I mean, well, we had to advertise. And also greed and greed and greedflation. Yeah. Yeah. Because people were.

[Matt Welch]

Seasonal greed.

[Michael Moynihan]

We like to. Yeah. They were taking advantage of inflation to screw everybody because that's what companies do. And everyone colludes together to do this.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, it's exciting that Republican servitude in Congress is 99% instead of 99.0.9%. But like, not gonna throw a fucking parade.

[Michael Moynihan]

No. And there have been. To your point, there have been Republicans who have taken some swings because of Iran.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

And the response is. We'll just wait and see. JD Vance is on the case, which is not.

[Matt Welch]

Peter Meyer believes it. Gotta get him in here. I think we might.

[Michael Moynihan]

I texted him yesterday. Don't yell at him.

[Matt Welch]

He's looking on the bright side. That hair has gotten. Gotten into his milk or something.

[Camille Foster]

No need to yell at him. We'll get him here, we'll talk to him.

[Matt Welch]

I'm not yelling at him. I'm marveling at his.

[Michael Moynihan]

I know. It's like you look like the fucking guitar tech for the Spin Doctors. And now you're. I do know that now you have all these bad ideas about Iran. Yeah. You can look on the bright side. And look, I also understand the instinct to be surrounded at a table by idiots. I mean, I deal with it twice a week and sometimes three times. Sometimes three times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That you want to be on the other side of things. But no, there's. I don't see any silver lining in this Iran deal. And it's funny, they're having the funeral for the Ayatollah on July 4th. It was killed a while ago.

[Camille Foster]

Wow.

[Michael Moynihan]

And it's a four day celebration of the Ayatollah's life. Slideshows, you know, some of his early work.

[Camille Foster]

And there'll be a spat of public executions as well.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Celebratory.

[Michael Moynihan]

They'll hang people with American flags. Only the gays during those days. Oh, they don't even care at this point. They just kill lots of people. They might be gays. They just say, hey, there's one in ten. That'll be it. But no, it's. It is. It will be a victory parade. Assuredly be a victory parade. And it's a. What was 1979? What was the hostage crisis? It was a national humiliation and it helped usher Reagan into office because of Carter's failed rescue attempt when the helicopters went down, et cetera. Ignoring the Gary sick conspiracy theory about them holding it for Reagan.

[Matt Welch]

October surprise.

[Michael Moynihan]

October surprise. The original October surprise. But this is going to be something else for them to have a victory parade, which it will be. And a funeral procession.

[Matt Welch]

Hopefully.

[Michael Moynihan]

Nothing in this is good.

[Camille Foster]

Nothing the housing bill would have been, and perhaps if it passes, will be among the most significant legislative accomplishments during the Trump administration. If it passes, and again is bipartisan, as someone at the table mentioned, overwhelmingly supported by Democrats and Republicans. But it also has a bunch of really bad, like, economically incoherent ideas. And I think the chief one that has been discussed is banning corporations from being able to buy and build housing complexes.

[Matt Welch]

I thought they got it out of the gut that took that out in the conference committee. I could be wrong about that.

[Camille Foster]

Which may. It may or may not have gotten taken out because earlier in the week it was in there.

[Matt Welch]

Housing housing advocates loved the bill, hated that thing that I saw and then seemed to be happier by the time this was coming to. I could be wrong.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, well, if that's been extracted, that's very good. But the President had been stumping for it for a while, in addition to Democrats, and it's those kinds of points of alignment that I find the most interesting. Similarly, we talked about the AI situation and the Fact that JD Vance and various other Democrats, particularly Bernie Sanders, have talked about nationalizing the AI labs during

[Michael Moynihan]

a period when wasn't he the candidate and the friend? Because you're better clued into this stuff of The Silicon Valley Maga. Right. They love J.D. vance.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, yeah. They don't like also wanted to break up Facebook and he's wanted to do well.

[Michael Moynihan]

I can imagine why a lot of people in Silicon Valley would want that because it's destroy one of their competitors. But has there been any reaction from the kind of andreessen.

[Matt Welch]

David Sachs did a very long like throat clear on Twitter. One of those. I'm gonna write 800 words on Twitter. Does anyone ever read all 800 words words on Twitter? It's like worst.

[Camille Foster]

Imagine most of it is AI generated.

[Michael Moynihan]

He stopped caring about the war in Ukraine. He still does.

[Matt Welch]

Still does.

[Michael Moynihan]

Does he still tweet about that? But his buddies in the Kremlin are going to win.

[Matt Welch]

It's no, maybe not as strongly, but he does opine on foreign policy. But anyways, I saw him do a long thing with lots and lots and lots of throat clearing and at the end he's like, yeah, I don't think this a good idea to, to be nationalizing AI. So he least said that.

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean he kind of has the ear of J.D. vance, doesn't he? I mean he has some Fugazi appointment. Right. Does he still have that? Whatever.

[Camille Foster]

He's like, I think it's over now.

[Michael Moynihan]

The minister of.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know if he's all completely over.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah. But he was their time limit.

[Camille Foster]

He's done and he should be on his way out and hasn't been doing nearly as much politically.

[Michael Moynihan]

I like what he's done so far. Yeah, fuck, he's done so far.

[Camille Foster]

But it is interesting that the AI lab stuff is happening at the same time that there is kind of round two of the federal government versus anthropic this time because I guess almost two weeks ago now they banned a new model which was essentially the neutered version of the Mythos model that's been released. And there is as yet still no explanation for what they were looking at there. I know you played with Fable. I did not. Mythos.

[Michael Moynihan]

Fable was the stripped down supposedly version of Mythos that had some of the. The bad stuff taken out. Some of the use cases that they ran and said, oh well this is terrifying.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And it was the consumer facing version of it which was astonishingly powerful.

[Camille Foster]

It was like actually pretty impressive. I played with it briefly Beforehand. And as someone who has never really had any sort of professional experience building software, although I've worked with teams who are building software before. Like being able to just kind of

[Michael Moynihan]

dump and vibe code, man.

[Camille Foster]

And have it actually produce things that are working was really good. Fable seemed to be quite a bit better. And there was a lot of consternation.

[Michael Moynihan]

I got it to do something that I was pretty surprised by. Yeah, Yeah. A two factor authentication thing. Like, you know, people like to just

[Camille Foster]

write this up for you.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, well, people don't know. That is like, you know, you have to. It sends you a text so you can log on to your. You know, it's the second factor. So people just. If they know your password, they can't get into your stuff.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And I was querying data from the power company. This is. I'm a loser. I have no friends. And so I was trying to pull data from the power company and they kept on asking for two factor authentication every 30 minutes. And as a. How much power are you using on the grid? It's impossible. It's supposed to run in real time and stuff. And Fable was like, let's figure this out. Let's figure out how to get this to go away. And it did.

[Matt Welch]

Wow.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was pretty impressive. It was pretty impressive. Yeah. And I was like. And it was like, I think at one point used the word spoof in it's because, you know, it shows you the logic that it's. As it's doing it, it shows you the code too. Which is pretty interesting to watch if you care about or know about this stuff. And it did. It was like, so if we spoof it this way. And I was like, I don't think that's what our enemies are using it for. It's like, we must get the power company data. No, but I imagine the applications are probably pretty broad on that. So. Yeah, look, I understand why people are freaked out by it, but you can't put that genie back in the bottle.

[Camille Foster]

Well, the recent news has been about various federal agencies and even some international bodies that are issuing these statements saying it is Fable. And some of these other tools actually are finding all of these bugs and

[Michael Moynihan]

are essentially extremely useful.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, if it was released too quickly, that they would all essentially be very vulnerable really quickly. But it also seems that a lot of people have been using the tools to identify bugs, correct and harden their

[Michael Moynihan]

systems, which the Israelis probably don't want this to exist. And the reason is, is that there is a very good documentary about Stuxnet, which was how the Israelis set back the Iranian nuclear program by basically speeding up the centrifuges and not noticeable to the eye and then screws them up. And what's that?

[Matt Welch]

Allegedly, Allegedly.

[Michael Moynihan]

Allegedly Allegedly could have been anyone. Yeah, they apparently allegedly have a nuclear program themselves.

[Matt Welch]

That's our IDF minder over there.

[Michael Moynihan]

Allegedly. But in the documentary is called zero day because they call these zero day exploits. They're software exploits that somebody finds. It's not like hacking the system. It's finding an exploit and it's hacking the system, but it's finding the exploit that has not been patched. Right. This is a zero day exploit. And they found those supposedly allegedly in Siemens rotor boxes basically that control the factory. They have these rotor boxes that control the machines and they found that exploit and that's how they got in. And if all these companies are sewing those up very quickly, I mean a lot of this hacking goes on and a lot of these exploits happen because they're zero day exploits that people don't know about. And yes, it's a vital tool in both exploiting those and patching them. Yeah, the patching them is. It should be made available on a cash basis to companies that are trying to sew up their, their software. That's why you get so many Microsoft Windows updates is because they're constantly finding exploits and they hire people, the white hat hackers to do this. Yeah, yeah. So, so. But I want to say, speaking of the guys in, in your neck of the woods, Peter Thiel, where I haven't

[Camille Foster]

been for like three weeks.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh yeah, it's fun.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

There's a story in Wired magazine, a bit of a heavy breathing story in Wired magazine which has become very, very political about Peter Thiel's secret network of people.

[Camille Foster]

What is the title of that?

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, this is what I wanted to bring up because the problem is it's hard for me because I don't have my glasses and I'm old. But the headline there was another one that was in the Miami Herald by this young journalist. And this is the headline on Miami Herald. Powerful Miami men. They gotta make it local. Yeah, of course. Powerful Miami men are on a roster of secret society run by palantirs Peter Thiel. A roster that was recently made public of 113 influential figures who are members of a secret society run by billionaire Peter Thiel or attended its events. Includes several. Several info several individuals with South Florida ties. This is an organization, we are told, called Dialogue.

[Guest Speaker/Commentator]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

They have a website not that secret. It just has one page and it says it is a secret. Go away. And I sent this to a mutual friend, and he's not a journalist. And he responded to me with something that I've said before, and I wanted to throw this to you guys. He said, anytime there is a news story about something that I know about, I realize everything in it is wrong. And he had gone to one of these dialogue things. The one on the island or on Epstein's island. Steve Epstein is a different guy. So don't confuse them. Anti Semite. The thing is, I have been invited to something because someone nominates you and someone had nominated me. I never was told this was secret. It was all totally above board.

[Matt Welch]

You were nominated to dialogue.

[Michael Moynihan]

I was Quick.

[Matt Welch]

Important question.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yes.

[Matt Welch]

Does it end at the G or the G? The U? G. Yeah, yeah, already.

[Michael Moynihan]

And I think everything in the. In the literature spelled. The S's are spelled with Z's. It makes it cool.

[Matt Welch]

That's the problem. Non society.

[Michael Moynihan]

So I go to this. This thing, like, we're having one of these things in, like, I don't know, at Epstein's ranch in Santa Fe or something. And the cost to go was, like, insane. And I was like, what the fuck? I don't. And by the way, the list of people who were going were totally bipartisan. And it seems on this one was, like, more people on the left than on the right.

[Camille Foster]

That was. That was actually my experience at the conference.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And so I was like, I don't want to go, because I don't. I want to be paid to go to a conference. I don't pay to go to a conference. This is backwards. And so I said that, like, oh, we'll give you a knockdown price of, like, 10 grand or something. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not paying to go to a conference. So I didn't go. But they had a dinner in the city, and it is off the record, so I will not violate that. But I was at a table with four or five people, one of whom was like a television guy. And I said something because it's off the record. I will not violate this. Incidentally, I had no idea that Peter Trio had anything to do with this. It was just like, a bunch of people getting together. So I went and I said something, and I got the longest, most insane, like, BLM lecture.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, no.

[Michael Moynihan]

From a white guy who then grabbed his stuff and stormed up.

[Camille Foster]

Oh, that sounds good.

[Michael Moynihan]

And I was like, what precipitate?

[Matt Welch]

What kind of racism did you do?

[Michael Moynihan]

Okay, so you arrived theoretically.

[Camille Foster]

Phrenology.

[Michael Moynihan]

And skull science. But there is some science behind this. It was a totally banal comment and he was just being performative and blah, blah. So. So I after that was like, so dialogue is this left wing organization where people walk out if you say the wrong thing.

[Camille Foster]

Okay, it's not.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's not that you've been.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I've been to one and I paid a discounted rate to go to the conference. And then I actually paid for that shit for. Yeah, because it's a. I mean, discounted was like 10 grand pay out of my pocket.

[Matt Welch]

You heard there was rich people there.

[Camille Foster]

It wasn't ten grand for me. It wasn't ten grand for me. But I did also pay for like a membership for the following year. And again, I wouldn't disclose any of the stuff that happened in conversation, any sort of specificity, but most of the people I talked to definitely left of center. One of the things that we did in this particular year was you actually had to submit some books that you had read recently. It could have been any book. And you arrive at this place and there is a library that they've built in the lobby of this hotel where the event is being held. Just nice hotel. And you can look through the books and you find books that you perhaps find interesting or that you've also read. You open them, you take them down, you open them and you look in the back and you see the names of other people attending the conference who have read similar books. It's very nice. It's adorable.

[Michael Moynihan]

Did they make you pay for the conference?

[Camille Foster]

No, you could just take them and read them if you want to. You've paid for the conference already. It's pretty expensive. But most of the conference is people actively having conversations. Sometimes it's.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's why it's called dialogue.

[Camille Foster]

It's kind of silly. Other times it's really rich and thoughtful. Yeah, I met well when this psycho left.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was a good conversation.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

But I met veterans of the conflict in Ukraine who came over for the conference and were heading back. I met a lot of left of center people. I talked politics with plenty of people, most of whom found things that I had to say exceedingly disagreeable. But no one stormed out. And I had an extensive conversation that was actually really interesting to me with trans woman, who. I don't want to say anything else because it might be identifying, but it was a rich substantive conversation. And I would say that perhaps most of the people at the conference were not interested in Trump. I met some other people from tech But I didn't see anyone from the kind of Teela verse that I happened to know.

[Michael Moynihan]

There was nobody.

[Camille Foster]

And I'm not sure.

[Michael Moynihan]

Peter, the White House.

[Camille Foster]

I'm not sure. Peter has been actively involved in dialogue in a very long time. And Peter, unsurprisingly, invests in lots and lots of stuff, like Pando Daily, which, like, was a publication that was coming after and critical of so much in tech. And maybe he wasn't even particularly satisfied with what dialogue was doing at that point. I suspect when he was never told different interest.

[Michael Moynihan]

He had anything to do with it because he also didn't ask, because in this universe, there's so many of these fucking things. We're having a conference. It's going to foster conversations. Like, yeah, another one of these things. The only difference here was that the price tag was very high. And I said, I'm not paying.

[Camille Foster]

And there were some important people in these rooms. But honestly, I had conversations with people about their families and their children, their concerns. At the time that this was held, a lot of people were talking about their exhaustion with politics. If there is a dark conspiracy here, I was not privy to it.

[Michael Moynihan]

This is what I think I was all over the place. Is that the phrase secret society?

[Camille Foster]

It's absurd.

[Michael Moynihan]

If it was a secret society. They never told me to be secret about it. I think I even talked about it on the show when I went to that wild. Cause I remember that night I left, it was right after October 7th, and I saw someone from a distance tearing down posters of kidnapped children. That was a thing in New York for a while. We tend to forget this. And I remember it was right after that night, and I was like, this is the weirdest night of my life. Because I had that interaction, which I was like, you know, you ever have that thing when someone you don't know is like ferociously going. And you're like, wait a second, are they being sarcastic? Are they being serious? I didn't know if this is serious. And I was like, what? And then everyone was just kind of like, oh, okay. And he stormed out. And he was. Everyone else was just kind of like, it's a business person or this, but, you know, nobody. They'd be like, but that was the one person who was like a. A TV guy, not an actor, but, like, in the TV universe. And I was like, I really hope that the TV universe is not filled with these absolute nutcases. And that was my experience. But the idea of a secret society, yeah, like, that's how you're selling this Peter Thiel secret society, billionaires, secret list. It's like, it's not. It's just a few, at least people talking and having a drink.

[Matt Welch]

The Bohemian Grove was fun. Like, you had to work to. To break in there. People did, and it was fun.

[Michael Moynihan]

Like Alex Jones and Jon Ronson. Yeah. Hey, Alex. Alex it is. I saw the. But the great thing about that was when Bronson later was like, saw what Alex Jones said about it. Because John, who's a good friend and a friend of the show, he has a new book coming out.

[Matt Welch]

Always fucking has a new book coming out.

[Michael Moynihan]

He's so prolific. But he wrote about it in that book, Them, which is about weirdos and conspiracy freaks. And Alex Jones is like, oh, we saw them, you know, sacrificing a goat killed right in front of us. You know, just maiming children and cannibalism. And John's like, I don't think we saw that. It was like, not like that. You know? Yeah, that's the thing. But someone released. This is how boring these things are in real life. I know somebody who is a member of Bohemian Grove and who's like, yeah, it's just the most boring thing in the world. And there was a leak. It was on substack and someone leaked a list of members. And it was just like, oh, that looks like the least fun party that I'd ever go to.

[Matt Welch]

Condoleezza Rice.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, exactly. It was like, George Schulz. Isn't he dead?

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, Pissing on the tree.

[Michael Moynihan]

But it's all that stuff.

[Camille Foster]

I enjoyed my time at Dialogue in fairness. So if you get an invitation.

[Michael Moynihan]

I'm not getting invited.

[Camille Foster]

And you don't mind. You can go. I just still get notes.

[Matt Welch]

I appreciate the other 800 word tweet from Ezra Klein having to like, yes,

[Michael Moynihan]

that's right, because he went to one.

[Matt Welch]

He went to one. Had to, like, defend himself from going to a dialogue in 2022 or something.

[Michael Moynihan]

It is, by the way, our country club secret societies. Because you have to get nominated by someone in the club. You have to pay an enormous initiation fee. And then the fees get lower. You're like, there's a very famous one in East Hampton called Maidstone Club. You're not allowed to take pictures in there. There's no pictures of it exist outside the outside.

[Matt Welch]

So it's a nudist?

[Michael Moynihan]

No, it's just like the Trilateral Commission getting together and pulling the puppet strings on the world. But it's like, everything is a secret society. If that's your definition of a Secret society, like most country clubs are, they get to be nominated. You can't take pictures inside, you know. Oh, it's off the record. Yeah, well, you can't go around recording people in. Inside there either. If there's titans of industry having conversations, you'd probably be kicked out. People get kicked out of clubs for this all the time. They really do for like revealing stuff that goes on, on inside. And it's like. It's just a much better bullshit sell. And to see the Miami Herald, which is once a great newspaper. It actually was.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, every. There's a lot of once great newspapers. There are really aren't hardly any anymore. I mean, Wired was a once great magazine. Well, it's like an Incredible magazine in 1990 90s. And it just is not.

[Michael Moynihan]

It is the opposite of a great magazine now. It is a terrible. Very ideological. It's like people have their politics, they get excited by them and they think that their imprint of that should be on everything. It's like, no, it should be a tech magazine, primarily a tech magazine. 90% a tech magazine because you get this shit all over the place. But is that good reporting to say that Peter Thiel has a club where or he started. I don't even know if he's involved anymore. I again didn't know about his involvement. Where people get together and talk. Well, that's not a good framing. How do we frame it? It's a secret society where the powerful get together and, you know, control the world.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, wasn't Doghouse a bit of a secret society? You had to be clubhouse. Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I suppose it was for a little bit. Then they made it open to everyone and it ruined it.

[Michael Moynihan]

And then Twitter just copied it. So anyway.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. And have they discontinued it? I saw Twitter was like discontinuing one

[Michael Moynihan]

of those features called Spaces.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And it's like people you follow. So it's not even like the good ones. And it's like some random guy I follow who's like, you know, a member of parliament in like Bosnia. And it's like having a conversation and you listen. It's so boring. No one cares anyway. Yeah, all right, all right.

[Camille Foster]

It's probably enough.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's enough for one week.

[Camille Foster]

Three dispatches this week.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

If you're a paid subscriber.

[Michael Moynihan]

Subscriber, yes.

[Camille Foster]

You got all three of those?

[Michael Moynihan]

Subscribe, man.

[Camille Foster]

Quite good. We the fifth.com you can sign up, get your annual subscription, save a little bit of money. That's right. And help keep the lights on here. We need that.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Thank you very much. Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

All right.

[Unknown Narrator/Reader]

Bye. We know of new method of attack. The Trojan horse. The Fifth column. The Fifth. Fifth column. Fifth column. Fifth column. Spies, saboteurs and traitors. These dividing forces are undiluted poison. They must not be allowed to spread in the new world as they have in the old. Our moral and our mental defenses. Must be raised up as never before. Against those who would cast a smoke screen across our vision. Um. This. Column. Column. This column. This column. This column. This column. Fifth column. This column. This column. This column. This column.