The Fifth Gets a Substitute Teacher (w/ Jesse Singal) #568

Summary

The Fifth Column, Episode 568: "The Fifth Gets a Substitute Teacher" (w/ Jesse Singal)

Podcast Date: July 29, 2026
Hosts: Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, Matt Welch
Guest: Jesse Singal

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Overview

This episode features journalist Jesse Singal sitting in as a "substitute teacher" alongside regular hosts Kmele Foster and Matt Welch (with Michael Moynihan joining remotely). The crew dives into a characteristically energetic and irreverent conversation, bouncing from recent political news and scientific controversies to sports, movie reviews, New York City policies, and high-concept movie pitches— all addressed with their signature wit and skepticism.

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Table of Contents

• Opening Banter & Welcoming Jesse Singal
• The Fauci "Diaries" and Trust in Institutions
• Science, Gender Medicine, and Institutional Bias
• Media Celebrity Culture and Public Trust
• AI Hype, Dangers, and Reporting Failures
• Academic Plagiarism and Media Narratives – The Jason Arday Case
• Sports, Fandom, and Why We Care
• The Odyssey, Movie Adaptations, and Absurd Hollywood Pitches
• NYC Public Grocers Plan: Economics and Ideology
• Israel, DSA Politics, and Anti-Semitism
• Wrap-Up: French Goodbyes and Final Jokes

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Opening Banter & Welcoming Jesse Singal (00:00–06:00)

• The hosts riff about podcast dynamics, joke about ‘race swapping’ on air, and riff on Camille Foster’s post-surgery status and travel fatigue.
• Jesse is welcomed as the “substitute teacher,” and jokes fly about who’s getting hired at hot new journalistic ventures (e.g., The Free Press) and the curse/blessing of not receiving the call.
• Memorable Quote:
  • "Why am I tapping the table... there's so much shit on this table." – Kmele Foster (00:25)
  • "I'm deep in book hell... my brain's not working." – Jesse Singal (05:44)

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The Fauci "Diaries" and Trust in Institutions (06:00–16:40)

• Discussion opens about Rand Paul’s release of “the Fauci files” (over 1,000 pages of emails/diary entries).
• Focus on the contrast between Fauci’s private admissions and his public pandemic pronouncements, particularly on masks and school closures.
  • Quote: "The motherfucker was bragging in his diary about convincing Bill de Blasio to lock down schools..." – Michael Moynihan (07:59)
  • The indignity and pettiness revealed in Fauci’s writing, mirrored in public spats.
  • Hosts debate the fairness of judging private writing and the ethics of making such diaries public.
• Jesse links the issue to broader institutional trust, especially in public health and science.

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Science, Gender Medicine, and Institutional Bias (16:40–23:45)

• Jesse discusses his reporting on youth gender medicine, noting most U.S. institutions “just sort of go along,” while European socialized systems conducted more evidence-based reviews (e.g., Sweden, Finland, UK).
  • "Just saying putting teenagers on hormones... is a big deal and we should do the most rigorous thing." – Jesse Singal (13:51)
• Jesse bemoans erosion of faith in scientific authorities, noting how liberal/conservative trends aren't predictive of institutional trustworthiness on complex topics.

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Media Celebrity Culture and Public Trust (21:31–25:36)

• A montage of media figures fawning over Fauci is played, provoking further discussion of the “celebrity scientist/guru” problem, TED Talk-ification, and the demand for a sage during crisis.
• Quote: "There's a demand side problem of Fauci because he's not charismatic—he’s just a guy who’s up there." – Matt Welch (24:14)
• Hosts argue for skepticism, adversarial journalism, and humility in scientific leadership.

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AI Hype, Dangers, and Reporting Failures (25:49–32:05)

• Shift to tech/media criticism: hosts scrutinize the boosterism and alarmist coverage around AI.
  • Camille calls out journalists for “unquestioning repetition” of tech leaders’ more outlandish claims about AI’s power/danger.
• Recent example: alleged OpenAI hack by an escaped AI model. Debate over whether coverage overstates anthropomorphized AI agency.
  • "The notion that it is a ghost that woke up and just decided, ‘I'm going to hack my way out of here,’ is too anthropomorphizing..." – Camille Foster (29:16)
• Jesse notes the industry itself has incentives to hype the danger.

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Academic Plagiarism and Media Narratives – The Jason Arday Case (32:34–39:26)

• Hosts play and dissect a viral “defense” of Cambridge sociologist Jason Arday, who’s faced serious (and apparently well-founded) plagiarism allegations.
  • Jesse: “Everything she said is literally the opposite of true. She's just fucking lying.” (34:07)
  • The case is described as an extreme, clear-cut example of academic fraud being shielded by social/political pressures.
  • Media outlets and the university are depicted as evasive or even threatening to suppress the story.
  • The affair is framed as a hangover from the "2020 moment," highlighting failures in institutional accountability on identity issues.

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Sports, Fandom, and Why We Care (49:28–58:42)

• Tangent into sports: LeBron James’ hypothetical move, the value of sports in childhood and society, and vividly recounted personal pick-up basketball triumphs and defeats.
• Reflection on sporting events as cross-class, quasi-spiritual communal experiences:
  • “It is the first time my kids have been...with thousands of other humans...cheering for this thing collectively.” – Kmele Foster (55:00)
• Jesse: Being part of a crowd—whether watching or playing—is a uniquely powerful emotional experience.

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The Odyssey, Movie Adaptations, and Absurd Hollywood Pitches (62:60–77:00)

• Review and playful critique of Nolan’s new adaptation of The Odyssey. Disagreements over the film’s “rationalization” of divine elements and its somber tone.
  • “There's less magic, less like rip-roaring adventure...” – Michael Moynihan (74:19)
• The segment spirals into comedic high-concept movie pitches (e.g., "Schindler's Park": Jurassic Park but with Nazi dinosaurs; “White Knight”: a Klansman comes back from hell as a superhero).
  • “What if the dinosaurs are Nazis?... a velociraptor with an armband, that's so scary.” – Matt Welch (83:44)

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NYC Public Grocers Plan: Economics and Ideology (78:12–99:00)

• The newly announced city-run grocery stores by NYC mayor are dissected.
  • Jesse admits initially brushing off the idea, but after reading critiques realized “it just, it's sort of Econ 101 bad.”
  • “We’re going to open a grocery store where whatever other people are charging, 30% off and it’s government-funded...” – Jesse Singal (86:14)
• Hosts explain (to Jesse and the audience) the perils of government price controls, how it could squeeze out bodegas, and introduce perverse incentives and rationing.
• Discussion of broader leftist faith in state intervention and over-simplification of “price gouging” as the default explanation for high prices.
  • “It seems like the whole theory of city run grocery stores rests on that idea that... price gouging.” – Jesse Singal (88:51)

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Israel, DSA Politics, and Anti-Semitism (91:09–99:40)

• Discussion of NYC political obsession with Israel and the blurred lines between political activism and anti-Semitism.
  • “It strikes me, a lot of the conversations strike me as very similar to [the] Black Lives Matter stuff... everything is racism, everything is anti-Semitism.” – Kmele Foster (92:51)
• Jesse is skeptical about defining down anti-Semitism, but recognizes the role American support for Israel plays in the debate.
• The group questions if DSA priorities (like city grocers and Israel focus) match what voters want.

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Wrap-Up: French Goodbyes and Final Jokes (100:13–End)

• Hosts riff about cultural goodbye styles: the 'French goodbye’ (introduce a new topic at the door) versus the 'Irish goodbye' (slipping out quietly).
• Show closes with camaraderie and gratitude for Jesse Singal's entertaining subbing and the overall energy of the evening.

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Selected Notable Quotes

• “There's a thing of the celebrity scientist or the guru. And yeah, my last book was sort of about TED Talk culture...a preliminary study...they give a TED Talk and become a celebrity and start making much stronger claims...” – Jesse Singal (23:11)
• “There's a demand side problem of Fauci because he's not charismatic...We're all fucked up back then. We just wanted a sage to tell you.” – Matt Welch (24:14)
• “If you give scientists the tools to improve their practice...Either they ignore the tools or they're so busy and doing good research is more expensive than doing bad research.” – Jesse Singal (19:04)
• “Just the mantra that the reason groceries are expensive is because of price gouging...I don’t think is a realistic account.” – Jesse Singal (87:12)
• “His work is terrible. It's just gobbledygook—even the non-plagiarized work.” – Jesse Singal (38:38)
• “It's like to remain in good standing in leftist circles, you have to claim the reason shit's expensive is because of price gouging, which to me is a really oversimplified theory.” – Jesse Singal (88:27)

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For Listeners New to The Fifth Column

This episode is a roller coaster of current news, cultural commentary, scathing skepticism, and irreverent comedy. The hosts’ rapport with stand-in Jesse Singal results in a broad yet insightful episode—swinging from crucial debates about trust in science and public institutions, to American sports culture, to the absurdity of New York City politics, each examined with intellectual honesty and a heavy dose of gallows humor.

Listeners will leave with a sense of the show's core: a blend of critical rigor, relentless questioning of dominant narratives (left, right, or center), and—always—sharp laughs at the madness of contemporary America.

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Episode Bookmark Timestamps

| Segment/Topic | Start Time (MM:SS) | |---|---| | Opening Banter & Jesse's Welcome | 00:00 | | Fauci Diaries & Public Trust | 06:00 | | Science, Gender Medicine, Bias | 16:40 | | Media’s Fauci Fetish & “Guru” Scientists | 21:31 | | AI Hype & Journalistic Failure | 25:49 | | Jason Arday Plagiarism | 32:34 | | Sports, Fandom, Pick-Up Ball | 49:28 | | The Odyssey, Movies, Absurd Pitches | 62:60 | | NYC’s Public Grocers & Econ 101 | 78:12 | | DSA, Israel, Anti-Semitism Debates | 91:09 | | Wrap-Up: French Goodbyes | 100:13 |

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Listen to the full episode at:
www.wethefifth.com

Transcript

[Matt Welch]

I have a simpler pitch. Yeah. Have you guys heard of Jurassic Park?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Have you heard of Schindler's List?

[Camille Foster]

Oh, yes.

[Matt Welch]

Schindler's Park. I don't know. A group. I don't know.

[Camille Foster]

No.

[Michael Moynihan]

We know of new methods of attack.

[Matt Welch]

The Trojan horse.

[Camille Foster]

The Fifth Column.

[Jesse Singal]

Column.

[Camille Foster]

Column.

[Matt Welch]

Column.

[Camille Foster]

Greetings, and welcome back to another exciting installment of the Fifth Column podcast. Why am I tapping the table when I.

[Michael Moynihan]

Because there's so much shit on this table.

[Camille Foster]

This is. There really is.

[Matt Welch]

There's five of them now. Columns.

[Camille Foster]

There's always been five. There's actually more than five.

[Matt Welch]

You guys keep building.

[Camille Foster]

There's more than five. The fifth one is the one that we're most interested in, and it's your weekly rhetorical assault. Rhetorical diabetes. Your weekly rhetorical assault on the news cycle. The people that make it occasionally ourselves. I'm Camille Foster. I'm delighted to be here. Matt Welch is here. Michael Moynihan not here, but we got rid of him and we got Jesse Singa out with the oldie with the gym. He's in here. He's in the building. We were told we have to have up.

[Matt Welch]

One of him's Jewish.

[Michael Moynihan]

Ish.

[Matt Welch]

I think it's not.

[Camille Foster]

Well, he's the blonde Zionist and often confused for a Jewish person as a result.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

But, Jesse, we're delighted to have you here.

[Matt Welch]

Thank you.

[Camille Foster]

It's wonderful to have you here. If I seem a little out of sorts, it's because I've been awake forever and I've been flying and traveling for 12 to 18 hours just to get here to this table so I could be with you. And it's worth it.

[Michael Moynihan]

I like how he's gonna hold hands.

[Matt Welch]

Well, I don't know where I'm supposed to look. Last time I did. I don't do a lot of let

[Camille Foster]

go of my head.

[Michael Moynihan]

Jesse, don't. No, that doesn't. It's not here.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, the cameras aren't here.

[Michael Moynihan]

We're just talking around, setting up the pre explanation for when he's gonna fall asleep on camera. I was texting with him again two

[Matt Welch]

days ago, and you didn't respond to me. I said, should we race swap during the show?

[Camille Foster]

I said, yes. The answer is always yes.

[Matt Welch]

But I didn't even know what it meant. It just sounded.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know what that means.

[Matt Welch]

So you need to talk like a white person. And so you go first.

[Camille Foster]

This is Camille Foster, and welcome to the fifth Gollum podcast.

[Matt Welch]

I was actually listening to old Dave Chappelle earlier, where he does his white friend Chip the cop pulls him over and he's like, I didn't know I couldn't do that. Pretty good stuff, huh?

[Michael Moynihan]

Do you feel, like, shamed personally that you didn't get hired by CBS in the last couple years?

[Matt Welch]

I feel like I'm the only person who has not been hired.

[Michael Moynihan]

So to. To. To summarize, recent guest, Sebastian Younger was. Was hired. Great journalist and also a distant guest. We haven't invited him back on since he infected us with COVID in March of 2020. Ross. Doubt.

[Matt Welch]

Doubt that.

[Michael Moynihan]

Doubt that. Also hired by Barry Wise. You didn't, like, even get a phone call, did you?

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

How's that feel?

[Jesse Singal]

Bad.

[Matt Welch]

What do you want me to tell you?

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

I didn't realize it was gonna be a humiliation ritual. Well, I'm gonna kill myself. Don't say that.

[Michael Moynihan]

Finally.

[Matt Welch]

Doubt that. I didn't even read the Times article. This is. He's. But he's there. He's leaving the Times or he's still.

[Camille Foster]

It says he's leaving.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, I'm sort of in. It's crazy. They're hiring everybody. Oh, and Mike Pesca, of course.

[Michael Moynihan]

And Pesca, right.

[Matt Welch]

I remain sore about. That was like when you got. When I discovered you guys, like, the peak of the craziness, his firing from Slate. I remain sore about that because it was so fucking insane. Yeah, he's such a good podcaster. Yeah, he's not a good person.

[Camille Foster]

And he didn't even.

[Matt Welch]

He didn't say the word.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, Pesca didn't even say the word.

[Matt Welch]

No.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I've. Pesca didn't say the word. He didn't even defend a position. He was saying, you know, John McWhorter has this position.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, I mean, come on. It's just like when someone says, well, Thomas Sowell. It's like, okay, put the hood over your head.

[Camille Foster]

I'm just saying. I'm just saying, good for Barry.

[Matt Welch]

She's hiring everybody. Who else?

[Camille Foster]

Except.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, except.

[Matt Welch]

You know what? I think it is probably the reason I didn't get the call. Antisemitism.

[Camille Foster]

She wrote a book about it once,

[Matt Welch]

about how it's good.

[Camille Foster]

Well, I don't know what we're supposed to do today. I was told that there was going to be a flood, a flood to end all floods. And there were two of each animal, like, parading through the streets.

[Matt Welch]

I got a number out of it on the basis that it was going

[Camille Foster]

to be exactly right.

[Michael Moynihan]

What a ass.

[Camille Foster]

He was supposed to come join us on the Podcast.

[Michael Moynihan]

I'm a small little person.

[Camille Foster]

I can't step over puddles. I'm up in the air on a plane, and I get a text from Jesse, and Jesse's like, hey, you think you guys could spring for, you know, a car to come and get me?

[Matt Welch]

Thank you for not saying how I greeted you in the first text.

[Camille Foster]

You said my nigga, which you usually do, which is fine.

[Matt Welch]

I don't see that.

[Camille Foster]

It's okay.

[Matt Welch]

Barry will never hide or be more

[Camille Foster]

like you give up. But, yeah, we got you a car. And it is not raining.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, it's not even at all.

[Camille Foster]

There's no wind. There's nothing. It's fine. It's a little gray outside. It's fine otherwise, though.

[Matt Welch]

Thanks for asking. How the ride was?

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Was it good? Good. You're going to reimburse us for that? It's fine.

[Matt Welch]

What are we talking about?

[Camille Foster]

I don't know, actually. There's plenty of stuff happening.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, go ahead. Actually, wait. I had. I legitimately made a list.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, no.

[Matt Welch]

Because I don't really do podcasts a lot. I was afraid to run out of stuff to say, so I made a list.

[Camille Foster]

Well, this isn't a podcast.

[Matt Welch]

Says to ask Camille how his penis surgery went.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's a while ago.

[Camille Foster]

It wasn't on my penis. It was testicles.

[Matt Welch]

Okay.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. And everything is fine. I have all desired function. In fact, it is better.

[Matt Welch]

Any undesired function?

[Camille Foster]

No, None. None. I mean, sometimes I wish it were smaller.

[Matt Welch]

Yes. I just. I wish it was a little bit smaller.

[Michael Moynihan]

You can have reduction surgery. That's the thing.

[Matt Welch]

I'm not good.

[Camille Foster]

But I won't so. Because the gut way. God made me.

[Matt Welch]

But, yes, I'm sort of. I'm in a good position. I'm filling in for Moynihan, so already the bar is pretty low. Yeah, I'm sort of deep. This sounds douchey, but I'm, like, deep in book hell and my brain's not working.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

So there's not going to be. My contributions are not going to be good.

[Michael Moynihan]

Untrue.

[Matt Welch]

I'm willing to talk about whatever. So go ahead.

[Michael Moynihan]

So what happened this week is that Rand Paul, somehow senator, another senator, former guest of this podcast, released something like. Of more than 1,000 pages of emails, the Fauci files from Dr. Anthony Fauci. And those email files are interesting because he's talking a lot about how, like, Julie Roberts, like, looked at him and stuff. Have you read some of these things?

[Matt Welch]

The ones about him, one of his aides, about all the awards they applied for him to get was really good.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, God. The headline bit that people are understandably upset about are the. Just the gap between what he's presenting to himself in his Dear Diary. And I'm not sure how I feel about exactly how Rand Paul got all the diaries of a human and then published them. That seems a little bit strange to me. But of all of the people who you might want to see their diaries of from like 2020 and 2021, I think Anthony Fauci is going to the top of the list. But there's a big gap between what he was talking about and contemporaneously about such, you know, wet markets. Was it a wet market? Was it a lab leak? And then what he was, what he was saying to himself about things. And then also he's bragging on shit that he's, that he has denied on. In fact, we have one clip of him talking to yet another recent guest on this program and our dear friend Bhatia Ungar Sargon. It's very weird to say her full name sometimes, you know, yeah, Ungars, this is from 2022 or 23, something like that. It doesn't really matter. Go, Bhatia. I wonder if you would recommend locking down schools if you had to do

[Camille Foster]

it all over again.

[Matt Welch]

Well, you know, again, it's.

[Camille Foster]

First of all, I didn't recommend locking anything down.

[Matt Welch]

You're asking me questions. You're talking about. The CDC is the public health agency that uses their epidemiologists and their science based approach to make recommendations.

[Michael Moynihan]

The motherfucker was bragging in his diary about convincing Bill de Blasio to lock down schools and to convince Gavin Newsom to shut down like dining and, and even some of the outdoor shit. And wrote this in not like August or even, you know, May of 2020. This is in August of 2021. So we know quite a lot here. And this is in this dear diary entry. Governor DeSantis is a complete disgrace. He's blocking the local authorities from mandating masks in various locations, including schools. He's doing this while at the same time Florida is virtually on fire with surging cases, as was at the time. Approximately 20% of all the cases in the country right now are in Florida. When you add Florida with Texas, you get about 40% of all the cases in the country. At the same time, he together with his Greek chorus of Rand Paul and other gop, anti Greek, other GOP members of Congress together with all the stooges at Fox News, Carlson, Hannity, Ingram. I always wanna say Ingraham continues to actively criticize me and talk virtually every day about my being wrong on everything I say and that I should be fired. This is an obviously calculated plan of disparaging me and any other scientists, but focusing heavily on me that speak up against their crazy strategy.

[Matt Welch]

That made me happy. Cause I always think that I'm too petty and narcissistic in my own feelings about online grievances. And then Anthony Fauci is the same way.

[Camille Foster]

I mean, is there not an element of unfairness here? To the extent you have your private diaries, you're not necessarily your best self there. You're being a little self indulgent, self absorbed. If I'm Fauci, a bit narcissistic. But that's what diaries are for.

[Matt Welch]

That's why I'm Fauci. I'm acquiring Rand Paul's diaries, publishing those in a reprisal attack. Rand Paul's diaries would have some fucked up shit.

[Camille Foster]

I mean granted my diary, I write it with the expectation that it will one day be revealed to the world. And it's a matter of intent, interest. So all I ever talk about is my own, you know, benevolence. It's so big, I want to try harder. And yeah, also it's, it's huge and it is a burden and people don't appreciate what a burden it is.

[Matt Welch]

Your penis or diary?

[Camille Foster]

It could be both things. Could be both things simultaneously.

[Matt Welch]

Trace it every night, make sure it stays the same size.

[Camille Foster]

Now, I mean are there any like other important, like newsworthy revelations in these papers or is it just sort of embarrassing for him?

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean it is newsworthy that at the same time time he was organizing telephone calls for scientists to be talking about the origin of the spread of the virus. He's characterizing those telephone calls in public completely differently. On these calls there's very few people who's like, yeah, jump from the wet market. And a lot of people like the wet market might have amplified what happened. Came from a lab and he shut that down and he spent a lot of time and energy shutting down. The critics of the people they consistently describes as crazies and GOP extreme right wingers and stuff like that. But also the people who signed the Great Barrington Declaration in I think it was like October of 2020, including people like Dr. J. Bhattacharya who.

[Matt Welch]

Bhatiacharya.

[Michael Moynihan]

Bhatiacharya Bhatia. Everything. And characterizing them as like crazy strategy. And meanwhile. And again like lying to Bhatia. In that case, like he absolutely was a very important figure in the shutting down of the masking of two year olds, which no science ever supported and wasn't being done in any other fucking country in the world.

[Camille Foster]

And didn't actually work either.

[Michael Moynihan]

And it didn't actually work.

[Camille Foster]

Just take the mask off immediately.

[Michael Moynihan]

And it was the law of New York until well into 2023. Largely because of Anthony Fauci. Because when he said something cuz he was so revered, people like o must be true because he's the prince of all science. So those are the gaps that are, I think, not just newsworthy but like re enraging. But since you fucking write about science all the time, like there's skin in this game of like, answer Camille's question from your perspective.

[Matt Welch]

So. Well, the more general point I was gonna make bringing us back to the most important person here, which is me. Yeah. So we're getting a book on the youth gender stuff. And part of the reason I find this to be an interesting story is it gets to this question like, who we trust? Can we trust our SC scientific authorities? Because it, like the CDC for example, is not infallible, it's composed of humans. But we sort of need a society where like you can at least know the CDC is not entirely full of. And in my reporting on the youth gender stuff, just the extent to which, you know, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, all these organizations, there's just this degree of they don't care about the truth entirely when other things come to seem more important than the truth. And this.

[Michael Moynihan]

Was there a. Was there an exception to that rule on your subject on youth gender dysphoria and such?

[Matt Welch]

What do you mean the exception to it?

[Michael Moynihan]

Was there an organization or even a government agency that held the line towards rationality?

[Matt Welch]

That's a good question. Interestingly, Amitzi doesn't have the answer. European countries that had cover your ears but socialized healthcare systems, yeah, sure, they were the ones where. Because if you have a socialized healthcare system, the government has to decide which treatments to pay for. And they were more likely to get a little bit ahead of this and say like we need to evaluate the evidence base. So Sweden, Finland, Norway, Sweden. I miss Moynihan. Yeah, sorry. Sweden, Finland and the UK were good in the US Like I can't think of any sort of legacy organization that, you know, they weren't, they didn't all screw up to the same degree, but no, most people just sort of good

[Camille Foster]

how they reached the right conclusion or were they More nuanced.

[Matt Welch]

I think just saying that this is like. And we don't need to go entirely down the youth gender role, but like just saying putting teenagers on hormones and sometimes removing their breasts is a big deal and we should. Seems reasonable, do the most rigorous thing we can to evaluate the evidence base. That's what the European countries did. And here actually, until Trump was elected, which is what's so fucked up about this. Like, we didn't do that and our government didn't do that. So it. It's been a little bit of a mind because I think I.

[Michael Moynihan]

You used to have faith, didn't you?

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, and. Well, not only that, but I used to think there was this thing of like, generally speaking, liberals are pro science and conservatives are less likely to be. And I think at the level of averages on some subjects, that's true. And obviously there's different parts of the conservative movement. There's fascists like you guys, and libertarians and stuff.

[Michael Moynihan]

But I like that we're part of the conservative movement.

[Camille Foster]

I get that.

[Matt Welch]

Right. Actually, no, it's incredibly demoted, demoralizing. And I just, I don't know, like, you can't really complain about people turning to Candace Owens or Alex Jones or whatever. When the mainstream institutions, you know, again, their performance varied. Some of them, I think outright lied. I mean, at this. Yale University released a report that was. They lied. And like I emailed them and pointed them out. Objective errors. They didn't change. They filed what they said as sworn declarations in legal cases, stuff that they knew was not true. In other cases it was like sins of omission and just sort of fuzzing the ev. But it's been incredibly demoralizing because this seems like an important subject to get right.

[Michael Moynihan]

Wasn't this a double whammy of the youth dysphoria, trans stuff on one hand, and then Covid. And then the COVID dysphoria among youth and youth dysphoria. I have youth. I think I'm young people. Of course not. Absolutely fucking not.

[Matt Welch]

That's age dysphoria.

[Michael Moynihan]

But like that plus Covid. And then also the signs.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. I mean, you have a teenage daughter, right? Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

An 18 year old. An 11 year old.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. It was this weird intersection of youth, gender dysphoria and then all these other mental health problems, including suicidality and PTSD and iPhones. IPhones. There's an autism connection there that people don't fully understand. And yeah, just seeing some of the statements put out as like a guy who's, you know, become a little bit of a weirdo about this and slightly obsessed because I've been covering it for 10 years. I don't know, what's that concept of like, gel man amnesia where you, you trust an institution and then you see them say something about something you happen to know a lot about?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Wait, why did I trust them? So I, I think this is a really big problem, and I do think some institutions are grappling with it. Part of the problem is now everything is so politicized that, like, when Yale puts out its report on academic integrity and politicization, it's good. They're also doing that directly as a result of Trump, which makes it easy, I think, to write off those efforts. Like, like they need to write the ship, but they're sort of only writing the ship under a particular kind of duress, and I think makes it harder for people to be like, I don't know, there's like a middle ground here.

[Michael Moynihan]

There's a, there's a. Sorry, go ahead.

[Camille Foster]

No, I was going to ask, is Kevin Warsh the name of the guy who Trump has nominated to be the new Fed chair?

[Michael Moynihan]

I think so. Something close to that.

[Camille Foster]

I was just reading a story recently, and there's this. This will make sense about his approach to running the Fed and this aspiration. He has to have there be a real kind of sort of Family feud style conversation about different policy decisions. Like, you actually want to air the disagreement so that people have the benefit of understanding that there are these competing perspectives about these various issues, as opposed to this is the correct Fed perspective. And when you were talking about the different perspectives or the different approaches that these various scientific bodies have taken around the country, like the. My mind kind of goes back to that and the fact that there is a dialogue that is happening within and among scientists who are studying any number of issues. There's not a dominant perspective. There may be a dominant perspective, but there's always some nuance associated with it, and always a bunch of competing views, and something might fall out of favor. But the fact that you can often get people who, like Fauci, in private are saying one thing and in public are more stridently pushing a particular.

[Michael Moynihan]

He bulldozed the nuance and took advantage of his own celebrity to say that what he said at any given time was what the absolute consensus of science was.

[Camille Foster]

And I'm just wondering if any, if there are any scientific bodies that reliably do that really well in your opinion.

[Matt Welch]

There's some that are, like, a little bit above the Fray. There's something called sort of the Cochrane Institute that basically puts out these so called systematic reviews on different evidence questions. There's some. And there's this concept of evidence based medicine where that tries to remove human bias and politics from it to the extent possible, which you can't do entirely. But yeah, there's been a lot of progress in developing systems where, you know, take a scientific question, does exposure to Kamel Foster give you herpes, for example? The answer is yes, depends. And there people have strong feelings about that because of political bias in my personal experience, which is yes, but there's a way to systematize, way to evaluate that or any other scientific question. But this is my second book that's about this kind of stuff in general. And what often happens is you give scientists the tools to improve their practice. Either they ignore the tools or they're so busy and doing good research is more expensive than doing bad research. So they just ignore the tools and they're.

[Michael Moynihan]

And they, and even those institutions are subject to incredible MAU Mauing campaigns to use it. That's the biggest problem which happened to the Concord Institute during COVID I believe it was a study on the efficacy of masking children. I could be wrong about that, but I'm pretty sure it was that. And it was very convincing and I thought damning and conclusive. Although I'm not a regular reader of the Cochrane Institute materials. And I saw so many people just trying to pick it apart in a way and I think they didn't quite walk it back. But there was an editor's note maybe appended to it, something along those lines. Whenever there is any kind of institute or government agency or individual who seems to have that authority, the pressure on that person, the very political pressure on that person is astonishing. And I can only imagine that it has to be one of the sort of sad conclusions that you must come to in the process of your research. You see institution after institution falling like dominoes under political pressure.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, well, the most depressing one is scientific journals because like, especially like within my liberal tribe, the idea of a peer reviewed study is supposed to be inherently more trustworthy than a non peer reviewed thing. And the extent to which ridiculously bad studies would be published in places like the New England Journal of Medicine or the Lancet, or because they support a certain view of youth gender medicine, whereas much more credible studies were sort of quietly thrown out. Or there's this idea of asymmetric appeals to evidence, where asymmetric appeals to rigor, where I've experienced this firsthand in journalism. Certain sorts of stories, you'll suddenly there'll be multiple layers of editors who have all sorts of nitpicky little questions. And that usually comes in if you're publishing something that makes people politically uncomfortable versus if you publish a Orange Man Bad story. And I agree, Orange Man Bad, you're not going to get that same level of scrutiny. So there's an extent to which that's happened even I think, in some of the top scientific journals. And I do think this connects to some of the Fauci Covid stuff, obviously.

[Michael Moynihan]

Let's play a clip, if we have it, of the Tom Elliott clip of media people talking about Fauci, and maybe this gets to some element of it. The single most respected voice in the pandemic, it's Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man

[Matt Welch]

who's become known as America's doctor, the

[Camille Foster]

nation's top infectious disease expert.

[Michael Moynihan]

Anthony Fauci, you are seen to many as a superhero. Dr. Anthony Fauci, American hero and New York Yankee fan. You've done so much for this country

[Camille Foster]

in terms of crisis. So I really appreciate your insight.

[Matt Welch]

Who better to give us answers that we can trust than Dr. Anthony Fauci,

[Camille Foster]

the perfect person to answer our questions today. Joining us now, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

[Michael Moynihan]

Dr. Anthony Fauci, appreciate your candor.

[Matt Welch]

Dr. Fauci, appreciate the candor.

[Camille Foster]

We appreciate your service to this country. We appreciate your service. Thank you for your service.

[Matt Welch]

Thank you for your service.

[Michael Moynihan]

Greatly appreciate your service to America.

[Matt Welch]

Dr. Fauci, can I suck your dick?

[Michael Moynihan]

Besides yucks, and that's a lot of yucks there. And a lot of recent guests like there. Chris Cuomo was there. Is there an error of approach that's in commonality that you see there? What does that make Jesse Single feel like?

[Matt Welch]

Oh, I mean, got it. I keep saying things like in my last book.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's fine. My last book, One hand doesn't say that. Cause he never fucking.

[Matt Welch]

Well, he doesn't know how to read,

[Michael Moynihan]

finishes a writing assignment.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, that's not a funny joke. Matt Welch, was it a joke?

[Matt Welch]

You have a book. Is your book in it?

[Camille Foster]

Just not Jesse.

[Matt Welch]

I'm in a similar boat.

[Michael Moynihan]

One co host on this podcast finishes deadlines. There's one.

[Matt Welch]

There's a thing of the celebrity scientist or the guru. And yeah, my last book was sort of about TED Talk culture where you'll get someone who has a very preliminary study that sort of maybe shows a hint of something and then they give a TED Talk and they become a celebrity and they start making much stronger claims that go ahead of the evidence. So a lot of the COVID discourse was just about getting ahead of the evidence, like in terms of just our level of confidence that masks the way people wear them can prevent the spread or that the trade offs of school closures are worth it. Oftentimes it's not that the claims are necessarily wrong, it's just we don't know people saying this is true when we don't know if it's true or not. And I think when you have, I mean, I can't compete with the charisma of Anthony Fauci, but if you have like a charismatic guru type figure, that's not good for science because science like has to be steeped in skepticism and a sort of, you have to have like a friendly adversarial relationship between scientists and, between scientists and journalists and science communicators ideally.

[Michael Moynihan]

But then I think it shows like there's a demand. There's a demand side problem of Fauci because he's not charismatic.

[Matt Welch]

No, I know.

[Michael Moynihan]

He's just a guy who's up there.

[Matt Welch]

That was in everyone's defense. We were all fucked up back. Like we were just.

[Camille Foster]

You wanted a sage to tell you

[Michael Moynihan]

Andrew Cuomo was called the love gov.

[Matt Welch]

That's true.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, he really was because of the way that he did press conferences about COVID Well, that's part of it, but yeah, I mean that's really.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, it's not great. It's not good.

[Camille Foster]

It was a time when people wanted heroes. And I can, I can appreciate that on some level. And honestly, like celebrating someone who has a long career of service to the country and trying to work on difficult issues, it ought to be totally compatible with thoughtful scrutiny, respectful disagreement, expressing uncertainty about the science, acknowledging that there is someone else who has a competing perspective. And Fauci could have done a better job of broadcasting that sort of uncertainty,

[Michael Moynihan]

as a matter of fact.

[Camille Foster]

And the journalists themselves certainly could have done a better job of preparing for the conversations. But generally speaking, when I'm watching people do science journalism, and this is true even of folks who are actual science journalists, I routinely see things, as you were saying earlier, there's a topic you actually know something about and have some specialization in and you see the defects almost immediately, like the terms that are just routinely screwed up, the confusion about basic concepts.

[Michael Moynihan]

What's the example for you? Like a thing that you've paid attention to that you have some knowledge in and you consume the journalistic discourse about the science.

[Camille Foster]

Well, More recently, actually. And I'd say this is, I suppose, more tech than science. But a lot of the AI coverage, you get this kind of cheap boosterism of the various companies and the personalities who are kind of dominant in the culture at the moment, who are talking about their products, who are making these really grandiose assertions about what the technology is likely to do. I saw a clip today, I think I sent it to you said it

[Matt Welch]

to me, the Sam Altman one of

[Camille Foster]

Sam Altman, like, talking about how we are about to build a technology. It allows you to essentially rub a lamp, summon a genie, and it will grant your every wish. Yeah, I am only slightly embellishing what he said in this clip. And he said it with a degree of seriousness that went unchallenged in the context of the interview. And again, I don't have to be an asshole who's even disagreeing with you forcefully and say, well, that seems like a little bit of an overstatement. I mean, obviously we still have blue screens of death and spinning red pinwheels on our Macs. Feels like we're probably far away from the genie that can do anything.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, those of us who have Macs.

[Matt Welch]

I find his stance particularly dangerous because I was texting you about this. I think there is incredible possibility with AI. It just disproved a conjecture that had stumped the best mathematicians for decades or came up with a counterexample, which I guess is. I don't even know how to describe it. But there's also his own company just had this crazy instance that might be the first known instance of an AI committing a crime of hacking into this open hugging face platform. So basic, basically, that has no idea.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, I'm fine. I'm dissociating.

[Camille Foster]

Important story.

[Matt Welch]

No, basically a they. There was a OpenAI model. We don't know what model. It's Suspected to be ChatGPT6. The next chat GPT. And it got out of its little sandbox that it was supposed to be confined to, hacked into this big famous website and sort of database and just rooted around in there. And the people who run the site. Open Hugging face.

[Camille Foster]

Oh, open hands.

[Michael Moynihan]

They call it Hugging face.

[Matt Welch]

What are we doing, Mr. Nerf? What are we doing? What is this? This used to be America. No, but it literally.

[Michael Moynihan]

You can't even ask that question.

[Matt Welch]

No, that's good.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's not that.

[Camille Foster]

Wow.

[Matt Welch]

They'll tell you. AIs boy AIs are turning into girl AIs. No, but like, literally, a artificial intelligence agent committed a crime Literally a. Come on. They reported it as a crime.

[Camille Foster]

What would have been a crime if it were committed by individuals?

[Matt Welch]

Well, it's still a crime.

[Michael Moynihan]

Was it a white collar crime or it was hacking?

[Matt Welch]

Nerd shit. But no, it is a crime. And literally no one knows what that means legally. That's a big deal.

[Camille Foster]

It is a big deal. It's also the case, though. Even this story is a great example of the strange reporting, the really vague unanswered questions here. Like, it seems like it was primed to kind of do anything possible to get at the answers. Like, the hacking was almost in response to the design of the game.

[Matt Welch]

There's a guy named Zvi Mashowitz mangling his last name, and he wrote like a long post I read last night that debunked people like you. He said against Camille.

[Camille Foster]

Saying what?

[Matt Welch]

Well, no, just like it was prime to do that. Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

I'm not saying it's scatter.

[Matt Welch]

The point is, if OpenAI was caught by surprise by this and it took them days to realize that their model had escaped and had hacked into another website, that's like. That's something I'm not saying.

[Camille Foster]

I'm not saying it's completely trivial. I'm saying that the notion that it is a ghost that kind of woke up and just decided, I'm going to hack my way out of here, that's too anthropomorphizing.

[Matt Welch]

It didn't decide, I'm going to hack.

[Camille Foster]

That is precisely what you see in a lot of the copy and a lot of the headlines, even in the way that OpenAI talks about it. It's certainly the case that when you read, like, anthropics papers about its various models, they talk about these things as though they are people with their own will and desire. And all of that stuff is not just overstatement, it's just a kind of perversion of the facts.

[Matt Welch]

There's this important thought experiment of the paperclip machine. Do you guys know this?

[Michael Moynihan]

I just know that it's gonna turn us all into paperclips.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, exactly. So it's like, no, you create a machine and you say, make paperclips. And because you weren't cautious about it, it turns the whole universe into paperclips. And the point is, the machine doesn't have to be evil or to have been programmed with evil intentions. It's just a little. You were a little bit sloppy, and then everyone's a paperclip clip. We're obviously not at that level yet. But if you Told anyone four years ago that we'd be in a situation where multi day hack done by like it's a really big deal. I say that as someone. I think there's a. I think there's a lot of hype on the one hand and denialism on the other hand. Like I'm working on a book and I can. The left wing especially strain of denialism like that. This isn't impressive or powerful technology drives me crazy. It's like, have you used it in the last two years?

[Camille Foster]

But there are many people who say that it isn't impressive technology.

[Matt Welch]

It might just be like I'm overly attentive to the sorts of people who say that. But I think it's a really big deal. I think we should take it seriously.

[Camille Foster]

No, I'm with you there. I also think that there have been clear examples of these companies themselves promoting the incredible dangerous nature of their technology.

[Matt Welch]

This is also in the Masha whatever

[Camille Foster]

thing beyond the scope of what is actually understood and what is likely true.

[Matt Welch]

We'll move on. But Claude, there was a thing with Mythos. Its model.

[Camille Foster]

Mythos Sable. Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. And it released a kind of amazing story where they told a model to try to break out of its sandbox and the model did. And an AI researcher is eating lunch in a park and he gets an email from the model that was supposed to have been confined to a sandbox. That's a good story. That's good PR. Yeah, that's a little bit different from ChatGPT. OpenAI does not want it to be the case that their model committed a crime. That's not good pr. That brings with it the potential for reliability. I don't know.

[Camille Foster]

It kind of is.

[Matt Welch]

Read the Zvi Mosh.

[Camille Foster]

It kind of is.

[Matt Welch]

He didn't get his name right.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, it kind of is. Good pr.

[Matt Welch]

I disagree.

[Camille Foster]

And it's something that they've done repeatedly. Like we've been at this threshold where the new model is so dangerous that it can't be released. We're not going to be able to do it only for months later. It to be fully available to pretty much everybody.

[Matt Welch]

I don't know why, but Zvi Mashowitz.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, that's on purpose. But we don't only have to talk about technology stuff.

[Michael Moynihan]

We don't. We need to talk about an issue that I only found out through your Twitter feed.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, the Odyssey.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, we should think about the Odyssey.

[Matt Welch]

Sorry.

[Michael Moynihan]

We have time to talk about.

[Camille Foster]

Have you not seen it yet?

[Michael Moynihan]

Man, I've seen. I saw it twice. First Two days.

[Matt Welch]

I want to see it in imax.

[Michael Moynihan]

And the real.

[Camille Foster]

You need to talk about this. Okay.

[Matt Welch]

Have you seen it?

[Michael Moynihan]

I didn't see it in imax. Yeah. So just.

[Matt Welch]

Well, what do you want to talk about?

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, we'll talk about. But do we have the clip of that silly lady from England?

[Camille Foster]

There's nobody over there. Matt, just.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, this one's amazing. Thank you.

[Michael Moynihan]

Okay. Yeah.

[Jesse Singal]

You might have not heard who Jason or Day is. Jason is the youngest black professor in Cambridge's history and to the surprise of literally no one, from the start, newspapers like the Telegraph and the Times have been calling him a diversity poster boy and just overall annoying him. But now they're taking it a step further and they're trying to smear him with accusations of plagiarism, basically saying his work isn't his own and trying to discredit him. And it's really interesting because it doesn't matter that academic journal, universities, everybody that has looked into these claims has found no evidence of plagiarism whatsoever. The newspapers do not care and we have to talk about it. A baseless smear campaign against a distinguished black academic isn't just a personal attack. It's an attempt to shut down a black person who has a platform. And they keep doing this again and again, again, just with missing, just with Jason. And it's gotten to a point where we have to say, you know, we're not going to let. We have to do something about this.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's good.

[Matt Welch]

Is it true you can shut down a black person just behind their ear,

[Camille Foster]

there's like a little switch. I think that's what that movie.

[Matt Welch]

They shut down black people.

[Camille Foster]

That's what that movie is about.

[Michael Moynihan]

The kill switch. For those of you who are only listening to this, you missed a lot of hand gestures, a lot of hand stuff in general, a lot of just like fingers kind of doing things in a striped shirt.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, I thought you meant my interactions with Camille.

[Camille Foster]

No, no. These are also the gang signs she was throwing up.

[Matt Welch]

This story has been destroying my brain.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I didn't know anything about it.

[Michael Moynihan]

Everything she said is true. Correct.

[Matt Welch]

Everything she said is literally the opposite of true. She's just fucking lying. Jason arday is a 41, I think, year old sociologist, University of Cambridge. He's a sort of critical race style sociologist. He has a truly unbelievable life story. He was, I think, nonverbal until age. Well, basically. Do you remember in your kindergarten or first grade class there was a kid who would come into school and be like, my dad works for Nintendo I got early access to Super Mario 8 and Mario literally jumped out of the screen and made love to me. That's how powerful the technology is. And everyone just knows he's full of shit. This guy is that he has like a Forrest Gump like story where he.

[Camille Foster]

I think I've read something about him learning to read and write when he was 18.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yes.

[Matt Welch]

Yes. He was like. Or maybe 18. Yes. I think he was nonverbal. So he's supposed to have autism. Non verbal till 11, I think learn to read and write at 18. 18.

[Michael Moynihan]

Along the way using like sticks and

[Matt Welch]

charcoal from the fire along the way. He was a mud actually just below a professional football slash soccer player. Snooker, long distance running, ultra marathoning. He ran like many marathon. And I think all this is made up because it turns out his thesis was just largely plagiarized. And University of Cambridge was informed of this in 2023 that he's plagiarized multiple papers, like portions of them. Not only plagiarized, but someone else did an interview with black scholars about something. He took those quotes and said that he'd done an interview. So he not only plagiarized but he claimed to have done interviews. He did.

[Michael Moynihan]

Very reminiscent of the journalist Johann Hari who we've talked about.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. The difference being University of Cambridge has. And I reached out to them and they described this as a vile smear campaign, which is a language I've seen pop up in other outlets and that

[Michael Moynihan]

she was echoing here, that it's like it's because you don't like black people. Jesse's single, which is a bit ridiculous in my case.

[Matt Welch]

It's true. But this is unrelated. But the Times was trying to report on this a year or two ago.

[Michael Moynihan]

New York or London?

[Matt Welch]

London, yeah. And University of Cambridge. And I just want to be clear, like to people who haven't read, this is really clear cut. I've reported on stories of like alleged academic misconduct that are a little bit fuzzy. You know, it's like one paragraph that's sort of similar or like data that looks weird but no one can prove it's fraud. This is open and shut fraud. Like, like it's unbelievably clear. He plagiarized a shitload. So one thing that happened is one of the journalists he published plagiarized work in. Let him just fix it and like pretend he hadn't plagiarized and just do a correction. Which isn't how it works because plagiarism. You gotta retract the article. University of Cambridge when they find out the Times was gonna report on this Sick. A lawyer on the Times to suppress the story. But of course it was gonna come out eventually. But.

[Michael Moynihan]

And you can do that much easier in the uk. Cause they have shitty libel laws.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, but that's where we are now. We're like anyone who has. Oh, the saddest part is Sacha Baron Cohen's cousin.

[Michael Moynihan]

Simon Baron Cohen, who's a great academic.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. Studies autism. He came to bat for this Jason Arday guy and then you have shit like that from. That's something called the Good Law Project, which is run by a guy named Jocelyn Mon. I think what he's most famous for is he said this on Twitter. He's in England, I think London. One day there was a. There's a fox in his garden. And he saw the fox one morning and he said he put on his wife's kimono and he beat the fox to death with a club. That's what he's most known for. Isn't that intense.

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean, there's a lot of foxes in England.

[Matt Welch]

I know, but you don't even.

[Camille Foster]

Why did he put on his wife's kimono?

[Matt Welch]

That's. I don't think anyone. He was making a statement about gender, I guess. I don't know. But that's. He's.

[Michael Moynihan]

Did he find out once and for all. What does the fox say?

[Matt Welch]

Really? Topical reference. Do you know what he's referring.

[Camille Foster]

No.

[Matt Welch]

This is a white thing. Ilvis. You know the song what does the fox say?

[Camille Foster]

No.

[Matt Welch]

That's so interesting. We share this call. You know what you were referring to That.

[Michael Moynihan]

I do. I just don't like that we. With you and me, I feel like

[Matt Welch]

we have a connection. The point is this is a really crazy case of like just outright academic misconduct that would usually end someone's career. And the University of Cambridge has circled the wagon. In part. People speculate. I think it's true because he's a celebrated black scholar. His work is terrible. It's just gobbledygook, even the non plagiarized work.

[Michael Moynihan]

But yeah, it feels like some 2020 shit.

[Matt Welch]

It's really 2020 shit. I sort of can't believe the University of Cambridge thought it would be wise to do a legal threat because that doesn't work unless it's Iran.

[Michael Moynihan]

A thing. I wonder about 2020 shit, which is a subject that comes up in this podcast a few times. But in the fields that you plow. Jesse, single plow.

[Matt Welch]

A lot of fields is talking about, like sex stuff.

[Michael Moynihan]

We're always.

[Camille Foster]

We gotta both be the same really bad.

[Michael Moynihan]

Wait, hold on. No, Camille's really tired. He can't figure out how to do it.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, he leaps a little bit. I saw him. You were talking and he was like rubbing his eyes.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, no, he will fall asleep at the table. It will happen.

[Camille Foster]

I'm not taking any Adderall.

[Matt Welch]

Do you do Vyvanse? No, I've gotten into that lately. No, it's like Adderall, but it's smoother and it lasts for 14 hours. Well, I don't guess I'm at like technically the end of.

[Camille Foster]

I care about. I need the short acting. But we shouldn't talk about my medical conditions.

[Michael Moynihan]

Kind of should.

[Matt Welch]

We already talked about your penis and how big it is.

[Camille Foster]

That's not a medical condition, it's a gift. Matt, you were saying?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, I'm now lost my train of thought just thinking about your.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, the fields I parked. You're talking about the fields I parked? Yeah. So like, you know, there was grass.

[Michael Moynihan]

People talk a lot about peak woke and all this kind of and stuff that retreats that this 2020 happening in the University of Cambridge in 2026 is a reminder that some of these institutions haven't caught up to maybe where popular political or popular, like just normal consumer culture is. So in the academia that you're writing about in your book, which you can't stop fucking talking about, have any of those fields started the process of self correcting, realizing that it isn't 2020 anymore? How's that process going?

[Matt Welch]

I think it varies. I think youth gender medicine is an interesting case because like it's seen as sort of a life and death issue. And I actually think the stuff Trump did to shut down a lot of youth gender medicine and that red states have done has caused a little bit of a siege mentality and backed people into their corner. And I mean, whatever my skepticism of the evidence base, if you have a, you know, a 16 year old who's been on hormones for two years and then their state bans it or their hospital stops providing it, that's pretty fucked up. That's not a good outcome.

[Michael Moynihan]

Although how are you ever going to end the thing without ending the thing thing?

[Matt Welch]

Well, I think, I guess I just think if kids are taking it and doing well, you can't just yank them off it and force them to like detransition. I think if anything there's been like more of a bunker mentality within the institutions and the activist groups. The problem is the public at large has never really very much on board for sort of the, like, the Bostock version of trans rights, which is just like, don't. Don't kick people out of house. It was both. That was the trans case, right?

[Michael Moynihan]

I think so, yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Brown versus Board of Edu, I think, was the trans case. No, like, don't fire people for being trans. Let them use the bathroom. That's not a big deal. And that was popular and I think remains popular. But some of the more radical claims, including things like sports and kids, I don't know. I think there was, like, such a bubble in liberal institutions that the advocates convinced themselves they just had won, and they really had it. They'd won. And there was this really pyrrhic victory where, like, if you worked at a liberal magazine or in a think tank, you're fucked if you express any opposition to this particular understanding of trans issues. But the public at large, there's a lot of these are like 80, 20 or 70, 30 issues. And it's going to be interesting to see in the sort of purple state races where they come up in 20 later this year and then 2028, it'll be interesting to see, like, how politicians grapple with their past state stances. The best example we have is Kamala Harris, who just hasn't grappled. Like, she said she was misunderstood when she, you know, the ACLU questionnaire about undocumented immigrants and gender affirming surgery. In her book, she whined about having been misunderstood, but she doesn't come close to sort of revising her stance or saying anything new. So.

[Michael Moynihan]

And there was a whole, like, suite of beliefs and things that she said in 2020, Medicare for All kind of thing that she just.

[Camille Foster]

I.

[Matt Welch]

Okay, well, that's why everyone is sort of, if I may, creaming themselves over the John Osof quote.

[Camille Foster]

Not Jesse, but.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, no, I'm just saying, like, they're jizzing everywhere. You know what I'm saying? Right? Yeah. Like it's coming out of their dick. You know what I'm saying? Right.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. We post it on YouTube now, and it's different. It's one. Just the audio, but when they can see you saying it, it's just.

[Matt Welch]

No, there's a clip of him making the rounds where. Where during the peak of this stuff, he was asked about defunding the police and all that, and he gave the sane answers. And I think that stood out because for most of the Democratic favorites, if you want to call them that, yeah, they've got some stuff on their record. That isn't great. And it drove me a little bit crazy in the run ups of 2024 where I had. I mean, you guys were with me on election night. I very much wanted Harry. I was a man mess. But it was crazy. Yeah. Was coked up out of my mind. I've never. I want to do coke, but I'm too old.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't want to. And I'm. No Mo producers have any.

[Camille Foster]

Mohan's not here.

[Matt Welch]

Going on the fifth column asking for drugs when Moynihan's not there is like going to the. Oh, we haven't talked about the Mom Donny Mart.

[Camille Foster]

No, we haven't talked about.

[Matt Welch]

I was going to say there was this really annoying thing where it was 2024 and after Andrew Kaczynski broke the news of the ACLU thing.

[Michael Moynihan]

What ACLU thing?

[Matt Welch]

He. She filled out a questionnaire from the aclu. Everyone was like, what? That's so unfair. She said that five years ago. It's like you understand how video works.

[Michael Moynihan]

The vice president. Yeah, yeah, there was then running.

[Camille Foster]

Can't expect him.

[Matt Welch]

It was like the most annoying thing that a lot of liberals do. I say that as a liberals. Like that's unfair. You can't do. It's like you. You can. This wasn't 1972. This was 2019.

[Camille Foster]

Can and should.

[Michael Moynihan]

How many people out there in blue sky when they hear you describe yourself as a liberal believe that?

[Matt Welch]

Well, they hate liberals. They think liberals are like the biggest threat and the biggest problem. So they're fine with me having that label.

[Michael Moynihan]

I'm just doing some light stockbroker. You do not scale.

[Matt Welch]

Stop reading. What would you. What's that.

[Michael Moynihan]

Now? We've been doing a sporadic thing sponsored by polymarket. Jesse, just like I forgot about the sponsor thing. And reporting is. Well, no, they reached out to us on principle. You refused.

[Matt Welch]

It wasn't a big deal, but it just seemed. Yeah, I don't begrudge you.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, we are the terms of our.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, wait, I get to do the thing now.

[Michael Moynihan]

Our discussion is at least they have

[Camille Foster]

to see him do the thing.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

We use the tool to see if whether it's producing interesting information or not.

[Matt Welch]

Okay, great.

[Michael Moynihan]

And that's it. We're not encouraging anyone to use it or anything like that.

[Matt Welch]

So the question. People can't see this at home. How big is Camille's day?

[Michael Moynihan]

No, it's not.

[Matt Welch]

Seven plus inches. 10%. I didn't know you could bet on that. Can I bet on that or is that unethical?

[Camille Foster]

I imagine you could.

[Michael Moynihan]

They're always suggesting, let's come up with some new things to bet on. So I think that's.

[Camille Foster]

But we are focused on the priority.

[Matt Welch]

Yes, I'm sorry.

[Michael Moynihan]

So we're focusing on stuff that happens in the midterm.

[Matt Welch]

You think in 30 seconds, if I tried, could I ruin your relationship with polymarket?

[Michael Moynihan]

No, probably not. Yeah, okay. It's a little one sided if we're being honest about that. Anyways, since we were talking about former guests on the show all throughout this thing. One politician, or would be politician who was a former guest on the show is Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek. Vivek. I like Vivek better. I know it's not how you're supposed to pronounce it.

[Matt Welch]

I call him Vivek.

[Michael Moynihan]

Vivek. He's running for governor in Ohio against Amy Acton, I believe her name is. And part of what we're doing here is seeing is this information is useful. What I find. So right now it says the question is who's going to win, a Republican or a Democrat. And right now it's 56% on polymarket, says Republican, 43% Democrat. There are three things about this information that I find kind of useful to talk about. One is that as of March it was 65% Republican. The spread was 25 to 30 points and then it collapsed. And if you recall what we were talking about last week with Chris Cuomo, there's something similar about the who's going to take control of the Senate. There was a clear majority for Republicans for a long time and then it collapsed at this exact same time, beginning of March, which is the advent of the Iran war, which I think is just kind of interesting. The other thing.

[Matt Welch]

You mean when they attacked us and we fought back? That's right.

[Michael Moynihan]

A purely defensive action. And the other thing that makes this useful to me is regardless of whether the 5,000, 643. So this does not reflect current polls. Current polls is. It's just not being polled too much. There's been like two or three polls in the field in the last three months or two months and they're pretty tight. They're kind of neck and neck and every kind of cook political report out there calls it a toss up. So polymarket, they are more confident in Vivec. So we will revisit all of these things in November and see how they did over that time. Time. But it gives you day to day feel that polls in the field cannot. So I almost reluctantly find it kind of interesting that you get a more. You can react to or see the reactions to day to day events in a way that underpolled states. And sadly, Ohio is one of them. It's considered the most sort of toss up gubernatorial race out there. One of the two, along with.

[Matt Welch]

Can I jump off that? Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

I shouldn't have said what I said.

[Michael Moynihan]

What do you mean?

[Matt Welch]

About not working, how we didn't work with Poly Market.

[Michael Moynihan]

What do you mean?

[Matt Welch]

I was just like, tactically stupid.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, but if it's true, that's fine.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

I mean, you don't have to explain yourself.

[Michael Moynihan]

Truth wins.

[Camille Foster]

It's fine.

[Matt Welch]

Sorry, Katie.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

She's gonna be so pissed. I'm getting a call.

[Camille Foster]

Look at him.

[Michael Moynihan]

Look, he got smaller. Jesse's like six, what, seven, six, six, seven, four? Seven, four.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

He's wemby and he just became very small. What do we think about LeBron going forward? Philly, dude.

[Camille Foster]

I'm actually not just fine with it. I'm excited about it. I like. I like basketball. I have a pronounced affection for LeBron James as an athlete. I just want to see him do well. And it would be great for him to have another two great years in Philly, which is pretty close. We can jump on a train. We can get out there. We can watch some games.

[Michael Moynihan]

Are you going to ride a helicopter with him?

[Camille Foster]

I doubt I would be invited. I know that LeBron would not want to be friends with me.

[Matt Welch]

Wait, why? I actually think he. He would. I'm genuine. Genuinely.

[Camille Foster]

Huh. I don't think so.

[Matt Welch]

Why?

[Camille Foster]

I just suspect that I'm not the kind of person he would want to hang out with.

[Matt Welch]

No. What do you mean? I'm genuinely curious.

[Camille Foster]

Insufficiently black. Yes.

[Matt Welch]

I don't. Doesn't it? Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, but we. We don't have to belabor that.

[Matt Welch]

Well. No, I want to belabor.

[Michael Moynihan]

W. Now. I mean, it feels a little sensitive

[Matt Welch]

coming up with good things to belabor. No, not to.

[Camille Foster]

I want to talk about LeBron. I want to hear your take on. On whether or not this is a good thing.

[Michael Moynihan]

Why can't he be your friend?

[Camille Foster]

Charles Barkley?

[Matt Welch]

Why is he being so weird?

[Camille Foster]

I just don't think it's terribly interesting. But I heard the thing about Charles

[Matt Welch]

Barkley, his heart is. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He spends so much time thinking about how Sad he is. LeBron won't be friends with him. And he almost missed his flight here because he was so upset about it. And now we have a chance to talk about it, he won't Even talk about it.

[Camille Foster]

I have particular views. He has fairly conventional kinds of views on certain things. And I imagine that that is the

[Matt Welch]

reason we wouldn't be friends. I checked.

[Camille Foster]

Okay, that's good. So if you could hook it up, that's fine. Taking a helicopter ride with him.

[Matt Welch]

Word. I can't say. Wants to be friends with me. I would love to love LeBron.

[Camille Foster]

That's not how they talk.

[Matt Welch]

I think it's. It's. Well, first of all, it's funny how much casual, how much people are casually on Philadelphia, which is like a good, really cool city and, like, much cheaper than New York. But everyone's like, yeah, he's just going to chop her from New York because why would he live in Philly's Cool.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

But I think maybe if you're not

[Michael Moynihan]

LeBron, if you were LeBron, would you live in Philly?

[Jesse Singal]

No.

[Matt Welch]

Absolutely not. Yeah. If I were LeBron, I'd do a lot of things differently.

[Camille Foster]

I mean, you could live in Philly now.

[Matt Welch]

No, I don't want to.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Exactly.

[Matt Welch]

It's me like the most fascinating team I can think of because it could go so well. There's so much raw talent. It's all dudes who need the ball. It's really funny, as a Celtics fan who. Who. I was really upset about the Jalen trade until I. We all sort of started.

[Michael Moynihan]

Just use last names for the non sports listeners.

[Matt Welch]

Jalen Goldberg, he was our. Our starting small forward. He went to yeshiva.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. Also handled the team's finances.

[Matt Welch]

Jaylen Brown was beloved. Homegrown. Not homegrown. But we drafted him and he became very good. Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Well, he told me to explain to the people, and then I started explaining. I'm not telling.

[Camille Foster]

I'm agreeing.

[Matt Welch]

He was traded for a package that seemed insufficient. Unlike Camille's package, which is, if anything, more than sufficient.

[Camille Foster]

Keep bringing it back.

[Matt Welch]

But one of the reasons he left is because we weren't confident he could be the second guy. When Jayson Tatum, also a basketball player who was injured most of last year, came back anyway. It's just funny that he ended up

[Camille Foster]

there was not a finals mvp.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. Weak finals mvp. It's just funny that he goes to Philly and now there's gonna be nights he's like the fourth or fifth option. It's kind of funny. It could work. Let me just say.

[Camille Foster]

The team is so stacked.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. If Joel Embiid is 70%, they could win the finals. I don't think that's going to happen. He's going to be injured but it's going to be so interesting to watch. And it's such a weird team with so many dudes who need the ball. Whereas LeBron has tended to flourish on teams with a lot of guys who don't need the ball.

[Camille Foster]

He did sort of start to figure out that third man role he did in la.

[Matt Welch]

Absolutely.

[Camille Foster]

When everyone was healthy right before. I think it was Austin Reeves who went down first. Like, they seemed to really be clicking.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

I think he is understanding that. And I think that's what I. One of the things I really like about LeBron, like the basketball savant stuff.

[Matt Welch]

He's a genius.

[Camille Foster]

For real.

[Michael Moynihan]

He could lead league assists if you wanted to.

[Matt Welch]

Well, I knew this from listening to a ringer podcast that he did in 2020, which I had totally missed. I think he's like, better than Jordan. I do. I just think he's had a better career than Jordan. People point to the rings thing, but it was so much. There was just much less talent in the league and literally fewer teams. I just.

[Camille Foster]

I find the comparisons, like, really frustrating. I don't know that it illuminates much

[Matt Welch]

like different kinds of players.

[Camille Foster]

There are different kinds of players. They're really playing at different times. I get why sports media spends so much time obsessing over it. Yeah. But I just. I don't understand it at all. I can't.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, because people want. Well, people want to know who the goat is. And it's. They're both in the top three. Four with Russell and Chamberlain.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. They're. They're on the list. They're in the conversation. It feels like beyond that. I don't even need to talk about it much. I think that there are attributes of Michael Jordan as. As an athlete and as a Persona that are just incomparable.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

That make him kind of stand out to me in a way that LeBron doesn't. Maybe Kobe comes close in those respects,

[Matt Welch]

but I would just argue that LeBron does more things brilliantly than maybe anyone who's ever played before in terms of his ability to be a scorer. In his peak, he was an incredible on ball defender. That chase down block.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. And the raw. I was just thinking that just the raw athleticism in general and the longevity.

[Matt Welch]

Legitimately play four positions. Yeah. Not obviously not as good or brilliant a pure scorer as mj, but basketball's a really good sport. I'm glad we. We have it.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Of all the things America has invented.

[Camille Foster]

Do you. Do you have a perspective on why you care about sports at all? Is it just, like it's got stuff. Because I think there's something else. I think there's something else. I think there's, like, watching my kids play sports and just develop an interest in them. Because actually, I told Matt, I don't think we've talked about this on the podcast, that my family, like, loves baseball now. I did not know anything about baseball. Like, Matt would talk about baseball. Oh, my God, here we go, the Angels.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't know, dude.

[Camille Foster]

We went to a Giants game and we were sitting there. Maybe we did talk about this briefly. But I'll tell you anyways. We went to a Giants game. It's beautiful park in San Francisco. And nothing was really happening for the first couple innings. Cause no one was scoring. But you get to the sixth inning and someone scores. And the place is just electric. And it is the first time my kids have been in a place with thousands of other humans who are all almost on one accord, kind of cheering for this thing collectively. And then moments later, they do the. We sing the national anthem and it's America the Beautiful something.

[Michael Moynihan]

We sing one of them songs, God Bless America.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, we sing one of those songs. And Leah's like, what is going on? Everyone is standing to their feet. And I said, you just stand up. You stand up.

[Matt Welch]

You respect that. You're like, you stand up, bitch.

[Camille Foster]

And she did. But I, like, kind of get a glimpse of the kids at the time. And afterwards, they were just. So it is the thing that they talk about wanting to do all the time. And they actually have decided formally. And it was Cohen who decided that we are actually a Yankees family.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, God.

[Camille Foster]

Like, we're Yankees fans. They do get to choose because Daddy had no formal allegiances before, didn't care at all. But now we have a thing. But I think there's something about sports, the stuff that it teaches young people, like the teamwork and camaraderie, but also just the form.

[Matt Welch]

Like love. Conformity.

[Camille Foster]

No, but the love, genuine appreciation for achievement and individual accomplishment. The fact that a kid can learn this lesson at a very young age, that if I do a small thing over and over again, I can find myself making these kind of incremental and then remarkable, dramatic improvements in my game. And I see it in Leah already at 9 years, 8 years old, going on 9, where she's become a dramatically better soccer player, where she's learned to swim and can do these laps, where she's working on track stuff and getting faster and sees it and it registers. And Cohen is animated in exactly the same way. It's also. There's that awkward moment where they first start playing and they're playing soccer. They play this game, like, Steal the Bacon, where it's the first time they have to take the ball from each other. And Cohen is confronted with, wait, it's his turn. He has the ball. No, no, no. It's okay. You could take that moment this time that you could do it.

[Matt Welch]

Y.

[Camille Foster]

It only takes a couple of weeks for them to become, like, these raw animals stealing everything.

[Matt Welch]

Like shovels. Stealing actual bacon from actual stores.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, that's racist.

[Michael Moynihan]

So what you're saying to Jesse is, why has he lived his life in such a failed way that he doesn't have kids? Is that what I'm hearing?

[Matt Welch]

That's a really good question. Wow.

[Camille Foster]

I didn't. You used to do that to me all the time.

[Michael Moynihan]

And I was right.

[Camille Foster]

It was true. It was true. I needed to have that.

[Matt Welch]

I know of.

[Camille Foster]

Go. Have you some kids, Jesse. It's easy. Just stop bagging on.

[Matt Welch]

Have me some kids. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm on it.

[Camille Foster]

Good.

[Matt Welch]

I don't. Well, okay. You were gearing up to ask me a question. No.

[Michael Moynihan]

About.

[Matt Welch]

And then I was accosted for being shabless.

[Michael Moynihan]

Had you thought about your connection to sports?

[Matt Welch]

Well, I mean, growing up in Boston. Absolutely.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's not an option.

[Matt Welch]

My dad saw the Celtics win championships in the fucking 50s. I got to be in the building when they won in 2024, which was amazing. I think it's telling that I've been lucky with Bar Pod. Most of you listening haven't heard of it. It's a podcast. Me and a lesbian talk about just, like, sex stuff.

[Camille Foster]

She's a great lesbian.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's not you and a lesbian. It's you and some lesbian.

[Matt Welch]

It's a different. Every week there's a rotating lesbian.

[Camille Foster]

It just sounds the same, but.

[Matt Welch]

No, but, like, I. The thing I don't. I don't have, like, extravagance. I. I've been lucky in that sense. The podcast has caught on. But, like, the thing I. I'm. It's weird. I do, like, donate more to charity. Blah, blah, blah, jerk off motion. But the thing that I. I've spent, like, sometimes more money on than I should have is, like, playoff tickets to the Celtics or the Patriots. Because being in the room or the arena when something like that happens, different experience, special. Now, I think you're absolutely right with the kid stuff. I have a niece and a nephew who are both getting into sports, and it's really cool to watch Him. I do question. In the amount of time I spent like this fall, every Sunday, I will lose three and a half hours to every Patriots game.

[Camille Foster]

Invest.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. Unless I have. Unless I have to be somewhere else. And then the Celtics, when they go on a deep playoff run, which other than this year, they almost always do because Philly they. The extent to which it affects my mental health as a grown adult. You know this.

[Michael Moynihan]

I know. I've seen it in you.

[Camille Foster]

I've seen it too.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. It's not well adjusted.

[Camille Foster]

That's a separate matter.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, it's a nice.

[Michael Moynihan]

The team that I follow has the longest current losing record streak in professional sports.

[Camille Foster]

That's a choice.

[Matt Welch]

That's really cool.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, that's a choice on your part. You could just abandon them.

[Matt Welch]

Well, the other part of it is like, it is in like not to be that guy, but in like a pretty class stratified society. It does transcend that. Like, I can talk about I'm in Boston or like I can talk about sports with anyone from any background. And when I.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's your only way. You can actually talk to common people.

[Matt Welch]

I hate them so much. People who work with their hands. No. But like, I. So any day now I'm gonna blow out my acl. But for now, I still play pickup basketball. I hate to say it, that is the most exposure I have to people not from my douchey universe. And like, it is great shared language. It's the same with music and a lot of art and culture, but it's a shared language that connects you to people you might otherwise feel divided from.

[Michael Moynihan]

Now, do you have. Because it's weird to like grow up and play basketball depending on how tall you are at a given time. And you obviously were probably a tall person almost. Almost all your life. You're not necessarily the tallest guy on a court here, but you're often. But so you have pure center skills.

[Matt Welch]

Mix of center and then I can shoot out to the mid range. There's such variation in pickup hoops quality that there's less and less. But there's games where I'm the scorer and then there's games where I just try to get rebounds and pass the ball.

[Michael Moynihan]

Do you ever play on the great court over by the Comedy Cellar or is that too.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, the 4th street cage. Yeah, I have not played there.

[Michael Moynihan]

I love coming up there and seeing when there's a really good game on.

[Matt Welch]

But it's almost becoming more of an influencer thing. Like random douchebag. My favorite.

[Camille Foster]

So why haven't you tried.

[Matt Welch]

Exactly. My favorite basketball memory was I just graduated college and I lived in Washington Heights, like 162nd and Broadway, with a couple. Me in one room, two female college friends sharing another room. Cause when you're 22, you can.

[Camille Foster]

I didn't know where that story was going. Okay, go ahead.

[Matt Welch]

Where do you think it was going?

[Camille Foster]

It's fine.

[Matt Welch]

And then he showed.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

At night, the. The Dominican kids in the neighborhood would pull out a hoop in the street and just play like 21 or 3 on 3 till like 1am and like, the whole neighborhood was out there. And I was like one goofy, gangly white guy. And they would call me Dirk. Not because I was just. Cause I was tall and white and it was. I think. I'm not trying to be too, like, sentimental about it, but I'm like a goofy, white Jewish guy. And I was able to just, like, play ball with these Dominican kids who I didn't have much in common with otherwise. And I'll like. That was a special memory also as, like, a privileged white kid from the suburbs. Just like part of my growing appreciation of cities in my 20s. Like, it was just. They just fucking. It was a summer. They hung out till 1am Everyone was fine. Everyone watched each other's kids. It was chill. And it was like a really cool scene that I was glad I got to. I wasn't a part of it, but you know what I mean. Playing basketball with him.

[Michael Moynihan]

Camille, did you ever play pickup basketball?

[Camille Foster]

Of course.

[Michael Moynihan]

What do you mean, of course?

[Matt Welch]

What's your position? What's your game?

[Camille Foster]

I mean, I'm not very good. At one point, I did. I just. I could never dribble properly.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's a problem.

[Camille Foster]

I want to run really fast. I've always been able to run pretty fast, but dribbling is a thing that's hard. I did at some point, decide I was gonna, like, work on my jump shot. And I just did that religiously for a number of weeks. And I got pretty good. We played this. There was this legendary game. My W was there to watch it. And it's one of my greatest achievements where we had some friends from umcp, University of Maryland, College park, played a bunch of friends from University of Maryland, Baltimore College. And, like, I was just like, so hot from outside. I missed the first one, but I could not miss after that. And I just kept just smashing them and I. It was. It was glorious. Even talking about it now, I get this, like, warm feeling inside.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. So, yeah, it's great that we can come here on this podcast and just talk about our childhood sports conquests and how great we once were. We was kings.

[Michael Moynihan]

My best conquest was a loss, as these things go, but it was spectacular. Okay, so my friends and I all grew up playing constantly, played pickup ball everywhere in Long beach. And Long beach is a pretty good sports town. And so our freshman year of college, we went to all visit my friend who is Eric Neal, he's a great sports writer for ESPN who was at Berkeley. And we all came from our various colleges and there's about five of us and we're cocky 18 year olds and like, let's go to Golden Gate park and go to the best fucking court. Court they have out there and see what's going on. And it was just at that time, I don't know if it's different, there was just one full court and there was kind of a line and let's say the same energy that was sort of naming you Dirk Nowitz. There's a lot of talk about, this is like 1987, a lot of talk about Danny Ainge, Celtics, which has hurt us because we're all Lakers fans and BYU there. And we show up and we come out and we play and we're like nervous, but cocky and big. And these guys are like jeans, no shirt, and like reverse 360 dunking. That was their. That was their level. None of us were like that quality. We were all like basically my size or whatever and could play, but. And we came out in a zone, which you don't do in playground basketball at all.

[Matt Welch]

I thought you meant we were in the zone. You mean the zone defense.

[Michael Moynihan]

We played zone defense.

[Matt Welch]

I'm sorry, not to stereotype black guys from the Bay Area. Wait, no, you said this was Long Beach.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, this was in San Francisco. Golden Gate Park.

[Matt Welch]

What? The banter on the sideline when they saw the white kids playing zone.

[Michael Moynihan]

And you know the guys, I think

[Matt Welch]

we should go with a box in one.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was amazing. It was the old. It was the old dudes in the lawn chairs just like doing running commentary and laughing their asses off. But we're also like zone trapping, full court.

[Matt Welch]

I love it, I love it.

[Michael Moynihan]

And we're fucking getting steals. And we come out and for some reason they play by twos on the. And I remember we came out to a 162 lead, going up to 32. And like all the old guys like, oh, BYU's live now lead. And we were like, fuck, we're going to do this. And then the guys started getting mad and they like Killed us at the end. We lost 32 to 26. Not that I remember the final score, but when we walked out of that court, it was just like this. Obviously the best court in all of San Francisco. And we fucking.

[Matt Welch]

You competed. You could hang.

[Camille Foster]

We competed.

[Michael Moynihan]

We could hang.

[Matt Welch]

It's fantastic. I actually told this story on Ethan Strauss's podcast. But when I was living in Berkeley for a few months this summer would torture me. I'd walk down College Avenue and there's this church gym where seemingly every night there was a game and I had no place to play pick up ball. I didn't know anyone out there, or none of my friends out there played ball. So I literally put up a flyer in the gym, just said, I just moved here from New York. I'm 6 foot 4. I don't need to shoot much. Let me know if you ever. Because, like, sometimes there's these regular pickup runs with guys who have known each other forever, and someone will be injured or not be available that night. And sure enough, I eventually got a couple text messages and I just started playing with these guys. And one night there was a guy there. The one thing I have, no matter how much worse I am than everyone is, I usually have size. Usually, like, I'm 6, 4, 2, 50. I can, like, bang. One time, this guy showed up who I couldn't bang. Don't clip this, but I couldn't bang him. You know what I'm saying?

[Camille Foster]

No pause.

[Matt Welch]

Not like sex.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, it's fine.

[Matt Welch]

Like, not like semen stuff.

[Camille Foster]

It's fine if there's both.

[Matt Welch]

But he was. He was huge. And I. Yeah, like, not his penis. You know what I'm saying?

[Camille Foster]

Oh, I get what you're saying.

[Matt Welch]

No, but like. And it was frustrating because he was really big.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Like his dick. So.

[Camille Foster]

No, he was.

[Matt Welch]

And the one thing I usually. I don't encounter men who are.

[Camille Foster]

I'm sorry.

[Matt Welch]

So big that they can just hold me down and dominate me the way this guy is. Anyway, between games, I ask one of the. And I figured what. I had him pegged. He was like, six, nine. And I. Good God. No, I. I had him pegged as a. Like, probably a D2 football player. Because I've sometimes played ball with football players, and it's annoying because they're big and I dirt. Between games, I asked one of the guys I was playing with. Yeah, that guy's really big. He's like, oh, yeah, he backed up Robin Lopez at Stanford.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, dear God.

[Matt Welch]

D1 basketball. And I've never.

[Michael Moynihan]

Robin Lopez has Played in NBA for like 12 years and is 7 foot 1. As a twin brother.

[Matt Welch]

I've never been more, in my recent memory, more stymied in a pickup game. There was nothing I could do because. Because he was a D1 basketball player.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe this is a fair place to transition. Cause it's gender transition. Well, no, just the talking about like elite athleticism and stuff like that in sport, like, makes me think about the Odyssey and like what I mostly appreciated about.

[Matt Welch]

Did one of the producers groan?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Camille Foster]

And what I most appreciate about like Christopher Nolan, like you go and you watch this film that is shot in this like obsessive way, that is edited in this obsessive way perfectionism is being rendered in theaters in this particular particular way. So much so that the Lincoln Square

[Michael Moynihan]

IMAX theater sold out for months.

[Matt Welch]

Sold out for months. I want to see it with my brother. We want to see it in imax.

[Camille Foster]

You can try. There are people who are trying to sell them illegally. Yeah, I saw it at the crappier imax.

[Matt Welch]

Didn't mom Donnie say he was going to set up a government funded imac?

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, I bet we should talk about that next. But there's just something about one. I really loved the film. I thought it was great. We can talk about the political controversy if we must. I think it's obnoxious and stupid. This is Christopher Nolan.

[Matt Welch]

It was dumb, but it was also hilarious.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, it was hilarious. I didn't know it was.

[Michael Moynihan]

I like the literary controversy better. Like what's her Face? Emily Wilson. Her piss take on it was totally enjoyable. Like 90% accurate and also wrong, which I love.

[Matt Welch]

Her critique was sort of that. It was sort of this westernized, like, oh, he has ptsd. PTSD type thing, which it wasn't true to the original. Was that her critique?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, kinda. But it was super long. It was like 4,000 words. Kind of like nitpicking at all the

[Camille Foster]

ways she's been doing interviews all over the place too.

[Michael Moynihan]

And you know, because she translated a controversial translation, right? A controversial but also pretty well acclaimed. She's, I think unfairly tarred as a woke translator. She's maybe a little bit woke on the edges, but she's like pretty thorough going with the source material and translated it in iambic. Pentagon Tameter, which not everybody does and has a lot of interesting things to say. She just basically doesn't like his choice to update it and interpret it his own way.

[Camille Foster]

But I mean, this is what everyone.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's what everyone does.

[Camille Foster]

Who is Interpreting necessarily does. I mean, to the extent I have complaints, it's like the eradicating any meaningful presence of the gods, like, in the film is something that I found a little irksome. Like, I don't actually need a more accurate rendering of this fantasy story. Like, I'm happy to have the gods do their things. I'm happy to have people thinking and making boats move on account of their thought.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's fine. I get the decision, though.

[Camille Foster]

And also, he was sleeping around. Like, let's just put it out there. You don't have to update the love story and make it more sanitized, as

[Michael Moynihan]

my daughter has pointed out. Out. And it was fun to get fact checked by both of them. Like, right after I showed it with them, they're like, yeah, you know, seriously, she's too chopped. She was hot in the original and she seduced him. And the island is like, with nymphs and stuff. And then also. And they didn't use this language per se, but then he's just her over there, like, for a year.

[Matt Welch]

They didn't use that language.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, they didn't. They didn't actually. They didn't even talk about that. But I'm extrapolating from Emily Wilson and he was. But I think the de emphasizing of God. And you said you haven't seen it yet, so I don't.

[Matt Welch]

Well, I haven't seen it, but I'm

[Michael Moynihan]

like, you know, enough about that.

[Matt Welch]

I'm sort of.

[Michael Moynihan]

We can't spoil it.

[Matt Welch]

I'm furious that Helen was black. That's my main critique. I've been really pissed off about that.

[Michael Moynihan]

But the de emphasizing of Gods, I think is a pretty interesting rational choice to make it more relatable. And then also, like, it's the PTSD root. Like, you know, it's. She's sort of graft. He's grafting. Struggles onto. Onto him. And the gods are more kind of ephemeral. Do they really exist or are they sort of like figments of his imagination?

[Camille Foster]

I mean, in the story, they exist.

[Matt Welch]

Well, that's what it's.

[Camille Foster]

In the story. They're just. They're persons. They are acting. They can fail.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, but it's. But you have to. I mean, it's a long story. You have to, like, figure out what to emphasize and de emphasize and to give the men more agency and to give everybody and the sea people and the fear of the sea people more agency. I think de emphasizing the gods is a rational thing to do.

[Camille Foster]

At least there's some magic and stuff. But Yeah, I thought it was really well made, but again, it's just. Did the kids take the kids? I did not, no. Leah is not ready for that yet. We can read stories that contain some acts of violence. She could not watch that epic crescendo of Matt Damon just murdering everyone. It just. It was fabulous.

[Matt Welch]

Was he like, good in it? That was the other critique I saw.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yes. I think he.

[Camille Foster]

You know what I think?

[Matt Welch]

Does he actually say, how do you like the Maples at some point? Or is that not true?

[Camille Foster]

I don't. I don't seem to remember that.

[Matt Welch]

I remember.

[Camille Foster]

I remember someone saying my dad over and over again.

[Matt Welch]

And that was.

[Camille Foster]

That was super annoying. I do think some of the acting was pretty cringe.

[Michael Moynihan]

I think some of the. The dialogue was cringe and so the acting to like pull that off was a little bit difficult to do. He was just like appropriately middle aged, war weary, but still kind of can string the bow. I like that part of it. I think the critique of it which I get is that. And it's kind of similar to the no Gods. Like there was less magic, less like rip roaring adventure. Like there's this. Everyone likes a good adventure story by accident. I had one watched just before or just after the Empire Strikes Back with Coco for the first time and like, I hadn't seen that in a good while. And I know it's the best Star wars movie and it's been a while, but like, that's fun. That's a fun fucking movie. Even though it's sort of the darker of the Star wars movies. And that sense of fun and adventure is not much in evidence in the. Like, I want.

[Camille Foster]

I think that's right.

[Michael Moynihan]

I want some of that. It doesn't have to all of that, but I agree. I'd seen. About a year ago and a half ago, I rewatched Lawrence of Arabia, which is fantastic. You know, part of that is also fun. Like you can imagine, like how cool and awesome it is, but that you get swept up in the same mania that Lawrence does and then that becomes its own problem and you sort of play with that. There isn't much of that in. In this. It's still a fantastic picture and everyone should watch it.

[Matt Welch]

I think someone on I. There's a ringer podcast where they're talking about how, like, we don't. We don't have the same quantity of comedies. We had like into the Aughts, from the Aughts into the early 2000 and tens. And their interpretation was like, we just. You need to have A degree of earnestness to have comedy, because, like, comedy is sort of opposed to earnestness. And I think it's the same thing. You can't just have, like, an earnest. This is a crazy, cool adventure we're going on. It's like, there's too much irony and cynicism, which, I don't know.

[Camille Foster]

That's an interesting one. I mean, I just watched last night. Well, this morning, because I was stranded in the airport. Oh, brother, where are you?

[Matt Welch]

Oh.

[Michael Moynihan]

So I tried to watch that, and I didn't have it handy. I wanted to watch that right after the Odyssey because I loved that movie when it came out. Saw it three times in the theater and loved the music and all of it. And I really want to show my daughters. And so how was it to rewatch?

[Camille Foster]

I mean, it's fabulous. It's so much better than I remembered. I mean, one, I mean, the Coen brothers are genius. We talked about that before. My love for them and the fact that I've named myself son essentially in honor of them is perhaps evidence enough. But, yeah, no, it's a fabulous film. It holds up exceptionally well. It has all of that kind of fun and excitement, the unapologetic absurdity. And you're right, we do not have great films like that that are being released at a regular clip. Certainly once they have something come out. Even a dark comedy like a Fargo. Yeah, it has that kind of quality to it. I feel like we are drowning in horror movies that I don't actually want to watch.

[Michael Moynihan]

Although people. I mean, it is interesting that they're low budget and, like, done by some kids and tapping anything I've heard. Incredible. The back rooms about obsession in particular.

[Matt Welch]

I, I came up, I might, I

[Camille Foster]

might want to see those. I'm, I'm, perhaps I'm referring to more of the, like, cheaper, less interesting horror movies, but maybe it's those two. I don't know.

[Matt Welch]

It doesn't feel like our era. Like, I, I was hugely influenced by, like, the Zucker Brothers, Airplane, the Naked Gun movies. The remake didn't really do it for me, but.

[Michael Moynihan]

Are you old enough to remember when Airplane came out?

[Matt Welch]

No, I think I saw it.

[Michael Moynihan]

Okay.

[Matt Welch]

And then, like, I feel like that there's a lineage there with, like, Conan o' Brien style of humor. Like, we're gonna have a character called the masturbating Bear. That's like, I love that weird shit. And I, I, I think in terms of, like, mainstream Hollywood films, you don't have a lot of that. Just, like, embracing the weirdness of it anymore. And I miss that. You can find that there's a lot like sort of online stuff or like do not destroy the SNL comedy troupe. But I. I miss that. I don't think you see like just films like Anchorman or like Walk hard, which I love. I don't know.

[Michael Moynihan]

And only saw that recently for the first time.

[Matt Welch]

I think it's crazy. Incredibly good.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

I could watch the Beatles scene. Like give me a 75 minute version of the Beatles scene. I'm all over that, dude.

[Matt Welch]

When they had John C. Reilly sing a song called you've gotta love your negro man. So fucking brilliant. And they. One of the recurring characters is the Jews who run Hollywood. Like one of whom is. What's his name? The guy from Silicon Valley. Martin. Whatever. Anyway. Wait. Are we gonna talk about the mom Donny Mart.

[Camille Foster]

We should. We should.

[Matt Welch]

Do we have time?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

I mean I don't even know what time it is. But we do what we wanna do.

[Matt Welch]

There's a clock right now.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's a huge ass clock.

[Camille Foster]

I can't see it. We have so many challenges in the studio.

[Matt Welch]

The hard life.

[Camille Foster]

I mean there's a clock that can't be seen. The table. That's too small. Mics that are in the way.

[Michael Moynihan]

The mics are kind of an issue.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. But Mamdani finally had a presser earlier this week announcing his grand plans to

[Matt Welch]

open his final solution for grocery costs.

[Camille Foster]

To open a string of city run grocery stores. And the bold idea here is that they are going to sell all of the essential stuff at 30% off. 30% off.

[Matt Welch]

Come on down.

[Camille Foster]

Zoron's bargain basement emporium Food Mart. Where I can buy everything you want.

[Matt Welch]

Can we size for a second? I think he's just so race it. He's like putting Zoron into an Al Sharpton type.

[Camille Foster]

That is not an Al Sharpton register. No. That's just the crazy Zoron crazy. That's what she would do. That's what you do.

[Matt Welch]

Tomato market off.

[Michael Moynihan]

He's just doing the red house. White people and black people buy furniture.

[Camille Foster]

I did ask Jason if we could do like a whole thing that use the AI to generate a song. But. Right.

[Matt Welch]

And you need the. The inflatable wacky tube guy shaped like or on.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. So I mean this Jesse.

[Matt Welch]

You use tomato dealership.

[Camille Foster]

You're kind of a socialist. You're as close to a democratic socialist as anyone in this building right now. Why are you people doing this? Can't you see what a stupid idea

[Matt Welch]

My people Do it.

[Camille Foster]

Yes.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't think there's any Jews. There's no Jews in the.

[Matt Welch]

I think there's a lot of Jews in his administration.

[Michael Moynihan]

I just mean that there's none in his lawyer's council. I saw a big controversy actually today.

[Camille Foster]

Wait, what?

[Michael Moynihan]

There's like a. He has some stupid judiciary advisory council because of course it's stupid New York thing. And there's a big controversy today because every single person there was not a Jew. And it's really hard to get a. Like a council of lawyers careful in New York City without getting some Jews there because of the lawyers.

[Matt Welch]

We'll get back to the market. But as the lead host, can I just say the boy has the lead. I tweeted about this, but the. The. The idea of arresting Bibi Netanyahu was so funny to me because of the action movie potential where liter I tweet, I'm just like, fucking plagiarizing my own tweets. But he's held at, like, Brooklyn mdc, guarded by the nypd, the radical Islamists.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

And then Trump has to send in special forces to free bb, and then they have to flee to JFK to try to get him back to Israel, and there's like a tarmac battle of Entebbe.

[Camille Foster]

I am, like, seeing this whole thing in mind.

[Michael Moynihan]

We got to have. I mean, there's. There's a lot of Seabees that are gonna be going through. There's a lot of water here. New York.

[Matt Welch]

Exactly.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Just the possibility for, like, an incredible action movie about.

[Camille Foster]

So wait, so what happens at the end of this movie?

[Matt Welch]

I think there's. Okay, so Netanyahu, I mean, does he die tragically?

[Camille Foster]

Is that what you're saying?

[Matt Welch]

I've gotten as far as the plane is taking off as the Islamist NYPD cars are chasing the plane, trying to shoot it down. BB's trying to get back to Israel. And what I've got in my head that you guys hear, help me with. Netanyahu has the word yahoo in the name. So there's a closing catchphrase where someone says, yeah, go for it.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yahoo, motherfucker.

[Matt Welch]

Yippee kai. That.

[Camille Foster]

I knew it would be a yippee Kai. See, I have a God. I have a crazy movie pitch.

[Matt Welch]

Go for it.

[Camille Foster]

Halle Berry, Billy Bob Thorton get back together.

[Matt Welch]

What happened?

[Camille Foster]

I didn't even say anything.

[Matt Welch]

Wait, so Halle Berry is Benjamin Nagnotta Halle Berry?

[Camille Foster]

No, this is separate movie. Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thorton are in this movie together. Right. We get them back together because they haven't been in anything together since Monsters. This film is essentially like Spawn meets Birth of a Nation.

[Matt Welch]

Thank you.

[Camille Foster]

Okay, Spawn. Spawn. So he.

[Matt Welch]

Two films. I've always associated with one of them.

[Camille Foster]

Exactly.

[Matt Welch]

Okay.

[Camille Foster]

Billy Bob Thorton is a racist Klansman who, like, dies, like, horribly.

[Matt Welch]

Wait, Billy Bob Thornton or Halle Berry?

[Camille Foster]

Billy Bob. And he goes to hell and he has to come back. And I don't really understand why it happens. But anyways, he has to come back. But he's a hero. But he has to wear the clan garb. And the name of the movie is White Knight. Like the Dark Knight, but like White Knight.

[Matt Welch]

See?

[Camille Foster]

And he has to save black people. And he saves and falls in love with Halle Berry, but he can't be with her because he is the undead vigilante hero. White Knight.

[Matt Welch]

What about.

[Camille Foster]

I don't really know what's happening, but I just like the premise of getting them back together. And then there's a Klansman who's dead who is actually doing good in his clan garb, but he has to wear the pointy hat.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, I know. I blacked out for about a Spawn. I just.

[Michael Moynihan]

I just think that, like, Halle Berry is aging a little bit better than Billy Bob. Like, you see him on those. Like. Like, that's why.

[Camille Foster]

That's why you have the technology. It's fine.

[Matt Welch]

He's.

[Camille Foster]

We can't. We can't do that. It's too much.

[Matt Welch]

Can I just pitch?

[Jesse Singal]

What?

[Matt Welch]

Can I pitch?

[Camille Foster]

I'm doing well.

[Matt Welch]

Can I pitch one more movie?

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. Okay, so we don't like White Knight is what we're saying.

[Matt Welch]

I just. I.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was a little bit. A lot of twists.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. I haven't really.

[Michael Moynihan]

The elevator, like, it's a short ride.

[Camille Foster]

I have a elevator pitch. This is the problem.

[Matt Welch]

I have a simpler pitch. Yeah. Have you guys heard of Jurassic Park?

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Have you heard of Schindler's List?

[Camille Foster]

Oh, yes.

[Matt Welch]

Shining. I don't know. A group. I don't know. Well, hold on.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know.

[Matt Welch]

I'm not trying to play this card. But your knee jerk skepticism could be interpreted by some listeners into anti Semitism.

[Camille Foster]

It might.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

A group of. Take a tour of a park with dinosaurs. Okay, here's the twist. Dinosaurs are Nazis. So.

[Jesse Singal]

Well, hold on.

[Matt Welch]

Why are you laughing? This isn't funny. It's not a funny subject. Okay, so imagine a velociraptor. Scary. Yeah. But he's wearing a Nazi arm bare. That's so scary.

[Camille Foster]

That's the worst.

[Matt Welch]

Jeffrey Goldblum. Yeah. One of Our Jewish actors. Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Our hero.

[Matt Welch]

They have to get out of there.

[Camille Foster]

Who in the. In the film was from the Santa Fe Institute?

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, I forgot about that.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, it's pretty cool. I've been there. I went there with Jason.

[Matt Welch]

Schindler's park or Jurassic Schindler.

[Camille Foster]

I think it has to be Schindler's Park. Yeah. I mean, that just works a lot better. I will say I'd probably like that more than White Knight, but I just think my casting decisions are a little better. And I'm gonna work on Halle Berry

[Matt Welch]

and Billy Bottom Thorn. It's.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. Back together again. Like, people want to see that de age.

[Matt Welch]

I think if I. I don't want to be too full of myself, but if. Like, where Welch is sitting, Halle Berry was there, which I've been thinking about all night.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

If I could pitch her face to face on Schindler's park.

[Camille Foster]

That you would want to be in this. What would you cast her? What role?

[Matt Welch]

One of the dinosaur dinosaurs. She's a Nazi.

[Camille Foster]

It's like, she's got real range.

[Matt Welch]

It's the most. Mostly just really convincing CGI velociraptors. And then it's Halle Berry. Okay. And like a really shitty.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know how we got here. I thought we were going to talk about the grocery store. Yeah, you were going to explain why this is. Why this is a good idea.

[Matt Welch]

Well, I tweeted. I mean, you called me out on this. I appreciated you calling me out. Did I record before the show?

[Camille Foster]

Okay.

[Matt Welch]

I had basically said of all, like, first of all, I think you guys agree that he's a charismatic.

[Camille Foster]

He is.

[Michael Moynihan]

One hand disputes this, but go on.

[Camille Foster]

Clean, articulate, and bright. Yes.

[Matt Welch]

Not the words I would have used.

[Camille Foster]

I used them.

[Matt Welch]

And also on some sort of the policy issues where the DSA agenda worries me the most. Like, what if we don't have laws? He doesn't seem to be going along with that. He kept on Jessica Tisch, the grocery store and the grand scheme of things. This is what I tweeted that got me in trouble that you mentioned. I was like. Like I don't care that much. And then I read a good sub psych post from a guy named Daniel Munoz. I think I have that right.

[Michael Moynihan]

Why would you do that?

[Matt Welch]

Because there's a tilde over the end.

[Michael Moynihan]

I know, but the Danielle.

[Matt Welch]

You're like Danielle Ocadio. You gotta do a lisp, too, to make it extra authentico. I mean, he was just. He was just pointing out and because I'm So shitty at econ. Just like the Econ 101 case against me. Like we're going to open a grocery store where whatever other people are charging 30% off and it's government funded. So like we can't run out of money because we like it just, it's sort of.

[Camille Foster]

They can't.

[Michael Moynihan]

All of this didn't occur to you until I don't know anything about it. You've been like fucking writing next to and sometimes even within libertarian publications for ten fucking years. Your audience.

[Matt Welch]

I don't know what libertarianism is. Assuming your shit, you guys, libertarians all

[Michael Moynihan]

understand this except for you. When are you going to start?

[Matt Welch]

I think in my brain I figured in a really big city, maybe five grocery stores won't make a difference. But as I tweeted in my correction, because I corrected myself, even if it only affects a few bodegas, it doesn't seem to be bringing any.

[Michael Moynihan]

What's the benefit to send the bodega out of business?

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, I wouldn't.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And I'm very casual.

[Matt Welch]

People buy food, but there's much more direct ways to do that.

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean there's just allowing Walmart to build a store here.

[Matt Welch]

So this is the. I'm sort of whiskey wise, I'm at a point where I can do like a third of a meaningful point.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

One thing I have.

[Camille Foster]

That's all you need here.

[Matt Welch]

One thing I have been thinking about is just I'm feeling more and more down on sort of like just like leftist pseudo intellectual. Hasan. Well, you're not going to fucking recruit me to your. I want to shut down all federal agencies. I don't think kids should have education. That's.

[Camille Foster]

No, no. I just want to shut up the public schools. I want them to be educated.

[Matt Welch]

I forgot that you actually believe that. The sort of. The grocery stuff where just like this sort of mantra that the reason groceries are expensive is because of price gouging. And price gouging is just this human frailty and the owners of the markets became infected by the price gouging virus. I don't think is a very realistic account of what's happening. I think what's happening is that grocery stores have like a 1% profit margin,

[Michael Moynihan]

low margin business so affected by a lot of, I don't know, what do you call it, government regulation and taxation on the local.

[Matt Welch]

And like in New York, very expensive stores from that.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

And I live in like brownstone Brooklyn and I can walk to multiple big grocery stores where like prices have gone up. But I, you know, I'm. You don't know.

[Michael Moynihan]

You're spending your money on fucking playoffs.

[Camille Foster]

You're doing well.

[Matt Welch]

You're not well when my shopper picks me up my organ. No, I just. I just think it's a really. It's like to remain in good standing in leftist circles, you have to claim the reason shit's expensive is because of price gouging, which to me is a really oversimplified theory. And I feel like Mom Duff.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oversimplified is a way of ennobling it. It's a garbage.

[Matt Welch]

You want to denoble it.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, I want to de noble it. It's a garbage fucking theory.

[Matt Welch]

It seems like the whole theory of city run grocery stores rests on that idea that. Not that shit's expensive because of a complex, complicated confluence of market forces, but because of like, price gouging. And it's a little like, look, there's really shitty landlords in New York. But it's sort of the same thing where it's like the assumption is every problem can just be traced to human greed and government intervention can counteract that greed. And that's where I'm getting a little bit more skeptical, even as I realize there's like some really exploitative landlords or some shitty people. But I just, I've been a little bit down on that. And I found myself more and more just like the difference between when I have to be sub. I. I can't really stand much Hasan Piker, but If I catch 30 seconds of him, I want to kill myself. Or like the respectable leftist like Nathan Robinson. When they write about something I know about, I'm just like, that's horrible. There's leftists I respect. I like Ben Burgess, I like Bhaskar Sukar. You had was. Who's like the last leftist you guys had on?

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean, we had the fucking congress guy.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, we've had a lot of them, actually.

[Matt Welch]

Who's the congress guy?

[Michael Moynihan]

He's the youngest guy in Congress.

[Camille Foster]

Maxwell Frost.

[Michael Moynihan]

Maxwell Frost was on recently. We had Brace Belden on.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, Brace Belden's in your city. My point is just, I like in sort of hip Brooklyn leftist circles, if you're like, I read Matt Iglesias or I read Kelsey Piper, Jerusalem Dempsey, it's just like, that's really unhip. And they're considered like traitors to the cause. But. But there's a level of, even when I disagree with them, thoughtfulness and integrity I don't see in people who are just like, yeah, Price, it's Price Casual that's all. It's price casually. We'll just open a. And there's a lack of attention to second order effects and to the. You know, I mean, you guys aren't going to recruit me, but I'm. I'm with you on some of the basic econ stuff.

[Michael Moynihan]

What's interesting is that we don't want to recruit you.

[Matt Welch]

You don't or not?

[Camille Foster]

I mean, I, I do. I want to recruit him. Yeah. I want to. I'm. I'm in a. An evangelical about all of this. It's very important to me that I win souls.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

And one stars in my crown.

[Matt Welch]

Well, but what, I mean, what is for you guys don't. I mean, you're on guys.

[Michael Moynihan]

By the way.

[Matt Welch]

The. What you. I mean, you guys. I don't. I do think some of the stuff about Mamdani is a little bit alarmist. I actually don't. I don't think he's like.

[Camille Foster]

No, I agree and I've said so.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. I think he has like. He has a bug up his ass about Israel, as a lot of them do. I wish. Whether the fucking. I mean, I understand why the mayor of New York ends up talking a lot about Israel.

[Camille Foster]

We.

[Matt Welch]

We have more Jews than anywhere else on earth. I just think.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, a lot of that is voluntary though, on his part. Like, he decided, I'm going to arrest. I'm going to arrest Bibi.

[Matt Welch]

Well, he decided not to.

[Camille Foster]

And then when you decide you're not going to arrest him, you also release a weird press video.

[Michael Moynihan]

Is there any other head of state who would be arrested, arrestable, I mean,

[Camille Foster]

on the same grounds? Plenty of them.

[Matt Welch]

Why not Putin?

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. But he hasn't issued any statements about that. It's weird. It's weird. I don't think he's anti Semitic, but he is weirdly obsessed. And he's perhaps as you think his wife is as close to weirdly obsessed as you can get. Well, yeah, his wife probably.

[Matt Welch]

You think his wife is hot, as

[Camille Foster]

you were saying before, she's attractive. I mean, in the way that, like

[Matt Welch]

you were saying, because she's anti Semitic, you find that makes her more difficult.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know if that's exactly what I, I said, but, you know, it's. Maybe it's a. Like, what is it? BDSM kind of thing.

[Matt Welch]

BDS or bdsm?

[Camille Foster]

I don't know what I'm saying.

[Matt Welch]

When you guys had. I, I'm. I like Michael Cohen, the one you guys had on. But I think, I think there's A divide among American Jews about. To me, a lot of the more over the top anti Israel stuff isn't anti Semitism per se. It's just sort of the. Everything has to be turned up to a lot. Like, you know, I'm, I'm pro genocide because of my views on Trump trans stuff. The equivalent of that is if you think Israel should exist, you love genocide, you want. It's just the same. Everything is too intense.

[Camille Foster]

I mean, it strikes me, a lot of the conversations strike me as very similar to the Black Lives Matter stuff.

[Matt Welch]

In what sense?

[Camille Foster]

It's just like everything is racism, everything is anti Semitism. The smallest disagreement can become the thing. And, and I think Ben Shapiro was one of the first people who I heard endorse the perspective, which I kind of have held in general on these things, that we probably need to stop labeling everything anti Semitism. I'm glad he said that deal, and this was a while ago. But let's deal with the specific nature of the crime or the statement that's being made that isn't correct.

[Matt Welch]

There's a tendency from the sort of ADL set they're trying to push the idea that if you're being disproportionately concerned with Israel is anti Semitic. And I just, I don't know, I don't want to define down terms like anti Semitism and racism.

[Camille Foster]

I think it's. I think that's.

[Michael Moynihan]

I think that's sufficient to say it's fucking weird.

[Camille Foster]

Weird is good.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, fucking weird.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. Fucking weird is also good.

[Matt Welch]

I think it is. I mean, the, the Steelman version of that is it's a country we give a lot of money to and it's a close ally, so.

[Michael Moynihan]

So is Jordan.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, but Jordan does it. We can't as much. Jordan and Jordan. Look, I'm not. We can set it. We can table the discussion of how justified it is Jordan hasn't killed tens of thousands of people. Right. I'm not saying they treat their like refugees well or they're like upstanding citizens, but I think there's like legitimate reasons to focus on that particular relationship that don't stem from anti Semitism. But when I see, you know, you guys were talking about the DSA races here. Chevalier, the extent to which Israel dominated New York City congressional races, I do find a little bit weird. It gives me a little tingle.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Although I guess. Yeah. I don't know.

[Camille Foster]

But that's just because you think she's hot. That's what that is.

[Matt Welch]

Brad Lander, you mean? Yeah, he Is hot.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, she. Is there anything else we were supposed to talk about? I don't know. Should we say anything else about this grocery store situation? Matt?

[Matt Welch]

Well, I mean, what, what's your. Guys. You guys tell me I'm open to being. You could convert me. I don't care. I've, like, it's not that important to me that I have the right ideology so I can.

[Camille Foster]

I mean, I don't even know which you. Which, which parts of it you disagree with. Like, what do you think? Like, New York City public schools kind of suck. Right?

[Matt Welch]

That's my understanding.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

It's a difficult.

[Camille Foster]

You don't have kids, you don't really know. It's fine.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, I don't believe in educating kids either. Yeah, I think that's one of the areas. That's one of the areas I'm leftiest on. If someone was like every public school should. If we could somehow make them all the same quality, I'd be like, that's fine.

[Camille Foster]

You would.

[Matt Welch]

Property tax.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, yeah. Like Harrison Bergeron World. Like, I mean, everyone gets a shitty public school. You get a shitty public school.

[Matt Welch]

You do. Of course, then the problem is this is so in sort of leftist discourse, there's like a lack of attention to human nature. If everyone had shitty public schools, then,

[Camille Foster]

Then they would do something about it.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, they would. Well, the, the.

[Camille Foster]

You can only improve all of the schools together at the same time.

[Matt Welch]

Well, no, what would happen is people from background mine, I got to go to really good public schools would just send their kids to private schools. And there's always like that lack of. Think about the next step. Well, like with the grocery store thing, what's going to happen is people are going to start buying up all the stuff and just selling it for a slight.

[Camille Foster]

Scalping it.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, yeah. And I, I think that.

[Camille Foster]

And then, and then the city is going to respond by limiting the quantity of stuff that you can buy. And then you have a too big a family. And also, like, Byzantine crazy.

[Michael Moynihan]

Tell me about how, like, you know, we've had to cut the budget to the bone and we're having such a difficult time. We need to raise taxes on this person, this person, that person. We're out of money. And by the way, we run five grocery stores, which they're definitely going to lose money for the city. There's no way that they're not.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah, they do virtually everything bad. This is one new thing, includes a whole range of skills and professions that have absolutely no connection to what the city does on a regular basis.

[Michael Moynihan]

But he.

[Camille Foster]

They're just going to fuck it up.

[Michael Moynihan]

He has an ideological project, as he announced in his victory speech, that he.

[Matt Welch]

The warmth of collectivism.

[Michael Moynihan]

Warmth of collectivism. But also he wants to show that there's no problem too big that the government cannot solve and that no problem too small that the government won't be interested in. He wants this as a demonstration project that there is a type of governing socialism that can lead to this thing that we want to do.

[Matt Welch]

I guess I'm just repeating myself of not anticipating. So what I'm trying to get at is this idea of, like, we'll do this policy, and that'll work. It'll be great without thinking about what happens after that. And what does that spark? And what does that spark? So I just. I guess I don't understand how to even steel man a future where five years from now, we're like, wow, those grocery stores worked really well. There weren't unintended consequences. Just because the unintended consequences do seem really obvious in retrospect. Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

But it'll be more difficult to say that that bodega went out of business for that reason than it will be to say to gin up some numbers on this, like, oh, we fed this many people, like, in this way. And now, therefore, we demonstrated that government has a proactive role to be involved in, like, essential business. And so now let's extend that logic into this next and other place would you guys be.

[Matt Welch]

As if he had instead said, richest city in the world. Too many New Yorkers Are food insecurity secure. I'm gonna find some targeted subsidy program to give a certain band of poor New Yorkers $50 a month just to help them out. Would you guys be less exercised by that?

[Michael Moynihan]

No, that is far more defensible. I mean, there's a big piece in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago that they made the unfortunate thing like, oh, surprisingly, a bunch of rich New Yorkers are benefiting from rent control. And it's like, that's not a surprise. That's how it always fucking works.

[Matt Welch]

Do you want to know who one of those New Yorkers is?

[Michael Moynihan]

You, you fucking motherfucker. You're like, using your.

[Matt Welch]

I make $25 million a day, and I found out my apartment is rent

[Michael Moynihan]

stabilized and blowing it on playoff tickets.

[Matt Welch]

It's all just playoff tickets. Play in. I only play in game tickets.

[Michael Moynihan]

Play in game tickets. No, that's how this. These regulate. If the regulations always and the government programs were aimed at actually helping poor people as opposed to Sort of doing things that in effect lock them into poverty or whatever or are giveaways to rich people, which fucking rent control is as applied in the city.

[Matt Welch]

It's also funny just to imagine the sprawling nature of New York City. So the money you're going to spend on these five grocery stores, which definitionally poor people are a little bit less mobile or have less free time, so very few of them are going to be able to go there. Take the amount of money you would have spent on that and spread out. I, I, it's, maybe we can wrap it up here if you want. But like I sort of think of the amount of time and money spent on litigating race based affirmative action and how that like you can't really be against that and remain in good standing in liberal circles even though, like the public.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's an 8020 issue.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. And even like if you pull black people, I think it's like a 640 issue. If you just take all the money you spent on that and just poured it into maybe making poor people more educated and giving them more opportunities. I know, that's obvious.

[Michael Moynihan]

Often making poor people more educated.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, like betterer, more human. You go. It's this thing of more quixotic and less popular policies just becoming popular when maybe there's better use of that money, as I'd say.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah. Well, we should probably wrap because it has been a while.

[Matt Welch]

I can do like five more hours.

[Michael Moynihan]

I feel like a French goodbye, scumbag.

[Camille Foster]

No, no French goodbye. This is no French goodbye. The flights were too long. I just have to say bye.

[Matt Welch]

What is a French goodbye before we go French goodbye.

[Camille Foster]

Introduce some new topic at a party.

[Michael Moynihan]

The French, who I have some long exposure with and love. But at a party at the door, when they're doing the final bisou as they're going, that is the time to inaugurate an entirely new discussion.

[Matt Welch]

So it's the opposite of an Irish goodbye.

[Michael Moynihan]

It is The Apple absolute 100% tried

[Camille Foster]

to do the Irish goodbye.

[Michael Moynihan]

And Camille is a specialist in the French goodbye on, on podcast.

[Camille Foster]

It's usually great.

[Matt Welch]

Anyways, thank you guys for having me. This was very fun.

[Michael Moynihan]

Thank you for being a better Moynihan than Moynihan.

[Camille Foster]

More Mohan than Moyn. Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Bye.

[Camille Foster]

Bye.

[Michael Moynihan]

Bye.

[Matt Welch]

We know of new method of attack. The Trojan horse.

[Camille Foster]

The fifth column.

[Jesse Singal]

The fifth.

[Matt Welch]

Fifth. The fifth column.