There Is No They - #566

Summary

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The Fifth Column #566 - "There Is No They" (Released July 15, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this episode, Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch reconvene for their weekly, irreverent examination of the news cycle and American politics. The show combines political analysis, candid discussion of current foreign conflicts, U.S. policy dilemmas, and sharp social commentary, including the latest primary races and some humorous takes on sports team naming conventions. The hosts also reflect on the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s legacy and the myth of political omnipotence—the "they" who supposedly run everything.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

I. Opening Banter: Absurd Team Names, LA & Bookstores

• The show opens with the hosts joking about unfortunate sports team names (e.g., the Chicago Fire, Indiana Fever) and riffing on the concept of naming teams after tragic events ([00:00]–[00:30]).
• Michael Moynihan offers an update on the Moynihan Report, teasing upcoming interviews with elder statesmen, and launching into a discussion about the culture and intellectual scene of Los Angeles ([03:22]–[08:34]).
  • Moynihan: "Filming a bunch of stuff for the relaunch of the Moynihan Report... we have three great interviews in the can with people ranging from 77 to 95. That’s not a joke." ([03:24])
  • Discussion about LA as a city focused on “moving pictures,” not the printed word. The hosts humorously debate the actual number of bookstores in LA ([05:08]–[07:30]).

II. American Foreign Policy: Iran and Trump’s World

• Topic: The recent escalation of conflict with Iran, diplomatic confusion, and the actions (or lack thereof) from the Trump administration ([08:35]–[14:00]).

• Key question: What is Iran’s actual aim in blowing up deals seemingly in its favor? Is it just to embarrass the U.S. president or something more?

  • Moynihan: "When you have a regime that doesn't care if its people die… and you have the IRGC solidifying power as it has done… we, and along with the Israelis, killed the entire leadership." ([12:00])
  • Discussion on the ineffectiveness of “victory via air power,” referencing historical revolutions and the futility of toppling entrenched regimes without ground intervention ([13:19]–[14:10]).

• On the U.S. Response:

  • The United States’ attempted blockade and control of the Strait of Hormuz ([15:30]).
  • Critique of Trump’s lack of coherent foreign policy, misunderstanding of international norms, and a reflection on how populist revolts (Brexit/Trump) offered no "Plan B" after dismantling globalist compacts ([17:00]–[19:06]).
  • Scott: "…they never had a plan B. And what we’re seeing right now is what happens when you don’t have a plan B—or a Plan A." ([19:06])

• Pragmatism & Realpolitik:

  • The cyclical pattern of limited airstrikes under various presidents and how the "coalition of the willing" rhetoric has, in practice, masked unilateral or weakly-coordinated actions ([20:13]–[29:08]).
  • The challenge of forming meaningful international alliances under Trump due to his brash diplomacy and tendency to alienate partners such as NATO allies and Israel ([26:09]–[29:08]).

III. The Legacy of Lindsey Graham

• Reflecting on Senator Lindsey Graham’s death and his complicated impact on U.S. foreign policy ([32:30]–[39:13]).
  • Welch: "…if one of the goals was to get Donald Trump out of the clutches of Sergey Lavrov and the Russians… he was working hard at that. So I’ll say that in his defense." ([32:57])
  • Graham’s "compromises" as typical of political life in D.C.—flipping on Trump for influence, but staying consistent on key foreign policy issues ([34:22]–[41:10]).
  • Moynihan reads Graham’s revealing quote:

    "When I was first elected to the House... I looked for they, they who run things... But I couldn't find they. I went to the Senate, but there was still no they. And then I started to get invited to the White House and to closed door briefings... No they. What I finally realized is that there is no they. There’s only we. And we usually don’t know what the fuck we’re doing." ([46:53])

  • This leads into a critique of popular conspiracy theories—“the deep state,” AIPAC control, etc.—as simplistic understandings of how government really works ([47:55]–[50:27]).

IV. DSA, Democratic Party Trends, and Primary Madness

• Debate over the staying power of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in broader U.S. politics, with examples from ongoing primary races in Michigan, New York, Maine, and Colorado ([53:05]–[63:15]).

  • Examination of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary: Abdul El Said vs. Haley Stevens. Discussion of polling vs. prediction markets and the potential misjudgment of outsider candidates' chances.
  • Moynihan shares a viral video of Haley Stevens, critiquing her performance and predicting outcomes based on candidates' stances and platforms ([57:16]).
  • The DSA’s policy priorities—anti-police stances, redistributive economics—and the likelihood of their broader political viability outside of super liberal strongholds. Comparison to European political fads and party fragmentation ([66:46]–[70:26]).

• "Primary fights tell you about the direction of a party..."

  • Scott: “The DSA is sort of a local virus… [but] the fact that it happened in Maine, in Michigan, and Colorado… tells you something about where the beating heart of Democratic primary voters are right now…” ([62:44])

V. Law Enforcement Policy, ICE, and Public Reaction

• After recent ICE-related shootings, the hosts analyze public tolerance for aggressive immigration enforcement versus documented abuses. Reflection on recurring political cycles: initial escalation of enforcement, then public revulsion and political pullback after tragedy ([72:03]–[78:06]).
  • Michael: "I don't think Americans have a lot of stomach for that kind of thing... I haven't seen any policy position of his (Trump’s) that has fluctuated—or collapsed—as precipitously as after Minneapolis." ([77:58])

VI. Political Violence: The Murder of Anne Widdecombe

• A brief exploration of UK political violence following the murder of Reform Party MP Anne Widdecombe—a notable story underreported in both UK and U.S. media ([78:14]–[82:41]).
  • Moynihan: "…the fact that a former Member of Parliament… was murdered and there really isn’t much talk about it." ([82:41])
  • Media and police framing of suspects’ racial backgrounds and the selective mention of details in news coverage.

VII. Sports, WNBA, and AI Deepfakes

• The episode closes with riffs on WNBA, the media’s sudden fixation on Caitlin Clark, and the viral spread of an AI-generated fake video supposedly showing her being punched ([84:11]–[87:58]).
  • Discussion on overhyped narratives, viral content, and the blending of sports and culture—punctuated with Moynihan’s humorous confusion about actual team names.
  • Matt notes a parallel with the spread of fake news and the challenges posed by AI-generated content ([87:11]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Conspiracy and Power:
  • Lindsey Graham (via Moynihan, [46:53]):

    "…there is no they. There’s only we. And we usually don’t know what the fuck we’re doing."

• On DSA's Viability:
  • Moynihan ([70:26]):

    "The only wings of the DSA are more extreme… when you get drunk on this type of politics, you go heavier and heavier… That’s why I don’t think there’s any hope for the DSA."

• On Trump Foreign Policy:
  • Scott ([19:06]):

    “…they never had a plan B. And what we’re seeing now is what happens when you don’t have a plan B.”

• On the Absurdity of Political Life:
  • Scott ([41:01]):

    "That nature of politics is itself gross… None of these motherfuckers are worthy of our affection. They are not."

• Viral Clip:
  • Haley Stevens ([57:28], viral campaign moment):

    "I am gonna be working on our behalf… with a little bit of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm, a little bit of energy, and a little bit of stick it to them, because that's the Michigan way."

  • Moynihan ([57:47]): "Oh, man. What the fuck?"

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–05:16 – Sports team naming absurdity, LA discussion, Moynihan Report tease
• 08:35–14:10 – Iran conflict, U.S. foreign policy confusion, Trump’s approach
• 17:00–20:13 – Globalism, spheres of influence, “no plan B” critique
• 32:30–39:13 – Lindsey Graham legacy, foreign policy strategy, political compromises
• 41:01–50:27 – Reality vs. myth of political "they," anti-conspiracy perspective
• 53:05–63:15 – Michigan Senate Democratic primary, rise of DSA, prediction markets
• 70:26–72:02 – DSA’s future, radicalization and factionalism
• 72:03–78:06 – ICE, public opinion, political consequences of enforcement
• 78:14–82:41 – Anne Widdecombe’s murder, media framing of violence
• 84:11–87:58 – WNBA, Caitlin Clark, AI video fakery, sports/culture commentary

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Tone and Style

The episode is fast-paced, sardonic, and brimming with both personal anecdotes and trenchant political analysis. The hosts shift fluidly from big-picture critique to granular election analysis while anchoring their discussions in real-world absurdities, political history, and direct skepticism of narratives from all sides.

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For Listeners Who Missed It

This episode is essential Fifth Column: you’ll find no deference to political cliches, plenty of laughter (even at their own expense), and hard-nosed, skeptical analysis of both American and international affairs. If you want a bracing look behind the curtain of power, lively debate on the state of DSA and American political trends, and memorable, meme-worthy moments, "There Is No They" delivers.

Transcript

[Michael Moynihan]

The fire is a Chicago MLS soccer team which is named after a horrible fire.

[Matt Welch]

That is a really bad name.

[Michael Moynihan]

The city of Chicago. What the fuck is the Indiana Fever game? Is that a soccer team after that? That the. The Polish holocaust is up on the field against the Chicago is tragedies in your country. You want to name teams after Pandemic. Of course. The Turkish genocides are coming out to the beach. It's so called. So called. Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Come on.

[Michael Moynihan]

You know, it's like the only team that hasn't quotation mark.

[Camille Foster]

We know of new methods of attack.

[Scott]

Did you ever see the guy who like got the contract to.

[Matt Welch]

To get the fat to make fatties?

[Michael Moynihan]

It's good. There's something really offensive, but it's like not 50 fat. It's 50 fat. Fatty's fatties are somehow really mean, but

[Matt Welch]

chewing the fat line.

[Scott]

The guy who did. Who got the contract, the no bid contract to get to make the water in the Washington Monument. Crystal clear blue. It's going to purify it weirdly lives right next to Mar A Lago, is a friend of Trump and was pled guilty to bribery charges.

[Matt Welch]

None of that seems weird at all.

[Scott]

Have you seen him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I'm bringing it up.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, I was like, the guy just walked off the set of Boardwalk Empire. This is totally.

[Scott]

Hey, producer Jason. This is exactly what you love to hear, but can you look up John Caroffo?

[Michael Moynihan]

His name's John Carraffo. Of course. He has to have a gimmick. Bad for the people.

[Scott]

Whatever comes up, we'll show it to our own.

[Matt Welch]

Are we gonna do the thing?

[Michael Moynihan]

We're doing the thing. We're doing the thing.

[Scott]

Oh, we have to do the greetings.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Scott]

This is the gold stuff, though.

[Matt Welch]

I know. This is why.

[Michael Moynihan]

Hold on, hold on.

[Camille Foster]

There we.

[Michael Moynihan]

Okay, that is. Look at that. This gu. Criminal has it. Look at him. This looks like Nathan Lane. Is that Nathan Lane?

[Camille Foster]

Right.

[Matt Welch]

Wow. What is this?

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, it is comparing him to Nathan Lane. Okay. Yeah. Because if I was going to say, geez, it looks like Nathan Lane.

[Scott]

Pictures of him with like, cigars.

[Michael Moynihan]

That is unbelievable.

[Matt Welch]

He's never been in the mafia, though.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, no, no.

[Scott]

He did plead guilty for bribing the James Trafficant.

[Michael Moynihan]

You bribed the guy that kicked him out of the buffet.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

About as close as you can get without being in it.

[Michael Moynihan]

That is impressive.

[Matt Welch]

Okay, well, he's in a different life.

[Michael Moynihan]

All right.

[Matt Welch]

Greetings and welcome back to another exciting installment of the Fifth Column podcast. And we're. We're starting. We're starting.

[Michael Moynihan]

Why do we talk about the fat guy?

[Matt Welch]

I don't know if we're going to include that or not.

[Camille Foster]

We.

[Matt Welch]

We don't want to call people fat and belittle them for.

[Michael Moynihan]

I'm not belittling. I'm just. He's a fat guy. Like, literally, there's no culture on earth they'd be like, he's not fat guy. No. Like, everywhere, he's a fat guy.

[Scott]

The more accent you have, the more willing they're going to say that he's a fat guy.

[Michael Moynihan]

Little fat boy. Very fat boy.

[Matt Welch]

Michael Moynihan is back belittling fat people. Or at least identifying them. Just identifying them. Matt Welch is saying, I'm like shotspotter,

[Michael Moynihan]

but for fat people.

[Matt Welch]

I'm here. Camille Foster. Hi.

[Camille Foster]

Hi.

[Matt Welch]

How's it going? What were you doing? I don't think.

[Michael Moynihan]

Where was I?

[Matt Welch]

I don't know.

[Michael Moynihan]

Was I away for a little while? Oh, I forgot.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

I was in la.

[Matt Welch]

Okay.

[Michael Moynihan]

I was in Los Angeles.

[Scott]

That's sexy.

[Michael Moynihan]

Filming a bunch of stuff for the relaunch of the Moynihan Report, which we haven't talked about, haven't announced, and we'll be doing that soon. But now I feel comfortable even, like, soft announcing it because we have a set. Well, there's a set is right there. We have three great interviews in the can with people ranging from 77 to 95. That's not a joke.

[Scott]

Are they all in the Senate?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. They did actually change that picture of Elaine Chao, and that was me with Mitch McConnell. And he was like, what? He didn't do it. And he's great. He's on top of his game.

[Matt Welch]

Never been better.

[Michael Moynihan]

Bunch of oldies, but they were. Everybody was with it.

[Scott]

How is it that you've never lived in Los Angeles?

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't know, but I like it a lot. Yeah, I think it'd be hard to live there. You grew up there, so you don't see it that way. But it's like. I don't want to say anything bad about la, because a lot of people who live in LA listen to the show. I know that. I know you're from la, but it's a different. It's a lot of different things about it.

[Scott]

It's similar to London in that it's a little bit indecipherable to outsiders, and it's very neighborhood based. Like, if you figure out this neighborhood suits you, you're in. But, like, it doesn't act like a normal city otherwise.

[Michael Moynihan]

No. And I've been there 75,000 times and I still can't make heads or tails of anything but West Hollywood in Venice. Cause the Vice office was in Venice.

[Scott]

What's notable about West Hollywood compared to every other city and region of Southern California?

[Michael Moynihan]

The hand jobs in the street. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. You thought I was gonna softball that one. Well, I don't know.

[Matt Welch]

Softball.

[Michael Moynihan]

Lots of hardball actually.

[Scott]

This one.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. Book Soup. That's in my. So I wanna go to Book Soup. That's the only bookstore I know in la. I don't think there's a lot of. I don't think there's a lot of reading going on in la.

[Scott]

Such a trope. So wrong part of the la.

[Michael Moynihan]

Such a trope.

[Scott]

Defensive things that when I lived in la we were all like professionally defensive about the east coast. And it was always, we have more bookstores in Los Angele than they do in New York. It's totally made up. Like it's probably not true at all, but like everybody knew this and was ready to go with it anytime. Like an out of state reporter telling us how we are. No man, we read here. We're intellectuals.

[Matt Welch]

I don't think there's an intellectual scene in la.

[Michael Moynihan]

There's a scene. Of course there is. There's a scene.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, sure.

[Michael Moynihan]

Scene's gonna be small.

[Camille Foster]

Uh huh.

[Michael Moynihan]

I'm just saying I'm basing this solely on the women that you see in the hotel, for instance, who always seem really bright. I mean they're all. They're all like you know, taking pictures and then picking up Vasily Grossman's life and fate, which is what didn't happen. Nobody's ever done that pivot upside down. Yeah. I think that it's conversation. Not this time. But previous conversations that I've had with people in LA would suggest that there is some truth to the speculation. Trying to be nice right here because I don't want to lose listeners. It's a Hollywood town. They're more interested in other things. Moving picture, not the printed word. It's a different kind of place. But I do love it. And I said this when we did our second Sunday, which you would have been to. You would have been on that call if you were a subscriber. Do you have to be. What level do you have to be?

[Scott]

Let's just paid subscribers, everybody.

[Michael Moynihan]

Although sometimes we do a bit different.

[Scott]

We made people jump through hoops because we only had 100 at the beginning or whatever.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's so bad I couldn't get into the meeting. I know, which is great. But I did mention this producer, Scott, who I was there with. We were walking out in the hotel and the most LA moment ever was the guy in the Kiss Alive jacket stopping Tommy Chong to take a photograph. And I was like, this is like a supernova of LA stuff. Because LA to me, when I was a kid was like kind of Cheech and Chong.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Remember they did the Randy Newman joke song. Oh, no, it was a Bruce Spring scene. Born in east la.

[Scott]

Born in east la. And a great movie, actually is a movie too.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

Born east la.

[Michael Moynihan]

I think that came East.

[Scott]

And then they didn't do Green Card, but I think it was.

[Michael Moynihan]

There was no Green Card was Gerard Depardieu with Andy McDowell.

[Scott]

The best Cheech and Chong song because they were really gifted musicians, as we all know, was Beaners, which is a word that Camille's probably never even heard.

[Matt Welch]

I certainly heard the word. I know what it means. Never used it.

[Scott]

And it's hard to find. So it's on my. I made a Spotify playlist of canceled songs. And after I made it, like, just one by one, usually by the artist, they've canceled the songs. But Beaners had a line about like, yeah, we're beaners. We study Spanish and get a B. Just a thousand percent true.

[Michael Moynihan]

Unbelievable. Yeah, that's LA to me. Yeah, that is intellectual luminaries. But yeah, it's great in that. And show will be launching soon as. Very excited for people to see all three of these interviews. They were all bangers. They were all really, really good. Super excited about it.

[Matt Welch]

Stay tuned for more details.

[Michael Moynihan]

Stay tuned to more details. For sure.

[Matt Welch]

Moynihan, you mentioned that we just had our monthly confab with members of our inner circle there. And it was fun, it was interesting. But there were a couple of interesting moments where people asked questions and the questions didn't have really satisfying answers. In fact, they were kind of like, geez, I don't know. Like, this does kind of fucking suck. One of those moments pertained to something that we may want to talk about today, which is the conflict in Iran, which has reignited to the extent it ever went away. We had a memorandum of understanding. There seemed to be a quote, unquote deal that was struck where Iran was getting pretty much everything they wanted. Lots and lots of people were disappointed and including our friend Bhatia, who came over to talk to us about her disappointment. And Bhatia will perhaps be happy to know that the memorandum of understanding doesn't matter anymore. Because that whole thing is over. Interestingly, the President of the United States, after Iran struck what I think three vessels, none of which were US Flagged. They were kind of all over the map in the straits. The US has had multiple nights of response attacks, and these are these rolling attacks where they're hitting today hundreds of targets across the country. And it's been going on for days now. Iran has responded by hitting some military bases or at least attacking those military bases kind of ineffectually as they.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, we don't know. Sometimes the first time around, they hit them ineffectually. And we found out like six months later that it was much more.

[Matt Welch]

A little more effective than was reported.

[Michael Moynihan]

Six months, but like two months later?

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, yeah. But this has been going on for a while, and the President of the United States has issued a number of statements, all of which seem to suggest, we're not happy about this. We're going to keep doing this. We don't want to negotiate and talk anymore. Except they are continuing to send envoys and have conversations and seem very interested in trying to find some sort of resolution. I don't know if anyone has any idea what the Iranians are after at this point. You get a deal. It seems like the sort of deal that kind of gives you everything you want. You're getting to trade again. The memo even indicated that you might be charging tolls and you kind of blow up that deal. And what is the purpose of blowing up the deal? Perhaps to embarrass the President of the United States has been suggested over and over again. But is that sufficient?

[Michael Moynihan]

Why not? Right? I mean, what is.

[Scott]

Why does a dog lick his balls?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why?

[Matt Welch]

I don't know, but he certainly does.

[Michael Moynihan]

It sounds much better in Farsi, but. Because he can. Because he can. Okay, because you can't. I mean, look, it's funny because there wasn't a satisfactory answer when that question was asked, but there was. I talked for a long time about it because there is. I was trying to disaggregate, you know, in keeping up with all this stuff is exactly what's happening here from the American side. I mean. I mean, remember just a month ago, we were like, well, I guess. I guess we know who's in charge now. It's J.D. vance. This is J.D. vance's World after the Marco Rubio thing didn't produce. I mean, that was kind of how it was framed. And now we have literally no idea what is happening and why these things are happening. It's not even clear exactly what this is a response to. There's been some suggestions as a response to this. Did they get everything they want? Well, they certainly got a pallet full of cash. I think that happened pretty quickly when they opened things up and money starts flowing into the country and they get what they want regardless. Right? When you have a regime that doesn't care if its people die, particularly it doesn't care if people in its military die, and you have the IRGC solidifying power, as it has done, and with a whole new crop of people, because we, and along with the Israelis, killed the entire leadership.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, you see those twice.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was like the pictures and the funerals, I was like, geez, it's like a. It was like baseball cards. It's like, you know, 50 guys, and it's like they have another stock of those people. Those people are solidifying now. I don't necessarily buy the argument that they're more radical than previous. That's always said you've just replaced them with more radical people. That's usually from people who don't like this from beginning to end, and I understand them for not liking it. But where are we now? It's totally unclear because Donald Trump has asked. He said, oh, you know, you trusted them and you loved them and you said they were great and brilliant. And he said, yeah, now, now, now I know they're bad. Yeah, yeah, I knew that in 1979 when I was a wee child and the revolution happened. But, no, it's unclear. I mean, there was a ceasefire. That was never a ceasefire.

[Matt Welch]

Just.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was never a ceasefire. There were days where people weren't shooting. But a ceasefire is what happens in 1953 in Korea, right? Shots aren't fired except for once every 10 years or 20 years when somebody shoots a bullet across the border. This is not a ceasefire. And there is provocation with Gulf states there. I mean, there's a million things that the Iranians are trying their hand at right now because they're a paper tiger. The United States in this situation is a paper tiger. You have the person who asked this question, who worked in international shipping, pretty interesting. Said something that I didn't want people to misunderstand because I knew what you're saying is the only way this regime goes away is boots on the ground. And that's not a call for bootsome

[Matt Welch]

commitment on the part of the United States to doing.

[Michael Moynihan]

And that is not a call for boots on the ground. That is just an acknowledgement that victory via air power has never happened in any real way. And particularly like a regime like this and won't happen. And so what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do to us? I mean, if the response was hitting Baltimore. Well, we didn't hear about Baltimore. If we hit any city, I would care about Baltimore. I love Baltimore. I just. It's very easy to make fun of Baltimore, but if there be absolute chaos, catastrophe, the government would be in disarray, everything would change. You hit something in Iran, nothing happens. The dictatorship doesn't make a difference. Right. They're perfectly happy wasting as many as people as they. It doesn't make a difference to them. Right. I mean, so this is the thing. What are they trying. It doesn't have to be some grand strategy. Right. The world hates this. They think Americans hate this. They're right. American students hate this. Notice Hamas's response that, you know, hostages in the tunnel were reporting this, of how excited they were about the protests in New York City and everything. They tend to think the wind is at their back and they're in the catbird scene. That's true. It's true. So Donald Trump is not trying to achieve anything. What's he trying to achieve? I'm not sure, but he thinks that he can turn it on and off because oil prices went down and it was totally fine. And now I'm back in the game. Now I can turn it back on and put the pressure back on. So it works.

[Scott]

We are totally control of the Strait of Hormuz.

[Matt Welch]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, now today we're blockading Iranian ships

[Matt Welch]

and they were briefly, briefly a statement from the president suggesting that we were going to be charging the tolls, something like 20% of the goods.

[Michael Moynihan]

How about nobody does the illegal thing in international waters because it's illegal and you shouldn't do it.

[Matt Welch]

What do you have against piracy?

[Michael Moynihan]

Fashion us. I'm a big Barbary fan, but I mean, it's.

[Scott]

There is some. I don't even know if irony is the word anymore, but like that Trump arose as sort of this response, rejection of all of the globalisms. What are some of those globalisms? It's exactly that. We spent a hundred painstaking years trying. We is not just the United States, although we were the lead actor of trying to establish freedom of shipping. That was just as a norm. It wasn't a norm. Literally just had the Barbary pirates and

[Michael Moynihan]

the shores of Tripoli.

[Scott]

It became mostly a norm. There are some wars here and there that kind of gotten in the way. And sometimes the violation of the norm, even predating 100 years, were reasons why we got into wars. It affected us getting into World War I and the War of 1812 and other reasons. But Trump arises thinking globalism's a scam to screw us over. And we're going to transition into spheres of influence, regional spheres of influence. What does that world look like? Turns out, it turns out that people aren't going to be interested in those kind of global compacts like freedom of shipping, law of the seas, and whatnot. And some people are going to try to exert their sphere of influence. And so that was. Is what I think ultimately what Iran's trying to do is say, okay, we are going to make this raid of Hormuz more lucrative for us in a way that we can throw sand in the eye of the people that we hate. And it will probably work because they understand that Trump doesn't really have appetite for sustained war. I think on some level, what has happened, getting out of the Memorandum of Understanding is a positive for the United States, for sure, because I think parts of it were terrible. The parts that almost all of it was terrible. The parts that stuck in my craw was that it had any word at all to say, what's happening between Israel and Lebanon, that's like, that's not your. That's not part of this. But Iran knows that Iran's gonna stay and that Trump doesn't really, really want to. And so they want to exact a toll on this. And Trump's response, like, yeah, we're gonna collect a toll of 20%. And then when he was sort of told by people that he couldn't do that, now he's like, well, we're gonna get trillions of dollars from the Gulf states, and we're doing that in return. And deals are gonna come. And that's going like, he, he doesn't understand those principles of why we have the underlying kind of freedom of commerce. And so this is kind of a semi inevitable result of the way that he looks at the world. This is what I've always said, like the. From Brexit to Trump and etc. You had all these people who had a kind of populist revolt against globalist structures. And they had a, I think, a sort of a righteous critique of that. These structures are anti Democratic. They are not checking in with the public opinion of the populaces who are affected. And I think they're very right about that. And that the elites have just sort of imposed their will on some level, but they never had a plan B. And what we're seeing right now is what happens when you don't have a plan B and yet or a plan A?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

And your plan A doesn't work out either.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that you can hope will happen if you're Donald Trump is to say, I am different from all of these other fill in the blank, neocons, warmongers, et cetera, globalists. But the calculation now appears to be, you can do something straight up horror movies is what complicates this. Do something that George W. Bush did, what Barack Obama did. And then tiny bit that Trump did in his first term, too, which is the periodic lobbing of missiles places, the periodic drone strikes against people where, I mean, you're always surprised, like, oh, they hit something in Djibouti. It's like, was that a mistake? Or conflicts in Africa, which we are involved in. And pretty. And beyond just giving people intelligence and stuff. I mean, Trump did that in Syria in his first term, and people got a little scared about that, and he pulled back a little bit. But this is what happened with the drone war with Obama.

[Camille Foster]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

Killing an American and his son. Right. Ala Lokwi just. That was in Yemen. Right. And this kind of thing is what we've done for a very long time. Donald Trump is not promising that he wouldn't start the Iraq war, because, I mean, he says that. But that was a very specific set of circumstances after 9, 11, that wouldn't have happened. There was the Iraq Liberation act that happened in 1998, and it was passed by Congress. But that was one of those things, Freedom in Eastern Europe. Right. We're on the record that we are saying there should be freedom. And then a very specific set of circumstances happened for the Iraq war. It was never gonna happen, same as Afghanistan. But what we can do is go back to the place where we ended up with Obama, which is there's a terrorism problem. We're gonna blow some people up here and there. We're gonna get people on the progressive end of my party angered at me and angry at me because of the drone warfare stuff. There's some version of that that I think is fine for Trump, provided people aren't getting killed. Right. Thirteen Americans have been killed in this conflict. That is very, very sustainable for somebody like Donald Trump. He doesn't give a shit about the people of Iran. And so what is the purpose of any of this? When you say, you know, we're coming to save you, which he said in January, we're on the way, help is on the way, I think is exactly what he said. Help was not on the way. He's talking about deals. Do you think the Iranian people who are in the opposition, whose son, who was a wrestler, was hanged after a drumhead court trial that lasted 45 minutes, the number of people who have been hanged after that uprising. Do you think they give a shit about deals?

[Scott]

I mean, I think he took. He took his shot. He took his shot like we're going to do Venezuela their weekend. We showed that we can program.

[Michael Moynihan]

I was worried about that.

[Scott]

And let's see if this works. And it didn't. And he didn't ever sell it, though, as that.

[Michael Moynihan]

But if you fail in Venezuela, nothing happens. Nothing regionally. What, the Peruvians are going to be mad at you? The Ecuadorians are going to wage war? No, nothing would happen. Right. It's like Bay of Pigs. We wash our hands of it. Now, of course, there's many, many, many years of problems after that. But in the way that you erupt like a war in the Middle east, it's like, you know, lighting that wick and everything that goes off in tandem, it's not a thing you take a flyer on.

[Scott]

Right? And he absolutely did. I think that is absolutely what happened. He took a flyer on regime change, thinking that we might be able to do it on the cheap, and it turns out we weren't. And then now, plan B, Plan C. Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

By the way, the Israelis, I think, certainly did their best to convince him that that would happen. But he's the motherfucking president. If they tried to convince me of that, I wouldn't be convinced. And I'm sympathetic to their cause when it comes to Iran.

[Scott]

I think that you might be convinced.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't think so. I don't think so. It's just having no precedent in modern history that an air campaign can dislodge. It's like, well, they're on the streets. It's like, yes, they're not armed anytime. I mean, there was, you know, I was just reading the other day about the first revolution against the czar in 1905. And the revolution actually comes in 1917. There's a series of revolutions. 1905 was a bloodbath in. Lenin, who was in Finland at the time, was like, we need to get bombs and arms to people and don't go out into the street until we get them. Is it complete? And there are people within the coalition of Bolsheviks saying, we'll get slaughtered. This is not. He's like, I don't care. We need martyrs. We need sacrifices. Because he was a complete scumbag but the idea was you get on the street and you have to have weapons. If you don't do that, the Tsar has weapons. They have Cossacks on horses that are slitting people's throats literally in center of St. Petersburg. And that is not what the Iranians were doing. The Iranians are doing what they've done many, many times. And you can count the years that they've done it since 2000. They went on the street and they were slaughtered. And they do that because they're brave. They don't do that because they think they're gonna affect change, because they want to make their discontent heard for the world because it has produced moderate changes over time. They can be scared by this stuff a little bit, but they're not gonna overtake the government. I mean, come on, that's crazy. I said when this started, I hope it happens. And I still hope it happens. I just don't think it will.

[Matt Welch]

But if there's any probability that it happens. Has the president not taken steps that perhaps make that more likely? I mean, Iran prior to this conflict had all of this ability to project power throughout the region. Proxies that were doing things. Certainly they had a stronger hand at the start of this conflict than they do now. Regionally, they flex their muscles with respect to the Straits of Hormuz, but that's not a.

[Scott]

But that's not a small thing. They have shown the world that we can do maritime choke points again, that's a big change in international relationship without much.

[Michael Moynihan]

And if you're knocking out military hardware, it's not the stuff that kills people in the streets. Those are just AK47s. And at home they can do exactly what they did in January, no problem. Can they get money when they're cash strapped? Until Donald Trump said, here's some cash to Hamas, to the Houthis, to Hezbollah. No, it's harder to do that for sure. Can we arm you with certain more advanced weapons, particularly the ones that Hezbollah had? No, it's. We have diminished stocks because the Americans in the United States have been hitting them. But domestically it doesn't make any difference.

[Matt Welch]

So is there an argument, though, that this is a. You referred earlier to kind of the rounds of strikes that have happened across multiple administrations and the fact that if you. In a narrow, concentrated way, without the kind of dramatic effect that we saw in the opening salvo in this particular conflict, things just kind of roll on. You could perhaps set them back.

[Michael Moynihan]

But it's easier to do when you're not Donald Trump, There is a consequence when you're a fucking asshole. Honestly, this is just a very simple thing about diplomacy. When you are, like, threatening to invade European countries, threatening to dissolve NATO, insulting European countries, having the administration put out, you know, its foreign policy guidebook that says Europe is a dump full of things that I think are bad, and it's absolutely no business of the administration to be admonishing them in public about it. Can do it privately. And then you say, and I heard someone say, you know, the Europeans are doing nothing. They're not lifting a finger. This. In a sort of scolding way.

[Scott]

And they lift these ones.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, they lift. Yeah. In England, it was the rest of the place. They just do that. But it's like that. They're not doing anything when it comes to straight porn moves. It affects them, et cetera. They're not going to lift a finger to help Donald Trump. This is why diplomacy is important. Henry Kissinger was a psycho in about a thousand ways. I'm not as bad as Hitchens on this one, but I'm not his biggest fan. But he did understand the value of diplomacy for furthering American interests in various parts of the world, because you don't know when you're going to need it. Right. And you insult them all the time if you continue. Yeah. I mean, you can do things in a pinprick motion from the air. If it's Yugoslavia and you have NATO and you have the European allies all getting together, saying, we said, never again ni vira on our soil and it's happening in Srebrenica, et cetera. And they were all behind it. That was the importance in 2003 of Colin Powell in his little presentation was, we have to get people on our side. During Iraq, there was a coalition, coalition of the willing, in which everyone said, oh, 43 countries. And it was like, you know, it's like Cape Verde. It was like really good soccer team. But it was also Denmark, by the way, who very. As Andersvograss. Very risky for Denmark to be behind George W. Bush and send soldiers to Afghanistan arrest.

[Scott]

There was a coalition in Libya as well, and which is, I think, you know, in some ways more misguided, but it's smaller in scale. Yeah. So it's possible to get coalitions and he's. It isn't possible under Trump because of the way that he conducts himself.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. I mean, you're not. And like, if you're going to do it with Israel, that wipes out coalitions almost immediately. It's not. A lot of Europeans are Going to get onside for that would be the Germans, but they don't get involved in military stuff. But you know, weirdly, it would be the Germans. But yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's like you're doing this with Israel, not at the behest of Israel. You think there's, there's narrow overlapping interests and we'll do it together. And you're going to do that. And while insulting the Israelis, by the way, taking shots at them publicly all the time and knowing that you can, you don't have to say no, you do that because they're not friendless, but almost friendless. Right. So we can say whatever the fuck we want. We can. We're the one controlling that relationship, which is the truth.

[Scott]

J.D. vance in this case says they're friendless and that's why I'm taking shots at them.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, exactly. Literally, exactly. And. But Donald Trump take shots at people who aren't friendless. He just doesn't care. But if there was any kind of sort of big power thinking this, but there hadn't been at all, particularly from Donald Trump. This is an enormous stupid mistake, particularly the way it was run. You can do it and get people not on your back. The Organization of American States, it's not gonna be on your back if you come in, take Maduro and leave. And by the way, Trump today, I don't know if you saw me, was on Fox and I don't know what precipitated this, cuz I saw it just before we came on, was threatening Delsey Rodriguez. Oh, was saying that, you know, I could make a fate for you worse than Maduro.

[Scott]

What was the precipitating.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't know. I just saw the clip right when I was coming in and it was him on the phone to Fox. I don't remember what. There's a million things because Delsey Rodriguez, of course is trying to outfox Trump too, which is, I mean the portfolio and the people in that portfolio are a lot smarter and they're actually on the ground there. They're going.

[Scott]

I mean there was. What was. The New York Times had a pretty exhaustive piece in the last five days just talking about how much Marco Rubio runs Venezuela.

[Michael Moynihan]

Like in the five, four or five byline piece, including Rene Bergman, the great journalist, Israeli journalist in the New York Times about the Israelis trying to cultivate Ahmadinejad. And it's a totally fascinating piece. I'll wait for you guys to read it because it's really. And Ahmad was traveling To Hungary. I think it was Hungary. Is that what I remember? To meet with Israelis and why this is coming out now is.

[Scott]

That's wild.

[Michael Moynihan]

That will be in a Ronan Bergman book in the future that this comes out. Ronan's allowed to write about it. And Ahmadinejad, who'd already been sidelined, his life is a lot more difficult now.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, I suppose. One related button on this is reporting in Axios today, Trump tells Netanyahu to move forces out of Syria and Lebanon, which the White House has not officially acknowledged these reports when asked about it directly, but they haven't denied it either. So it does seem to be that. Is that a Barack rudeer veracity to this?

[Scott]

Sure it is.

[Michael Moynihan]

If it was Barack Ravid. I mean, he was the Biden whisperer, but he seems to have very good sourcing at Trump. Very much good luck.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean, the Israelis have been in the process of negotiating with the government of Lebanon, who's been pretty toothless pretty much since Rafi Kari was killed in the bombing and by the Syrians in. Was it 2003 or four or something like 2004, maybe even five. But yeah, that's telling. It's just a bad thing to tell about your security concerns on the boy. They're not looking for territory. They don't want to take enormous swaths of Lebanon and Syria. They want to prevent their country for being attacked from those two places. But, you know, not, not. That's a different story. But that's a, that's a different story. But that, that's, you could say Golan Heights, but I don't buy that. But it is incredible that everyone talks about this or they've stopped talking about it. But at the beginning of the war, it was just all this is Israel's magic Hezbollah that we're all falling victim to. There's so much counter evidence that it's embarrassing to me that people actually think that.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking about Lindsey Graham, who just passed away on Sunday, and the immediate implications of Graham's passing. One imagines that this is going to have consequences for US Foreign policy, specifically with respect to the Trump administration's and Ukraine especially, reluctance to get involved in certain things. Lindsey was almost certainly a huge advocate for keeping the United States on side with Ukraine and continuing to press there.

[Michael Moynihan]

Look, you can do your dispatch, not dispatch. What's the other one? Bulwark articles and sneers and Steve Schmidt substack posts about how he's going to be in hell and he's the most evil person ever. But the. You can make an argument and I've many, had many, many problems with Lindsey Graham and the path that he took. But if one of the goals was to get Donald Trump out of the clutches of Sergey Lavrov and the Russians and being convinced by their idiotic case for invading their neighbor, he was working hard at that. So I'll say that in his defense. But I don't, I don't. And it seems like according to a lot of reports that he did actually do pretty well in that was pretty successful. And changing Trump's mind on certain elements of that and actually constantly making the case for it. Which is, by the way, he changed from saying in 2016, this is a, like the worst thing that will ever happen to America, the Republican Party. If Donald Trump is nominated and then wins. You know, he could have gone like so many of the Republicans who, you know, the Mike Lees of the world, these really despicable, detestable people who went all in on the Trump stuff, on the foreign policy stuff. He stayed Lindsey Graham. So, I mean, that's. If you don't like that foreign policy doesn't make a difference. I'm just saying that the way people have been discussing him, I think that's something that is missed that he actually stuck to his guns on things like Ukraine.

[Scott]

So I mean, he just cared about foreign policy.

[Michael Moynihan]

He did. That was his thing.

[Scott]

Was.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

And was very eloquent about it. And had Al Franken pointed out he had the best wit in the Senate and and so was really good on Meet the Press. Literally the dude was going like he didn't see a doctor because he wanted to go on Meet the Press.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Scott]

For the 5,000th time. And said died of a aortic dissection. You know, he could use that wit and his one liners in ways that if it was on your side, it was like the best thing ever. It was really funny. It was fantastic. And when it wasn't, it's like, my God, this is just hyperbolic, like partisan.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Scott]

I mean, he not only flipped on Trump about like, you know, a racist, xenophobic bigot. And the worst thing that ever happened at the GOP to people change people. The best president ever. And he hopes that he runs for a third term, but he also said it's actually kind of funny to think about. J.D. vance right now is on book tour and his book tour is all about how much he hates Milton Friedman. And the biggest problem is that the Republican Party was run by Milton Friedman for 50 years. And Milton Friedman was wrong about Red China and et cetera. And like economists don't understand the beauty of tariffs, that's their problem. But Lindsey Graham, similarly, as did a lot of interventionists and hawks and neocons, whatever you want to call them, also hated libertarians too.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, for sure.

[Scott]

And very explicitly, I think in 2009, said the future of this party must be, not be libertarian at all, because libertarians get in the way. He was pissed.

[Michael Moynihan]

This is from a foreign policy perspective. Yeah. And that was a response to Ron Paul. Basically.

[Scott]

Yes. And also because when something would happen, like Terry Jones would burn a Koran and then something would go off, he was like, we should ban Koran burning, we should ban flag burning, we should ban demonstrations outside of military servicemen funerals. I don't get. Is that against free speech? Fine. Yeah. Cause everything was about foreign policy. And so the heel turn that he made on Trump that everyone ridicules him for, and I get it, I ridicule him for it too, was in this service of this thing that he really, really cared about. Correct. I think that he was wrong about a whole lot of that stuff and would. He was always advocating, we need to, to go into Syria. We need to finish the job in this theater and then finish the job in this theater. He's the guy who single handedly, as much as any other politician, along with, I think McMaster or one of the generals who was hanging around Trump in the first term, talked Trump out of withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2019, but also at the same time spoke very eloquently about Ukraine and constantly in ways that I absolutely agree with and identified the evil of Vladimir Putin. And I think you just have to judge him with all of that.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. No, it's not to say that. I have a long history on the show of attacking Lindsey Graham and it's not a defense of him more than a bunch of people who have been so swallowed up by the destroyed Trump. We have to destroy. We have to get a Nazi tattoo guy to destroy Susan Collins because, you know, we have to get Trump. You know, I'm on that side and you know, kind of philosophically in almost every way. But there is a point at which they pretend that they don't understand the politics of this, the politics of him saying you should run for a third term. You can judge him on that and go on cable news and say, sure, I would do that. I've probably done that. But he is a. If you read stuff from Lindsey Graham, if you See him in less guarded moments and interviews, longer interviews.

[Scott]

He's a very smart guy and very funny.

[Michael Moynihan]

And very funny. And he is. You don't think that when he walks off that set and he says he should run for a third term, he's like, he'll fucking eat that one up and walk out. You know, the judgment is not. Is that the right thing to say? Is it moral to lie about that? To make the president happy, to make him bend to your will? Because that's what he's doing. I mean, it's clearly what he was

[Scott]

doing, and it's not just what he's doing.

[Michael Moynihan]

And you can say that's wrong. I'm only just trying to clarify, like, these people are, like he said, the most hopeless. Like, yes, and I wouldn't have done that myself, but at least have the footnote that he did this in service of the things that he thought was right and that he could trick Trump on.

[Scott]

What do we think politics is if you were going to retain elected office in Washington, let's say, which is what we pay way too much attention to. But for understandable reasons, you have to make horrible compromises all of the time. And you have to make horrible compromises, especially to whatever beast is on your. And that beast could be like something within public opinion. It could be an individual person. In the case of Donald Trump, on your side, you have to kind of pay lip service to that beast in order to keep your job. That's just the sort of the opening gambit. And then you have to make all these gross compromises. Who was always trying to play golf with Trump in his first term? Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul, who hate each other and always did, and probably both hate Trump and probably both hate Trump, but because they both actually very sincerely have these strong foreign policy beliefs. And also in Rand Paul's case, opposite of Graham's case about civil liberty stuff. Lindsey Graham once said that we should boycott the Olympics until the Russians send Snowden home with the Winter Olympics and wherever it was.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, that sounds about right. And you know, it's. Rand Paul has said amazingly generous things about Donald Trump, too.

[Scott]

Yes.

[Michael Moynihan]

And we've criticized him for it, but it's not.

[Scott]

It's the price of playing golf with him so that you can try to influence, to get your thing. And I mean, it's the same thing of why do so many, many especially Republicans now. But it's not only Republicans. It could also be, you know, former Mexican presidents and Democrats in different places. Why do they suddenly become these truth tellers once they decide to retire, of course, because they don't have to do that thing anymore. And so that. That nature of politics is itself gross.

[Michael Moynihan]

It is gross.

[Scott]

And we should. And we. That should give us pause forever thinking that any of these motherfuckers are worthy of our affection. They are not.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. I want to clarify when I anticipate the criticism and address it, because I know it will come up when people say, well, you shit on Republicans for being spineless all the time. Why would you do that if you're saying this? Well, I hope you don't ask that question. But if you do, what I'm talking about is not people who change their ideologies and their ideas, the Michael Lees of the world who just become a different person. To get close to Trump and get close to power, that's one thing. Cozying up to Trump and doing the thing, compromising on certain things, blowing smoke up his ass to get the thing that you want that Donald Trump doesn't necessarily want. That's different. And that's what Rand Paul did quite a bit. And I think that's what Lindsey Graham did, too. I think there's a material difference between the people who just were free traders and now are staffing the Trump administration, trying to formulate more tariffs on Swaziland. I mean, just the weird. The people that do this because they love the game and they think it's a game, they love the power and they love the proximity to the presidency. That is very, very different than dealing with. I mean, look, the head of FIFA, right, gets in trouble for all this stuff, gives him a trophy. It's like. It's almost a peace prize. It's an important trophy. No, it's almost an Andy Kaufman routine.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's almost like, are you fucking serious? Like, I'll give you a Peace prize, and you'll be like, I got it. I got the FIFA Peace Prize. The first one. Never been another. Never be another. You know? And like, he loves it. And it's like, are you kidding me? Would he do that to any other world leader? No, because there's no other psychotic world leader who's still to this day obsessed with the Nobel Peace Prize in the way that Donald Trump is. Let's joke. It's like taking Dennis Rodman to North Korea. How do we get the interview with Kim Jong Un? How do we get Kim Jong Un to stay? It's like, well, he likes basketball, right? Let's bring him a basketball player. It's like, let's bring him a prize. In, listen, make it. He's like, no, he won't fall for it. He'll fucking fall for it. He'll fall for it. Larry David, he can't believe it.

[Matt Welch]

I mean, completely eviscerating your dignity in service of promoting your politics. It doesn't really feel you're a politician.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

That is the compromise that you have to make, though. Certainly someone like Mamdani manages to have a decent relationship with Donald Trump, despite the fact that he is not constantly fellating the man.

[Michael Moynihan]

He might be fellating him behind closed doors. That's where you usually fellate people

[Scott]

in West Hollywood.

[Michael Moynihan]

I do it. What if it's open rules, no rules. You do it in a waymo.

[Matt Welch]

There's also the cost to the though,

[Michael Moynihan]

because, yeah, we're seeing it right now.

[Matt Welch]

The Republican Party has spent now, in aggregate, what, six years doing this.

[Michael Moynihan]

Correct.

[Matt Welch]

And some change, if we're gonna be honest about it. And I don't know what the party looks like after Donald Trump is gone. It's not clear what the leadership circumstance looks like afterwards. I don't know that anyone else who is currently at least being talked about is a potential successor for Donald Trump has the kind of charisma and public appeal to the extent Donald Trump has some. And I guess he does to actually command that sort of. I don't know what to call it.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. I mean, look, you can say I am principled, and these are the people that I respect, and these are the people that. Why there's the curse of the fifth. These are the people that we respect and come on the show and they lose. They're gonna lose their races. I mean, Peter Meyer lost his race. He voted for impeachment. He was pretty honest about what he felt about everything. And he was primaried. DNC funded Democrats, funded his insane primary opponent who he lost to because he was super mag. And then that guy lost the general. Yeah, that's what happens. Right. And then what happens next time around? The Republican Party makes sure that the person that they put in is more in the image of Donald Trump. And then the party changes over time and becomes unelectable. And then you have to burn the entire building down, because the only thing that these people want to do is win. They want to be on the right side of wherever the party is right now. When you see people in Congress and it's the great Republican trick that Democrats fall for every time saying, how many genders are there? Or something. Can a man give birth to a child? And there's always that, no, you Know the answer why you paused that? Because you're thinking about what it's going to do to your career. Who's going to criticize you? I don't know why these motherfuckers are so surprised by it every single time. Because it's the oldest trick in the book at this point. But they are. No one's being honest. That's why those pauses and all those congressional hearings, they're like, well, it's like, no, no, just. You wouldn't pause if I asked you. If you were sitting here having a drink. You tell me exactly what you feel. So everyone does this all the time. But there are moments when you give over everything that you believe, which is the reason you were interested in politics. The reason you got interested in politics is because there was some. You read Friedman, whatever it might be. And you were like, that fired you. And I said, shit, I want to be more of this. And I get into it and read all these books. And then to go to D.C. and be like, well, you have to throw all that away just so you can keep your job. That's pathetic. And those are the people who stay around. That's why our friends don't stay around. I actually want to read a quote. It's been floating around from Lindsey Graham. I can't believe this is a journalist, I think from the Atlantic. And this is what Lindsey Graham said when I was first elected. The House. This is great. I looked for they. They who run things, they who know how to. How things really work, they who know what they are doing. But I couldn't find find they. I went to the Senate, but there was still no they. And then I started to get invited to the White House and to close door briefings, the meetings with top officials. No they. What I finally realized is that there is no they. There's only we. And we usually don't know what the fuck we're doing.

[Scott]

It's a typically great quote.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's a great quote from him, but

[Scott]

also, like, shows how he thought about his job, which is that he cared about that issue, which is basically the exercise of foreign policy, and wanted to root around it and understand as much as possible about it and then influence it and realize that pretty soon there's not a lot of other people who are as interested as you. And so therefore you can influence it more than most. And including, I'm sure he had some influence on Biden foreign policy too, because he was good friends with Joe Biden.

[Michael Moynihan]

So, like, that's in one addendum to this When I. When I talk, and I have talked a lot in the past about, and even tonight about the kind of weird idea that Israel controls everyone. AIPAC controls everyone. Right. Clearly, APAC tracker, all this shit. The reason I recoil from that is not so much that, you know, I'm on Israel's side. That's not why I recoil from it. It's because when you get close to people in power, when you live in dc, when you see how the sausage is made, it's why you stop believing in conspiracy theories. The sense that people get that there are these, like, you know, there is this deep state, there are individuals that do things, and sometimes there are conspiracies of small groups of individuals that do things. But this sense that people have, that come from movies, that there are big global systems, right? There are always those movies that are just like, you know, secret societies globally. James Bond movies have done this. They now specter these organizations that control things, they just don't. And it's just. They can be effective. But controlling things is something very different because there is no they. There is a very, at the best, a bifurcated party or interest group. There are pro Israel people who think this and pro Israel people think this. But in almost every case, it's very, very splintered and there are competing factions. I mean, look at the left. Over the years, it's the syndicalists fighting the communists, fighting the anarchists fighting the anarcho syndicalists. No one can get together under one roof. It's a very simple idea that explains the world. That's why conspiracy theories are for dumb people. Because dumb people don't want to go and do the deep dive and say, actually the truth is much more boring. And sometimes it's even exciting, but it's usually much more boring. And to that quote, when I read that Lindsey Graham quote, it was like, yeah, there's a they. You gotta do they. It's like, that's not how it works. It's just a bunch of dumb individuals who are motivated by different things. And, yeah, they can be entranced and enticed by money for sure. That's why we have a ton of laws about this stuff that Donald Trump violates every day. But this. This sense that there's a big blob that runs things. Yeah, I mean, I understand all the pushback. There is conventional wisdom that's bad. It's not the same thing. Right. There's some.

[Scott]

I don't know how those theories spend a lot of time surviving the last 11 years. Of American politics.

[Michael Moynihan]

That's a very good question. It's a very, very good question.

[Scott]

If there was a they, who are they and what have they?

[Michael Moynihan]

Class.

[Scott]

The Epstein class has run amok for 11 consecutive years.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, yeah, maybe.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it took a scam artist like Ro Khanna to really elevate that. And what is Rokhanna's interest is. Rokhanna's interest is in cameras being in front of them.

[Scott]

My God, Esther.

[Michael Moynihan]

Good Lord. And his kids owning golf courses and things like that. But yeah, it is. How this hasn't destroyed. That is. Yeah. Well, I'll never understand it.

[Matt Welch]

Lindsey was going to be the Senate candidate for Republicans, presumably going to this race in South Carolina, November.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Having passed on, his sister got the tap and that. I guess we don't know that she's going to actually run, though. Has she made a decision on that formally?

[Scott]

I don't know. I would tend to doubt it. She's been a private person.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, Yeah. I think she's doing.

[Scott]

Donald Trump suggested that that would be good. And they're like, okay, cool.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Scott]

And did that. There's. I saw some people like Glenn Greenwald being very apoplectic about that, and I get the instinct, but that it has happened, you know, Missouri, Mel Carnahan. Gene Carnahan.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

I think Walter Capps was replaced by Lois Capps in Santa Barbara. My neck of the woods.

[Matt Welch]

And not running afoul of any laws here. I mean, the governor has the ability to make this appointment. The President of the United States made a recommendation. Governor's gone along with it. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of her being this hugely corrupt person. It's a kind of continuation of policy there. And there will be an election very soon.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. I mean, it's her from now to January.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean, this isn't, you know, when the czar dies and the kid takes over.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. There's like, plenty of stuff to be upset about. But there are some races happening, although we are in July and it's a bit of a lull here in July in that we've only got, like, two races that are going to be happening this month in terms of primaries. But we do have one in Michigan that is worth talking about first week in August.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't remember when that is, but yeah.

[Scott]

Are you queuing up theme music?

[Matt Welch]

Queuing up midterm madness.

[Michael Moynihan]

Madness sponsored by polymarkets. Yeah.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

What's up? Midterm madness up here in the fifth column. Yeah, boy.

[Matt Welch]

So there is a Race to watch in Michigan. This is one of the more talked about races of this particular campaign cycle. Michigan Democratic Senate Primary DSN DESA and we've got two candidates here, Abdul El Said and Haley Stevens.

[Scott]

Do that again.

[Matt Welch]

Is that not syed?

[Scott]

No, I just want to hear you do it. It's fun.

[Michael Moynihan]

That actually sounded like you were trying to do.

[Matt Welch]

I was trying to do it right.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, Saeed, I was trying.

[Matt Welch]

I did my best. It's a little clipped, but I tried to do my best there. This is an interesting race and one that is interesting, I think, to compare with what we see, what we're seeing in the prediction markets for a fairly straightforward reason. I think it helps to hammer home the distinction between what polls do and what the prediction markets do here in Michigan. We've had tight polls, El Said regularly leading the competition here. But within.

[Michael Moynihan]

This is in the primary. This is in the primary against Haley Stevens.

[Matt Welch]

Yes, against Haley Stevens.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Earlier today I went to.

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean you can literally run somebody, somebody from Islamic Jihad. I'm not saying he is, I'm saying somebody else. You can actually get Saeed Ktub to run. And Haley Stevens is not the greatest, not the greatest candidate. Saeed is known for close, super close.

[Matt Welch]

Very, very.

[Scott]

According to the polls.

[Matt Welch]

And Said is known for a number of things. Having previously run for governor, came in second, I believe has served on some commissions for President Biden. So he's well known in Democratic politics.

[Michael Moynihan]

He's doing that like TikTok video thing of him dancing and stuff.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, yeah. But also has been palling around with some people who are kind of more DSA adjacent. Certainly represents the more progressive wing of the party. But here looking at this, I mean you can see once the race started to. It's been close all along the way, like 30% to 25%. There's a little bit more separation at different points. But I mean 4 point lead, 9 point, 9.7. And that's 7. Yeah, 10 and then more recently up to 2.

[Scott]

And this is polls.

[Matt Welch]

These are the polls that we're talking about. We're talking to polls now when we actually look at what's happening on the prediction market. This is a million odd dollars. So it's not nothing. But you know, we've certainly got more valuable ones than that. But yeah, we see some actual. We saw some real separation take place. And earlier today when I first checked the numbers, it had been up around 77, 70% favored for said. And now as of right now, it's dropped down to 61 odd percent something happened today. I think the interesting thing here is only so much has to happen. I mean, he's had a 2% lead in the polls. What the prediction markets are telling you.

[Scott]

Points.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yes.

[Matt Welch]

But what the prediction markets are telling you is the likelihood that this candidate will win. And the money has been comfortably pointing in one direction for a little while

[Scott]

now and trending, trending much more. The claws have been open until.

[Michael Moynihan]

I mean, if you look at trending

[Matt Welch]

a little bit back, closer to 50%, like, doesn't seem all that striking. I do know we recently had a debate there and there were some specific comments that he's made previously that were much more in line with the kind of progressive wing of the party, like defund the police, et cetera, et cetera. And he did not back away from that.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, he defended it, you know, and it's interesting you would expect that to go the other direction in Michigan. But if you see that between April and May is where the numbers converge, right? And this is around the time where he starts getting a ton of press because the media is out looking for DSA type people, the next platinum. Who's the next platinum? Who's the Mumdani's coterie of people in New York, The Claire Valdez of the world. And he's getting a lot. And I think that in this sense, I'm trusting the polls on this one because you see, that is a lot of social media excitement. But he went down today, as you see. And I want to play a video. Can I play a video, please?

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Haley Stevens. This went viral today.

[Matt Welch]

And one would think this is why she's booming.

[Michael Moynihan]

Numbers would go the other direction. This is Haley Stevens. State Representative Haley Stevens.

[Matt Welch]

Right.

[Haley Stevens]

I am gonna be working on our behalf. I am gonna be telling the stories on our behalf. And you better believe I'm gonna be doing it with a little bit of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm, a little bit of energy, and a little bit of stick it to them, because that's the Michigan way.

[Camille Foster]

Oh.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, man. What the fuck?

[Scott]

Can we just play that entire thing again?

[Michael Moynihan]

You want it again?

[Scott]

The entire thing again?

[Michael Moynihan]

You want it again? Yeah, you need.

[Scott]

I. Cuz this is my first time. I've been trying not to watch this

[Matt Welch]

cuz everyone kept us.

[Michael Moynihan]

Drink it in, man. This.

[Haley Stevens]

I am going to be working on our behalf. I am going to be telling the stories on our behalf. And you better believe I'm going to be doing it with a little bit of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm, a little bit of energy and a Little bit of stick it to them because it's the Michigan way, a little.

[Matt Welch]

The mom from Bobby's world,

[Michael Moynihan]

she's in the Little Rascals.

[Haley Stevens]

I'm on a.

[Michael Moynihan]

You know, it's like, what are you doing?

[Scott]

That's why she's trending better.

[Matt Welch]

Well, the fact that she's keeping it tight, being that kind of candidate tells you a great deal and must mean that she's probably gonna win.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, Abdul wants to get rid of the police up there. What are you talking about, buddy? The fuck is this?

[Matt Welch]

He said state representatives, congresswoman, U.S. congresswoman.

[Michael Moynihan]

Wow. So she's really been on my radar for a long time. My prediction market was that she didn't exist.

[Haley Stevens]

And.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, I mean, when the other alternative is. And I wouldn't have to go through the typical sayed, you know, policy points. It's exactly what you'd think. But as you'd mentioned, and I mentioned this when we were doing the second Sunday that he was asked to, you know. Well, yeah, like, you know, defund the police. And he's like, oh, yeah, that's good. So I said last night or two nights ago, points to him for sticking with his guns. We were just talking about people who are opportunistic, but these people might understand both in polymarket who are making these wagers on this that Michigan's different, Senate races are different. You know, states are different. House races are different. We're talking about the DSA stuff here in New York City, right, in a primary. And not a lot of people come out to primaries well, but there's a general. Not in this city, there isn't the general. It doesn't matter because there's a Republican and, like a Libertarian and somebody from, like, the Goat Party, like, stuff you've never heard of, and they're all going to win. That's what we've. The primary is the election. That's not the case here. And whoever wins this goes up against Mike Rogers. Different show about the psychness of Mike Rogers, but preferable to Abu El Said from all the stuff I've. He was. I saw this clip of him today talking about guns and he's like, police shouldn't have. I think he's like, please, shouldn't have. They shouldn't use them or whatever. And it's like, what are you talking about, dude? This. All right. Is that going to play in Detroit? Probably not. But he did do the thing like the giveaway to seniors, which was the weird policy position for the DSA adjacent guy, was that no Property tax for seniors.

[Scott]

Increasingly popular opposition.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. And that's something. I mean, they're a very motivated electorate. They come out and vote. And that is somebody who is seeing those polls and not Polymarket. And I would advise him, sorry, polymarket, not to look at polymarket, because he would be. Although there's a little collapse of confidence today.

[Matt Welch]

But the race isn't tomorrow.

[Michael Moynihan]

The race isn't tomorrow. I mean, it does seem likely. If I was, you know, gonna wager on it, I would say probably him. But I don't think that those margins are. Are obviously very different than polling. This is where the sentiment is. And I think that that's the general sentiment outside of the state of Michigan, too. Michigan politics is very different also. So you know Peter Meyer here for this.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah. Another question that came up during I am Peter Meyer.

[Scott]

Did you think of that?

[Matt Welch]

Depends on the day.

[Michael Moynihan]

Put your wig on.

[Matt Welch]

There was another question that came up during our hangout with our pals.

[Scott]

We call it Second Sunday.

[Matt Welch]

Second Sunday.

[Scott]

Have respect for the brand.

[Matt Welch]

You're right. You're right. I think I coined that, if I'm not mistaken.

[Scott]

You did, absolutely.

[Matt Welch]

But another question that came up and we had some conversation about it, was how real is the thing that's happening with the dsa? And I think you, between the three of us, were the only one to say, I don't know, I think that this seems like it has some saying power, there's something going on. Hasan Piker agrees with you.

[Scott]

Obviously not for the first time, but

[Matt Welch]

the specific evidence that he cited was like, look at the grand platinum race. Look at these town hall meetings. The average age of voters in Maine is not like 20 or 30 something. They're in their 50s. The people who are coming out, who are supporting these candidates, who are getting fired up about them, whether or not they understand all their policy positions, are precisely the people who you would expect to be kind of the actual power of the Democratic Party. In which case these candidates do have some broader appeal.

[Scott]

So primary fights tell you about the direction of a party. And if you start, you know, it's like a rule of three or a rule of six. Once you start noticing a bunch of them, especially those moments where people decide to go the people who are passionate and there's a bunch of different candidates who kind of all are trending in a certain sort of direction, maybe under the same mantle or description, maybe not. But once those people include those who the primary voters themselves kind of know in their hearts are probably going to lose, but vote for them anyway, that tells you something about the direction of the party, especially if there's sort of a trend for it. So yeah, the DSA is sort of a local virus. And New York City, we don't have to pay too much attention to it. We just need to not move and live in New York City. But the fact that it happened in Maine and the fact that it is happening in Michigan, it's also been happening in Colorado on the Democratic side. And those things all kind of trend in the same direction and has the same kind of enthusiastic response of people, I think tells you something closer about where the beating heart of Democratic primary voters are right now, where they want to go. And it's not that many issues, but you have to be, you know, anti billionaires, anti Israel, if we're being honest, anti data center. And you know, thank God Kathy Hochul protected us just today from, from the, the menace of data centers in New York State. She's not going. We're just going to have a temporary moratorium on data centers here. Kind of like they did a temporary moratorium on fracking 15 years ago. And that worked out fucking great for

[Michael Moynihan]

New York and on Amazon jobs in

[Scott]

New York City and on Amazon jobs in New York City and on nuclear power as well. Yeah, it always works out, works out fucking great. But yeah, so I think it's all like there's a bunch of that in that direction. Republican side too has this and there's actually a lead from Michelle Goldberg, former recent past guest, about a guy who won Colorado. I don't know if you guys have followed this at all, but this is

[Michael Moynihan]

killed a guy, the exorcistor system.

[Scott]

This is a pretty solid lead from Michelle, who, you know, we've been critical of on occasion. The right wing preacher turned politician, Victor Marx, great name, has said that he first killed a man when he was seven. He's not sure how many deaths he's been responsible for since. Marks has been arrested at least twice for disorderly conduct and has described terrorizing a psychiatrist with talk of murdering him. He told the Colorado journalist Kyle Clark that he can perform exorcisms by phone. Who can't? On Thursday, he was declared the winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary.

[Matt Welch]

Let's go.

[Scott]

So like, maybe it doesn't fit as much of a specific profile of ideology. I don't know if he's sort of in a troop. But there's also, there's like the outsider candidate of like the rando Republican crazy person outsider. I would say Spencer Pratt is kind of in that category. It's a little bit. Maybe unkind, but those people tell you information about where the party is going to go, especially when there's not a lot of countervailing examples of people who are competing in and winning primaries.

[Michael Moynihan]

Look, they slip through. And in this case, this lunatic is not speaking to a policy platform that, you know, everybody else in his coterie has. There's not somebody else running in Maine that says, oh, I killed somebody when I was six. It's like. It's just. It's just a weird dude.

[Camille Foster]

Not yet.

[Matt Welch]

It reminds me 2000 people who are. Who are put. Have their names in the hat now.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, I mean, there's like this stuff. Stuff is just like, yeah, this guy's a freak. And is he gonna win? Probably not.

[Scott]

No.

[Michael Moynihan]

Is it? Is it. It's not gonna be close, but you think of Christine o'. Donnell.

[Scott]

Sharon Angle.

[Michael Moynihan]

Sharon Angle. Who's the guy that. Todd Aiken. Todd Aiken.

[Scott]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

Indiana or Ohio or something.

[Scott]

Blake Masters.

[Michael Moynihan]

Blake Masters. These guys that, like, they just get washed out in the general, and they don't. I mean, the crazy ideology that these people have, they are attacking aoc. You've seen these attacks on aoc, the DSA people. Yeah, DSA people. Because she's not a fucking moron about politics. She's a moron about policy, but not about politics. Kathy Hochul signs this bill today to make sure that we have no more data, because data is terrible.

[Scott]

She does it by advertising herself with a meme of like, red laser AI generated.

[Matt Welch]

AI generated, sure.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. But that was done with solar power. Her LLM that she built herself.

[Matt Welch]

She used her peloton.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah. AOC said, you know, thank you, Kathy Hochul. Until it's like. It's the immigration, Donald Trump thing. Until we can figure this out and we can all join in the great benefits of AI. That tag on the end was necessary. Right. It was deliberate. She's positioning herself of like, I'm not opposed to this technology because you guys all use it and you all like it, and you can't be opposed to things that people like. Is this basic politics or what? So the thing about these things, they come to these town halls. Yes. They get excited. Yes. Israel, sure. I don't think these people are really. That's very much for the base of the DSA base. The young people that are coming out, older people are like, yeah, I don't like war. We're giving money to them. That sounds like a bad deal.

[Camille Foster]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

But when it comes to the actual policies, I'm Going to give old people things we're going to take from the rich people and give them to you. First of all, if you vote for that and you're falling for that shit at this point, it's been in every campaign in the history of campaigns, and it never happens and it never works. And if you're going to fall for that, you're a fucking sucker. And what can I say, but that stuff appeals across right and left. But then when it comes to the other stuff, they either back away from it or they don't last very long. And you become all these parties in Europe that have a big UKIP like uptick and then it all collapses. And then you have to be reformed now or whatever. And as always, this happens is you can see these little. I mean, there was a Social Democratic party in England in the 80s, split off from Labor. They disappear because they're lunatics. Always at the end of this, when they say we have to defund the police and they start talking about the carceral state, let's see, you don't try to be the smart person and say prisons, okay? The carceral state. And we have to shut them down. Well, where do they go? Into your community, motherfucker. Where do you think they're going? My house? That is when it falls apart. And the problem is, is there isn't. The only wings of the DSA are more extreme. There is literally a communist wing of the dsa. The rest of them just kind of wink at it. And these ones are openly just like Stalinist. And so that factionalism is not trending towards normal politics, it's trending towards even crazier politics. Because when you get drunk on this type of politics, you go heavier and heavier. You get more and more radical, more and more extreme. And that's the way this group of people are going. That's why I don't think there's any hope for the DSA is because they don't have any sensible policies. You can say things like, we need to redistribute wealth. That's an idea that people like. What's the policy behind it, but confiscate all their wealth.

[Scott]

My fear is that enough people are going to win in positions that don't actually demand results. You win Congress, you don't demand results at all. You just keep saying your own bullshit forever. And also that people in general, political consumers and constituents in general don't really pay a lot of attention to results. You can see this with mom, Donnie actually, like, he will do the exact same thing that every New York mayor has done. But people like, my God, he jumped in the pool on the first day of opening the pool.

[Matt Welch]

Did you see that speech he gave after the finals? It was so great.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, he was so good on basketball. He filled as a guy. Smelly guy, holds a fucking like hatchet to my neck. It's like, did you see a speech about basketball? Yeah. And it's also like, you saw that somebody posted thing like, oh, look at the horror of New York. And there's like people sitting outside in the summer.

[Scott]

And I'm like, well, that's sitting outside in Bryant Park. In Bryant park, which is literally a private park.

[Michael Moynihan]

And I don't know who responded that it was like. Yet that you don't think that what Giuliani did and what Bloomberg did and what Ed Koch did even in some respects disappears when they leave. I mean, you're living. The reason DSA exists is because this city became self safer and wealthier and all the wealthy kids that went to Hotchkiss and came to Park Slope, it was because of what sort of Republican and Republican adjacent policies they weren't. You know, Rudy Giuliani wasn't a traditional Republican in that sense.

[Scott]

Not at all.

[Michael Moynihan]

And you know, Mike Bloomberg certainly wasn't. Right. And you know, but they're just basic law and order things that people like in cities that is from time immemorial, law and order stuff wins votes, you're successful at it, you go too far, it's bad. And people will react to that. Right. And you know, we see these ice shootings again, one in Maine and I actually.

[Matt Welch]

An immediate pullback.

[Michael Moynihan]

An immediate pullback. And that is thankfully thankful. I mean, look, it's a small mercy here, but that the response is not to double and triple down, which is typically Donald Trump's response.

[Scott]

The problem is that. But even though. So there is that pullback and so we're not doubling and tripling down, but even after the pullback from Minneapolis, the quotas remained. The lower standards for hiring, a massive hiring binge on ice agents remained.

[Matt Welch]

Which is exactly how you get two fatal shootings in two weeks.

[Scott]

Correct. They are meeting their quotas by pulling over cars. And pulling over cars is a dangerous situation. Situation. Especially if you don't know what the fuck you're doing. And that's what we're saying. And I wish the people who like these types of pullovers and stops reflected on this, because this is a result of your policy preferences being enacted, not necessarily your policy preferences of wanting A secure border, wanting X and Y. Different policy thing, but just like, I want us to be out there aggressively going not just after criminals.

[Matt Welch]

Right.

[Scott]

But by maybe people who sort of seem illegal. That's what it's going to look like. And it's terrible. Like, it's not something to sort of speed over. It is a fucking awful, awful policy of this government and of somebody who's, you know, one of the most important deputy senior White House staffers and Stephen Miller, and is shaping policy to this day. And it's a horrible, horrible shame. And there's a lot of different things to get excited about and angry about. But this hasn't stopped. It didn't stop in Minneapolis.

[Michael Moynihan]

No. But the thing is that people will not complain about it if it doesn't happen in this way. Right. I mean, if you're. I don't know, the circumstances of Maine, I don't know if the guy had a criminal record, was violent in any way. I have no idea. I know they said they were taking out his.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, it seems like it was pretty bad.

[Scott]

There's definitely a pattern among ICE incidents where ICE serially misrepresents it. They've been slapped in court so many times. So, like, the default is to not trust their version of events, which I don't want to. I don't want to default to that.

[Michael Moynihan]

Well, the default does not trust the version of government events in most things.

[Scott]

I don't want to, like, go fully.

[Michael Moynihan]

I want to be nice about these things, but they're particularly in the moment. You know, it's cover your ass. The person was a terrorist. Right. And we saw that Alex Preddy thing, and the woman, too.

[Scott]

Sandra Goode.

[Michael Moynihan]

Sandra Good. But, yeah, it's. I. I think if these things were done as they're waiting and the man walks out of his house and they surround him and tackle him and put handcuffs on him. No one cares about that. And as a matter of fact, it's quite popular. We've seen the polling on it. But the thing is, Americans are sensitive to the way that it's done, which is, I think, why the pullback happens. They have midterms. They're concerned about this stuff. We want to keep doing it. We want to tell people. I mean, every president says, I deported X number of people. It's never in sorrow. It's always a bragging line.

[Matt Welch]

Right.

[Michael Moynihan]

You know, Barack Obama was the deporter in chief. It's like, is that George W. Bush

[Scott]

did it in somewhat sorrow because he did it after the bipartisan immigration reform Failed.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

And Michael Chertoff, his secretary of whatever the hell.

[Michael Moynihan]

Homeland Security, wasn't he Homeland Security.

[Scott]

He was. I remember he came into the LA Times and I was working there at the Ed Board and he was very explicit about it. Like we are cracking down now because Congress failed to act. This is the consequences of your decision. And you could tell he didn't like it. Unlike Mark Wayne Mullen who will probably like him.

[Michael Moynihan]

Of course.

[Matt Welch]

This man though, in Houston, Texas, 52 year old construction contractor who his had put two or three of his sons through college. Like it's amazing to think about the federal government placing a priority on like finding him, getting him out of the country. I'm not even sure he's who they were looking for during that operation.

[Michael Moynihan]

Probably not. Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

It's just, it's.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. No, I mean there's. Americans will have reactions to this in a negative way, particularly if it turns out, particularly this video, obviously. And not nobody cares about Rodney King if there's no video. Right. If there's video, they care and they care a lot more if somebody's killed by somebody who's in the country illegally. That is a much bigger deal with people. And it's like I'm just looking at this purely from a political standpoint. The reason is because I don't know the details of these cases. I've seen the headlines on them. But Donald Trump is trying to wrest back a very popular issue for him that he let go because he doesn't understand politics and he doesn't understand the American people. And he thinks that they all want, they're all at the rally is saying, you know, kick them all out. It's like kind of, but not really. It's a little different than that. People are not, they want you to obey the law, but they also want you to clean their house. Right. And they don't want you to get shot in their neighborhood too. People are, I mean there was, I saw some eyewitness account, I think of the main one and it sounded like pretty gruesome and pretty terrible. And it's just like the people, from a purely political standpoint, they don't locally react well to that. And I just don't, I don't think Americans have a lot of stomach for that kind of thing. And we've seen that just the poll numbers collapse. I don't think there's any been any policy position of his that has fluctuated as much. I shouldn't even say fluctuated. I haven't seen the recent numbers but collapsed as precipitously as it did after Minneapolis.

[Scott]

His economics numbers in his second term have collapsed.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, that's a normal one. But that.

[Scott]

It never did in his first term.

[Michael Moynihan]

It didn't in his first term.

[Scott]

Not in a similar way. There was always a feeling like, oh, we can sort of trust him. Maybe he's a businessman or something. Enough. But like, the floor fell.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah. One thing I just mentioned the Reform Party in the uk, and I did want to point something out and I wanted people in the comments, and you can only comment if you subscribe. So stopping at cheapskate about Anne Whitakem. Who's that? You say you said that?

[Scott]

I didn't want to say it out loud on a podcast.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, it's. I mean, everyone listening is saying that, or some people. We have a lot of people that are paying attention to stuff. A lot of people in England, too, in the uk. Anne Witcomb was a Member of Parliament, I think, for probably 12, 15 years, something like that. She served in John Major's government and then after her government service, she became something of a firebrand. Very Conservative, left the Tory Party and joined up recently with Reform. And there's actually a very good free speech. Oxford Union debate with Anne Whitakemb recently. And she's like a very good speech, Very fiery, very smart and in her 70s is my guess, late 70s. She was murdered. And again, if you pay attention to British politics, this is not, you know, this congresswoman from Haley Stevens. I mean, everyone knows Anne Whitakem. She's on tv, et cetera, and she was murdered and nobody really said anything about it. And the police did. The thing they often do in the UK was they said, well, we have no political motive or we don't believe that there's any terrorist connection. They arrested somebody and then released the person and then arrested somebody else yesterday, I think in the lovely city of Rotherham. Sorry, Nico, but Rotherham, it's a rough place. It's where the grooming gangs were based on Rotherham. And they amended their statement and said that there was a political motive. I mean, driving from Rotherham to where she lived is. It's not a five minute drive in murdering her. She's a very famous political figure associated with reform, famous populist right wing party run by Nigel Farage, who just kind of backed away because of this big scandal about crypto billionaires funding him. This is what happens with the populace, apparently. They get crypto billionaires to fund him. And the coverage has been kind of crickets, in a way. Now, you could say that that's good, because people are waiting for the, you know, chips to fall.

[Scott]

When did the murder happen?

[Michael Moynihan]

Last week. Yeah. And it's barely been mentioned in the American press, even in the British press. It's like not getting. It got front page treatment. It got front page treatment when the guy was arrested, et cetera. But it's not like we need to have a debate, Right. I mean, there's been a Labor Member of Parliament who was murdered in the uk. There's been terrorist attacks, Lee Rigby, who was beheaded in the UK. The 7. 7 attacks. Been a lot of political violence in England. I mean, not even mentioning Northern Ireland and all that political violence. But this is a problem like political violence. People being killed for their views. You know, J.K. rowling can't come out of the house without a phalanx of security. And one of the most amazing things that I saw is New York Times reported on it and they did the opposite of what they always do. And this has been. This is in the British press, too. And people can look this up. They specified that the subject was white. Oh, a white subject was arrested, which I thought was pretty amazing.

[Scott]

Okay.

[Michael Moynihan]

Because. Rotherham reform, Nigel Farage, Anne Whitakem, Immigration. Probably a Muslim. They didn't want people they knew that much from the police, which they usually don't release these things. But when they're trying to, like, we have an opportunity now. We got a white guy. Let's make sure everyone knows that it's not a Muslim or an immigrant or something like that. So that I saw on the coverage of the New York Times today, and it was also in the British coverage, which I thought was pretty remarkable, considering the complaint is often that those details are left out of stories. And that is absolutely not the case now. But I don't know. We don't know. They haven't released any more details about this. But I just thought that the kind of. The fact that a former Member of Parliament is a huge political figure in the UK Was murdered and there really isn't much talk about it.

[Scott]

Literally, like, I found out about it through you.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. Right before we started, I said, maybe talk about Anne Whitakem. You're like, who. Yeah, Old lady got murdered.

[Scott]

She in the. Like, a home run hitting contest?

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's on the. The. The Fire. What is that? I don't even know. I literally trying to think of a WNBA team, and I couldn't think of one.

[Scott]

The Fever.

[Michael Moynihan]

The Fever, yes, the Fever. The Fire is a Chicago MLS soccer Team which is named after a horrible fire.

[Matt Welch]

That is a really bad name.

[Michael Moynihan]

The city of Chicago.

[Scott]

Is the Indiana Fever named after Jason's from Chicago.

[Michael Moynihan]

How many people died in the great Chicago fire? Oh, that.

[Camille Foster]

I don't know.

[Michael Moynihan]

That you don't know.

[Scott]

You don't know. You don't know.

[Michael Moynihan]

What an unbelievable. Like you just started it. Yeah, yeah. In the 1800s.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

But a lot of people, they decided what's that? Oh, in the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the Illinois flag.

[Scott]

It's like a little exploding.

[Michael Moynihan]

The Chicago. The Chicago flag, the blue one and then one's on fire for all the people. All the people that burned to death met. And then somebody was like, let's name a soccer team after that. That the Polish Holocaust is up on the field against the Chicago football. Is any tragedies in your country you want to name teams after Pandemic? Of course. The Turkish genocides are coming out to the beach.

[Scott]

So called.

[Michael Moynihan]

So called. Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Come on.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah. No, it's like the only team that has it in quotation marks. Chicago Fire. Yeah. I don't know anything about. About the wnba.

[Matt Welch]

Wow.

[Michael Moynihan]

I did was. I was, I was amazed to find out. I think you told me that it had this like 25th anniversary or something recently.

[Scott]

The WNBA. Yeah, sure did.

[Michael Moynihan]

Is that true? 25, maybe 35.

[Haley Stevens]

I don't know.

[Michael Moynihan]

Maybe 35.

[Matt Welch]

Could be 100 years. I have no idea.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

People are just.

[Matt Welch]

I'm not.

[Michael Moynihan]

Honestly, I'm not even saying when WNBA was segregated.

[Matt Welch]

I'm not saying I could never go to a game. It's entirely possible it could happen.

[Scott]

I went to a daughter playoff game.

[Matt Welch]

It was great.

[Scott]

It was awesome. I'll take your daughter.

[Matt Welch]

Yo.

[Michael Moynihan]

It was good. You enjoyed it.

[Scott]

Yeah. Actually Coco's reaction was like, I like them because they're not as. They don't show off as much as the, the men do.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Scott]

I'm like, no, you just remember that. You just mean that they can't dump.

[Matt Welch]

It's not showing off.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

It's called playing basketball.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's called scoring NBA basketball. As a man, I love. They don't go to that really far line and then hit it and get one extra point. That's like, like so dumb. They do do that. Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

Caitlyn can do that. Caitlyn can do that.

[Michael Moynihan]

I thought they got rid of that. I thought it was like a lady's tee. Is it, is it closer?

[Scott]

Damn it.

[Michael Moynihan]

Is the three point line closer?

[Scott]

No, no.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, yeah.

[Camille Foster]

No.

[Scott]

Caitlyn shoots bombs.

[Michael Moynihan]

Dude, I think that's unfair.

[Matt Welch]

She can shoot.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, but what is. She can't dunk. What is the three point percentage? WNBA versus.

[Matt Welch]

I don't know.

[Michael Moynihan]

It's not great. It's not as good.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, it's probably not as good. Yeah. My sense. My sense of the league is that there is more parity in the league and that the superstars general, on average, matter less. That is not to say that there aren't huge stars in the WNBA who actually sell tickets like Caitlin Clark and can really win you games.

[Michael Moynihan]

And then the bench Cunningham.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

Is that the one?

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

MAGA Barbie, I think.

[Michael Moynihan]

Yeah, that's. Cause she's like a hot blonde. That's why I like her.

[Camille Foster]

Yeah.

[Matt Welch]

And she.

[Michael Moynihan]

Is she a good basketball player?

[Scott]

I mean, she's pretty good for a bench player. Ethan Strauss has a wonderful piece about her today, pointing out that she's one of the best actual shooters. She's like a great.

[Matt Welch]

Is that right?

[Scott]

Yeah, this year. That's a great effective field goal percentage.

[Matt Welch]

He would say that about her.

[Scott]

Yes. Yeah, that's what he means. I know the subtext.

[Matt Welch]

Oh, I know it's.

[Michael Moynihan]

Oh, effective. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there's a lot of players to profile.

[Matt Welch]

Hell of a euphemism.

[Michael Moynihan]

I don't. I know. Angel Reese. Yeah, I know that one.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

She's the one with the. Because the only thing I ever hear.

[Scott]

With the what?

[Michael Moynihan]

With the punching. That's what I said.

[Scott]

There's a lot of things.

[Michael Moynihan]

There's a lot of punching.

[Matt Welch]

Did she punch?

[Michael Moynihan]

But I just. I always love and narrative. It's like it's finally getting the attention it deserves. And that's because of Caitlyn Collins. And I'm like, caitlin Clark. Caitlin Clark, whatever. The woman from Sienna. Didn't she play basketball too?

[Matt Welch]

Caitly?

[Michael Moynihan]

I thought they were the same people. No, but the one that's not on cnn.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah.

[Michael Moynihan]

And it's like, oh, because they love watching her play. I'm like, that's probably true. But I always see it because there's always people punching her in the neck. Every time you see a clip, it's like everyone like tripping her and setting her on fire.

[Matt Welch]

You know what's interesting?

[Haley Stevens]

Of.

[Matt Welch]

Of all the stories and actually this reminds me of something from a moment ago. We should probably stop soon. But the data center moratorium thing. Well, first I'll say that clip.

[Michael Moynihan]

What does Caitlin Clark have to do? Well, this kid, she owns a data center.

[Matt Welch]

The clip of her getting punched in the throat, that is one of the first stories, national stories, where there Was a widely circulating AI fake video that almost everyone, it seems, for a little while, was showing this fake video. And that was the one that was getting all of the attention online. And I saw it from a number

[Michael Moynihan]

of bright people I know.

[Matt Welch]

No, it just. It was not like a deliberate. The. The fake AI video was, like, deliberately putting her hand, like, in her throat. You could see her face. Like this scowl came over it, like this deep, evil satisfaction. It was nothing like that. It was like a moment. The hand went there.

[Michael Moynihan]

Dude, we've been watching the World Cup. You sneeze when the guy's running guy and he does a backflip and grabs his entire body.

[Matt Welch]

Yeah, this was not.

[Michael Moynihan]

Mine's a red card you have to go to.

[Matt Welch]

But someone.

[Michael Moynihan]

For three months or so, someone made a fake AI video.

[Matt Welch]

But I was gonna say about the data moratorium. This is the first time. And we talked about this last week when we recorded our episode with Robert Wright just for a little bit at the end. And you have to get a members only subscription. We keep plugging it, this show. For some reason, it seems like there's

[Michael Moynihan]

a lot of good stuff over there

[Matt Welch]

that people should go watch. But towards the end of the conversation, and really in the middle as well, because we had a robust conversation about it, we were talking about this AI bust narrative, which is impossible to escape if you are paying any attention to the news and seeing a state like New York enact a data center moratorium. Well, they may not want to build most of that stuff in the coming months anyways if things are slowing down. It's giving me those vibes from, like, the old Internet Explorer days when they were trying to regulate them because they had this huge monopoly on the browser market.

[Michael Moynihan]

Shipping with.

[Matt Welch]

Maybe we're there already. We've already overbuilt all of the compute.

[Michael Moynihan]

So to our listeners out there. And this is mostly about myself because I was waiting for the Caitlin Clark payoff in the data center. Where was the merging of these two stories? And it didn't happen.

[Matt Welch]

No, it didn't really happen.

[Michael Moynihan]

No, it did not happen. That was just a little flare that went up and it was just like. Just another opportunity to plug talk the thing. Talk about AI or. Yeah, all right.

[Matt Welch]

Okay, we should go.

[Michael Moynihan]

Bye, bye. Bye.

[Matt Welch]

Bye, bye.

[Camille Foster]

We know of new method of attack. The Trojan Horse. The Fifth Column. The Fifth Fifth. The Fifth Column. Fifth Column. Fifth Column.

[Michael Moynihan]

Sam.

[Camille Foster]

Spies, saboteurs and traitors. These dividing forces are undiluted poison. They must not be allowed to spread in the new world as they have in the old. Our moral and our mental defenses must be raised up as never before against those who would cast a smoke screen across our base. This column. This column. This column. This column. This column. This column. Fifth column. Fifth column. This column. Fifth column. Fifth column. Fifth column.