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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying Big Wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
- [00:29]
Mike Pesca
See full terms@mintmobile.com the Gist is hiring the name of the position is Podcast Production Coordinator where the podcast this is less for a person who has radio experience. You know, hey, listen, I love when you say we're going to have to ride the levels on this mix minus, but that's not what this is. This is a very organized person who will do a lot of booking, make the trains run on time here at Peach Fish Studios and just in general be on top of things to like, have my brain be able to concentrate on interviews, flags and puns. Go to Mike Pesca.com to check out the details of this job. And even if it's not for you, if it's for someone who doesn't even work in radio, audio or podcasting but you think has the skills to help us here at the Gist and Peach Fish, check it out at Mike pesca.com It's Monday, April 28, 2025. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Among favorite annual events, the Gathering of the Juggalos, the Running of the Bulls, the San Pedro Lenten Rights, culminating in the actual nailing of at least three penitents to wooden crosses, but most of all, the White House Correspondence dinner. Sure, there have been some funny comics in the past, but am I so desperate for seven good jokes that have to sit through poorly miked C Span broadcasts where every joke dies in the room? Once, to torture myself, I went back and watched Don Imus's routine and it.
- [02:07]
Ryan Reynolds
Was Newt, remember, who wanted to give every kid mired in the poverty of urban America a laptop computer? Not nearly as popular as Phil Graham's plan to give every white male in the country a lap dancer.
- [02:20]
Mike Pesca
But this year they canned the comic. And the punchline, in the sense of lines that punched up, down and sideways, came from award winner Alex Thompson. He is the Axios reporter who broke from the pack and reported that Joe Biden was having some cognitive problems before the former president had his Long debate Night of the Soul. Thompson praised the White House Correspondents association, but also criticized as a class the White House correspondents. Being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves. We, myself included, missed a lot of this story and some people trust us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows. While a smattering is an irreducible absolute concept like pregnancy or uniqueness, I think what we just heard there qualifies as a sub smattering of applause. Even so, it was well said. And Thompson went on to say that acknowledging errors builds trust and being defensive erodes it. Hear, hear, I say. And I, by the way, will be interviewing Thompson and his coauthor Jake Tapper about their new book Original Sin, President Biden's decline, its cover up, and his disastrous choice to run again in Seattle on May 31st. And the first three callers to the concert line get free tickets. Sorry, that is an error. There is no contest line. All tickets must be purchased from Cascade pbs. But now you see, I admitted it. You trust me more. See how that works? And I learned that lesson from Alex Thompson, winner of the Irving P. Thalberg Lifetime Achievement in the field of Poultry science. Again, it was the Aldo Beckman Award and I was in error. And now that my trust is through the roof, I shall tell you that on the show today. It is a full show interview with David Frum, formerly speechwriter for George W. Bush and then longtime writer for the Atlantic and lately the host of an eponymous talk show, a podcast, the David from show. It's good. He's a very smart guy. I quote him and think about him often on the show. And now I talk to him. Full show interview. We will get his assessment of the cowardice of Republicans, the excesses of Democrats, but most of all, how serious a threat Donald Trump is, which in from's assessment is quite serious. No error in that. If Ed is getting you down, don't blame Ed. That guy's not special. Lots of guys have it. You need to get up, get up with hims, boost your confidence, boost other things. Hims helps you last longer and be more confident. If you're feeling stalled in the bedroom, you gotta get some gas back in the tank. I'm not going to speak elliptically, but I'm not going to speak specifically about what hims does or what Ed is. We all know it can be uncomfortable or I've heard that it can be uncomfortable. Hims is changing men's health care by providing affordable sexual health care. Treatments from the comfort of your couch. They have doctor trusted ed treatments like Viagra and Calis. They have generics and you can save 95% on them. Fill out an intake form with a medical provider will determine the right treatment option. If prescribed, your medication ships directly to you for free. You don't need insurance. One low price covers everything and they have hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. Start your free online Visit today@hisss.com thegist that's hims.com thegist for your personalized ED treatment options. Hisss.com thegist the featured products include compounded products which are not approved nor verified for safety, effectiveness or quality by the fda. Prescription requires seeing website for details, restrictions and important safety information. Price varies based on product and subscription plan I want to talk about financial literacy. Do you have it? How'd you get it? For me? My dad would listen to a lot of those AM radio shows where they talked about finances. I think they were very respectable. They weren't ripoffs and we got smart. We definitely didn't get rich. But you know April is Financial Literacy Month. That's right. They made a whole month reminding you to finally take control of your money. The good news is you don't need 30 days. And that's really good news because there are 30 days left in April. Acorns makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future in just five minutes. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you've got is spare change. And the great thing is they just help you take that spare change that you didn't even think about and they put it into a proper investment vehicle for you. It's really very clever one time setup and they're automatically for you a nickel two dimes. I'm not going to give all the iteration of change, but they'll put it in a retirement account. They'll put it in an investment vehicle. It's so clever. It's so passive. It is a way to invest. Sign up now and join the over 14 million all time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com/the gist or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns Tier 1 compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures@acorns.com the Gist David Frum joins me now. He is a staff writer for the Atlantic and really the perfect person to host the David from show, a new podcast which I've been listening to and it is, as typical of Mr. Froms work, quite excellent. Welcome. I believe this true. Welcome back to the Gist.
- [08:31]
Ryan Reynolds
I'm not sure I have if I've been on it. It was so long ago and I feel like when we talk about podcasts, I mean, you sort of invented it.
- [08:37]
Mike Pesca
So I did invent podcasting. Yes, they should be called.
- [08:40]
Ryan Reynolds
They really should. And so the rest of us are like, you know, you know, filling, following the footsteps and basically we owe you all royalties for your idea.
- [08:50]
Mike Pesca
Tell me about the from cast, which was blessedly the name you avoided. What did you want to do with. Because you do, you do address this in episode one, but I think it's important for my listeners to hear.
- [09:01]
Ryan Reynolds
I have been a guest on a lot of podcasts I for a long time avoided. I felt like I was the last person who didn't do it. But in this Trump second Trump period, I felt I had to do something different from what I'd done in Trump 1. And partly for personal reasons, I wanted to do some self reinvention. So the idea of the show is I want to speak to the middle ground of American politics. I think that the culminating thing was I had seen this chart that showed the podcast landscape, or at least the political podcast landscape, piling up on the fringes. And I think most Americans believe in markets, believe in the independence of the central bank, believe in free trade, believe there should be a social safety net, believe that you should take medical advice from scientists and not from morons and you know, and basically want to get along in reasonable harmony with people who are a little different from themselves. And so where is that? So I'm trying to model on the show the way I think I'd like to see the politics of the future. We cover sort of the center ground of American life. And I try to, I'm not trying for viral exciting moments. I'm trying to create something where at the end of it, not only will you feel better informed, but you actually will be better informed.
- [10:23]
Mike Pesca
There is a market for that nutrition. I mean it's not just broccoli sticks to the soul if it's very satisfying. But I do wonder if I think that presenting it that way is wise. And I think you're right. There is A market niche and places like Tangle and Other Place, I try to do that, but they've been very successful. Others on the fringes, from Midas Touch to Dan Bongino, have been more successful. But I do wonder if, without the element of. I did this podcast because I desperately have something to say if a correct assessment of the market is the proper driving force for a podcast.
- [11:06]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, well, I do have something to say. And. And I mean, I'm there talking about. I mean, call me an oddball. You know what? I'm an oddball. But through my life, I've been obsessed with issues of trade and tariffs. I grew up in Canada, so it comes maybe naturally so to see the United States government attacking the system of global commerce that's been built, that has done so much good for not only prosperity, but peace and security, to see the NATO system. Christopher Hitchens, my late friend, said after 911 that everything he loved had come under attack from everything he hated. And I think in this, even more in the second Trump term than in the first, I feel very much the same way. You know, I'm. I'm a. My father was born in Toronto in 1931. His family came to Canada from Poland in 1930. They were not refugees. They came for economic reasons. Had they stayed, they would have been murdered. My father would have been murdered by the time he was 11 or 12, as were every one of their relatives who stayed behind. So I grew up in this extraordinary period of peace and prosperity and security after the Second World War, none of it owing anything to my efforts and. And then. But I at least paid back by making the effort to understand how it had been built and to honor the people who'd done it. And then it watched this bunch of vandals just smash it to pieces without even understanding what it is, just because they're bored and malicious and. And every. So it's every. So NATO, free trade, the whole. All the systems of that keep the democratic world together. It's all on the firing line now. And that's. That's my fight.
- [12:49]
Mike Pesca
Were you among those who correctly assessed the tariff stance, Trump's tariff stance, as being backwards and unhelpful, but thought that it might mostly be bluster? Or did you know he was going to adhere to it to the extent he has?
- [13:05]
Ryan Reynolds
To the extent he has. I mean, who. It's hard to imagine anything so malicious and stupid. But I did know it was true because. And not because I'm so prophetic, but because he did it before. People forget this, but in Trump 1, Trump began applying tariffs in the second half of 2018, not only against China, but against trading partners like Canada and the European Union. Steel and aluminum tariffs. And there was a market crisis in the second half of 2018. The second half of 2018 saw a big fall in stock markets. Trump backed off a little bit in 2019, and then it was all overtaken by Covid. One of the reasons his Covid response was so bad. And again, people forget this, they used to know it. So Trump needed, was became very worried about how the stock market was doing in the run up to the 2020 election. He began to plead with the Chinese for a trade deal. And that's why there are all these flattering tweets from him to the Chinese dictator, Xi, you know, you're so great, you're so wonderful. Please give me a face saving exit from the trade war I started. And it was because he was so busy enticing Xi into a trade deal in the that he ignored all the early signs of COVID And I, I think I did this on Twitter the other day. I'm going to write it up someday. You do the timeline and you can see that he is working for him in December 2019, January 2020, even into February 2020. Getting the deal is top priority. And so he is flattering Xi and ignoring Covid in the crucial months that determined whether this would be a gigantic crisis or whether it might be contained.
- [14:34]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And I think part of the reason why he was so quick to call it the China virus. Well, he doesn't, let's just say, quite generously to him, he doesn't mind doing a toe touch into offensive racism. But he felt burned by Xi. Yeah, he was very angry that she didn't do the deal beforehand.
- [14:50]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, well, look, viruses have often been named from the places where they originated. There was a Hong Kong flu in the 50s, there was in the 1890s, there was a Russian flu. And viruses do tend, they have life cycles. I mean, the misnamed Spanish flu in fact originated in the United States and Kansas. Exactly. And then they, because viruses have, are constantly evolving.
- [15:16]
Mike Pesca
So just ask Ebola.
- [15:17]
Ryan Reynolds
Just ask Ebola. So, but what Trump was also trying to do at that point was he had messed up pretty badly and for very selfish reasons. A very classic Trump. He got himself into a fight he didn't understand he was losing. He had no public support behind him. He began to look desperately for an exit. He began to think he was owed an exit. If he didn't get the exit, it was the fault of the people with whom he'd started the fight for not giving him the exit. And so they, therefore, they were to blame. And then he has this echo chamber of, as you say, borderline racist, or sometimes past the borderline, this amplifying chamber. But here we are. Now, this is a trade war, not against China, but against the whole world.
- [15:57]
Mike Pesca
So you mentioned that you wanted to do something different than you were doing in the first administration. And I read you, and you were a valuable voice. And you also pivoted away from your previous tribe, which takes a lot and probably has a lot of costs. Now, maybe many members of the previous tribe have joined you. But what I could imagine wanting to do things different for a few reasons. One, it wasn't working to. You've already been there. Three, you saw this new market opportunity, but what were the things that you were doing that for whatever reason, you didn't think were as effective or you didn't want to keep doing in terms of, you know, you're not changing your deep convictions about the danger of the Trump administration. I assume you mean just how you express that.
- [16:41]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, a fully candid answer to this has to be a little personal and a little heavy. So forgive me, I'm debating whether or not to do it, but what the hell? All right. So in Trump one, I did a lot of rapid reaction pieces. So Trump would do something heinous. I would write about it for the Atlantic, and it would have a lot of response. And the Atlantic became really a powerful voice and very much from the center. I mean, because I, many of my pieces were attacking him, not just for his dictatorial efforts. But you mentioned tribe. I mean, I've always, I'm a market guy, and I would attack him for his attacks on free market, for his attacks on trade, for his attacks on property rights, for his attacks not only on the due process that is expected before you send somebody to a concentration camp, but the due process before you say to a law firm you can't do business with the government. I was interested in all those things. I and that it was very tiring. And at the end of the first Trump presidency, I thought, you know what? I'm now going to go back to longer form journalism. I wrote a lot about, I wrote about issues of art and art history and museums. And then in early in 2024, we had a devastating personal event in my family. My wife and I lost our eldest child, and I was in a state of kind of emotional and mental paralysis. And then. And I convinced myself that Trump wasn't coming back because I could not as a diminished person. I couldn't work and live the way I had worked and lived from 2017 to 2021. And then Trump did come back, and I feared he would. I kept insisting as a prediction that he wouldn't, but that was holding my own hand because I couldn't deal with it if he did. He did. And then I had to find some way to. With a lot less strength than I used to have and a lot less joy in life than I used to have. I had to find some way to meet the. For the balance of my life or the balance of my energy, meet my responsibilities. And so I've been looking for different ways to do it, but this is very much about. There's just less of me to go around than there used to be.
- [18:47]
Mike Pesca
When I read your earlier pieces, they sometimes, I think unfairly got lumped in the category of. Of resistance journalism. And yeah, the people who were resisting Trump often love those pieces. Then again, you would often get attacked from the left. But what do we do with the idea that Trump should be resisted? And what should we do with the fact that. Here's another one I was just reading in Axio. Sarah Fisher, excellent journalist. She was documenting how the concern about misinformation and disinformation has abated. And my personal take on this is that we exaggerated the concern and yet we should be concerned. It was a big concern and people would reach, and yet at the same time, people would reach for it wantonly. So how do you. And I suppose this also informs what you're doing now. But how do you take into effect that there are elements of what you're doing that are simultaneously righteous and perhaps can be derided as predictable or having no effect on the actual comportment of the administration of the world?
- [19:52]
Ryan Reynolds
My son, who is a great sports fan, once gave me a very valuable piece of advice borrowed from the world of sports. The advice they give players is don't let the audience into the game. So you just do the game the way you think it needs to be done. Of course it is bad always to be overstated, exaggerated. And I never liked the term capital R resistance, because not only it was exaggerated, is it misunderstood the nature of the threat? I said through the first time, I said over and over again, hundreds of times a year. There are many stops on the train line of bad before you get to Hitler Station. The United States is a backsliding democracy, but it remains a democracy, and the tools of democracy are there. That's One of my answers to people who say, why aren't people in the streets so long as elections are possible? Going into the streets is a waste of time and effort because the time you spend organizing a rally could be spent organizing, mobilizing people to vote, so long as that's.
- [20:50]
Mike Pesca
And by the way, by the way, a couple weeks ago, they were in the streets, and there's a lot of downside, what you just said. Oftentimes these rallies, these organizations get overtaken by views that aren't those of the organized.
- [21:02]
Ryan Reynolds
So, yes, that's inevitable because rallies get taken over by the people who are good at rallies, and the people who are good at rallies are people who are protesting all the time. Whereas the anti Trump movement needs to be a movement of people who mostly go about their business, mostly vote, mostly take part in regular politics, are not experienced with demonstration. So, of course, they will be out organized, and then there will be all kinds of dangerous and counterproductive symbols. So until you get to the Serbia situation, the Hungarian situation, where voting is useless, prevented from being useful, the energy needs to go into ordinary politics. But it is a backsliding democracy. It is an open question whether the elections of 26 and 28 will be fully free and fair. I don't say they won't be, but I worry about it. So. But of course, as a writer, the power of writing is always from saying exactly the thing that needs to be said and not more. And you don't get, you know, I used to write speeches for a president and I would. People would often stop me and give me. Look around and they'd give me a draft of a speech they'd written. And you'd open. I don't mean to make fun, but you'd read the speech and it'd be full of. Nor I would never shall it be. Let them not pass. And you read this and you think, do they know? Do they know they've invented the microphone? Yeah.
- [22:22]
Mike Pesca
Not everything is Winston Churchill on the eve of World War II. Also, there are big stakes, but, you know, we're not all trying to flee a besieged French city at this exact moment.
- [22:35]
Ryan Reynolds
Exactly. So tone it down. So it's always the key to good writing is always tone it down. I mean, whatever you're writing. Basic rule, take out first, go through, kill every adverb, every adverb, every one, and then kill about half the adjectives and the survivors, take them down. Always a notch and every verb, take it down. You will be surprised because it's. If what you. If the matter is strong, the style doesn't have to be. So don't oversell it. I think that's, that's just always true of effective writing. And with the term, you need to take on board the nature of the danger, which is again, to quote something I said during Trump 1, he's not the heart attack of democracy, he's the gum disease of democracy. And the way you deal with it's.
- [23:20]
Mike Pesca
A constant, the ginger haired gingivitis.
- [23:25]
Ryan Reynolds
It's just, it's this decay and deterioration and it's not going to be one final battle like in that old socialist anthem. It's just an endless struggle of every day there's some new act of crookedness or craziness or cowardice. And so if you sell people that there's this giant moment, you in a way deprive them of the patience they need for what is going to be a grinding struggle. And it may not end in Trump 1. You could hope if Trump just left the scene, we could go back to something more familiar. Trump has now pulled a great political party after him into the cause, into the idea that, you know what, the things we value most cannot be achieved by democratic means. And therefore we have to abandon democratic means. And again, that doesn't mean SS uniforms, the models. It means this corruption and corrosion of democratic self government. It means breaking down restraints on the power of the authorities. One of the things I worry most most about with these seizures of people from the streets of America and sending them without hearings to camps, obviously the condition of those people is terrible. And many of them, even the ones who are guilty of heinous things, are still owed a hearing before being sent to a prison. And for all we know, and it looks possible, many of them are guilty of nothing serious other than overstaying a visa. And you don't send somebody to a prison for life with no contact with the outside world for visa overstay. But I worry as much, maybe even more, that we've constructed a bureaucracy of people who are getting good at finding ways and means and reasons to send people to institute prisons without a hearing. And that this, we are building a government apparatus that will grow and that will affect more and more people. And that's again, it's, it's gingivitis, it's not heart attack.
- [25:16]
Mike Pesca
And we will be back in a moment with more of David Frum about this administration that is getting good at being bad foreign. You know what I'm bad at maybe or two, is meal planning. In fact, I'm so bad at Meal planning. I didn't even realize there was this category of activity called meal planning. It would just come time to have a meal or to cook for my family, and I would say, oh, what am I gonna have? And try to figure it out. Didn't really make sense to me that you could go back and plan the meal beforehand, but you can. And just about the best way to do this that I've come across is Marley Spoon. I'm excited that they're sponsoring this episode because with the code, the gist, you can get up to 26 free meals from this excellent service, Marley Spoon. They have over 100 recipes to choose from. Comfort food like big batch beef Stroganoff, a salmon and creamy mustard dill sauce bake, which is a lighter option, something for every mood. I will tell you about a meal or two. The mini chicken, meatballs and escarole, or as my people call them, scarol. And this meal was money. If you understand the Sopranos or Italian, you'll know that scarol is slang for money. But it's in this brodo broth, which I'm going to get to in a second, and it's with garlic crostini. I could never have made it on my own. But with Marley Spoon, I am planning a meal and wowing my loved ones with the quality of the meal and the great thing. One of the great things about Marley Spoon is sometimes you want to make a meal that has a certain ingredient, but you know. Or you probably fool yourself and say, sure, I'll use that ingredient over and over again. But it sits in the back of the fridge and you don't. With Marley Spoon. If, for instance, with their Martha Stewart's Best One Pot Paprika lamb stew, you need a little bit of broth. You need a couple of packets of beef broth concentrate. So if you opened it in real life, I would never use it again. But with Marley Spoon, it's the exact right portions. This spring, fast track your way to eating well with Marley spoon. Head to marleyspoon.comoffer/the gist and use the code. The gist for up to 26 free meals. That's right. Up to 26 free meals with Marley Spoon. One last time. That's Marley spoon.com backslash offer backslash the gist for up to 26 free meals. And make sure to use my promo code. Oh, you know it. The gist. So they know I sent you. We're back with the Atlantic's David Frum. And speaking of the last topic before the break, you know, during the first Trump administration, I said over and over again that our deliverance will be professionals doing their jobs. I wasn't blase about it. I thought it would take a lot of gumption and a lot of hard work and their. Their skills and their intelligence. But that is essentially what came to pass. I'm less certain about that now. It is true we still have a robust bureaucracy with people who still have power, titular power, who are able to do the right thing, not because it's right, but it's just because it's following the rules. But it does seem that Trump has learned some lessons. And we do have a federal judiciary who is charged with doing this, and by and large, looks like going to do this. But what do you think? What do you think about the idea of in the second term, professional people doing their job will still save us?
- [28:48]
Ryan Reynolds
I would have agreed rather more with that statement in the first Trump term than in the second. Yeah. And so judiciary and bureaucracy. So the federal judiciary has made it quite clear they do not want to tangle with Trump, and they're saying, don't look to us. And through the interval between Trump 1 and Trump 2, when he was faced all those charges, the pretty obvious wish of the judiciary was to be let out. Every form of delay, they accepted that. Judge Eileen Cannon in Florida, her colleagues could have overruled her if they were really upset with what she was doing. She does answer to an appellate circuit, and they have ways of disciplining her, including reassigning the case. I don't think they were displeased to say, you know, just push this. We are hoping he'll lose in 2024. Just push these matters over the edge. Keep this away from us. We are not here to save you. You. And that's what John Roberts did in that bizarre opinion on presidential criminal immunity impunity he came up with. He mostly wanted to say, keep him out of my court. So I'm going to come up with this completely convoluted doctrine based on nothing. The bottom line of which is I don't want to see him in my court. And not because I love him so much, because I don't, but just because I don't want to stick my neck out. So I would.
- [30:04]
Mike Pesca
I think the Abrego Garcia ruling adheres to that, too. So, you know, trying to sidestep with words like facility.
- [30:10]
Ryan Reynolds
Right. So I think, yeah, with the Garcia thing, there's some things that are so heinous and so egregious, they have to say something but mostly I would not, I would not count on them to be heroes.
- [30:19]
Mike Pesca
What about Bozberg?
- [30:21]
Ryan Reynolds
These are district court judges. You have to think about this as, as a system. How does the system. So there will be always, for every canon, there'll be a Boasberg. But the system as a whole, well, its instinct is pretty obviously we accept and even welcome delay. That's what we want. And the bureaucracy in Trump won. Trump didn't understand how the bureaucracy worked. He thought he could give orders and even though they were illegal or impossible, that they would somehow be executed. In this time, he's, and this is the real danger this time he has got many more like minded people at high levels who are working with him to turn off the bureaucracy. And a lot of things are happening, for example, in the tariff realm. But also, you know, at another time, if a president proposed, you know, what I want to do is seize people on American streets, put a bag over their head, bundle them onto a plane, fly them to a foreign country and send them to prison for life without ever there being a hearing. There might have been some resignations, there might have been some protests, there might have been some delay inside the bureaucracy this time. The analogy that's used that I like best is that the velociraptors have learned to operate the doorknobs, that Trump knows better who to trust and the people he knows to trust know better how to operate the bureaucracy. So again, without saying where, this is like Hitler's hundred days in office, because it's not like that at all. We are on a dangerous path and it's going bad. And we're also in this period where the American economy, like the cartoon character, we're off the edge of the cliff, we're clutching the anvil. We haven't yet begun the plunge, but the plunge is about to happen.
- [31:58]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, don't look down. Seems to be the, that seems to be the triggering mechanism for gravity taking place. But let me ask you what is. So you criticize the federal judiciary, I think aptly. But how can you discern what the difference is between timidity, which should be called out, and a reasonable fear of overreach because of what you just said. As a columnist, you would often face criticism for not going far enough, but you just said you can't. You don't want to go too far because then you ruin your credibility. Maybe a judge, if they were sitting here, would be saying just that. You don't want to overreach, you don't want to overrule. Eileen Cannon. Yeah, the vast majority of this circuit wouldn't have ruled that way. But there are consequences and we're really talking about document storage case that would probably result in a fine.
- [32:48]
Ryan Reynolds
Yes, no, that's very true. I think the real and they have faced a real problem which is the question of is a president criminally liable for acts is a question that managed not to arise from the presidency of George Washington to the president of presidency of Barack Obama. And in fact there's, and the courts have been in the past, they've said, you know, presidents are not liable, they don't have civil liability for their official acts. That's the case from the Nixon days. In the Clinton days, there's a case that says they do have civil liability for their non official acts. So you sexually harass somebody before you become president. Yes, she can go ahead with a lawsuit against you even if you are president. But the whole criminal realm they left alone. And it is a heavy thing to ask and I understand why they were reluctant. But the crime here is not drunk driving. The crime here is an attempt to overthrow the Constitution of the United States by violence. And if the judicial system says the laws cannot deal with an attempt to overthrow the Constitution by violence, well then what recourse do we have? At that point we're out of the realm of law altogether and into the realm of very dangerous kinds of politics where there's suddenly no rules.
- [34:03]
Mike Pesca
So on my show I have said the most meaningful, powerful aphorism in the last 10 years was one of your coinage. If liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will. And I say it goes way beyond borders that we're absolutely seeing that with the immigration issue, you could apply it to most of the big issues in America. If liberals won't keep our cities safe, fascists will. If liberals won't rein in universities, fascists will. I don't want to go too far and say if liberals won't decide who gets to play in girl sports, fascists will. But, and I don't want to catastrophize and call all of these other decisions that of fascists, but it is, it is true, isn't it? You stopped at immigration, which is something you've talked about a long time, but it applies to so much.
- [34:51]
Ryan Reynolds
I think, look, there's a balance in politics. What voters want to know is that liberals can say no and conservatives can say yes. And one of the things that George W. Bush, who's not everybody's favorite president these days, but one of the things he always wanted to do is to model that you can be a conservative president, but you can say yes to human needs of various kinds, and you can demonstrate that those feelings of empathy and sympathy and human understanding, those are not alien emotions to you. And maybe you are less likely to say yes than your liberal counterparts, but you can still say yes sometimes. And liberals, it's the same thing. They need to be able to say, we can say no, that we will probably send fewer people to prison than our conservative counterparts. And we'll make you a case why that's right. And why our more lenient approach is the best one, both for justice and safety over the long term. That's their argument. But we can still send people to prison. And we do think that if you steal shampoo that that's, that you have to be stopped. We can't decriminalize, you know, the shampoo theft or soon there will be no shampoo in the stores, which is what happened in some of the big cities. So, you know, I think of that, that moment where Kamala Harris got that ACLU questionnaire where about sex changes at taxpayer expense for illegal aliens and federal prisoners. They took like four Newt Gingrich pain points. Four that, literally four. And they rolled like. And I thought like the inability to say, is this a joke? If you're, if you're the candidate, is this a scam? You know, sex changes and illegal aliens and federal prisoners and taxpayer expense all in one question. Like, can I have two, any two of those? Right.
- [36:38]
Mike Pesca
But also it makes it an easy question. You could just object to one part of it and say no. But she didn't.
- [36:43]
Ryan Reynolds
No, what you say is, is this a joke? That's what you say. You don't answer the question. You say, so is there going to be a copay or does the taxpayer pick it up from the first dollar? It's just ridiculous. What are you trying to do to me? Why are you putting me in this position? You're supposed to be my friends. And if you don't have the self discipline to say, we're not playing politics this way, I have the self control to say we're not playing politics this way.
- [37:07]
Mike Pesca
Okay, totally agree. And I think that there is a inability among liberals or progressives and it may be because of their motivations to even recognize that they ever did anything wrong. And there's these raft of excuses. Oh, you described positions that not many of us had or not all of us had. Let's put that aside for a second. I think that what I've been seeing is that very progressive people will say, I'm not going to stop advocating for causes that I think are righteous, full stop. I'm not going to, I'm not going to read the electorate and try to triangulate. And that actually offends why, offends my sensibilities, offends my, my core, my convictions. So when it's on something like trans kids in sports, which is, which I do think is a tiny, tiny, tiny issue, but it's clear where the public is that you should moderate a bit. And yet when I think it's on something like the detention of Abrego Garcia, I'll concede I'm looking at the stats now. It looks like America is not on my side. Would I tell, would you tell a liberal? Yes. This is a as Gavin Newsom is saying, here's another issue where you should put your where you should dim your light and not take a stand on principle because of the idea of what we've been talking about not going too far in the minds of voters or for some reason is this an issue where you should take a stand? And is the difference just that that's where DAVID FROM A. Mike Pesca that's where our convictions are, as opposed to a more progressive person who has these kind of convictions on a whole lot of issues.
- [38:43]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, I'm not a liberal. I didn't grow up in the house of liberalism. In a way, it's not really my job or my place to give advice to liberals and progressives even less.
- [38:51]
Mike Pesca
I'm even talking about anyone who just has a deep sense of conviction and doesn't want to violate that for quote, unquote politics.
- [38:59]
Ryan Reynolds
Look, those things are the question is what is the conviction. But I just want to say something because this is an alley that I where I am not the best guide down this alley. And what I would say about these particular allies, I am having said all the things I said about Harris and that silly ACLU questioner, those are not the people I'm really mad at as a person for where America is in 2025, the people I am most angry at, and this is because of the house I did grow up in the house of conservatism. I'm mad at those people in my world who said, as I would agree, you know, we need business to be moderately regulated, we need taxes that are low and predictable. And therefore, I am going to refuse to see the dangers of the destruction of democracy, the destruction of the world trading system. So I, I will I'm going to let someone Else do the how to balance the liberal progressive thing, whatever. And, and so my, where my energy is going is to my house. To say a lot of people made very short who are broadly my, at least came from the same place that I came from, are willing to betray the most important things in public life, the most indispensable in order to save a point or two on their taxes. And they're not even going to get that because the damage to wealth that has been done by Trump is going to so offset the gains to income that if Trump does go ahead with the tax cut, and by the way, if he does go ahead, the market is telling him the interest rates, long term interest rates are going to punish him. So we're not going to be, we're not even going to be better off from this tax cut if it happens, which is going to anyway be gobbled up by his permission to tax cheat. A lot of my energy is about my house, not somebody else's house.
- [40:46]
Mike Pesca
I've read you and you're definitely someone who has spent a career believing in free markets and lowish, predictable taxes and all these things that all these planks that were core to conservatism in the Republican Party. And then But I've read you and I know that you recognized the allure of populism and Trump's tactics as a liar. But what has surprised you about what just standard conservatives or the party have been so eager, willing, and there's not a problem to jettison where you look and say, I just thought that this whole movement where everyone would look to the left and look to the right, we'd all agree or not even have to agree on these things, these have been thrown overboard. What have the, what are the surprising things?
- [41:32]
Ryan Reynolds
Well, the biggest surprise, I'm not surprised by lack of principle. Human beings are not always heroes. I've been surprised by the lack of petty peevishness and vindictiveness. Like if I were, say, Mitch McConnell and Trump had said the things about my wife that he said about Mitch McConnell's wife and I had a vote at an impeachment hearing. I mean, I would invoke lofty principles in my speech, but when I cast the vote, I'd be thinking, this is for Mrs. McConnell. Boom, thumbs down. I had an experience where I got, I was on early in 2017. I was on like a cable show at 11 o'clock and at 11 o'clock in the morning. And so like, no one's watching. So you think you can say anything. Like you say, I you know, Mr. Fromm, what do you think about the reconciliation bill? I said, before I begin, I want to say an apology to the O.J. simpson and his family. For years, I've been letting you carry the burden of guilt. I can't go on. And no one would know. You can confess that. So I said something disobliging at 11am on cable TV about a important Republican senator. And guess who is watching that important Republican senator. So I come off the set and my phone rings, hold, please, for Senator so and so. And I take the call from Senator so and so. And he reams me out. And I'm. I'm so flabbergasted that anyone has watched this, let alone United States Senator. So when he says his piece, I said, okay, okay. You know, maybe I went too far. But. But, you know, he's done all of these terrible things to you personally. To you personally. He's demeaned you and belittled you and insulted you. Don't you. Isn't there any part of you that wants to do something about that? And the senator explained why he couldn't. And then I said, well, couldn't you do this? And he explained why that wouldn't work. And I gave him another thing, and he explained why that wouldn't work. And I said, okay, you win. You win. I don't know what a senator can do and can't do as well as you do, but if I were a United States senator and a president had done this to me, I'd make him pay. Yeah. And that's. We say, what is the biggest surprise they don't do that?
- [43:33]
Mike Pesca
Honor. A little more of the honor culture kicking in. Yeah. A little more vindictiveness, a little less willingness to take being kicked in the teeth and having your wife insulted, which has happened to not just one. We could name several senators.
- [43:50]
Ryan Reynolds
Right.
- [43:50]
Mike Pesca
Where Donald Trump has insulted their wives. I guess this is a good point. You would have thought they'd care more.
- [43:56]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. What? And you would think. And right now. Right now. So there are all these senators who have been insulted and demeaned, and they're watching the leader of their party drive off the economy off a cliff to the point where if there are free and fair elections in 2026, we're looking at a Republican wipeout on a 1982 or maybe even a 1974 scale. So just to keep your majorities, just to keep your seat, you want to wrest the steering wheel from this man's hands before it's too late. And by the way you hate him, you hate him more than anybody does because you know him better. Donald Trump is one of those people. I mean, you can hate him from a distance, but to really hate him, look at how his wife feels about him, you have to be really intimate with him to dislike him as much as he deserves. So why don't they do something? And they're just so broken, and I don't get it. I can't imagine being that inwardly defeated.
- [44:49]
Mike Pesca
Well, I guess a part of it is that there are no clear examples to point to of someone who's done that and survived politically, which is the only way they value.
- [44:57]
Ryan Reynolds
You don't have to survive.
- [44:59]
Mike Pesca
That's the thing, right? If you have a great exit strategy, maybe you do it. You are exiting Republican politics.
- [45:05]
Ryan Reynolds
Look, this is Larry David. Funny column aside, this is not the Third Reich. If you're a former US Senator, I promise you there's a future for you. You're not going to a camp. You can be a university president. You've probably got plenty of money. You have many business opportunities. You don't have to be US Senators for anything.
- [45:23]
Mike Pesca
Podcasting. Huh?
- [45:24]
Ryan Reynolds
Podcasting. But. But. So the Prussian King, Frederick the Great, used to, when his army was in danger of retreat, he would ride along the lines and shouted to soldiers, forward, you sons of bitches. Do you want to live forever? You're a United States Senator. You're not going to. I guarantee you're not gonna be a United States senator forever. So think of a good day to take the risk and then hold this person to account. I mean, I understand when Senator Lisa Murkowski, whom I have a lot of time for, said, I am afraid. I thought that was a powerful message to send to America, that senators feel fear. But if you. If that's true, if that's a true statement of your feelings, it's not a very worthy sentiment. You shouldn't. You should. You have your duty should trump your fear. Your fear should not trump your duties. Your duty should trump your fear. And if you lose your seat, you lose your seat. And if something else bad happens, too, I can just promise you from experience, there are things out there that are so bad that they make anything that's gonna happen to you insignificant. So just do your job work, think about your place in history, and think about Mrs. McConnell.
- [46:31]
Mike Pesca
David Frum is a former presidential speechwriter, a staff writer for the Atlantic, and now the host of the David Frum Show. Listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you so much.
- [46:40]
Ryan Reynolds
Thank you. What a great pleasure to be with you today.
- [46:48]
Mike Pesca
And that's it for today's show. Cory War is the producer of the gist. Michelle Peska, CBSO of Peach Fish Productions. Astrid Green runs our social media accounts. Kathleen Sykes, doyen of the GIST list, Peru. GPRU DO Peru. And thanks for listening.