0:04

Welcome to the Reason Roundtable, your

0:07

weekly libertarian podcast whose two grumpy

0:09

old men are still at least

0:11

one generation younger than the two

0:13

old koots who are at this

0:15

moment anyway still running for president

0:17

in these United States. I am

0:20

Matt Welch, joined by

0:22

the Afor referenced Nick Gillespie

0:24

plus Peter Suiterman and Catherine

0:27

Mangue Ward. Hi

0:29

everyone. Howdy. Hey

0:31

Matt. Happy Monday.

0:35

We are going to pick

0:37

up on that quizzical end

0:39

of Monday question mark in

0:41

Peter Suiterman's voice here

0:44

in a moment. But first, a

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contribute to building a freer future at school and

1:49

beyond. Okay, well, it

1:51

looks like everything changed

1:53

on Thursday night or perhaps better stated.

1:56

The big thing most Americans already suspected

1:59

became irreversibly impossible

2:01

to publicly deny with a

2:03

straight face, though not for

2:05

lack of trying, apparently. And

2:07

that is Joseph Robinette Biden,

2:09

the second, has experienced obvious

2:11

age-related cognitive decline in

2:13

such a way that definitely alarms

2:16

Americans overseas allies, probably makes him

2:18

unlikely to win another presidential campaign

2:20

against Donald Trump, yeah, said it,

2:22

and arguably suggests that he's not

2:25

particularly fit to be commander-in-chief right

2:27

now in a debate against

2:30

an opponent who literally always says

2:32

crazy things. Biden

2:35

attracted almost all the attention

2:37

with his confused gaping mouth

2:39

and blurted non-sequiturs such as,

2:41

I beat Medicare. I'm

2:45

so excited. I

2:48

know we're supposed to wait to get to

2:50

the policy section. Yeah, why start now? That's

2:53

the biggest policy news in

2:55

history. Would you say it's a big fucking

2:57

deal? It's a huge deal.

2:59

And it's all of this

3:02

discussion about Biden's cognitive decline.

3:04

That's the B story as

3:07

far as I'm concerned, beating

3:09

Medicare. We won. We did

3:11

it. It happened. We're going to talk

3:14

about policy in the B block as

3:16

advertised ahead of time on Slack. But

3:19

the A block, we are going to

3:21

mention this just what we watched, how

3:23

we processed. Catherine, I know you have

3:25

no heart as a robot, but

3:28

did you experience any feelings about or

3:30

on behalf of America

3:33

while attempting to watch that

3:35

debate on Thursday? The

3:37

primary feeling that I experienced was I told

3:39

you so. This is

3:41

what happens when you center your

3:44

politics around you

3:46

have to vote for the least bad option. This is

3:48

what happens when you are risk

3:50

averse and you sort

3:52

of say the other side is so evil. We

3:55

have to do anything in order to

3:58

maximize our chances of beating that other evil. side,

4:00

including lying to the American

4:02

public, possibly for years, about whether

4:04

or not the president is competent.

4:07

And, um, you know, I think

4:09

you're right when you said, no one is shocked.

4:11

No one is like genuinely surprised

4:13

to learn. Like old man is old. We knew.

4:15

Um, I also

4:18

think he's probably not like that all the time. Right?

4:20

I mean, all of us have our, our, uh,

4:22

you know, old people in our orbit

4:24

and we know that they, they come and go. So

4:27

we might've just caught him at a bad moment,

4:29

but like, you know, North Korea might catch him

4:31

at a bad moment and that's a relevant. Yeah.

4:33

I think Stalin caught FDR at a bad moment,

4:35

right? At Yalta. So, uh,

4:37

Nick, let's pick up on that lying, uh,

4:40

bit, um, that Catherine referenced of the white

4:42

house staff, uh, has

4:44

had a Biden management strategy that

4:46

they call operation bubble

4:49

wrap, uh, which

4:51

limits his unscripted encounters and makes

4:53

him available to reporters less than

4:55

any president in our lifetimes. Uh,

4:58

keeps his public speaking engagements between 10

5:00

AM and 4 PM, uh, and

5:03

makes sure that Dr. Jill Biden always has

5:06

a physical or metaphorical arm on his,

5:08

uh, or hand on his arm.

5:10

This has been all been known for

5:13

many, many months. Um, uh, and yet

5:15

there's been a cohort among Democrats and

5:17

journalists to insist that Biden

5:19

has the strength of 10 men and et

5:21

cetera. Do you have some thoughts, Nick, about

5:23

the gaslighting that has taken place before, during,

5:26

and after this debate? Uh,

5:29

I'm, I'm less interested in the concept

5:31

of gaslighting and more and just holding

5:33

people accountable. So, you know, when, when,

5:37

uh, newscasters like Joe Scarborough, who,

5:39

you know, went on any number

5:41

of kind of extended pararations about

5:43

how, you know, Joe Biden isn't

5:45

just fit. He is better than

5:47

he was in 1972, you know,

5:49

and all of that kind

5:51

of stuff. Like I would love to see

5:53

the ramifications of people who

5:55

were just either so delusional

5:58

that they should not be taken seriously. or

6:00

they're lying so much that they should

6:02

not be taken seriously. The people around

6:05

him weirdly, I give them more of

6:07

a pass because I'm assuming that his

6:09

inner cadre, the phalanx of idiots

6:11

around him,

6:14

and this is also true of Donald Trump, it's

6:17

a mix of wish

6:19

projection and delusion and true

6:23

belief. I think

6:25

the people around Joe

6:27

Biden may not have known the

6:29

extent of how bad he is, partly

6:31

because they see him every day. And

6:33

so the decline is less obvious. Any

6:35

of us with older parents, if you

6:37

see them every day, they don't decline

6:39

in the same way as if you

6:41

see them once every six months or

6:43

every year or something like that. But

6:46

I think it's worth holding people accountable

6:48

for this. And

6:50

the other thing that I'll throw in

6:52

there before we go to

6:54

actual policy stuff, there is the question,

6:57

when I was watching this, I did not

6:59

feel like I have a dark

7:02

sense of humor. This made

7:04

me deeply sad. And

7:06

it's not just, I don't want

7:08

to equate Trump and Biden, but

7:11

the fact that this 159 years

7:13

of powerful maleness, this is what

7:16

we're voting on, is

7:18

beyond funny. It's just sad and depressing.

7:20

And it's a flare that the country

7:22

really needs to

7:27

figure out how do we get to

7:29

the next act? Because this is really,

7:31

really screwed up and it should not

7:33

be allowed to be normalized in any

7:36

meaningful way. We have two people

7:38

who are not particularly good at

7:40

representing anything about America. And one

7:42

of them is going to be

7:44

elected president. Speaking

7:47

of the sad bit, Eugene Volok over

7:49

at the Volok Conspiracy, which is

7:51

run on the reason.com website. He's a

7:54

long time friend of mine. Not

7:57

that's any here or there, but he just, he wrote a

7:59

very beautiful piece. I think, a reaction to

8:01

this. It was basically reached Nick's

8:03

conclusion, like, this is sad. Sad

8:05

for just to watch it on a personal

8:07

level and real sad for America. And just

8:09

kind of like he expressed

8:11

a grumpiness and a

8:14

crestfallenness that resonates, I think, with a

8:16

lot of people. Peter, I want to

8:18

float to you my Emmanuel Macron theory

8:20

of the case and get you a

8:22

reaction just sort of thinking about how

8:24

Democrats are scrambling to figure

8:27

out how to respond about this. So, Emmanuel

8:29

Macron over the weekend- So, you know, before

8:31

we go here, you know I've never been

8:33

to France. Yeah, it doesn't matter. No,

8:36

I'm not French. I've no- Let's

8:38

imagine- Have you ever had French

8:40

dressing on a salad? Probably

8:43

for breakfast. I ate frogs on

8:45

a French island once. Okay. Let's

8:48

imagine for a second that I knew your

8:53

life a little bit so that I could

8:55

prepare a question. So, Emmanuel

8:57

Macron over the weekend held a

9:00

snap of first election, parliamentary

9:02

election, and got thumped.

9:05

His party came in third place. National

9:08

Front came in first place. We'll see how that plays

9:10

out. But it's a shock to

9:12

the system. Macronism is over.

9:14

In the French context, Emmanuel

9:16

Macron, he didn't come from

9:18

a political party. He was

9:20

just a attractive-ish young guy

9:22

who was there a

9:24

few years ago to stave off the

9:26

National Front. He was the sort

9:28

of establishment person-ish guy to say, Hey,

9:30

look, we just can't go there with

9:33

National Front. We need me or, you

9:35

know, some grouping around here to put

9:37

off that day when the bad thing

9:39

gets elected. So, in

9:41

that sense, my theory

9:43

of the case is that Joe Biden was that in 2020. He

9:46

wasn't the answer to the Democrats'

9:48

long-running kind of struggle for their

9:50

soul. He famously said in the

9:53

September 2020 first debate

9:55

that I am the Democratic Party now.

9:57

Trump was trying to make him wear Elizabeth

9:59

Warren. and Bernie Sanders. But

10:02

he was this candidate that people

10:05

rallied around because they thought he could beat Donald

10:07

Trump. He could stop the bad thing from happening.

10:10

So my Macron theory of the case is

10:12

that they didn't come up with

10:14

another theory of how to stop the bad

10:17

thing from happening. And so the people who

10:19

are engaging in this type of behavior now

10:21

and insisting he's the only bulwark

10:23

here, part of the reason that they're

10:26

doing that is they just didn't figure

10:28

out how to have someone else be

10:30

that person who could stop the bad

10:32

thing from happening. So in

10:34

light of all of that, Peter, knowing

10:36

nothing about France and not asking you

10:38

to know anything about France, how do

10:40

you think Democrats are approaching this moment

10:43

and what needs to be a succession

10:45

plan B, whether or not they

10:47

have reached that conclusion? I think

10:49

they are approaching it with terror and

10:52

with great anxiety

10:54

and possibly some,

10:57

some very wet sheets overnight because

10:59

man, this is it's not working

11:01

for them. This there's there's some

11:04

truth to this. Biden I think

11:06

was the biggest appeal for Biden

11:08

was that he he was

11:10

that bridge. He was going to be the the

11:12

person who bought the party time to figure out

11:15

what it stood for. But

11:17

they had four years and they didn't figure

11:19

out what it stood for. And in fact,

11:21

by not standing for anything, Biden has blocked

11:24

the party from figuring out because if you

11:26

look at what Biden has done as president

11:28

at basically every point, he's just sort of

11:30

said, let's find the the median,

11:33

the midpoint of the Democratic Party and then

11:35

stuff all the things right? Like you look

11:37

at every piece of legislation that Biden has

11:39

pushed himself, you know, again, yes, they come

11:41

from Congress, but in many ways they have

11:44

the White House has been very influential here. And it's

11:46

just let's stuff it all into one. And that's right.

11:49

It's all going to be in there. We're not going

11:51

to pick. We're not going to prioritize. We're not going

11:53

to choose every, every one of the groups. It gets

11:55

their box checked. And and

11:58

so in some ways, Biden was going

12:00

to be that bridge. but he was

12:02

a bridge to nowhere. And unlike the

12:04

original bridge to nowhere, the Biden presidency

12:06

is not going to be effective as

12:08

a slogan for ending earmarks. But

12:11

he was ideological. I mean, like

12:13

this is, he ran on

12:15

$11 trillion in new spending and

12:19

really sprinted towards that goal,

12:21

especially for a guy that

12:23

old. That is absolutely correct.

12:26

But he was also, he was the

12:28

most moderate of the plausible contenders for

12:31

the Democratic nomination in 2020. He

12:33

was, he was not a small government

12:35

or sort of, you know, center center

12:38

right type Democrat, nothing like that. He

12:40

wasn't a blue dog. That's, that's not

12:42

correct. What he was was not a

12:44

progressive. He was not a leftist. He

12:47

was not AOC. He was not part

12:49

of the squad. He wasn't even Elizabeth

12:51

Warren. He was going to incorporate those

12:53

folks into his vision of the Democratic

12:56

Party. But he was an old school

12:58

big government liberal. And they've tried that

13:00

for four years and just totally independent

13:02

of Joe Biden's competency issues. Big government

13:04

liberalism, as we have seen it under

13:07

Joe Biden is not popular because Joe

13:09

Biden and the Joe Biden economy and

13:12

the Joe Biden agenda have not been

13:14

popular for the last four years. Katherine,

13:18

let's imagine for a second, a

13:21

world that is governed

13:24

by some of the floated replacements

13:26

for Joe Biden on

13:28

a presidential ticket. Kamala Harris, Gretchen

13:32

Whitmer. I don't know what

13:34

other names you've seen. Michelle Obama, Steve

13:37

Bannon's idea. Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom, of

13:39

course. I've forgotten that. You've born to

13:41

that. Yeah. Who's the old man now?

13:45

I just kind of assumed that that is beyond

13:47

the pale, but maybe I'm kind of wrong

13:50

about that. Any libertarian upsides

13:52

to any of the floated names?

13:56

Oh, God, no. I mean, this is

13:58

and like this is the place actually

14:00

where I feel sympathy for the king

14:03

makers, whoever they might be within the

14:05

Democratic Party is it's not like they

14:07

were sitting on a treasure trove

14:10

of alternatives. I do get that. That's

14:13

their fault too, of course, right? And

14:15

this phenomenon you're describing in which Biden's

14:17

kind of semi-content

14:20

free moderation, particularly

14:22

as he presented to the American public

14:24

in the last election cycle, prevented the

14:27

party from reorienting itself. So anyone who

14:29

might have brought some

14:31

exciting new ideas, maybe even

14:34

some libertarian ones into the

14:36

mix, A, wasn't positioned to succeed

14:38

in doing that, and B, might

14:40

well not be bothering until the next

14:43

cycle, right? I mean, if I were

14:45

an up and coming Democratic

14:48

Party politician, which does require quite a

14:50

stretch of imagination on my part, I

14:53

would be sitting quietly and waiting for this mess to be over. I

14:56

would not want to be implicated in any of this.

14:58

And so what that leaves you with is people like

15:01

Kamala Harris, who as reason has

15:03

long since established, is a cop and will

15:06

certainly not be bringing libertarianism to the White

15:08

House should Biden be reelected and then kick

15:10

it or otherwise hand off to her. I

15:13

think it's also worth thinking about that

15:15

this performance, which

15:18

was stunning and shocking, deeply

15:20

disheartening, regardless of who you

15:22

are, with the possible exception

15:24

of Xi or Putin. It

15:29

may not matter as much as we think

15:31

it does right now. There

15:34

was Biden had a burst

15:36

of campaign finance funding

15:39

coming in after this. And it's the type

15:41

of thing strategically, one of the reasons they

15:43

did it this early was so that you

15:45

can start to memory wipe it, especially if

15:47

he shows up over the summer,

15:51

has a good convention and then does a

15:53

good second debate. And there's a long history.

15:55

I mean, this is off the charts in

15:57

terms of bad, but there's a long history

15:59

of incumbent. old incumbent presidents in particular,

16:01

and I'm thinking of Reagan in 1984, doing unbelievably

16:05

poorly in a first debate and then kind of

16:07

rallying around and not only looking good, but

16:11

actually winning reelection. I think Biden has

16:13

trouble beyond any of that kind of

16:15

stuff, but we're all assuming

16:18

that this is so

16:20

bad that he's got

16:22

to be replaced or it's all

16:24

over and things like that. And

16:26

remember, this was not just Joe

16:28

Biden's day in the sun. It

16:30

was Donald Trump who had a

16:32

very good performance from a rhetorical

16:34

perspective because he did not go

16:36

insane in any clear way. But

16:40

the program was set up in a way that

16:42

minimized that chance for him. We haven't seen that

16:44

much Donald Trump over the past

16:46

few years because of him not being on

16:48

Twitter and things like that. And Trump is

16:50

one of those people, the more you see

16:53

him, the more you're kind of like, oh

16:55

yeah, I remember why I didn't vote for

16:57

him the first time or I won't vote

16:59

for him the second time. I

17:02

came out of this debate kind of like,

17:04

okay, Trump would be a better choice, I

17:06

think, than Biden. But

17:09

he has yet to explode in

17:11

the way that he will almost

17:13

certainly like 15 times between now

17:15

and election day. The place that

17:17

you come out of this debate, maybe it's Trump

17:19

would be a better choice, maybe it's Biden had a bad day

17:21

and he's still a better choice. I think I saw a lot

17:23

on Twitter of like, sure, this one

17:25

was a daughter and old man who needs a lozenge, but

17:28

that one is a filthy liar who's also a fascist. That

17:30

was sort of the probably

17:32

the most robust response. But again,

17:35

don't you feel like the main thing that you come

17:37

away with is just like, no,

17:39

neither of them. Everyone's a double hater now

17:42

or should be if they have eyes in

17:44

their head. Yeah, I agree with that. But

17:46

one of them or one of them from

17:48

their parties is going to be the president.

17:51

So it's also kind of like, okay, you

17:53

can hate, but that's

17:55

not going to change the choices at the top of

17:58

the ticket. a

18:00

little bit on what you said at the beginning of

18:02

your response there. It

18:05

is possible that the very negative

18:08

reaction to this debate will fade

18:10

and that the big turn that

18:12

we have seen in the media,

18:14

even amongst democratic partisans or democratic

18:17

organs, that a month from now they'll

18:19

be saying, well, maybe it's not that big a deal. But

18:21

I do think that this is

18:23

different than previous presidential debates where

18:25

the incumbent has had a bad

18:27

first debate or even something like

18:29

January 6th where you saw Republicans

18:31

turn on Trump the day after

18:33

the riot at the Capitol

18:36

and there was just universal condemnation and six

18:38

months later it was like, maybe that's not

18:40

that big a deal. He's our man. There

18:44

is a big difference here and that

18:46

is that Joe Biden's age-related problems are

18:48

not going to go away. January 6th

18:50

was very, very bad, but it happened

18:52

one time and it wasn't happening

18:54

again a month later, two months later, three

18:57

months later. We're very likely to see these

18:59

moments happen again. We know that they have

19:01

been happening because we have seen reporting in

19:03

the Wall Street Journal, which interviewed Kevin McCarthy,

19:05

yes, but also something like 45 other

19:08

sources about Biden's decline. The New York Times

19:10

was reporting on this a year ago.

19:12

Ezra Klein, who is quite connected in the

19:15

democratic establishment called for the Democrats to

19:17

rethink Biden and Biden to maybe step down

19:19

earlier this year. This is not something

19:21

that is just came out of

19:23

the blue that is just a one night thing.

19:25

This is something that very clearly has affected Joe

19:27

Biden. It is something also that people can relate

19:30

to in a direct and personal way because this

19:32

is a take the keys away from grandpa moment.

19:34

Everybody has had an older person in

19:39

their life slip somewhat and has seen that

19:41

and understands how sad it is, but

19:44

also that that person cannot operate and cannot

19:46

function. Again, the keys metaphor

19:48

I think is actually pretty operative here.

19:50

I was thinking about this just

19:53

because Joe Biden's a car guy, we associate

19:55

him with that silly Corvette he keeps in

19:57

the garage with all the top secret documents

19:59

and The one

20:01

thing I was wondering, and maybe this is like actually

20:03

the case for Biden here, is like

20:07

if he's not president anymore, he's going

20:09

to be driving that Corvette around. And

20:12

that's going to be really dangerous. And

20:15

maybe Americans

20:18

have a duty to reelect Joe Biden to

20:20

keep him off the road. No, more than

20:23

I can hope. To go with taking the

20:25

keys away, the question is who's going to

20:27

do it? Because Biden

20:29

is the apex here, and Jill

20:32

Biden could do it, and

20:34

that's about it. So that

20:36

I think is part of the problem. There's

20:38

not a procedure in place. My

20:40

contempt for the covert- Yeah, Biden has to make

20:42

this decision himself unless he's totally incapacitated. Lady

20:46

is pretty much bottomless at this point if

20:48

you see the clips of her talking right

20:51

after the debate and like, you did a

20:53

great job, Joe. You answered all the questions.

20:55

It just was so cringe-inducingly

20:58

condescending and managerial,

21:01

and man don't like it, doesn't seem to be

21:04

good waifing. All right, let's go to some

21:06

of the substance that we've teased a

21:08

little bit so far. Policy that- You

21:10

know what she was doing? Just on the

21:12

Jill Biden thing- I think we need to

21:14

interrupt me more, Peter. She is a teacher.

21:16

Yes, I'm going to do that. She is

21:18

a teacher, and like a union teacher lady,

21:20

she reminded me of the teacher's union leaders

21:22

defending the crap teachers after they have done

21:24

the absolute worst thing. It

21:26

is the exact same playbook and even

21:28

just the same presentational style. It's

21:32

just grating and unpleasant, but I

21:34

think that coming from that labor

21:36

teacher education background, we see how

21:39

that plays out in

21:41

terms of how she's handling this. All

21:43

right, let's go quicker than projected

21:45

on substance policy debates that happened

21:47

at the debate. I'm sure there

21:49

was at least a few. At

21:52

least the topics were substantial.

21:54

I don't know about the discussion. We're each

21:56

going to pick one. Peter, you start with

21:58

tariffs. Yeah, so- There was this

22:01

great moment where Donald

22:03

Trump was like, man, Joe Biden,

22:05

just terrible in China with the

22:07

tariffs. Not really acknowledging

22:09

that what Biden has done

22:11

is just keep Trump's

22:14

tariffs in place. So

22:16

as far as I can tell, the

22:19

logic of Donald Trump's position is, boy,

22:21

Joe Biden is just ruining things by

22:23

not removing the tariffs that I implemented.

22:25

And that is about the quality of

22:28

the policy substance that we saw on

22:30

stage on Thursday night. Katherine,

22:33

you're a lady. Did you see anything of interest

22:35

having to do with abortion? I

22:38

sure did. Right near the

22:40

top of the debate, there was this

22:42

abortion question. And that makes sense, because

22:45

abortion has been a major, major issue

22:47

in our nation during Biden's first term

22:49

and would be relevant to an incoming

22:51

president. And Biden said

22:54

a series of utterly

22:56

incomprehensible things. I really don't

22:58

want us to lose track of, oh,

23:00

he's old. He's confused. Whatever. Yeah,

23:03

he's. He said first, well, we'll

23:07

get back to the

23:09

first part of his answer. The second part of his answer, he

23:11

like developed an

23:13

entirely novel theory of the three

23:15

trimesters of a pregnancy. The

23:18

first time is between a woman and

23:20

her doctor. The second time is between

23:22

a doctor and an extreme situation. The

23:24

third time is between the doctor, I

23:27

mean the woman and the state. What?

23:30

What? I

23:32

mean, in a way, the third time is between the doctor and

23:34

the state is in fact true. That

23:36

is the moment in which we decide whether or not to criminalize the

23:39

behavior and it becomes between the doctor and

23:41

the state. I don't think that Donald Trump

23:43

was doing a deep analysis of the relationship

23:45

between the state and the doctor. I think

23:47

he lost his mind. But

23:49

that was not the worst part of the

23:51

answer, is the most remarkable part. The worst

23:53

part of the answer was when he started

23:55

kind of explaining his basic

23:58

position. and

24:01

got diverted into talking

24:03

about immigrant rape. And

24:06

it for sure felt like

24:08

someone said, okay, Donald

24:10

Trump's gonna talk about immigrants and rape. Don't

24:13

let him do that. Talk

24:15

about abortion instead or something. And Biden was like

24:17

something about the rape and the immigrants. And he

24:19

just started talking. Like that's the only thing that

24:21

makes sense. A lot of young women

24:24

are being raped by their in-laws, by their

24:26

spouses, brothers and sisters, by

24:28

it's just ridiculous. It

24:31

was just ridiculous. I mean, you can

24:33

see where he was going with that. He was

24:35

trying to bring the abortion issue back to instances

24:37

where someone has been raped or

24:39

the health of the mother, which like,

24:41

you know, is a very fangirling point. Everybody

24:44

hates the red laws. So he's just trying

24:46

to get that in the mix, right? It's

24:48

such an important issue. It was such a

24:50

great example of why the country is not

24:52

safe in this man's hands. Like if he

24:55

is the last bulwark protecting the

24:57

bodily autonomy of women, like it's

25:00

bad news. I'm thinking 23andMe should add,

25:02

you know, they could upcharge for this

25:04

thing where you can find out how

25:06

much incest is in your family

25:08

tree. I think people are going to be, they're primed

25:10

for that now. Yes, dark

25:13

sense of humor, Nick. Yeah, you did mention that

25:15

at the top. Do

25:17

you, Nick, Catherine brought up raping

25:19

immigrants. What did you hear about

25:21

immigration? And to be clear, it

25:23

was the illegal immigrants who were

25:26

doing the raping. Yes, undocumented. Yeah,

25:28

okay. Yeah, that's,

25:30

you know, that is a big, you

25:32

know, kind of topic

25:34

and Trump insisted again

25:37

and again, he said, I want

25:39

a deportation, a deportation.

25:41

We will begin the largest deportation

25:44

program in history. And that, you

25:46

know, we didn't really spend a lot of time and

25:48

by we, I mean the country, because

25:51

everybody was so fraught by Joe Biden. You

25:53

know, when he would go into that kind

25:55

of mini trance where he would be like,

25:57

ah, and I was expecting like holes. bodies

26:00

of homunculi to come out of his

26:02

mouth somehow because he was in like

26:04

a psychic. I mean, he was like

26:06

a medium, right? From Harry Houdini era.

26:08

He was like the Hieronymus Bosch debate.

26:11

Yeah. But the

26:13

actual substance of

26:16

what was being talked about particularly on the side

26:19

of Trump went kind of unremarked

26:21

on. He kind of fudged

26:23

his way through a pretty good abortion answer, which

26:25

was like, oh, yeah, yeah, it should go back

26:27

to the States. That was my idea all the

26:29

time. You know,

26:31

he's kind of, I think he was trying to signal

26:33

to people like, I'm not going after your abortion bills.

26:37

But, you know, the immigration

26:39

stuff is, you know, really hot.

26:41

Biden has essentially conceded a lot of

26:44

Trump's immigration policy, certainly towards the border

26:46

and things like that. He kind of

26:48

soft pedaled the fact that he was

26:51

talking about extending green cards to undocumented

26:56

immigrants who are married to people who

26:58

are American citizens and have a history

27:01

of being here. Donald Trump, you know,

27:03

the Donald Trump who was on the

27:05

All In podcast, where he talked about

27:08

immediately giving people who graduate from community

27:10

colleges, much less, you know, four-year colleges

27:12

or graduate programs a green card. That's

27:15

gone. And I think we saw

27:17

a preview of how the immigration

27:19

issue is going to be used

27:21

by Donald Trump in particular to

27:23

force a stark division

27:25

between Democrats and Republicans. And

27:28

it worries me because that the

27:30

discussion of large-scale deportations is, you

27:33

know, that is deeply, deeply disturbed.

27:37

My policy interest

27:39

in this debate, such as it was,

27:42

was foreign policy, which was a bit

27:44

jumbled, and there wasn't a whole lot

27:46

of it, but it was a reminder,

27:48

and this is especially salient, I think,

27:50

to libertarians, including the capital L version

27:52

of libertarians, who tend to list kind

27:54

of in the direction of Donald Trump,

27:57

that the choice between these two

27:59

guys is not a choice between

28:02

someone who is anti-war and someone

28:04

who is part of the war

28:06

machine. It's between someone who's just

28:09

doing the exhausted end of American

28:11

empire. We are the United States

28:13

of America. Nothing is beyond our capacity talks,

28:16

and we're rebuilding our alliances. How

28:19

many decades have we heard of that?

28:21

That's Biden and Trump, who's a Jacksonian.

28:23

He is not an anti-war candidate. He

28:25

is someone who is, like Andrew Jackson,

28:28

irritable. If someone pisses

28:30

him off, he's going to kill him, a

28:33

way of looking at foreign policy. That

28:35

can lead to some opposition

28:37

to certain wars or things that the war

28:39

machine lacks, but it can also lead him

28:41

to conclude, as he did at the debate,

28:44

vis-a-vis Israel, which is not a

28:47

particularly popular country among the most

28:49

vociferously anti-war people in the United

28:51

States. Trump's comments was,

28:54

you should let them go and finish the job. He

28:57

said he doesn't want to do it,

28:59

and then said of Biden, he's become

29:01

like a Palestinian. Sorry to laugh.

29:03

He says crazy things, and I still find it

29:05

at least exasperatingly funny. He's become

29:08

like a Palestinian, but they don't like

29:10

him because he's a very bad Palestinian.

29:13

He's a weak one. There were lots of lies, but

29:16

that may be- Matt,

29:19

did you think his foreign policy, I

29:21

mean, like on the foreign policy stuff,

29:23

didn't Trump come across as much more,

29:27

you felt more confident

29:29

in his ability to not have the

29:31

world end in flames than under Biden?

29:34

No. I disagree with Trump about Ukraine.

29:37

He didn't really

29:44

say anything about Ukraine one way or the

29:47

other, except for his usual go-to, wouldn't happen

29:49

under me. And he also said

29:51

that the deals

29:54

or the deal points that are on the table

29:56

are unacceptable. He didn't really talk about how or

29:58

why. But I have

30:01

a different view on that than

30:03

generally speaking the view of the

30:05

case. He he recites Russian propaganda

30:07

about the Ukraine war, that

30:09

it was all because NATO expanded too

30:11

much. And that's not what it all

30:13

was about. And that view, I think, is incorrect. So

30:16

no, I don't I don't feel given that

30:18

Vladimir Putin is a menace. I

30:20

don't feel great about that. Trump's differentiation

30:23

in Israel and the

30:26

Middle East is that he's really

30:28

anti-Iran. And Biden is not pro,

30:30

but like has

30:32

this Biden-esque Democratic Party

30:34

accommodationist sort of view.

30:38

I'm probably more in the anti, but like

30:40

it's how how it works out. Who

30:43

knows? You know, I think Donald Trump has

30:45

more obvious

30:47

like command

30:49

of his facilities. So if that's your

30:52

overriding concern, I can see that. But

30:54

I don't know. It's it's

30:56

not no one wins, is

30:58

my kind of point of

31:00

this, that there isn't the the neither

31:03

side has for a long time

31:05

articulated a post-Cold War view

31:07

of American foreign policy. Trump never has.

31:10

And Biden certainly never has as well. And

31:13

so that's what we're going to continue to be in

31:15

until someone actually thinks about

31:17

this more than sloganeering either of

31:19

America first over and over again,

31:23

or just that we're going to

31:25

America last. Say it, come on.

31:27

Biden thinks of America. Now, I

31:29

you know, for me, the thing

31:31

that ultimately may be really dislike

31:33

Biden in this was in the

31:36

final statement, Biden could have

31:38

given a vision of the America

31:40

that he sees as

31:42

his legacy. And he did he

31:44

you know, he did he did not articulate

31:47

anything other than a bunch of kind of

31:49

like random gotchas, you know, 45

31:51

minutes too late in the debate. And

31:54

it seems to me, you know, that's part of

31:56

the problem. It's not just American empire is running

31:58

out. We have two guys. who

32:00

don't really either understand that or know

32:03

how to manage a shift from a

32:05

more unipolar world to a multipolar world

32:07

or what any of

32:09

this means. But Biden's absolute lack

32:12

of a positive vision of America

32:15

at the end was like, wow, this is, you

32:17

know, he is totally out of gas. All right.

32:19

We're going to get to our listener email of

32:21

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33:48

right. Reminder to email your queries to

33:50

roundtable at reason.com. This one comes from

33:53

Joey Grzylak who writes, love the show

33:55

and the cultural recommendations. Thank you. Quick

33:57

question. Do we have to vote for

33:59

Biden? now that he

34:01

freed Assange. This is

34:03

obviously just a way to smuggle in

34:05

discussion of Julian Assange pleading

34:08

with the feds to get out of

34:11

jail, playing guilty on one account. Katherine,

34:13

how would you answer it? Do you

34:15

have some Assange thoughts? Yeah, my Assange

34:17

thoughts are I'm delighted. Free Assange. He's

34:19

free-ish. Getting there, almost free. Pretty

34:21

free. And he's

34:25

always this kind of slogan

34:27

or whatever has always held a slightly

34:29

outsized place in some people's

34:32

voting calculus, I guess.

34:34

It's interesting to me that there

34:37

are single-issue Assange voters, but they do seem

34:39

to exist. And

34:41

this is a good outcome. Did it have much of anything at

34:43

all to do with Joe Biden? No. So

34:46

you can feel free to vote or not

34:48

vote for anyone that you want. Katherine,

34:51

how much of your Assange support comes from the

34:53

fact that he was played by Benedict Cumberbatch in

34:55

that movie? In that movie? Have asked

34:57

me this before. Maybe about Assange

34:59

or maybe about other people that Benedict Cumberbatch has

35:01

played. And you know the answer, which is like

35:03

97% of it. Excuse

35:09

me, Nick. You have thoughts

35:11

about the denouement of this case

35:14

that has just been going on

35:16

for way, way, way too long

35:18

and still involves the espionage act

35:20

somehow? Yeah.

35:22

You know, I think of Assange more as

35:25

he's like out of warm beer. If you

35:27

remember him, he

35:29

was a college student from

35:31

Ohio who was arrested in

35:34

North Korea for stealing a couple of propaganda

35:36

posters and came home and his brains were

35:38

scrambled. You know, I mean, like something

35:42

had happened to him. I think that

35:45

the US government effectively turned Julian

35:47

Assange through the captivity that they

35:50

enforced. They were the reason that

35:52

he was stuck in the places that he was for

35:54

as long as he was under the conditions he was.

35:56

You know, it was essentially a long form of suffering.

36:00

psychological torture. And that makes

36:03

me ashamed to be American, to be quite honest, that

36:05

our government would prosecute somebody

36:07

like that for what the

36:10

crimes that they said, you brought

36:12

up the Espionage Act, Assange was

36:14

ultimately guilty of committing journalism and

36:16

of leaking accurate reports,

36:20

accurate material to the public that

36:22

had every right to know what

36:24

its government is doing. And

36:26

if the government doesn't want people to know what

36:28

they're doing in secret, they either lock it down

36:31

better, or they don't do

36:33

things in secret that they would be ashamed

36:35

of to have come out in public. And

36:37

the fact of the matter is, particularly with

36:39

the first WikiLeaks tranche, the US actually looked

36:41

better than virtually every other country that was

36:44

involved in that. But so

36:47

I am glad that Assange is free, but

36:49

it is a brutal and

36:51

grotesque miscarriage of justice. And I

36:53

worry that that underlying issue, what

36:57

constitutes journalism and the ability to

36:59

be legally to be protected

37:01

as a watchdog of the government, that

37:04

hasn't been addressed. And we know under

37:06

Bush, we know under Obama, certainly we

37:08

know under Trump, and we

37:11

know under Biden, First

37:14

Amendment rights to kind of free

37:16

speech and free expression are a

37:19

moving target at best. Peter,

37:21

I wonder if there's an

37:24

Afghanistan war comparison

37:26

here that I'm just making up and forcing

37:29

you to respond to, which is to say

37:31

Obama could end that war. Donald Trump could

37:33

end that war, even talked about it. But

37:35

it was Biden who did. And at the

37:37

debate, they were almost vying

37:40

for not wanting to talk about that.

37:43

And Assange, the same thing. Obama could have made

37:45

that go away, just vacated

37:47

it and said, stop it. Why are we doing

37:49

this? Trump could have done that. Even talked about

37:52

it, had maybe some extra motivation

37:54

to stop that and somehow didn't. And

37:56

yet it happens on Biden's watch and

37:59

he will get political. politically zero, uh, like,

38:01

uh, points for it. Oh no.

38:03

I think, uh, libertarian party members are now required to

38:05

vote for him. But

38:09

they were anyway, right? Yeah, that's

38:11

true. Once the

38:13

Michael recten wall didn't get the nomination.

38:15

I mean, you, everybody's pledged to vote

38:17

for, uh, for Trump.

38:20

Trump and Biden definitely were more interested in

38:22

talking about their golf game. I mean, I

38:24

guess it's not surprising. We've got these two

38:26

old guys there. Of course, strokes are going

38:28

to come up. Wow.

38:32

That's a pretty good dad joke. Finally.

38:35

Uh, granddad joke. Yeah. I, my

38:37

money, uh, by the way, is

38:39

absolutely on Trump on, on the

38:41

golf contests. Um, and that's,

38:43

he owns golf courses or I guess maybe

38:45

whatever he does it actually. But that's how,

38:47

so people rent his name from him to

38:49

put on their golf courses. But it's, oh,

38:51

look at that. I won my, uh, championship

38:54

at the club I own again. Like

38:56

boy, that's a surprise. Right. I think

38:58

George W. Bush would beat the snot

39:00

out of both of them to this

39:02

day. Um, but that's just a, and

39:05

then paid a picture of it. I think we should

39:07

ask people, uh, you know, or

39:10

no president, like, no, you're not allowed to play

39:12

golf. I don't want a golf playing

39:14

president. Remember there was there, that used to be

39:16

like a thing where it was

39:18

like the golf counter, like how much are

39:20

they playing golf and like that? Like we

39:23

long for the days. When that was

39:25

a scandal. Now, I think during the time administration, people

39:27

were like, please play golf. Like that seems like the

39:29

place you're going to do the least harm. Like

39:33

napping president theory. Matt

39:36

a modified, uh, superstars competition

39:38

from the late seventies, early

39:40

eighties on ABC, uh,

39:42

for presidential candidates, you know, uh, uh, 25

39:45

yard swim and obstacle course, power

39:48

lifting, bowling, like just, they

39:50

get to pick five events that they have to

39:52

compete in and they have to show that they

39:55

are capable of something. I

39:57

would say let's start with Kenya

39:59

past the roadside. drunk test, just

40:01

sober because both

40:03

of those guys are sober. I get another problem. Yeah.

40:06

Maybe that takes the biotics. And

40:09

then take the cognitive

40:11

test on live television. Let's

40:13

not forget. No. Biden's doctor

40:15

didn't didn't say

40:17

that he was the greatest brain. No, the

40:19

the test that I've seen proposed, which I

40:22

fully support and which would disqualify some

40:24

people on this podcast is you

40:27

just have to have them convert a Word doc to a

40:29

PDF. Get off. You

40:31

don't even. That's it. I didn't want to

40:33

be president. I'm Jax. And you shouldn't be.

40:35

You can't do that. Government agencies to do

40:38

that. This

40:40

is like the boomer screening

40:42

test is should

40:44

be an effect here. You guys joke now,

40:47

but 20 years from now, when we have

40:49

a president who's like spending all of his

40:51

time playing Fortnite or Call of Duty or

40:53

something. If only. That's going to be the

40:56

that's going to be the story. This is

40:58

my dream. Like, why don't threaten me with

41:00

a good time? Speaking

41:02

of threatening you at the good time, the

41:05

Supreme Court's finished its

41:07

term today with a batch of

41:09

sure to be controversial rule rulings.

41:12

I guess that's what we call

41:14

them, including on

41:16

immunity, which I've yet to fully digest,

41:18

but six three in favor

41:21

of some presidential immunity as

41:23

president and official acts. But

41:27

the good time that's being threatened is at

41:30

least a lot of the of

41:32

the of hand gnashing.

41:35

I'm forgetting all the words. I

41:38

have to do with the end

41:40

of Chevron deference, which is really

41:42

literally Justice Neil

41:44

Gorsuch's reason for existing. They

41:47

handed down a decision last week

41:49

about that, having to do with the

41:51

administrative state and what those regulatory agencies

41:53

can and cannot do in terms of

41:56

inventing new law. Peter, I know you've

41:58

written about this and. about

42:00

this, what does and does not

42:02

last week's Supreme Court decision do

42:05

in terms of the administrative state

42:07

and Supreme Court rulings going forward?

42:10

So since the 1980s,

42:13

the courts have operated

42:15

under the Chevron deference,

42:17

which is basically that

42:19

if there is a statute that is

42:22

ambiguous, then courts are

42:24

required to defer to the agency

42:26

interpretation of that statute. Now, in

42:28

theory, that sounds pretty reasonable. Courts

42:31

are not made up of specialist

42:33

technical experts and regulatory agencies, for

42:36

better or for worse, often for

42:38

worse, rule often on

42:40

quite technical subjects. And it's just

42:42

a kind of complicated subject matter

42:44

expertise intensive sort of activity. And

42:46

so the idea was, well, let's

42:49

let the subject matter experts do

42:51

the interpretation. But in practice, what

42:53

that meant was that was

42:56

that regulatory agencies end up going

42:58

hunting for ambiguity and arguably in

43:00

some cases, just straight up inventing

43:03

ambiguity, and then using that ambiguity

43:05

to give themselves new powers that

43:08

are not in the statute. And

43:10

so Chevron deference has empowered the

43:13

executive branch to basically write its

43:15

own ticket to decide what it

43:17

wants to do, independent

43:20

of what the statute says. And that

43:22

has been a huge problem over the

43:24

last 40 years. The end of Chevron

43:26

deference means that the courts are going

43:29

to actually be the ones to interpret

43:31

those statutes where they are ambiguous. And

43:33

that gives the courts the opportunity to

43:36

say to regulatory agencies, you have overstepped

43:38

your bounds, your interpretation is not acceptable.

43:41

This probably will mean that there are

43:43

that there will be a bunch of

43:45

litigation here. Although John Roberts in his

43:47

decision did say, all these

43:49

old decisions, you can't just re litigate every

43:51

single one of them. But going forward, when

43:53

agencies try to invent basically

43:56

new powers for themselves by saying, well,

43:58

you know, the There's

44:00

this the language here is a little

44:02

bit fuzzy. So we think we have

44:04

the wiggle room. Courts will not automatically

44:07

be required to accept the agency ruling.

44:09

That is a good thing. This is

44:11

a huge win for limited government. Catherine,

44:13

we will surely talk

44:16

more in more fullness next

44:18

week about the Supreme Court's term.

44:20

But just wonder if you had any quick

44:23

thoughts about Chevron, Gorsuch, Gorsuch.

44:25

I can't pronounce words. I'm

44:28

going to take the cognitive test live on television and

44:30

boy, am I going to fail and

44:32

or the Supreme Court. Please

44:35

talk. I was

44:37

reminded of the reaction immediately after

44:39

the last

44:42

term, the E.P.A.

44:44

case, the SACOT V.P.A., where

44:47

there's a certain type of kind of

44:51

technocratic, lefty kind of person who thinks

44:53

of themselves as mainstream and New York

44:55

Times liberal kind of person who

44:59

really, really dramatically exaggerated the

45:01

potential impact of the case

45:04

in a way that was like

45:06

they wanted to be upset. Right. So this was the case about,

45:09

you know, oh, it

45:11

had to do with water regulation. And there

45:13

were people that were like, fine, like

45:15

the Clean Water Act is repealed. Our

45:17

streams will run red with the blood and

45:19

black with the oil of our children.

45:21

Like it was it was like a

45:23

real kind of apocalyptic take.

45:25

And similarly, with this case, like I

45:28

think that this case was rightly decided,

45:30

but it did not gut the administrative

45:32

state. It like in marginal cases created

45:35

a different mechanism for resolving

45:38

ambiguity. This is not like

45:41

the world will not be radically changed by this decision. It's

45:44

important, but it's not the end of government as we

45:46

know it. I think this

45:48

had that same feel of like a lot

45:50

of big feelings about something that

45:52

was ultimately a bit

45:54

technical. It matters. It definitely

45:56

matters, but it doesn't matter in the way

45:59

that people who it

50:00

clashed with the real world in some troubling ways. And

50:03

the other way it clashed with the real world, pause

50:05

here and skip for a few seconds if you don't

50:07

want a spoiler. The

50:09

last episode features a plot that

50:11

I am not making up in

50:17

which all of the young

50:19

people get assimilated

50:21

by the Borg because

50:24

they go through the transporters

50:27

and because their brains aren't fully

50:29

formed, they're susceptible to

50:31

like manipulation somehow to become

50:34

Borg. And literally

50:37

it is the young people with

50:39

digital brains zombying around, ruining everything

50:41

and only the very, very old

50:43

boomers who can drive stick.

50:45

Like they literally have to drive the old

50:47

enterprise manually to

50:50

save the day. This is like,

50:53

okay, I'm done with the spoilers. Boomer

50:55

Fantasia at its worst. It was so

50:57

upsetting. Also, absolutely the

51:00

writers of that show did a ton

51:02

of psychedelics. Two different plots that revolve

51:04

around opening a door in your psyche,

51:06

like literally a door. It

51:08

was a lot. Anyway, it actually was pretty good and I recommend

51:11

it, but like viewer

51:13

beware. So which Star Trek

51:15

cast member maps onto

51:18

which podcast round table

51:20

member here? I

51:22

guess I'll do the same thing I did with

51:24

Inside Out is that you can email me,

51:27

you can hit me up privately for that

51:29

analysis, but no. Curiously,

51:31

the original series was also very anti-kid,

51:34

even though it was trying to reach

51:36

out to the love people and it

51:38

makes sense because Gene Roddenberry, who

51:41

his DNA, I mean, like you can't escape

51:43

it in all of these permutations. He

51:46

worked for Bill Parker, the long

51:48

time ultra law and order insane

51:50

police chief of LA. And

51:54

ultimately didn't really trust the kids with

51:56

very much. Yeah, I mean,

51:58

for sure the kids these days. is

52:01

a theme of this show. The kids are not all

52:03

right. And they're not all right in part because of

52:05

the things that their elders have done wrong and then

52:07

concealed from them. Katherine,

52:09

quick question. Can you or

52:12

does your husband allow you to drive a

52:14

stick? No and no.

52:19

Fair enough. Nick, what did you consume? I

52:22

watched Outstanding, a comedy revolution,

52:24

which is a documentary by,

52:26

directed by Paige Hurwitz on

52:28

Netflix. And it is, you

52:30

know, it was one of their big pride

52:32

releases. So it's Outstanding,

52:34

it's a pun, it's about

52:37

gay and lesbian and bi and

52:39

trans. And in many cases,

52:41

unfunny comedians coming out of the closet,

52:43

either as gay or lesbian or as

52:46

comedians, because you wouldn't have known that

52:48

from their routines. I enjoyed

52:50

this a ton, partly because it

52:52

showed footage of older people like

52:54

Lily Tomlin, who spent most of

52:56

her career when she was on,

53:00

certainly on Laugh-In and

53:03

things like that. And when she was in

53:05

the terrible movie, I think it was called

53:07

Moment by Mama with John Travolta, where

53:09

they were, it was a romantic dramedy.

53:12

I don't know. It's like a, you

53:14

know, the filmic equivalent of the Hindenburg.

53:17

Check it out when you get a chance. But Outstanding,

53:20

a comedy revolution, had a lot

53:22

of really interesting footage of obviously

53:24

gay and lesbian comics back in

53:26

the day. And it's,

53:28

you know, fascinating when you look at

53:30

people like Charles Nelson Riley or Paul

53:33

Lynn or Moms Mabley, and

53:35

you recognize, you know, with the passage of

53:37

time and the kind of opening up of

53:40

American culture, what they were

53:42

and why they seemed off and very

53:44

funny. And it's a little bit

53:46

sad, obviously, it's more than a little bit sad

53:48

that it takes so long for people just to

53:50

be able to be who they are and live

53:52

in that and kind of enjoy themselves. One

53:55

of the real revelations of this was there was a 1977,

53:57

uh, of

54:02

benefit for gay and lesbian rights

54:04

where Lily Tomlin got Richard

54:07

Pryor to participate. And I have

54:09

some footage of that where Richard Pryor talks about

54:12

that he's sucked dick.

54:14

And it's this funny and

54:16

scathing kind of call

54:19

out of homophobic America. And then he

54:21

goes into a question about race relations

54:24

though. And it's because this was held

54:26

in Hollywood. And he's like, but I

54:28

see all you white people out there.

54:30

And it's just, it's an amazing moment.

54:33

And this documentary is actually filled

54:35

with things like that, including one

54:38

of the earliest out comedians on

54:40

TV, a woman named Robin Tyler,

54:42

who she and her partner had

54:44

a TV show that then got

54:46

pulled after she was on

54:48

the Norm Crosby show. And Matt, you'll

54:51

remember Norm Crosby from like third

54:53

rate game shows of the seventies,

54:55

but she was talking about Anita

54:57

Bryant, who was the former Miss

54:59

America, who was a famously anti-gay

55:01

and a pitch woman for Florida

55:04

orange shoes. And she was

55:06

talking about born again Christians. And Robin Tyler said,

55:08

I don't mind them being born

55:10

again, but do they have to come back

55:12

as themselves? Which I

55:15

thought was like an incredibly funny,

55:17

mean line. And that was like

55:20

the end of her TV career.

55:22

And so I recommend outstanding a

55:24

comedy revolution by Paige Hurwitz. It's

55:27

a bit triumphalist in

55:29

many ways, but it is

55:31

fantastic. And the archival

55:33

footage is just stunning. So

55:37

that was what I watch. Oh, micro.

55:39

Go ahead. Oh,

55:42

I was just going to say this also, I watched

55:45

that and then New York had its

55:47

pride parade this weekend, just yesterday, the

55:50

day before we taped this. And

55:52

there was a subset of that called the

55:54

Dyke March because, you know,

55:56

New York has like the longest running

55:59

pride March, but the. The NYCD Dyke

56:01

March actually put out

56:03

signs saying masking is resistance.

56:05

And they were talking about

56:07

like everybody should wear masks,

56:10

both Kaffias and kind of

56:12

breathing masks or surgical masks

56:15

because Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor

56:17

Eric Adams are supporting a ban

56:19

on masks in our state against

56:22

people who are kind

56:24

of intimidating people normally wearing Kaffias

56:26

and stuff like that. So they're

56:29

saying masking is resistance and

56:31

they say the 2024 NYC Dyke March will be a

56:35

fully mass march. And

56:37

that shows you kind of what

56:39

a wonderful world we live in where

56:42

we have gone through a phase where

56:45

being gay or lesbian meant being erased

56:47

from discussion if not view to, okay,

56:50

we are letting everything all hang out. And now

56:53

we have Dykes who are in

56:55

favor of regimes that put

56:58

people to death for being

57:00

gay or lesbian, talking about

57:02

masking as an act of

57:04

resistance against the liberal governor and the liberal

57:06

mayor of New York who are in favor

57:08

of that because they don't want people being

57:10

intimidated with the way that the

57:13

Ku Klux Klan intimidated people in the South with

57:15

masks. So it's kind of a wonderful world. I

57:19

think it reminds me in

57:21

a non-sequitur fashion, I was

57:23

driving yesterday and hitting

57:26

the little button, the scan on the radio

57:28

there in the car and

57:30

the classical music station was

57:32

playing all day classical

57:35

music from LGBTQ

57:37

composers and performers.

57:41

And it just struck me as like, why?

57:44

Who was the big surprise? I

57:46

wasn't really about paying a lot of attention, but

57:48

it's just like, it's not like they're

57:52

playing songs. It's not like it's raining

57:54

men or anything like that. It's classical

57:56

music. I don't know. But here Matt,

57:59

that's the big surprise. Oh, no. Oh,

58:01

God. When you hear an angel, somebody

58:03

was on the angels. And

58:07

they show up somewhere in a positive way.

58:09

You're like, oh, yeah, like you feel a

58:11

little bit of pride, right? Because you care

58:13

about the Los Angeles angels

58:15

from California slash Anaheim. Frankly,

58:18

no, but I see what you're saying and I respect it.

58:20

Peter, what did you consume? I

58:22

watched Dark Matter, the TV show

58:24

on Apple TV Plus that is

58:26

an adaptation of Blake Crouch's

58:30

2016 novel. It's a multiverse story

58:32

about a man who gets unstuck

58:34

from his universe. The novel

58:39

it is based on is just a

58:41

fascinating document because it's pretty

58:43

good. It's pretty effective. It's the sort of

58:45

thing that you can read in like two

58:48

hours because it is so committed

58:51

to the one sentence

58:53

paragraph. Every sentence has been honed down

58:55

to this sort of perfect eighth grade

58:57

reading level, like just the fewest number

58:59

of words. I am not making

59:02

this up. There is an entire

59:04

paragraph that is just one word

59:06

and that word is oranges and

59:09

that's it. And like the whole book is just like that.

59:11

So you almost don't feel like you're reading it at all.

59:13

It's like the least amount of reading that you've ever done

59:15

in 350 pages or whatever it

59:17

is. The TV show is not

59:20

quite as focused and it's

59:22

accessible simplicity. But

59:27

it's quite effective. I wouldn't say it's great, but it's

59:29

pretty good. It is slick sci-fi.

59:32

A lot of it takes place in Chicago and

59:34

it was actually shot in Chicago and looks like

59:36

it. So there is some green screen and some

59:38

kind of shoddy effects work in the middle couple

59:40

of episodes, but it looks really nice. But

59:43

it is a show about what about

59:45

choices in life and sort of posits

59:47

a world in which every single choice

59:50

creates yet another universe and another branching

59:52

universe. And so you have this character

59:54

who lives a pretty idyllic, but

59:57

in some ways low key life with his family.

59:59

He's a professor. has left the

1:00:01

corporate world. And then, of course, he runs

1:00:03

into the version of himself that stayed in

1:00:05

the corporate world and became a titan of

1:00:08

industry and all of this. And it gets

1:00:10

a little bit complicated, but fundamentally, it's about

1:00:12

wanting to be back with your family and

1:00:14

to have that low-key, idyllic life. And it's

1:00:17

really interesting to watch this in the context

1:00:19

of, for example, this presidential election and the

1:00:21

debate, because you watch them one

1:00:24

after each other, like I did last week.

1:00:26

And you start to feel like somebody

1:00:28

made the wrong choice, and you woke up

1:00:30

in the wrong universe. And that's how

1:00:32

we ended up with the Trump Biden shit

1:00:34

show on Thursday. Dark Matter

1:00:37

is just the time traveler's wife for men.

1:00:40

And that's not a criticism. It's just

1:00:42

the truth. Nothing

1:00:45

wrong with being something but for men. I

1:00:47

want to see Hunter

1:00:50

Biden's multiverse, because every time it's

1:00:52

the same thing. I did

1:00:54

that again. I made that choice again. There

1:00:56

is some of that in this book. I

1:00:59

don't know what's in the series, but he follows a

1:01:01

lot of paths that end up in the same place.

1:01:05

So I'm going to recommend

1:01:07

a mansion slash estate tour

1:01:10

up in the Hudson Valley. That is

1:01:12

one of the better of such things

1:01:14

there. It is called

1:01:17

the Wilderstein Historic Site. I

1:01:19

found that a year or two ago, initially, by

1:01:22

just taking a right instead of a left of

1:01:25

the Rhine Cliff Amtrak station, which

1:01:27

I recommend people go to. Very, very sweet. And

1:01:30

I saw this signage and

1:01:32

a big old huge Queen

1:01:35

Anne mansion thingy and

1:01:37

made a mental note to go check it out one day.

1:01:39

And that was recent. And

1:01:43

that area has famously a whole

1:01:45

bunch of big old mansions up

1:01:47

on the banks of the Hudson

1:01:49

cliffs, like the Vanderbilt

1:01:51

mansion and Hyde Park FDR stuff

1:01:54

and various, I think, the Morgan estate is up

1:01:56

there too. This is by far

1:01:59

the best view. but

1:04:00

you can see how these places are. It's just really nice.

1:04:02

That's a very, very nice tour. The Wilderstein

1:04:04

Historic Site. And yes, it

1:04:06

may take you down a rabbit hole of

1:04:09

strange, affectionate, extramarital

1:04:11

relationships of past presidents.

1:04:14

That's all the time for extramarital stuff

1:04:16

that we have on this podcast. Listen

1:04:18

to all of our podcasts at reason.com/podcasts.

1:04:22

You can donate to our

1:04:24

business at reason.com/donate. Nick,

1:04:26

do we have anything that you would

1:04:28

like to advertise here about your activities

1:04:31

in New York City or the Reason

1:04:33

Foundation's activities in New York City? Yeah,

1:04:35

Reason is going to be premiering a

1:04:38

great documentary about backpage.com. The

1:04:40

classified online classified ad site

1:04:44

that got attacked by the federal government and

1:04:46

drove one of the proprietors of it to

1:04:48

suicide. That'll be in late

1:04:51

July. If you go to reason.com/events, you

1:04:53

can buy tickets. We're going to have

1:04:56

a showing of the film. And then

1:04:58

we're going to have a panel discussion

1:05:00

with Elizabeth Nolan Brown, who did a

1:05:02

lot of our coverage of Backpage, as

1:05:04

well as Caitlin Bailey, who's the head

1:05:06

of a sex workers rights group called

1:05:08

Old Pros. So go

1:05:11

to reason.com/events or sign up for

1:05:13

our NYC events newsletter

1:05:15

at reason.com/newsletters. Terrific.

1:05:17

Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you next week.