0:05

Hello, and welcome to the

0:07

Reason Roundtable, where every day

0:09

is Liberation Day. I'm your

0:11

host, Peter Sutterman, and today

0:14

I am joined by my

0:16

colleagues, Catherine McGee Ward, Nick

0:18

Gillespie, and Matt Welch. Everybody

0:20

say hello? Howdy. Hello, I

0:22

follow orders. Good job Matt, good

0:24

job, good job, happy Tuesday. So

0:26

in today's episode, we're going to

0:28

talk about Trump's second inaugural, the

0:30

TikTok ban, Joe Biden's Pardons, and

0:33

his last days as president, and

0:35

a listener question about emergency measures

0:37

in the wake of Los Angeles's

0:39

wildfires. But first, let's do an

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ad. Hey, reasoned roundtable listeners, Peter

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That's reliancecollege.org slash reason. Okay,

1:47

we're going to start with the

1:50

second inauguration of President Donald J.

1:52

Trump. Trump declared that America was

1:54

about to enter a new golden

1:56

age. Sadly, this was not a

1:58

reference to classic. fiction, but

2:01

Trump did promise that we would plant

2:03

an American flag on Mars. To me,

2:05

Trump's inaugural weekend was a cauldron of

2:08

contradictions. He promised this new golden age

2:10

of Martian colonization and energy abundance, but

2:12

he also wants to close America off

2:15

to so much immigration, which is both

2:17

the source of the country's economic dynamism

2:19

and a signal of its economic success.

2:21

He delivered a relatively calm and normal

2:24

inaugural speech. but then followed it with

2:26

a rambling off-the-cuff gripe session about January

2:28

6th and his own political persecution. He

2:31

talked about ending wars, but also about

2:33

how he wanted America to retake the

2:35

Panama Canal? Maybe by force? I don't

2:38

know. He closed a pre-inogral rally with

2:40

a performance of YMCA by the village

2:42

people. A song addressed to a young

2:45

man. And Trump himself is not a

2:47

young man. He's 78 years old. I

2:49

don't know. Maybe it was for JD

2:52

Vance. So look, the vibe has clearly

2:54

shifted, but to what? Catherine, I want

2:56

to start with you. You love rockets.

2:59

You are ready to make the Daily

3:01

Commute to Mars to record the podcast.

3:03

What did you an anarchist lady libertarian

3:06

magazine editor make of Trump's speech? Do

3:08

you feel like you're about to enter

3:10

your own personal golden age here? I

3:12

do not. That is not how I

3:15

feel. You know, I think that the

3:17

thing is that the bits I liked

3:19

and the bits I hated were both

3:22

so far from having clear paths to

3:24

being real that I don't know how

3:26

to weigh them, right? So it was

3:29

like, yeah, let's go to Mars. So

3:31

first of all, basically every president in

3:33

his inaugural speech or in his city

3:36

of the unions has said some version

3:38

of like, America is back in space,

3:40

baby, you better believe it. The fact

3:43

that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk were

3:45

sitting immediately behind him when he said

3:47

this gives it like a little more

3:50

credence, but still, you know, they lie.

3:52

They lie about Kona Space. If we

3:54

do get it to space, it probably

3:56

will not really, or to Mars it

3:59

will not really be... down to Donald

4:01

Trump. Meanwhile, you know, the biggest applause

4:03

lines were about closing the border. That

4:05

is the thing that he has the

4:08

most power to do in some ways

4:10

and also seems to be very very

4:12

popular. And so if that

4:15

is what's coming first and

4:17

strongest, then Libertarian... anarchist lady

4:19

magazine editors or whatever adjectives

4:21

you gave me are unenthused. Nick,

4:23

the last time Trump was sworn

4:25

in, he delivered a dark and

4:27

jury speech about American carnage. This

4:29

speech, however, this time, his speech

4:31

was billed in advance as something

4:33

much more positive, much more unifying,

4:36

but it was also dark in

4:38

its own way about crime, about

4:40

immigration, about what Trump called the

4:42

vicious violent and unfair weaponization of

4:44

the justice department. That's a quote.

4:46

It was all about the ways

4:48

that America had failed and in

4:50

particular the ways that America had

4:52

failed Donald Trump. You've said

4:54

in the past that you

4:56

are cautiously optimistic about the

4:58

Trump presidency. Did this speech bolster

5:00

that optimism or weaken it? I

5:03

think Lauren Sanchez is cleavage boosted

5:05

by optimism because we're back, you

5:08

know, maybe what started with Sydney

5:10

Sweeney a year or so

5:12

ago, you know, that was

5:14

the shot across the bow

5:16

of... liberal wokism, you know,

5:18

asexual America. But I am

5:20

a... kind of where Catherine

5:22

is in terms of. I

5:24

wanted to say we are

5:26

not together. We are. I

5:28

also liked, I also liked

5:30

America going a little more short.

5:33

Like Mark Zuckerberg and Lauren Sanchez,

5:35

you are not together. And yet,

5:37

you know, it's a bold new

5:40

look for America. I'm sorry. Carry

5:42

on. What was good or the

5:44

general vibe that I got from

5:47

the inaugural speech in that like

5:49

super condensed, you know, closet. of

5:51

the Senate rotunda. What was kind

5:54

of amazing was that, you know,

5:56

all of the Living X Presidents

5:58

and Kamala Haar. and Doug Emhoff

6:01

and Jill, Dr. Jill, you know,

6:03

had to listen to this. That

6:05

was kind of fascinating theater and

6:08

whatnot. Trump's inaugural speech was pretty

6:10

positive and upbeat, although also filled

6:12

with lies, such as, you know,

6:15

talking about how we're finally going

6:17

to get out of decline and

6:20

yet real median family income, household

6:22

income, is at an all-time high.

6:24

Like we're past what it was

6:27

pre-pandemic, adjusted for inflation and things

6:29

like that. you know going back

6:31

to the American carnage speech where he

6:33

talked about you know crime that was

6:36

everywhere and he was describing you know

6:38

Batman's Gotham with him in the role

6:40

as Bain you know it's like economically

6:43

the country is not in tatters

6:45

yet it's very important for him

6:47

and his his backers to believe

6:49

that it is so that he

6:51

can automatically just say oh look

6:53

at this two minutes in and

6:55

we're already doing better than ever,

6:58

that's also true about, you know,

7:00

the invasion across the southern border,

7:02

which stopped a year ago, as

7:04

much as you want to call

7:06

people encounters at the southern border,

7:08

you know, a part of an

7:10

invasion and things like that. So

7:12

what worried me more after that, because

7:15

I like his I like the optimism.

7:17

I like him saying, yeah, you know,

7:19

we're going to be, you know, America

7:21

is going to do great things again

7:23

without reservation. I think that's a good

7:25

attitude and vibe to bring. And I

7:27

think a lot of the people in

7:30

that room are ready to do that

7:32

and are delivering that, you know, whether

7:34

it's Jeff Basos or Elon Musk or

7:36

Mark Zuckerberg in various ways, I believe

7:38

the CEO of Tiktak was also there,

7:40

which is kind of fascinating and I'm

7:42

sure we'll talk about that later speeches.

7:45

kind of the old rambling Trump speeches

7:47

where he also spent a lot of

7:49

time talking about renaming the Gulf of

7:52

Mexico, the Gulf of America, and all

7:54

of this kind of bullshit instead

7:56

of actually focusing on the things

7:58

that from a liberty perspective, you

8:00

know, what I want is more

8:02

freedom to live how I want.

8:04

And the biggest threat to that

8:06

is, you know, government spending. It's

8:08

not even government regulation per se.

8:10

And we heard nothing about fixing

8:12

the debt, nothing about addressing the

8:14

deficit. And then we had all

8:16

of these. as Catherine put it,

8:18

there's, you know, a real ambivalence

8:20

there. Like, we're going to open

8:22

stuff up, we're going to Mars,

8:24

but, you know, Mars, don't even

8:26

think about sending your people here,

8:28

and we're going to tariff your

8:31

goods to help, you know, so,

8:33

mix that. So Matt, Nick brought

8:35

up all of the CEOs who

8:37

were in the room and I

8:39

just want to, but first, before

8:41

we get to that, which we

8:43

are going to talk about later,

8:45

I do want to talk to

8:47

somebody who is newly just in

8:49

the room here on the podcast,

8:51

right? What's going on with that,

8:53

Matt? What's going on is I

8:55

just want the world to know

8:57

that in my final hours as

8:59

host. I did manage to issue

9:01

a blanket pardon to my entire

9:03

extended family, just throwing that out

9:05

there, and ratified ERA plus as

9:07

the statistic, not just ERA, because

9:09

it's important to adjust for a

9:11

time and era. Go on. So

9:13

nothing in your kid's TikTok history

9:15

will be admissible. All right. So

9:17

the teasers for this speech were

9:19

kind of interesting when they previewed

9:21

it before the actual speech was

9:23

given, because they focused on one

9:25

phrase in particular that was Trump's

9:27

call for a revolution of common

9:29

sense. years in American politics and

9:31

discussion of American politics we've heard

9:33

a lot I think about the

9:35

decline of common sense in American

9:37

governance and leadership from COVID-era restrictions

9:39

on you know playgrounds to big-city

9:41

crime and disorder to the total

9:43

cluelessness of the political class in

9:45

California and the aftermath of the

9:47

Los Angeles fires. There is this

9:49

sense I think across the political

9:51

spectrum that American governance political leadership

9:53

that elites of all stripes that

9:55

just This about everyone in charge

9:57

has totally lost touch that our

9:59

problems go beyond ideas. and policy

10:01

disagreement because our leaders have forgotten

10:04

the fundamentals. Did you hear in

10:06

Trump's speech any signs that common

10:08

sense was on its way back? Well sure,

10:10

I mean he made a direct kind of

10:12

nod towards that near the top

10:14

of his address when he said

10:16

that a radical and corrupt establishment

10:18

has extracted power and wealth from

10:20

our citizens. We now have a

10:22

government that cannot manage even a

10:24

simple crisis at home. exaggerated maybe

10:26

a little bit especially on the

10:28

radical and corrupt kind of sense

10:30

of it all year. pretty corrupt

10:32

to be honest, but I think

10:34

he's attributing a lot of like

10:36

Dr. Evil malice and planning to

10:38

what is just sort of the

10:40

banality of bureaucratic evil. Although I might

10:43

amend that in the wake of how

10:45

Joe Biden behaved or his handlers did

10:47

in the last five days of his

10:49

presidency, which is truly putered and awful.

10:51

But I think that that resonates with

10:53

a lot of people. The question then

10:56

becomes, and now what? I think a

10:58

lot of people invest in Trump on

11:00

it's probably I think in some ways

11:02

the the more interesting and

11:04

possibly positive thing about his presidency

11:07

or his his fact of being

11:09

in the world is that people

11:11

invest their sense of I'm going

11:14

to I'm going to use Trump

11:16

as a blunderbuss against the all

11:18

the ways that the elites in

11:21

government and also sort of buttressed

11:23

in media and academia in Hollywood

11:25

or whatever have screwed the pooch

11:27

over and over again but he

11:30

really is a blunderbuss and that

11:32

gets to the sort of How

11:34

does this play out in action?

11:36

Well, is it common sense to

11:39

abolish refugees? I don't think that's

11:41

common sense. I think that's

11:43

going against one of the

11:45

greatest of American traditions, one

11:48

that was rightly pointed out

11:50

to in Ronald Reagan's, what

11:52

do you call those addresses when you

11:54

leave? Farewell address when he left

11:57

the presidency and also

11:59

in his. very first speech to

12:01

the Conservative political action conference back

12:03

in 1974 or 5, Trump is

12:06

embedding that and completely in a

12:08

way that is already affecting thousands

12:10

of people who had flights. So

12:13

we're doing this one again. I

12:15

don't think that's common sense. So

12:17

a lot of the practical applications

12:20

of what people think is a

12:22

restoration of common sense is what

12:24

Steve Miller or whoever has the

12:27

president's ear on a specific issue

12:29

will be able to be able

12:31

to right in a chat GBT

12:34

assisted executive order. So I don't

12:36

have a lot of faith that

12:38

an erratic and kind of impulsive

12:41

executive is going to be the

12:43

one who's going to deliver on

12:45

those common sense things. And I

12:48

just want to stress that as

12:50

much as I prefer, kind of

12:52

the rabble messy. populist version of

12:55

pomp and circumstances. I kind of

12:57

identify more with it as an

12:59

American to have like, you know,

13:02

America's tenor. come down and sing

13:04

and looking like a... Yeah, he's

13:06

from Long Island, an Italian-American from

13:08

Long Island. We couldn't tell he

13:11

was an Italian-American. I don't know

13:13

what gave it away. Yeah, the

13:15

three or four Z's in his

13:18

last name, Matt. It was a

13:20

meatball sub that he was making

13:22

while he was singing the song.

13:25

Pompin circumstances with a very kind

13:27

of... more like pro wrestling pompan

13:29

circumstance, but it's still pompan circumstance

13:32

and that shit ain't American. It

13:34

shouldn't be at least. We're losing

13:36

our small or Republican values and

13:39

I'm not here for that and

13:41

I don't think that's a shortcut

13:43

despite some certain things which we'll

13:46

get to later on that I

13:48

tend to agree with. I don't

13:50

think it's a shortcut to to

13:53

restoring common sense. Okay so instead

13:55

of common sense this was something

13:57

more like common nonsense. No. No.

14:00

No. Sometimes. We need more

14:02

kids rock is what they

14:04

had to say. The first

14:06

rule of improv is yes

14:08

and. Just say yes and.

14:10

So let's talk more about

14:12

that specific line because the

14:14

context for the line that

14:17

we're going to have a

14:19

revolution of common sense. was

14:21

Trump's opening day salvo of

14:23

executive orders, something like a

14:25

hundred of which, I'm not

14:27

sure anybody actually has a

14:29

count, but it's something like

14:31

a hundred of which he

14:33

has signed in the initial

14:35

hours of his presidency. Among

14:37

other things, those executive orders

14:40

relate to immigration in the

14:42

southern border, to gender, to

14:44

Alaskan energy production and Biden's

14:46

EV mandate, to federal workforce

14:48

policies about remote work and

14:50

DEA. Gulf of America, an even

14:52

energy efficiency rules regarding dishwashers, shower heads,

14:54

and gas stoves. If nothing else, Trump

14:56

is the president of cleaner plates and

14:58

more intense water pressure and better seers

15:01

on your stakes. So there were so

15:03

many of these orders we cannot possibly

15:05

cover them all today. But I do

15:07

want to go around the panel and

15:09

ask each of you to pick out

15:12

one aspect of Trump's day one agenda,

15:14

something he did or didn't do that

15:16

you think is important. Nick, let's start

15:18

with you. Yeah, so I am following

15:20

a lot of the stuff related to

15:22

immigration, particularly his executive order ending

15:25

birthright citizenship. I think is

15:27

characteristic of what we're in

15:29

for, particularly from a negative

15:31

point of view. This is

15:33

a direct challenge to the

15:35

Constitution. He is effectively reinterpreting

15:37

the 14th Amendment. And you

15:39

know, if it was bad

15:41

when Joe Biden suddenly declared

15:43

a constitutional amendment to the

15:45

Constitution and a flurry of

15:47

you know bizarre and imperial

15:49

actions towards the end of

15:51

his you know the last few

15:53

hours and just for listeners who don't

15:55

know you're talking about the equal rights

15:57

amendment which we will discuss in a

15:59

little while And the executive order

16:01

on birthright citizenship is far

16:03

more extensive and expansive than

16:06

people were originally led to

16:08

believe, but it would essentially

16:10

strip people like Kamala Harris

16:12

of her citizenship if it

16:14

was in effect. when she

16:16

was born, because it's saying

16:19

that contrary to the 14th

16:21

Amendment and longstanding Supreme Court

16:23

law as well as lower

16:25

court decisions, that anybody born

16:27

here of people who are

16:29

basically legal or in the

16:32

country, regardless of the legal

16:34

status of your parents, unless

16:36

their diplomats or criminals are

16:38

in occupied territory, are American

16:40

citizens, this would get rid

16:42

of that. you know, kick

16:45

into high gear in 30

16:47

days, it will force a

16:49

large number of people to

16:51

find out what their parents'

16:53

legal status was. As I

16:55

mentioned, it is an absolute

16:58

reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment.

17:00

So it's setting up a

17:02

constitutional battle down the road.

17:04

And for me, it's both

17:06

expected but deeply troubling. Matt

17:08

Welch, what stood out to

17:11

you? On Joe Biden's first

17:13

day in office, he passed

17:15

a or signed an executive

17:17

order that was called the

17:19

Advancing Racial Equity and Support

17:21

for Underserved Communities. through the

17:24

federal government, which subjected all

17:26

regulations, federal agencies, and spending

17:28

initiatives to the test of

17:30

whether their impacts were spread

17:32

equitably across racially measured populations.

17:34

And it got very, very,

17:37

very little press coverage at

17:39

all to the extent that

17:41

it did, for the most

17:43

part, or the exception of

17:45

libertarian and conservative press, including

17:47

ourselves. It was just sort

17:50

of like, oh, posity. He

17:52

did the good thing over

17:54

there. And Trump signed an

17:56

executive order. basically reversing that

17:58

and I predict confidently that

18:00

it'll get 50 times the

18:03

negative response to that which

18:05

in itself I think is

18:07

kind of telling about why

18:09

it happened and why ultimately

18:11

I think it was necessary.

18:13

There's a sort of auto

18:16

pilot of oh we all

18:18

agree that this is a

18:20

right and good thing to

18:22

do that we sort of saw

18:24

in the woke era whatever we're

18:26

defining that as but maybe 2014

18:28

to 20... 24 in November or

18:30

something along those lines, that it

18:32

just sort of, hey, if we

18:34

have a big thing, let's make

18:37

the big thing do these sort

18:39

of new programs where we replace

18:41

the world word kind of equality

18:43

of opportunity with equity, like equality

18:45

of outcomes, that was a pretty

18:47

pernicious thing that Joe Biden signed.

18:49

And so. Trump basically undid it.

18:51

It's as in a lot of

18:53

his other executive orders. It's too

18:55

early to tell what the possible

18:57

ramifications are, the sort of reporting

19:00

requirements into it, where each agency

19:02

has to report on which DEA

19:04

contractor was doing this and that.

19:06

It could get stupid and ugly. Who

19:08

knows? It's hard to say. There are

19:10

hundreds of executive orders that were signed

19:13

yesterday at a rolling press conference, which

19:15

was kind of entertaining, I suppose, for

19:17

those who watched it. But it is

19:20

something that I think is important. The

19:22

DEA bureaucracies within the federal government, and

19:24

I think. even more importantly, outside of

19:26

it. This sort of like, okay, I

19:29

guess we should do this now, human

19:31

resources thing that happened in society, in

19:33

private society over the last 10 years,

19:36

to the extent where a lot

19:38

of people I know who like

19:40

own their own companies were subjected

19:42

to sort of DEI training seminars

19:44

and accusations from their own. It's

19:46

sort of this insane thing that

19:48

happened. So I think this was

19:51

an important thing to do for

19:53

having the government not engage in

19:55

these types of of constant micromanaging

19:57

of everything and there's knock on

19:59

effects. every federal department that this Biden

20:01

executive order had. On the other hand,

20:04

and so I think it sort of

20:06

crystallizes the sense that there's this vibe

20:08

shift in the culture and in corporate

20:10

culture as well, and I think that's

20:13

going to be to the good and

20:15

not to the bad. The one negative

20:17

thing about this that I would flag

20:19

is that it's just part and parcel

20:21

of this. Okay, we have the government

20:24

now, we're going to change its operating

20:26

system and its language now. There's the

20:28

sense of if we just sort of

20:30

control Leviathan in this way, it's going

20:33

to be great instead of this. way

20:35

and there isn't a lot of thought

20:37

of maybe let's not treat government as

20:39

this instrument constantly to sort of enforce

20:42

our own linguistic values or something sort

20:44

of pernicious about the whole project of

20:46

it. All right so Matt is officially

20:48

against the government trying to help underserved

20:50

communities. Actually I want to take Nick

20:53

and Matt's answers here and combine them

20:55

because I think if you look at

20:57

what Trump announced about immigration and also

20:59

about DEAI, there is an inherent tension

21:02

there that goes to the contradictions of

21:04

the Trump presidency, the second Trump presidency

21:06

as we can see it so far.

21:08

And on the one hand, when he,

21:11

when Trump, I don't have the words

21:13

in front of me, but when Trump

21:15

said we're ending DEA in government, he

21:17

framed it as a victory for merit.

21:19

We're just going to hire the right

21:22

man or the right woman, because I

21:24

guess there's only two genders in Trump's

21:26

America, right? We're just going to hire

21:28

the right person for the job. And

21:31

there shouldn't be all of this other

21:33

kind of rigmarole, you know, sort of

21:35

selecting for certain people who get a

21:37

special advantage, right? But it seems to

21:40

me that there is a clear contradiction

21:42

in Trump's idea on the one hand

21:44

that we shouldn't have DEI, we should

21:46

hire based on merit. But we should

21:48

give advantage to people who were born

21:51

in the United States and we shouldn't

21:53

let employers hire from outside. Am I

21:55

crazy to see this as yet another

21:57

one of the contradictions in Trump's. to

22:00

all of this stuff? It's just

22:02

where you're doing the uss

22:04

and where you're doing the thems,

22:06

right? All right, Catherine, what did

22:08

you see here? Regulatory freeze, let's

22:10

do it. So that's a

22:13

thing that's happening. There have

22:15

been just a bonkers amount

22:18

of new regulations under Biden,

22:20

over 100,000 pages in the

22:22

last year. Just in 2025,

22:25

he added 7,641 pages to

22:27

the Federal Register just before

22:30

piecing out in the beginning

22:32

of January. It's a lot

22:35

of pages. It's just so

22:37

much regulation. As I've said

22:39

before in this. podcast. The

22:41

best thing about the first

22:44

Trump administration was all the

22:46

regulations that didn't happen by

22:48

issuing a regulatory freeze. He sets us

22:50

up for more regulations to

22:52

not happen, which I like. It's weird

22:54

because now like Mick Mulvaney is basically

22:57

king. Like the Office of Management and

22:59

Budget is the choke point for all

23:01

new regulations. Basically the way the freeze

23:04

works is If someone appointed by Trump or

23:06

someone that someone appointed by Trump said

23:08

could do it, says the regulation is

23:10

okay, then it happens. But until then, no.

23:13

I don't love that from a political patronage

23:15

point of view, but I do love that

23:17

from a not so many regulations point of

23:19

view, and I think it's... It's also probably

23:21

a good sign it's sort of paired

23:24

up with a hiring freeze. That's pretty

23:26

common actually, like people are going to

23:28

make a big fuss about the Trump hiring freeze

23:30

in the federal government, but a lot

23:32

of president's incoming do this just for

23:34

a minute while they get their bearings.

23:36

And the federal employees union is so

23:39

mad. And that's always a good side.

23:41

That just feels to me like, okay,

23:43

something's going right. Here is the quote

23:45

from the president of the union. Federal

23:47

employees are not the problem. They

23:50

are the solution. The

23:52

final. You know, to kind of

23:54

put this back into something Peter,

23:56

I think both you and Matt

23:58

touched on in turn. of the rule

24:01

by executive order or executive action.

24:03

We are in the thick of

24:05

this going back to George Bush

24:07

did it a ton. Obama raised

24:10

it to an art form. Trump

24:12

did it and now Biden did

24:14

it and now Trump is doing

24:16

it again. And like, you know,

24:19

we need the synthesis because all

24:21

we're getting is thesis and antithesis.

24:23

And it's just like, okay, well,

24:25

you know, because Congress is out

24:28

to lunch. You know, it's funny,

24:30

Catherine, one of the government worker

24:32

executive orders, the federal workforce has

24:34

to start showing up. You know,

24:37

that's part of it. Like, maybe

24:39

he should do that with Congress

24:41

and make them show up on

24:43

a full schedule for a change.

24:45

But all we're getting is this

24:48

flip back and forth between two

24:50

extremes. And unless there really is

24:52

a consensus and it starts changing

24:54

laws, we're just going to be

24:57

trapped in this without any actual

24:59

change other than... you know, wait

25:01

two years for midterms, wait four

25:03

years for presidential shift. That to

25:06

me is disheartening among, you know,

25:08

some of the good things that

25:10

Trump has done, which I think

25:12

both Matt and Catherine have touched

25:15

on. I mean, the change is

25:17

that the, and it's just an

25:19

increase, an acceleration. of a long-standing

25:21

thing that Nick rightly, I think,

25:24

points to George W. Bush being

25:26

the first kind of modern accelerant

25:28

of this, is that the president

25:30

gets all the more power. We

25:33

become more and more of a

25:35

presidential system, a kingly system, which

25:37

is, again, against our Republican values

25:39

with a small R. Unless the

25:42

king is McMillvani. King McMillvani is

25:44

fine. There's also... No, no, no,

25:46

no. I'm King McMullvaney is not

25:48

fine. I want that to be

25:51

clear. We're kidding. There's also this

25:53

issue of the, I think the

25:55

E. I calls it regulatory dark

25:57

matter, which is like all the

25:59

things that are not quite regulations

26:02

that Biden specialized in, although presidents

26:04

before him used them as well.

26:06

So these are like guidance documents,

26:08

policy statements. All kinds of stuff.

26:11

Dear colleague letters, all kinds

26:13

of stuff that ends up

26:15

functioning very nearly as. That's

26:17

how Catherine controls all of us.

26:19

Yeah, I'm sending you a dear

26:22

colleague letter after this podcast. And

26:24

it's. You know, Trump in his

26:26

first term actually had a requirement

26:28

to maintain online portals with those

26:31

guidance documents. Biden rescinded that measure,

26:33

which is shocking. Like, again, this is

26:35

the kind of thing like no one

26:37

really commented on at the time, but

26:39

I don't think Trump has formally restored it.

26:41

I don't think he did that in the

26:44

regulatory freeze, but he might do so, and

26:46

that would be good. Was not fully observed

26:48

during his first term. But this

26:50

is important, too, as we have. the

26:52

things Congress should be doing and it

26:54

is not doing and then many of

26:57

those things are being done by regulatory

26:59

agencies or within the executive branch and

27:01

then even there they are doing you know

27:03

a lot of quasi legal compulsion below the

27:05

level even of stuff that appears in

27:08

the Federal Register. So the thing

27:10

that stood out

27:12

to me was

27:15

what Trump didn't

27:17

do on tariffs,

27:19

but what he

27:21

said. So there

27:23

was a line

27:25

in his speech.

27:28

Instead of taxing

27:30

our citizens to

27:32

enrich other countries,

27:34

we will tariff

27:36

and tax. foreign

27:38

countries to enrich

27:41

our citizens. advisor who

27:43

is like what Stephen Miller is

27:45

to immigration Peter Navarro is to

27:47

tariffs. I mean he is just

27:49

he is the tariff guy that

27:51

is his solution to absolutely everything.

27:53

And he has apparently been telling

27:56

Trump's allies to look for what

27:58

he calls the external revenue. service

28:00

to be established within the Department

28:02

of Congress. And he's using

28:04

the line, tariffs are tax cuts

28:06

for the American people. Catherine,

28:08

are tariffs tax cuts? Nope, they're

28:10

not. All right, all right.

28:12

I'm glad we've got that solved.

28:14

OK, so one thing that

28:16

was different from Trump's first inaugural

28:18

was who was in attendance.

28:20

We've talked about this just a

28:22

little bit already. But this

28:24

wasn't just a party for long

28:26

time MAGA diehards like Peter

28:28

Navarro and Stephen Miller. Some of

28:31

the best seats at the

28:33

inauguration ceremony went to tech titans,

28:35

Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon

28:37

Musk, and others. Just a few

28:39

days before, Joe Biden in

28:41

his farewell address warned about the

28:43

power of tech oligarchs who

28:45

compared to century robber barons. Matt,

28:47

I want to ask you,

28:49

did the presence of some rich

28:51

guys at Trump's inaugural validate

28:53

Biden's warning? What do we make

28:55

of Biden's farewell and what

28:57

it says about his presidency? Just

28:59

the overall state of the

29:01

Democratic Party. Biden's farewell address is

29:03

a fitting capstone to his

29:05

very mediocre to lousy presidency. It

29:07

was an attempt to kind

29:09

of like pull out references to

29:11

two of the more kind

29:13

of famous presidential exertions in the

29:15

past, the famous Eisenhower farewell

29:17

address talking about the military industrial

29:20

complex, who's

29:22

the meaning of the entire that

29:24

speech of Biden appears to have

29:26

totally slept on, including about the

29:28

military industrial complex, which

29:30

hasn't got away, has it? Did

29:32

it go away? Do we have a

29:34

cold war? Wait a second. So

29:36

it was Todry, but it wasn't quite

29:38

as Todry as what then came

29:40

after in the last couple of days

29:42

of Biden. No, it was a

29:44

petulant. They're now going on the bad

29:47

team. We don't like that. His

29:50

farewell address he talked about fact -checking

29:52

on Facebook. This is the state

29:54

of the Democratic Party, that and they

29:56

propped up an old guy that

29:59

everyone knew was old and like, screw

30:01

it. going to lie about it to the American people for a

30:03

long time. The state of the Democratic Party,

30:05

the party that, by the way, Joe

30:07

Biden was thinking as a finalist for

30:09

his vice presidential pick as late as

30:12

August of 2020, Karen Bass. So that's

30:14

how the talent picking is gone. And

30:16

then Kamala Harris won, who is actually

30:18

kind of worse than Karen Bass, but

30:21

at least more qualified. Neither to be

30:23

clear are part of the common sense

30:25

revolution. They are not. The word revolution

30:27

needs to be retired. But no, it

30:30

was an awful address. I don't like,

30:32

and we've talked about it here in

30:34

this podcast in the past. I

30:36

don't like ring kissing in general.

30:38

You know, I'm sure a lot

30:40

of people are having fun. Elon

30:43

Musk is making grand gesticulatory movements

30:45

with his hands and hopping up

30:47

and down. And, you know, I

30:49

don't want to be small-minded in

30:51

the face of people enjoying their

30:53

celebratory moment. But forgive me for

30:56

not being super excited. One of

30:58

the things that Donald Trump said

31:00

in his speech, one of the

31:02

executive orders, says, we're going to

31:04

rename Mount whatever the hell

31:06

it was renamed to Mount

31:09

McKinley. Yeah, I missed that

31:11

memo back then because, you

31:13

know, William McKinley was so

31:16

great at doing tariffs and

31:18

making America great. One of

31:20

the underappreciated things about Grover

31:23

Cleveland, who was the anti-William

31:25

McKinley and who was the

31:27

previous, what? I can't talk? I'm

31:29

a panelist now Nick. I can

31:31

filibuster all I can want. I

31:33

was just going to say that

31:36

the, you know, Grever Cleveland was

31:38

possibly fatter than William McKinley. Which

31:40

is, I mean, Taft, thankfully. That

31:42

was the thick years for the

31:44

US presidency. Thicks and mustaches. That's

31:46

why they named a mountain after

31:48

him. The top second term is going

31:51

to make the corruption of the Trump

31:53

first term look like a piker in

31:55

comparison I I predict I mean we're

31:58

gonna look at back at the Trump

32:00

Hotel as being like a quaint little.

32:02

They really had a hotel called the

32:04

Trump Hotel, like, uh, Jason, the White

32:07

House, like, that's normal. We're doing meme

32:09

coins now. So I, there is corruption

32:11

associated with all this. There is ring

32:13

kissing and that's bad. Biden's petulant, like,

32:16

rear guard defense of his own sensorial

32:18

industrial complex is. Absolutely tawdry and it

32:20

tells us that the modern Democratic Party

32:22

still hasn't learned from its lesson that

32:25

you can't censor your way into popularity.

32:27

I don't want those guys to want

32:29

to be there though. That's the issue,

32:31

right? Like if they're there, they're not

32:34

there. I don't care kind of on

32:36

its own terms, but it should not

32:38

be true that those people who are

32:40

some of the kind of... The people

32:43

who command incredible resources who are really

32:45

smart guys who are like creative forces

32:47

in our economy would think, yes, the

32:50

best use of my time is to

32:52

stand beside and behind Donald Trump and

32:54

smile like an idiot. Like that's for

32:56

Chris Christie. That's not for these guys,

32:59

you know? And I just... I think

33:01

that it does speak to ultimately their

33:03

fear, right? Like some of them have

33:05

convinced themselves that they like him, some

33:08

of them are just there kind of

33:10

as hostages, but they know that the

33:12

American president has the power to destroy

33:14

them or force them to do whatever

33:17

within their own companies. We saw that

33:19

in the Twitter files, we saw that

33:21

in the Facebook files, and we will

33:23

continue to see it because Trump is

33:26

going to keep doing it and they've

33:28

decided that their best bet. is to

33:30

kiss the ring, is to suck up,

33:32

and that is not a healthy situation.

33:35

I mean, this has just been the

33:37

story for the last several decades, especially

33:39

with Big Tech. Microsoft famously was like,

33:41

we don't need a presence in Washington

33:44

in the 1990s and then got hit

33:46

with one of the biggest antitrust suits

33:48

in modern history and decided, actually, wait,

33:51

we need a huge presence in Washington.

33:53

And a lot of the young tech

33:55

guys learned from that experience, and I

33:57

think also have learned. from the last

34:00

several years of just being attacked by

34:02

Democrats, by Elizabeth Warren and her staff,

34:04

which basically was the Biden presidency, that

34:06

is an exaggeration, but it is an

34:09

exaggeration with a real hint of truth,

34:11

to the extent that Biden was not

34:13

acting as president. It was a lot

34:15

of Warrenites and people in her orbit

34:18

who were his top staffers who were

34:20

running things, and that scarred the tech

34:22

industry, and they are not gonna let

34:24

that happen again, especially now that they

34:27

see that there is an opening. about,

34:29

I want to relate this to something

34:31

else, right? So Biden's warning was that

34:33

the new tech oligarchs are a threat

34:36

to our democracy. And over the years,

34:38

Biden has lobbed this charge often at

34:40

Donald Trump, right, who he has portrayed

34:43

as a kind of lawless authoritarian.

34:45

But just minutes before Trump took

34:47

the oath of office, Biden preemptively

34:50

pardoned a bunch of people in

34:52

his family and a day or

34:54

two before Donald Trump was sworn

34:56

into office. He also pardoned, Anthony

34:58

Fauci, Mark Millie, right? And so

35:00

this is despite Biden having said

35:03

that he would not make last-minute

35:05

pardons as president. What do you

35:07

think of these pardons? And then

35:09

compare them to what Donald Trump

35:11

also did on his first day,

35:13

which was a mass pardon of

35:15

people convicted in January 6th prosecutions.

35:17

Yeah, and as of this taping,

35:19

he has not yet commuted the

35:22

sentence of Ross Ulbrick, which he

35:24

promised to do, which is disturbing.

35:26

I think you have to start

35:28

looking at Joe Biden as kind

35:30

of, you know, David Lynch died

35:32

last week. He's like a David

35:34

Lynch character where his consciousness, it

35:36

just exists as like still photographs

35:39

that are not related to one

35:41

another at all. He's like Dr.

35:43

Manhattan or something, he is simultaneously

35:45

all things to all things to

35:47

all people. all places and in

35:49

all timelines. I wish that Joe

35:52

Biden had preemptively pardoned all of

35:54

the Trump family members. I think

35:56

that would have been a great

35:58

thing, but you know, he's Joe Biden

36:00

just isn't there. It's disturbing as

36:02

hell and it should be an

36:05

outrage to everybody. The way that

36:07

Biden acted throughout his presidency, he

36:09

was mediocre as at best as

36:11

Matt, suggested he was terrible at

36:14

worst and he was terrible for

36:16

American industry. And as you know,

36:18

the business of America isn't necessarily

36:20

business, but Joe Biden met every

36:23

opportunity. said, okay, you can either,

36:25

you know, we can either have

36:27

slightly more free markets or slightly

36:29

less free markets. And he always,

36:32

he always went left, you know,

36:34

it was like Earl Monroe or

36:36

something like that. terrible, terrible on

36:38

that score. And then he, you

36:41

know, he really jumped into a

36:43

different category altogether where he's starting

36:45

to lie about stuff like, you

36:47

know, pardoning Hunter, pardoning his family,

36:50

you know, saying that the, you

36:52

know, the Constitution is amended because

36:54

I declare it so. And Kamala

36:56

also went along with that. This

36:59

is like disturbing, disturbing stuff. And

37:01

what is unfortunate about it is

37:03

that it opens up the, you

37:05

know, the... the door a little

37:07

bit more for Trump to do

37:10

something similar. I find that, you

37:12

know, disturbing. I think many of

37:14

the January six people who are

37:16

arrested deserve to have their sentences

37:19

commuted and, you know, perhaps pardons.

37:21

I think there's a range of

37:23

people there, but the kind of...

37:25

you know, the kind of actions

37:28

that Trump has been taking so

37:30

far, don't make me feel like,

37:32

okay, what we have done is

37:34

we've learned the lesson of the

37:37

Biden interregnum, and now we're going

37:39

to go back to, you know,

37:41

a truly Republican form of government,

37:43

small form of government, and where

37:46

our leaders matter less and less

37:48

so that the heads, you know,

37:50

the tech oligarchs don't feel like

37:52

they need to be in the

37:55

room because otherwise the ones in

37:57

there will conspire against them. speech.

37:59

I do you know I think

38:01

the warning about oligarchy is wise.

38:03

It's always wise. One of the

38:06

things that, you know, the most

38:08

interesting guy in that room actually

38:10

was the person that Trump in

38:12

his first term used to refer

38:15

to as Tim Apple, the head

38:17

of Apple, because he couldn't remember

38:19

his name. This is a guy

38:21

who defines the kind of tech

38:24

Silicon Valley woke. progressive left. Apple

38:26

was one of the first companies

38:28

to grant benefits to, or you

38:30

know, to gay lesbian partners, things

38:33

like that. He's there not because

38:35

he likes everything about Trump. He's

38:37

there because the regulatory regime that

38:39

was under Joe Biden coming out

38:42

of Elizabeth Warren and the kind

38:44

of neo- what you may call

38:46

it, the anti-monopter, hipster, antitrust people,

38:48

the neo-brand isians, was terrible for

38:51

their business. And we should all

38:53

be glad in a way that

38:55

the tech oligarchs are there, not

38:57

because their agenda is our agenda

39:00

always, but because they want less

39:02

regulation, and all of them have

39:04

made our lives so much better.

39:06

I mean, it's like... Imagine the

39:08

past five years without Amazon. Imagine

39:11

the pandemic without Amazon. You know,

39:13

that would be a much, much

39:15

poorer country in every possible way.

39:17

We are going to get to

39:20

tick-tuck and the whether or not

39:22

tech makes our life better and

39:24

just a little bit. But Catherine,

39:26

Nick mentioned... the one other big

39:29

thing that Biden did before he

39:31

left office. He certified the equal

39:33

rights amendment, the ERA, which is

39:35

meant to guarantee that all Americans

39:38

have equal rights and protections under

39:40

the law regardless of sex. He

39:42

said it's part of the Constitution

39:44

and should be considered part of

39:47

the law of the land. So

39:49

you're a lady. Do you have

39:51

equal rights now? Do you feel

39:53

constitutionally protected? You know, I have

39:56

always felt protected by the Constitution.

39:58

I love the Constitution. The ERA

40:00

has... nothing to do with nothing

40:02

and it is not the law

40:04

of the land now as many

40:07

many people absolutely everyone who knows

40:09

what they're talking about agrees you

40:11

gotta have 38 states for ratification

40:13

and we don't deadline passed and

40:16

then some states withdrew it's not

40:18

there it's not there all Biden

40:20

did was say I like the ERA

40:22

and that is that's fine but it's

40:24

not the law of the land and

40:26

it's You know, it's almost like he just

40:29

went on this little campaign to be

40:31

sure that any high ground that kind

40:33

of partisan Democrats were holding as we

40:35

slid into the very end of the

40:38

Biden administration was lost. Because he was

40:40

just like real quick, let me just

40:42

be, let me just try to do

40:45

some obviously unconstitutional stuff. Let me do

40:47

a bunch of really kind of corrupt

40:49

looking pardons. I'm not going to enforce

40:52

a TikTok ban and then we hopped

40:54

right over. to Trump who was like,

40:56

okay, I'm going to do a bunch

40:58

of unconstitutional stuff, I'm going to do

41:00

a bunch of corrupt-looking pardons, and I'm

41:02

not getting forced to tick-tock ban. It's

41:04

the same. Like, ugh, it's so bad.

41:07

Anyway, I'm a lady, and I do

41:09

not think the ERA is the love land.

41:11

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41:13

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41:15

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42:18

Okay, this week's listener question comes

42:20

from Tommy, who lives in Alta

42:22

Dina, California, where I know we

42:24

have a number of listeners, including

42:26

at least one who wrote in

42:28

to tell us about losing his

42:30

house. I'm just so sorry to

42:33

hear that, but thank you for

42:35

listening and for writing. So Tommy

42:37

writes, I saw the column against

42:39

curfews this morning. reason.com published a

42:41

column about how curfews were a

42:43

problem. Tommy says, I don't really

42:45

have the patience for broad arguments

42:47

like that at the moment. Maybe

42:49

my principles are weaker than I

42:51

thought. or maybe highly dynamic situations

42:53

sometimes need temporary blunt force to

42:55

contain greater harms. My house was

42:57

nearly looted, but a holdout neighbor

42:59

tased one of them trying to

43:01

break in. Cops arrested guys driving

43:04

them my block who had already

43:06

made it up to burnt out

43:08

homes snatched their fireproof safes from

43:10

the rubble. Honestly, Tommy says, I

43:12

am okay with the tradeoff of

43:14

basically stopping everyone from moving around

43:16

after dark when they're more likely

43:18

than not to be bad actors.

43:20

His question is, where do you

43:22

draw the line or lines in

43:24

chaotic situations? What are your tradeoffs

43:26

between freedom of movement and protection

43:28

of property? Matt, you are our

43:30

resident California guy and curfew hater.

43:32

What do you think of this?

43:35

So shout out to Tommy, shout

43:37

out to listener Greg who lost

43:39

their home, shout out to the

43:41

bass player and drummer of the

43:43

theme song of this podcast who

43:45

both lost their homes in the

43:47

Altadena fire, the Eat and Fire

43:49

in Altadena, terrible, terrible stuff. I

43:51

hate curfews so much that it

43:53

makes my nose turn green which

43:55

is really hard when your nose

43:57

is red and swollen with drink.

43:59

as mine is. The first time

44:01

I heard the word curfew I

44:03

wanted to strangle somebody, which I

44:06

believe is in Winchell's Donut Shop,

44:08

Nick, and Long Beach, California at

44:10

1030 p.m. on a school night.

44:12

And so I get the libertarian

44:15

aversion to it. I think I

44:17

wrote very early during the pandemic

44:19

about a curfew in New York

44:21

and it wasn't in favor of

44:23

it. I nonetheless mostly agree with listener

44:26

Tommy in this case because there's a

44:28

difference between a curfew that affects people

44:30

who live in their own home. Don't

44:32

tell me I can't go out. I

44:35

cannot currently imagine a situation in which

44:37

I agree with that curfew. There are

44:39

different types of curfew when you say,

44:41

see this neighborhood over here, which is

44:44

unsafe where there's fires, and also after

44:46

dark there are people... looting and

44:48

I'm trying not to cuss Fred Young

44:50

about the people who are doing that

44:52

and I know a lot of people

44:54

who've been in similar situations their neighbor

44:57

with a taser or with a hose

44:59

or with some blunt force weapon saved

45:01

there safe from these despicable people

45:03

who are going up in Altadena

45:05

and trying to loot. It's just

45:07

awful. I think that's different. There's

45:09

so many first responders trying to

45:11

set a perimeter around a dangerous

45:13

area. I think that's a different

45:15

situation than saying that you can't

45:17

go outside of your home. So

45:19

I understand that type of curfew

45:21

if that really is the right

45:23

word for it. I think it's

45:25

more like this is a security

45:27

perimeter around a dangerous area. And

45:29

I think you, one should, government

45:32

in those situations, should that be

45:34

part of the toolkit if necessary,

45:36

and when there's a bunch of

45:38

rat bag looters, then I guess

45:40

sadly it becomes necessary. Catherine, Nick,

45:42

do either of you have like

45:44

a different opinion about this? Yeah,

45:46

one, I just wanted to. point

45:48

out real quickly that the curfew

45:50

talk in America is usually about

45:52

curfews for kids, teenagers and things

45:54

like that. And those empirically don't

45:56

work. We've written about that over

45:58

the years in the sociologist Gary

46:00

Allen Fine has talked about that.

46:02

I'm with Matt that in certain

46:05

very limited clearly demarcated emergency situations

46:07

when you have curfews, you know,

46:09

I think that is legitimate where

46:11

you limit movement, but the key

46:13

is that it has to be

46:15

an actual emergency situation and it

46:17

has to be. clearly time limited

46:20

so that it does not become

46:22

some kind of pretext for just

46:24

hassling people all the time. But

46:26

you know, and I suspect Catherine

46:28

will disagree with this a bit,

46:30

but this might be one of

46:32

the lines between a kind of,

46:35

I don't want to say state

46:37

capacity libertarian versus anarchist perspective, but

46:39

it might be that it's like,

46:41

you know, there are times when

46:43

there are legitimate. reasons for temporary,

46:45

you know, temporary periods to limit

46:48

people's freedom as long as it's

46:50

done in a constitutionally consistent way.

46:52

Catherine, you're an anarchist. I assume

46:54

you're just very excited for the

46:56

neighbor with the taser. I do

46:58

love the neighbor with the taser.

47:00

Mad props to the neighbor with

47:03

the taser. And I think the

47:05

neighbor with the taser actually is

47:07

the answer here, right? The temptation

47:09

to use curfews is, I understand

47:11

it, I doubly understand it in

47:13

the situations where Nick and Matt

47:15

are willing to make these kind

47:18

of exceptions. However, we just had

47:20

a president declare a couple of

47:22

national emergencies on a variety of

47:24

fronts. I think we all remember

47:26

COVID. in which curfews were declared

47:28

willy-nilly lockdowns, all kinds of orders,

47:31

and I simply think that empirically

47:33

the use of curfew power, on

47:35

average, is a horrific abuse of

47:37

power. If there was a great

47:39

and awesome world in which we

47:41

could only use a teeny little

47:43

curfew at exactly the right time,

47:46

maybe we don't live in that

47:48

world. And even in the case

47:50

of this horrible situation with the

47:52

wildfires, There were a lot of

47:54

first responders. There were a lot

47:56

of law enforcement officers out in

47:58

the back. and I think we

48:01

should absolutely go after people who break

48:03

into people's houses. That's already illegal.

48:05

You don't need a curfew for that.

48:07

All right, so Nick mentioned children, which

48:10

brings us to our next topic. We're

48:12

going to do a quick round on

48:14

TikTok. During President Trump's first term, he

48:16

pushed for a ban on the popular

48:19

social video platform. Nothing happened while Trump

48:21

was in office. But last year, a

48:23

tick-tock ban was passed by Congress and

48:26

signed by President Biden. And after unanimous

48:28

approval by the Supreme Court, after a

48:30

challenge, that ban went into effect over

48:33

the weekend, late on Saturday night, tick-tock

48:35

was taken offline, and it's maybe coming

48:37

back online? Biden said he would leave

48:40

enforcement to the ban to President Trump,

48:42

and Trump, of course, has since reversed

48:44

himself, he no longer wants to ban

48:46

Tiktok. In fact, he now wants to

48:49

save Tiktok. This goes to what I

48:51

was saying earlier about Trump's second term,

48:53

looking like a bunch of self-contradictory impulses.

48:55

So, Nick, I actually want to ask

48:58

you about the US government's argument to

49:00

the Supreme Court here. What the government

49:02

basically said was that the Tiktok ban

49:04

was legal and justified because of data

49:07

collection concerns. Tiktok collects a lot of

49:09

data on Americans. We don't even know

49:11

exactly what kinds. But Tiktok's parent company,

49:13

Bike Dance, is a Chinese company and

49:15

Bike Dance is potentially subject to Chinese

49:17

government demands to turn over customer data,

49:19

which would mean on Americans. There's not

49:21

a lot of evidence that it is

49:23

happening, but in theory it could. So

49:25

the worry is that an authoritarian foreign

49:27

government could gain access to massive amounts

49:29

of data about Americans. I know Nick

49:31

that you opposed the ban on free

49:33

speech grounds, but like, think about this

49:35

in the context of, say, Edward Snowden,

49:38

who revealed that American intelligence agencies were

49:40

working through private companies to collect a

49:42

lot of data on Americans, and there

49:45

was a lot of libertarian concern about

49:47

that. How do you reconcile your support

49:49

for Tiktak not being banned with your

49:52

concerns about data collection by governments, even

49:54

American government? Yeah, for the, for the

49:56

starting point, by the, by the way

49:59

grinder went through... this in 2018,

50:01

2019. It was, it had to

50:03

be sold. Also for the children?

50:05

Yeah, especially for the, you know,

50:07

the children just weren't getting on

50:09

it enough, I guess. But a

50:11

much smaller outfit, we're talking about

50:13

a social media platform that has

50:15

170 million Americans have accounts or

50:17

have used that the data has

50:19

been sequestered on Oracle servers and

50:21

things like that. So bite dance

50:24

has already distance itself where the

50:26

data is not being served. And

50:28

this to me is the case.

50:30

If we were at war with

50:32

China, if there was demonstrated harms

50:34

that were being done, as opposed

50:36

to very, very theoretical ones, that

50:38

you have a bunch of government

50:40

spooks coming and saying like, you

50:42

know, this could be really bad.

50:44

We're the guys who lied to

50:46

you about all of the things

50:49

the US government was doing to

50:51

you. But now you better trust

50:53

us that China is really bad

50:55

and we need to do something

50:57

about this. Like, I just think

50:59

that's, you know, you know, it's

51:01

a bullshit. argument and then when

51:03

you press people on that where

51:05

okay there's no demonstrated harm and

51:07

if the data is actually sequestered

51:09

okay then like they don't have

51:12

access to that and it's not

51:14

clear what that data would do

51:16

people start saying things like well

51:18

you know just like with grinder

51:20

it's going to you know make

51:22

homosexuals you know subject to blackmail

51:24

requests it's going to you know

51:26

you know people's HIV statuses are

51:28

going to become public I mean

51:30

all of these bizarre scenarios, none

51:32

of which have come to fruition,

51:35

but we're supposed to believe that

51:37

or then China is going to

51:39

start, you know, manipulating the feed

51:41

in TikTok in order to make

51:43

sure that like, you know, you

51:45

know, everybody in America believes this

51:47

or that. We are not that

51:49

far out of 2016 and the

51:51

freak out and moral panic over

51:53

Cambridge Analytica and all of that,

51:55

which has shown time and time

51:57

again that social media even... if

52:00

it's trying to, just does not

52:02

have that effect on. opinion. It

52:04

seems to me on every level

52:06

this is just bullshit. The one

52:08

good thing about Trump is that

52:10

you know he reversed his position

52:12

on it but then he most

52:14

recently has floated you know and

52:16

who knows if he knows what

52:18

he's talking about an idea where

52:20

the the US government would own

52:23

50% of TikTok which is even

52:25

more insane. then just letting it

52:27

die almost. So, I mean, can't

52:29

try to buy it now with

52:31

his, with his meme coin earnings.

52:33

Yeah, and you know, the Village

52:35

People Dance that he broke out.

52:37

New Tiktok CEO, Baron Trump, at

52:39

age 18. I'm looking forward to

52:41

all of it. Matt, this actually

52:43

goes to my question to you,

52:46

which is that I gather that

52:48

you're like on Tiktok, right? You're

52:50

doing a lot of dance moves.

52:52

You got to, like, like, several

52:54

alts, I assume. Yeah. You outed

52:56

yourself as not being the father

52:58

of a 16-year-old girl. This is

53:00

my question. I think you have

53:02

a chronic case of secondhand tic-toc

53:04

exposure. Second hand. Thanks to your

53:06

kids. There is a texting mechanism

53:08

on telephones, so second hand it

53:11

is not. I've seen many breakdowns

53:13

already of Malania's, habred-ashory, sent from

53:15

my teeny-my-tine. So... This is the

53:17

panic, I mean... You hate communists.

53:19

How do you feel as a

53:21

parent about the chi-coms raising your

53:23

kids here through a video app?

53:25

It was a really interesting three

53:27

hours on Sunday. I'll say that.

53:29

Those golden three hours when we

53:31

have the TikTok ban and watching

53:34

this child have to try to

53:36

interact with her family members whilst...

53:38

on holiday in Miami, Florida. It

53:40

was very, very funny. I think

53:42

that social media and technology and

53:44

phones were all a mistake, and

53:46

that for all your parents out

53:48

there, hold the line for as

53:50

long as you can. It was

53:52

very difficult with my 16-year-old's generation

53:54

because of COVID. But the 9-year-old,

53:57

she's not getting the phone ever,

53:59

for their hurt. entirety of her

54:01

life. I don't think that outsourcing

54:03

parenting to the whims of whatever

54:05

the president feels like interpreting on

54:07

a law is really the way

54:09

we're going to get out of

54:11

this. And I've never really been

54:13

convinced by some of the arguments

54:16

and I've heard like attempts at some

54:18

of the better elements of them of

54:20

like what what the chikoms are going

54:23

to do. Like, are they going to press

54:25

a button? And my dumb 16-year-old becomes even

54:27

dumber? It's kind of hard to imagine, first

54:29

of all, but like, what are they going

54:31

to do? They're going to gain control of

54:33

Donald Trump's Diet Coke button. I think

54:36

it's right. This is there. They're going

54:38

to hack the Diet Coke button. And

54:40

who knows what's going to be in

54:42

the Diet Coke. There is a. It's

54:44

been a really, really ominous week, the

54:47

last five days, let's say, for those

54:49

apparently vanishing few of us who were

54:51

serious when we talked about, manorms and

54:53

like the text of laws and like

54:55

the Constitution and stuff. I don't like

54:58

to tick-talk that, and I think it's

55:00

ridiculous. However, it was passed into law,

55:02

and then the Supreme Court upheld it,

55:04

I guess, in a sort of limited

55:06

way, but nine to nothing. The president

55:08

can't just like... Say nah, just kidding

55:11

and then make it an applause line

55:13

for all the people who voted

55:15

for it at his various inaugural

55:17

events. There is something kind of

55:19

sick. We are now investing all

55:21

of this potential power, right? This

55:23

whole week started with, as Catherine

55:25

was alluding to before, Like, oh,

55:27

this, this, we're going to tweet out

55:30

this thing. Now it's part of the

55:32

Constitution from Biden. Then they have the

55:34

tick-talk thing that happens, and then there's

55:36

the preemptive pardons that go back to

55:39

like family members who haven't even heard

55:41

of yet on the Biden part, and

55:43

then Trump pardons violent. Convicted violent criminals

55:46

who did the violence against people who

55:48

didn't deserve to be violence on during

55:50

January. They just pardoned them, you know,

55:52

eight days after JD Vance said, well,

55:55

of course, we're not going to pardon

55:57

any of the violent people. Yeah, Trump also

55:59

tried. to amend the Constitution, not

56:01

by tweet, but by executive order

56:04

when it comes to birthright citizenship,

56:06

which is 14th Amendment. Constitution, all

56:08

of this is just really really

56:11

bad on basic rule of law

56:13

reasons. So I see it in

56:15

light of that and we are

56:17

in a kind of bad place

56:20

right now as a country. We've

56:22

forgotten that there is legislature, we've

56:24

forgotten about the separation of powers,

56:27

people are really really really really

56:29

excited about what the pen and

56:31

the phone can do. So I

56:34

don't... I don't agree with the

56:36

tick-talk ban, and I don't agree

56:38

with the president just sort of

56:40

like, hey, we're going to enforce

56:43

the law this way or that

56:45

way, depending on whatever I feel

56:47

like doing this morning. Just because

56:50

I know we will get a

56:52

listener writing into us to explain

56:54

this to us, there is a

56:56

provision in the tick-talk ban law

56:59

that says that the president can

57:01

suspend operations or enforcement of that

57:03

law for 90 days, provided that

57:06

there is clear evidence or something

57:08

like that there is a divestment

57:10

happening. There's not really evidence that

57:13

that's happening. And so Trump's decision

57:15

to suspend enforcement for 90 days

57:17

doesn't really seem to actually fit

57:19

into the law. Okay, so we

57:22

have talked all about what's happening

57:24

in America. Let's talk about what's

57:26

happening in our own. Eyeballs, let's

57:29

go to our final segment, Watch

57:31

You Watch, and Catherine Manggi Award,

57:33

let's start with you. This doubles

57:36

as a mental health check for

57:38

me because I am rereading Snow

57:40

Crash by Neil Stevenson, that's where

57:42

I am, just as a person,

57:45

as a journalist. And I'm doing

57:47

that in part because Peter Suderman

57:49

reminded me on a recent podcast

57:52

that it contains references to my

57:54

new favorite Sumerian goddess. goddesses and

57:56

now I'm Mesopotamian. Anyway, it is

57:58

a good thing to read right

58:01

now because among other things there

58:03

is a kind of... attenuated version

58:05

of the US federal government that

58:08

exists as part of a kind

58:10

of chaotic, polycentric legal world. And

58:12

everything is very dark and everything

58:15

is very bad and also everything

58:17

is very technologically exciting. And it's

58:19

kind of okay, question mark. And

58:21

that's the energy that I'm bringing

58:24

in to 2025. Matt Welch, what

58:26

have you been watching? I attended

58:28

for the first time of my

58:31

life, the Frost Science Museum in

58:33

Miami, Florida. Very, very nice science

58:35

museum. It's got an aquarium, bit,

58:37

it's got a nice planetarium, a

58:40

bunch of stuff, modern, and it's

58:42

in Miami, and Miami is super

58:44

great, and I'm not sure why

58:47

I don't live there. but they

58:49

have a special exhibit right now

58:51

called Bugs. And Catherine, you gotta

58:54

go to Bugs. You just gotta

58:56

go. It's about Bugs, Peter. It's

58:58

done in connection to like the

59:00

New Zealand Museum of, I don't

59:03

know, science or bugs. But the

59:05

highlight of it, it's really great

59:07

to go with kids, and I

59:10

went on mine, is there are

59:12

like half a dozen of these

59:14

kind of like, Imagine sort of

59:16

an igloo made out of polyurethine,

59:19

sort of plastic, it's not a

59:21

igloo, but it's the shape, the

59:23

round thing, and then you enter

59:26

through one side, and then suddenly

59:28

you've got like a six foot

59:30

tall praying mantis that suddenly goes,

59:33

hey, at you, and then they

59:35

sort of explain. How did you

59:37

make that noise? The beard. What

59:39

an insect that like craved on

59:42

to you and is now merging

59:44

with you. It's it's or it

59:46

is mandibles. But just like terrific

59:49

and crazy there's a bunch of

59:51

other things besides but it's in

59:53

those little those little kind of

59:55

bug igloos with gigantic Japanese bees

59:58

and and horrible cockroaches doing cockroach

1:00:00

things. just fantastic and wacky and

1:00:02

filled with kids everywhere and love

1:00:05

it for all science museum bugs

1:00:07

check it out Nick not the bees

1:00:09

got something else I went to

1:00:11

I went to see the band

1:00:13

Cracker which was a big thing

1:00:15

in the starting in the early

1:00:17

90s it was founded by a

1:00:19

couple people coming out of camper

1:00:22

van Beethoven which was a great

1:00:24

alt rock band or college rock

1:00:26

band In the 80s, Cracker had

1:00:28

big hits like Teen Angst, What

1:00:30

the World Needs Now, Low, I

1:00:32

hate my generation, and they are...

1:00:34

The people in that are mostly

1:00:36

boomers, but they are, they have

1:00:38

like just that phenomenally great alternative

1:00:41

Gen X energy of kind of

1:00:43

do-it-yourself, of recognizing that they are

1:00:45

post-idealism, but they still want to

1:00:48

live in a fun world, in

1:00:50

a good world, in a positive

1:00:52

world. Their songs, and they've continued

1:00:55

to record new albums, well into

1:00:57

the past few years, and they

1:00:59

just released a alternative versions of

1:01:01

their catalog. are great that are

1:01:04

on Spotify. What I liked, I

1:01:06

saw them at Sony Hall in

1:01:08

New York City and it was

1:01:11

mostly an older crowd but

1:01:13

not completely, and they have

1:01:15

a fiddle player now who

1:01:17

is from Yellow Springs, Ohio,

1:01:19

an African-American woman who's into

1:01:21

Celtic music. And it's that

1:01:23

kind of amalgamation of positive

1:01:25

energy, sarcasm, irony, and forward

1:01:28

momentum, which is what the

1:01:30

world needs now. Because these

1:01:32

are people who are not,

1:01:34

you know, pie in the sky, you

1:01:36

know, idiots who are just, you

1:01:38

know, kind of, you know, Lee

1:01:41

Greenwood type Americans. These are people

1:01:43

who are reviving and extending. all

1:01:45

sorts of American musical traditions with

1:01:47

a punch and I hope more

1:01:49

young people listen to them because

1:01:51

this is, you know, how do

1:01:54

you get out of snow crash

1:01:56

and into something a little less

1:01:58

gloomy, although no less compromise. I

1:02:00

think it's by listening to bands like

1:02:03

Cracker. That's beautiful. So since we've been

1:02:05

talking about the darkness and strangeness at

1:02:07

the heart of the American experience, I

1:02:10

figured I should talk about David

1:02:12

Lynch, the wonderful filmmaker who died sadly

1:02:14

last week at the age of 78

1:02:16

over the weekend in morning. I watched

1:02:19

Eraserhead, which I hadn't seen in over

1:02:21

20 years, and Wild Heart, Wild At

1:02:23

Heart, Eraserhead is David Lynch's first

1:02:25

film, not quite a student film, but

1:02:28

pretty close, and it is just a

1:02:30

kind of strange surrealist masterpiece, and particularly

1:02:32

the sound design. I'd never seen it

1:02:35

on a good sound system before, and

1:02:37

the sound design in that movie is

1:02:39

just incredible and legendary. He spent

1:02:41

something like a year just putting together

1:02:44

the soundtrack, the soundtrack, and a big

1:02:46

part of what he did, was just

1:02:48

layer sounds, environmental, environmental sound. that sort

1:02:51

of heightened the strangeness and alienation of

1:02:53

this movie, which is a black

1:02:55

and white film about a father caring

1:02:57

for his mutant kid in a sort

1:03:00

of post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland, and it's just

1:03:02

bizarre and strange, but also... kind of

1:03:04

surprisingly tender. And then you get to

1:03:07

Wild at Heart in 1990, which is

1:03:09

this noirish romance road movie starring

1:03:11

Nicholas Cage, and you see so many

1:03:13

of those elements from Eraserhead, that kind

1:03:16

of sense of the surreal and of

1:03:18

life being this kind of awful thing,

1:03:20

but also beautiful and wonderful and something

1:03:23

that you should cherish while you

1:03:25

have it. And he really managed to

1:03:27

sort of... He managed to capture that

1:03:29

kind of strange contradiction at the heart

1:03:32

of America and being alive. And I

1:03:34

don't know if I want to say

1:03:36

that he was a libertarian filmmaker,

1:03:38

but the signature line from Nicholas Cage

1:03:41

in Wild At Heart is about his

1:03:43

snakeskin jacket, which is the first thing

1:03:45

he puts on after he gets out

1:03:48

of prison for killing someone in a

1:03:50

way that in the movie's presentation is

1:03:52

in fact pretty justified as self-defense.

1:03:54

And what does Nicholas Cage say about

1:03:57

his snakeskin jacket? He says, this is

1:03:59

a snakeskin jacket. It's a symbol of

1:04:01

my individuality and my belief in personal

1:04:04

freedom. And that was, David Lynch's legacy

1:04:06

was individuality and personal freedom. And

1:04:08

he put it on screen every time

1:04:10

he made a movie or a television

1:04:13

show. He was a great and he

1:04:15

will be missed. Okay, so. If I

1:04:18

may, the eraserhead is one of the

1:04:20

great inflection points in American popular

1:04:22

culture and it made possible so much

1:04:24

stuff after that, not just in his

1:04:27

own oover, but you know, I, that

1:04:29

came out in what, 77 or 78,

1:04:31

and I saw it in college, it

1:04:34

would constantly be shown in midnight, you

1:04:36

know, madness showings or in auditoriums

1:04:38

that people would rent. It was a

1:04:40

flop at first and became a hit

1:04:43

through midnight screenings. It is bizarre and

1:04:45

insane and absolutely ecstatic to watch it.

1:04:47

And you real, I think people seeing

1:04:50

somebody like David Lynch, able to

1:04:52

put that out into the culture, it

1:04:54

was very much part and parcel of

1:04:56

a low culture 70. You know, do

1:04:59

it yourself, get it out there, and

1:05:01

you can be whatever you want. And

1:05:03

if we live in a better world,

1:05:06

and I think we do, then

1:05:08

we did, you know, before Eraserhead, it's

1:05:10

because you suddenly realize you could be

1:05:12

an individual artist and have this bizarre

1:05:15

expression that would find a home and

1:05:17

not just people would like watch it

1:05:19

and kind of imbibe it, but

1:05:21

it would spur them to go on

1:05:24

and do what they wanted to do.

1:05:26

It's David Lynch's... uh... you know influence

1:05:28

i think a popular culture was all

1:05:31

to the good and uh... you know

1:05:33

it's good that we honor him

1:05:35

if not a doctor an air libertarian

1:05:37

in every sense of the world just

1:05:40

a fantastic individualist who who makes us

1:05:42

all kind of smarter and more interesting

1:05:44

just by dint of proximity and a

1:05:47

fantastic american he's just like he could

1:05:49

only exist in america i do

1:05:51

believe Nick, do you

1:05:53

have anything you wanna

1:05:56

let us know

1:05:58

about coming up, events,

1:06:00

special performances? Are

1:06:03

you gonna be

1:06:05

hosting a midnight to be

1:06:07

hosting a scene, I

1:06:09

hope? of Eraserhead soon? I hope.

1:06:12

right. All right? Sorry. That's

1:06:14

it. Welcome to America's

1:06:16

new Golden Age Age and this

1:06:18

podcast. Thanks We'll We'll see you

1:06:20

next week. week.