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Hello, and welcome to a very

0:08

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Peter Souterman. And tonight I am

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0:33

Welch, Catherine Mangyward, and Nick Gillespie.

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and apply. That's reliancecollege.org/ reason

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to learn more and apply. Happy Saturday

1:48

to everyone who loves that everything is

1:50

bigger in Texas. And that includes this

1:53

podcast. So normally we have four libertarians

1:55

on our podcast to discuss the news,

1:57

but tonight we are joined by what

2:00

I am told is 156

2:02

libertarians and friends of freedom,

2:04

which if I understand the

2:06

deep principles and philosophy of

2:08

libertarianism means that we have

2:10

at the bare minimum 157

2:12

opinions about just about everything

2:14

in here tonight. So usually

2:16

I start the podcast by

2:18

going around the panel and

2:21

asking them a question. And

2:23

the question is usually, what

2:25

do you think? But I

2:27

get to talk to these

2:29

folks every single week. So

2:31

tonight, I'm going to ask

2:33

you all what you think.

2:35

And in particular, I'm going

2:37

to ask you what you

2:39

think about a bunch of

2:41

aspects of Donald Trump's second

2:43

term, Trump 2.0 here. So

2:45

let's just start, and I

2:47

want you, as I say

2:50

things, I want you to

2:52

express your opinion. Make it

2:54

known sheer or boo or

2:56

jeer or give me something

2:58

that the microphones can hear

3:00

that will help us understand

3:02

what it is that you

3:04

think. So number one, the

3:06

Department of government efficiency. Trump's

3:08

tariffs on autos, on Canada,

3:10

on Mexico, okay. Trump's tax

3:12

cuts, extending the TCJ, maybe,

3:14

no, no taxes on tips

3:16

and social security, and I

3:19

think generators, maybe. All right,

3:21

okay. So Trump's immigration and

3:23

border policy. All

3:25

right, I hear collapse, I hear

3:27

booze, there's a there's a wide

3:30

wide array of opinions here. Trump's

3:32

executive orders on DEA and free

3:34

speech. DEI

3:37

and free speech, okay, great. Okay, so

3:39

it sounds like we have a wide

3:42

range of views here, and we're gonna

3:44

try to wrestle with those views and

3:46

represent those views tonight. And actually, I

3:49

wanna start with Doge, because to me,

3:51

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is

3:53

the signature thing about the Trump Second.

3:56

for libertarians here. The stated goals of

3:58

Doge are to cut trillions of dollars

4:00

in spending and streamline government operations. We

4:02

have not seen big budget reductions yet,

4:05

but we have seen real efforts to

4:07

dramatically reduce the federal workforce. People affiliated

4:09

with Doge say they are hard at

4:12

work, upgrading outdated government systems, and that

4:14

would not be happening in another administration,

4:16

certainly the other one that was up

4:19

for election last year. So I kind

4:21

of think we, just to start here,

4:23

need to stop and like appreciate and

4:26

celebrate that and maybe, maybe do a

4:28

little dance. So a couple of weeks

4:30

ago on the pod, Catherine suggested that

4:33

what we really needed more of was

4:35

doge dance parties. And that is what

4:37

we were going to have. In fact,

4:40

I asked Chad GPK. Oh no. To

4:42

give me a picture of what a

4:44

doge dance party would look like. And

4:47

this is what it would look like.

4:49

It would look like a whole bunch

4:51

of Shiba, you know, is dancing in

4:54

their dance clothes. And... No underwear. Notice

4:56

on the ones on the right there.

4:58

No underwear. I didn't catch that. But

5:01

thank you Matt for zeroing on this,

5:03

right? So, so for my first question,

5:05

what we're going to do is we're

5:08

just going to go around the panel

5:10

and want each of you to tell

5:12

me one thing that you really like

5:15

about Doge. And then, in conjunction with

5:17

that... We're going to do a little

5:19

dance, and I am going to start.

5:22

Because what I like about Doge is

5:24

that it is shaking up Washington. Washington

5:26

is, of course, where I live. And

5:29

when I go to the gym or

5:31

to my dog park or just walk

5:33

around my neighborhood, I hear people talking

5:36

about Doge. And the way they're talking

5:38

about it is interesting. I actually, this

5:40

is a true story. I had a

5:43

neighbor who I don't know very well,

5:45

but I think works in some sort

5:47

of government jobs, some sort of IT

5:50

contracting, something like that right. came up

5:52

to me on the street the other

5:54

day and he just had this like

5:57

haggard look and he was like man

5:59

are you okay are you okay and

6:01

I was like Yeah, I'm okay. I

6:04

don't think he knows what it is

6:06

that I do. But the point is,

6:08

Doja shaking up Washington, and it is

6:11

causing people who work for the government,

6:13

who are paid for, who are paid

6:15

with taxpayer dollars, to do something. And

6:18

this is where the dancing comes in?

6:20

That's right. It's causing people to freak

6:22

out. And I think in a mostly

6:25

good way. That is not an end

6:27

to itself. You can take it too

6:29

far, freaking out, doesn't get us all

6:32

the way. But it is something that

6:34

needed to happen. Someone needed to come

6:36

to Washington and say, let's not keep

6:39

doing things this way anymore. So Catherine,

6:41

I'm going to start with you. You

6:43

came up with the idea for this

6:46

dance party. And I know you just

6:48

want to have fun. Also you're a

6:50

lady. So I have a song for

6:53

you. That we're going to play right

6:55

now. That's

6:58

it, I'm not. That was enough,

7:00

right? Okay. I can tell you

7:02

the thing that I like. That's

7:04

your dance party. That was my

7:07

doosh dance party. I am very

7:09

sorry to everyone in this room.

7:11

This was my idea. I take

7:13

full responsibility. And I'm delighted to

7:15

see what is about to happen

7:17

with the Nick and Matt phases

7:19

of the doosh dance party. But

7:21

my favorite thing about doge is

7:23

Steve Davis. I don't know if

7:25

anybody read the incredibly sinisterly framed

7:28

profile of Elon Musk's top lieutenant

7:30

in the papers the other day

7:32

He is he came from SpaceX

7:34

from the boring company with Musk

7:36

and he is a You know

7:38

a friend of mine a person

7:40

that I know The main way

7:42

that I know him is that

7:44

he sometimes comes to my house

7:46

and we play board games. It's

7:49

been a while because he's been

7:51

busy. And at these board game

7:53

nights, he drinks chocolate milk. And

7:55

I feel that a person in

7:57

charge of cutting government in America

7:59

who likes board games and chocolate

8:01

milk and rockets can't be bad.

8:03

It just can't. So Steve Davis

8:05

is my favorite part of Doge.

8:08

At this point, I think all

8:10

we can really do is trust

8:12

in the people because the results

8:14

are murky. I recognize that that

8:16

is me saying we need to

8:18

trust you on Musk. Right, or

8:20

the government. But, you know, Steve

8:22

Davis, pretty good. I said up

8:24

front that we needed a celebration

8:26

of Doge and you are a

8:29

pretty cool guy. So what are

8:31

you going to get for your

8:33

dance party? Don't take off your

8:35

pants. I see you looking at

8:37

that picture. Don't. It's aspirational. Everyone

8:39

wants to porky pig a little

8:41

bit in their lives. Who doesn't?

8:43

I think... Ben Franklin's quote was,

8:45

you know, it's a republic if

8:48

you can keep from having stupid

8:50

dance parties at a freezing weekend.

8:52

I do remember that weekend. So,

8:54

no, I have criticisms with Deutsch,

8:56

which might get into the, you

8:58

know, we had hope at the

9:00

beginning when Musk and Vivek Ramoswamy

9:02

wrote a piece in the Wall

9:04

Street Journal that was actually pretty

9:06

interesting and measured talking about all

9:09

of the... They're going to do

9:11

some recisions of regulatory state overreach

9:13

and stuff. It was like a

9:15

CII document. It's like, oh, whoa,

9:17

that sounds more serious than why

9:19

I thought. And then now Elon

9:21

Musk, like, wakes up every morning

9:23

and just like rips some ketamine

9:25

and starts talking about, they just

9:27

did a trillion dollar survey about

9:30

something. Can you believe it? Like,

9:32

okay, so we're not doing the

9:34

serious one, but in the process

9:36

of doing all the things that

9:38

they have done, they occasionally just...

9:40

end USAID. It's like this margin

9:42

call of like all right let's

9:44

let's stop that thing and some

9:46

of those things and I'm sure

9:49

it's all going to be haphazard

9:51

and kind of capricious but some

9:53

of those things as per day

9:55

David's opening night remarks, birthday boy

9:57

David, who knows where he is,

9:59

are going to turn out that

10:01

people are going to look around

10:03

and go, yeah, we didn't really

10:05

need to do that. And it

10:07

was just sort of this bureaucracy

10:10

that grew forever. And we thought

10:12

that's the way that we should

10:14

do it. And we no longer

10:16

have to do it that way.

10:18

Those things are the things that

10:20

I'm looking forward to. And if

10:22

I was ever going to dance

10:24

in a chair and a chair.

10:26

every night, this night in particular,

10:28

so you are going to get...

10:31

How is Doge keeping you dancing

10:33

and saying... Well I hope it's

10:35

not keeping anything alive in the

10:37

government and one of the things

10:39

that I do like about Doge

10:41

is that it just is calling

10:43

attention to stupid government funding of

10:45

stuff and I like... the endless

10:47

list of bad NIH studies that

10:50

we've funded over the years including

10:52

a 2017 one that's been over

10:54

seven seven hundred thousand dollars to

10:56

study whether people couples in counties

10:58

where the Super Bowl took place

11:00

it do they have a baby

11:02

boom nine months later and it

11:04

turned out that they don't which

11:06

is not really interesting, but that

11:08

procession of, you know, these are

11:11

things, reason and other libertarian organizations

11:13

that have spent years, if not

11:15

decades, kind of listing stupid, wasteful

11:17

government spending in this context, every

11:19

little kind of chip at the

11:21

tree makes it more likely to

11:23

fall over. So I like that.

11:25

That's good. Okay, so it's it's

11:27

not all dancing. It's not all

11:29

celebration here It's not all cool

11:32

in the gang There are I

11:34

think some currents some concerns about

11:36

Doge here And I actually just

11:38

want to ask all of you.

11:40

What are your concerns about Doge?

11:42

Do you have any issues? or

11:44

anything you want to raise. Nick,

11:46

let's start with you. Yeah, it's

11:48

mostly bullshit, right? It started a

11:51

conversation, but it's not a serious

11:53

conversation. Mad briefly mentioned, Musk talking

11:55

about a billion dollar, or yeah,

11:57

billion dollars study. of that the

11:59

National Park, a survey that the

12:01

National Parks had done. It's just

12:03

wrong. And like on almost every...

12:05

It is an $835 million contract

12:07

with an organization that does survey

12:09

research that included a question about

12:12

whether you like parks. It's not

12:14

a billion dollar parks. The whole

12:16

Department of Interior, etc. When you

12:18

look at people like Jessica Riddle,

12:20

the Manhattan Institute economist has said

12:22

the actual savings are somewhere around

12:24

$2 billion. Doge itself is claiming

12:26

$55 billion. We're looking at a

12:28

rounding error. And that bothers me

12:30

because this is the opportunity to

12:33

really get serious about cutting government,

12:35

about cutting government spending and cutting

12:37

entitlements and things like that. And

12:39

I hope that we don't waste

12:41

it on small ball type stuff.

12:43

Catherine, concerns? This is actually just

12:45

the same concern that I've had

12:47

about my work at Reason, about

12:49

our work at Reason, which is

12:52

it's very hard to decide when

12:54

you should lose your mind about

12:56

the little stuff that makes people

12:58

really upset and when you should

13:00

focus on the big stuff that

13:02

really matters. And for years, I

13:04

was like, no, we can only

13:06

write 8,000 word articles about how

13:08

to privatize Social Security because nothing

13:10

else matters. That's the only thing

13:13

that matters. But as mad. Not

13:15

you, Peter. Not you. That's a

13:17

long article. You don't get 8,000

13:19

words. But as Matt, I think,

13:21

recalls when he was my boss

13:23

and I was a wee junior

13:25

writer, I came around and I

13:27

used to just write a post

13:29

at 420 every day about food

13:31

or drugs. Actually, that's what people

13:34

want to get mad about. They

13:36

want to get mad about limits

13:38

on the sizes of sodas, and

13:40

they want to get mad about

13:42

not being able to just smoke

13:44

weed. And I think this is

13:46

dose. This is like, people want

13:48

little things to get mad about,

13:50

and I want them to have

13:53

those. But I worry that we

13:55

never get to the 8,000 words

13:57

on Social Security. Matt, concerns? So,

13:59

um, they. Did they end the,

14:01

did we decide the end of

14:03

the Department of Education or not?

14:05

It was a coin toss? Are

14:07

we, we don't know. So they've

14:09

fired a bunch of people from

14:11

the Department of Education. which is

14:14

something that we've been talking about

14:16

since before the Department of Education

14:18

was birthed upon us at Reason

14:20

and so that's exciting and then

14:22

the continuing resolution that they signed

14:24

into law 10 days ago or

14:26

whatever funded the Department of Education

14:28

at the exact same level as

14:30

it was last year and the

14:32

year before that and so you

14:35

what happens when you engage in

14:37

sort of deliberately confrontational or politically

14:39

pugelistic kind of shock actions that

14:41

at the same time don't do

14:43

a ton. I'm happy to have

14:45

half the people of the Department

14:47

of Education not have a job

14:49

tomorrow. That sounds pretty cool to

14:51

me. But if you're not also

14:54

cutting governments in any meaningful way,

14:56

and the deficit this year is

14:58

$1.8 trillion, this year signed into

15:00

law, that's what we got. And

15:02

there's no prospect for that going

15:04

down at all in a meaningful

15:06

way. So what happens when this

15:08

is just done by the executive

15:10

branch, whoever runs it right now,

15:12

they do these things with their

15:15

pen in their phone? It says

15:17

to me that in the long

15:19

term this might be somebody else

15:21

who gets the pen in the

15:23

phone and we just lurch back

15:25

and forth between executive actions. Meanwhile

15:27

the fundamental lines of the thing

15:29

that we care about, which is

15:31

the size and the spending of

15:33

government, is untroubled by any of

15:36

that. So that to me, it

15:38

seems to be a squandered opportunity.

15:40

That's my biggest worry about it.

15:42

Okay, so let's talk about a

15:44

different topic. We're gonna. move on

15:46

to tariffs and taxes here in

15:48

some ways because they're kind of

15:50

the same thing right tariffs are

15:52

attacks on American people and so

15:55

on the one hand I heard

15:57

I heard tariffs are definitely not

15:59

taxes Peter oh that's what the

16:01

president keeps saying I'm sorry I've

16:03

just gotten it completely wrong thank

16:05

you for correcting me Catherine so

16:07

On Wednesday, Trump announced a new

16:09

set of 25% tariffs that are

16:11

definitely not taxes that will apply

16:13

to imported cars. And the White

16:16

House's own projections say that this

16:18

will basically generate $100 billion in

16:20

revenue, but that's $100 billion in

16:22

taxes on Americans. At the same

16:24

time. Trump ran on tax cuts.

16:26

He has promised tax, no taxes

16:28

on tips, like I said, no

16:30

taxes on Social Security. Maybe no

16:32

taxes on generators, I'm not sure

16:35

I really understand that one, as

16:37

well as the extension of the

16:39

individual tax cuts in the Tax

16:41

Cuts and Jobs Act that was

16:43

passed under Trump's first term, except,

16:45

except maybe not. There was a

16:47

report just this week while we

16:49

were at reason weekend that maybe

16:51

Trump is considering allowing taxes to

16:53

rise at least on high earners

16:56

under the TCJ. reasons and also

16:58

to pay for some of the

17:00

other stuff or create fiscal space

17:02

for the other stuff. So how

17:04

do we feel about this very

17:06

strange internally contradictory, difficult to pin

17:08

down because we don't know what

17:10

all of the tariffs are going

17:12

to be here, but how do

17:14

we feel about the kind of

17:17

the tariffs and taxes part of

17:19

the Trump administration, Nick? Not good.

17:21

Yeah, thanks. Yeah. No, and the

17:23

tariffs are bad, and you know,

17:25

you're getting more Trump administration officials

17:27

who are saying, hey, you know

17:29

what, tariffs aren't a tax, they're

17:31

good for the economy, they're going

17:33

to make the economy better, but

17:36

we should also prepare for a

17:38

one-time adjustment or a short but

17:40

deep recession and things like that.

17:42

So, I mean, the game is

17:44

out. You know tariffs are bad

17:46

and I don't think really we

17:48

need to argue that too much

17:50

but then the tax cuts like

17:52

I want to pay fewer taxes

17:54

but I I also want the

17:57

government to spend less. And like

17:59

if you're not doing those things

18:01

in concert, you're just passing the

18:03

buck the way that it's been

18:05

getting kicked down the road forever.

18:07

So Catherine, the Trump administration and

18:09

supporters say that the tariffs taxes

18:11

thing, like those go together for

18:13

a reason because we're going to

18:15

pay for the government with tariffs

18:18

rather than taxes. Yeah, I'm going

18:20

to put on my powdered wig

18:22

and I'm going to get my

18:24

fife and drum out and we're

18:26

just going to go back to

18:28

the good old days. I want

18:30

a fife and drum dance party.

18:32

I do too. That would be

18:34

awesome. I love a marching band,

18:37

as you know. So I think,

18:39

you know, this is, like. If

18:41

in fact that thing happened where

18:43

we so dramatically shrank the size

18:45

of government that we could in

18:47

fact fund it with a few

18:49

moderate tariffs, like sure, sign me

18:51

up, love it. But until we

18:53

get to that day, I do

18:55

think my favorite part of what

18:58

is going down right now with

19:00

tariffs and taxes is it is

19:02

a delight to hear the American

19:04

left lip-sink our arguments about why

19:06

tariffs are bad. Right? Like that's

19:08

been fun. To hear

19:10

lefties be like, actually, global trade

19:12

can be a force for good.

19:15

And, you know, terrorists are actually

19:17

taxes on Americans. I'm like, say

19:19

it again. Say it again. Say

19:21

it when a Democrat is president.

19:23

Madam tariffs and taxes. 100% tariffs

19:25

on every bit of good that

19:27

comes from abroad. And assuming that

19:29

Americans decide to pay that import

19:32

tax. gets you I think and

19:34

I could get the numbers wrong

19:36

and I'm sure there are people

19:38

who used to work for the

19:40

Federal Reserve who will come and

19:42

hunt me down afterwards but I

19:44

think that gets you around 2.3

19:47

trillion dollars so good luck with

19:49

your 7 trillion dollar budget it's

19:51

a real tiny government 100% tariffs

19:53

would get you that so Trump

19:55

has this idea there's a reason

19:57

why he named checked William McKinley

19:59

over and over again including on

20:02

inauguration day including renaming Mount McKinley,

20:04

Mount McKinley on day one, is

20:06

that he wanted, he looks back

20:08

at that era of high-terror snow

20:10

tax. as being kind of a

20:12

golden era and why can't we

20:14

do that in reverse? And there

20:16

are at least a few advisors

20:19

around him who agree with that

20:21

and I think that's a good

20:23

idea and then there's plenty of

20:25

people in the Republican Party who

20:27

will say anything that Donald Trump

20:29

wants them to say and agree

20:31

with it and then that combination

20:34

is he's trying to get there

20:36

and the biggest problem with that

20:38

is not even in my estimation.

20:40

the actual kind of intellectual argument

20:42

against tariffs. It's a procedural or

20:44

practical argument about what the president

20:46

can and cannot do right now.

20:48

The president can go, boop, tariff,

20:51

national security, I don't know, fentanyl,

20:53

and it happens. He cannot do

20:55

that with taxes. So he can't

20:57

just snap his fingers and get

20:59

rid of taxes, even on tips,

21:01

which is now bipartisan. It's complicated.

21:03

He has this much of a

21:05

margin in Congress. So what's he

21:07

going to do? He's going to

21:10

do this with tariffs and he's

21:12

going to do a lot of

21:14

job owning on taxes that's going

21:16

to lead to some kind of

21:18

cludgy mess. So he's not going

21:20

to get that perfect swap, the

21:22

McKinley-esque swap. So just stuff is

21:24

going to be more expensive and

21:26

the government's going to take more

21:28

of your money. Speaking of things

21:31

that are going to be more

21:33

expensive, I will take the last

21:35

word because that is the name

21:37

of one of my very favorite

21:39

cocktails. And that cocktail relies a

21:41

lot on a number of European

21:43

ingredients that you can't, there's not

21:45

an American version. You can't substitute

21:47

something that's made here. This is

21:50

not something that Americans can just

21:52

do. And a friend of mine,

21:54

a friend of reason, Jordan McGillis,

21:56

who worked for the Manhattan Institute,

21:58

recently did some calculations and found

22:00

that a last word made at

22:02

home, this is not at a

22:04

bar, under Trump's tariffs will cost

22:06

$12 to $13. Why not just

22:09

go get it at a bar?

22:11

at that point except at the

22:13

bar it's going to cost an

22:15

awful lot more. Trump's tariffs are

22:17

bad for many reasons. What's the

22:19

ingredient here? What do you say

22:21

in Americans can't do? Yeah. Churchros!

22:23

Churchros! and Luxardo Maricino LaCorps. Okay,

22:25

let's move on to another issue

22:27

that involves borders, immigration, and border

22:30

policy. When Trump was running, he

22:32

promised mass deportations, crackdown on immigration,

22:34

and we haven't seen mass deportations

22:36

yet. We have seen some very

22:38

concerning deportations, and people being detained

22:40

for long periods of time, in

22:42

some cases, for unclear reasons. Nick,

22:44

tell us how you feel about

22:46

this. I don't feel good about

22:49

a lot of things here. Not

22:51

feeling very good about a lot

22:53

of things here. But, you know,

22:55

the one thing, and Trump should

22:57

get credit for securing the border,

22:59

Biden had actually last June, had

23:01

pushed through a bunch of stuff

23:03

that had massively reduced people coming

23:05

across the border. It is good

23:07

to have a secure border to

23:10

the south and to the north.

23:12

That's not where a majority of

23:14

illegal people are coming in. We

23:16

need immigrants and we need reform

23:18

on the legal side of immigration,

23:20

which has gone missing for 40

23:22

years now. But, you know... if

23:24

you are going to start rounding

23:26

people up and you don't check

23:29

their identification that they're carrying with

23:31

them for hours or days, something

23:33

has gone horribly wrong. And I

23:35

don't think anybody really wants to

23:37

live in that country. Yeah, so

23:39

Catherine Nicris is the issue of

23:41

due process, and it seems like

23:43

people are not getting it. And

23:45

in fact, at a town hall

23:47

just this week, there was a

23:50

Republican from Indiana, Victoria Sparts, who

23:52

said, if you violated the law,

23:54

you are not entitled to due

23:56

process. Just facts. I don't think

23:58

that's how due process works. It

24:00

is not. And, you know, there's

24:02

always going to be idiots, right?

24:04

In Congress, yes. In Congress, sometimes.

24:06

But I do think, you know,

24:09

the fact that, you know, the

24:11

fact that that is kind of

24:13

where the conversation is resting is

24:15

not ideal. Of course, the other

24:17

version of this that we've seen

24:19

is people who are here on

24:21

various types of visas on campuses.

24:23

And I think that this is,

24:25

this is understandably something where it

24:27

does come down to any gritty

24:30

in some of these cases. It

24:32

does come down to the specific

24:34

facts. you know, the thing that

24:36

comes to mind is that the

24:38

reason we have due process is

24:40

not for people who are unambiguous

24:42

cases and not for people who

24:44

are sympathetic. We have it for

24:46

people who maybe suck and did

24:49

something non-ideal who are still, you

24:51

know, they should still be accorded

24:53

due process. And I think that

24:55

that is, you know, we've seen

24:57

some test cases, I think we're

24:59

going to see a lot more,

25:01

and things that do not disqualify

25:03

you from due process are. writing

25:05

an op-ed about Israel, things that

25:07

do not disqualify you from having

25:10

due process, are having tattoos, things

25:12

that do not disqualify you from

25:14

due process are, you know, they

25:16

are myriad, and we are going

25:18

to see a lot of those

25:20

tested, unfortunately. How concerned should we

25:22

be about this? I mean, when

25:24

we talk about this on the

25:26

podcast, one response we get is,

25:29

well, look, maybe it's a problem,

25:31

but this is the sort of

25:33

problem, you know, maybe it's even

25:35

unconstitutional, but Biden did unconstitutional stuff.

25:37

It was bad, but we don't

25:39

freak out about this. We go

25:41

through the courts and it sort

25:43

of works itself out. Don't panic,

25:45

don't be, don't panic, right? How

25:47

do you respond to that? certainly

25:50

mine and probably most people in

25:52

the war in this room's preferences

25:54

those are importantly different subsets yes

25:56

thank you you know are going

25:58

to be in an extreme minority

26:00

position on the way the public

26:02

policy is executed and how you

26:04

approach that whether you freak out

26:06

about it or whether you cheerfully

26:09

go into the breach is kind

26:11

of of up to you. An

26:13

aspect about two of the aspects

26:15

that I find most troubling about

26:17

Trump this time and similar to

26:19

last time too. But the due

26:21

process that Catherine was just talking

26:23

about is troubling. For those of

26:25

us who believe in strong, and

26:27

I'm not really saying us, but

26:30

those in this room who believe

26:32

in really strong immigration enforcement, any

26:34

time you do anything that is

26:36

pretty significant in cracking down on

26:38

illegal immigration, almost certainly you're going

26:40

to get legal residence ensnared in

26:42

that. So just think of your,

26:44

I forget the name of the

26:46

E verified. Right. So like if

26:49

you're, every employer has to prove

26:51

to the government that all of

26:53

its workers are legal citizens who

26:55

gets caught, women who've changed their

26:57

names. That's who gets caught, who

26:59

are American citizens more often than

27:01

not. So that happens. There are

27:03

due process issues. But for me,

27:05

there are probably, I don't know

27:08

how many in this room, but

27:10

I know I've talked to some

27:12

people who are in this room

27:14

because America used to be the

27:16

place that took on refugees. We

27:18

took on refugees from Vietnam, from

27:20

Cuba, from Cambodia, from Russia, Jews

27:22

from Russia as well. We were

27:24

understood under both Carter and Reagan,

27:26

especially to take kind of a

27:29

lead role in the world of

27:31

processing refugees, particularly from authoritarian countries.

27:33

The refugee and the immigration crisis

27:35

that we've had over the last

27:37

five, ten years, and I think

27:39

it has been a crisis, it's

27:41

been largely from Venezuela, authoritarian country.

27:43

basically Kami at this point, spitting

27:45

people out. It's a difficult question

27:48

and it always is more difficult

27:50

than I think a lot of

27:52

people want to acknowledge regardless of

27:54

where they are on the position.

27:56

But what Trump did in his

27:58

first term was historical in snapping

28:00

that refugee door shut. There are

28:02

many problems with the system, tons

28:04

of backlogs of being able to

28:06

process the... you know, people going

28:09

through this little loophole over here,

28:11

plenty of problems with that, but

28:13

he took down a refugee intake

28:15

to less than 20,000 a year

28:17

from the entire world, at a

28:19

time when the worldwide global population

28:21

of refugees basically doubled from 10

28:23

million people to 20 million people.

28:25

We're doing that again right now.

28:28

I like my vision of America

28:30

is a place that uniquely compared

28:32

to almost every other country, especially

28:34

in Western Europe, takes in, assimilates,

28:36

processes, champions, refugees who are fleeing

28:38

authoritarian hell holes. We are now

28:40

not doing that anymore. That is

28:42

no longer the character of America.

28:44

I am not panicked about that,

28:46

but I'm embarrassed by it. Yeah,

28:49

and it's also we should point

28:51

out places, you know, there are

28:53

cases where people who were critics

28:55

of the Maduro regime in Venezuela

28:57

are here pending legal processing and

28:59

get sent to El Salvador in

29:01

prison en route back to Venezuela.

29:03

That's not a good America. I

29:05

mean, and we should be clear

29:08

about that. America should be always

29:10

a place where people who want

29:12

freedom and are escaping tyranny. can

29:14

come here and kind of become

29:16

something different. And that's not a

29:18

small thing. And it really, it's

29:20

the ugliest, I think it's the

29:22

ugliest aspect of Trump 2.0 and

29:24

it's worth always pushing back against.

29:26

Yeah, so, great. So

29:30

we'll move on to DEAI and

29:32

free speech one of Trump's first

29:34

executive orders on January 20th was

29:36

an executive order restoring freedom of

29:38

speech and against federal censorship. Catherine

29:40

is Donald Trump good for free

29:42

speech? I mean I think Donald

29:44

Trump is good for the culture

29:46

of free speech in the sense

29:48

that for sure like you cannot

29:50

deny that the DEA order and

29:52

also just in general, his, you

29:54

know, he does say the right

29:56

words about free speech at the

29:58

highest level, and would be restrictors

30:00

have heard that, and people who

30:02

were kind of looking for cover,

30:04

looking for their right moment to

30:06

stop doing some of these practices,

30:08

have taken that opportunity. His effect

30:10

on that side of the culture

30:13

of free speech is good. He

30:15

also will definitely be using the

30:17

government to silence people, for sure.

30:19

He did it during his first

30:21

term. this like ongoing kerfuffle with

30:23

CBS is just like one little

30:25

piece the thing I mentioned earlier

30:27

about folks who are who are

30:29

losing their their visas and status

30:31

in the country over as far

30:33

as I can tell at least

30:35

in one case just words published

30:37

in the press that is not

30:39

in fact protecting free speech. Or

30:41

that they pissed off Mark of

30:43

Rubio, right? He seems to have

30:45

a long enemies list of people

30:47

whose visas he wants to hold.

30:49

I hope someday to be on

30:51

Marco Rubio's enemies list. What do

30:53

you think? I think that's an

30:55

attainable goal. I think it's short

30:57

jokes, that's what it is. I

30:59

don't want to do it ad

31:01

hominem. I want to do it,

31:03

you know, real. This actually goes

31:05

to the point that you were

31:07

making earlier, Catherine, though, because at

31:09

least some of the reporting has

31:11

suggested that one of the people

31:13

who was picked up off the

31:15

streets in a sort of viral

31:17

video where it shows hooded men

31:19

who are not identified by, you

31:21

know, they don't have badges on,

31:23

they don't have uniforms, and they're

31:25

just picking somebody off the streets.

31:27

And there has been reports in

31:29

like the New York Times saying

31:31

this person was picked up because

31:34

of an op-ed. that she wrote

31:36

and then it turns out that

31:38

there is at least an argument

31:40

i don't know if it is

31:42

true there's an argument being made

31:44

that well she's actually being picked

31:46

up because she committed some crimes

31:48

like vandalism and it's very difficult

31:50

to tell right it's very difficult

31:52

to know this is way there's

31:54

this way that you tell in

31:56

these situations what if there was

31:58

some process like a due process

32:00

you know it is worth pointing

32:02

out in the uh... the executive

32:04

order though that the way that

32:06

the Biden administration did kind of

32:08

strong-arm job-bone pressure social media companies

32:10

to you know de-amplify people restrict

32:12

people and things like that during

32:14

COVID it is definitely worth remembering

32:16

that and making sure that kind

32:18

of stuff doesn't happen again. fucking

32:20

anchor for a bunch for a

32:22

long time that was one of

32:24

the most egregious acts of government

32:26

in the 21st century of just

32:28

censoring the way ran paul was

32:30

kicked off YouTube he's a senator

32:32

and he was kicked off YouTube

32:34

for like questioning the efficacy of

32:36

masks for six months that that

32:38

was widespread the the the White

32:40

House press, the secretary, whatever, was

32:42

like, okay, we have a dirty

32:44

dozen of people that we want

32:46

Spotify to ban. This happened. There

32:48

was like whole of government or

32:50

whole of society even things done

32:52

by government to crack down on

32:55

COVID speech. It was unprecedented in

32:57

modern American history and it should

32:59

not at all be forgotten and

33:01

the, sorry, I just totally interrupted

33:03

you. No, no, no. The whole,

33:05

the, that's what the podcast is

33:07

for. of the Trump coalition was

33:09

supposedly to strike this down, right?

33:11

Like we're gonna be against where

33:13

this culture of free speech is.

33:15

punishing the Democrats righteously and I

33:17

celebrated that the day after the

33:19

election. That was the, you could

33:21

feel the vibe shift in the

33:23

culture. Justin Bateman could finally speak

33:25

freely again. Great, I'm into that.

33:27

And to then do your day

33:29

one executive order and then get

33:31

little Marco out and saying I

33:33

really don't like the way these

33:35

op-eds have run for these 300

33:37

people. We're finding them out. And

33:39

it's also things like going after

33:41

law firms that defended or took

33:43

positions that the Trump administration doesn't

33:45

like. threatening things like that going

33:47

after CBS or NBC or whatever

33:49

because they might have edited an

33:51

interview a way that Bob Trump.

33:53

Saying they should take their licenses

33:55

away. I mean, they have that

33:57

power to go. That's all before

33:59

we get to the stuff on

34:01

the internet where we have, you

34:03

know, laws that are attempting to

34:05

force social media companies to carry

34:07

conservative opinions and also the stuff

34:09

where we're, you know, having age

34:11

gating for all types of contents

34:13

at the state level, mostly Republican

34:16

states. It's a lot of stuff.

34:18

That's not great for speech. go

34:20

along with what you were saying,

34:22

I do think this might have

34:24

the beneficial effect for free speech

34:26

because it is forcing people to

34:28

be like, okay, we're not, we

34:30

can't just keep going back, like

34:32

when my side does it, it's

34:34

good. we need to get to

34:36

a clearing point or a synthesis

34:38

rather than a thesis and antithesis

34:40

that no we actually want free

34:42

speech we want limited government we

34:44

want something different than what we've

34:46

been dealing with for at least

34:48

the past 20 years so in

34:50

that way i think trump may

34:52

end up being great for free

34:54

speech because it will force everybody

34:56

to actually come to some common

34:58

agreement about basic principles. There was

35:00

a lot of people who righteously

35:02

rebelled against the woke excesses that

35:04

could crystallize the most in 2020

35:06

when everyone freaked out sort of

35:08

posting black squares in their Instagram

35:10

and like defenestrating the head of

35:12

the Poetry Foundation for reasons that

35:14

are obscure to this day. So

35:16

that was all insane and all

35:18

Normies understood that to be insane

35:20

and they hated the way that

35:22

HR was sort of like sitting

35:24

in on their pockets and telling

35:26

them to res- to Catechism and

35:28

go read some Ibrahim X Kennedy.

35:30

All of that makes a lot

35:32

of sense to people and so

35:35

it excited a kind of centrist

35:37

coalition, centristee, of like, hey look,

35:39

due process free speech, we like

35:41

those things. And to replace that

35:43

with anti-woke, anti-free speech, anti-due process

35:45

is insane. And I think though,

35:47

I think the administration will see

35:49

its popularity. plummet pretty quickly. And

35:51

by the way in keeping with

35:53

that I do want to report

35:55

I had a conversation at dinner

35:57

where somebody kept talking about something

35:59

called the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico.

36:01

I'm not sure who I should

36:03

report that to. If you say

36:05

it on the podcast, they're going

36:07

to come for him. Okay. Yeah.

36:09

I mean, this is like I

36:11

want to report a crime. The

36:13

Gulf of Mexico is currently in

36:15

a holding facility in Louisiana. It's

36:17

a bad scene. Right. So I

36:19

will just I will cap this

36:21

conversation by pointing out an executive

36:23

order that came out while we

36:25

were at Reason Weekend. This is

36:27

an executive order restoring truth and

36:29

sanity to American history. Okay, so

36:31

maybe, right? Is there a lot

36:33

of truth? There's a lot of

36:35

truth in Sanity. There's a lot

36:37

of truth. I'm not sure there's

36:39

a lot of delightful insanity in

36:41

American history. But this orders the

36:43

vice president, J.D. Vance, to work

36:45

with the Smithsonian to, and this

36:47

is a quote, to remove improper

36:49

ideology from such properties. to remove

36:51

improper ideology. And so this is

36:53

why I grouped DEAI and free

36:56

speech together, because these are sort

36:58

of the yin and the yang,

37:00

right, the kind of Tweetle, dumb

37:02

and Tweetle, D, the Arnold Schwarzenegger

37:04

and Danny DeVito of, you know,

37:06

way of approaching free speech is

37:08

that on the one hand he

37:10

positions himself as a free speech

37:12

warrior, but he is also warring

37:14

against free speech that he doesn't

37:16

like, and both are true in

37:18

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your first month. That's better help,

38:33

h-e-l-p.com/roundtable. I want to move on

38:35

here to something that everyone agrees

38:37

on about Trump, which is that

38:39

all the people who love him

38:41

and all the people who hate

38:43

him, agree on, I think one

38:45

thing, which is he's funny. He's

38:47

he's funny and he's sometimes he's

38:49

funny on purpose sometimes he's funny

38:51

not on purpose He's just sort

38:53

of insane and you have to

38:55

laugh and so actually I want

38:57

all of you to just go

38:59

through here I want to go

39:01

down the line and we're going

39:03

to start with Matt Welch And

39:05

I want you to share the

39:07

funniest most absurd most strange weird

39:09

insane thing about Trump's second term.

39:11

I will reject the premise a

39:13

little bit in that there's still

39:15

a group of people who will

39:17

tell you in very mad. He's

39:19

not funny. Why do you say

39:21

that he's funny? Did you see

39:23

what he does? He does all

39:25

these terrible things. Bro, he's funny.

39:27

And if you stop understanding why

39:29

your fellow Americans think he's funny,

39:31

you're going to continue to lose

39:33

everything all the time. So the

39:36

State of Union address, again, I

39:38

paid way too much attention these

39:40

things, there's a whole like 19-minute

39:42

bit, I'm exaggerating only a little

39:44

bit, where he's like, no, they

39:46

got these social security people, the

39:48

161, 61 years old, Marco. And

39:50

he just like went on and

39:52

on to all these exaggerated ages

39:54

of people who on the Social

39:56

Security roles and it was hilarious

39:58

and it was great and I

40:00

loved it and it was totally

40:02

inconsequential and it was mostly a

40:04

lie and that is perfect Donald

40:06

Trump it was like insult comedy

40:08

in the room he's got great

40:10

timing We know a lot of

40:12

comics in New York has spent

40:14

some time around the comedy seller

40:16

and they will all just tell

40:18

you like it's insane the comedic

40:20

timing the guy has and to

40:22

apply that in like a state

40:24

of the union address and just

40:26

to have this sort of gag

40:28

with a running tally and then

40:30

also to have it kind of

40:32

meaningless at the end and and

40:34

in classic Trump form filled with

40:36

BS is just it's perfect that

40:38

says a lot about it. Peter,

40:40

I'm a lady. And so I

40:42

want to talk about how Donald

40:44

Trump is the fertilization president. I

40:46

don't know if any of you

40:48

guys caught that news this week.

40:50

Is this related to the Super

40:52

Bowl? We'll have to do a

40:54

study to find out. So he's

40:57

just given a press conference, he's

40:59

talking to people, and he's talking

41:01

about IVF, but he just... He

41:03

does the thing where he just

41:05

mentally and verbally wanders off. It's

41:07

called the weave. He's talked about.

41:09

Yeah. And it's, it's, so he's

41:11

like, I'm, you know, they call

41:13

me the fertilization president. He's previously

41:15

said, he's previously said that he's

41:17

also the father of IVF, which

41:19

is like both just technically and

41:21

sort of metaphorically troubling. And he's

41:23

like, I don't, you know, it's,

41:25

I don't mind it, like I

41:27

am kind of the fertilization. I

41:29

have no idea what's going on.

41:31

It's not clear he has any

41:33

idea what's going on. I guess

41:35

I will find the silver lining

41:37

and just say that, you know,

41:39

I am very pro-choice. I do

41:41

not like how abortion policy is

41:43

shaping up in this country under

41:45

Trump. Obviously, the Supreme Court led

41:47

the way with that. But I

41:49

do appreciate that Trump himself retain

41:51

some common sense impulses on reproductive

41:53

rights. And one of them is

41:55

like, at some point, you know,

41:57

the kind of... pro-life extreme Republicans

41:59

got a little high on their

42:01

own supply and they were like,

42:03

yes, now we're gonna ban IDF.

42:05

And they got like really. Trump

42:07

just kind of said, what? No,

42:09

people really like that. I'm the

42:11

father of IVF. And I just

42:13

think that attitude will, in fact,

42:15

protect IVF and keep it legal,

42:18

at least for the next four

42:20

years. So thanks, Daddy. I

42:26

loved when he said everything is

42:28

computer. Because we all knew exactly

42:30

what he meant and there's like,

42:32

you know, we have had at

42:34

least a series of presidents who

42:36

pretty clearly have dementia. But when

42:39

he said that, you know, you

42:41

have to be like, yeah, you

42:43

know what, this is like if

42:45

you woke up from a long

42:47

nap and you saw Tesla or

42:49

almost anything, you'd be like, holy

42:51

cow, this is like science fiction.

42:53

He knows what he's talking about.

42:56

If you haven't watched the video,

42:58

it's really incredible. It is at,

43:00

basically, a used car sale that

43:02

they hosted in front of the

43:04

White House with Elon Musk and

43:06

his new Tesla. Okay, they're not

43:08

used, but his new Tesla's. And

43:10

Trump gets in and he's just

43:13

like, oh, it's beautiful. He can't

43:15

stop saying it. It was so

43:17

beautiful. And he gets in the

43:19

car. And the first words of

43:21

computer. Everything's computer. And it is.

43:23

It is this moment that you

43:25

never see from Trump of genuinely

43:27

like childlike, wowed innocence. But he's

43:30

like the caveman lawyer that Phil

43:32

Hartman played on Saturday Night Live,

43:34

right? Where it's like, your ways

43:36

are strange, but instead of being

43:38

frightened, he's happy about it. But

43:40

it is, and again, I mean,

43:42

you know what he means that

43:44

it's good, but it's also like,

43:46

where have you been the past

43:49

25, 30 years? not driving his

43:51

own cars, but it is... We've

43:53

been looking into... This was actually

43:55

the moment that stuck out to

43:57

me, and I loved it because

43:59

on the one hand, it's absurd,

44:01

and it's such a classic Trump

44:03

moment. But it's also a reminder

44:06

that we live in a world

44:08

of wonderful... magical computer abundance in

44:10

which we kind of in which

44:12

everything is computer and that would

44:14

be true whether or not Donald

44:16

Trump was president and it also

44:18

provides me a little bit of

44:20

a segue to our next topic

44:23

we've talked a lot about Republicans

44:25

and Donald Trump but now we

44:27

are going to talk just a

44:29

little bit about Democrats Matt Welch

44:31

I understand that in the past

44:33

you have interviewed Ezra Klein who

44:35

has a new book out interviewed

44:37

written about no No? Yeah, make

44:40

the case you make when I

44:42

say Ezra Klein. Go on. Right,

44:44

so Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

44:46

of the Atlantic have a new

44:48

book out titled Abundance, and it's

44:50

basically an argument that Democrats blew

44:52

it, especially on housing. They made

44:54

everything too... too difficult to build

44:56

and we need to live in

44:59

a world of abundance, a world

45:01

in which more things exist, in

45:03

which more things are not just

45:05

computer, but actually built in the

45:07

world. Do you see this as

45:09

a force for good in the

45:11

Democratic Party? How do you understand

45:13

this movement? I just want to

45:16

express lament that when I stopped

45:18

hosting the Reason Roundtable, we removed

45:20

the electrode buzzer that went to...

45:22

Peter Souterman's, Netherlands, and other regions,

45:24

whenever he says abundance agenda, he

45:26

can't say that. It's because he

45:28

started liking it too much. He

45:30

started liking it. Yeah, totally true.

45:33

Fact check true. The secret is

45:35

that I'm actually the Doge programmer

45:37

Big Balls. Did we figure out

45:39

how to make everything computer so

45:41

that we could rewind that last

45:43

minute of our lives? I'm as

45:45

always heartened that Ezra Klein 16

45:47

years too late is waking up

45:50

to the fact that Democratic big

45:52

government bills don't deliver on the

45:54

promises that they had, including promises

45:56

like if you opposed it, you're

45:58

objectively pro-death, which is what he

46:00

argued about. if you didn't want

46:02

to pass Obamacare, back in the

46:04

day. We passed it and mortality

46:06

got worse. Yes, which Peter has

46:09

written about very well. So

46:11

I'm glad that they have

46:13

a book and that part

46:16

of that book is reminding

46:18

Democrats, even challenging them, including

46:21

with Gavin Newsom, who's strangely still

46:23

the governor of California. But saying

46:25

like, hey. You spend a lot

46:27

of money, how come you didn't

46:29

do anything with it? And everything

46:31

sucks. That's great. I'm happy for

46:33

that to be a thing that

46:35

people are talking about in this

46:37

little kind of liquid miasma after

46:39

an election in which people pretend

46:41

that they're going to pay attention

46:44

to more people and Gavin Newsom

46:46

is going to talk to Steve

46:48

Bannon on this podcast and I

46:50

now are open to new ideas.

46:52

It'll last like just set

46:54

your watch like Christopher Hitchens

46:57

and and theocratic conservative. Just

46:59

set your watch. Three months

47:01

later, something's going to happen

47:03

and we'll see something else.

47:06

But as part of that,

47:08

Democrats need any project, demonstration

47:10

project, that their governance is

47:13

at all successful and not

47:15

annoying. And I'm open to

47:17

hearing anyone. describing if they

47:19

have experienced that themselves. It'd be great.

47:21

There's a, we have so federalized our

47:23

national and nationalized our national discussion that

47:26

we think only in terms and reason

47:28

does this and I do this too.

47:30

There's not a big difference between the

47:32

parties etc, etc, etc. This is. can

47:34

be largely true on some ways. On

47:36

the state local level it's much less

47:38

true, much less true. And a lot

47:40

of the people I think who became

47:42

sort of Trump curious, certainly where I

47:45

live in New York, I mean look

47:47

at those maps compared to what they

47:49

were before, there's a lot of people

47:51

who are just sick of democratic misgovernance.

47:53

Really really really sick of it. And

47:56

also the piety and the annoyingness and

47:58

telling you what you can. can't say

48:00

and all of it is irritating

48:02

so if this book this terrible

48:05

phrase if all of it leads

48:07

to some people actually thinking maybe

48:09

I will do something different cool

48:11

I'm open to it I am

48:13

going to take the under pretty

48:15

aggressively on that there's no reason

48:18

to suspect you know the abundance

48:20

agenda is a thing that people

48:22

say in Washington DC Great, a

48:24

lot of phrases. Rod Dreher, you

48:26

just say crunchy cons. Awesome, a

48:28

lot of labels in Washington DC.

48:31

There's not a lot of results

48:33

in the world of Democrats governing

48:35

as if those words mean anything

48:37

to them. Yeah, mad. If I

48:39

can just to kind of follow

48:41

up on that in New York

48:44

City where we live over the

48:46

weekend, you know, where we've got

48:48

warnings that we now have to

48:50

do mandatory composting. So you have

48:52

a New York City where garbage

48:54

is piling up everywhere and the

48:57

abundance agenda hasn't quite reached, you

48:59

know, Manhattan. It's about the size

49:01

of the rat population. If we

49:03

can make them a little bit

49:05

more abundant. They need a leg

49:07

up, right? The rats. And so,

49:10

I mean, just a... follow up

49:12

on that. I do think the,

49:14

you know, we're in that moment

49:16

where the Democrats are licking their

49:18

wounds and they may start talking

49:20

in more interesting ways. Good for

49:23

it, but look at a place.

49:25

We're talking in Austin. We're talking

49:27

in Texas. This is an abundance

49:29

agenda state where People are freer

49:31

to build whatever they want and

49:33

that's a good thing and hopefully

49:36

that will wash back out of

49:38

Texas to other parts of the

49:40

country including Democratic states Republican states

49:42

more regulated places Catherine, the abundance

49:44

agenda sometimes sounds kind of libertarian.

49:46

It sounds like the way that

49:49

Democrats are lip-syncing us on tariffs.

49:51

They are also lip-syncing libertarians on

49:53

regulation, at least when it comes

49:55

to housing policy and construction. Does

49:57

that fill your non-existent heart with

49:59

joy? I like Matt, assume that

50:02

the parts of this that I

50:04

like will never see the light

50:06

of day. I'm like, oh, that

50:08

sounds pretty good. So RIP, you

50:10

know, but I do, I think

50:12

we might get a little bit

50:15

of zoning reform from the whole

50:17

abundance agenda. Like that's, if I

50:19

had to bet, and I guess

50:21

we're betting on this, I would

50:23

say. Perhaps the tide has turned

50:25

at least a little, even in

50:28

blue places, on the idea that

50:30

sometimes it's okay to just build

50:32

stuff. And that would be great.

50:34

I accept. Okay. That does sound

50:36

great. So I want to, before

50:38

we close out, I want to

50:41

talk about, briefly, about someone who

50:43

did build something. Manny Klausner, who

50:45

was one of the founders of

50:47

Reason, was such an influence on

50:49

Reason magazine, on the foundation, on

50:51

so many of our lives. And

50:54

I just want to go down

50:56

the line here, start with match,

50:58

and hear your memories of Manny.

51:00

What did he mean to you?

51:02

What did he mean to Reason?

51:04

How did he shape our world?

51:07

Try not to get for Klempt.

51:09

It's my voice. I learned Tritus.

51:11

When I came to Reason, some

51:13

of you have been... with me

51:15

for a while here. I was

51:17

a little bit weird, maybe not

51:20

in the traditional role. And there

51:22

was, thank you. And a lot

51:24

of people could have treated me

51:26

with more suspicion and not generosity

51:28

in those early days. And I

51:30

am grateful for those of you

51:33

in the room who are part

51:35

of being nice to me despite

51:37

your better judgment. And Manny was

51:39

definitely a lead of that. My

51:41

anecdote will be very similar to

51:43

experiences that no doubt Catherine and

51:46

Nick have had, which is that.

51:48

So we have a recent weekend

51:50

and then there's the annual meeting.

51:52

And so the way that the

51:54

inside baseball. here. The way that

51:57

it goes is that like there's

51:59

the first night that's opening a

52:01

dinner, right? And then the next

52:03

day is the board meeting and

52:05

you steal yourself for it and

52:07

then you survive and it's all

52:10

great because we have a wonderful

52:12

board and and everything's very collegial

52:14

but still you're a little bit

52:16

nervous. There's people you work for

52:18

their pleasure and it was all

52:20

about when you're gonna have to

52:23

talk with Manny in this process

52:25

and for me and I don't

52:27

know what it was like for

52:29

you guys but it was the

52:31

opening the pre-night board dinner. Right,

52:33

you would like try to like

52:36

withstand them anything. And he was

52:38

great. And it's not because he

52:40

was uncollegial. No, he was incredibly,

52:42

he's like, hey Matt, the book

52:44

is looking really great. And, and

52:46

we'll talk about like what he

52:49

likes about it, it would lead

52:51

with the, with the praise, and

52:53

then just sort of say, you

52:55

know, I was thinking that maybe

52:57

it could do this with the

52:59

design and thinking the part of

53:02

it in my tenure. was that

53:04

he was absolutely right. I became

53:06

editor in 2008. We had the

53:08

financial crisis right afterwards, so we

53:10

had to tighten our belts a

53:12

little bit and sort of decide,

53:15

what are we going to spend

53:17

money on? And I decided along

53:19

with David that we wouldn't spend

53:21

money on, that we wouldn't spend

53:23

money on, like, let's do a

53:25

big redesign right now, because we

53:28

were just trying to withstand his...

53:30

criticism, but it was always very,

53:32

very gently done. But it was

53:34

also like, you know, the kid

53:36

and animal house with the people

53:38

on the shoulders, you know, Devil

53:41

and Angel, and Mani was this

53:43

little angel saying magazine needs to

53:45

look better. And it was really,

53:47

really great towards the end of

53:49

my tenure when I was shoving

53:51

everything in Catherine's lap when we

53:54

finally like had a little bit

53:56

of wiggle room to hire Joanna

53:58

Andreas and a fantastic designer. And

54:00

they could... redesign the magazine and

54:02

make it beautiful again. And a

54:04

lot of that was really like

54:07

just the gentle loving kind of

54:09

persistence of detail with Manny. So

54:11

I have so many fondances about

54:13

him and you all do too,

54:15

the restaurants you've been to, like

54:17

weird speakeases in Chicago, but it

54:20

was always just that little trepidation

54:22

and that little reminder of you

54:24

could still make this thing better.

54:26

And he cared that much always

54:28

about doing that. So that's what

54:30

I remember. Yeah. Mine is actually

54:33

in the same vein, but in

54:35

the area that I care about

54:37

more than Matt does, which is

54:39

copy editing. So... Manny was so

54:41

many things to reason, but I

54:43

think one thing that a lot

54:46

of people don't appreciate is that

54:48

he was a volunteer copy editor

54:50

for five decades, I think. He

54:52

would send me notes, and I

54:54

think many of us were on

54:56

his email list, but then when

54:59

he wanted to send you something

55:01

just for you, he recognized that

55:03

maybe you weren't immediately opening every

55:05

email for Manny, because there were

55:07

a few. And so he would

55:09

put in all caps personal, or...

55:12

This was the big one, urgent.

55:14

And so you've got an all-capped

55:16

email, you click on that bad

55:18

boy, and a lot of the

55:20

time, it would be like, I

55:22

have noticed a typo on the

55:25

site. Please correct. And I was

55:27

like, thanks, Manny, we'll fix it,

55:29

real sorry. And I just think

55:31

that that, like, he was reading

55:33

deeply, and he just wanted everything

55:35

to be as good as it

55:38

could be. And he wasn't a

55:40

jerk about it, just like Matt

55:42

said. He was just like coming

55:44

from a place of love and

55:46

he was like, it's the wrong

55:48

there. And in recent years, these

55:51

emails dwindled and I've never been

55:53

sure and I don't want to

55:55

know whether it's because the copy

55:57

editing just finally got really good

55:59

or whether Manny got really tired.

56:01

But either way, I just, I've

56:04

always been grateful for the, for

56:06

the kind of love and attention

56:08

to detail that he brought your

56:10

reason. at every level including the

56:12

commas. I'm going to repeat a

56:14

story that a lot of people

56:17

have heard and it's great and

56:19

it's very manny and he loved

56:21

to tell it which is in

56:23

the November 1973 special issue that

56:25

reasoned it early on about Ein

56:27

Rand and her legacy and Ein

56:30

Rand who's very litigious. contacted Reasoner,

56:32

her lawyers did and said you

56:34

can't write about me without my

56:36

permission, you have to pulp all

56:38

the issues and issue an apology,

56:40

and he wrote back to them

56:43

a lawyer by training saying we

56:45

very much look forward to the

56:47

case of Rand v. Reason. And

56:49

he loved Einstein Rand. I mean,

56:51

he was not antagonistic towards her

56:53

and everything, but he was a

56:56

man of principle and of humor

56:58

and of understatement. So he just

57:00

brought so much. And on a

57:02

personal level, he was incredibly generous

57:04

and supportive throughout good times and

57:06

bad. Yeah. I don't think I

57:09

knew many as well as some

57:11

of you, but I lived in

57:13

the world that he created. Now,

57:15

every day for the last 16

57:17

years. And the world that he

57:19

built, Reason, the Reason Foundation, Reason

57:22

magazine, in building it, he helped

57:24

define its character. And his character

57:26

was that he loved good food

57:28

and great drink and theater and

57:30

intellectual debate and liberty. He was

57:32

a model for us all. So

57:35

we're going to do our final

57:37

segment here. And this is our

57:39

cultural recommendation. But because we are

57:41

in Texas, this has to be.

57:43

Texas-themed. So Matt Welch, what Texas-themed

57:45

culture have you been consuming? So

57:48

the reason why there's a Willie

57:50

Nelson statue about 30 yards from

57:52

here and that we're in Willie

57:54

Nelson Way and Austin City limits

57:56

here comes down to one piece

57:58

of art more than any other

58:01

which is his 1975 album Red-headed

58:03

Stranger. which is an amazing piece

58:05

of work that I was re-listening

58:07

to today. Double Platinum record at

58:09

a time when country artists were

58:12

not doing that. The song that

58:14

you will have heard from that.

58:16

definitively his blue eyes crying in

58:18

the rain, which he did not

58:20

write. Willie Nelson was in his

58:22

40s when that came out. He

58:25

had been a Nashville songwriter, you

58:27

know, Hello Walls, all these songs

58:29

for other people, crazy. And he

58:31

had tried to have a career

58:33

of his own, it didn't really

58:35

work out. And he was in

58:38

his 40s, it's kind of an

58:40

awesome, it wasn't working, and he

58:42

changed record labels in. around 1973,

58:44

I think to Columbia or Atlantic

58:46

at first, and released a couple

58:48

of really interesting records that people

58:51

liked, and then renegotiated with Columbia

58:53

so that he owned everything, had

58:55

all rights of all refusal. So

58:57

this is at the time when

58:59

Motown and Stevie Wonder is declaring

59:01

sort of the financial independence in

59:04

sports, which I've written about for

59:06

reason, a lot of athletes are

59:08

starting via your free agency to

59:10

find their own voice. So Willie

59:12

Nelson did that with country music.

59:14

at that time in Austin. And

59:17

it's a really weird record people.

59:19

It's just him up on the

59:21

mic. He's a fantastic guitar player

59:23

and a fantastic. phraseologist singing he's

59:25

just has this and he was

59:27

at the peak of both of

59:30

those powers and there's almost nothing

59:32

else on this there's a little

59:34

bit of piano played by I

59:36

think his sister some drums and

59:38

a harmonica here and there it's

59:40

super intimate it's like a it's

59:43

like the Desert Oracle podcast late

59:45

at night it's like you don't

59:47

want to be that intimate with

59:49

anything frankly and it's the record

59:51

company it's like what are you

59:53

even doing this is This is

59:56

a demo. Are you kidding with

59:58

this? And they had to basically

1:00:00

get Wayland Jennings in New York,

1:00:02

probably to threaten to rip someone's

1:00:04

lungs out, in order to have

1:00:06

it produced any, and they released

1:00:09

it, and again, double platinum. and

1:00:11

it became this mechanism by which

1:00:13

outlaw country, this new genre, would

1:00:15

sort of relocate to Austin. Austin

1:00:17

City Limits started as a regular

1:00:19

TV show I think in 1975.

1:00:22

right then. They released the also

1:00:24

huge record, the outlaw country record,

1:00:26

that's something name of it, but

1:00:28

like wanted outlaws, like it's what

1:00:30

it is, with Wayland Jennings and

1:00:32

Willie Nelson. In 1976, you sold

1:00:35

a trillion records. It's incredible. So

1:00:37

all of that happened in this

1:00:39

sort of relocation of this more

1:00:41

artistically independent Austin. And what's interesting

1:00:43

about is that outlaw country is

1:00:45

all super, like it's rock and

1:00:48

roll. It's Wayland Jennings. and it's

1:00:50

a lot of guitar, it's all

1:00:52

this, but this one record, and

1:00:54

I really recommend that you go

1:00:56

listen to it, is just so

1:00:58

quiet. It's a concept album, I

1:01:01

think it's about some guy who

1:01:03

maybe killed his wife or something.

1:01:05

It's sort of difficult to follow

1:01:07

along, but it's incredibly evocative and

1:01:09

just beautiful and a great artist

1:01:11

who's still with us in his

1:01:14

90s at the peak of his

1:01:16

powers, so go check it out

1:01:18

red-headed stranger. in keeping with my

1:01:20

general brand and also a recommendation

1:01:22

I've made previously on this podcast,

1:01:24

talk about the Neil Stevenson novel

1:01:27

Termination Shock, which does feature a

1:01:29

Texas billionaire that tries to solve

1:01:31

global warming by shooting sulfur into

1:01:33

the stratosphere, and I'm not recommending

1:01:35

that, because it's really good. But

1:01:37

I'm changing my recommendation midstream, because

1:01:40

what I actually want to recommend

1:01:42

is country line dancing. Which I

1:01:44

did for the first time today,

1:01:46

and which is awesome. Congratulations to

1:01:48

Texas and everyone else involved in

1:01:50

the creation of country line dancing.

1:01:53

I learned the boot scoot and

1:01:55

buggy today. And the thing that

1:01:57

is fantastic is everybody has their

1:01:59

version of this thing, right? Like

1:02:01

it's the electric. slide. It's the

1:02:03

chacha slide. It's everything that happens

1:02:06

at an Indian wedding if you're

1:02:08

at the right wedding. It's the

1:02:10

same thing and it's just like

1:02:12

human being shuffling around together in

1:02:14

a square. And it's great. And

1:02:16

so my official reason roundtable recommendation

1:02:19

this week is the boot scoot

1:02:21

and boogie. So

1:02:23

I am I'm going with Mike judges

1:02:25

King of the Hill and animated TV

1:02:28

show that ran for 13 seasons from

1:02:30

1997 until 2009 with some episodes in

1:02:32

2010 as well. And it takes place

1:02:35

in Arlen, Texas. Hank Hill sells propane

1:02:37

and propane accessories. I happen to be

1:02:39

living in Texas when it started and

1:02:41

everybody in Texas was like, oh, Arlen

1:02:44

is my hometown. It's a great cast

1:02:46

of characters. Libertarians will particularly like Dale

1:02:48

Gribble. Next door neighbor who's a conspiracy.

1:02:51

Truther, let's say, he's not wrong about

1:02:53

anything. But what's great about it, and

1:02:55

it's like South Park, it's like peanuts,

1:02:58

it is this massive vision, an alternative

1:03:00

reality of what America is about to

1:03:02

become. Texas. is becoming the most popular

1:03:04

state in the country. It's going to

1:03:07

be the cultural center. It's going to

1:03:09

define the identity of America for the

1:03:11

rest of this century. And that kind

1:03:14

of begins in the beautiful world of

1:03:16

Ireland, Texas and King of the Hill.

1:03:18

It's a great cast of characters that

1:03:21

make fun of each other and themselves

1:03:23

and America, but it also is very

1:03:25

serious about this is a warm, wonderful

1:03:27

place filled with strange, wonderful people. And

1:03:30

when you let them get on with

1:03:32

their lives, good things happen, good things

1:03:34

happen. So, King of the Hill. The

1:03:37

great state of Texas. So, I will

1:03:39

close us out with my recommendation, which

1:03:41

is a movie that is about a

1:03:44

decade old. It is called Hell or

1:03:46

High Water. It is a great bank

1:03:48

robbery film. film set mostly in Texas

1:03:50

and a little bit in Oklahoma. The

1:03:53

movie was written by a guy named

1:03:55

Taylor Sheridan. Now if you know Taylor

1:03:57

Sheridan's work right now, he's the guy

1:04:00

who created Yellowstone as well as Landman,

1:04:02

another TV show set in Texas, all

1:04:04

these spin-offs of Yellowstone, the spy show,

1:04:07

he's got like a Tulsa King mafia

1:04:09

show set in Oklahoma as well. But

1:04:11

right now he's sort of the TV's

1:04:14

reigning king of red American television television.

1:04:16

that he wrote feature films and in

1:04:18

particular he wrote Sicario and Heller Highwater

1:04:20

and Wind River which were his American

1:04:23

frontier trilogy and I think the best

1:04:25

of them is Heller Highwater and there's

1:04:27

a movie about two brothers who are

1:04:30

being chased by Texas agents because the

1:04:32

brothers what's that? Texas Rangers, right? Yes,

1:04:34

Texas Rangers. And the brothers are robbing

1:04:37

banks, and these guys are on their

1:04:39

trail. And what you come to see

1:04:41

is, I think, a picture of a

1:04:43

kind of pre- trump America, a world

1:04:46

in which people who value hard work

1:04:48

and who value owning your own land,

1:04:50

they're robbing banks basically to pay the

1:04:53

bank back to make sure that they

1:04:55

can hold on to their home. And

1:04:57

you see this world. this world of

1:05:00

people who distrust elites, this world of

1:05:02

people who just want to make it

1:05:04

on their own. And it is a

1:05:06

kind of stirring and really effective picture

1:05:09

of an America that gave us the

1:05:11

world of Donald Trump 2.0 and Doge

1:05:13

and all of these things that we

1:05:16

have been talking about. And so if

1:05:18

you want to sort of see the

1:05:20

origin story expressed in a really great

1:05:23

cinematic thriller high water is just a

1:05:25

great film, and then all of the

1:05:27

rest of his works, Yellowstone landman, really

1:05:29

kind of plumb, the same sort of

1:05:32

cultural milieu, and show us, show us

1:05:34

the kind of cultural forces that are

1:05:36

at work in America right now in

1:05:39

a way that I just don't think

1:05:41

any other writer or any other filmmaker

1:05:43

today is. is doing. So all

1:05:46

right, folks, that is

1:05:48

our show. If

1:05:50

you are listening at

1:05:52

home and you are

1:05:55

curious about Reason Reason

1:05:57

or any of

1:05:59

our other events, you

1:06:02

can find out

1:06:04

more at our out more

1:06:06

at our our pages on.com

1:06:09

and reason .org. The

1:06:11

Reason The return next

1:06:13

week. return Thank you

1:06:15

all so much. all so

1:06:18

much.