0:05

Hello and welcome to the Reason Roundtable,

0:08

the podcast of free minds, free markets,

0:10

and free takes. I'm your host, Peter

0:12

Souterman. Let's talk about the Department of

0:14

Education. Last week, President Donald Trump announced

0:17

plans to cut the agency's staffing in

0:19

half. That's the Department of Education, not

0:21

education. The agency has long been a

0:24

rhetorical target for the right. It's created

0:26

in 1979 under Jimmy Carter. And by

0:28

1980, the GOP platform favored abolishing it.

0:31

But we've never seen an effort quite

0:33

like this before to really dismantle it.

0:35

So is this the end for the Department

0:37

of Education? And is that a good thing?

0:40

I want to go around the table and

0:42

ask, what is your most succinct take on

0:44

the Department of Education? Your headline, your kind

0:46

of main argument. In the length of a

0:48

tweet, let's start with Nick. It's a good

0:50

idea to cut the Department

0:52

of Education, but more important

0:55

to cut the funding or

0:57

to scrutinize federal funding of

0:59

education at all levels, because

1:01

we spent a lot of

1:03

money on education before the

1:05

DOE existed. Catherine. Good

1:07

riddens to bad rubbish. Very

1:10

succinct, very short. I like it.

1:12

Met Welch. What do you have

1:14

to say about the Department of

1:16

Egymication? It is the... Is our

1:19

bureaucrat learning? poster child

1:21

for one of the worst

1:23

and counter foundational trends in

1:26

modern governance and that

1:28

is having Washington issue

1:30

one size fits all diktats

1:32

on policy issues that should

1:34

rightly be handled at the

1:36

state and local level. Okay,

1:39

I think all of these are good.

1:41

Mine is actually an actual headline from

1:43

CNN in January of this year. U.S.

1:45

children fall further behind in reading, make

1:47

little improvement in math on national exam.

1:50

For years and years, the story on

1:52

education policy has been the same. We

1:54

keep spending more and more, but it

1:56

is not clear that we are getting

1:59

anything for it. All right

2:01

folks, we have a great show

2:03

for you today. We are going

2:05

to talk more about the Department

2:07

of Education and why we don't

2:09

need it. We will look at

2:12

the case of Mahmoud Khalil and

2:14

free speech under Trump. We will

2:16

take a listener question from a

2:18

loyal supporter about why we are

2:20

Trump-dumors, aren't we though? I'm not

2:22

actually sure that's true. And then

2:25

the budget mess and the government

2:27

shutdown that wasn't and why for

2:29

the first time ever, I was

2:31

kind of, sort of, maybe, rooting

2:33

for a government shutdown, plus all

2:35

of our cultural recommendations and more.

2:38

To talk about all of this,

2:40

I am joined by my illustrious

2:42

colleagues, Catherine Manggi Ward, Nick Gillespie

2:44

and Matt Welch. How long? Hi.

2:46

That was great guys. Just real

2:48

happy Monday to everyone, except the

2:51

Canadians trying to buy American bourbon.

2:53

We have so much more right

2:55

after this. Hey reason roundtable listeners

2:57

Peter Sutterman here. Do you know

2:59

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That's reliancecollege.org/reason to learn more and

3:54

apply. Is it time to say

3:56

RIP to the DOE? The department

3:58

of education has been fun-sized. As

4:00

of last week, it's been cut

4:02

more or less in half with

4:04

about 1300 staffers laid off, another

4:07

500 or so separated via other

4:09

means. According to Education Secretary Linda

4:11

McMahon, the layoffs are intended to

4:13

make the department more efficient. They

4:15

won't affect student loans or Pell

4:17

Grant. So this is not the

4:20

final end of the Department of

4:22

Education, but it is a significant

4:24

rollback. President Trump has at least

4:26

raised the possibility of abolishing it

4:28

completely. Catherine. Actually, I want to

4:30

ask you about something that's not

4:33

the DOE to begin with. I

4:35

want to ask you about Chesterton's

4:37

fence. You're familiar with it, right?

4:39

Sure. Okay, right, so the idea

4:41

of Chesterton's fence is, comes from

4:43

this kind of conservative philosopher is,

4:46

if you want to, if you

4:48

find a fence in the road

4:50

and it's in the way and

4:52

you want to get rid of

4:54

it, you're supposed to understand why

4:57

it was put there in the

4:59

first place, what... Is the Department

5:01

of Education supposed to be doing?

5:03

What should it be doing? Help

5:05

us just like understand the lay

5:07

of the land, Catherine. So first

5:10

I do kind of want to

5:12

take issue with the example here

5:14

because I don't think government bureaucracies

5:16

like should be accorded the Chesterton's

5:18

fence test. I think that that

5:20

is about folk ways. It's about

5:23

sort of innate knowledge that locals

5:25

might have that you, the road

5:27

planner or potential fence elimator, might

5:29

not know as a relative newcomer.

5:31

this is, you know, if anything,

5:33

the Department of Education itself is

5:36

the entity that should have Chesterton

5:38

fenced its way out of existence

5:40

in the first place. So I

5:42

think that aside, obviously it does

5:44

stuff, right? It's been around my

5:46

entire life, your entire life, and

5:49

almost the exact amount of time

5:51

that we've been one year before

5:53

you were born. We were, we,

5:55

the Department of Education and I

5:57

are the same age, so awesome.

5:59

Yeah, so true Nick. agree more.

6:02

We'll have more on that later

6:04

in my cultural recommendations, but the

6:06

most generous case for what the

6:08

DOE can and should be

6:10

doing is rectifying a problem

6:12

that's created by another state

6:14

action on the local and

6:16

state level, and that is

6:19

we fund schools through property

6:21

taxes. And you might not

6:23

know this, but some neighborhoods

6:25

there's more property taxes to

6:27

be had than others. So the

6:29

federal government says, okay, we're gonna

6:31

just like send money to the

6:34

places where the property taxes maybe

6:36

are not enough to support all

6:38

the students or not enough to

6:41

support students with special

6:43

needs. This is the theory. The practice,

6:45

of course, is that giant pots

6:47

of money just like slosh around

6:49

from the federal level to the

6:51

state level. simultaneously

6:54

with too many strings and with not

6:56

enough strings. And I think we're going

6:58

to talk about that more. But

7:00

the most, most generous case for

7:02

K-12 is they are rectifying some

7:04

financial and economic inequality. And then,

7:06

of course, for college state, administer

7:08

student loans, that is much more

7:10

recent. I am old enough to

7:13

remember when we switched over to

7:15

a kind of full scale, you know,

7:17

folding in of the entire student loan

7:19

and grant program into the DOE. It

7:22

was. more of a

7:24

public-private effort, certainly when

7:26

I was in college. Do

7:28

you remember what legislation that

7:31

folding into the sort of

7:33

fully federal folding into was

7:35

attached to? I want to

7:37

say it was the Affordable Care

7:39

Act? Yeah, it was Obamacare.

7:42

The health care law federalized

7:44

student loans. point out

7:46

that Chesterton's fence was mostly

7:49

put up by Chesterton to

7:51

keep Jews out as a

7:53

side point because now Chesterton

7:55

who was a very famous

7:57

Catholic novelist actually as well.

8:00

as well as a social commentator,

8:02

but G.K. Chesterton, I don't care

8:04

about his fences. All right, so

8:06

we're going to need that energy

8:08

and that, and the Chesterton versus

8:10

the Jews references when we get

8:12

to the Columbia protester segment. Okay,

8:15

but I don't think we're quite

8:17

there yet. Nick. Man, you're gonna

8:19

have to, I'm gonna take your

8:21

word for that, because I, unlike

8:23

Catherine Nangy Ward, did not go

8:25

to an Ivy League school. I

8:27

don't even, I don't even know

8:30

how to say. Me, me, me,

8:32

me, me three. Yeah. Unlike Catherine,

8:34

Nick, you're old. Older than the

8:36

Department of Education. I was here

8:38

before it started, right? Yeah. And

8:40

so as I said in the

8:43

beginning, like this has been a

8:45

target for decades. Basically since the

8:47

Department of Education was put in

8:49

place, Republicans have been calling for

8:51

it to be abolished. You had

8:53

Reagan in I think his first

8:55

couple of budgets called for it

8:58

to be abolished. Even in the

9:00

mid 1990s, there was a House

9:02

budget proposal. Yeah, he campaigned, Reagan

9:04

campaigned on it and did not

9:06

do anything about cutting it. So

9:08

that's important because rhetorically the Department

9:10

of Education has been a whipping

9:13

post for the Republicans and some

9:15

Democrats since it was found. Yeah

9:17

and in the 1990s there was

9:19

a there was one of these

9:21

budget frameworks that doesn't mean anything

9:23

passed by House Republicans that I

9:26

believe zeroed it out or came

9:28

close to zeroing it out right

9:30

so this is something that people

9:32

have been talking about and kind

9:34

of putting together proposals to abolish

9:36

the Department of Education for a

9:38

very long time. But I don't

9:41

think I recall. anything that is

9:43

as significant as what Trump did

9:45

last week firing nearly half of

9:47

the staff. So my question for

9:49

you is why did it take

9:51

so long? That's a really good

9:54

question and it's the way it's

9:56

partly because I think of institutional

9:58

inertia in general but then also

10:00

So the Department of Education when

10:02

it was created was understood as

10:04

a gift to the NEA and

10:06

the AFT, the two biggest teachers

10:09

unions. Just the NEA, the AFT

10:11

opposed it for state offices. But

10:13

ultimately, yes. Yeah, ultimately, yes. Yeah,

10:15

ultimately it becomes that. And the

10:17

thing that is interesting, and just

10:19

to talk about how dumb the

10:21

K through 12 teachers unions are,

10:24

because they have not actually managed

10:26

to, they've managed to increase outlays

10:28

on K through 12 education. but

10:30

not for their teachers. The total

10:32

amount of federal spending that goes

10:34

to K-12 education is still around

10:37

10% of the total amount, which

10:39

is what it was before. the

10:41

Department of Education was created. So

10:43

it's not even serving the teacher's

10:45

union's interests in the way that

10:47

one might expect. But I think

10:49

part of it is institutional inertia.

10:52

And the other thing is that,

10:54

you know, this is a classic

10:56

example of the idea that immediately

10:58

upon becoming a thing, it becomes

11:00

impossible for people to in government

11:02

to think that you can live

11:04

without it. But the most important

11:07

thing I would say is that

11:09

the real function is spending. Where

11:11

federal spending on education has really

11:13

jacked up as a percentage of

11:15

overall education funding is in higher

11:17

education. And that is not something

11:20

that people actually think about with

11:22

Department of Education so much. because

11:24

we think about it as going

11:26

to equalize things like Catherine was

11:28

talking about school districts where things,

11:30

you know, where there's just very

11:32

low levels of funding or certain

11:35

kids need types of things. And

11:37

this is also where the explosion

11:39

in that came really in the

11:41

60s and 70s in a series

11:43

of laws that identified a much

11:45

larger role for the federal government.

11:47

So I think it's great that

11:50

it's being cut. It's taken too

11:52

long, but then the real thing

11:54

is, are they going to... cut

11:56

the funding that goes into this

11:58

kind of stuff. And where Donald

12:00

Trump is on something like guaranteed

12:03

student loans, it's not clear to

12:05

me. I haven't heard him talk

12:07

a lot about that kind of

12:09

stuff. Yeah, the exception to the

12:11

rule about federal spending was the

12:13

big COVID pig in the Python

12:15

spending that happened. in 2022 of

12:18

$130 billion. Usually the DOE spends

12:20

around $40 billion a year. So

12:22

this is this gigantic payout. And

12:24

you could, just looking at it,

12:26

it's probably best to think about

12:28

it as $200 billion, because part

12:31

of the same act gave a

12:33

bunch of money to help fix

12:35

states. budgets and about 20% of

12:37

state's budget covers it education. So

12:39

it was used to backfill and

12:41

that stuff was used to hire

12:43

teachers. It was not used for

12:46

the most part on COVID mitigation

12:48

strategies. So Randy Wangarden got her

12:50

payout. And that's also one of

12:52

the arguments against all of this.

12:54

It sort of federalizes the ability

12:56

to like have a union style.

12:58

corrupting influence on federal government policies,

13:01

which definitely happened in a really

13:03

bad way during COVID. when Weingarten

13:05

and Becky Pringle, who's the head

13:07

of the NEA, helped influence the

13:09

quote-unquote science that the Centers for

13:11

Disease Control and Prevention, had when

13:14

making guidelines about what kind of

13:16

COVID strategies should be used in

13:18

elementary, all K-12 schools, and did

13:20

that in such a way to

13:22

keep those schools closed for longer.

13:24

And the US had... more longer

13:26

closed schools than just about any

13:29

other rich democracy in the world.

13:31

And we're all still paying for

13:33

it and we're all still a

13:35

little bit angry about it. Matt,

13:37

since you bring up COVID, I

13:39

want to read you a paragraph

13:41

from a New York Times news

13:44

report on the cuts being made

13:46

to the Department of Education. So

13:48

this is from the New York

13:50

Times last week. Mr. Trump has

13:52

repeatedly said. that he wants to

13:54

close the education department and instead

13:57

rely on states and local school

13:59

districts to fully oversee America's education

14:01

system. Okay, fine, factual statement. President

14:03

adopted the stringent position during the

14:05

2024 campaign to align himself with

14:07

the parents rights movement that grew

14:09

out of the backlash to school

14:12

shutdowns and other restrictions during the

14:14

coronavirus pandemic. First of all, is

14:16

that basically correct in your view

14:18

in terms of how the alignment

14:20

happened there. Second of all, well,

14:22

like, that seems like a kind

14:25

of a judgey statement on the

14:27

part of the New York Times

14:29

in a news news article here.

14:31

Just like, how does that make

14:33

you feel? I want to, like,

14:35

give me a, give me, like,

14:37

you're on the, you're on my

14:40

chaise lounge here. Like, tell me

14:42

about, tell me about your child.

14:44

What? A chase lounge? I think

14:46

we're in the therapist office, but

14:48

I don't know. I only recognize

14:50

that as a song by wet

14:52

leg and it's one of the

14:55

best ones ever. So first of

14:57

all, the New York Times statement

14:59

is wrong in that talks that,

15:01

you know, Trump doesn't want the

15:03

federal government to be involved in

15:05

the DOE. to root out DEAI,

15:08

the diversity, equity, and inclusion policies

15:10

at higher education and also using

15:12

it to get rid of any

15:14

remnants of schools, K-12 schools having

15:16

transgender athletes, former males, compete as

15:18

females. So this is what the

15:20

federal government does and this is

15:23

why the DOE is bad, among

15:25

other things, is that whoever is

15:27

in charge of the federal government

15:29

says, okay, cool, I'm going to

15:31

use Title IX to do this.

15:33

Adjunicate rape. The charges on campus,

15:35

what? Okay, I'm going to do

15:38

No Child Left Behind. No, I'm

15:40

going to do what's that one

15:42

called Essa. Go Catherine, you know

15:44

it. Every student succeeds act, right?

15:46

So every time they impose these

15:48

types of, this is our partisan

15:51

idea, big idea about schooling. and

15:53

then people react against it because

15:55

they don't like these imposed things

15:57

coming from the bad team, and

15:59

then they get their hackles up

16:01

and it becomes this big partisan

16:03

idiocy type of thing. So yes,

16:06

Trump does want to align himself

16:08

with a parents, and he's right

16:10

to, for crying out loud. We

16:12

are experiencing right now the greatest

16:14

growth of school choice and school

16:16

choice policies. in history over the

16:19

last two or three years. Part

16:21

of this is as a backlash

16:23

to COVID related policies and part

16:25

of it is that the Supreme

16:27

Court ruled that state money can

16:29

or government money can follow kids

16:31

wherever they go. And so there's

16:34

been more than a dozen states

16:36

at this point have passed these

16:38

laws. So we're decentralizing education as

16:40

we speak. We should go the

16:42

whole biscuit and keep going so

16:44

that the federal government doesn't use

16:46

this is. Too much of government

16:49

is like, okay, we're going to

16:51

give you some money here for

16:53

maybe this local trends. transportation or

16:55

transit policy which should be funded

16:57

on the state and local level

16:59

only? Why is the federal government

17:02

involved? Well, because we're leveraging that

17:04

money to do this, and then

17:06

at the end of the day,

17:08

when the team switches in Washington,

17:10

they start to de leverage that

17:12

money or try to use it

17:14

to make you change your behavior

17:17

in this other way, it's a

17:19

mess. And none of the money

17:21

flows make any sense, and there's

17:23

always, you know, bureaucrats taking their

17:25

pieces of those flows as they

17:27

go. It's all just bad. align

17:29

himself with this rather potent parental

17:32

thing that came in the wake

17:34

of COVID, we'll see how that

17:36

potency plays out in the future.

17:38

But largely speaking, Americans are slowly

17:40

but surely defecting from K-12 government

17:42

monopolies and getting rid of the

17:45

Department of Education would be a

17:47

way to do that, but Trump

17:49

wants to influence behavior. So I

17:51

have my doubts that he's really

17:53

going to make this thing go

17:55

away. And also if you don't

17:57

have Congress change the underlying laws

18:00

from 19... 65, Congress, you know,

18:02

the government's still going to have

18:04

to spend this money somehow.

18:06

So, Catherine, to extend Matt's

18:09

biscuit metaphor, like, no, like,

18:11

no, what if we wanted,

18:13

like, biscuit light, right? Like,

18:16

what if the Department of

18:18

Education were like a really

18:21

low-calorie, high-protein biscuit? So, like, there

18:23

you go. So, look, I'm... Obviously being

18:25

ridiculous, but Nick mentioned that the main

18:27

thing that the Department of Education does

18:30

is it cuts checks, it spends money.

18:32

There is a piece by a former

18:34

Biden administration Department of Education staffer in

18:37

Madiglaces sub stack just this morning that

18:39

argues that one of the good things

18:41

about the Department of Education is that

18:43

it's efficient. It doesn't... cost very much

18:46

money to spend all that money. It

18:48

sends out all those checks very efficiently.

18:50

So my question for you is, is

18:52

that a good argument for the Department

18:55

of Education? And part two of that

18:57

question is, if not, is there

18:59

any good argument? for keeping any part

19:01

of the Department of Education in place.

19:04

For people who are just listening on

19:06

the podcast, I want you to know

19:08

that what you missed was Matt closing

19:10

his eyes and taking the deepest Zen

19:12

breath when Peter said the words Matt

19:14

Iglesias. So I just wanted everyone

19:17

else to participate with that with me.

19:19

Okay, so actually I will take your

19:21

biscuit metaphor because Nick is right. What

19:23

you get if you do this kind

19:25

of trimmed down... you know, Department of

19:28

Education light, is you get

19:30

a thing that is in fact

19:32

less delicious and less nutritionally sound,

19:34

right? Like you in fact get

19:37

a version of this thing that

19:39

is a weird ghost based on

19:41

what is about to become outmoded

19:44

nutritional advice. So the snack well,

19:46

the snack well is no longer because

19:48

we decided that that was the wrong

19:50

direction to go to be healthy. And

19:53

this is, I think, a similar problem.

19:55

So you can imagine. So this is

19:57

like the food pyramid. Exactly like

19:59

the food. By the way, read an

20:01

incredible cover story in Reason Magazine

20:03

out this week from Eric Bame

20:05

about how the stupid thinking behind

20:07

the food pyramid is about to

20:09

lead us into the new prohibitionism

20:11

with regard to your one glass

20:13

of red wine that we're still

20:15

allowed to have. Okay, so we

20:17

are 14 levels of off track,

20:19

but the idea that you could

20:21

do kind of Department of Education

20:23

light and maybe minimize some of

20:25

the downsides and keep this supposed

20:28

efficiency, I think is deeply misguided.

20:30

One problem here is cuts in

20:32

bureaucracy and cuts in government, in

20:34

theory, should come with the money

20:36

that was being spent on those

20:38

things going back to the people

20:40

so that they can spend it

20:42

on the things they want to

20:44

spend it on. We are not

20:46

in a position to do that

20:48

right now because we are in

20:50

so much debt. And so the

20:52

problem that we have here is

20:54

that we cannot close the loop.

20:56

We cannot say, yes, the federal

20:58

government is no longer doing all

21:00

this nonsense, but here's your money

21:02

that we took to do it,

21:04

you do what you do what

21:06

you want, you want. This means

21:08

we're going to have the temptation

21:10

to start doing education savings accounts

21:12

and other things like that. While

21:14

I think those might be better

21:16

than nothing, they have the same

21:18

risk, which is if the money

21:20

comes from the feds, in the

21:22

end the feds can yank it.

21:24

And they will, because they can

21:26

never resist that temptation. And we're

21:28

going to talk about that with

21:30

the Columbia stuff, but it already

21:32

happens all the time with K-12,

21:34

and it will happen with education

21:36

savings accounts. It happens with charters.

21:38

You just can't avoid it. All

21:40

right, since you have brought up

21:42

the Columbia stuff and using money...

21:44

to change outcomes and that seems

21:46

to be what the Trump administration

21:48

is doing here. I want to

21:50

close this segment by pointing to

21:53

something else that the Department of

21:55

Education did last week because it's

21:57

not closed, it's still doing stuff.

21:59

Last week it launched investigations into

22:01

45 colleges, public and private, saying

22:03

that those colleges violated civil rights

22:05

law by operating programs and scholarships

22:07

that were restricted based on race.

22:09

So this is all part of

22:11

the Trump administration's campaign to purge.

22:13

from college campuses. Matt Welch, what

22:15

do we think of this sort

22:17

of investigatory effort into what seems

22:19

like actually kind of problematic scholarships

22:21

and programs? I don't see how

22:23

this is a Department of Education

22:25

matter, honestly. There's a civil rights

22:27

division in the Justice Department that

22:29

is supposed to be investigating civil

22:31

rights. I'm troubled. in a huge

22:33

way by the investigation of the

22:35

federal government into private universities. And

22:37

again, it's the, oh well, we

22:39

give those private universities, you know,

22:41

we cover some student loans and

22:43

we give them research grants and

22:45

so therefore we can sort of

22:47

tell them what to do. We

22:49

are getting to such a hyper

22:51

monarchical situation in this country. every

22:53

single day it gets more. Let's

22:55

have the president take more power,

22:57

ignore whatever judiciary is in his

22:59

way, and sort of dictate people

23:01

what's going on. I don't like

23:03

these programs, generally speaking, to the

23:05

extent that I know about them,

23:07

they seem kind of terrible. And

23:09

the academia has been this just

23:11

metastasizing nightmare world of kind of

23:13

politics and political correctness for decades

23:16

now, and it needs to be

23:18

unwound having the department. of education

23:20

unwinded by launching civil rights actions

23:22

against private universities seems like a

23:24

recipe for overreach and and also

23:26

it's going to make that institution

23:28

in the federal government writ large

23:30

say wow I sure like having

23:32

this power I want to make

23:34

sure this power doesn't go away

23:36

or devolve and and that's bad

23:38

as well. Can I pop in

23:40

with one note about data collection?

23:42

Because I think that is the

23:44

other thing, that like Smarty SmartPants

23:46

type people who might say, okay,

23:48

yes, the Department of Education has

23:50

its problems, but we still need

23:52

someone to collect the data, right?

23:54

Like this is a place where

23:56

even libertarians will sometimes say, like,

23:58

yeah, but we need information. We

24:00

need to share it. We need

24:02

to have it. It needs to

24:04

be reliable. report and just like

24:06

make them be in charge of

24:08

that right like we in fact

24:10

have a lot of ghost US

24:12

news report and ghost biscuits ghost

24:14

baskets ghost magazines it's it's ghost

24:16

day here at the reason roundtable

24:18

but like there I guess I

24:20

just want to say like often

24:22

people underestimate the power of private

24:24

sector players to do data collection

24:26

even very reliable data collection and

24:28

And there are lots of lots

24:30

of people who are highly motivated

24:32

to have true information about what's

24:34

going on, especially at the university

24:36

level, because people still pay for

24:39

that thing. They spend their own

24:41

money on it, and so they

24:43

want to know what they're getting

24:45

for that money. If that were

24:47

more true at the K-12 level,

24:49

there would also be more demand

24:51

for data. So. just setting that

24:53

aside. It might be the last

24:55

thing I would cut, but I

24:57

still do think it's cutable and

24:59

replaceable with private functions. Okay, Catherine.

25:01

I suspect that the National Center

25:03

for Education Statistics, which is a

25:05

very useful resource, is a rounding

25:07

error in the Department of Education's

25:09

budget. But I would be fine

25:11

with leaving that intact. One of

25:13

the things that gets to what

25:15

Matt was talking about especially is

25:17

higher education funding now total not

25:19

just from the Department of Education

25:21

or programs that are administered through

25:23

those like the Pell grants and

25:25

student loans and stuff which are

25:27

huge but also science research it

25:29

approaches 50% of all higher education

25:31

dollars so it's starting to get

25:33

like health care and that is

25:35

you know not a biscuit I'll

25:37

say a boil that needs to

25:39

be lanced when whatever the federal

25:41

government is starting to approach spending

25:43

one out of every two dollars

25:45

or 50 cents out of every

25:47

dollar or something like that, you

25:49

know, that's a bad thing. Not

25:51

because everything they do is bad

25:53

or every research grant is bullshit

25:55

or every Pell Grant goes to

25:57

somebody who doesn't need it or

25:59

whatever, but that it just ends

26:01

up having a too powerful effect

26:04

on how things get done. One

26:06

of the geniuses of the United

26:08

States is that we have probably

26:10

have too many colleges and universities

26:12

and universities. There's a wide range

26:14

of offerings and things like that

26:16

and the more that you federalize

26:18

or the more that you centralize

26:20

who's paying for that you're going

26:22

to lose a lot of that

26:24

variety and you know we have

26:26

probably have too many colleges and

26:28

universities and they are becoming more

26:30

and more alike which is not

26:32

a good thing. On the one

26:34

hand, you are correct that the

26:36

data gathering portion of the budget

26:38

is a relatively small percentage of

26:40

the Department of Education budget. On

26:42

the other hand, the office that

26:44

does this, the Institute for Education

26:46

Sciences, I believe it is, $800

26:48

million. Now that is not a

26:50

very large amount of money in

26:52

government terms. That's nearly a billion

26:54

dollars. That's a lot more than

26:56

US News takes in in subscriptions

26:58

each year. So you'd have to

27:00

figure out how to do this

27:02

a lot more cheaply. On the

27:04

other hand, what's one thing that

27:06

we know is that any time

27:08

the government does something, they do

27:10

it in a very expensive and

27:12

inefficient way. OK, let's move on

27:14

here to talk about another item

27:16

in the news that has to

27:18

do with higher ed. The case

27:20

of Mahmoud Kale, a former Columbia

27:22

student, protest leader, who's been placed

27:24

in federal detention by Trump immigration

27:27

authorities. Question is, for what? The

27:29

administration has cited statements that he

27:31

made, suggested that he is aligned

27:33

with Hamas, or perhaps a supporter

27:35

of Hamas, that though it's not

27:37

at all clear what exactly support

27:39

means in this case, sounds an

27:41

awful lot like he is being

27:43

punished for political speech. Secretary of

27:45

State Mark Arubio, however, says that

27:47

is not the case. So, Nick,

27:49

I want to start with you,

27:51

is the detainment of Mahmoud Kale,

27:53

legal and justified in any way.

27:55

It may be technically legal in

27:57

that if you're on certain types

27:59

of visas, the Secretary of State

28:01

or the Department of State can

28:03

do what it wants with you.

28:05

This is terrible. I mean to

28:07

to not to you know issue

28:09

charges and just take somebody That's

28:11

wrong, especially if it's primarily or

28:13

it seems to be completely based

28:15

on speech that may or may

28:17

not have taken place. There's other

28:19

instances of people traveling on visas.

28:21

There's the case of a surgeon

28:23

who visited Lebanon and came back,

28:25

is on an H-1B and then

28:27

was deported out, somebody who does

28:29

a transplant, like kidney transplant. work

28:31

and was summarily kicked, you know,

28:33

not allowed to come back into

28:35

the country for reasons that are

28:37

not clear. This isn't good and

28:39

it's of a piece with a

28:41

immigration policy that is getting more

28:43

and more lawless and, you know,

28:45

disturbing beyond, you know,

28:47

anybody's, you know, I think

28:50

with the exception of Stephen

28:52

Miller, anybody is, nobody is

28:54

comfortable with this kind of

28:56

stuff. Catherine Mark Arubio is

28:58

comfortable with this stuff. He

29:00

has defended this action here.

29:02

I want you to respond

29:04

to a quote from Rubio.

29:06

This is not about free speech, he

29:08

says. This is about people that don't have

29:10

a right to be in the United States

29:13

to begin with. No one has a right

29:15

to a student visa. No one has a

29:17

right to a green card. So this isn't

29:19

about speech in his view. It's about immigration.

29:22

Are the free speech defenders here misreading or

29:24

misunderstanding the case? Catherine? It is about

29:26

free speech. Of course it is. We

29:28

have a variety of legal precedents that

29:31

suggest that free speech rights do not

29:33

belong only to citizens, but also to

29:35

people here in a variety of immigration

29:37

configurations. And everybody else in this

29:39

equation thought that this speech was

29:41

protected until the moment that it

29:43

wasn't. And that's the piece that

29:46

is really troubling to me. So

29:48

Matthew Petty, who has been covering,

29:50

he's a former Columbia student, he's

29:52

covered a lot of what has

29:54

happened on the Columbia campus, and

29:56

he actually talked to Kale before

29:58

he was famous. We are tragically

30:01

in on the ground floor on

30:03

this. He talked with him about

30:05

the activism that he was a

30:07

part of last year. And he

30:09

asked him, like, are you worried

30:11

about the possible repercussions of being

30:13

involved in these very controversial protests

30:16

that lots of people hate? And

30:18

by the way, with good reason,

30:20

especially last year, a lot of

30:22

these protesters behaved abominably. He is

30:24

not worried because he was not

30:26

planning to go back to Lebanon

30:28

or Syria, and he was also

30:31

not worried about his career in

30:33

the U.S. because I wouldn't work

30:35

for an institution that doesn't value

30:37

Palestinian lives, so if they don't

30:39

want to employ someone standing for

30:41

Palestine, that's my gain. He said,

30:43

it simply did not come up

30:46

that he might be arrested, detained

30:48

by the U.S. government. So this

30:50

is absolutely about free speech. Of

30:52

course, it is true that, you

30:54

know, you are always at risk

30:56

if you are here on any

30:58

kind of non-citizen paperwork. That sucks.

31:01

Like, that's not, that's not a

31:03

feature. Like, that should, it should

31:05

be true that your rights are

31:07

extremely clear and virtually identical to

31:09

American citizens. And like, would I

31:11

have done what this dude did

31:13

with a baby on the way?

31:16

No, because I am very risk

31:18

averse, but I understand that he

31:20

felt like this was important and

31:22

also that he made the calculation

31:24

that this was not going to

31:26

end this way. He also did

31:28

not wear a mask during the

31:31

protests, which made him a target.

31:33

And that was a choice on

31:35

his part because he felt like

31:37

he wanted to be seen. And

31:39

I think it was in some

31:41

ways a sort of admirable choice,

31:43

even though I don't agree with

31:46

a lot of the things they

31:48

were protesting for, right? Like if

31:50

you're going to say something, say

31:52

it with your face visible. And

31:54

he decided to do that. And

31:56

that was what allowed people to

31:58

name him. And there is at

32:01

least some speculation that that is

32:03

one of the reasons why the

32:05

Trump administration. one after him. Matt

32:07

Welch, Kaleel is a green card

32:09

holder, but not a U.S. citizen,

32:11

as we've discussed. So how does

32:13

that affect his constitutional rights? Like

32:15

what changes, how is that different

32:18

from somebody who is a citizen?

32:20

Should it be any different? It

32:22

all comes down to the Immigration

32:24

and Nationality Act from 1952, which

32:26

governs mostly your initial point of

32:28

entry and contact back in the

32:30

day. I mean, they give you

32:33

questionnaires, like, do you support, are

32:35

you communist? Things like those of

32:37

us with... foreign wives know this

32:39

drill and you live in a

32:41

lot of an uncertainty based on

32:43

this and you try you know

32:45

how did your foreign wife answer

32:48

the are you a communist question

32:50

you know she like hell no

32:52

she was an anti-communist but she

32:54

also worked for a communist in

32:56

France at some point lumenity but

32:58

it's just an internship I think

33:00

or a summer or something but

33:03

so you have this right the

33:05

Secretary of State specifically has the

33:07

right under the immigration national Act

33:09

to deport people even post facto

33:11

in that kind of after you've

33:13

just come here on your student

33:15

visa or whatever your initial tourist

33:18

visa thing is if you have

33:20

if he can show or she

33:22

can show that you have potentially

33:24

serious adverse foreign policy consequences for

33:26

the United States if you're a

33:28

national security risk if you can

33:30

be shown that. So, but then

33:33

at the same time, another subsection

33:35

of that law says, well, we're

33:37

not going to allow you to

33:39

be deported if such beliefs, statements,

33:41

or associations would be lawful within

33:43

the United States by permanent citizens.

33:45

Okay, so that sounds like you

33:48

could do exact same things, but

33:50

there's an exception to that one.

33:52

Which says, unless the Secretary of

33:54

State personally determines that the alien's

33:56

admission would compromise a compelling United

33:58

States foreign policy interest. what is

34:00

being kind of alleged and hinted

34:03

at by Rubio at all is

34:05

that that is the case. There's

34:07

some compelling foreign policy interest. They

34:09

have not demonstrated this at all

34:11

so far in the court filings

34:13

as far as I am aware.

34:15

And they have gone, despite Marco

34:18

Ruby saying this is not about

34:20

free speech. Other administration statements have

34:22

underlined that in fact it is

34:24

there was an unnamed official who

34:26

told the free press last week

34:28

The allegation here is not that

34:30

he was breaking the law Okay,

34:33

sounds like it was his I

34:35

don't know speech and conduct Caroline

34:37

Lebit the White House Press Secretary

34:39

said something very similar and underlined

34:41

that adversarial to the foreign policy

34:43

and such so what you have

34:45

is that we are exercising this

34:48

1952 subsection of the law that

34:50

is almost never exercised, and doing

34:52

it in a way without much

34:54

evident due process, and just kind

34:56

of asserting, well, he was sort

34:58

of supporting Hamas, he was supporting

35:00

anti-Semitism, which is a hint towards

35:03

the material support. things that are

35:05

putting into law after 9-11, very

35:07

controversy, which we opposed at the

35:09

time here at Reason, as well.

35:11

So it's all these put together,

35:13

and it's also, I think, pretty

35:15

clear that the administration wants this

35:18

to be a template going forward.

35:20

They're happy with you thinking that

35:22

this is a free speech thing,

35:24

some lame protestations notwithstanding. They want

35:26

people to be acting scared. And

35:28

they think Contranic that this is

35:30

popular. How many times have I...

35:33

read over the past five days

35:35

variations on okay Democrats you go

35:37

ahead and defend the right of

35:39

these anti-Semitic protesters and see where

35:41

you're gonna come on the wrong

35:43

side of an 80-20 issue. Similar

35:45

things are being discussed about sending

35:48

a bunch of migrants to Salvador.

35:50

El Salvador, yeah. I'm not right

35:52

back to Venezuela, yeah. So yeah.

35:54

This is where the, you know,

35:56

the case of the, of the.

35:58

immigrant surgeon comes into play because

36:00

there's a lot of sloppiness in

36:03

the immigration policy, you know, that's

36:05

going on now where even US

36:07

citizens are being detained or deported

36:09

and things like that. And this

36:11

is something that happened during past

36:13

mass roundups or super anti-immigrant moments,

36:15

you know, such as Operation Wetback

36:17

in the 50s under Eisenhower. It's

36:20

not going to end well, I

36:22

think, for the Trump administration. They

36:24

try, you know, the more... high-spirited

36:26

like kind of vaguely on the

36:28

edge of the law and certainly

36:30

of custom the more they get

36:32

on the the other side of

36:35

that it's going to I think

36:37

it's going to be a replay

36:39

of the family separations in in

36:41

his first term where he kept

36:43

them secret for a while then

36:45

they were kind of trying to

36:47

brag about it and then they

36:50

realized like most Americans are not

36:52

in favor of kicking people out

36:54

of the country because of what

36:56

they say or keeping them out

36:58

because they came back from a

37:00

country that may or even be

37:02

on a country list that we're

37:05

trying to keep people out of.

37:07

So I think Matt that this

37:09

will play out poorly for the

37:11

Trump administration. I agree. You know

37:13

over the coming month and he's

37:15

already spiraling downwards in popularity and

37:17

he you know I don't think

37:20

this is going to help. Yeah

37:22

I think the administration here was

37:24

took the wrong lesson from when

37:26

JD Vance stopped, I think it

37:28

was Margaret Brennan, and was like,

37:30

I don't really care, Margaret, I

37:32

don't want that person in my

37:35

country. This was a response to,

37:37

this is not the Kale, the

37:39

Makmud Kale case, but beforehand, and

37:41

like that got passed around, it

37:43

got meamed, it got turned into

37:45

something that a lot of like

37:47

maga heads were very happy with,

37:50

right, to hear him say, I

37:52

don't need a reason, I just

37:54

want this person out. having a

37:56

lot of those feelings. a lot

37:58

of that sort of impulse to

38:00

just do stuff and not ask

38:02

whether it is legal. And then

38:05

taking that and thinking, all right,

38:07

people love it when we do

38:09

that. So we're going to do

38:11

a lot of it. And in

38:13

fact, Trump is promising even more.

38:15

He has said that Kaleel's arrest

38:17

could be the first of many.

38:20

It seems like kind of an

38:22

unbounded assertion of power on the

38:24

part of Donald Trump in a

38:26

way that is very, very, very

38:28

worrying. from James in Boston. James

38:30

in Boston wrote a question that is

38:32

not short, not succinct, and not pithy,

38:35

but it is a good question from

38:37

a loyal listener. So I'm going to

38:39

read a condensed and edited down version

38:41

of it. Your roundtable? I'm a loyal donor.

38:43

I was the purchaser of the

38:46

official reason NFT. Thank you, James.

38:48

I am very disappointed with your

38:50

doomer mindset about the Trump presidency

38:53

and your downplaying of the significant

38:55

libertarian impulses driving his goals. Those

38:58

impulses, those goals are finishing endless

39:00

wars, even if it requires making

39:02

deals with authoritarian dictatorships like Russia,

39:05

forcing Europe to actually pay for

39:07

and defend themselves militarily, systematically dismantling

39:09

numerous government agencies, downsizing the bloated

39:12

bureaucracy. ending unlimited open border immigration,

39:14

which as a libertarian, I would

39:16

be open to if and only

39:18

if we eliminated the social welfare

39:21

and zoning laws that prevented the

39:23

unlimited scaling of housing and support

39:25

requirements that would enable such immigration.

39:27

Of course, Trump's usage of tariffs

39:29

is anathema to free markets. But

39:31

the good things Trump is doing

39:33

from the libertarian perspective on areas

39:36

other than the economy are extremely

39:38

valid and worthy of praise. We

39:40

recently emerged from the most stifling

39:42

and insane period of censorship regarding

39:44

COVID and woke beliefs. Frankly, I

39:47

don't think free speech aggression against

39:49

Palestinian protesters affects me nearly as

39:51

much as the overt censorship the

39:53

Biden administration facilitated during COVID. So

39:55

my question for the roundtable is,

39:58

would you truly have preferred? a

40:00

Kamala Harris presidency, knowing and seeing

40:02

everything we know now. Matt Welch,

40:04

let's start with you, Kamala Harris

40:06

versus what we're seeing with Donald

40:08

Trump. This type of questioning seems

40:10

to come up a lot, so

40:12

at the risk of repeating myself,

40:14

I am not the man for

40:16

this job, and I don't understand

40:19

its requirements. Like, okay, Trump gets

40:21

an 83 on the Welch index.

40:23

and you know Kamala probably we

40:25

got a 62 therefore like I

40:27

what like okay I mean maybe

40:29

some people like to do that

40:31

I just don't my brain isn't

40:33

big enough to come up with

40:35

an all-encompassing stat to proclaim voila

40:37

here after six weeks this is

40:39

more libertarian than that And so

40:41

I can remind you of this

40:43

every time I'm in the middle

40:45

of a critique of the exercise

40:48

of power speaking of which that's

40:50

Libertarian podcast We kind of are

40:52

skeptical and critical of the exercise

40:54

and aggrandizement of government power Donald

40:56

Trump is doing a whole lot

40:58

of things good and ill right

41:00

now. He's moving very fast very

41:02

energetic So it stands to reason

41:04

that a bunch of Libertarians are

41:06

going to be looking at all

41:08

of this stuff and reacting to

41:10

it with a bit of a

41:12

default of skepticism Particularly if they

41:15

have noticed that the size and

41:17

scope of government on Donald Trump's

41:19

watch the first time around increased

41:21

by a whole lot and since

41:23

then it has increased by so

41:25

much it's almost unrecognizable you know

41:27

even 2019 so that's a big

41:29

if there if you're gonna boil

41:31

down something to a single number

41:33

the sides of the federal government

41:35

might be one of those numbers

41:37

and that doesn't look so great

41:39

to me but more than anything

41:41

else I just don't really understand

41:44

the impulse and can't help you

41:46

with it. tariffs, that's not a

41:48

small thing. I'm interested in impulses

41:50

and goals, but also we have

41:52

known for a very long time

41:54

that impulses and goals aren't necessarily

41:56

what happens in government. Results are

41:58

a much different thing. a lesson

42:00

that's been learned seriously by both

42:02

left and right, going to take

42:04

more than that. Has he ended

42:06

the endless wars? I don't know.

42:08

I hope that he manages to.

42:10

That would be fantastic. Color me

42:13

a little bit skeptical that's going

42:15

to happen. But in the meantime,

42:17

I think the best use of

42:19

me is to not have to

42:21

interrupt a critique of whatever individual

42:23

thing that's happening today with an

42:25

83 to 62 score. I don't

42:27

know. Nick Kamla Harris versus Donald

42:29

Trump knowing what we know now.

42:31

Well, I'd like to just point

42:33

out that, you know, if Chase

42:35

Oliver were president, we wouldn't be

42:37

in this situation and we wouldn't

42:40

be answering this question. We wouldn't

42:42

be in a different situation. Yeah,

42:44

that's for sure. But we'd still

42:46

be going through the recount, wouldn't

42:48

we? You know, the reason that

42:50

Canada wouldn't be able to drink

42:52

American booze is because I personally

42:54

would have consumed all of it.

42:56

I'm also worried about the whole

42:58

Canada-U.S. thing like, you know, when

43:00

Burger King, you know, ended up

43:02

getting taken over by Tim Hortons,

43:04

you know, if you remember that,

43:06

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

43:09

Canada. They might say, yeah, we'll

43:11

become the 51st state and then

43:13

suddenly we're whatever, the 12th province

43:15

or whatever they have up there.

43:17

That's right. Yeah. Tim Hortons never

43:19

let me have it my way.

43:21

Tim Bits is, they're pretty good.

43:23

to be quite honest, but I

43:25

also want to point out that

43:27

Tim Horton's donuts introduced the first

43:29

drive-through, which was deeply ironic since

43:31

Tim Horton, the hockey player, died

43:33

in a car accident. So in

43:36

the Trump versus Kamala scheme of

43:38

things, you're choosing poutine. Yeah, Putin,

43:40

it's, I love you, but it's,

43:42

Putin and Putin, not Putin, and

43:44

it's much better north of the

43:46

Canadian border. I am, I dislike

43:48

much of what Trump is doing

43:50

and it's getting worse on an

43:52

almost hourly basis, but I think

43:54

it's, I think it's, we're having

43:56

a better conversation than we would

43:58

if Harris was in office. particularly

44:00

if she had a Democratic majority.

44:02

So I and I don't think

44:05

I'm a doomer about Trump. It's

44:07

just that he's doing a lot

44:09

of bad stupid awful things and

44:11

he should be held to account

44:13

held to account for those. Catherine

44:15

are you a doomer about Donald

44:17

Trump? I was thinking like it

44:19

would be maybe a good idea

44:21

to have a segment on this

44:23

podcast. It's just like the Doge

44:25

Dance Party where we just like

44:27

take a minute we're like Like

44:29

there's some good stuff happening. And

44:32

like, partially because like you can't,

44:34

like we can't be a bummer

44:36

all the time. One thing that

44:38

I've been thinking about a lot,

44:40

I think I've said this on

44:42

this podcast before, is I was

44:44

just in Utah, so this is

44:46

more on my mind. Mitt Romney,

44:48

if Mitt Romney had won, we

44:50

would have been like this authoritarian

44:52

garbage person with his bad immigration

44:54

policy at his stupid hair, like

44:56

we would have just been really

44:58

mean to him. He has such

45:01

great Mr. Fantastic Hair. Okay. But

45:03

we would have treated him like

45:05

he was almost Hitler, just as

45:07

we treat all presidents like they

45:09

are almost Hitler. And so looking

45:11

now, knowing what we know now,

45:13

the Mitt Romney presidency would have

45:15

probably actually been a glorious oasis

45:17

of a relative peace and liberty.

45:19

And so I do want to

45:21

have in mind, like we can

45:23

be too negative just as our

45:25

default. And I do think Doge

45:28

is awesome in its vibes, if

45:30

not in its execution, and that

45:32

we should celebrate that. I get

45:34

the impulse to want to do

45:36

the score and I do feel

45:38

like Trump benefited hugely from the

45:40

at least he's not Hillary Clinton

45:42

argument in his first term and

45:44

and that that is also you

45:46

know I ultimately sort of agree

45:48

with Matt like I don't I

45:50

don't know how to give that

45:52

score and I think what our

45:54

what our NFT buddy is asking

45:57

is like could we could we

45:59

just not be Such a bummer

46:01

all the time and I I

46:03

get that so those dance party

46:05

Also there is a reason we

46:07

talked about the ending ending of

46:09

the department of Education for 20

46:11

minutes earlier on this pocket. That

46:13

was our Doge Dance Party for

46:15

today. Which is a conversation that

46:17

would not be taking place, had

46:19

Harris one. Correct. That is correct.

46:21

We started with the Trump administration

46:23

cutting the Department of Education staff

46:26

in half and we celebrated it

46:28

and said we want more, more

46:30

like that. Please, sir, may we

46:32

have another, a reminder. We love

46:34

to answer your questions. To submit

46:36

yours, send your short, succinct, pithy,

46:38

and otherwise not very long questions

46:40

to podcasts at reason.com. That is,

46:42

podcasts at reason.com. For our final

46:44

segment here, we're going to talk

46:46

about the shutdown that wasn't beginning

46:48

of last week. It looked like...

46:50

might be heading for a budgetary

46:53

standoff and maybe even a government

46:55

shutdown, but then Senate Senate Democrats

46:57

folded and now the government is

46:59

funded through the end of September

47:01

on a CR. For those who

47:03

don't speak Washington, that is a

47:05

continuing resolution, for the most part

47:07

means just keeping Biden-era funding levels

47:09

in place for the next several

47:11

months. So I want to go

47:13

around the panel and get your

47:15

takes on the budget deal, one

47:17

thing that stood out to you.

47:19

Catherine, let's start with you. Peter,

47:22

I'm from Washington, D.C. And one

47:24

thing that I noted in passing

47:26

in this General Kerfuffle is it's

47:28

still really stupid that the budget

47:30

of the city of Washington, D.C.

47:32

has to pass through Congress every

47:34

time Congress wants to think about

47:36

money. And in this particular case,

47:38

normally they write into CRs or

47:40

into cuts or into any kind

47:42

of thing, an exception for a

47:44

D. So, you have to... everything

47:46

has to have a 10% haircut,

47:49

but not DC, that's different. They

47:51

didn't write it in this time

47:53

in one of the versions and

47:55

everybody flipped out. Now, on the

47:57

one hand, should DC probably spend

47:59

10% less? Yeah, of course. But

48:01

also, it just shows the kind

48:03

of messiness of this process that

48:05

among other things at stake, the

48:07

like, how is this thing that

48:09

should be? its own state anyway,

48:11

yes I said, DC statehood forever,

48:13

this thing that should be its

48:15

own state forever anyway is like

48:18

somehow entangled with Congress's inability and

48:20

in this particular case the Democratic

48:22

Party's inability to get its act

48:24

together. One thing I heard, I

48:26

don't know if this is true,

48:28

but was that Republicans wrote that

48:30

cut to DC funding into the

48:32

law specifically to make progressive staffers

48:34

who live in Washington DC mad

48:36

about this because they wanted Democrats

48:38

to resist and to push back

48:40

and to look ineffectual when they

48:42

eventually either folded or got blamed

48:45

for causing a shutdown. It's trolling

48:47

all the way down. It's all

48:49

trolling and like there's no reason.

48:51

for this to be subject to

48:53

that. Nick, what stood out to

48:55

you about this budget deal? And

48:57

this to take back everything that

48:59

I said about Trump not being

49:01

terrible just a couple minutes ago.

49:03

The White House issued a statement

49:05

in the, you know, about the

49:07

CR. Hey, you know, people say

49:09

we're going to be cutting the

49:11

COPS Act, which is the community

49:14

oriented policing services act that was

49:16

passed in 1994 and it was

49:18

a big part of Bill Clinton.

49:20

It was one of the things

49:22

that led to the Republicans taking

49:24

over Congress for the first time

49:26

in a million years. This was

49:28

the thing that gave us supposedly

49:30

100,000 new cops on the street

49:32

and midnight basketball. Republicans and conservatives

49:34

were apoplectic in talking about what

49:36

a steaming pile of crap this

49:38

bill was. And now you have

49:41

a president saying, hey, haters, I'm

49:43

keeping cops going. I actually increased

49:45

funding a little bit for it.

49:47

To me, that is the shorthand

49:49

for where we are, which is

49:51

Trump has allowed certain things to

49:53

be, you know, certain conversations are

49:55

happening now that wouldn't have been

49:57

happening if Harris was, but he

49:59

is more of the same and

50:01

the whole CR is bullshit. We're

50:03

spending way too much money. We

50:05

were before the CR and we

50:07

will be after. I would love

50:10

to see Congress and the congressional

50:12

Democrats, particularly Chuck Schumer, who it's

50:14

worth reminding people is also a

50:16

thousand years old. We need a

50:18

more effective and vibrant opposition in

50:20

Congress and the Senate, just as

50:22

much as we do throughout the

50:24

country. You can't spell crap without

50:26

CR? Yes, speaking of Congress in

50:28

opposition, just shout out to the

50:30

most libertarian members of that August

50:32

body, Senator Ram Paul and Representative

50:34

Tom Massey, but also Republican last

50:36

time I looked, from Kentucky. They

50:39

each voted against it for the

50:41

very understandable reason that it's going

50:43

to lock in another trillion dollar

50:45

deficit. and part of the whole

50:47

point of being a libertarian leading

50:49

Republican in Congress and a tea

50:51

party conservative and a constitutional conservative

50:53

and all these other words that

50:55

used to mean something. Remember the

50:57

Freedom Caucus, at least you know,

50:59

Rand Paul's kind of adjunct or

51:01

something in the Senate, that that

51:03

you opposed me big. spending all

51:06

the times and also use moments

51:08

of big governance like that to

51:10

remind people of how far we

51:12

have fallen from the faith. So

51:14

I remember writing in late 2016

51:16

after Trump got elected, probably for

51:18

the LA Times, something along the

51:20

lines of, I know you're mad

51:22

at Libertarians right now, but they're

51:24

going to be your friends if

51:26

you were really worried about the

51:28

sort of authoritarian leanings of Donald

51:30

Trump. And this remains true, it's

51:32

just that there's much fewer much

51:35

fewer... Many of your libertarian leaning

51:37

people around the ones who used

51:39

to be many of them have

51:41

turned out to be garbage Can

51:43

I also say it is a

51:45

little bit delightful that the reason

51:47

that Chuck Schumer defected from the

51:49

rest of his party is because

51:51

at least as I understand it

51:53

He's like scared that if we

51:55

shut down the government, it'll just

51:57

never open again And that's awesome

51:59

to say like love that that

52:02

he looked at the landscape and

52:04

he was like listen government shut

52:06

down you know it's a thing

52:08

we threaten and sometimes do

52:10

on the regular but this

52:12

time because everything is so high

52:14

variance maybe we just never reopen

52:16

some parts of it and what

52:19

happens then like I love that

52:21

it's staggering it's just staggering the

52:23

the budget process in in you

52:25

know it has been a shambles

52:27

and Peter you would probably know

52:29

when the last time an actual

52:32

budget was passed before the budget

52:34

year at governance started but i'm

52:36

just thinking back off the top

52:38

of my head in the nineteen

52:40

nineties back when the house republicans

52:42

were passing budget frameworks that zeroed

52:45

out the department of education so i

52:47

mean in two thousand ten we

52:49

were waiting and we're still waiting

52:51

for you know the super fiscal

52:53

giant galaxy brain Max Baucus the

52:56

former senator from Montana to deliver

52:58

what was going to be the

53:00

greatest budget of all time and

53:02

it's just like since then at

53:04

least they don't even try I

53:06

mean this is something there's I

53:08

guess there's no recourse to it

53:11

but it's like when you have

53:13

a body that will not do

53:15

its most basic function it's just

53:17

it's cause for madness Catherine's

53:19

point makes for a great transition to

53:22

the thing that stood out to me,

53:24

which was my own reaction to this

53:26

almost shut down, because for the first

53:28

time ever, I was kind of sort

53:31

of rooting for a shutdown. Regular listeners

53:33

know I have almost always argued against

53:35

shutdowns in the past because I don't

53:37

think they accomplish much. It's mostly theater.

53:40

Lots of the government ends up staying

53:42

open because it is designated as essential.

53:44

Furloughed staffers end up getting back pay.

53:46

In some cases there have been estimates

53:49

saying that it is actually a

53:51

little bit more expensive to operate

53:53

the government during a shutdown than

53:55

during normal operating hours. There's often

53:57

a counterproductive political backlash too when

53:59

this... the government cutters or at

54:01

least the people talking about reducing the

54:03

size of government or spending a little

54:06

less, end up irritating the public. The

54:08

public sort of pushes back. But in

54:10

this case, with Trump in the White

54:13

House, Elon Musk running the Department of

54:15

government efficiency, a shutdown might have let

54:17

Doge do its work. designating large swaths

54:20

of the federal government as inessential, and

54:22

just keeping them in that way and

54:24

never really opening the government again, or

54:27

at least using that as leverage to

54:29

negotiate real long-term cuts with Democrats whose

54:31

alternative would have been a government that

54:33

is shut down forever. Democrats didn't want

54:36

that. That's why Schumer folded, as Catherine

54:38

said, kind of wish that they had

54:40

followed the progressives lead and said, you

54:42

know what, we're going to cause a

54:44

shutdown and we are going to let...

54:47

The Trump administration and Elon Musk's

54:49

doge then designate lots of things

54:51

as inessential keep them closed. Okay,

54:53

that is our final segment before

54:55

we get to our cultural recommendations.

54:57

We are going to go around

55:00

and talk about what we've been

55:02

watching, reading, and otherwise consuming this

55:04

week. Matt Welch, let's start with

55:06

you. I watched the best movie I've

55:08

seen in years, and I didn't

55:10

even see it in the theater.

55:13

It was still fantastic, called Flow.

55:15

It was one the Oscar for

55:17

Best Animated feature this year, very

55:19

deservedly so, by some freakers from

55:21

Latvia. And there's not a word

55:23

spoken. It is a nonverbal movie

55:26

about animals during a deluge in what

55:28

looks like Southeast Asia and some

55:30

kind of weird, like civilization, and

55:32

it's kind of unclear. And the

55:35

protagonist is a cat. And then

55:37

like is the water keeps getting

55:39

higher and higher and then has

55:41

to like find a boat with

55:43

like a dog and a Cupabara.

55:46

Is that what it's called Catherine?

55:48

Cupabara. Cupabara. Cupacabra.

55:51

Very friendly. A Cupacabra. A

55:53

terror of son. Cupacabras mad

55:55

or through the roof now?

55:57

I know it's a problem.

56:00

looking thing, we don't know. What

56:02

you want is the jupicobbers to

56:04

go on both sides, the border,

56:06

Nick, both sides. We need to

56:08

bring them home, yeah. It just

56:10

from the. from the opening tip-off

56:12

you're just like you're immediately like

56:14

sucked into this world riveted I'm

56:16

sure it's a big heavy allegory

56:18

that people have written a lot

56:20

about thought about a lot and

56:22

I have not looked at any

56:24

even I don't want to I

56:26

want to marinate it in I

56:28

saw just a couple nights ago

56:30

marvelous my 10-year-old is just incredibly

56:32

wow the animation is so beautiful

56:34

it's just rich and interesting and

56:36

and moody it reminds me of

56:38

the best of studio jibili stuff

56:40

kind of in a similar vein

56:42

but it looks different. It's just

56:45

a tremendous movie. Go watch it

56:47

with your kids, but you don't

56:49

have to have a kid. It's

56:51

just a really beautiful piece of

56:53

animation. An Oscar winning movie that

56:55

met Welch has seen that I

56:57

have not. Amazing. Catherine, what do

56:59

you got? I went to Utah,

57:01

I went to give a speech

57:03

to the fine folks at the

57:05

Adams' Society at the Brigham Young

57:07

Business School, and they were delightful.

57:09

I really, I've been wanting to

57:11

get out and just hang with

57:13

the Mormons a little bit, and

57:15

they did not disappoint. While I

57:17

was there, I was like, hey,

57:19

I think a thing people do

57:21

when they're in the West is

57:23

take a hike. So I hiked

57:25

my little self up. to the

57:27

Ensign Peak Trail. And that is

57:30

my recommendation. It is a hiking

57:32

trail, the trailhead of which is

57:34

literally at the Utah State House.

57:36

It's like a hiking trail that

57:38

just goes straight from Salt Lake

57:40

City up the hill. And what

57:42

this takes you to, what this

57:44

trail takes you to, is the

57:46

place where a couple days after

57:48

arriving in the valley, Brigham Young

57:50

at all, stood there and said,

57:52

this is the place. We're going

57:54

to make our... Utopia here and

57:56

they laid out the city in

57:58

the valley below. It's beautiful. I

58:00

can see why you might walk

58:02

all the way across the country

58:04

with like an exterminate order at

58:06

your back from Missouri and say

58:08

we got to keep going until

58:10

we see this place. Supposedly they

58:13

saw it in a vision. So,

58:15

like, there's, like, a sparkling lake.

58:17

There's snow cap mountain peaks. Now,

58:19

you guys, I am not great

58:21

at hiking, as you know. I've

58:23

gotten more outdoorsy in the sense

58:25

that I tried this, but I've

58:27

now gotten less outdoorsy in the

58:29

sense that I tried this, but

58:31

I've now gotten less outdoorsy in

58:33

the sense that I tried it

58:35

in, I was wearing high heels

58:37

for this hike. They were, like,

58:39

chunky, with treads on them. And

58:41

it was really really muddy. So

58:43

this hike was hard and it

58:45

was only a one mile hike,

58:47

but it was really hard. So

58:49

even in your personal life, you

58:51

don't support rates on the ground?

58:53

It was kind of up, but

58:55

it was only one mile. And

58:58

I really identified with the Latter-day

59:00

Saints in my struggle, and it

59:02

was great. Were they also wearing

59:04

chunky boots? There were people also

59:06

on this trail wearing other forms

59:08

of inappropriate footwear. I was not

59:10

alone in this, but I want

59:12

to make just a second recommendation.

59:14

I know I've talked too much

59:16

already, but too bad, which is

59:18

while I was hiking up, I

59:20

was like, I want to listen

59:22

to a podcast about all of

59:24

this. So I just searched on

59:26

Spotify, like Mormons and the founding

59:28

of Salt Lake City, and I

59:30

found American History Hit, which is

59:32

a podcast. They had an episode

59:34

hit with Peter Cove yellow. of

59:36

the University of Illinois who wrote

59:38

a book called Make Yourself Gods,

59:40

Mormons, and the unfinished business of

59:43

American secularism. And this interview was

59:45

fascinating. First of all, turns out,

59:47

Joseph Smith and Stuart Brand had

59:49

the same idea. Like, we're going

59:51

to be gods, we might as

59:53

well be good at it. Love

59:55

that. This is just like a

59:57

queer theorist who was like, actually

59:59

the Mormons were like, kind of

1:00:01

super transgressive, like, queer kind of

1:00:03

Native American identified. population and you

1:00:05

should read them that way. Just

1:00:07

a very weird... podcast that I

1:00:09

really enjoyed on my way up,

1:00:11

this very weird hike. My recommendation

1:00:13

to you is to do this

1:00:15

podcast, that hike, hopefully an appropriate

1:00:17

footwear. So I had a pretty

1:00:19

similar experience that I'm going to

1:00:21

recommend. Yeah, surprisingly similar, except it

1:00:23

happened. in a video game. I've

1:00:26

been playing the video game of

1:00:28

Vowd, which is the new role-playing

1:00:30

game, fantasy role-playing game, from the

1:00:32

folks at Obsidian Entertainment, makers of

1:00:34

some of my very favorite video

1:00:36

games, including Fallout New Vegas, which

1:00:38

despite not being made by parent

1:00:40

company, Bethesda is probably the best

1:00:42

game in the series and maybe

1:00:44

my favorite game of all time.

1:00:46

So this is a sort of

1:00:48

fantasy video game set in the

1:00:50

same world as the pillars of

1:00:52

eternity video games. world called eora,

1:00:54

this doesn't really matter. The thing

1:00:56

is that you go to a

1:00:58

far off land and you argue

1:01:00

about government a lot. And that

1:01:02

is actually the thing that happens

1:01:04

in this video games. You just

1:01:06

like bum around to different towns,

1:01:08

capitals, like talking to officials, the

1:01:11

town mayor, like the treasurer, like

1:01:13

is the end, you're the envoy

1:01:15

sent from the sort of ruling

1:01:17

class of people and you got

1:01:19

to solve a bunch of problems

1:01:21

and it turns out that there's

1:01:23

security forces that are kind of

1:01:25

overstepping their bounds and pissing people

1:01:27

off around town. And in addition

1:01:29

to all this talking about government,

1:01:31

you also... Spend a lot of

1:01:33

time doing what Catherine did. You

1:01:35

kind of trounce around in your

1:01:37

boots and you're putting on fancy

1:01:39

clothes because the clothes give you

1:01:41

power-ups all the time. This is

1:01:43

a role-playing game, right? And so,

1:01:45

but you're like walking around the

1:01:47

countryside and it's really pretty. It's

1:01:49

a beautiful, interesting, video game, right?

1:01:51

And so, but you're like walking

1:01:53

around the countryside and it's really

1:01:56

pretty. It's a beautiful, interesting, looking

1:01:58

video game, sort of different, right?

1:02:00

and feel how it feels underneath

1:02:02

my virtual boots. And even, there's

1:02:04

no podcast that is associated with

1:02:06

this. However, whenever you get to

1:02:08

the dial. options and there's a

1:02:10

bunch of lore. There'll be words

1:02:12

that are highlighted and you can,

1:02:14

I've never seen this in a

1:02:16

game before, you can you can

1:02:18

press a button and it will

1:02:20

give you like a background or

1:02:22

like a Wikipedia style lord dump

1:02:24

that it's like let us explain

1:02:26

what all of this means for

1:02:28

those of you who have not

1:02:30

played the previous games set in

1:02:32

this universe. So there's this kind

1:02:34

of meta textual commentary explaining why

1:02:36

it is that you're here and

1:02:39

In addition to that, you are

1:02:41

playing a race that is called

1:02:43

godlike. And it turns out you

1:02:45

have your own very special God

1:02:47

who is just yours but been

1:02:49

kind of trapped in the land

1:02:51

and you gotta kind of deal

1:02:53

with that situation. So it really

1:02:55

is. It's very much like the

1:02:57

experience that Catherine had. This is

1:02:59

not my favorite obsidian entertainment video

1:03:01

game, but it is pretty good

1:03:03

if you like that sort of

1:03:05

thing. If you're into RPGs where

1:03:07

you spend a lot of time

1:03:09

dealing with your stats put on

1:03:11

your clothes and talking to people

1:03:13

about exactly what Nepheri plans they

1:03:15

have for this for this castle

1:03:17

this dungeon this cave full of

1:03:19

magic whatever it's probably a lot

1:03:21

like Utah Nick what do you

1:03:24

have for us I played a

1:03:26

video game put up by V

1:03:28

dare called Chesterton's fence that's not

1:03:30

a video game that's not a

1:03:32

video game that's not a real

1:03:34

game at all for V dare

1:03:36

that is absolutely a wall Nick

1:03:38

that was absolutely a crime novel

1:03:40

no it's about a crime novel

1:03:42

no it's about a crime novel

1:03:44

no it's about a crime novel

1:03:46

it's about a crime novel It's

1:03:48

about a guy named Chesterton who

1:03:50

is constant, who's like needs a

1:03:52

guy to sell his stolen wares

1:03:54

to, and that's Chesterton's fence. I

1:03:56

watched The Substance, which is by,

1:03:58

directed by Cora Lee Fargiot, or

1:04:00

Fargot, I don't know how to

1:04:02

pronounce her name, as was someone

1:04:04

French, who is almost certainly going

1:04:06

to be deported. Yeah. Well, this

1:04:09

movie, she should get immediate citizenship.

1:04:11

It's with Demi Moore, Dennis Quaid,

1:04:13

and Margaret Quolly, who is the

1:04:15

daughter of Andy. I forgot her

1:04:17

name now, the actress Andy McDowell.

1:04:19

Yeah, it's very good and it's

1:04:21

a it's a satire. It's a

1:04:23

horror movie satire where Demi Moore

1:04:25

is a popular TV host who

1:04:27

gets, Dennis Quaid fires her because

1:04:29

she's getting too old. And Demi

1:04:31

Moore, who's like around 62, 63,

1:04:33

is in great shape, but then

1:04:35

she avails herself of this substance

1:04:37

which allows her to stay young,

1:04:39

but it creates complications because when

1:04:41

you take this, you develop a

1:04:43

clone who is younger and then

1:04:45

the two of them have a

1:04:47

symbiotic relationship where You can't get

1:04:49

rid of the other, but then

1:04:52

the younger woman tries to take...

1:04:54

Debbie Moore's place. It is funny,

1:04:56

despicable, horrifying. It's David Cronenberg with

1:04:58

a great sense of humor and

1:05:00

it is a fantastic generational movie.

1:05:02

It's partly it's a it's a

1:05:04

satire on Hollywood and everything about

1:05:06

looks but also about wellness and

1:05:08

then ultimately it is about older

1:05:10

people and younger people and both

1:05:12

you know there's symbiotic relationship and

1:05:14

how it If they hate each

1:05:16

other, it never ends up well.

1:05:18

Really fantastic. I can't recommend it

1:05:20

enough. It's on streaming, various streaming

1:05:22

platforms. I think I watched it

1:05:24

on Amazon. But the substance with

1:05:26

Demi Moore and Dennis Quaid, who

1:05:28

is more horrifying, Dennis Quaid in

1:05:30

real life, is more horrifying now

1:05:32

than the horrific apparition that shows

1:05:34

up at the end of the

1:05:37

movie. Yeah,

1:05:39

it's a good movie. It's structurally

1:05:41

a marvel the way that it

1:05:43

opens and closes with the same

1:05:46

Basically the the same visual image,

1:05:48

but in but in reverse at

1:05:50

the very end and it just

1:05:52

has this nice kind of Unlike

1:05:54

Marvel movies this one is actually

1:05:57

interesting Peter though It is kind

1:05:59

of a superhero movie though in

1:06:01

a way right like you gotta

1:06:03

you the Demi Moore character ends

1:06:06

up with superhero powers. I'm old

1:06:08

school I call her Demi. She

1:06:10

didn't become Demi until sometime around

1:06:12

G.i Jane. It's Demi Moore and

1:06:14

Tony Dorset and it's Neanderthal man.

1:06:17

I mean it's basically the incredible

1:06:19

Hulk right like she instead of

1:06:21

but instead of raging out she

1:06:23

like beauties out except that it

1:06:25

damages her as she does a

1:06:28

lot of rage. Alright,

1:06:30

I think that's a good note

1:06:32

to end on. Maybe it is

1:06:34

a little bit symbolic here. That's

1:06:36

our show before we go couple

1:06:38

of things. Do you want to

1:06:41

work for a reason? We are

1:06:43

hiring if you want to work

1:06:45

for us go to reason.com/jobs. That's

1:06:47

reason.com/jobs We have fellowships internships. We

1:06:49

are looking for writers video producers

1:06:51

people who are good at making

1:06:54

things happen So go to reason.com/jobs

1:06:56

see if there is a job

1:06:58

that is right for you Nick.

1:07:00

Do you have any announcements any

1:07:02

events you want to advertise? Yeah,

1:07:04

we've got two events coming up

1:07:07

in New York. Go to recent.com/events

1:07:09

and see them. One is a

1:07:11

panel with two great satirical novelists.

1:07:13

talking about the possibilities of satire

1:07:15

in the current era and then

1:07:17

about a month out we have

1:07:20

a great New York event with

1:07:22

Jeff Singer, a surgeon, Cato policy

1:07:24

analyst who has a great book

1:07:26

out about patient autonomy that's quite

1:07:28

exciting and interesting. But go to

1:07:30

reason.com/events and check them out there.

1:07:33

Before we go, we do want

1:07:35

to say thanks and give a

1:07:37

big shout out to some generous

1:07:39

supporters. Ivan Prekach, William Flusek, Daniel

1:07:41

Greenberg, Pete Klupar, Michael Sousa, Gene,

1:07:43

Forsythe, James Zimmerman, Andrew Hayes, David

1:07:46

Wilms, thank you so much for

1:07:48

making this podcast. And everything we

1:07:50

do at Reason, possible. As always,

1:07:52

if you like this podcast, you

1:07:54

can support us by going to

1:07:56

reason.com/donate. Thank you

1:07:59

so much for

1:08:01

listening this podcast

1:08:03

will return next

1:08:05

week.