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Netanyahu Debunks Gaza Genocide Lie in UN Speech · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch. Grab a stool next
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to Greg Karambas of Radio America and Jim Garrity of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: National Review.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Three Martini's coming up. So glad to have you for
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: the Friday edition of the Three Martini Lunch. Jim Garrity's
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: still away. He'll be back on Monday. Here in his
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: place once again is Charlie Cook, Senior Editor at National
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Review Online. He's also host of the Charles C.W. Cook Podcast.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: And Charlie, thanks for your time again today. We appreciate it.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I got invited back for a second day, so clearly
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I did okay.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Must have done okay yesterday, exactly. So, well, we started
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: with the UN yesterday. Let's start there again today. Yesterday
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: was Javier Millet. Today, it's his buddy, Israeli Prime Minister
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Benjamin Netanyahu. It was his turn to address the UN
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: General Assembly. And as usually is the case, many of
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: the nations staged this performative walkout. After they did that,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: he said, if there are any other moral cowards who
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: are still in the room, now's the time to get out.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: But as usual at the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu lays
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: out a very Solid case for explaining why all these
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: people who love to do the histrionic activities are wrong
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: and tries to set the record straight. One of the
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: biggest things, of course, that we've heard over and over
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: and over again from the left is that Israel is
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: committing genocide against Gaza. Well, you and I both know
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: that's not true, but here is Netanyahu giving a lot
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: of evidence for why that's not true.
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: It will take time for the world to acknowledge what
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: is so plain to see. That Hamas used Palestinian civilians
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: as human shields. That it used hospitals, schools, mosques as
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: terrorist command posts. That it stole much of the food
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: we let into Gaza. And while Hamas did everything possible
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: to keep Palestinian civilians in harm's way, often at gunpoint,
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: Israel did everything possible to get them out of harm's way.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: We sent millions of text messages warning civilians to leave
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: combat areas. We made millions of phone calls. We dropped
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: millions of leaflets. I want to ask you some questions.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: What genocidal regime gives a million polio vaccinations to the
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: enemy's population? What genocidal regime enables the distribution of 2
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: million tons of food into Gaza. That's a ton for
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: every person. Accusing Israel of genocide is the greatest lie
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: of the century.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I'm sure the people who already hate Israel and hate
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Netanyahu will just say he's not telling the truth, Charlie.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: But the UN has certainly backed up a number of
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: these different points, including the fact that this food was
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: given by Israel, and it's Hamas that's not getting it
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to the people who actually need it. You and I,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: and certainly Jim and I, have talked about the human
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: shields aspect many, many times. But what did you make
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of Netanyahu's performance yesterday?
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Well, I think, would you say, lie of the century?
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I think that is a fair description. I was thinking
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: about this, and I think in the last 15 years
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: or so since I moved to the US, there have
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: been three marketing exercises that have broken through. They weren't true,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: but that have broken through. One was Occupy Wall Street's
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: contention that only 1% of Americans live well, are financially secure,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and that they oppress the other 99%.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: That broke through.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: The second was the Black Lives Matter movement, which convinced
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of people in this country that the police
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: were just going around shooting unarmed black men, when the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: actual number, I think, was about nine every year. And
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: it turned out that some of those were unarmed in
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the sense that they didn't have a gun or a knife,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: but they did have, say, a car, which can be
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a weapon. And then in the most recent era, it's
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: been this claim that Israel was committing a genocide, which
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: sprung up completely independent of the facts and has unfortunately
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: been extremely effective. I mean, this is a thing now
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: that people just rattle off as if, it were known
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: by all, like America has 50 states and Israel is
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: committing a genocide.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: And it's completely addled.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: The brains of a whole bunch of people in our politics,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: especially those who get their news from TikTok or from podcasts.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: And that is a shame.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: And I think that Netanyahu is right. But I think, unfortunately,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: it's going to take a little bit more than him
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: being right. It's going to take a little bit more
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: than him presenting the facts, even if those facts are,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: as you say, backed up by the UN, because this
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: was not a contention that was grounded in the facts.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: This is not a real debate, Greg.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: We're not actually having an argument over whether Israel has
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: committed a genocide in which one group of people has
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: come to the table with a contention and the other
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: is rebutting it.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: This is a propaganda exercise.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, I wish him well in it, but
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: it's going to take a while for this to dissipate
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: because it's essentially a moral panic.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: So how do you reverse it? If you can't have
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: the facts be a major factor in turning this debate around,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: how do you fight baseless propaganda?
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Well, I just think it takes time.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Christopher Hitchens used to have this line where he said
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that which is offered up without evidence can be dismissed
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: without evidence.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: That's a nice debating club line.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And I mean, he was right in one sense, but
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that's not actually how politics works. It's more complicated than that.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: And I think things, I think of things like 9-11
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists, which there was a moment in time when
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: those people held some sway. And I was very heartened
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: on the 25th anniversary of 9-11 we just lived through
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to see that that has gone away. It's still there.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: It's still a little below the surface. But it's not
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: really the same movement that it was. And I think
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: perhaps over time these things fall apart. They become less urgent.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Whatever the political imperatives are that cause people to believe them,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: for example, George Bush shouldn't be reelected. That's a long
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: time in the past now. And so perhaps we're just
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: too close to it. But I don't have a good
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: answer for this. I mean, I've been absolutely astonished by it.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And I've realized in my own life when I've tried
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: to argue this, that this is an article of faith
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that you can't reason people out of. So I wish
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: him well, but I've been depressed by this for a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: while and I don't know what to do about it.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Another thing I thought that was fun in his speech
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: and appropriate was he was addressing the protesters who are
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: outside this big protest outside the you want to think
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Susan Sarandon and maybe a couple of the celebrities got arrested,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: but a lot of people out there. And he said,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: you know, where were you when the Iranian tyrants butchered
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: and maimed tens of thousands of Iranian civilians? Did you
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: speak out for that matter? No, no, you didn't because,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: because you're phony. I think it was probably not the
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: best move to specifically mention Mamdani and Hassan Piker. They
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: certainly deserve condemnation. We just, you know, talked about Piker yesterday,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: but we're two guys who are on a podcast. He's
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: the head of a nation. And somehow I think that
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: might elevate them to a level they don't deserve. But, uh,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Your mileage may vary.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Isn't that funny, though, that it was Susan Sarandon?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Look, Susan Sarandon is a wonderful actress. And there's no
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: point pretending that just because her politics are crazy, she
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: isn't highly talented.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: She is.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: But Susan Sarandon has showed up at every protest in
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the United States for 40 years.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I remember this when I covered Occupy Wall Street.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It was supposed to be this fresh, new, organic movement.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: And I would speak to the people down there in
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Lower Manhattan. And they would say, this is my protest drum.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I said, okay, show me your protest drum. And there
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: were stickers on this drum that went back to anti-nuclear
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: protests in the 1970s. I said, all right, so you've
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: been to every protest in America now for 40 years, right?
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Like, of course it's Susan Sarandon. Of course she's there.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: She actually was a little bit of a pariah on
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: the left briefly because she backed Bernie against Hillary. She
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: abandoned the left women for a moment.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's classic her, right? She's just a permanent contrarian.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And I like being a contrarian sometimes. But if you're
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a reflexive contrarian in all circumstances, you're always going to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: end up opposing whatever the status quo is. So I
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: think she probably backed herself into that by accident rather
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: than conviction.
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, a lot of those people protesting, a
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: lot of people who completely buy into the genocide lie,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: they definitely need some help. And luckily for them, this
• 8:40
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• 9:44
  Speaker 2: it has been now almost 10 years since Barack Obama
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: left office. January will be 10 years. But Barack Obama
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: still loves to insert himself into political campaigns and political issues.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: And the part that's probably most grating is he tries
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: to insert himself as someone who's above it all. He's
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: not really a partisan as he presents himself. He's the
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: guy who can see the true, wise way forward while
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: all these other people bicker. Well, of course, we know
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: from eight years in office and more than that, that
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: he is very much a partisan. And now he's wringing
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: his hands about social media. And in a recent interview,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Obama is saying there needs to be basically new rules
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: in how we have our collective dialogues. And I'm sure
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: we're just going to love his idea for new rules.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Here's what he said.
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: I will say that the rise of social media and
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: the siloing, the information bubbles that we all occupy so
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: that The reality of somebody who's reading the New York
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: Times is entirely foreign to somebody who's watching Fox News.
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: We're going to have to find ways to bridge that.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: And we're going to have to create new town squares, essentially,
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: where everybody is having a common dialogue with certain rules.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: And that becomes even more important as technology accelerates and
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: AI and deep fakes and all kinds of nonsense is coming.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Well, the first part of that wasn't all that wrong, Charlie.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: We do kind of live in information silos now in
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: such a fragmented news environment and social media and where
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: we get our news even in cable news. But his
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: idea of new rules, this kind of reminds me of
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: the information or the disinformation governance board that the Biden
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: administration tried to do, where other people decide what's true.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: So then those are the facts you're allowed to discuss.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: But somehow I don't think we're going to like the
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: rules that he would prefer that we impose here.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's exactly right. The first part of
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: what he said is correct. Although, of course, the implication
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: there is that it doesn't affect him and that he
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: sits above it all, right in the middle, aware of
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: everyone's views and sensitive to them. But if his other
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: statements are anything to go by, he wants to set
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: those rules, or at least he'd like them to be
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: set along lines with which he would agree. And I'm
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: afraid there's no such thing I don't know if you've
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: seen this trailer for this new movie, The Social Reckoning,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: written by Aaron Sorkin. It's a follow-up to The Social Network,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: which was a pretty good movie, about the creation of Facebook.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: And in the clip that has gone around the internet,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: they're supposed to make Mark Zuckerberg look like the bad guy.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: He's being talked to by Bill Burr, who I assume
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: is supposed to be preparing him for a congressional testimony.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: And Bill Burr's character keeps saying to him, but, you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: people need to be fact-checked. You need to intervene. Facebook
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: needs to mediate, which is essentially what Obama is saying.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And Zuckerberg keeps saying, no, adult citizens don't need me
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: to get in the way. This is just a conduit
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: by which people can talk to one another. I'm not
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: supposed to superintend this. I think Zuckerberg's supposed to be
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the bad guy in the clip, but to me, he
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: seemed like the good guy. Because what he was recognizing
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: there is that there's no such thing as a new
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: set of rules that neutrally, impartially, on a non-partisan basis,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: allows us to talk to one another. So I agree
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that social media has been a problem in this regard.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I agree that polarization is a problem. I agree that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: what's happened to many of our newspapers has become a problem.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I don't think, though, that you can fix that by
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: trying to create some third party above it all institution
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: that is going to resolve the tension. There's just no
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: such thing as that. And really, this is equivalent to
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: how Barack Obama saw a lot of government, which is
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: that if we could just hand over power to disinterested technocrats,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: experts in the field, then we could rise above.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: What he saw as our petty differences. And that's ridiculous.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Americans have always had strong differences. So I agree with
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: him in the sense that I think some of the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: way we communicate with one another is regrettable. But if
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: he were put in charge of fixing it, we all
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: know what would happen. It would just entrench his views
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: as the norm and then cast anything that was to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the left or the right of them as being extreme,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: because that's what he did every day as president. That
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: was his modus operandi. Every single day, he would say,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: there are some people who say X, there are others
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: who say.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Y, but I have Barack Obama and Ys and we
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: all know Z. Well, it's not.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: No, that's exactly right. And, you know, the Biden administration
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: got awfully close to this. They certainly wanted to do
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: it with this disinformation governance board, but they also had
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: the social media networks, Facebook included for a while, certainly
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the Jack Dorsey version of Twitter, Google, and others definitely
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: doing their bidding. And I don't know if it's too
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: big of a stretch to say this, but Elon Musk's
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: purchase of Twitter might be one of the most significant
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: events of the decade in terms of free speech and
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: maybe even beyond. I don't know if you go that far,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: but I'm starting to think that if that had not
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: happened all the way up to 2024, and certainly if
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the Democrats had won in 24, free speech certainly online
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: would look very, very different right now.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think that's absolutely true.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: The Biden administration's misinformation governance board was ridiculous and appalling.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: And I wrote about it at the time, mocking it
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and its head. Was it Nina Jankowicz, that strange person?
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: But the bigger problem was the voluntary and unholy alliance
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: between the government and the social media networks where the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: government was calling up the social media networks. And asking
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: them to tilt the mediation of discussions in favor of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: whatever it was they were interested in today. Now, when
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you tell people on the left this, they will say
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: that it didn't happen. But we know that it happened
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: because Mark Zuckerberg apologized for.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: It last year and laid out.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: A whole bunch of reforms that were intended to prevent
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: it from happening again. That's where things get really scary.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Whether one agrees with the Supreme Court's decision or not,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court passed on dealing with this, much to
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the irritation of Justice Alito, because it said, in effect,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: that this wasn't a First Amendment violation, or at least
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: that it didn't think it was a First Amendment violation
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: enough to take up the case and look into it.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: So what you had under.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Biden was the federal government, which regulates and taxes these
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: social media companies, obviously has a lot of power, calling
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: them up, telling them how to do their job. Then
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court saying, actually, we can't look at that.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: If Elon Musk had not bought Twitter and thereby created
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: a bulwark against that, the bulwark being that Musk would.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Just tell him to shove it, then.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: We would have been in a position in which that
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: had effectively been ratified as.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: The norm in America. There was no recourse.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: And next time we get a president who is likely
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to do that, who is sympathetic with those social media companies,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: then it could have been disastrous. So I do agree
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: with you. But I think, oddly enough, the governance board was.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Bad, but we could see that.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: That was a thing that would have had a name
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and an office and a person who was in charge
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: of it. It would have put out public edicts. It's
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the behind-the-scenes collusion that was so worrying, and that's what
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Musk's buying Twitter prevented.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Absolutely right. I think, you know, community notes, if you
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: want to have that on the post, I think that's okay.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: But when you had the throttling of, you know, anything
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: against the official narrative on COVID and, of course, the
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: absolute stifling of the New York Post story on the
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden laptop and all that stuff, I mean, they
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: were literally... killing free speech and free press for the
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: sake of the Democratic Party. And that's a problem. That's
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: a real big problem.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: You know what's funny about it, Greg? It's like for
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: years they said, build your own Twitter, right? And I
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: thought that was actually the right response in many ways.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think the government can fix all of our problems.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: And I would say, okay, okay, that's fine, yeah. Then
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Musk buys Twitter, builds it out to his liking, and
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: they say, this has.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: To be stopped.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Well, we did what you said, right?
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't like it. They don't like it unless
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: everybody's dancing to their tune. So good on Elon Musk.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: And hopefully nobody's listening to Barack Obama on this, because
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: like you said, we know exactly what direction this would
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: go in. And it's not great for the First Amendment.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: All right, Charlie, let's move over to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: our third martini now. And CBS News with the story,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: a physician and medical director from UPMC Children's Hospital of
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Pittsburgh was killed in an overnight stabbing that also left
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: his wife injured in their home.
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: Dr.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Idris Evans, 46, died after he and his wife were
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: violently attacked while they slept in their home. A suspect
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: has been taken into custody. And then you got to
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: scroll way down to find out anything about the suspect.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: His name is Elijah Hemingway. He's 32 years old. He's
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: now been charged. He got into the house through an
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: open window, went to the third floor and started stabbing
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: the couple as they slept, even though they tried to
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Fight back. And then you got to go way, way, way, way,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: way back down. It says Hemingway is facing charges of
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: criminal homicide, aggravated assault, burglary and trespassing. The alleged attack
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: comes just a week after Hemingway was due back in
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: court for a burglary in Pittsburgh earlier this year. He
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: was released in that case on non-monetary.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Bond.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And so, Charlie, we've talked about these Soros DAs. I
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: don't know who's in charge in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, where
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Pittsburgh is. But, you know, people who don't want to charge,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: they let people out despite violent offenses. They give them
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: cashless bail. So they they violate again. And so here
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: we go again. And it doesn't appear, at least in
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: this election cycle, maybe it has in some places over
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: the past few years, that there's a price to be
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: paid for this type of almost pro-criminal approach that lets
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: these people out and then they do heinous things again,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: which should surprise no one.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: So we have another horrible story and another horrible story
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: that's preventable. There's a lot that happens in the world
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: that isn't preventable. And I think One of the central
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: insights of conservatism is that you can't stop every bad
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: thing from happening. But these cases involve people who have
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: already been identified and should have been dealt with by
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the government, a government that has its first duty to
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: take dangerous people away from civil society.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: I'm confused by.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: many of the jurisdictions in the United States that do this.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I sometimes half jokingly call myself a criminal justice squish.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: But what I mean by that is that I want
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the process by which those who have been accused of
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: crimes to be small l liberal. I want presumption of innocence.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I want warrants. I want the full protections of the
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Constitution to be applied. I want beyond reasonable doubt to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: mean beyond reasonable doubt. But once all of those have
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: been satisfied, as they usually are in these cases, I
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: want to throw the book at these people. I don't
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: understand how we are in a position in which people
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: who are obviously guilty, have been found guilty of violent
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: crimes by a jury of their peers, are then let
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: out or given a short sentence. I don't understand why
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: prosecutors who clearly could secure a conviction don't seek one.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I think this is a weird instinct. It's a suicidal
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: instinct in our culture. And it's completely separate from the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: sort of smaller liberalism that I'm talking about that I desire.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: There's nothing inconsistent between saying, look, I want all the
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: rules to be followed. I want the defense to be robust.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: And if the person is guilty, lock them up for
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: a long time. Because if you look at the statistics,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a very small number of people actually commit almost all
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of the crime in our society. And by and large,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: we know who they are. There are some crimes that
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: we don't, and they're very, very difficult to solve. But
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: most of the crimes that are committed, when they happen,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: someone in the DA's office goes, oh, that was Jerry again.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: It was Jerry did that one.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Like, well, why isn't Jerry in prison? And this isn't
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: a partisan question, really.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: This is one of those weird things where 80% of
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Americans would hear what I just said and go, yeah, yeah,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I agree. This isn't really left or right. It's not
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Democrat or Republican. It's a small sliver of the Democrat
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and left portions that seem to have an outsized influence here,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: much to the chagrin of everyone else in society.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: And you talk about the preventable crimes. It's the same argument.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: when illegal aliens commit violent crimes and the left's argument,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: at least some on the left, maybe it's just a fraction,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: but it seems to be a little more widespread than
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: in these situations, It's like, well, people born in the
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: United States commit crimes too. And you're like, yes, yes,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: there would still be crime in the United States. But
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: if this person was not allowed to stay and never
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: let in in the first place, this particular murder, this
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: particular rape, this particular burglary would not have happened. And
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: they just can't wrap their minds around that or they
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: refuse to, perhaps more accurately.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: It's absolutely ridiculous, that argument.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: The reality is that as of February 2018, I cannot
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: be deported because I was made a citizen. Prior to that,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I could be deported and I should have been if
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I'd committed a crime. So it would be absurd to say, well,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: because at some point in the future, this alien might
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: become legal or because other people are legal, then we
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: can't use all the tools at our disposal.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: In that case.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Of course you deport people you can deport. You don't
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: deport people you can't deport, but that's not a reason
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: not to deport people you can deport.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: So of course we should have got rid of those people.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: I've never understood that argument. It's just a completely ridiculous argument.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Obvious no-brainers, but when they fight those, you know they're
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: not serious about actually having serious immigration laws or enforcing
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the ones that are actually on the books. So keep
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: that in mind as you head to the ballot box
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: here in the next few weeks. All right, Charlie, on
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: the lighter side, we've had some of these Gen Z
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: or maybe millennial debates to some extent here. One a
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago was about the price of a
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: burrito in this age of inflated prices. But one of
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: the ones that's popped up this week is whether it's
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: okay or not to bring iced coffee to a job
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: interview for Gen Z job applicants. Some people are saying,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: you know, that this is way too casual and it
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: doesn't look professional and employers aren't going to look favorably
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: on that. Other people are saying, if you're worried about
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: them bringing in a coffee, then that's probably not the
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: place you want to work anyway. So Charlie, it wouldn't
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: bother me, I don't think, but you've probably hired more
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: people than I have in your life. So what do
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you make of this latest dust up between the generations?
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm pretty relaxed. I have always been relaxed when
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: hiring people. And I'm not particularly fond of a lot
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: of rules myself, so I don't impose them on other people.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I just think that if you are aware or if
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: you should be aware that the person who will be
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: interviewing you will have certain rules or customs in mind,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: then you should follow them. I mean, there's this concept
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: in the law, right, of malum prohibitum and malum in se.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Malum prohibitum means it's bad because it's illegal. So it's
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: like not paying your taxes. There's nothing intrinsically good about taxes,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: but you're going to get in trouble if you don't
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: pay them because we've decided to impose them. And then
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: there's this idea of malum in se, which means bad
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: in and of itself.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: So that's murder, right?
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Like even if there weren't a law against murder, it
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: would be bad for there to be murders because the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: human life.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: It's sacred.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: And so a lot of the rules that we're discussing
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: here are mal and prohibitive. They're there because they're there.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: We just have them as a culture. People who are
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: in positions to hire feel that way. They've become norms.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: And I actually think that they serve a function, even
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: if I might think that they're irrational and not impose
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: them myself. I think that they do serve a function
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: because they show, if you can follow them, that you're
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: going to fit in at the place that that you're
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: going to work. Maybe that place has a lot of rules.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe you think those rules are silly. Maybe some of
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: them are, maybe some of them aren't. But it's actually
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: important to demonstrate that you can fit in. I mean,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I give this example. One of my big things in
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: life is I think we massively fetishize college degrees over
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: people who've done other important and impressive things. And so
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: when you say that, people will say, but a college
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: degree shows that you can stick with something.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: And I think that's true.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: But my point is always, yeah, But so does having
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: been in the military. So does being a stay-at-home mother.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: So does working for a charity. So do a lot
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: of things. We should expand our definition. Well, if you
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: can show that you can... perform an interview without trying
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: to subvert it, then you have demonstrated to the interviewer
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: that you're the sort of person who can follow instructions,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: even if you think the instructions are silly. So yeah,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I don't do this myself. I'm much more relaxed. But
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the world runs on small customs. And for this to
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: be a hell to die on just strikes me as bizarre.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: I'm just glad to see young people actually trying to
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: get jobs. You know, we keep hearing about this lack
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: of initiative in some circles to get out and actually
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: get some meaningful employment. So I don't know that this
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: hypothetical is actually happening out there. I'll take that as
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: a win all by itself. And then once you get
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the job, you can work out the coffee policy. But anyway, Charlie.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: It's been great having you in for Jim the last
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: couple of days. We'll talk to you soon, I'm sure.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Charlie Cook, senior editor at National Review Online. He's also
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: the host of the Charles C.W.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Cook podcast.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I'm Greg Karambas of Radio America. Thanks so much for
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: being with us today. Please be sure to subscribe to
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: the Three Martini Lunch. If you don't already, tell your
• 28:38
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• 28:41
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• 28:43
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• 28:48
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• 29:00
  Speaker 2: again on Monday for the next 3 Martini Lunch.