Latest / The Rita Panahi Show / The Rita Panahi Show | 5 October

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The Rita Panahi Show | 5 October · The Rita Panahi Show

0:02
Speaker 1: Starting right now, the Rita Panaghi Show.
0:08
Speaker 2: Good evening and welcome to the Rita Panahy Show. I'm
0:11
Speaker 2: James Morrow filling in for Rita and here's what's coming
0:15
Speaker 2: up tonight. They're leaving on a jet plane and now
0:18
Speaker 2: we know why labor was so secretive about who it
0:22
Speaker 2: was sending to Fiji for that COP conference.
0:25
Speaker 3: Plus, Paris is burning.
0:27
Speaker 2: Is this just the latest battle in France's slow burn
0:31
Speaker 2: civil war?
0:33
Speaker 3: And hey, you talking to me? Are you talking to me?
0:38
Speaker 4: And when that coward, that piece of.
0:42
Speaker 3: Donald Trump tries to take our voice.
0:47
Speaker 2: Yes, raging bull Bobby De Niro's Trump derangement syndrome flares
0:52
Speaker 2: up again. Is there any hope for the man? All
0:55
Speaker 2: that and more tonight on The Rita Panahy Show. But first,
0:59
Speaker 2: remember Sydney academic Randa Abdel-Fattah? She was suspended from her
1:04
Speaker 2: job at Macquarie University last year during a 10-month investigation
1:08
Speaker 2: into her research grant amid controversy over her comments on Israel,
1:14
Speaker 2: including claims that Zionists had, quote, no claim or right
1:19
Speaker 2: to cultural safety. Then in January this year, the Adelaide
1:22
Speaker 2: Writers Festival withdrew an invitation for her to speak at
1:25
Speaker 2: the event because it was shortly after the Bandai massacre
1:28
Speaker 2: and organizers, quite rightly, didn't want to platform somebody with
1:33
Speaker 2: such openly hating feelings around Israel.
1:36
Speaker 3: Well, guess what? Now she's back.
1:39
Speaker 2: And speaking at an event in London, she's apparently called Australians, quote,
1:45
Speaker 2: nutcases for the decision to bar her from the Writers'
1:48
Speaker 2: Festival and said this country is full of, quote, white
1:52
Speaker 2: supremacy institutions. Like those universities that opened their lawns to
1:58
Speaker 2: months of pro-Palestinian encampments, I guess, and the intimidation that
2:03
Speaker 2: went along with it.
2:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:04
Speaker 5: Yeah.
2:05
Speaker 3: Those sorts of white supremacy institutions.
2:07
Speaker 2: And get this, she also said her children must be
2:11
Speaker 2: sick of her because, quote, every time we walk through
2:13
Speaker 2: the streets, I'm like, that building was probably funded by slavery.
2:18
Speaker 2: You can't go into that shop because we are boycotting it. Gosh,
2:21
Speaker 2: she sounds like an awful lot of fun. And joining
2:24
Speaker 2: me now to discuss this and a whole lot more
2:26
Speaker 2: is Waverly liberal councillor Michelle Stevenson and Herald Sun senior
2:30
Speaker 2: reporter Seb Costello. Michelle, thanks so much for joining me. Seb,
2:34
Speaker 2: thanks for joining me. But, Michelle, what is it like
2:38
Speaker 2: working at a white supremacy institution like, I suppose, Waverly Council?
2:42
Speaker 6: Yeah, let me tell you, it's really tough out there, James.
2:44
Speaker 7: I'm finding it really difficult.
2:46
Speaker 6: I mean, she must be really fun at parties. She's
2:48
Speaker 6: pulling everything apart. What I don't like is these people
2:51
Speaker 6: enjoy the beautiful life that we have here in Australia,
2:55
Speaker 6: but yet they like to decry it at every moment
2:58
Speaker 6: and every opportunity that they have.
3:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, that's exactly right. And Seb Costello, isn't
3:03
Speaker 2: it ironic that the only reason that she's able to
3:08
Speaker 2: speak out is because colonisers, you know, the people who
3:12
Speaker 2: gave us all of this alleged white supremacy, are also
3:14
Speaker 2: the ones who gave us the freedoms, including the free
3:17
Speaker 2: speech right to make a jerk of yourself?
3:22
Speaker 8: Well, James, Michelle, on behalf of my fellow nutcases, I'd
3:26
Speaker 8: say to the good doctor, she can stay in London.
3:28
Speaker 3: I don't want her to suffer anymore.
3:30
Speaker 8: If it's so horrible here in Australia, it's full of
3:33
Speaker 8: not cases, there's supremacy everywhere, I would be happy for
3:37
Speaker 8: her to just stay there in London and look after
3:39
Speaker 8: her own mental health. I'll add this, James, you mentioned
3:42
Speaker 8: the point she made about not wanting to walk into
3:45
Speaker 8: any buildings in London because of their terrible history. Well,
3:48
Speaker 8: I had a look at the history of the building
3:51
Speaker 8: where she gave this very presentation. 93 Mortimer Street in
3:55
Speaker 8: Fitzrovia in London.
3:57
Speaker 3: Well, don't tell the doctor.
3:59
Speaker 7: But it used to be a synagogue.
4:02
Speaker 2: Oh, well, that is quite the revelation there. And, of course,
4:06
Speaker 2: you know, let's also not forget that, of course, it
4:08
Speaker 2: was Great Britain that ended slavery. So, so much for
4:12
Speaker 2: white supremacy. But, hey, let's go on to some breaking
4:14
Speaker 2: news from earlier today. Now, by now, everybody knows about
4:18
Speaker 2: Chris Bowen's deeply unpopular multimillion-dollar pre-COP31 climate summit meeting in Fiji. Well,
4:26
Speaker 2: after an awful lot of questioning, we have finally found
4:30
Speaker 2: out who some of the big draw cards are at
4:33
Speaker 2: the event. And drumroll, please. It's Julia Gillard and Jacinda Ardern.
4:43
Speaker 2: I'm struck by this, guys, because, you know, Michelle, Julia
4:46
Speaker 2: Gillard lives in a beachside house in Adelaide, and Jacinda Ardern,
4:50
Speaker 2: the former prime minister of New Zealand, who's so unpopular
4:55
Speaker 2: there that she had to flee her own country and
4:57
Speaker 2: somehow managed to wind up with a $ 5 million property
5:00
Speaker 2: in the northern beaches. Well, again, what is it with
5:03
Speaker 2: all of these, you know, climate people who are always
5:06
Speaker 2: on about the sea level rising and then... You know,
5:08
Speaker 2: I don't know, if I was, like, believing that sort
5:10
Speaker 2: of thing, I'd be buying a house in the mountains,
5:12
Speaker 2: not on the waterfront.
5:14
Speaker 6: Surely it's a bad investment property if you're spending all
5:16
Speaker 6: this money on these expensive houses by the beachside, but
5:20
Speaker 6: you're worried about rising sea levels. Now, you look at
5:22
Speaker 6: what Julia Gillard's actually going to speak to, and she's
5:24
Speaker 6: speaking about the issues around pregnant women and the rising temperatures.
5:28
Speaker 6: So it's a very niche subject to be talking to.
5:32
Speaker 6: And I'm like, I feel like these left leaning conversations
5:35
Speaker 6: are always just made up fanciful things that real people
5:39
Speaker 6: don't really struggle with. I mean, look at what's going
5:41
Speaker 6: on in the world around us. And they're talking about
5:43
Speaker 6: just some crazy stuff that really does not exist.
5:46
Speaker 2: And, you know, Sam, I find it insane at a time.
5:49
Speaker 2: when small businesses are going to the wall, when taxpayers
5:51
Speaker 2: are doing it tough, that they're spending millions and millions
5:53
Speaker 2: and millions of dollars on this vanity fest. But, you know,
5:57
Speaker 2: we've also got this lack of transparency about who else
6:00
Speaker 2: is going. And there are questions about whether taxpayer funds
6:04
Speaker 2: have been used to entice other world leaders to attend. Now,
6:09
Speaker 2: if I'm a struggling small business person with the ATO
6:11
Speaker 2: breathing down my neck for all of their statements and
6:15
Speaker 2: regulation and compliance, I'm not going to be particularly thrilled
6:18
Speaker 2: that we're funding to get other leaders to attend this
6:21
Speaker 2: ego fest for Chris Bowen.
6:25
Speaker 7: No, you wouldn't be.
6:26
Speaker 8: But even this little look at the guest list, Julia
6:29
Speaker 8: Gillard and Jacinda Ardern, Yeah, this is one party I'm
6:33
Speaker 8: happy to miss. They can go have their Pacific holiday
6:36
Speaker 8: and I'm quite happy to stay here in Australia for
6:38
Speaker 8: that one. It also just looks like they haven't realised
6:42
Speaker 8: the world's moved on from so much of this climate stuff.
6:45
Speaker 8: I think Julia and Jacinda, they look like, you know,
6:47
Speaker 8: two grown adults still playing Tamagotchis in 2026.
6:51
Speaker 3: The fad is over. It's done. We're in a new era.
6:55
Speaker 7: Nobody cares.
6:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, indeed.
6:57
Speaker 2: I mean, talk about missing the boat on this, too.
7:00
Speaker 2: You know, we are talking about the economics genius of
7:04
Speaker 2: a prime minister. It's now being reported that borrowing costs
7:07
Speaker 2: due to increasing interest rates have outpaced falling home prices.
7:13
Speaker 2: In other words, you know, this, again, with this great
7:16
Speaker 2: economic management here, they said they were going to make
7:18
Speaker 2: everybody who owns a house poorer. That was going to
7:20
Speaker 2: somehow make first-home buyers richer.
7:22
Speaker 3: Well, not so fast.
7:23
Speaker 2: Take a listen to what the Finance Minister, Katie Gallagher,
7:26
Speaker 2: and Treasurer Jim Chalmers had to say right before they
7:29
Speaker 2: caused this generational damage to our tax system.
7:34
Speaker 9: Buying your first home shouldn't feel impossible.
7:36
Speaker 6: But right now, too many young people feel locked out
7:39
Speaker 6: of the housing market.
7:40
Speaker 10: Tonight.
7:41
Speaker 8: We're changing Australia's tax system to level the playing field
7:44
Speaker 8: for them.
7:47
Speaker 2: Now, Michelle, talk about stuff that aged like fine milk.
7:50
Speaker 2: You know, that was right at the budget when they
7:52
Speaker 2: said they're going to change the tax system and screw
7:55
Speaker 2: all the boomers who had the temerity to buy a
7:58
Speaker 2: house 30 years ago. And somehow that was going to
8:00
Speaker 2: make first home buyers richer. I think this deserves to
8:04
Speaker 2: be hung like a millstone around the neck of the
8:08
Speaker 2: Labor Party.
8:08
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is some of the worst policy that we've
8:10
Speaker 6: seen in a generation. And look, I'm someone who doesn't
8:13
Speaker 6: own a house because I can't get into the property market.
8:16
Speaker 6: And raising the deposit scheme down to 5% has really,
8:19
Speaker 6: really done some damage for some young people who have
8:22
Speaker 6: worked really hard to get into the property market. And
8:25
Speaker 6: now their property is worth less and they're spending more
8:27
Speaker 6: because the rates and the rates and the rates and
8:29
Speaker 6: the rates are going up. because inflation. So, look, I
8:32
Speaker 6: just don't think they can get it right. At what
8:34
Speaker 6: point are they going to recognise that they are not
8:36
Speaker 6: good at running the economy?
8:38
Speaker 2: But, Seb, that's exactly right. But, Seb, too, there's a
8:41
Speaker 2: big political problem here, too, in all of this, because,
8:45
Speaker 2: you know, you would think the Liberal Party would be
8:47
Speaker 2: making more hay out of the fact that first-home buyers
8:51
Speaker 2: are not able to buy into this market that the
8:54
Speaker 2: government has essentially... Destroyed, shouldn't we be hearing more messaging
8:58
Speaker 2: about this idea that you can't make people richer by
9:02
Speaker 2: making other people poorer?
9:03
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, this is where we're at. We have a
9:07
Speaker 8: government that is promising its people and sort of saying
9:11
Speaker 8: with a great big smile, we will give you policies
9:14
Speaker 8: that will make you poorer.
9:16
Speaker 3: Where are we at?
9:17
Speaker 8: When did that become something where the government gleefully tells you,
9:20
Speaker 8: don't worry, we'll make your asset worth less? That's not
9:23
Speaker 8: what we send people to Canberra for. I don't think
9:25
Speaker 8: Jim Chalmers understands what his job is. You know, he's
9:28
Speaker 8: like the owner of a skydiving school who doesn't believe
9:31
Speaker 8: in parachutes.
9:32
Speaker 3: Or a chef that says, I guarantee I.
9:34
Speaker 8: Won't bring your meal out for at least three hours
9:36
Speaker 8: after you've ordered it. He doesn't get what his job is.
9:39
Speaker 8: It's actually to increase the standard of living for Australians.
9:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
9:43
Speaker 2: And, you know, Jim Chalmers yesterday, again, you know, we
9:46
Speaker 2: have this huge issue around productivity, record high government spending
9:51
Speaker 2: on this Labour government's watch. And now he's vowed to
9:54
Speaker 2: produce a savings package at the mid-year budget estimate. But
9:58
Speaker 2: he's warned that increasing interest rates... will limit his war
10:01
Speaker 2: chest for cost of living relief. Here's what the Treasurer
10:05
Speaker 2: had to say, trying to say this is not his fault.
10:09
Speaker 11: There are a whole range of factors at play here.
10:12
Speaker 8: Budget settings are not the primary driver of prices in
10:15
Speaker 8: our economy.
10:15
Speaker 12: There's a whole bunch of other things going on.
10:20
Speaker 3: I don't know.
10:21
Speaker 2: I seem to recall the Reserve Bank governor just the
10:23
Speaker 2: other day saying, actually, just the opposite. The demand, that
10:28
Speaker 2: aggregate demand from government is one of the main things
10:31
Speaker 2: that's driving inflation.
10:32
Speaker 7: Yeah.
10:32
Speaker 6: I mean, Slippery Jim, he is definitely trying to sell
10:35
Speaker 6: us something and I'm not buying it anymore. And I
10:37
Speaker 6: don't think the rest of the country is buying it
10:38
Speaker 6: anymore because at the end of the day, these issues
10:41
Speaker 6: are squarely on the shoulders of the government. We're having
10:44
Speaker 6: real issues with actually paying for groceries, paying for power.
10:48
Speaker 6: My rent keeps going up, like everyday things. And that's why, again,
10:52
Speaker 6: why are we spending money on COP? Why are we
10:53
Speaker 6: wasting all this money? This is a government that is
10:56
Speaker 6: so out of touch and does not understand what's going
10:58
Speaker 6: on and they need to be reined in.
11:00
Speaker 2: But, Seb, it's this ongoing issue too, not just about
11:04
Speaker 2: the spending, but the promiscuous growth in regulation, you know,
11:09
Speaker 2: we've seen from the start with changes to IR regulation,
11:13
Speaker 2: to tax changes, everything else, it's all making things more difficult.
11:18
Speaker 2: And yet they have the temerity to claim that they've
11:20
Speaker 2: gone out and made productivity improvements while having this sort
11:25
Speaker 2: of Hail Mary play, hoping that maybe, hopefully, AI, if
11:29
Speaker 2: we force them all to build their own renewable energy centers,
11:33
Speaker 2: you know, will somehow make us more productive.
11:35
Speaker 3: It doesn't add up.
11:38
Speaker 8: No, they don't have a plan. They haven't learnt. You know,
11:40
Speaker 8: they still think that they can tax us out of trouble.
11:42
Speaker 8: They still think they can regulate us out of trouble.
11:45
Speaker 8: We know that doesn't work. But, James, if you keep
11:47
Speaker 8: playing clips of Jim Chalmers... You're starting to make heading
11:51
Speaker 8: to a Pacific Island getaway with Julia Gillard.
11:53
Speaker 3: Look more attractive.
11:54
Speaker 8: Is it too late to book my ticket?
11:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
11:58
Speaker 2: Hey, Sam, I want to just stick with you just
12:01
Speaker 2: for a second here on Victoria and something that we've
12:04
Speaker 2: seen in Victoria that's really distressing now. Homeless encampments are
12:08
Speaker 2: popping up just metres from multi-million dollar homes around Albert
12:12
Speaker 2: Park and Victoria. Seb, you've shown the light on this
12:14
Speaker 2: in the Herald Sun. Parks Victoria is refusing to do
12:18
Speaker 2: anything about it. And the council says, oh, conveniently, it's
12:22
Speaker 2: out of their jurisdiction. Seb, this seems to speak to
12:25
Speaker 2: a much broader program. I mean, homeless numbers seem to
12:27
Speaker 2: be going up in all of our capital cities. We
12:29
Speaker 2: have similar problems here around the QVB. Tell us more
12:33
Speaker 2: about this problem.
12:35
Speaker 8: It's a crazy situation. Albert Park is where the Formula
12:38
Speaker 8: One Grand Prix is held. It's Now, like Centennial Park,
12:41
Speaker 8: it's sort of the premier gardens of Victoria. Victoria's husband, Albert,
12:44
Speaker 8: there you go. That's how it all works. And there
12:46
Speaker 8: are enormous homeless encampments now in Albert Park where syringes
12:50
Speaker 8: are being found regularly. There's other drug paraphernalia there. And
12:53
Speaker 8: a lot of junior sport takes place at Albert Park.
12:56
Speaker 8: So it's just a disaster waiting to happen and yet
12:59
Speaker 8: no-one wants to do anything about it. I mean, yes,
13:01
Speaker 8: it is a complicated situation, but some of the people
13:04
Speaker 8: there have public housing dwellings. They have somewhere to go
13:07
Speaker 8: and yet they choose to live in the park... I mean,
13:10
Speaker 8: if you want to live in the park and you've
13:11
Speaker 8: got a public housing dwelling, surely you can give up
13:14
Speaker 8: that public housing space for somebody else who might need it,
13:17
Speaker 8: and yet they're not, and the government just isn't interested
13:20
Speaker 8: in tackling the situation. It's sad and it's dangerous.
13:24
Speaker 2: Well, it's sad, it's dangerous, but, Michelle, we've seen the
13:26
Speaker 2: exact same thing happening here in... Sydney in places like
13:32
Speaker 2: around the QVB, which is the absolute architectural gem of
13:37
Speaker 2: downtown Sydney. And they've got homeless encampments there. There, the mayor,
13:41
Speaker 2: Clover Moore, essentially refuses to do anything about it. What
13:46
Speaker 2: message is this sending to Australia when you've got Albert Park,
13:49
Speaker 2: where the F1 is held, where you've got the QVB, which,
13:52
Speaker 2: you know, whenever I'm around there, tourists from around the
13:55
Speaker 2: world are. What message is that sending to the rest
13:59
Speaker 2: of the world?
13:59
Speaker 7: Well, easy, not a very good one.
14:01
Speaker 6: We are a country that used to be about prosperity
14:04
Speaker 6: and used to be about, you know... You went to
14:07
Speaker 6: work and you had a good life and everything that
14:09
Speaker 6: you earned, you got to keep. But now we're just
14:11
Speaker 6: turning into a country where we're being taken for a
14:14
Speaker 6: ride and now people don't know where to live. They're
14:16
Speaker 6: living in parks. They're living in encampments. I mean, we
14:19
Speaker 6: do have a similar issue just in Bondi. We are
14:22
Speaker 6: getting the homelessness there, but we do our best to
14:24
Speaker 6: put them into housing and to clean it up because
14:26
Speaker 6: at the end of the day, it's about making sure
14:28
Speaker 6: people are protected and taken care of. And simply, some
14:31
Speaker 6: people just aren't doing a good enough job doing that.
14:33
Speaker 6: Clover Moore's one of them.
14:34
Speaker 3: Well said.
14:34
Speaker 2: And hey, I just want to have a chance to
14:36
Speaker 2: talk about what's going on in France right now, because
14:39
Speaker 2: it has been absolutely unbelievable to me. Now, these student riots,
14:42
Speaker 2: which we've seen, they've turned violent and they have radical
14:46
Speaker 2: left protesters claiming that they're aggrieved by a shortage of
14:49
Speaker 2: teachers and that the schools aren't in very good condition.
14:51
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you what, I have looked at some
14:54
Speaker 2: of the schools that have burned down and they were
14:55
Speaker 2: absolutely beautifully constructed until, of course, these rioters decided to
15:00
Speaker 2: torch them. Have a look at this video of a
15:02
Speaker 2: protester using a makeshift flamethrower on a woman. And warning
15:07
Speaker 2: to viewers, this is confronting. And, Seb, it's very hard
15:19
Speaker 2: to ignore the makeup of this, that it's very clearly
15:23
Speaker 2: a largely immigrant population that's going up against.
15:29
Speaker 3: The authorities of France.
15:31
Speaker 2: Is France approaching, we've seen this many times before, almost
15:34
Speaker 2: a state of a kind of, I dare say, a
15:36
Speaker 2: civil war, just quickly?
15:39
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, it certainly seems that some parts of it
15:41
Speaker 8: are ungovernable or just off limits from law enforcement. That's
15:44
Speaker 8: a shocking piece of footage. We understand the person with
15:47
Speaker 8: the flamethrower was 15 years old. And the bit that
15:50
Speaker 8: stands out to me is that they were wearing a mask.
15:53
Speaker 8: If you go to a riot, you do harm to others,
15:55
Speaker 8: you act violently and you're so cowardly you want to
15:58
Speaker 8: cover your face. I think that is disgraceful.
16:01
Speaker 2: And, look, I think the whole thing is disgraceful. We're
16:03
Speaker 2: going to have to leave it there. Michelle Stephenson, Seb Castell,
16:05
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your time. Well, the penny
16:09
Speaker 2: might soon be dropping for climate change and energy minister
16:12
Speaker 2: Chris Bowen now that his green dream is turning finally
16:16
Speaker 2: into a nightmare.
16:17
Speaker 3: Who would have seen that?
16:18
Speaker 2: The country's biggest energy retailer, Origin, has, guess what, put
16:22
Speaker 2: the plug on a huge proposed wind farm in northern
16:26
Speaker 2: New South Wales because, yes, you guessed it, it's too expensive.
16:32
Speaker 2: Joining me now to discuss this and a whole lot
16:33
Speaker 2: more is geologist and executive director of Hancock Energy, Ian Plymer. Ian,
16:40
Speaker 2: thanks for joining me. Who would have seen this coming?
16:43
Speaker 2: Can't they just pour billions of dollars in subsidies into
16:45
Speaker 2: this and make the economics stack up?
16:47
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going on here.
16:50
Speaker 13: Well, I'm absolutely gobsmacked that finally they've realised this is
16:54
Speaker 13: absolutely totally uneconomic. We've had expensive energy replace cheap, reliable energy.
17:00
Speaker 13: And without subsidies, we wouldn't even have people thinking and
17:03
Speaker 13: talking about wind or solar. So this scam has been
17:06
Speaker 13: going on for 30 years. Finally, the costs have caught
17:10
Speaker 13: up with them. Yet we still don't use the cheap,
17:14
Speaker 13: reliable forms of electricity which we should be using, like nuclear.
17:17
Speaker 13: We still have about 60% of our power comes from coal.
17:21
Speaker 13: We have backup by gas. These cheap methods we've known
17:26
Speaker 13: for a long while, and we've just destroyed all this farmland.
17:29
Speaker 13: with solar panels, we've destroyed all the farmland with wind turbines,
17:34
Speaker 13: and we've subsidized this, and it's still not giving us
17:37
Speaker 13: the electricity we require.
17:39
Speaker 10: So it's about time we had a reality check.
17:41
Speaker 13: Origin are leading the pack in this reality check, and
17:44
Speaker 13: they should go back to what they're good at, and
17:46
Speaker 13: that is creating electricity from gas and electricity from coal.
17:50
Speaker 2: And I just want to get everybody, really make sure
17:53
Speaker 2: everybody understands what's happening here. Essentially what's happening, I think
17:56
Speaker 2: you're saying here, is that We have been artificially putting
17:59
Speaker 2: our thumb on this market by dumping billions of dollars
18:03
Speaker 2: in subsidies into inefficient forms of energy. And now finally
18:07
Speaker 2: the worm has turned because what is it? Is it that,
18:10
Speaker 2: you know, we've just realized the physics don't work or
18:12
Speaker 2: is it that the economics of the energy don't work?
18:14
Speaker 2: Or is it that suddenly we've got all this debt
18:17
Speaker 2: and deficit and the economy is taking a downturn and
18:19
Speaker 2: you can't hide this stuff anymore?
18:21
Speaker 10: Well, you can't hide it. The economics doesn't work.
18:25
Speaker 13: And we've had government regulations actually kill off the cheapest
18:29
Speaker 13: form of electricity. And that is nuclear and coal and coal.
18:34
Speaker 13: We have spinning all the time. And when the sun
18:37
Speaker 13: doesn't shine or when a cloud comes across the solar
18:40
Speaker 13: panels or when the wind doesn't blow, then the coal
18:43
Speaker 13: is ready to go. Now, we're just wasting all this
18:45
Speaker 13: coal waiting for solar and wind not to work. If
18:49
Speaker 13: we were generating electricity all the time, coal would be
18:52
Speaker 13: much cheaper. And if we actually have a system whereby
18:55
Speaker 13: we don't subsidise wind and solar, where we actually allow
18:59
Speaker 13: free market, then you will find that we become.
19:02
Speaker 10: Back to what we were is a cheap, reliable coal
19:06
Speaker 10: electricity country.
19:08
Speaker 13: And wind and solar have their place, maybe on a
19:10
Speaker 13: phone box at Tipperborough or.
19:12
Speaker 10: Railway signals on the Gann railway line.
19:15
Speaker 13: But apart from that, you cannot run an industrial economy
19:18
Speaker 13: on sea breezes and sunbeams.
19:20
Speaker 10: And that reality is coming home.
19:22
Speaker 2: And you know what's amazing to me here is that
19:24
Speaker 2: it seems like, I don't know, maybe even the Greens
19:26
Speaker 2: are starting to get this. You know, you've got the
19:29
Speaker 2: new Greens leader here, David Shoebridge, and he's taken the
19:32
Speaker 2: helm of the radicalised Green Party, but his first task
19:36
Speaker 2: has been declare war with Labor on this.
19:39
Speaker 3: Have a look.
19:40
Speaker 14: It does seem a lot of messaging, you know. It
19:43
Speaker 14: does seem a very long way from the Anthony Albanese
19:46
Speaker 14: people thought they would get. It doesn't seem to have substance.
19:51
Speaker 14: And it seems very centralizing. But fundamentally, it doesn't seem
19:56
Speaker 14: to be helping Australians.
19:59
Speaker 2: And it sounds like he's saying there that he's going
20:01
Speaker 2: to start challenging Labour on some of these renewable energy products.
20:04
Speaker 2: What does this say about Albanese and Bowen, that even
20:06
Speaker 2: his traditional left-wing socialist commie allies can't go along with this?
20:12
Speaker 13: Well, you've got to understand that the leader of the
20:13
Speaker 13: Greens is an inner-city multimillionaire with multiple properties. He would
20:19
Speaker 13: think that going to the wineries at Mudgee, he's outback. Well,
20:23
Speaker 13: I can assure you that if the wineries at Mudgee
20:25
Speaker 13: on a quiet night, you can hear the surf. That's
20:28
Speaker 13: not outback. So he's got no idea how most of
20:30
Speaker 13: Australia operates. He's an inner city person. He's trying to
20:34
Speaker 13: cling on to his relationship with Labor. He will, of course,
20:38
Speaker 13: divide the Greens because most of them are radical, loony,
20:41
Speaker 13: lefty commos.
20:43
Speaker 10: So they're not going to accept what he's saying.
20:46
Speaker 13: And he is trying to garner some votes from maybe
20:49
Speaker 13: Peels who are disappointed with the fact that these ladies
20:53
Speaker 13: have given them nothing.
20:54
Speaker 10: Maybe a few Labor people that still have got Green ideas.
20:59
Speaker 13: But the relationship between the Greens and Labor is a
21:02
Speaker 13: relationship that's kept Labor in power for far too long.
21:06
Speaker 10: He should have known about Albo.
21:07
Speaker 13: He should have known that by just looking at his
21:09
Speaker 13: past and to suddenly realize that Albo is not delivering
21:13
Speaker 13: what he promised. Well, those of us still waiting for
21:16
Speaker 13: our $ 275 know that he doesn't deliver. So welcome to
21:20
Speaker 13: the real world, Mr.
21:22
Speaker 10: Shoebridge.
21:23
Speaker 13: Welcome to the world where the bottom line counts and
21:26
Speaker 13: your words are recorded and And we chase up everything
21:30
Speaker 13: you said in the past.
21:32
Speaker 2: Ian Plymer, we're going to have to leave it there.
21:34
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. And thank you for that. Shout
21:36
Speaker 2: out to all our friends who make all that wonderful
21:37
Speaker 2: wine out of Mudgee. Ian Plymer, thank you so much
21:40
Speaker 2: for your time. And we'll speak again real soon.
21:41
Speaker 10: Thank you, James.
21:43
Speaker 3: Coming up, the U.S. midterms heat up.
21:45
Speaker 2: All eyes are on Texas, where the Democrats' James Telefrico
21:49
Speaker 2: is facing off against questionable Republican candidate Ken Paxton. Joel
21:53
Speaker 2: Pollack joins me next. Well, now it's time for lefties
22:06
Speaker 2: losing it. And let's go back over to the United
22:09
Speaker 2: States where Democrat Senator Mark Kelly has just had a
22:12
Speaker 2: real mask off moment, revealing the left's genius plan to
22:17
Speaker 2: lower the cost of living in the United States.
22:20
Speaker 15: Well, we're going to lower costs for the American people.
22:22
Speaker 15: We've got to win the House and or the Senate.
22:24
Speaker 15: We'll Well, how will we do this? I have legislation
22:27
Speaker 15: with with Chris Van Hollen. We've got to get Republicans
22:30
Speaker 15: on board. Raises taxes for people who make over a
22:35
Speaker 15: million dollars a year in income.
22:39
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, I'm sure that's bound to work. Raise taxes,
22:42
Speaker 2: lower prices, simples, right? Meanwhile, speaking of unvarnished truths, a
22:48
Speaker 2: pretty funny moment here in this interview with U.S. Treasury
22:52
Speaker 2: Secretary Scott Bessett, who just happens to be gay and,
22:55
Speaker 2: in fact, I think is the highest-ranking gay guy ever
22:58
Speaker 2: to hold a U.S.
22:58
Speaker 3: Government position. But it turns out he's also got a
23:02
Speaker 3: lot of fans.
23:03
Speaker 12: President Trump.
23:05
Speaker 8: Chose me because he believes I'm the best candidate, not
23:08
Speaker 8: because of my sexual preference or your green eyes.
23:11
Speaker 10: Exactly.
23:13
Speaker 12: And I think that's one of the reasons we have
23:15
Speaker 12: such a great team, that the president makes his decisions.
23:20
Speaker 3: All the time.
23:21
Speaker 12: He'll occasionally tell you. Tell me you're breaking Melania's friend's hearts.
23:25
Speaker 12: They see you on TV and they want an intro
23:26
Speaker 12: and we have to break the news to them.
23:28
Speaker 3: Sorry, ladies.
23:29
Speaker 2: Oh, and here's another truth for you. Old tough guy
23:33
Speaker 2: actor Robert De Niro, famous for playing gangsters and boxers
23:37
Speaker 2: and other such fellows. Well, we know he fell into
23:39
Speaker 2: the Trump derangement syndrome trap a while ago, but apparently
23:43
Speaker 2: they still haven't found a cure for this disease. Here
23:46
Speaker 2: he is titillating the boomer tote bag crowd of classes
23:50
Speaker 2: with a profane rant. about his sworn enemy.
23:54
Speaker 4: When masked and armed ice thugs stalk our polling places,
23:58
Speaker 4: what do we say to them? Keep your hands off
24:01
Speaker 4: our vote. And when that coward, that piece of Donald
24:08
Speaker 4: Trump tries to take our voice and power away, what
24:12
Speaker 4: do we tell him? Keep your hands.
24:16
Speaker 3: Off our vote.
24:22
Speaker 7: Woo!
24:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, celebrities have always loved to hold big
24:26
Speaker 2: gala events for the sufferers of terrible diseases. Why don't
24:30
Speaker 2: they do one for everyone with TDS? After all, it's
24:34
Speaker 2: one of Hollywood's biggest career killers. Indeed, maybe the only
24:38
Speaker 2: thing worse than TDS is EDS, or Elon Derangement.
24:45
Speaker 3: Which I suppose we could just call E.D. for short.
24:48
Speaker 2: Because at the same talkfest De Niro was at, Mark Ruffalo,
24:52
Speaker 2: aka the Hulk, well, he had his own issues.
24:56
Speaker 16: Be on guard for what we may not see coming.
25:00
Speaker 7: Elon.
25:04
Speaker 16: That's the cybersecurity of these elections. And while I'm not
25:08
Speaker 16: an expert, I've been talking to experts. And the one
25:12
Speaker 16: thing I've heard repeatedly... is that there is a vulnerability
25:16
Speaker 16: of the votes when they're transferred from the polling places
25:21
Speaker 16: to the county headquarters and then.
25:24
Speaker 10: To the states.
25:26
Speaker 16: Now that's three times those tallies are being transferred over
25:32
Speaker 16: the internet, over.
25:33
Speaker 3: The wire, over our phones.
25:38
Speaker 16: We know that these systems are vulnerable.
25:42
Speaker 3: Gosh.
25:43
Speaker 2: This sounds like another sort of E.D. election denial. But
25:48
Speaker 2: who knows? Maybe there are easy cures to the problem.
25:51
Speaker 2: I mean, just ask Trump himself. He'd probably prescribe an aspirin.
25:57
Speaker 5: And just yesterday, bear. I love bear aspirin. I take
26:01
Speaker 5: an aspirin a day. I don't know if it works,
26:03
Speaker 5: but psychologically, I need it. It thins the hell out
26:08
Speaker 5: of your blood, I guess. I don't know if it
26:11
Speaker 5: works or not, but I've been doing it for a
26:12
Speaker 5: long time.
26:14
Speaker 10: And here I am, making speeches.
26:17
Speaker 2: Bear.
26:20
Speaker 5: And I like bear aspirin, the little yellow.
26:22
Speaker 3: And I take the big one.
26:25
Speaker 5: You know, they want me to go down to the 80.
26:27
Speaker 10: I take the 386.
26:28
Speaker 3: I don't know what the hell it is. It's a monster.
26:32
Speaker 3: They said, sir, you don't need that. I said, do
26:34
Speaker 3: me a favor.
26:35
Speaker 5: I've been doing okay for 35 years.
26:37
Speaker 7: Leave me alone.
26:39
Speaker 2: And Trump also had some choice words for Texas Senate
26:42
Speaker 2: candidate James Talarico, who it turns out is a vegan.
26:47
Speaker 2: Or should I say a vegan?
26:49
Speaker 5: And you know, when I see that Talarico in Texas.
26:57
Speaker 5: So he's been a vegan all his life. He's campaigned
26:59
Speaker 5: on he's a vegan, vegan. I didn't even know what
27:01
Speaker 5: the hell a vegan was. A vegan is vegetables. A
27:04
Speaker 5: vegan is eating a piece of lettuce all day long.
27:08
Speaker 5: But he's a vegan, and he's a strange-looking guy. He
27:12
Speaker 5: reminds me of Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine, right?
27:15
Speaker 3: Right?
27:16
Speaker 5: No, he's a strange-looking dude, little guy. And he's a vegan.
27:23
Speaker 2: Vegan rhymes with Reagan, I guess. And that's your Lefty's
27:26
Speaker 2: Losing It. Well, sticking with the American theme, as I said,
27:32
Speaker 2: the midterm elections are just around the corner, and already
27:37
Speaker 2: the left is starting to get a bit cocky, hoping
27:39
Speaker 2: that the unpopularity of Donald Trump's war in Iran and
27:43
Speaker 2: continued inflation pressures are going to get the best of
27:47
Speaker 2: the Republicans. The New York Times is reporting that Democrat
27:51
Speaker 2: hopes lie not just in Congress, but also in various governors' mansions.
27:56
Speaker 2: with polls suggesting that Democrats could sweep into power in Texas,
28:01
Speaker 2: Alaska and even Kansas. But could this really be true?
28:06
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure.
28:08
Speaker 2: To work through it all, I'm joined by Joel Pollack,
28:10
Speaker 2: opinion editor for the fantastic California Post. Joel, thank you
28:15
Speaker 2: so much for joining me this evening. Let's start out
28:18
Speaker 2: with the big question. Can all these polls suggesting that
28:23
Speaker 2: the Democrats are going to romp it in across all
28:25
Speaker 2: of these races in Congress be right? Because I'm just
28:29
Speaker 2: thinking back during the primaries, there were a lot of
28:32
Speaker 2: hard left candidates, DSA types, who were supposed to do
28:35
Speaker 2: a lot better than they did. Can we really trust
28:39
Speaker 2: the idea that Democrats are going to win governorships in
28:42
Speaker 2: places like Texas and Kansas?
28:46
Speaker 1: Well, it is possible.
28:48
Speaker 9: And you'd have to think that the polls are more
28:50
Speaker 9: likely to be right than not. There have been some
28:53
Speaker 9: victories for the left in Kansas over the last few years.
28:56
Speaker 9: And Texas is on a knife edge because the Republican
28:59
Speaker 9: candidate for Senate, who should be the party's standard bearer,
29:04
Speaker 9: is not terribly popular. He has a history of scandal,
29:06
Speaker 9: even if he has managed to walk away from some
29:09
Speaker 9: of the most serious controversies.
29:11
Speaker 1: So it could be true.
29:13
Speaker 9: On the other hand, as you point out, polls have
29:14
Speaker 9: been wrong in the recent past. They have often vastly
29:17
Speaker 9: overestimated the turnout for Democrats. And it was only four
29:21
Speaker 9: years ago that polls were predicting a red wave, a
29:24
Speaker 9: midterm backlash against Joe Biden. And that red wave largely
29:29
Speaker 9: failed to materialize, or rather it was met by a
29:31
Speaker 9: blue wave in response. And so the two parties both
29:34
Speaker 9: turned out in the midterms, and that prevented Republicans from
29:37
Speaker 9: taking full control of Congress. But we are seeing a
29:40
Speaker 9: lot of enthusiasm among Democrats. It doesn't necessarily reflect any
29:45
Speaker 9: kind of judgment on Donald Trump's job approval, I would say.
29:48
Speaker 9: I mean, his approval is low in the polls, but
29:51
Speaker 9: if you look at his campaign promises, he's basically doing
29:53
Speaker 9: everything he's promised to do.
29:55
Speaker 1: It's very hard to point to anything he's failed.
29:56
Speaker 9: To do You can say that the war in Iran
29:58
Speaker 9: is unpopular, but it's not really affecting very many people.
30:01
Speaker 9: The gas price is high, but not as high as
30:04
Speaker 9: it would have been had Trump not done other things
30:06
Speaker 9: like expand American energy production. And there haven't been very
30:10
Speaker 9: many American casualties.
30:11
Speaker 1: The war is not costing America very much.
30:13
Speaker 9: So I tend to think that the midterm election, as
30:16
Speaker 9: it's shaping up right now, if it does head toward Democrats,
30:19
Speaker 9: it simply reflects the political pendulum swinging.
30:22
Speaker 1: Whenever you have a party.
30:24
Speaker 9: in power that's doing well, its own voters tend to
30:26
Speaker 9: become complacent. They don't really have a high motivation to vote.
30:30
Speaker 9: Whereas the party that's out of power that sees things
30:33
Speaker 9: happening that it doesn't like experiences a high level.
30:37
Speaker 1: Of motivation to vote.
30:38
Speaker 9: And it doesn't matter whether what they believe is true
30:41
Speaker 9: or not. And I think a lot of what Democrats
30:42
Speaker 9: are telling their own voters is simply ridiculous. It doesn't
30:44
Speaker 9: matter whether it's true or not. If it motivates people
30:47
Speaker 9: to vote, it's going to work. And so you could
30:49
Speaker 9: see control shift hands, even if Trump is doing a
30:51
Speaker 9: very good job.
30:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, of course, historically, and we have
30:54
Speaker 2: to put this into context, I think, for our viewers
30:56
Speaker 2: in Australia, you know, midterms often, in fact, almost always
31:00
Speaker 2: go against the party in power. But there is this
31:02
Speaker 2: question also of turnout. And Democrats, again, they're aiming for
31:07
Speaker 2: the House, they're aiming for the Senate, and, of course,
31:09
Speaker 2: one of those places in Texas. And I'm so glad
31:13
Speaker 2: that you talked about this idea of, you know, which
31:15
Speaker 2: party is more enthusiastic. In Texas, of course, as you said,
31:18
Speaker 2: you've got Ken Paxton, a Republican. He's got a bit
31:22
Speaker 2: of a whiff of scandal about him, to say the least.
31:24
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, you know, they're running James,
31:27
Speaker 2: God is non-binary, and there are six genders, Tallarico, off
31:32
Speaker 2: as the candidate. And I thought this was a very
31:34
Speaker 2: interesting example. exchange here that happened on CNN about Republican
31:39
Speaker 2: turnout as they discussed Ken Paxton's estranged wife's plea to
31:45
Speaker 2: back the Republican ticket.
31:46
Speaker 3: Have a look at this.
31:48
Speaker 12: Will hold your nose and vote for Ken Paxton be
31:50
Speaker 12: a winning message or sufficient?
31:53
Speaker 11: Well, I hope so. I mean, look, it's something that
31:57
Speaker 11: people are talking about down there. The fact that she
32:00
Speaker 11: decided to go out and become part of this campaign
32:03
Speaker 11: is And, I mean, two things can be true. You
32:06
Speaker 11: could think Ken Paxton has made, you know, bad personal decisions.
32:10
Speaker 11: But at the same time, you know, I don't want
32:11
Speaker 11: to put my face in a wood chipper and elect
32:13
Speaker 11: Democrats to run the country. I mean, they've gone plum
32:15
Speaker 11: crazy right now with all the socialism and the abolished
32:18
Speaker 11: ICE and the abolished prisons and the abolished borders, et cetera,
32:20
Speaker 11: et cetera. So just because I have some quibble with
32:24
Speaker 11: Ken Paxton's personal life doesn't mean I have to turn
32:26
Speaker 11: the country over to people who hate it.
32:28
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's a pretty good line about,
32:30
Speaker 2: you know, not sticking your face in the wood chipper,
32:32
Speaker 2: but is that going to be enough to get Republicans
32:35
Speaker 2: to turn out? Because, of course, in America, you have
32:38
Speaker 2: to get people to actually go to the polls, not
32:40
Speaker 2: like Australia.
32:44
Speaker 3: I don't know.
32:44
Speaker 10: And it's hard to tell.
32:45
Speaker 1: I mean, the Democratic Party has a lot of enthusiasm.
32:48
Speaker 9: That said, there is some polling that suggests that Republican
32:51
Speaker 9: voters are becoming more enthusiastic and have closed the gap.
32:54
Speaker 9: We just don't know. It's also very hard to gauge
32:56
Speaker 9: turnout in an era where a lot of the voting
32:58
Speaker 9: happens by mail. And this is really a bizarre change
33:01
Speaker 9: in the American political system over the last six years.
33:05
Speaker 9: But a huge number of ballots are now counted by mail.
33:08
Speaker 9: And it's much easier to turn out pieces of paper
33:10
Speaker 9: than it is to turn out human beings. So when
33:13
Speaker 9: you measure turnout, it's not really clear whether the enthusiasm
33:16
Speaker 9: of the voters has anything to do with it. It's
33:18
Speaker 9: really the machinery of the parties now that controls how
33:20
Speaker 9: votes are collected and counted. And it makes it much
33:23
Speaker 9: harder to judge who's going to win. It also makes
33:25
Speaker 9: it much harder to determine what the mandate is from
33:28
Speaker 9: the electorate. I mean, occasionally you have very strong signals.
33:31
Speaker 9: You have a landslide victory, or as President Trump had
33:34
Speaker 9: you in six out of the seven or seven out
33:36
Speaker 9: of the seven swing states really in the last election,
33:38
Speaker 9: you know, pretty, pretty damning if you're a Democrat. But,
33:41
Speaker 9: you know, the Democrats now are hoping to maximize the
33:44
Speaker 9: turnout in states that have moved to all mail voting
33:47
Speaker 9: or automatic vote by mail. It's not a system that's
33:50
Speaker 9: used in many other places in the world because it's
33:52
Speaker 9: so suspects and so open to fraud. People like the idea,
33:58
Speaker 9: Republicans anyway, like the idea of going to a polling place,
34:00
Speaker 9: the traditional secret ballot.
34:02
Speaker 1: You check your ID, you know who's voting.
34:05
Speaker 9: Democrats don't like that because they tend to turn out
34:07
Speaker 9: what are called lower propensity voters. These are people with
34:10
Speaker 9: not as much at stake, but who are perhaps more
34:13
Speaker 9: amenable to being convinced to vote or give their ballot
34:15
Speaker 9: to somebody. And it's going to be a strange election
34:20
Speaker 9: in that sense. Again, The economy is doing very well
34:24
Speaker 9: on foreign policy. Trump has had a lot of major
34:26
Speaker 9: successes and the Iran war is causing gas prices to
34:30
Speaker 9: be higher than normal, but again, not that high. And
34:32
Speaker 9: they're coming down supposedly in the future. I do believe
34:35
Speaker 9: they'll come down as the Iranian regime can no longer
34:38
Speaker 9: choke off the.
34:39
Speaker 1: Supply of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
34:41
Speaker 9: So I think that Trump's policies are by and large successful,
34:44
Speaker 9: but Democrats have been very motivated and they live in
34:48
Speaker 9: a self-contained bubble of information or disinformation.
34:52
Speaker 1: And sometimes that's enough.
34:53
Speaker 9: I mean, both parties have that sort of kind of
34:56
Speaker 9: hermeneutically sealed world where they believe things that aren't necessarily
34:59
Speaker 9: true and it motivates them to vote. You know, you
35:02
Speaker 9: can talk about the 2020 election results. A lot of
35:05
Speaker 9: Republicans believe it was stolen and so forth. It doesn't
35:08
Speaker 9: have to be true to motivate people to do something.
35:10
Speaker 9: But the Democrats right now, as you point out, are
35:13
Speaker 9: veering towards socialism. It's very hard for me to believe
35:16
Speaker 9: that Tallarico wins in Texas despite Ken Paxton's problems. You know,
35:21
Speaker 9: it's not just the God stuff and the non-binary stuff
35:24
Speaker 9: and some.
35:24
Speaker 1: Of the other stuff.
35:25
Speaker 9: He just doesn't seem to be a great representative of
35:27
Speaker 9: the state. And it's a state that does care about
35:30
Speaker 9: the border. And the one undoubted success of the Trump
35:34
Speaker 9: administration has been sealing the border against illegal immigration.
35:37
Speaker 1: The Biden people, the Democrats, they told us it wasn't possible.
35:41
Speaker 1: You had to pass new legislation.
35:42
Speaker 9: You had to give them compromises on legalizing people who
35:45
Speaker 9: had been here illegally. None of that was necessary. All
35:47
Speaker 9: you needed was a president who was committed to border security.
35:50
Speaker 9: If you elect a Democrat to Texas, you're going to
35:52
Speaker 9: get problems. They're not going to stand for border security.
35:55
Speaker 9: I do think Democrats could win some of these races.
35:57
Speaker 9: I think they will regret it.
35:58
Speaker 3: I mean, you know.
35:59
Speaker 1: Where I'm sitting right now. Yeah, just to give you
36:01
Speaker 1: an example.
36:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, go ahead.
36:03
Speaker 9: In Virginia, you have Abigail Spanberger, who ran as a
36:07
Speaker 9: moderate Democrat, and she has governed from the far left.
36:10
Speaker 9: And Virginia is making no progress at all under Spanberger.
36:13
Speaker 9: So you think that some of this is going to
36:15
Speaker 9: eventually trickle down to the voters, and they'll realize that
36:18
Speaker 9: when Democrats talk about socialism.
36:20
Speaker 1: It doesn't work. It's never worked. It's not going to work.
36:22
Speaker 1: And if you're stuck with it for four years, your
36:24
Speaker 1: state's going to suffer.
36:25
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, exactly right. But I mean, just on that
36:27
Speaker 2: sort of talk about the bubble, which you were speaking
36:30
Speaker 2: about a moment ago, you know, if they do win,
36:32
Speaker 2: if the Democrats, let's say, take control of Congress, I've
36:35
Speaker 2: been hearing a lot of talk that there's a lot
36:37
Speaker 2: of worry among sort of the grownups in the Democrat
36:40
Speaker 2: Party that they would squander their chance to try and
36:43
Speaker 2: build themselves up for a good 2028 presidential campaign and
36:47
Speaker 2: instead spend two years, you know, trying to do everything
36:50
Speaker 2: that didn't work the last time, which is trying to
36:53
Speaker 2: impeach Trump and impose the lawfare, and do all sorts
36:56
Speaker 2: of crazy radical things like trying to, you know, pack
36:59
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court or grant statehood to Washington, D.C. What
37:03
Speaker 2: are the chances that the Democrats, if they were to
37:05
Speaker 2: win control of Congress, would then screw it up massively
37:11
Speaker 2: by going down that path?
37:15
Speaker 1: Well, it's hard to know.
37:15
Speaker 9: It depends who the Republicans run in 2028, right? I mean,
37:18
Speaker 9: as Bill Clinton famously said, compared to what? You know,
37:20
Speaker 9: so if you have a Democratic body that does what
37:22
Speaker 9: it did last time, And they try to impeach the
37:25
Speaker 9: president and they oppose things that he does that are popular.
37:28
Speaker 9: They're already doing it, by the way, because in the Senate,
37:30
Speaker 9: they have the power to block legislation through the filibuster.
37:32
Speaker 9: And they blocked a very popular bill to regulate AI
37:36
Speaker 9: data centers and their energy use. It passed overwhelmingly in
37:39
Speaker 9: the House. I think there were only three votes against it.
37:41
Speaker 9: And Democrats blocked it in the Senate. They didn't want
37:43
Speaker 9: it to pass.
37:43
Speaker 1: They didn't want Republicans to say they'd achieved anything.
37:46
Speaker 9: So you'll have two years of obstruction. And you'd think
37:48
Speaker 9: that that would be punished by the voters of the polls.
37:50
Speaker 9: But People aren't necessarily looking back and checking the record
37:54
Speaker 9: of these things and making fully rational decisions on the
37:58
Speaker 9: basis purely of congressional record.
38:00
Speaker 1: I mean, it really is about comparisons.
38:02
Speaker 9: So if the Republicans nominate a candidate who does not
38:05
Speaker 9: compare favorably to the Democratic candidate, the Democrats can.
38:07
Speaker 1: Basically do whatever they want. And it doesn't really matter.
38:10
Speaker 10: I mean, look what.
38:10
Speaker 9: Happened in 2019, 2020. You had a cohort of Democrats,
38:14
Speaker 9: the squad, who tried shutting down the government. Then they
38:17
Speaker 9: impeached the president. It wasted weeks and weeks until the
38:20
Speaker 9: coronavirus finally caught them by surprise. The only person focused
38:24
Speaker 9: on the coronavirus was, ironically, the president, who was then
38:26
Speaker 9: blamed for it. The Democrats then called their primary to
38:31
Speaker 9: a standstill, and they essentially nominated Joe Biden by acclamation.
38:35
Speaker 1: Their voters went into the streets.
38:37
Speaker 9: George Floyd and his death were the catalyst, but the
38:41
Speaker 9: voters were also telling the Democratic Party, we reject Joe Biden.
38:44
Speaker 1: We are going to make this country ungovernable if Trump
38:46
Speaker 1: wins again. And they did.
38:48
Speaker 9: And eventually Biden won, but he had to change the rules.
38:51
Speaker 9: They had to use violence. They had to use threats
38:54
Speaker 9: in the media, censorship. I mean, all kinds of things
38:56
Speaker 9: went into that election that even if you believe the
38:57
Speaker 9: vote at the end of the day, which I do,
38:59
Speaker 9: should never have happened. I mean, I have a book
39:01
Speaker 9: about it called Neither Free Nor Fair, just about how
39:03
Speaker 9: the election was totally distorted, even.
39:04
Speaker 1: If it was, in a sense, technically correct. So who
39:08
Speaker 1: knows what happens?
39:09
Speaker 9: I mean, Democrats basically have nothing to run on, but
39:12
Speaker 9: it doesn't prevent them from winning. And they not only
39:16
Speaker 9: have a kind of, sentiment that seems to push them
39:19
Speaker 9: over the finish line sometimes, just a sentiment of outrage,
39:22
Speaker 9: especially among younger voters. But they also control the machinery
39:26
Speaker 9: of voting in many places. You know, in my home state, California,
39:30
Speaker 9: Democrats have a vote by mail system that they control
39:34
Speaker 9: very tightly. And it's subject to all kinds of funny games,
39:38
Speaker 9: funny games when the votes are counted. You know, you
39:40
Speaker 9: can compare the way signatures are counted on ballot petitions
39:42
Speaker 9: to the way votes are counted at the ballot box.
39:44
Speaker 1: It's very, very dodgy.
39:46
Speaker 9: And There's a voter ID referendum on the ballot this
39:49
Speaker 9: year in California, which would bring California into line with
39:53
Speaker 9: the rest of the states in requiring some form of
39:55
Speaker 9: identification when you vote.
39:57
Speaker 1: But it's being opposed by Democrats, and they're telling all
39:59
Speaker 1: kinds of lies about it.
40:00
Speaker 9: And as a result, it's not clear it.
40:03
Speaker 1: Will actually pass, even though if you poll people, even
40:06
Speaker 1: in California, and say, should people show ID to vote, 80%
40:09
Speaker 1: of the voters will say yes.
40:10
Speaker 9: But then you tell them Republicans want people to show
40:12
Speaker 9: ID to vote, and then it becomes a 50-50 question.
40:14
Speaker 3: That's how strong the party is.
40:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, Joel, we're just going to have to leave it there,
40:19
Speaker 2: but thank you so much. I mean, it is fascinating
40:22
Speaker 2: how so many people who want to claim that people
40:24
Speaker 2: are on the other side of subverting democracy are making
40:26
Speaker 2: so many people suspicious of their own commitment to democracy themselves.
40:30
Speaker 2: Joel Pollack from the California Post, we're going to have
40:32
Speaker 2: to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time.
40:35
Speaker 10: Thank you.
40:35
Speaker 2: And coming up, former Prince Andrew back in court, reportedly
40:39
Speaker 2: suing UK police over his Epstein files arrest. Well, all right,
40:43
Speaker 2: Chloe Walker joins us to talk about that next. Well,
40:52
Speaker 2: the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor back in February was
40:56
Speaker 2: certainly not short on spectacle. On the former prince's 66th birthday,
41:00
Speaker 2: he got quite the surprise as Thames Valley police swarmed
41:04
Speaker 2: Marge Farm over his links to Jeffrey Epstein. And who
41:09
Speaker 2: could forget this birthday snap of the former prince? Well,
41:14
Speaker 2: now the former prince, the former duke, is demanding a
41:17
Speaker 2: judicial review to determine whether the police's actions towards him
41:22
Speaker 2: were lawful. He's lodged a complaint in connection with the
41:25
Speaker 2: search warrants that allowed police to raid his properties in
41:29
Speaker 2: Sandringham and the Royal Lodge in Windsor. Joining me now
41:33
Speaker 2: to discuss this and a whole lot more is News
41:35
Speaker 2: 24 lifestyle reporter Chloe Walker.
41:38
Speaker 3: Chloe, welcome to the program. Great to have you here.
41:41
Speaker 2: This is the first time I can remember that a
41:44
Speaker 2: royal family member has challenged the lawfulness of criminal.
41:47
Speaker 3: Proceedings since, I think.
41:50
Speaker 2: King Charles back in 1649.
41:52
Speaker 3: This is quite historic, isn't it?
41:54
Speaker 7: That's right. It's quite remarkable historically.
41:57
Speaker 17: This hasn't been done since 1649, as you said. So
42:01
Speaker 17: Prince Andrew is, as you mentioned, he's asked for a
42:04
Speaker 17: judicial review over the way that the Thames Valley Police
42:07
Speaker 17: conducted their search warrants of Marsh Farm, where he's living,
42:11
Speaker 17: and also of Windsor Lodge, or Royal Lodge, I should say,
42:14
Speaker 17: on the Great Windsor Estate, where he lived rent-free with...
42:17
Speaker 17: Fergie for about 20 years. So he's said to have
42:20
Speaker 17: done that and applied for that review earlier in the
42:24
Speaker 17: year back when he was arrested and he has just
42:26
Speaker 17: been granted a review. The Telegraph UK broke this story
42:30
Speaker 17: and they said that actually later on this week there
42:32
Speaker 17: will be a private hearing to see whether some of
42:35
Speaker 17: these documents can be made public into this review.
42:39
Speaker 7: Now, Andrew Lowney, who wrote.
42:40
Speaker 17: Entitled, he has had some interesting words to say about this.
42:43
Speaker 17: He essentially said that, I can't believe the audacity of
42:47
Speaker 17: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He's being investigated by these police, and he's
42:52
Speaker 17: now taking them to court over their investigation.
42:54
Speaker 7: It's baffling.
42:55
Speaker 3: Well, it is startling to me.
42:57
Speaker 2: I mean, Andrew, about Pat Windsor, he's hardly the most
43:00
Speaker 2: sympathetic character. He's not like some poor, downtrodden member of
43:05
Speaker 2: society who's a member of a minority group, perhaps, or
43:10
Speaker 2: something like that, and is downtrodden and bedraggled, who's been
43:14
Speaker 2: the victim of police brutality. But then there are these reports.
43:16
Speaker 2: What are these reports that he may be heading to
43:20
Speaker 2: the Middle East for a fresh start?
43:23
Speaker 3: Start. Tell us about this. This is fascinating.
43:26
Speaker 7: Yes, that's right.
43:27
Speaker 17: So he's essentially, well, according to Lowney, he's conducting business
43:31
Speaker 17: as usual. He's got a lot of friends and a
43:33
Speaker 17: lot of business associates over in the Middle East. As
43:35
Speaker 17: we know, he's been traveling quite a bit. We've heard
43:37
Speaker 17: that he's actually traveled to France and he was looking
43:40
Speaker 17: for a property in France only a couple of months ago.
43:42
Speaker 7: And also he's is likely to move to the.
43:44
Speaker 17: Middle East if he suspects that there will be any
43:47
Speaker 17: sort of arrest or any sort of charges made. Another
43:51
Speaker 17: really interesting thing that Lowney said on his podcast over
43:54
Speaker 17: the weekend was that Andrew has been seeing his royal
43:58
Speaker 17: family members and he's been actually getting out of Marsh.
44:02
Speaker 7: Farm in a horse box.
44:04
Speaker 17: So he's been put in the horse box and that's
44:06
Speaker 17: how he's been to see, allegedly been to see Princess
44:09
Speaker 17: Anne at Gatcombe Park as well as Prince Edward. So,
44:12
Speaker 17: I mean, this idea that he's, you know, living in
44:16
Speaker 17: isolation and he's, you know, depressed and all by himself
44:19
Speaker 17: and struggling with the fallout from his arrest and the investigation,
44:24
Speaker 17: I think is kind of all.
44:26
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, I just wouldn't want to be
44:28
Speaker 2: the one to have to shovel out that horse box. But, hey,
44:31
Speaker 2: just on other sort of... royal or quasi or semi
44:35
Speaker 2: or former royal news. Meghan Markle has apparently been flaunting
44:39
Speaker 2: her perfect English country life since the Sussexes returned to
44:42
Speaker 2: the UK, but apparently sources are telling us that life
44:45
Speaker 2: is not all as cracked up to be for them.
44:47
Speaker 3: Tell us about this.
44:49
Speaker 7: That's right.
44:49
Speaker 17: So we have heard reports in there from local publications
44:53
Speaker 17: that allegedly there was staff that didn't want to serve
44:56
Speaker 17: Meghan at the Three Horseshoes, which is a very famous
44:59
Speaker 17: Cotswolds pub. And Meghan has been seen there recently with
45:01
Speaker 17: Ellen DeGeneres, her American friend, and also her friend Kelly
45:07
Speaker 17: Zafshin posted on social media that she was there. Paula
45:11
Speaker 17: Froelich from News Nation said that there were staff that
45:14
Speaker 17: were apparently in the section where Meghan was seated eating
45:17
Speaker 17: her food and And they didn't want to serve her.
45:20
Speaker 7: So that's very telling. And if true, pretty brutal.
45:23
Speaker 17: As well as that, we've heard reports that the parents
45:25
Speaker 17: from the Sussex Children's first school that they were pulled
45:29
Speaker 17: out of after two days, not very happy with the
45:32
Speaker 17: way that they conducted themselves.
45:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there was all that controversy around the WhatsApp group.
45:36
Speaker 2: But here's the question that I sort of have to
45:39
Speaker 2: ask you about this. You know, is this a question
45:42
Speaker 2: of now it's become sort of self-fulfilling prophecy for children?
45:45
Speaker 3: Meghan Markle.
45:46
Speaker 2: The reports are out there that she's horrible to staff,
45:49
Speaker 2: and then she goes to the three horseshoes, and then
45:52
Speaker 2: people say, I don't want that table, and then it
45:54
Speaker 2: winds up reinforcing itself.
45:57
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a hard question.
45:58
Speaker 17: There's no actual things to come out of whether she
46:01
Speaker 17: was rude to staff or whether there was any incident,
46:03
Speaker 17: but it's pretty sad that people don't even want to
46:06
Speaker 17: serve her table.
46:08
Speaker 7: That sucks.
46:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be pretty upsetting, particularly in a place
46:12
Speaker 2: that's as yummy as the three horseshoes. But, you know,
46:14
Speaker 2: continuing with the theme here, Prince Harry has given what
46:18
Speaker 2: has been described as an emotional speech to NATO military
46:23
Speaker 2: leaders saying that when I hung up my uniform, I
46:25
Speaker 2: felt as though I had lost not simply profession, but
46:28
Speaker 2: part of my purpose and identity. Well, the question then,
46:33
Speaker 2: I guess, is has Begin given him a new purpose
46:37
Speaker 2: or made him even more purposeless?
46:41
Speaker 17: Well, yes, so Prince Harry, he gave this fantastic speech,
46:44
Speaker 17: I thought, via video link to the NATO Military Committee
46:48
Speaker 17: last week, and he spoke about setting up the.
46:50
Speaker 7: Invictus Games in 2014.
46:53
Speaker 17: And he had a decade career in the British military
46:57
Speaker 17: and he rose to captain and he served two tours
47:00
Speaker 17: of Afghanistan. And I think that this speech was really
47:02
Speaker 17: good because it kind of showed him just being honest
47:05
Speaker 17: and genuine. I do think he is someone that struggles
47:08
Speaker 17: with his sense of identity.
47:09
Speaker 7: It's pretty clear. He doesn't really know who he is.
47:12
Speaker 17: I think Invictus, obviously he's done a lot for Invictus,
47:15
Speaker 17: but I think Invictus has also done a lot for
47:16
Speaker 17: him and has helped him to find a way to
47:19
Speaker 17: serve others. I kind of wish that he would focus
47:21
Speaker 17: more on this kind of work. You know, he also
47:23
Speaker 17: is involved with Scotty's Little Soldiers, which is a charity
47:26
Speaker 17: in the UK which helps children who have lost parents
47:30
Speaker 17: in the military.
47:31
Speaker 7: And I wish he did more of this because this
47:33
Speaker 7: is where he.
47:34
Speaker 17: Shines rather than, you know, doing all these explosive tellers
47:37
Speaker 17: and writing all these memoirs and things like that.
47:39
Speaker 7: If he focused on this kind of work, I think
47:41
Speaker 7: it would be fantastic.
47:42
Speaker 2: You know, it occurs to me that when you look
47:43
Speaker 2: at pictures of Harry and when the old pictures of him,
47:48
Speaker 2: you know, with his buddies in the military uniform running
47:50
Speaker 2: around doing that sort of stuff, he looks really happy.
47:53
Speaker 2: And when you look at his pictures with Megan, he
47:55
Speaker 2: looks really miserable.
47:57
Speaker 17: I think that's a pretty fair point to make, and
47:59
Speaker 17: many would agree with you. I think that, yeah, his
48:01
Speaker 17: speech was talking all about the work that he did,
48:04
Speaker 17: the people that he met, and how you find sort
48:06
Speaker 17: of a purpose after the military. And, yes, again, if
48:09
Speaker 17: he focused on that kind of thing, the things that
48:10
Speaker 17: clearly he's passionate about, he could go a long way.
48:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, indeed.
48:14
Speaker 2: Hey, I just want to close with a potential sort
48:16
Speaker 2: of new... I don't know whether this would make them
48:18
Speaker 2: American royalty or not, but apparently there are reports that
48:22
Speaker 2: the wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos... is pushing him
48:27
Speaker 2: to run for president. Now, I don't know if we
48:30
Speaker 2: need more tech oligarchs in the political space, but what
48:33
Speaker 2: do you make of this?
48:35
Speaker 7: Yes.
48:35
Speaker 17: So, this was a report that we saw from Rob Sciuto,
48:38
Speaker 17: who's a celebrity reporter, and apparently, after meeting Xi Jinping
48:41
Speaker 17: at the state banquet last week, Lauren Sanchez Bezos is
48:47
Speaker 17: pushing for Jeff to sort of consider maybe doing politics.
48:50
Speaker 17: I mean, clearly he's a very successful guy. He's conquered
48:53
Speaker 17: the world of tech and he has a self-made man.
48:57
Speaker 17: So the next step is, in her mind, allegedly politics.
49:01
Speaker 17: Sort of circling this back, interestingly, to before we were
49:03
Speaker 17: talking about the Sussexes, we've heard that Amazon is actually
49:06
Speaker 17: funding the Invictus Games for next year. Now, Boeing pulled
49:10
Speaker 17: out of that, and there was a £ 20 million gap
49:13
Speaker 17: that needed to be filled, and Jeff Bezos is allegedly
49:16
Speaker 17: filling that one.
49:17
Speaker 7: So, very interesting, and we'll soon.
49:20
Speaker 4: see.
49:20
Speaker 7: I don't think that he'll try and run for president.
49:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I hope not because I have a feeling
49:25
Speaker 2: he'd have some ideas on how to deliver the bail-in ballots.
49:27
Speaker 3: Chloe, thanks so much for joining me.
49:29
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
49:30
Speaker 10: Thank you.