Latest / Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger / Some Essentials with Mona

Transcript

Some Essentials with Mona · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Q&A, the podcast at Onward and Upward.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jay Nordlinger,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: and my guest today is my longtime friend and colleague and former podcast partner,
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Mona Charon.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: She is a syndicated columnist,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: policy editor at The Bulwark,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: host of The Mona Charon Show,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the author of several books,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: one of which is Sex Matters,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love and Common Sense.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, what a pleasure to see you.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining me.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's always a pleasure to see you, Jay.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny you should mention Sex Matters
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: because I just got this confirmation letter and check.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: My book, even though it was published in 2018...
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Has now been optioned and will be published in Portuguese in Brazil.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: How exciting.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I just got a check for the advance.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: How about that?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: How exciting.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: All these years later.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know that was a possibility.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that happens.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: But very, yeah, delightful.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was thinking about earlier today.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I read your book when it was new.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I can't remember.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Transgenderism is such a big thing now.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Was it a big thing then?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was just
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: starting to be a big thing.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: But there are a number of things that I am proud of about that book.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think I flagged some issues.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, jeez.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: In all the wrong places.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking that phrase too.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Looking for love in all the wrong places.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew Tate and the like.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, when I was coming of age,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: and this was a gravely serious issue,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: literally a deadly issue, anorexia was all about us.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: It seemed that every third girl had anorexia.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Some died.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I knew a boy who had anorexia.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a horrible condition.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it was on the news all the time,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: stories on the cover of Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, and so on and so forth.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Then it just faded out.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: No doubt there are people today who suffer from anorexia, but it's not a kind of phenomenon.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if transgenderism will prove something like that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, there have always been transgender people.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's part of the human condition.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: But do you think this current, what do you call it, wave will subside?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's already subsiding.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the numbers of young people who identify as trans,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: it's been cratering the last five years.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do think,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with you that there have always been trans people and there always will be.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: But there has been a bit of a fashion in the last few years
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: that has pulled many people who are sort of borderline or who have other problems
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: and are not transgender into thinking that they are because they were hearing
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: about it and it was sort of in the ether.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I think as we're already seeing, that's declining and I expect it will.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: It will continue to decline.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's probably confined to a small percentage of the population.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But Jay, can I just say something about this issue?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because it applies, I think, to so many issues that we have to grapple with as a society.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with trying to have a sane and civilized conversation
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: about What we should do about kids who identify as trans?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: What about girls' sports?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: What about teaching people that there are 12 genders or 50 genders or whatever it is?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: All these issues that require sort of calm and careful consideration and also
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: a certain amount of sensitivity for people's feelings,
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know, who are in the midst of something that is not easy, right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Grappling with these kinds of questions.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Everything has become harder because of the extremists on both sides who shriek.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So on the one hand,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: you have these MAGA people who are
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: just horribly cruel and
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: unreasonable in the way
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: that they talk about this issue,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: in the way they demonize people,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: in the way that they make it sort of a fight Against trans people,
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: instead of saying,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: without giving them dignity,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: without giving them respect,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: instead of saying,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: well, let's hold off on how we handle it with children until we know more.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: That would be a very sane and civilized way to do it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: there are the extremists,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: pro-trans activists, who insist on a kind of rigid orthodoxy.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have to say,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: That a trans woman is a woman,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: and if you demur and say, well, I mean,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm perfectly happy to call somebody by whatever pronouns they want if they're
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: an adult, you know, and how they present themselves to the world is their business.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, everybody should do what makes them happy.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: But to insist that,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: as I've seen many times,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: that, you know, you have to say Well, a trans woman is a woman in every respect.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, that's that's too far.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: and and and they sometimes want to be they want to teach kids in very young grades
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: that sex is not a binary.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a spectrum.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I think that's, you know, extremist.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: So well put, Mona.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: You are a.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Mona Keran for president.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've said that for years.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, there are a lot of things about this era that sicken us.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think nothing sickens me more than our abandonment of Ukraine and our siding
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: with Putin and the Kremlin.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is a great stain on our country, one that will be hard to efface.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to quote a recent piece by Corey Shockey of the American Enterprise Institute.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: It cannot be stated often enough or vociferously enough.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: The Trump administration is helping Russia to conquer Ukraine.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: The United States of America has taken the side of an aggressor against its innocent victim.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: We are helping our actual enemies as they prey upon us and our friends.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is horrific.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the Republican Party has done many ghastly things.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is the, this repulses me as nothing else does.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it's mind-blowing when you consider that,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: so the Russian invasion of Ukraine was the most important Unambiguous,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: clear-cut example.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Good and evil.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, good and evil.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: A rapacious,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: expansionist,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: imperialist power attempting to take the land and property of another country and
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: to obliterate them as an independent nation,
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: committing war crimes,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: kidnapping children, causing the deaths of civilians intentionally.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: It really is black and white.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: In a gray world, a largely gray world, this is black.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is absolutely stark.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're on the side of evil.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're not just neutral.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're abetting the aggressor, the imperialist, the would-be conqueror.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: it's not like,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: when you and I were young and the Cold War was going on and some people would say,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: well, you know, the Soviets are providing...
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're providing arms to this or that regime.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sandinistas.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, they're our enemy.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is so far beyond that, right?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is an outright invasion.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Mass murder, mass torture, mass
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: kidnapping, and all this stuff.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: But this was obvious that Trump was going to do this back in 2024.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I remember pleading with people who I thought might still be amenable not to vote
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: for him because this was going to happen and that he was sure
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: to abandon Ukraine based on everything he had done before.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now he's in the midst of doing it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: like the people who apologize for Trump or who try to always imagine that he has
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: a grand scheme in mind,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: We'll say,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: oh, you know, he's playing three-dimensional chess here, you know, whatever.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I just look at the world chessboard, if you will.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: the United States and its allies,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: like Europe,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Australia, New Zealand, Israel, you know, South Korea, these countries represent...
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: More than 60% of world GDP.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: With our allies, we are a mighty, mighty force in the world, unparalleled.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Chinese can't touch us.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Russia can't touch us.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Russia's economy is about the size, a little smaller than France's, right?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: About the size of Italy's.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, about the size of Italy's.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: We used to call the Soviet Union upper volta with nukes.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: With nukes or, yeah, or nukes.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: What did McCain say?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Nukes with a gas station or something?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not that they are powerful or important in the grand scheme of things
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: for their economic power, although they have oil and gas, fine.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it's because Trump admires Putin and always has and thinks that being... Now,
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: we've often wondered,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: does he admire Putin because Putin is an unapologetic thug
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: and Trump wants to be
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: that?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's good evidence for this.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: He also admires Kim Jong-un.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: You were the first one to point out that...
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: you were the first one to point out that when the Tiananmen Square thing happened,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: that Trump was saying they almost blew it,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: the Chinese, but then they got tough and they did what they had to do.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you a secret, Mona?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: That was fed to me by a then Republican senator.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was an interview from Playboy magazine, interview of Trump in 1990.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: So.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what, Jay?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's one other possibility which doesn't get much attention.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: But, well, Putin is the world's richest man.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he got that way through plunder.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's the basic source of Trump's admiration for the guy.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is that, you know.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, I did a little riff the other day.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: The question is, people wonder, is Trump a Russian asset?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in my view,
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: the formal meaning of Russian asset is someone engaged to work in behalf of
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: the Kremlin.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think Trump is an asset to Russia.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt he's an asset to Russia,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: but I doubt he is a Russian asset as traditionally understood.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think he is the greatest foreign influence operation that the Russians slash Soviets ever ran.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they had lots of foreign influence operations.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they actually paid people to spy for them and betray their country.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: But many other influence operations were much more subtle and Friendships,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: alliances, feeding information.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: The Kremlin was...
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: You wrote a book called Useful Idiots about people who were in that role
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: the Cold War.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that Trump's warm feelings toward Russia,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: actually they predate Putin, but Putin, as we know, is...
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: A very skilled manipulator of other people.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he knows exactly what to say to Trump to flatter him and to keep him on the...
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Trump is a patsy.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Utter patsy.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, go back to 1980.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: You were...
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: So last year, the Carter administration, you would go into the Reagan administration.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure exactly what you're doing in 1980.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was at National Review.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Working for Bill Buckley.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the Democratic senator from New York,
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: the intellectual,
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: the political scientist,
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: said, quote, of a sudden, the Republicans have become a party of ideas.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that all the time you and I belong to it,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: the Republicans were indeed a party of ideas.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: We prided them.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Prided ourselves on that.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking of the way Trump is campaigning.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you $5,000, but only if the Republicans win, and so on and so forth.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: What are the ideas of the Republican Party?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Tariffs?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one-man rule.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that we should have to...
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: All of these pesky things like courts and legislatures really get in the way of
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: the will of the people,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: which is embodied in one man,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: and he is best positioned to get results and to do what needs to be done.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there's lots of polling that shows that support for those kinds of views shot up
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: in the Republican Party in the Trump years.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he succeeded in transforming them.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So did their feelings about Putin.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: They softened considerably once Trump became leader of the party.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: But no, it has been the conservatism that we knew that was about ideas and
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: so forth has been supplanted by a conservatism, if you will.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even like to call it conservatism.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a populism, a right-wing populism.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Which is focused on just Stoking hatred of the other side for its own sake,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: instilling fear,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: and mocking people who are our fellow citizens.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a certain amount of mockery is okay.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be a prude here.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it can make for great political ads.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remember the ads, Jay,
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: you'll maybe remember these,
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: but McCain tried to have a little fun at Obama's expense, remember?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Didcaming
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: the oceans.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody was like proclaiming Obama as the one and like a savior, a messiah figure.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so they, you know, they poked a little fun, which is great.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: But, but.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: It borrowed from Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Remember parting the Red Sea.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: As I recall.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: But that,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: and I guess if you want to find the sort of beating heart of, oh,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: and David French said something interesting recently about where the heart and soul
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: of the right is,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: because he was being asked about abortion and how it has declined so much
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: in importance as an issue that For both sides since Dobbs.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: But he pointed out that when you look at the polling on what pro-lifers really care
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: about, it's immigration.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And immigration and the treatment of that issue became the hallmark of MAGA.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: The cruelty, the dehumanization.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I speak as a restrictionist.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: All of us are restrictionists who are not for open borders.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: What we've done is disgusting.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Disgusting.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Un-American.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Utterly.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Unjust.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sending people to the Central African Republic, for example.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in some cases, these people have no recourse.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like they may be there.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are doubtless people we have sent to third countries that have gone into
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: a dungeon and they'll never come out and no one will ever know.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, let's talk a little politics, talk a little midterms.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to see Democratic majorities in Congress to act as a check on
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: the executive because the Republican majorities are refusing to check the executive.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: There is no Congress, really.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a missing branch.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: The what?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: The what?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: The Congress?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I have a definition of wanting my cake and to eat it too.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to see this Democratic majorities without Abdul El-Sayed.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I regard him as a poison.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a rare example of the Democrats giving the Republicans a bit of moral high ground.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I believe the nomination of that fellow was grievous.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is one of those situations where you reflect on just how contingent history is.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because it turns out,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: and who knows whether it would have made a difference or it wouldn't,
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: but there was a polling company that was polling in the primary in Michigan,
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: where there were three leading candidates,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Abdul El-Sayed, Haley Stevens, and Mallory McMorrow.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was for McMorrow.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: I thought she was really dynamic and charismatic and I thought she was articulate, really good.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a poll came out showing her having very little purchase on single digits or something.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And because of this one poll,
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: she had to drop out of the primary race and she endorsed Haley Stevens,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think, I'm not sure about that part, but she had to drop out.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so then it became a two-man race between Syed and Stevens, and we know how that came out.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: But then, fast forward, it turns out this company, Westwood, that did this poll was fake.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers were all fake.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't real.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: They claim they were doing a social science experiment or something.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: who knows how things might have turned out if they hadn't faked a poll that forced
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: the best candidate to drop out.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: In any event, they did.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: That all happened.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So now we have Abdul El-Sayed.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I find him repugnant, utterly repugnant, despondent.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not just that he's a big left winger and he wants Medicare for all,
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: but he doesn't tell us how in the world he would pay for it.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm for Medicare for all if you tell me how you're going to raise taxes to pay for it.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: but it's what he's one of those types that tries to sit like Bernie Sanders,
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: you know, oh, well, the rich will pay for it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's just not viable.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's unserious, but that's not my major objection.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: My major objection to the guy,
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: as I think yours is too,
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: is that he has engaged in a pretty nakedly anti-Semitic campaign where genocide,
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: genocide, there's that.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can argue about whether that's anti-Semitic.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: AIPAC was,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: every other word out of his mouth was AIPAC and
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: that they were destroying our country and that they were
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: a foreign influence operation.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe you can accept both of those things and say that's not any Semitism,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: that's a strongly held view about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: But then there was the episode where somebody tried to drive a truck into
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: a Jewish community center in preschool and blow up a bunch of Jewish children.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they were fortunately stopped by a security guard who shot the guy.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: People were injured, could have been far, far worse.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when he was asked about this, El Saeed said, well, hurt people hurt people.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Pointing to the attackers' families,
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: several family members apparently of the attacker had died in an Israeli airstrike
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: in Lebanon.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: As if to say that if Israel does something that harms Israel,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Palestinians living in Lebanon,
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: it's understandable that Palestinians living in the United States would try
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: to blow up Michiganders in their preschool.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: We should all understand this.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that I just, you know, I think that, and then, you know, there's these other things.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's ancient history.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think under some duress, I believe he apologized for that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he said he was sorry if he was misunderstood.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't mean to be misunderstood, that sort of thing.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: He was mealy-mouthed.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Very.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Then, more recently, Jay.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, if you want to go with hurt people, hurt people.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: My God, look at the attacks on Jews.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Look at October 7th.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if that's your principle, think of the license, think of the possibilities.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: My goodness, talk about hurt.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: 1,200 people were massacred that day.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think we want that to be the standard.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then one more thing, his, you know, he had, well, many more things.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he campaigned with Hassan Piker,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: who is the most disgusting creep,
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: and I can't imagine why he's even part of the national conversation.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he is because people like Syed Campaigned with him.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he refuses to disavow him.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he apparently called him and said to shut up because he was hurting him.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: But that's neither here nor there.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: He made the decision to campaign with him.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now this Piker's uncle,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: who's got a Turkish name that maybe you'll be better at pronouncing than I am,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Cenk Uyghur or something,
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: has put out an ad in Michigan and Which shows a couple being unable to buy groceries
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: for their kids because we're spending so much money killing Palestinians
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: with Israel.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he has, you know, and again, has he denounced this ad?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: El-Sayed says, well, nobody speaks for me except for me.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well...
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's not good enough.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Again, weak sauce.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I agree.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would love to see the Democrats take the Senate, but without him.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: I guess Mr.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Ramaswamy has taken down his ad,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: not because of shame, but because the ad wasn't working and had backfired.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of the most despicable things.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Backed by the President and Vice President of the United States.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Here's this woman who has a girl between the ages of 10 and 12,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: was raped by this stepfather who had raped his own daughter, biological daughter.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the mother abets this.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: The mother,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Amy Acton's mother,
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: knew this about the guy she was marrying,
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: that he had been accused of raping his own daughter.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: When she married him and exposed her own children to him.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: So the 12-year-old Amy testifies in court.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: They flee the state.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're fugitives.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: The parents.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: The biological mother and the stepdad.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then Ramaswamy puts this woman on the air about how my daughter can't be trusted.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, can you stand it, Mona?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the most despicable people in public life.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And look, the British have an expression to land with your bum in the butter.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this guy, his parents came from India and settled in Ohio.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Young Vivek went to arguably our two best universities.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Harvard and Yale, he becomes a billionaire.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: So he's the luckiest person on earth.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he uses his wealth to act as a toxin in our politics.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: He was a toxin in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries,
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: the awful things he said about Ukraine and its president and so on.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he's a toxin in Ohio.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And one of my great beefs is this.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: So he's a poisonous person,
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: but I think of good and earnest people,
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: and I don't think you'll find two more decent people in public life than
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, and a former senator from Ohio, Rob Portman.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: I love Rob Portman, wanted him to be president.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Both of them have endorsed Ramaswamy.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that DeWine is 79 and retiring from politics.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's been in politics for 50 years.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think that Portman is 70.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is it muscle memory?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is just that letter R for Republicans so important?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: As long as good and decent people endorse indecency, we'll get more indecency is my view.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: We should specify that DeWine did call for the ad to be taken down, but you're right.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: He did not, but did not withdraw his endorsement.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Same with Rob, by the
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: way.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Same with Portman.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Same with Portman.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Said the ad was disgraceful.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I still want the guy to be governor, I guess.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: I bet neither man will vote for him.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm sure they won't.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: But that's a secret ballot.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I mean, this is the story over and over and over again.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking when Lamar Alexander was leaving the Senate,
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: here's another person who I thought had fundamental integrity,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: good fellow and all that.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And now that he has nothing to lose, I thought, perhaps he'll speak out.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I've come to conclude that People are just,
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: first of all, there's a lot of cowardice, right?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they just, they don't want to get piled on online.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: They don't,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: and they also don't want to be excluded from,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know, a lot of people worry as now I'm getting toward retirement age.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more aware of this than I used to be,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: but people are afraid of being erased and being invisible and And,
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think somebody like that might think, well,
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: DeWine might think,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I won't get invited onto boards,
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: I won't get invited to various, you know, conclaves.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Republican affiliated things, yeah.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Which is his whole world, honestly.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And, no, what I mean is it's his whole professional world.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: you would like to think that people have more balanced lives and
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: that they also have children and grandchildren and that these are things
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: that can bring meaning to your life,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: even if you have to part from your despicable Republican Party,
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: right, which you can no longer in good conscience support.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: You would like to think that.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: But look at the evidence of the last 10 years, the number of people who've actually done that.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can count them on one hand, maybe two.
• 30:39
  Yeah.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, I'm moving on here.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote a piece not long ago.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a lifelong lover of Washington, D.C.,
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: As a city, as a capital, part of its personal, my paternal family is from there.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: All four of my father's grandparents were born within D.C. city limits.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And Washington's played a big role in my life personally.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: But then there is my love of the country and the American experiment.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And Washington, D.C. is a physical representation of it.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been so painful to fall out of love with Washington.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: The White House is swollen and grotesque physically.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: And there's all that stuff with a reflecting pool.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not allowed to see the facade of the Kennedy Center
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: because it has Kennedy's name on it.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the Trump administration is threatening to raise the building.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the flags of the nations have been removed from the State Department.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: So instead you have like 200 American flags and so on and so forth.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you forgot
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: one thing?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Which actually you commented on once when you were down here and you posted about this.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those huge banners of Trump's face that are defacing the Department of Justice.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you said things are normal here in Pyongyang today.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nice weather we're having in Pyongyang.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's become,
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: there's an ugliness, a physical ugliness and an ugliness of spirit about Washington.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you,
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: though you're a New Jerseyan,
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think you've spent most of your life in the D.C. environs.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jay,
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: it's funny because one of the things that's so amazing,
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: you and I've talked about this a million times,
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: which is,
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: that the veneer of civilization is very thin and that even
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: though things seem eternal, they are very changeable and fragile.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things about having lived here now since 19,
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: what would it be, 81,
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: I guess,
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: or 82, I guess I moved here in 82, is that it has been so stable, so unchanging.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Presidents come and presidents go, Congresses come, Congresses go.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: You've always had the beautiful buildings, the majestic buildings.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Washington Monument, all of it was just very solid.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you had a feeling of permanence about it.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: As much as I may have disagreed with Obama's policies on this or that,
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: it's like, it's still the White House.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's still Washington.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is still stable and normal.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And everything is bizarre, abnormal, vulgar, and horrifying.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not quite horrifying.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are still very pretty places in the Capitol and people,
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: if they want to come visit, I'm not going to discourage them.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's still a great place.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: To visit, but it isn't the same.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's a sense of vandalism.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just so.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's sort of strange
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: that there are these National Guardsmen standing around kind of listless?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all for law enforcement, heaven knows, but it's sort of embarrassing.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just...
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's awful.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I actually, though, I mean,
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: having seen them around now for a while,
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I almost feel sorry for them because they didn't ask for this.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they try to be nice and, you know, they have to be there.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not their choice.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: But it is such a grotesque look to have soldiers, you know, parading around the streets.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that's not what you expect in a democracy.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Mona,
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: on the question of corruption and the Trump administration's staggering corruption,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: the people seem indifferent.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is it that they don't know about it?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: That they don't care about it?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: That they don't care about it if their side does it?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: We've never had anything like this.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Teapot dome
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: and all that stuff.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Trivial.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: They all look like pikers.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: But why doesn't the public revolt?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Jay, I'm actually going to disagree with you.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think the public knows and is very, very angry about it now.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: The polling suggests that it is one of the main voting issues in the midterms.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's corruption.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And people,
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote a piece, oh,
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: about eight or nine months ago now,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: where I said Predicted that corruption would be the Achilles heel of
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: the Trump movement of Trump.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because people will tolerate a lot of corruption if their lives are getting better.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the minute their lives are not getting better or getting worse,
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: then the corruption doesn't seem so tolerable anymore.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I give the example of Orban in Hungary, right?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: People knew he was corrupt,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: but in the beginning,
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: for a while, things were getting better for Hungarians and they overlooked it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the worm turned.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't speak very well of people.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: It sure doesn't.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: But
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: we just have to take people as they are and not wish cast.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of conservatism.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, I want to ask you a few personal questions that are also political questions.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I feel zero sense of vindication with regard to Trump.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: You and I said this was rotten from the beginning.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was just such an easy call.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't take any insight.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you agree with me?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel any vindication?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: You must not.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because...
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: As you and I said,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: as this thing was proceeding,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: however bad it got,
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: nobody was ever going to knock on our doors and say,
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: you know, I should have listened to you.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: You were right.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's just not going to happen.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're in too deep.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the mafia world.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Once you're in it, you can't say, oops, my bad.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there's another related phenomenon,
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: which our friend David Frum talks about,
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: which is It is far easier to con someone than it is to get someone
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: who has been conned to admit it.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's too humiliating.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's too embarrassing.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, there are people who just can't stand to give Karen and Nordlinger any satisfaction.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's that too.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are people whose livelihoods depend upon the MAGA movement.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of them.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: I could sing a few verses.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: Have you found a new audience?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have remnants of the old audience?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have remnants of the old audience.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And those are my favorites.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Letters to get or emails,
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: whatever,
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: from people who say, you know, I, oh, I remember you back from such and such a time.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: And, and I liked you then.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I still, that's, those are my favorites.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're not that common.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: But there are a lot of people I think who are sort of non- Extremists,
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: they're sort of in the middle and who will say,
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: and many,
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: many people have said this,
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: that it's gratifying to see somebody who was on the other side switch out
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: of principle.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's very gratifying.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are the people,
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: this is not so gratifying,
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: but that's life,
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: who are very much on the progressive left and who say, this is entirely your fault.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: You brought this upon us.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was you and your People say you should engage in self reflection and self examination.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was always for limited government,
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: the rule of law,
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: constitutionalism,
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: individual rights,
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: separation of powers,
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: a strong defense,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: support of freedom,
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: democracy and human rights,
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: traditional values,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: so-called,
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: pluralism,
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: civil society,
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: federalism,
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: personal responsibility,
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: a pluribus unum, motherhood and thanksgiving and the flag, You forgot apple pie.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, apple pie, too.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Tis the season.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: And for pumpkin pie.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And not to go all Edith Piaf on people, but, you know, je ne regrette rien.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think I was a little naive about a couple of things,
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: but otherwise, I haven't switched sides.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm for all the things I was ever for that I can think of.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I haven't switched sides in the sense of joining a team,
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: except that I have voted only for Democrats,
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think, since, I don't know what, maybe 2016, I don't know, 2018.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: So in that sense, I'm on the Democratic team.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: I really think the Republican Party left you.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know, that's true.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of, you know, we're going to say, are you on the other team?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, to some extent.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I...
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have certainly asked myself about my positions.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, Jay,
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've gone back and looked at columns from previous years to see,
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: with a little bit of trepidation,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: like did I, you know, what was I saying in those days?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: And mostly, I haven't found anything that makes me ashamed.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't found anything that makes me say,
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: gee, that was insensitive on racial issues, on anything.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: But, but.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean I haven't changed my mind as a consequence of experience.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: Can we just talk a little bit about the,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: because you wrote about this recently,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: the joys of tribalism and how uncomplicated the world seems when you're on a team
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: and you know you just have to be for whatever your team is for.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not anything you explicitly commit yourself to, but it's easy to fall into.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is part of both what the MAGA movement did to the Republican Party
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: that forced us to grapple with this and step away from it,
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: but also I think part of just getting older and wiser is that it's It's satisfying
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: to be in the trenches fighting for a cause and all that,
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: but the truth is it's not healthy and if you're looking for reality and truth,
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: you have to shed your partisanship.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: It can be hard to be an individual.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: It can be hard to be an independent thinker.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's bruising.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking with Steve Telles who wrote a book about never-Trumpers and
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't remember the context,
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: but he said, it's hard to get separated from the herd.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: It must have a biological root.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is usually not my song, but it's dangerous outside the herd.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wolves lurk there.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: You could get lost.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Mona, I'm a believer, I'm sure you are too, that ideas are more important than labels, really.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Call me what you want as long as you don't call me late for dinner.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: But have you sort of dropped the word conservative for yourself because of the abuse
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: of this word?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're one of the most conservative thinkers I know,
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: but in an older sense of conservatism.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: But you figure that is the C word just more trouble than it's worth for you?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because,
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: most so you have to figure that some huge percentage of our audience
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: at this point came of age when Trump was president.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: OK. Yeah.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: So they do not know of a time before now, really not in their bones.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: They may have read about it.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so to them,
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: conservative means MAGA,
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: and it means kind of nativism and all those ugly things we've already discussed.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't choose that label anymore.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: I call myself a centrist.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: And people ask me if I can join the Democratic Party,
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: and the answer is no, because I still think the Democrats are Wrong on some things.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's put it this way.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: I disagree with them about certain things.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not comfortable saying conservative,
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: even though I know that when we were coming up,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: it had nothing but positive associations,
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: respect for the founding,
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: respect for tradition, respect for the rule of law, all those great things.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm aware that it puts people off now who don't know that history.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've said it a hundred times.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the 101st.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: In a world of shape-shifting and body-snatching, you have remained, Mona Charon.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's been a bomb to me.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: You make one feel less alone.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thank you for being yourself.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right back at you.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Keep going, Mona.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: You too, Jay.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for inviting me.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's an honor.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my goodness.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm Jay Nordlinger for Q&A here at Onward and Upward.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: We've been listening to the inimitable Mona Charon.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: That was the term for Sir Thomas Beecham,
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: the great British conductor, the inimitable Sir Thomas Beecham.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: You are unique and inimitable.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you, Mona.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jay.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: So long, everyone.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Till next time.