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Labor Day: Hardest Working & Laziest People in Politics · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch. Grab a stool next
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to Greg Karambas of Radio America and Jim Garrity of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: National Review. Three Martini's coming up. So glad to have
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: you with us for the Labor Day edition of the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Three Martini Lunch, a special edition today as Jim and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I discuss who we see as the hardest working people
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: in politics and maybe the media as well, the least
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: hard working. And then we're going to share a couple
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of experiences from our own work experience over these many years.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: And so Jim, I think we have kind of a
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: consensus pick for the hardest working person in politics, but
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and toss it to you. Sure.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Who is the hardest working person in Washington, D.C.? We
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: know it from the memes, Marco Rubio. And look, everyone
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: kind of knows that he is the Secretary of State.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: He is simultaneously the National Security Advisor. Is he still
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: the archivist?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I believe so.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: And there was one other job, and that's how the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: meme gave birth. And then every time there's an opening
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: in the administration, he ends up doing it. I would
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: note that one of the ironic duties that he does
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: not handle as Secretary of State slash National Security Advisor,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and the two jobs have not been done by the
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: same man since Henry Kissinger before Rubio stepped into this
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: role early in Trump's administration. He's not doing a lot
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: of the negotiating with Russia, Ukraine, and Iran with the Iranians,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: that basically a lot of that's been done by Witkow
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: or by Kushner, occasionally J.D. Vance. which is actually kind
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: of what you'd figure the Secretary of State would be
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: doing a lot of, but maybe he's got so many
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: other things. Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, member of Mnudo,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: all of these different roles that he's required, dancing with
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: the stars, all the other roles that Marco Rubio played. No,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: I think Rubio undoubtedly is, I'm actually going to say
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: the all-star of the Trump cabinet so far in his presidency.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: He's the all-star team because he handles so many of
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: these different roles all at once. Leave some work for
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: somebody else. Let Burgum do one of these things or
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: something like that. But no, I think it's pretty obvious
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: that the one guy who's largely avoided embarrassing scandals, the
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: one guy who always seems to be able to eloquently
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: answer a question, solves more problems than he creates, it's
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Marco Rubio. So Secretary Rubio, keep it up.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: No, he does a great job. And of course, the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: meme is him on the couch there in the Oval Office.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: And whether it's, you know, you need a new Venezuelan
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: leader or you need a new football coach for whatever
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: coach just got canned, you know, the AI or the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Photoshopping puts him in that position. No, it's obviously doing
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: both of those jobs is very difficult. And I can say,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: although I've never dealt with either one of them, that
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I would much rather get my daily briefings from Marco
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Rubio than Henry Kissinger. Mr. President, that is a problem
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: in the Middle East. I think Rubio would be a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: little bit easier to take on that front. And I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: think you've got to give a nod to Trump when
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: it comes to working hard. The guy works 20 hours
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a day. He hardly gets any sleep. Some would argue
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: he should probably sleep a little bit more. But he's
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: been able to accomplish some pretty big things when you
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: look at the two terms, securing the border, tax cuts 2017,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the Abraham Accords. There was more legislation that got done
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: in the first term, I think, than has gotten done
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: in this term, although they did get a lot into
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: that one big beautiful bill. And so when he's focusing
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: on the big ticket items and put in that many hours,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: it's a good thing. Other times you're like, maybe he
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be awake and working right now when you see
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: some of the stuff that every once in a while
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: shows up on Truth Social. Yeah.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Do you need to be on Truth Social at 3am
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: sort of thing?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Another person that I would say is a hard worker
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in Washington is Lee Zeldin. He doesn't show up all
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that often in public, but when he does, he tells
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: you how many regulations they just rolled back and how
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: much waste of money that they just carved out of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the budget. And so he's doing stuff. People, just because
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: they're not on camera doesn't mean they're doing stuff. In fact,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the inverse is often true. And a guy up on
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the Hill who's constantly dealing with the DOJ and is
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: constantly digging into reports and working with the inspector general,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the guy's going to be 93 later this month, Chuck Grassley,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ron Johnson seems
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: to be working a lot in that same realm as well.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And so There's a lot of show horses up there
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. But when it comes to digging into
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: some of these different issues, those guys seem to be
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: able to roll up their sleeves pretty well.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at that. I'm also realizing if people said, Jim,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Rubio is the easy one. Chris Wright as Secretary of
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Energy is also a guy who is, again, the other
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: thing is I've been pleasantly surprised with Mark Wayne Mullen
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: at DHS. He's kind of early in his tenure. But
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: you want to talk about the idea of you said,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: you know, being in front of cameras. I think it's
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: safe to say, Chris, do you know him? much more
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: the show horse than the workhorse, and it eventually did
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: not work out too well. But thankfully, she's spending, you know,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: more time with her staffer. But you're having, you know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Mark Wayne Mullen is managing to focus on getting results.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And sometimes you don't need to turn everything into a
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: dog and pony show and get attention. So there are
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: some workhorses in the cabinet, and they probably get, you know,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: deserve more credit. But the other hand, when you're a
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: workhorse instead of a show horse, people don't notice you
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: as much.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Exactly. That's because you're working. Anyway, in a moment, we'll
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: be talking about some of the least hardworking people. And
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Jim just mentioned one of mine, but we might talk
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: about her a little bit more. In the meantime, let's
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: take care of your teeth. And, you know, you want
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to brush, you want to floss, do all those things
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: your dentist tells you to do. But there are also
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: ways to improve your oral health that could not be
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: easier than that. It's not like brushing and flossing are
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: really hard work. But chewing gum is about as easy
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: as it gets when it comes to improving your health.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Larinco is better for you chewing gum that uses the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: same mineral your teeth are made of to support daily
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: enamel health. That is a hard-working mineral. Jim, what is it?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, when I'm walking down the street,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: people recognize me and say, Jim, can we talk about nano-hydroxyapatite?
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: And I say, yes, yes, we can, because nano-hydroxyapatite is
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the mineral your enamel is made of. Larinco strengthens that enamel.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: It repairs the damage. It comes in tons of flavors,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: including mint, cinnamon, bubblegum, and berry. And let's not forget
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: that they have a great fluoride-free toothpaste as well.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, I use the toothpaste. Just used it this morning,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and it's fantastic. The gum is great. My daughter was
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: just sneaking some yesterday. So on and on it goes.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Lorraine is great. So right now, Lorraine Co. is offering
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: our listeners up to 50% off at buylorraine.com slash 3ML.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: That's buylorraine, L-A-R-I-N-E dot com slash 3ML for up to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: 50% off. All right, Jim, the laziest people in politics
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: or maybe media.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: As listeners and viewers probably know, I write the morning
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: jolt Monday through Friday, other than a holiday like today.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I write the post column for the Washington Post. So
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: like you have, I have a lot of, I write
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: for the corner. I write magazine pieces for National Review.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I have a wide variety of opportunities to write. And
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: sometimes it can be tough to find things to write about.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And I try to do a variety, right? You know,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: people know that I write about Russia and Ukraine quite
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: a bit, but you know, You don't want to write
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: about the same thing all the time. I think otherwise
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: then you get boring. I checked. Charles Blow of the
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: New York Times wrote about Trump every column that he
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: had in the New York Times from 2017 to 2021. Now,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: the president of the United States is a big deal.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to dispute that. I'm not going to say,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: you know, like Trump does a lot of different things. Trump,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: you know, Trump is a one-man content generation machine.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So I can't picture it.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: But never, there was no topic you wanted to, there
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: was nothing else going on in the world that was
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: not related to Trump. It's almost like you had one
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: idea and you were, you couldn't come up with any
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: other ideas. And so you just kept recycling the exact
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: same idea. My honorable mention in this category, it's a
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: little bit older, but I will not forget this. Gail
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Collins chose to write in a reference to Mitt Romney
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: putting his dog in a cart on the roof on
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: a family vacation, which struck me as like the most
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Clark Griswold moment Mitt Romney had ever had. I don't
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: find that, you know, but she thought this was like
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: terrible animal cruelty or something like that. And I don't
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: remember the exact numbers. It was something like 18 columns
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: in a, you know, six-month span or something. It was
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: just going over and over and over again. And I
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: just kind of think, you know, like now that I
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: write for a big newspaper the way they do, I
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: know my editors want me to write about a variety
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: of topics. They want me to not write the same
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: thing over and over again. Readers don't want to read
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: the same thing over and over again. Apparently, at the
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: New York Times, if you're left of center, you can
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: just write the same thing. Oh, what my columnists do?
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Let me get out the photocopier. And then just photocopy it,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: turn it in. Nobody notices, apparently. At no point did
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: anybody say, hey, Charles, do you want to write something?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Is anything else going on? Anything overseas? Anything? Those took
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the championship of what you're not supposed to do. and
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: strike me as either the most laziest or the least
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: creative columnist in Washington in quite some time.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good choices, good choices. You mentioned Kristi Noem in
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: the last martini. She spent a ton of money doing
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: these glossy promotional videos of herself when she came in
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: as DHS secretary. She was one of those secretaries that
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: loved the camera, and there was a lot to get
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: done there, and she wasn't the most effective at getting
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: it done in the right way. I think ICE... Removals
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: have gone much smoother, not without protest from the left,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of course, but much smoother since she's been gone. And
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Tom Holman's been kind of running the show more after that,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: not to mention the soap opera with her and Corey
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Lewandowski and everything else. Another guy, I think, I'm pretty
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: sure he's lazy, and I think this was proven last week.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: is House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. He's nowhere near as
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: good as he thinks he is in front of the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: camera and in front of the mic, but he's also
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: not great at knowing where his conference is. Just last week,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: he was shocked and blindsided by two members who voted
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: for the GOP rule, which allowed votes to proceed on
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: everything from a continuing resolution so that there won't be
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: a stoppage before the midterm elections. There was this non-binding
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: vote on condemning socialism, which put a lot of Democrats
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in a very awkward position. But 192 of them still
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: refused to condemn socialism. So remember that when you go
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: to vote. in November. And, you know, he's just unimpressive
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: in many different ways. He's not good at articulating his position.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: He's not good at knowing where his members are. So,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: you know, he's not what he was cracked up to
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: be when they first made him leader, I don't think.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I've had arguments with other, let's say mainstream journalists who
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: cover Congress, who insist that Nancy Pelosi is a world
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: historical leader in that chamber, right up there with, you know,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Ray Byrne and all of them. And I'm like, And
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I say, all right, why? She's like, well, she knows
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: where the bodies are buried. Okay, all right. Some of
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: that is longevity. But I always was like, but what?
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: She's like, oh, she got Obamacare passed. I'm like, yeah,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: but she had a 60-seat majority. And that's worth noting.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: When you have very large majorities, getting stuff passed is
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: a lot easier. So the question is, in a very
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: strange way, degree of difficulty, we should be putting Mike
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Johnson on our hardworking category because he's never got a
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: lot to spare. He's always operating on, the Olympic judges
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: used to give you more points for degree of difficulty.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: And my argument was always that Nancy Pelosi, by usually
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: having large House majorities– so yes, it was good to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: count the votes and know how everybody was going to vote.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: But you could afford to lose 15 of them on
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: any given vote or something like that. So I've always
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: felt like the Democratic leaders in the House are wildly overhyped,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: wildly overrated, wildly overestimated. And you see– the moment things
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: get hard, they fall apart and they're always complaining about
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: their press coverage and things like that. Your mileage may vary,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: but my suspicion is it's probably just a matter of
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: time until we hear Hakeem Jeffries, strategic chess master.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: And I would also point to the media who loves
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: their content based entirely on tweets. And we have martinis
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: based on crazy tweets that people do. But, you know,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: going to the Truth Social page is a pretty lazy
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: way to do journalism. There's a lot else going on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Well, let's, you know, let's not criticize that too much, Craig.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: As I look back at all the corner posts and
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: all the things I've written.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: You can do it. But I mean, some of these
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: people go wall to wall with this stuff.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: In the end, like what really, I mean, the first term,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: there was a tone to the coverage of, you won't
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: believe what the president just said yesterday. I'm like, actually,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I think I'm going to believe it. There's very little
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: he could say. reciting the Declaration of Independence from memory,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: that would surprise me, all right? But the idea that
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: he said, you know, we're going to ban rutabagas, that
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: does not surprise me.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Now, I actually took a picture one time of, it
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: was Jake Tapper, and I'm not exactly sure what Trump
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: had said or done, but they were heading to a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: commercial break, and the chyron at the bottom of the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: screen just said, coming up, outrage. And I'm like, this
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: sums up the entire left-wing media when it comes to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration, no matter what's happening.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: That would be a good name for a cable news show, outrage,
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: and just.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, we've got outnumbered, but we don't have outrage yet.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: All right. In just a moment, we'll be talking about
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: some of the jobs that we've had over the years
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and a couple of interesting stories from that. But in
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the meantime, how are you feeling? You know, new school year,
• 12:55
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• 12:58
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• 13:08
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• 14:09
  Speaker 1: All right, Jim, you and I have both been in
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the working world for years and roughly about the same,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I think. And we've had different jobs, obviously. over those times.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: So what's one of the craziest stories from your years
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of hard labor?
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Well, you're right for a living. People jump to conclusions
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: about you and they're always... First of all, I had
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: a member of Congress say, well, Garrity, you're Irish. You
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: must have like a big Irish family. One's a cop,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: one's the mob, one's a priest. And I'm thinking of
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: all the 1980s ABC dramas he probably was thinking of.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And I just, yeah, Congressman, let's go with that. Sure.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: That's not actually... I have one brother. He's not a
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: cop or the mob or a priest. But people will say, oh,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you probably never worked a blue-collar day in your life.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I've been blessed.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: I have mostly worked in white-collar environments, but come home
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: from college after freshman year, looking for summer work, need
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: to make some money, and I go to a temp agency.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: And I'm hoping office clerical work, what I ended up
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: doing on my first couple interns of making copies, refilling
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: the toner into the printer, going for coffee, the– The
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: entry level stuff.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: They have warehouse work. Baxter Healthcare. If you've ever, you know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: if you've gotten medical treatment in a hospital, there's a
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: very good chance that at least some of the equipment
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: that was used in that was from Baxter Healthcare. They
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: had a big warehouse in central New Jersey. Shift started
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: at 4 p.m. and went all the way, you know,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: till the work was done, till the last shipment was out.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: which on a good night could be midnight, but most
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: likely it was going to be one o'clock, two o'clock,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: or all the way to four o'clock. You know, there
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: were some weeks I was putting in 60 hours. To
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: give you a sense, I'm 18, 19 years old and
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: just came home from freshman year. Because I was there
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: so late, and this is, remember, this is, okay, I'll
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: let you people know, this was summer of 94. My
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: dad was concerned and came to the workplace. So You're
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: working with blue collar guys. You're the college kid. You're
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: a fresh faced, you know, 18 going on 19 year old.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: And your dad shows up to work to show how cool,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: to make sure you're okay. He talks to the foreman.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: The foreman was actually not that bad. He's just like,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I was just another warm body that could, you know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: help load stuff onto trucks. I got to use a forklift.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: There was, you know, that was my experience in blue
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: collar America. That was, you know, if it's not glamorous work,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: it was hot work. The warehouse was not air conditioned.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: It was summer. And like I said, there were some
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: times where it was like, you know, like 60 hours
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: a week was not. The good news is, is that
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: I worked, you know, I think within like six, seven weeks,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: I made pretty much all the money I'd wanted to
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: make that summer. And on the last couple of days
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: that I was there, Greg, did you hear that OJ
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Simpson's wife got killed? My goodness.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: So the last night that I'm there, and it's worth,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: you know, the Mrs. Garrity and I started dating freshman
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: year of college. So we were talking on the phone,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: are you watching this on TV? There's a white Ford
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Bronco and stuff like that. So that's why not only,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I always remember where you were when the OJ Simpson
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: chase happened. That was my last night of working at,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: or last day of working at Baxter Healthcare, collected it
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: and it's like, okay, look, God bless these guys. Most
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: of the guys were there. There was some crude locker
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: room humor and comments and stuff like that. And let's
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: just say, none of them were all that impressed with
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: me and my ability to load a truck all that well. Um,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: but you know, it was one of those, my, one
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: of those things where I was like, you know what,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: I really want to work in white collar as much
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: as I can for the rest of my life.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: No, that's great. I mean, I've had a number of
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: jobs over the years. I've basically been working to some
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: extent since I was nine. That's when I got my
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: paper route. And then in high school, I started writing
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: for the paper covering, you know, sports games, girls, basketball, boys, basketball, football, volleyball.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: It was really nice back then. Nobody was confused about
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: who belonged on the girls' basketball team. Um, and then, uh, that,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you know, led to, sports reporting in college and then
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: out to DC and more new stuff. One job I had,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the last summer I was home in the UP of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Michigan before I came out to DC for internships, I
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: was a tour guide at an iron mine, not an
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: operating iron mine, but one that had operated and had
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: become a tourist attraction. It had operated from 1870 to 1945.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And Jim, I don't know if you're a history buff,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: but there was a reason that iron demand dropped in
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the end of 1945. So We didn't need to build
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the arsenal of democracy quite as feverishly then. So the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Iron Mine closed at that point. Late 50s, it turned
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: into a tourist attraction. And I knew the owner and
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: his son who ran the joint. And they were great people.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: And so they gave me a job for the summer.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And so I gave tours of the Iron Mine. You
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: went through the little museum part with the pieces of
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: equipment that you needed for mining. And then you drove
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: a train into the side of the mountain and took
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: them down the tunnels and showed them how the different
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: equipment worked inside the mine. uh, you know, about a
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: quarter mile into the mountain. And then you walked around
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: for probably a third of a mile, uh, the full
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: loop to get back to the train and take them
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: back out. And so most of the people were lovely.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Most of the people were great and respectful and ask
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: good questions. If you ever had a former minor on
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the tour, you're just like, you would know better than me. Yeah, exactly.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: But one day we're going through the museum part out
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: front and, uh, I I'm, They've got all sorts of
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: things hanging there. And one of them was a big saw.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And this lady's there with her husband and she says, oh,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: did they use that saw to get the iron out
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: of the mine? And I'm like, well, no, they use
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: those to cut down the trees so they can drill,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you know, create the shafts into the mine. And you
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: could hear her husband kind of exhaling. And then we
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: went to the different drills. And one was called the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: diamond drill. So it had a diamond tip drill to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: drill through the mountain. And her next question was, oh,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: this was also a diamond mine? Like, no, no, this
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: was just the drill. Iron ore is what we're after here.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: And so behind me, my husband's like, okay, no more questions.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: My favorite joke on the tour is because one, of
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the earliest drills, it was not powered. You just had
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: like this sharp tipped rod that you would then have
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: guys sledgehammering with only candlelight and making themselves about seven
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: cents an hour at the time. So it was this
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: long like metal bar. And so this is not used
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: to injure figure skaters was my big joke of the...
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: of the time, and people generally seem to like that.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Again, dating ourselves.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: For the young kids, Google Nancy Kerrigan.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, and Tonya Harding. So that's one of my fun stories.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Any job where you're dealing with the public, you just
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: never know what you're going to get. But that was
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: mostly delightful people from all over the country, all over
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the world, and it was a great experience.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: So when you had kind of grown going out the door,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: back to the salt mines, it was really an iron mine.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: It was kind of the.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Secondly, I'm sure that husband and wife, somewhere they're listening
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: right now. And they're like, oh my God, remember that time? Myrna,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I told you those were dumb questions. Why are you
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: always giving me grief about that? So first of all,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: you did this when you were, how old were you?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I was after my freshman year of college, yeah.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you were not quite a minor as a minor.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And then secondly, you didn't have any emergencies. Nothing went
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: wrong in any of these.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: No cave-ins, yeah. No, the one thing that would freak
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: people out is because at one point, You know, you
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: talk about their dynamite blasts. When you're using that rod,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you're basically creating like six different holes and then you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: stick six sticks of dynamite in there and light the
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: fuse and then and these huge gusts of wind end
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: up going down the tunnel. And again, all you have
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: is like a candle on your helmet. And so all
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the time, these guys' lights would be going out underground.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: There's no light whatsoever. And so we would mimic that
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: in one part of the tour where you would turn
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: out the lights and then just have a candle so
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: they can see what that was like. And then you
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: would blow it out. But I was trained, you always
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: ask before you blow out the candle, Is it okay
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: if I blow out the candle for just a few
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: seconds and you see what total darkness is? You would
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: be amazed how many adults, more than kids, would say, no, no, no, no,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: you can't do that. Wow. Wow.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, if, God forbid, there had
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: been an emergency while you're showing the diamond tip drill,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: you'd say, everyone, we have to get out. This is
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: not a drill. And they'd say, yes, it is.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: That's a good airplane joke right there. There you go.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: That's fantastic.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Work. Work. I hope everyone's enjoying not doing it. Or
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: if you really don't like organized labor, you can work
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: on Monday.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Enjoy your long weekend. Hopefully all of you have a
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: long weekend and we will be back with our normal
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: format on Tuesday. So Jim, have a good one.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And think about it. This past Sunday was the last
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Sunday without NFL football until February.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. That is amazing. Enjoy. And none of our
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: teams have any losses yet. So enjoy it for the moment.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Jim Garrity, National Review. I'm Greg Karambas, Radio America. Thanks
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: so much for being with us today. Please be sure
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to subscribe to the podcast if you don't already and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: tell your friends about us as well. We would love
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: to have them listening. Thanks also for your five-star ratings
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and your kind reviews. Please keep those coming. Get us
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: on your home devices. All you have to say is
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: play Three Martini Lunch podcast. Follow us both on X.
• 22:54
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• 22:57
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• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Labor Day. Join us again Tuesday for the next Three
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Martini Lunch.