Episode 847: Bad Bunny and Bad Maps

Bad Bunny does the halftime show and Virginia Democrats draw the most outrageous congressional map in America. We'll discuss all this and more on this edition of the Editors. I'm Rich Lowry, and I'm joined, as always, by the right, Honorable Charles C.W. Cook, the good neighbor Noah Rothman, and the sage of authenticity, Woods Jim Garrity. You are, of course, listening to a National View podcast. Our sponsors are ExpressVPN and Vare. More about both of them in due course. If for some reason you're not already following us on a streaming service, by the way, you can find us everywhere from Spotify to Apple Podcasts. If you like what you hear here, please consider giving us a glowing five-star review wherever you listen to your podcast. If you don't like what you hear here, please forget I said anything. anything so Jim Garrity we had the Super Bowl and the much anticipated and or dreaded bad bunny halftime show which has dominated the conversation in part because it wasn't much of a game I know you appreciated the defense but from where I was sitting not much memorable happened in the first half and by the time it was nine nothing the game was basically over might as well had been 28-0, and I was not a fan of the halftime show. I do not understand the choice to have a halftime show performed almost entirely in a language that 85% of the country doesn't understand. I'm not a fan of twerking at shows that are going to be watched by children. There are, I believe, other dance moves, but all we do at the Super Bowl now is twerk, and most people would have missed this. I did miss this until I saw the post-game, post-halftime show commentary. But the three words you could understand that he said, Bad Bunny, were God bless America. It's like, oh, wow, that's great. And I thought it was a little weird that all these other flags were coming out. And he meant America in the sense of the continent or continents of America, making the point that we really shouldn't be called America. and America is just one of these Western hemispheric countries in a long, long litany. So I didn't find anything to enjoy about it. I will grant the production values were quite high and the choreography was amazing. Maybe for most people that's enough to make up for everything else. But I, for one, didn't like it. What did you make of it? Rich, you are completely wrong. You are wrong because if the halftime score had been 28 to nothing, the New England Patriots would have come back. Sorry to all the Atlanta Falcon listeners out there. No, I did not mind seeing Sam Darnold beat the New England Patriots at all. What was that score? It was 28-3. That was amazing. It was so bad that at halftime, Lady Gaga jumped off a roof. That's how... So I recognize from the beginning, I am not the target demographic of this halftime show, or really for a bunch of them in recent years. In part, and this was the topic of Monday's Morning Jolt, the NFL has already dominated its revenue and attention and discussion and relevance. Amongst people who like football, there's one survey that said 70% of American men follow the NFL to some degree. It doesn't mean they're watching every game every week, but they follow it in some way. The NFL really wants to expand its appeal to people who don't like football, which you'd think would be a problem for a product that is football. However, over the last couple of years, we saw a whole bunch of teenage girls who are really big fans of Taylor Swift get into football and start buying Travis Kelsey jerseys and start watching the games and start getting really into it because of Taylor Swift now engaged to Travis Kelsey. I hope they're a happy couple and live happily ever after. In this case, Bad Bunny has a fan base. So I think he's got like 50 some million people who follow him on YouTube. Now that fan base, there's undoubtedly some NFL fans in there, but probably a big chunk of them are not big NFL fans. But if you put a bad bunny concert during the halftime show of the foot of the Superbowl, you're getting a whole bunch of people who are bad bunny fans who are not usually fans of the NFL to watch the Superbowl, taking the already high ratings of the Superbowl and make them even higher. And who knows, Maybe some of those people will watch the Super Bowl and then start getting into football. So, you know, I wasn't really that into this halftime show, but I also recognize I wasn't the target demographic. It wasn't designed to appeal to me. And I do kind of feel like that there's an enormous amount of sturm and drang and just, you know, people getting very upset about it. It's also part of Roger Goodell aspiring to be Alexander the Great and reach the point where there's no more worlds for him to conquer. He wants to make the game international and bringing in one of the most popular Latin American performers in the world to do a halftime show is part of this determination. Goodell is hellbent on getting foreigners to become really big fans of the NFL. Are there other football leagues besides? So Canada has one. Are there any others? There was the XFL. They keep having one year. In the United States, but in other countries? Oh, only like, as far as I know, recreational leagues. Pro football is not played in many countries beyond that. Certainly on a professional level outside of this. The NFL had tried its six-team European league a bunch of years back, and it didn't really work. You know, it's an expensive game. You need a lot of equipment to play it the way the pros do. A flag football, you can play everywhere, and that's why it's a now Olympic sport. Speaking of Taylor Swift, by the way, Jim, and Travis Kelsey, I swear about a third of the kids in my town were wearing Chiefs jerseys the last couple of years. I didn't see one. No, they disappeared, didn't they? Nobody was wearing them a decade ago. Let's just keep that in mind also. Yeah, absolutely. So, no, I understand the commercial considerations. But still, this is a national festival. People say, oh, it's just a halftime show. And that's true in the sense that this doesn't mean that Spanish is going to become an officially recognized language in the United States or whatever. But it does matter. It matters to people. It's one of the most commonly watched or the most commonly watched and experienced events in America outside maybe a presidential debate or some terrible catastrophe, which you hope doesn't happen. so it matters and that's I think that's why people care about these things and talk about them besides it just being a fun topic conversation I guess I'm gonna disappoint I mean first of all nobody comes to this expecting me to have deep insights on anything related to the NFL but I wasn't put off by it I did kind of wish that there was a little more English in there for me personally but if you're getting bad bunny you're gonna get a Spanish performer if you're getting a rap artist you're going to get rap. If you're getting a country artist, you're getting a country. I don't know what you expected. And why I do understand that the consternation here that I find more sympathetic, but only marginally is the extent to which you have scantily clad women dancing on camera. I mean, that ship sailed so many years ago. I don't know if you can Janet Jackson decades ago. I don't know if you consume a lot of popular culture, but if you do and I have tweens in my house I watched this with a room full of tweens not all of whom are mine that is just typical of popular culture these days especially when it comes to dancing acts and I thought the sets were fantastic the set changes were amazing and there's a lot of you know of the notion that this wedding scene that was portrayed there was indicative of family values. Some people are saying that to defend the show. Others are critiquing it to suggest that it's window dressing over what was essentially a very pornographic dance spectacle. I find myself more in the camp that finds that sort of thing to be desirable. I think that it's very rare that we see an expression of that kind of sentimentality and the notion that we should celebrate intact nuclear families on an event that's watched by 100 million people, I don't think that was really culturally offensive. Quite the opposite. But I don't have strong, passionate feelings one way or the other, so I can't align myself with any of these two camps. But I am not especially passionate about the condemnations of this scene. I didn't think it was a great show. It didn't speak to me. Like Jim says, I know I'm not part of the demo. In fact, they long ago stopped catering to my nostalgic era. These things are usually like keyed into one particular demographic and it's a maximum point of nostalgia. And that point passed for me a while ago. I'm no longer the target demo. But I didn't hate it. I didn't love it. I just find it to be, you know, one of many spectacles that'll probably be forgettable. And everybody, it'll be a trivia question in a couple of years. You remember who played in 2026? And nobody will know. so this is a pro tip for all the engaged guys out there when when your wife asks your opinion about something related to the the wedding you got to have an opinion you can't just say well whatever you need to say you know i i like these napkins or this cake but but knowing that your opinion is going to be ignored and and fine you have to be fine with that but if your wife said oh yeah honey i think we're getting married at the bad bunny concert at the super ball no uh no thanks charlie what's your take well i don't have one that i've offered up because i don't feel passionately about this either way i have a few loosely connected thoughts i suppose the choreography was great as was the set probably wasn't particularly interesting to watch from the stadium but you couldn't couldn't see anything no scared by the bushes most of the time but 120 million people watched it at home and if you were lucky enough to go to the super bowl that was probably the least of your concerns the most of your concerns was that it was a bad game second thought is that i think jim is absolutely right in his assessment of why this happens you have to put it within the same trend that has caused the NFL to host games in England and France and Germany and Brazil and apparently this coming season Australia there is an attempt to take over the world this was part of it but the NFL hasn't taken over the world. And as a result, I would not have booked an act that performed solely in Spanish. Partly that's because I don't speak Spanish, but nor do most Americans. There are a lot of people in America who speak Spanish, but they aren't by any stretch the majority. And there's certainly not a majority among NFL fans. So personally, and this is an outrage. I'm not upset if Media Matters is listening i'm not condemning this i just would have preferred an act in english and the third thing is i will agree with the criticisms of the twerking i'm not a prude far from it but i'm annoyed that they show horror movie ads during football games oh yes i don't understand this when i was a kid maybe it was the same here the rule written or otherwise was that you don't show adult things till nine o'clock in england that was called the watershed before that you don't show sex or scary or anything that is intrinsically for those who are 18 or older so you know when it was six o'clock just before the game started and they showed a commercial for the new screamer movie and my kids looked at me somewhat nervously i thought guys could we stop doing this which is something i think whenever i watch a sporting event with my kids and this happens and the halftime show was the same now as it turned out my kids didn't watch the halftime show because i didn't let them because i assumed that this was going to happen too i don't understand why this is included in the super bowl halftime show and i don't understand why the Washington Post described it as family-oriented fun. It was many things. It wasn't that. There are lots of great things in life that are not family-oriented fun. I'm not exclusively... My confirmation, Charlie, that I was right in not liking it personally is when I looked at my phone and immediately saw the headline, the New York Times has a joyful performance. I was like, okay, yeah. Yeah. I actually have come to hate the word joy. It's a little digression. This was a word that was associated with Kamala Harris completely artificially. I keep seeing this used in the most annoying political contexts. Joy overcomes this, that, or the other, usually our laws or customs or history. So I hate this term. But look, I'm just not in either camp. I'm not upset about this. I have not felt my heart rate increase. I haven't felt irritated enough to require the catharsis that comes with writing. I understand that this was an entertainment event. It was a private event that was determined by people who aren't connected to me. And it just wasn't for me. So that's my overall take on this. All right. Next question to you, Jim Garrity. Favorite halftime show of all time? So I know that if we don't say Prince, Jeff Blahar will burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid man and rebuke all of us. But honestly, if I'm remembering correctly, U2 was the one right after 9-11. And Bono opens up his jacket. It's got the American flag. And I just remember, like, everybody in the world knew that Al-Qaeda, if they had the capability of blowing up that stadium, was going to do it. And so that just kind of felt me as the, you know, we're America. We're back. We're not going to be scared by anybody. life will go on. We will continue. We will emerge. Like it just seemed to hit all the right chords. So I want to go with you too, but I know it's really a long while ago these days. No. 2022 in Englewood, California, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar, who was also just present, but that was a killer performance. And in my view, the last time that they really just sort of tickled my nostalgic erogenous zone and i that was after that i was no longer in the demo so i look back on that one quite fondly what was the set a lot of cars or garages yeah it was like yeah it was a series of um there were they were almost like mobile homes but they were they had an um an open glass face and there was a rooftop on top of them and the performers would perform but down below there was these there you know people dancing and what was supposed to mimic a house party affect. Twerking, I'm sure. So much twerking. There was a lot of twerking. I mean, there has been twerking. Why is the erogenous son? My nostalgic erogenous son? Wouldn't you like to know? Nostalgic twerking. Yeah. No, this has been going on for quite some time. So my outrage on the twerking is tapped. You're very soft on twerking now. This is disturbing. But let's be honest. NWA is straight out of Compton. Absolute masterpiece. That's what was reflected on that stage. Charlie. I'm with Jim. I didn't like football until about 2016. I was vaguely aware of what the Super Bowl was. But of course, in Britain, and I assume this was the case around the world, we were all glued to our screens after 9-11. And we got a good amount of content from the United States. And I remember, without knowing anything else about the sports, two highlights. One was George W. Bush throwing out the first pitch in the World Series, which was a really great pitch if you go back and watch it. Very good. And the second is exactly the moment Jim describes where U2 plays the Super Bowl halftime show. Behind the band there is a screen with all of the names of those who died and then Bono opens up his jacket and there an American flag on the inside that burned into my mind i don think that was musically the greatest performance ever at a super bowl but i do think that that was probably the most iconic moment so i'm not a big song and dance guy but i would say lady gaga i don't like lady gaga i find her off-putting i didn't like her at in the bed bunny halftime on on sunday either i don't really like the songs but it was such an epic performance with that let's go to our first sponsor this episode charlie expressvpn indeed expressvpn an app i have on all of my devices expressvpn keeps your internet use private going online without express vpn is like checking in your bag at the airport without a lock who knows how many creeps are going through your private stuff now you probably don't think too much about how the internet works but because your traffic flows through their service your internet service provider and that includes your mobile network provider knows every single website you visit. 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So, Noah, a lot of outrage over Donald Trump saying that we should nationalize the elections, or at least there are 15 states where the elections are so corrupt and poorly run that we should nationalize them. This is not a great thing to say. There's also no mechanism for just nationalizing the elections of states you don't like. And then Steve Bannon added fuel to the fire by saying we need ICE agents at every polling place. There's this weird dynamic that you're starting to see on the MAGA right and in the president, where they encounter the limits of their power, of their authority. And then they press those limits in precisely the same way, expecting some other different result to manifest. And they fail, but they fail worse than they failed previously. I think the redistricting conversation we're about to get into fits into this, but the Trump's sort of comment here is reflective of that, just a general expression of political impotence. Yes, he says that we should somehow the Republican Party, which is his to command, should somehow nationalize elections in precisely 15 places. He didn't specify where, but I can guarantee you Idaho is not among them. And it is indicative of some sort of belief that not, he didn't specify that there was anything that would prompt this, any untoward behavior, any scandal, any controversy. It was unspoken, but implied rather strongly that it is just the GOP's deficits in these places that are somehow cosmically unfair and need to be changed for the benefit of Republican electoral prospects. And many have noted, including Yuval Levin on our site, that this is sort of harkens back to something Democrats attempted to do at the height of their madness. in that we're talking about green new deal era democratic party where they um promoted a piece of legislation that was so important they deemed it hr1 house bill the very first house bill of the new congress coming in uh after the midterm elections or rather yeah in 2021 2022 and it would have rested the process of redistricting out of the hands of the states it would have nationalized elections it would have compelled you to disclose if you have ever donated to an organization that engages in political speech however this legislation thought to define it it would have increased the number of democratic judges and district courts and the supreme court and it would have limited the independence of the federal judiciary and it was a disaster it was a messaging bill aimed at the democratic party aimed at radicalizing the democratic party it had its intended effect but not it didn't benefit the democrats that they drove their own constituents nuts. In fact, you could say that it redounded to the Republican Party's benefit. In retrospect, why would the GOP want to mimic that process and follow them down into that chasm that so radicalized them, so drove them so completely mad? I can't understand it. And there has been, it's generally, when the president has these little, you know, outbursts, thought bubbles that escape his mouth. It's just become common now for Republicans to sort of ignore it. Just hope it'll go away. And usually it does. But this nationalization of elections thing really caught fire on the left and in mainstream press. And I guarantee you a lot of normal voters, independent voters, persuadable voters caught wind of it and didn't like it. And it is kind of incumbent on Republicans to speak out when the president says things that are antithetical to the constitution, an insult to the American civic compact. Those are the sort of things that you need to say, well, out loud. Well, the president is, whatever he's thinking here is not in line with the constitution. It doesn't reflect our values. It doesn't reflect what this country is about. I would like to see a lot more of that. I know it's very difficult for Republicans to do that, but they need to start creating some daylight in their brand from the president. The president is a depreciating asset. He's a lame duck. He's not going to have the political clout that he ever had. And Republicans need to start creating an identity for them. And their identity cannot be keeping Donald Trump in power forever and whatever that means. This is the sort of thing that makes people really, really nervous, whether it should or shouldn't doesn't matter. It does make people very nervous. And there are a lot of individuals who are, who I don't agree with, who I think are very high strung, who are political addicts to their own detriment, But they get really concerned and genuinely, sincerely worried about the president's authoritarian impulses and that he would do something to undermine American democracy. They're super genuine about that. It's not an affect that they're putting on for the benefit of an audience. And this sort of stuff fuels that in ways that I don't think help the Republican Party. In fact, actively hurt the Republican Party's down ballot prospects. And for those of you who are on the down ballot, that should really matter. So, Charlie, I forget whether you said it when we were recording or just prior, but when we were talking about Indiana deciding not to gerrymander, in part because some of these state reps had legitimate concerns representing districts outside of Indianapolis. And the idea was you would dip into Indianapolis and spread out Democratic votes throughout these Republican districts and vitiate the number or diminish the number of Democratic districts. You said, oh, you know, that's great. Everyone's hailing them as heroes. But just wait, because when the next Democratic state has a chance to do this, they're going to do it with bells on. And that indeed is what happened in Virginia. So feel free to take a victory lap, although maybe victory is the wrong word. Yes. My position was that Indiana had every right to do it. And there may be things going on locally that I don't know about. And it's none of my business as a Floridian. But the notion that this was some great victory for the republic or blow against gerrymandering was ridiculous, as you say, because gerrymandering was continuing apace and that the Democrats were going to do it until their fingers bled, and so they have, with what has to be in Virginia the most extreme gerrymander in modern American history. My view has not changed since then, or since I wrote about this last, which I think was six months ago. gerrymandering is predominantly a state political issue that is to say it is non-justiciable in most cases it is an entirely grubby self-serving hardball endeavor politicians do it because they wish to give themselves and their parties an advantage let's acknowledge that that means there's nothing virtuous about Indiana declining to do it it means that when Texas did it, it was doing so to increase the prospects of the incumbent party in Texas not for some higher or noble cause it means that when the lady who has been predominantly responsible for what's happening in virginia comes out and says that this is a change that ensures fair representation for the commonwealth and the nation she ought to have everyone assembled including the reporters laugh in her face it's no such thing and i'm afraid it means that we ought to be irritated by the double standards that we see in the press. The press has committed two great sins here, in my view. The first one is to have treated Texas's gerrymandering in a different tone than it has treated Maryland and Virginia. If this gerrymander in Virginia, which turns a state that I think was 4951, in the gubernatorial election of 2021, which was 54-46 in the gubernatorial election last year, and which went for Harris over Trump by two or three points into a 91-9 state. if this had been done in a red state we would have seen the same contrived op that we saw in 2022 when georgia made modest changes to its electoral system we would have seen not that literally because it's not hosted there but calls to remove the all-star game or whatever else Virginia was hosting. We'd have seen pressure on corporations to move the location of their retreats or even their headquarters. It would have been a national panic. And we'd have been told it was Jim Crow as well. I just don't think you can have coverage of gerrymandering that pretends that one is good and one is bad, that one is a crisis and one is politics. the second mistake that i think the press has made in covering this is focusing too much on texas as the supposed impetus for what has happened here on the democratic side i think what texas did as i say was self-serving and political you won't find a defense of it but that's not what started this. Gerrymandering has obtained since the beginning of the Republic, and it was already the case when Texas went to do mid-season redistricting, that New England had been gerrymandered up the wazoo, that Illinois had been gerrymandered up the wazoo. The Democrats are already very good at this. They are already ruthless. They did not respond to Texas. They were already doing it. And if you want a potted history of this, it's as follows. For 50 or 60 years, the Democrats had control of Congress pretty much every year. Until about 2010, they were not therefore interested in gerrymandering, or they'd already done it. In 2010, they started to worry about it, because the Republicans did really well in the midterms, and then they started gerrymandering as well. So the Democrats introduced a bill federally that would ban gerrymandering. That wasn't done out of some abstract commitment to the anti-gerrymandering cause. It was done because for the first time in 50 or 60 years, the Democrats considered it necessary if they were going to keep control of the legislature. Moreover, the anti-gerrymandering bills that were introduced, and one was introduced recently, I believe it's 2021, don't really ban gerrymandering in the way that we might do it, if put to the task. They move the responsibility for gerrymandering into supposedly independent commissions that it just so happens, as is the case with most independent commissions in this country, are full of people who like the Democrats. So I don't blame the Republicans for having been skeptical about that effort. And I wish the press, when it reports on this, would be a little more open about the history of this and the motivations that undergird this. But I will repeat what I've said before. I'm not outraged about the Democrats doing this, or about the Republicans doing this, because this is what politicians do. I just think that it is profoundly annoying to have Indiana's decision not to do it, regarded in the media as some sort of wonderful national sacrifice that put doing the right thing over self-interest, only to watch as the Democrats' ruthlessness was indulged by the same people. You have to play this on both sides. If the Democrats are going to do it, the Republicans have to do it. If the Republicans are going to do it, the Democrats have to do it. I am absolutely open to a genuine solution where both sides disarm. But it can't only be on one side, and it can't be treated as good in one circumstance and bad in another. Yeah, Jim, this gerrymander in Virginia, it's so bad. So I think it's something like there'll be five Democratic congressmen living like within a 20-mile radius of each other because they're all going to be in northern Virginia. and they slice up Northern Virginia and just extend these districts way down into the less populous, more Republican parts of the state. So there's one district that reaches from Reagan National Airport to York County. York County is in Tidewater. Reagan National is on the border of Washington, D.C. That's like a three-hour drive. And then they're blowing by the guardrails that were created here. Charlie rightly said a lot of these independent commissions aren't truly independent, But Virginia passed a constitutional amendment several years ago. 66% of the voters voted for it to create a nonpartisan commission that at least so far has worked. And the districts reflect the partisan makeup of the state. Six to five congressional delegations, six Democrats, five Republicans. That's Virginia, right? Purplish Democratic tilting state but not a deep blue state like Massachusetts or Washington state or something like that And then to reamend the Constitution to do this you need to notify prior to an election They didn do it The election was already going when the legislature passed the provision saying hey we going to do this So there's a chance the Virginia Supreme Court just stops us. Then it actually has to go to a vote. Now they're voting in April, which will be a real low turnout election if it happens. and perhaps Democrats will prevail there, but there's a chance voters like, no, 10 to one, Democrats to Republicans is crazy. So, you know, minute correction to what Charlie said a moment ago, in 2024, Virginia Harris won 52% to 46%, but basically it was a pretty close one. It was not a 10 to one division that would be set up under these new congressional lines. I fully expect the state Supreme Court to look at this and say, no, this is not permissible under the state constitution. You have to go – this is not inconsistent with our previous procedures. This is not consistent with the law, and I'm certainly hoping that they do. Where I live in Fairfax County, there's more than a million people here. So, yeah, you're going to have more than one congressional district covering this county. I believe we are covering five under the new lines, which is absolutely absurd. um and i would point out that like this comes after a gubernatorial election that was not all that competitive but nonetheless abigail spanberger was running oh look at me i'm a centrist oh she was not running on this she was not saying i will redraw our lines to turn to maximize democratic representation because i believe that republicans should not be represented in congress from the state of virginia yeah she was all she's still saying jim sorry to interrupt but all she cares about is the integrity of the election so she wants to make sure that if this is going to happen it happens early enough that that everything can be changed in time for november charlie tweeted about this and here's like if you're gonna say we're doing this because we want to max fine be you know like don't pat yourself on the back and put out these statements about oh we're preserving election fairness and all this other absolute nonsense that's there. Look, I am right now of the angry dad turning around. I will turn this car around right now. I don't care who started it. But it's also very clear that no one has any limiting principle to, well, okay, they gerrymandered that state. We're going to gerrymander this state. And there, now we're even. There's always some gerrymandering that's been done somewhere else that justifies taking And, you know, as somebody who likes seeing competitive House elections, I think it's a good idea for people to have a not impossible task of tossing out their incumbent when they think he's done a lousy job. I would like to see in a perfect world, we'd have 435 competitive House districts. And you'd really it would be very hard for a party to keep control of the House of Representatives when they're unpopular. but we also should probably take a moment to point out the redistricting they did in Texas, those southern districts along the border. Latinos are not all that happy with the Trump administration these days, not all that happy with Republicans. I think the 2024 win of Trump and Republicans down ticket was largely driven by the fact people were very frustrated with Joe Biden and really unimpressed with Kamala Harris. And so they felt like they were the better of the alternatives but that didn't mean they'd fallen in love with Donald Trump and everything he stood for. So here we are heading into 2026. I think there are a whole bunch of people who poll the lever for Trump and who are not necessarily going to vote for Republicans in the midterms. Also, Trump has always never had great down ticket effects. And, you know, he's got a chunk of his supporters who show up on election day when he's on the ballot, but don't necessarily show up on, you know, midterms and off your elections and things like that. So it's possible that the redistricting in Texas does not help Republicans at all. California is going to be bad if Virginia stays and it probably won't. But, you know, even if it Like, it's possible that just by starting the redistricting war, Republicans end up at the losing end on both ends because the country is just frustrated with the incumbents, doesn't want to reelect a Republican majority, and they lose not just the ones where they thought they were redistricting to their advantage, but they also lose in the states where Democrats redistricted to their advantage. Yeah, also, I mean, it may be that just the redistricting war is a bit of a wash in terms of the numbers of seats. So then why wouldn't you have just kept it the way it was where you had a lot of competitive seats in these different states rather than just having every state that has a unified Democratic or Republican government going all to congressional districts for their own party? It's just – it's not the way – Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Spanberger hostage to the legislature here? Legislature took the lead on this. Yes. They're completely radicalized. If she wasn't in the witness protection program and actually she could come out and say, I don't think this is a good idea, guys. we are actually reaching a point at which it would almost make sense to turn all house elections into at large elections if we're going to do this if the idea is texas is a red state therefore or virginia is a blue state therefore yeah then do it as many states used to do it including in the early days of the republic and just say well this state has 11 representatives per the census so they will all be determined nationally nationally statewide i don't approve of that because i like local representation but that's where we're going yeah all right so exit question to you let me go to you first jerry on on this one so trump is pushing to get dulles airport and penn station named after him i don't think either of these are great places, at least certainly not Penn Station in its current state, that you'd want named after you. But Dulles Airport, maybe it looked very cool in the 1960s or 70s, whenever it opened, it looks like a hideous relic. It's so inconvenient in so many ways. I don't know why you'd want that place named after you. What would be your candidate, if it's not Dulles Airport, for the building, place, infrastructure project that you'd least want named after you in America? The Houston Texans Stadium. Because the Houston Texans play there or it's also a bad stadium? Because the Houston Texans play there. I'd add the Houston Astros Stadium as well. I've never been inside, but that looks like a beautiful ballpark. Yes, but the Astros play there. Yeah, that's true. It's much better than the Astrodome. I really regret never going to the Astrodome, which also ended up being a monstrosity towards the end. All right, Jim Garrity, are we going to have Bill's Stadium or whatever they call it where the Patriots play will be your candidate? No, my first thought was like, what is the worst and most inconvenient airport that you run into? Because most of the train stations in this country, even if you don't love them, they're in the heart of the city. You get out of the train and you're right in the middle of the city where you need to go to. you guys fly out of New York worse clearly I think New York has three terrible airports none of them are anywhere near any place I need to go in New York is JFK, LaGuardia or Newark the worst of them? Newark but they are rebuilding it so the terminals are getting better they have a new terminal that is reflective of what it will be and then it won't be the worst airport in America LaGuardia is kind of nice now and if there's not traffic it's convenient to Midtown it's a really good airport now how long ago was it when joe biden as vice president said it was a third world airport now it's really nice i found flying through new york to be an absolute magilla so i've never been impressed with any of those three but uh i'll go with la guardia then i'll go with newark then no i think la guardia is a good name for that airport by the way no it is and a good mayor I'm going to go with the helix that leads into the Lincoln Tunnel, keeping it with the New York theme. It's so bad that nobody's ever been named after it. It's just called the helix. I don't think anybody wants to be associated with that thing, but it is an infrastructural nightmare. I don't know how it was even conceived, but it really needs to be reimagined. Yeah, so if you're Chuck Schumer and you really want to screw Trump, you're like, Mr. President, we're naming the helix after you. I'll have a big ceremony. It'll be fantastic. You stole my thunder, Noah. because I'm not quite that specific, but both tunnels, Holland and Lincoln, they're depressing, they're dirty, they're disgusting. It makes you feel bad as a human being just to be in them or anywhere near them. They snarl the streets all around them. So those would be my picks. By the way, speaking of naming stuff after you, of course, the late Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia just named everything after himself. Now, they're not big, grand infrastructure projects in West Virginia, to name after yourself. So I remember once I was in Wheeling. The only time I've been in Wheeling, West Virginia, and there was the Robert C. Byrd Intermodal Transportation Center there in Wheeling. It was basically just a bus stop. Just a bus stop. All right. So, Charlie, it's time to hear from our favorite watch company. It is there. We've spent a lot of time this year talking about tariffs, whether it's still actually possible to make things in America. Well, Vare is putting that question to the test. Vare was founded in Los Angeles back in 2016 with a simple but very ambitious mission to revive the American watch industry. 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What's more, Vare's classic analog approach to timekeeping is not only sophisticated and refined, it's a welcome departure for people who are tired of getting pinged on their smartwatch all day. If you want to support American craftsmanship and own a watch that's both rugged and refined, check out Vare. You can find them at varewatches.com. That's V-A-E-R watches dot com. I love my Vare watch too. I have to say I like looking at it, not just to see the time. It's just a handsome thing to have on your wrist and I really enjoy it. So this is way up on our list now of favorite editor's products. So people should please check it out. Jim Garrity, going to go to you first on this one. More Epstein files. We're not going to argue about the appropriateness of having released all this information in order to discover all this embarrassing information about high-profile people. Put that aside because we've argued about it already a couple of times and just focus on some of the embarrassing information, which we have Steve Bannon caught up on this in this, Peter Atta, the British ambassador to the US, a former ambassador to the US. And you can pretty much write on your own the statements we'll hear. I really regret my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I showed poor judgment. I'm embarrassed by it. And I'm totally committed to making it right. We've heard that over and over again from very famous people now. Yeah. I mean, look, I wrote yesterday in the corner about the statement from Valeria Chomsky, the wife of Noam Chomsky. The excuses that she offers are basically a flaming dumpster fire, but they just fit into this recurring pattern of I, a brilliant and successful person who is an expert in human behavior and who have keen, long-honed skills at reading people, spent a lot of time around Jeffrey Epstein and nothing about him seemed unusual or suspicious. I have a very hard time believing that. I have a very hard time believing that all of these people in all of their time about Epstein, never, nothing ever crossed their mind. It was so unusual. What's more, as we've discussed in previous podcasts, I don't want to rehash all this stuff. But again, if you became friends with Epstein after he did time for soliciting underage prostitution, then I think you're kind of putting yourself in a situation where you knew the risks of becoming his friend. And no one has gone to jail for being a friend of Epstein. No one has paid a fine. No one has faced any legal challenge. There are people who have ended up there as the lawyer at the big firm and various other folks have seen some professional consequences for this. But by and large, it's been reputational damage. And I kind of feel like if you decided to become Epstein's friend and remained his friend, then, yeah, I think you knew the risks and these are the inevitable consequences of it. What I love, in a way, is the explanation in which Noam Chomsky emailed Jeffrey Epstein. And basically, you know, Epstein was saying, oh, I've got these really terrible press conference, bad press. What am I supposed to do about it? And Noam Chomsky, leftist hero, said that, oh, I know exactly how you feel. I've had hysterical accusations of all sorts. I pay no attention unless I'm approached for a comment on a specific matter. What the vultures dearly want is a public response, which then provides public opening for an onslaught of venomous attacks, many from just publicity seekers or cranks of all sorts. This is the little cherry on top. That's particularly true now with the hysteria that is developed about abusive women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder. Is it? Is it now? I have my doubts about that. Now, the other thing which I just think makes it really spectacular, and kudos to our photo editors for finding the photo of Noam Chomsky with Jeffrey Epstein on his private jet, is if you look at Noam Chomsky's entire life, it's all been about the evils of capitalism. It's all been about how this is just the absolute worst, the wealthy class, the financial class. All of these people are absolute monsters. and then for years he has a close personal friendship with Jeffrey Epstein who was almost literally a monster and represented the very worst of them um is you know it's not like it goes beyond hypocrisy there have been some leftists who've said oh my god I can never look at uh Noam Chomsky the same way again uh and I'm glad for that uh I think Noam Chomsky should have had his reputation destroyed a long time ago for completely different reasons but the fact that this guy could rant and rave about the evils of capitalism and then ask Jeffrey Epstein for some advice on how to transfer $270,000 from an Epstein-linked account, which, by the way, was also just an innocent favor, Valeria Chomsky insists. It just is kind of, you know, I am delighted to see Chomsky's reputation destroyed. It's hard to think of a more deserving fellow other than, Maybe Bill Clinton. Clearly part of what was going on here, Jim, though, and I'm not making excuses for these people or saying it's not blameworthy. He's just a charming guy. He's a sociopath, and sociopaths very often are charming. He knows a lot of famous people and rich people, and you want to be in this charm circle. I think that's what a lot of people found alluring about him. Charlie, it's kind of incredible to consider that Prime Minister Starmer may well fall over the Epstein files. The Epstein files have nothing to do with them. He picked an ambassador, as I alluded to here a second ago, to the U.S. who had Epstein connections that we know more about. He was apparently warned against this by some people. But this doesn't seem a firing offense unless a lot of people want to fire him for some other reason, and this is a good excuse. Well, that's exactly it. if Keir Starmer falls over this, it will be for other reasons. Could be anything. Arsenal scored too few goals in the latest home game, or there aren't enough badges in Kent. There will be some contrived reason for Starmer to go. The real reason that it seems at this point likely that Starmer will no longer be Prime Minister in a week or so is that he absolutely hated by everyone And that is not an exaggeration The Conservative government that preceded this Labour government was by the end of its decade and a half run disliked But it was not disliked on this scale. I think Keir Starmer's approval rating as Prime Minister is 13%. the Labour Party he leads is extremely unpopular. The government he runs is the most unpopular British government, I think, in 60 or 70 years, perhaps ever. And this is because two things happened at the last election. One, the right and centre split their votes. And two, because they split their votes, and because of the way the parliamentary system under first-past-the-post works, the Labour Party won a landslide on something like 36% of the vote. This has given the Labour Party a lot of power. Parliament is, as Lord Hailsham said, effectively an elective dictatorship, but it has not given it much popularity. So it sits in a very strange place where it can do pretty much whatever it wants, but what it is doing is disliked. and then Keir Starmer himself is a terrible leader he is annoying he has a weird voice he has no common touch he is in some regards uniquely unsuited to navigate this populist moment in Britain the Labour Party will probably get rid of him and replace him with somebody else That's how parliamentary systems work. There'll be an internal election. But I don't think it's going to fix Labour's problem. So the big inflection point in Britain will be the next election, at which it seems possible that the Reform Party, which is somewhat new, sits outside of the big two, or three of you include the Liberal Democrats. But we'll see if they can push themselves over the threshold. And then they're going to have their work cut out too, because hating your government is apparently in fashion right now. It is not a uniquely American thing. Indeed, I think Keir Starmer would absolutely love to have the approval ratings of a Donald Trump or a Joe Biden. This is what's happened in Britain. It's what's happened in France. It's what's happened in Australia and elsewhere. The world is in an ornery mood, but perhaps nowhere as much as the United Kingdom. So, no, another person caught up in this. I mentioned to Jim, Steve Bannon, who, you know, here there's this bogeyman, this terrible person, Epstein. A lot of MAGA conspiracy theories focused on Epstein. And lo and behold, this hero, MAGA, was conspiring with him on how to help his image. Yeah, so sort of related to that, we did have some pretty relevant news that broke, I think, over the weekend, reported first by the Miami Herald, who is citing statements given to the FBI by a former Miami or Palm Beach police chief. I believe his name is Michael Reiter. he quotes Donald Trump as telling him in July of 2006 roughly that he's thrilled that Ryder is going after Epstein that he says quote everyone knows he's been doing this unquote that he described Ghislaine Maxwell as evil and endorsed his focus on her and Ryder is pretty indemnified in this whole thing. He led the charge, very critical of the decision to put the allegations against Epstein before a grand jury rather than simply charging him outright and successfully prosecuted his case to the point that Epstein was charged directly in 2008 and convicted. So this is all, I don't find this especially hard to believe. And it puts a lot of meat on what was otherwise um he said she said story from the president that he distanced himself from um jeffrey epstein in the mid-2000s early 2000s so it makes it all the weirder that the maga industrial complex and i don't say that i say that very deliberately because i'm not talking about right-wing voters or maga voters but those who monetize the brand are rallied around a lot of the people who are far more implicated in their associations with jeffrey epstein you mentioned Steve Bannon. Bannon's not in the administration anymore, although he did serve on the President's National Security Council in the first term. But the Justice Department is no longer trying to uphold his conviction. They told the courts that it's in the interests of justice, according to Solicitor General John Sauer, that these charges be dismissed. Likewise, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is really caught up in this thing. He had said, he didn't sign a sworn statement as far as I know, but he had said that he dissociated himself with Epstein in the first decade of this century. And we subsequently learned that he had maintained contacts with Epstein up to and including making a family trip to the island late in the last decade, well after he was convicted of the allegations against him. I don't know what it serves this movement to rally around these figures, especially when the president himself seems to be, you know, pretty, he can can you make a clean cut um the MAGA movement seems just to be very deeply invested in sort of a very a contrarian fashion whenever these people find themselves caught in a snare that they have to rally around them they have to support them it's a it's a um a popular front kind of mentality and I don't think it serves the movement especially well especially now considering that they could say well Donald Trump is not associated with us therefore we aren't either why wouldn't you take that opportunity run with it exit question to you jim garrity your level of certainty that jeffrey epstein killed himself we have a cbs report that there is a mysterious orange shape captured on one of these videos heading up to epstein's here that's not in the official account of the days and weeks leading up to what I believe was his suicide. We also have a misdated, so unbelievable, a misdated release from the Bureau of Prisons about Epstein killing himself the day before. If the date's the day before he killed himself. So your level, and I have to say, I know no one except for maybe a present company who actually thinks Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. Your level of certainty from 0% to 100%, he definitely killed himself. So, Rich, I thought your piece where you did a really deep dive into just every angle and facet of the Epstein suicide, the records, the prison, etc., was really well done. And I thought it was the final and most authoritative piece you could have on this. However, hearing about the quote of a, you know, this description of a mysterious orange shape, wasn't there an infamous press conference where Hillary Clinton was wearing an orange jump pantsuit? There's some pantsuit. Yeah, was it orange? I just, you kind of look at that. You're like, well, okay. I think there's a lot of mysterious orange shapes in our public life these days. There are. See, it's probably that Trump doesn't wear orange suits. He just has this orange complexion. I think all the rich and powerful people who'd want to off him, we now know from the F-Team files, they like the guy too much to off him. So what's your percentage? Oh, wait, what was the, what, that he was still alive? No, not that, I don't think there are any conspiracy theories like Hitler. Are they still alive? You know, he's somewhere in Argentina right now. Maybe there are, I don't know. It wasn't a suicide. What's your percentage certainty that he committed suicide? 0% you think it was murder. 100% you think he definitely committed suicide. 98%. Noah. I'm also going to go with that. 98% is good. You have to allow for some uncertainty because I'm not exactly across from any of this. But the conspiracy theory suffers from the flaws of all conspiracy theories that are predicated on the notion that there is malice here rather than ignorance or stupidity. And that's just there's too many people involved. Far too many people involved, all of whom appear to be talking. So it just doesn't make any sense. I just wondered, do we know where the Baltimore Orioles were on that day? Strange orange shapes. They don't have the pitching to pull off the, starting pitching crime like this. No, I think he killed himself. You know my view on this. I think that most of the hysteria around this is exactly that. It's hysteria, and it's for some reason continuing to capture our national imagination. Yeah, I'm a 98%. I'll leave the 2% something totally wild. But the thing about these people, if there had been some plot to kill them, they would have messed it up. They wouldn't have been capable. Even if they were supposed to leave the key for someone who was supposed to kill them, they would have put it in the wrong place. Or they forgot to leave it out. They would have been napping when they were supposed to leave it out. On the missed dating, I'm sure the supervisor or these people said, you know, look, this very sensitive matter, we absolutely have to make sure that the correct date is on this release. and the person, the subordinate is like, yes, sir, yes, sir, and then fell asleep for like 90 minutes, then woke up and forgot what the date was, put the wrong date in. They're so totally incompetent at every single level. With that, let me do a quick plug for Anna Plus, digital subscription service at nationalreview.com. You're a way to get around our meter paywall and it floats your boat to comment on our articles and blog posts. Also, a really important, helpful way to support our crucial journalism. Let me also urge everyone out there to check out Carolyn Downey's YouTube page, where she is posting pretty much every day as part of her program, Locked In, and also our main YouTube page, where I'm also posting videos roughly every day. With that, let's hit a few other things before we go. Jim Garrity, you enjoyed your Super Bowl party. I did. I was outraged the way you should have been about the halftime show. No, no. I was thinking about how on this podcast I've said how Thanksgiving is kind of an underrated holiday because it's all the good parts of the family get together. You're watching football. You're enjoying the turkey. You don't have to worry about, you know, gift shopping and all the other stress that can come with Christmas. Super Bowl Sunday is a deeply underrated holiday as well. The only thing that I keep insisting, it would make a lot of sense if you could figure out a way to move the game back so that President's Day is that Monday, so everybody gets a day off. There's been a particular weirdness that Monday, yesterday, was the first regular start of school here in Fairfax County in a two-week period. So is that just because it's cold? So yeah, it was cold, ice. What was happening is that occasionally around midday, it would get warm enough for the ice to start melting. and then when it got cold again, it would refreeze. So we got a lot of icy sidewalks and stuff. But as I've mentioned, Fairfax County freaks out over the slightest prospect of snow. But no, it was great. There's food, there's friends, you're enjoying it. People who are into football love it. People who aren't into football love it. I just think, you know, and we got together with our friends. What were you guys eating? What were the main dishes? So there was both chili, all kinds of wings, pulled pork, a vegetable plate that I obligated, took one or two items off of all kinds of carbohydrates that were not good for me that I tried to avoid and did not succeed. It was just a smorgasbord it was great. Awesome, so now you have congratulations for your wife I do she got a surgery that she has been wanting since she was 18. It's not exactly cosmetic, it is important and insurance covers it because it's rough on her, breast reduction surgery but a long recovery ahead but this is something she's wanted to do for 20 years and I'm very glad that it is behind her and I look forward to her just being that much lighter moving forward that's right I have been listening to the relatively newly released Beatles Anthology 4 the first three were released in 1995 and they have outtakes and recordings of the Beatles developing their now famous songs and this is the latest of them and has a whole bunch of new recordings i find it fascinating but infuriates my children because they know the beatle songs really well and then the version will differ slightly because they make a mistake or stop or they change something and turn it off turn it off turn it off can we listen to the real one but as a music story and I think it's fascinating. So I've been reading a James Holland book, The Rise of Germany, 1939-1941. Kind of interested in the blitzkrieg lately and to what extent it was a real thing or the images of it are correct. And Holland is just so good. This is one of the best books on World War II I've ever read, just brimming with fresh insights and has a great narrative drive as well. With that, it's time for our editor's picks. Jim Garrity, what's your pick? Okay, so Andy McCarthy, I believe as of this recording, is at part four of a five-part series on President Trump, his family, the crypto business, corruption, selling of pardons, and all kinds of sordid details. And Andy is not just a great writer with a great mind. And I, you know, there are days this this publication is going to root for President Trump. There are days this publication is going to be really irritated and upset with President Trump. I think this is entirely warranted. And you can just tell that this this bothers Andy on a deep, visceral level. And he's laying it all out in, you know, every last detail in this five part series, five part series, at least so far. So once again, Andy, work well done. No, that's your pick. I hate to do this. And not just because intellectual integrity compels me to praise Charlie's work, but he goes after Peggy Noonan deservedly in his latest. Unfortunately, Peggy Noonan's idealized journalism doesn't exist. And I am a huge fan of Peggy Noonan. I find her extremely insightful, one of the better op-ed writers working today. But I share his trepidation over that column and just confusion with it because what she described was in a world that doesn't exist. Maybe it did exist at some point, but I would challenge that. It was a very gauzy reflection on what journalism could be, but not what it has become. Certainly not what it is. And Charlie takes a hatchet to it, deservedly so, and it's a very good piece. Go read it. Charlie. Thank you, Noah. Mine is our editorial on China's sentencing of Jimmy Lay. Is that how you pronounce it? lay or lie lie it's lie thank you it's a fantastic editorial on a really depressing topic yeah that was my pick as well we probably should have had a segment on on this this is just a totally outrageous unjust obviously sentencing of a very brave man and this this editorial just is suffused with a sense of righteous rage throughout and is excellent so that's it for us three two one so that's it for us you've been listening to a nationally a podcast and your rebroadcast retransmission or account of this game without the express written permission of national magazine is strictly prohibited this podcast has been produced by the incomparable sarah schutte who makes it sound better than we deserve thank you charlie thank you noah thank you, Jim. Thanks to ExpressVPN and VAIR. And thanks especially to all of you for listening. We're the editors. We'll see you next time.