Larry Kudlow is back! And he brings good news, among other things. The guys get his take on the dealings of this Kevin McCarthy fellow, along with predictions on forthcoming (eventually!) market corrections, and his optimistic assesment of American work, tradtions and faith.

Plus our merry trio get into the GOP primary contenders—and some other people whom we’re told are running. More importantly, they talk toy trains… Just tune in and roll with it.

 

Guests are fun ‘n all but sometimes bros just gotta stick to the core group. Lileks, Robinson and Long discuss everything from a rumble in James’ once quiet neighborhood to Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis, Jay Bhattacharya and a certain company which is following Anheuser-Busch into the grave by making its own conspicuous call to not just go about business as usual.

The gang cover so much ground this week, ChatGPT would have a hard time putting together a description! Our first guest is North Dakota’s senior Senator John Hoeven. He describes his recent trip to the border, weighs in on collapsing banks, and assess the upcoming primary for the Grand Ole Party. Next John Yoo stops by on his way to McDonalds to explain the scandal laid out in the Durham Report.

The hosts also get into actual reefer madness, creative AI and the pickup scene on the screenwriter’s picket line.

Andy McCarthy returns to help us get through the shocking discovery that maybe it’s possible that the Bidens are a little bit not entirely 100 percent ethical. This week we’ve got money laundering, not one but two prostitutes; there’s another big chapter in the border crisis, and a good samaritan being charged for trying to protect New Yorkers on the increasingly infamous subway.

And as if our hosts are going to talk about American cities two weeks in a row without having a word about architecture… Pshaw!

New York! San Francisco! Our once grand cities are fast turning into… Yikesvilles. To help our hosts work up a diagnosis, The Ricochet Podcast needs the great Victor Davis Hanson. The quartet talk universities; they consider the unique top-down nature of this new wave of revolution, and discuss whether the country is in graver danger than it was in those dreadful 1970s.

Then James, Peter and Rob muse on the recently discarded standards of public decency vis-à-vis debased internet content and the all-to-common swear word.

Mr. President says he needs four more years to break the country, so we at Ricochet thought we’d bring in a few guests that believe we aren’t quite done for. First up is the spritely and ever-exuberant Kevin Williamson to make the case that things aren’t quite as bad as some would have us believe. And Andrew Gutmann returns to tell us about his bold campaign in the Sunshine State to take Lois Frankel’s seat in Congress. (Support the effort to take back our future here!)

It turns out James was a-way last week. He’s still a dude as far as we can tell. The reunited trio chat about his couple weeks in Europa.

Rob Long and Charles C.W. Cooke enjoy chatting over a couple Sazeracs with Ricochet members at our 2023 meetup in New Orleans. Especially special thanks to Randy Weivoda for hosting the meetup, Melissa Praemonitus who made the recording possible and to our Ricochet friends who attended.

Be sure to come to the next one! Below are some posts to prove it’ll be worth your while.

Our apologies for leaving you with Ricochet-less week! In order to make it up to you, we go big with a couple of our favorite recurring guests. First up is Ann Coulter to explain why she thinks the Republican Party is doing all it can to blow yet another election. Then Debra Saunders returns to take us through Dominion’s suit against Fox News and the outrageous biases therein.

The gang also touch on Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s challenge to Joe Biden (and the damage it could do to him!) along with Rob and Charles’ grand time in New Orleans meeting Ricochet members!

Since the Ricochet Podcast will be on hiatus next week, we’ve got a big episode to tide you over! We’re not only jam packed with our extra gab time, but with today’s guest Ze’ev Orenstein we head the birthplace of our grand Judeo-Christian tradition. His organization is excavating the City of David, making it possible for those currently celebrating Passover, Holy Week and Ramadan (or any curious visiter) the chance to walk through the awe-inspiring sites of their prophets, priests and kings.

The fellas also get into the disappointing elections in Chicago and Wisconsin; plus they touch on the outrageous culture war battles centered around Bud Light and Douglas Mackey.

This one’s gonna be tough to beat! We’ve got a Tom Wolfe novel playing out in real time. From a corrupt DA to a presidential scandal involving an adult film star. Plus we’ve got fan-favorite John Yoo! Need we say more?

There’s some more AI chatter; and Peter’s ticker is finally working right!

It’s a trip around the world on this week’s Ricochet Podcast. Our guide is AEI’s Nick Eberstadt. He keeps up with all the little details that are often overlooked by prognosticating pundits. How do China’s age distribution and Russia’s health profile for young men hinder their ambitions? Are we in a position to sway India to the West? What other friend prospects are out there? He has answers to all the questions most of us have never thought to ask. And optimism, too!

The guys also talk about the Dutch and their farms and the French and their grèves. Plus, just when you  thought we could all agree that TikTok is the worst, our hosts find some finer points to quibble about.

To mark the third anniversary of America’s Covid lockdown hysteria Rob, James and Peter give their uncredentialed thoughts on Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse and the FDIC doing something very different than what it was created for. They think through free market solutions, the fate of little banks and the buildings and what they meant for small town America.

The guys also chat with Stanford Review editor Walker Stewart to discuss the outrageous disruption of Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judge Kyle Duncan on the law school campus.

William Buckley attracted a lot of attention—and we’re all the better for it. But his big brother Jim was no small player in the conservative rebound that saved the country in the late 20th Century. On March 9th the elder Buckley celebrated his 100th birthday, and Jack Fowler joins to remind us of the significance of the WWII veteran and member of the small club of public servants who’ve served in high positions in all three branches of the federal government.

Ricochet’s merry trio also get into the Twitter Files hearings and latest developments south of the border.

Are you faring well in the digital apocalypse? Did you even know it had already arrived? Fret not! Our old friend James Poulos is here to help. His latest book Human, Forever is the guide to protecting your incommensurable humanity from the technologies that threaten to make us interoperable and mechanical. It is indeed good news to be human! The challenge of the 21st Century will be for us to stay that way.

Plus Rob, Charlie and Peter discuss Lori Lightfoot’s ousting, the canceling student loan malfeasance that’s being argued over at the Supreme Court Building, and they have some fun with self-promoting political blurbs.

There’s a lot to gab about this week, so it’s a good thing our hosts had some extra time. Among other things, the trio delve into the moral scolds who think it’d be a great idea to bowdlerize our favorite children’s stories; and they’re glad to hear how Vivek Ramaswamy will shake things up as the newest Republican candidate for 2024.

Then Eli Lake, who spoke with the hosts the day after the invasion, returns to assess Ukraine, Russia and the United States after one year. They get into Putin’s troubles, Europe’s surprising resilience, China’s alleged jump into the fray, and… nukes, of course.

The hour may be late to protect America’s future, but all is not lost. We can sense this thanks to the actions of men like today’s guests. Mark Bauerlein joins Rob, Peter and James to discuss how universities have robbed the young of the grand narrative, along with his work at Sarasota’s New College.

Andrew Gutman, who made headlines two years ago as a frustrated father willing to speak up, returns to cover some of the startling national trends in primary education, and the lengths he’s been going through to get his child a real education. (Keep an eye for the upcoming “Take Back Our Schools” which will feature James Lindsay in the guest chair!)

For all the talk of walking and chewing gum vis-a-vis America’s looming threats to national security, have you ever asked whether China is the walking part or the chewing gum? Elbridge Colby has. He joins Rob, James and Charles to explain why the analogies to multitasking are divorced from our current defense strategy — such as it is — and why even thinking back to the Cold War can only do so much for us.

Our hosts get into lousy speeches and wonder if ChatGPT could make for an improvement; plus they say farewell to the essential Burt Bacharach.

There’s no other way to put it: the viral video showing Tyre Nichols vicious beating at the hands of Memphis police officers was shocking and despicable. Rafael Mangual — the head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute — joins James, Peter and Steve to explain why activists and politicians are wrong to see this as a vindication of their insistence on policies that are sure to exacerbate the problem.

Our hosts also get to applaud Republicans playing offense on education and committee selections; they muse on the laptop formerly known as Russian disinformation; and can’t help but get swept away by the Chinese spy balloon.

Agree with him or not, our guest today is a man of true grit. Former Navy SEAL and representative of Texas’ 2nd congressional district, Dan Crenshaw joins the podcast to discuss the Intel Community; the rising temperature of the conflict in Ukraine; and our very own border, which, you may have heard, has its own problemos.

Florida man Charlie Cooke is with us again, and he’s got thought on football and his governor. James defies Twitter, comes out as pro-“the” and anti-peasantry; Peter still likes what we used to call chivalry.

Even if it weren’t for voter sentiments over the last few years, a slew of electoral losses might make changes at the RNC seem like a no-brainer. And yet there’s only one member of the committee who’s willing to do anything about the party’s dismal performance. Harmeet Dhillon returns to lay out her impressive list of ideas to break the GOP’s addiction to losing. (Visit her site to support however you can.)

Steve Hayward fills in for the roaming Rob Long. He, Peter and James discuss megalomaniacs in Davos and disdain for academic excellence in Fairfax County.