The Federalist Radio Hour

April Ponnuru, senior advisor at the Conservative Reform Network, joined the Federalist Radio Hour to discuss the trouble with the Republican partys brand, the current meltdowns surrounding the Trump campaign, and other October surprises. With the weight of stagnant wages, rising college tuition, and other economic downturns, working Americans have had a hard time believing conservatives have solutions. Republicans were just too slow addressing those concerns, Ponnuru said. People think of Republicans and think elites and they think rich people and that is not a winning strategy. As women step forward accusing Donald Trump of sexual assault, his support among female voters continues to collapse. Theres this obvious hypocrisy in saying we should believe all these Clinton accusers but were not going to believe any of these women... particularly when your candidate has said I have done these things to women, Ponnuru said. Later in the hour, Ponnuru and Mary Katharine Ham discuss the temptation for parents to give their children cell phones and screen time. andnbsp;

Andrea OSullivan is the program manager of the technology policy program for the Mercatus Center where she combines her interests in economics, cryptology, alternate currency, and emerging technologies. She joined Ben Domenech in studio to discuss the recent hackings of government data, Hillary Clintons emails, and the future of Bitcoin. Institutions and countries are facing cyber security vulnerabilities all over the world. You just have to assume that any time any information thats out there can be compiled... in this time of big data thats a real concern both in terms of good governance and national security, she said. With the increase of hackers and as the government takes a more active role in shutting down bank transactions of companies at their discretion, many consumers are investing in alternate currencies. The important thing about Bitcoin is not necessarily anything about its monetary properties...at its heart its important because its a censorship resistant protocol, OSullivan said. andnbsp; andnbsp;

Kelly Riddell, deputy opinion editor at the Washington Times, joined Ben Domenech on Federalist Radio to discuss how Republicans have failed to communicate with the working middle class and the recent anger and frustration at Donald Trump coming from Republican women. There is a lack of awareness from the establishment that the Republican base really does want an outsider candidate. There is the level of arrogance from these political operatives in Washington DC, that as soon as Trump is gone, his voters are gone too, and his base is gone, and the 14 million people who voted for him, Riddell said. With the likelihood that the Republican party will lose multiple factions of its voters after November, Republican leaders also have a lot to lose. Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan--they cannot ignore this Trump faction that is out there and they need to talk to them, Riddell said. They cannot just all of a sudden get into power and move forward with immigration policy, or green-light whatever Hillary Clinton wants. andnbsp; andnbsp;

Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi give their top takeaways from the second Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They also discuss Trumps vulgar recorded conversation about women in 2005 and some strong opinions on Halloween and Oktoberfest. This debate was unlike anything in all of American political history. It did seem very surreal but I kind of felt that the whole campaign has been surreal and almost as if fates are conspiring to bring us to this moment, Hemingway said. After the 2005 recording surfaced last week, many people in Republican and RNC leadership have started walking back their endorsements of Donald Trump. It is cowardice to do what theyre doing right now, Harsanyi said. We had a chance to stop this, you didnt do it. Not just that you didnt do it, but you called people who wouldnt go along with you traitors. andnbsp;

Mary Katharine Ham, senior writer, and Gracy Olmstead, associate managing editor, host todays Federalist Radio Hour to discuss college football, the vice president debate, birth control, mental health, and more. After attending the Georgia-Tennessee football game in Athens on Saturday, Ham retells the story of one of her teams greatest losses in SEC history. One can hope that they are forged in the crappy crucible that was Saturday, Ham said. Olmstead recently wrote about partisan Livability rankings and the political fracturing that some have seen in our countrys towns and local levels. A lot of these issues that we see on the national level as so polarizing, make their way out, get thought out and reasoned out on a local level, she said. Later in the hour, they discuss the Danish study linking birth control and depression in women. It really can erode so much of your daily productivity, your ability to live a happy life, I mean its a chemical problem, Ham said. You dont know what is you and what is synthetic hormones.

With both major parties lacking clear support for the pro-life movement, Ben Domenech argues for case for a third party: The Party of Life. Charles Camosy, associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University, discussed the political climate for pro-lifers, and Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, discussed the logistics and legal challenges to get third party candidates on the ballot at state and federal levels. We need a party that behaves and focuses on this issue. One that elevates the pro-life agenda at the centerpiece its campaign, and does so in critical contests across the country where its a close race between a Republican and a Democrat, Domenech said. Camosy said there is a surprising amount of pro-life common ground existing in the American electorate. A lot of most peoples political commitments arent based on arguments or evidence...its more like a club or a tribe, he said. Pro-lifers for so many decades now...have just thought of the Republicans as their tribe.

James Rosen, Fox News Chief Washington Correspondent, joined the Federalist Radio Hour to discuss the new book, A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century that collects the best writings of William F. Buckley. Rosen and Domenech also discussed Elvis, The Beatles, comedy, politics and more. In this book, Rosen has collected 50 of Buckleys best eulogies on varied types of great figures of his time. This is the only place in the world where you will find Milton Friedman rubbing elbows with Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, he said. Buckley also eulogies for John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, Jackie Onassis, Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, and in so many of these cases, Buckley knew these people. Rosen, a devout Beatles fan, discussed the new documentary by Ron Howard, Eight Days A Week. The Beatles are universal, he said. Its overpowering how great they were and how far away it is now, its sad to me, he said. andnbsp;

This episode originally aired on June 21, 2016. We will be back tomorrow with a new episode. Heather MacDonald, fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joined the Federalist Radio Hour to discuss her new book, “The War on Cops.”MacDonald addressed the motives of movements like BlackLivesMatter and how it has impacted police forces across the nation. Mac Donald said crime decreased during the years of economic downturn since 2008 despite liberal rhetoric that economic downturn increases crime. “Staring in the second half 2014 however, after the shooting of Michael Brown and Ferguson, Missouri…crime in heavily black neighborhoods starting going up because again officers are backing off of policing under the relentless hostility they get on the streets and under the message that they they are the biggest threat facing young black men,” she said. Domenech and Mac Donald discuss the “Ferguson Effect”, discretionary policing, Freddie Gray, the broken windows theory, and what policing is becoming in Chicago, Detroit, and other urban areas.

Heather Hendershot, professor of film and media at MIT, is the author of the new book, Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on The Firing Line. She joined the Federalist Radio to discuss Buckleys role as a conservative contrarian and how The Firing Line impacted the conservative media landscape. Every week, American intellectuals, artists, and athletes would engage in debates with William F. Buckley on the issues of the day. You could watch the show as a conservative, and become a better conservative, more informed conservative, Hendershot said. But you could also watch it as a liberal, and become a better liberal and a more informed liberal. Hendershot described Buckleys sharp wit and the huge vocabulary he was known for. He has a wonderful put-down style thats never personal and cruel, but always very concise and clever, she said. He loved the word hobgoblinized. They discuss the ways in which conservatism and comedy have intertwined on late night television.

Senior Editors Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi discussed how the media continues to turn a blind eye to any and all corruption associated Hillary Clinton and treat her as a victim. This weeks media insanity includes the skewed coverage of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado and the Judiciary Committee hearing with FBI Director James Comey.  Later in the hour, Harsanyi argues that there is no originality or creativity left in Hollywood. Its not just way too much of the media deciding they will do whatever Hillary Clinton wants, but exactly how she wants, Hemingway said. If youre going to deep dive and make this person a sympathetic figure in democratic parlance...you should mention that a Venezuelan judge accused her live on air of threatening to kill him. After being questioned about his support for the Iraq War in this weeks debate, Donald Trump would be smart to bring up the past decisions and polices that Hillary Clinton stood for. I cant believe were still talking about Howard Stern, Harsanyi said. Why dont they play the speech of her on the floor talking about weapons of mass destruction? She saw all the CIA reports...yet shes let off the hook completely like she had nothing to do with it.

Hadas Gold, media reporter at Politico, joined Mary Katharine Ham on todays Federalist Radio talk about the medias 2016 insanity, the new season of Saturday Night Light with Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, and a preview of all things Autumn including Starbucks drinks. Gold shared stories from the spin room after this weeks presidential debate Monday night. When youre in the spin room and the filing center, a lot of times people will just start mobbing and they dont know who theyre mobbing, she said. People next to me got up and were like, I dont know who this is but were gonna go and I guess we should interview them. As late night comedy attempts to mock and impersonate the candidates, comedy writers have said both Clinton and Trump are making their jobs more difficult. They should really just read what [Trump] says on air and they have to find a way to turn it into something funny when the reality is so absurd, Gold said.

Dr. Paul D. Miller, associate director of the Clements Center for National Security at The University of Texas at Austin, joined the Federalist Radio Hour to discuss the future of conservative foreign policy, and his new book, American Power and Liberal Order: A Conservative Internationalist Grand Strategy. Miller said the Obama Administration may have learned the wrong lessons from US history in the Middle East. In the Obama Administrations mind, we messed up in Iraq and Afghanistan and so the lesson is: dont do that ever again, he said. I think the lesson is, when you have to do it, do better. Some conservatives have been cautious about saying that we ought to try to spread democracy around the world. But in the long run, we have been doing it and doing it very successfully for a very long time, Miller said. Using our power to win Europes wars, WWI and II and the Cold War, was the event that catalyzed huge democratic transformation across the continent. andnbsp; Donald Trump has claimed that other nations are simply free riding off of US military protection. Trump seems to go one step further and suggest the European allies should actually pay us for our defense... and that misunderstands the notion of international alliances, Miller said.

Chris Stirewalt, digital politics editor at Fox News, and Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, reviewed the good, the bad, and the ugly of last nights first presidential debate between Trump and Clinton. Stirewalt said in defense of Lester Holts questions, character and fitness are part of the discussion. Once we get pass the basic world view questions, I care very little about specific policy provision that politicians have because they lie and then they always change their minds and do the opposite, he said. Kristol said he is surprised that Hillary Clinton isnt doing better than she is. Shes clunky, she has these bad, pre-planned little attack lines, he said. Which you would think the Democrats have some intelligent speech writers and people working for them... they could come up with something better than Trumped up trickle down, he said. andnbsp;

This episode originally aired on June 15, 2016. We will be back tomorrow with a new episode of the Federalist Radio Hour. Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs, joined The Federalist Radio Hour to discuss his new book, “The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.”  Levin explained why baby boomers are so nostalgic about the way America used to be and the frustration with the present moment. Levin’s book walks through the America of the 20th century and how it’s isolated from the rest of American history. “The country that came out of World War II was an incredible cohesive and unified version of the United States, very usually so,” he said. “Almost immediately after the war that began to break down.” One lesson conservatives can learn from 2016 already is that they have had the wrong impression of the Republican electorate. “Donald Trump has just run roughshod over all those litmus tests,” he said. “The idea that the Republicans electorate is a highly conservative voting base strikes me as a mistake that’s analogous to the mistake social conservatives make about the country at large.” Levin discussed the areas that both political parties are blind to, and how our fragmented national life can play to its strengths within it’s diversity and decentralization. // //

Mary Katharine Ham previewed the upcoming presidential debate with Guy Benson, political editor at TownHall, and Amelia Hamilton, correspondent at Watchdog.org, on todays Federalist Radio Hour. Benson said he thinks the first debate of the three is the most important, particularly for Trump.  Trump doesnt have to wow everyone with a bunch of policy knowledge that we never knew he had. He just needs to look and sound like a rational, sound, plausible president. Earlier this week, Mary Katharine Ham participated in an Atlantic panel about early childhood education and universal preschool. As an education correspondent, Hamilton and Ham discussed the risks and dangers of putting preschoolers into the standardized testing pipeline. You dont want to get into this cradle-to-grave the government tells you how to parent, how to educate, what and when to teach, Hamilton said.