The Federalist Radio Hour

Molly Ball, politics writer at The Atlantic, joined Mary Katharine Ham on Federalist Radio to recap Tuesday nights primary results, talk news of more deleted Hillary Clinton emails, Trumps flip-flopping on immigration. Last nights biggest races to watch included John McCains in Arizona and Marco Rubios in Florida. This is the beginning, make no mistake, of Marco Rubios presidential positioning for a future presidential run. Hes not really even trying to hide it, Ball said. Despite huge gafs by Hillary Clinton every few weeks it seems, such as the emails related to Benghazi just released, Trump doesnt attack her as much as he could. The reason the polls are narrowing is because Hillary is sinking a little bit and I would give props to the media for this because we dont just chase whatever Trump has decided is a story, Ball said. Later in the hour, they swapped back-to-school stories as summer comes to a close. My first lunch box, which Ive always been sort of proud of, was tin not plastic, and it was Gremlins, Ham said.

Two Washington Post reporters, Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, collaborated with more than a dozen other Post writers, editors, and fact-checkers to write an investigative biography of Donald Trump. Kranish and Fisher joined The Federalist Radio to share the stories they uncovered in Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power. Trump has had decades to create and to manipulate his public image. What we tried to do is push past that and look at everything, maybe some of the things he didnt want everyone to know or didnt want to be a part of his public image, Fisher said. Over the course of the book you get a sense of Donald Trump as a much more complicated man than he likes to let on. How much is Donald Trump worth? Does he have friends? Does he know how government works? These are just a few of the questions Trump Revealed tries to answer. Trump has certainly found a way through the mass market, through his name, in an aspirational sort of way, Kranish said. [People] admire that hes a tough person. They most likely dont know all the details.

Bill McMorris, reporter at the Washington Free Beacon, joined Federalist Radio Hour to define bro culture and discuss how society should rank our countrys top bros. Bros wouldnt exist if women didnt find them attractive in some way, and one way is bros make everything fun, McMorris said. The bros write in very direct prose as opposed to the beat poetry of the beatnik. While swimmer Ryan Lochte has previously been considered the platonic ideal of brodem, there is now a need for reevaluating what it means to be a bro and how the latest drama surrounding Lochte alters his bro ranking. He got slammed in all these media outlets as an irresponsible American who left the scene of a crime, but now it seems that this is kind of a vindication that Americans are targeted around the world, Domenech said. McMorris and Domenech verified and ranked an exhaustive list of bros including Rob Gronkowski, John Mayer, The Rock, Justin Bieber, and others. Heres my problem with Wahlberg: Hes kind of a meta bro, Domenech said. He was orignially a bro but he got really smart and now hes the executive the producer on a bunch of shows including Ballers which itself is a meta commentary on bro culture.

Scott Winship, Walter B. Wriston Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joined Federalist Radio to talk about his latest report, Poverty After Welfare Reform, that looks at poverty in America 20 years after the landmark antipoverty reform act passed. With so many types of government programs and benefits going in different directions, it can be difficult to tell whats actually working. In 2014 there were fewer kids who were poor, even if you dont count any cash or non-cash benefits from the government. Few poor children than there were in 1996 when you count all cash benefits including welfare, Winship said. So that says to me it was earnings and work. Winship said there are elements to poverty that we still arent sure how to address such as single parenthood and out-of-wedlock births. Why not just provide a very clear financial incentive for people to delay their childbearing until after their married and so Ive proposed a fairly big increase in child tax credit for married couples, he said. andnbsp;

Evan McMullin, independent conservative presidential candidate, joined Ben Domenech in studio to talk through his efforts to get on state ballots across the country, his stances on the biggest issues of 2016, and what he hopes to accomplish. I felt so strongly that this country had to have better options in this election, McMullin sadi. We as Americans are not being given good options for leaders in this election and someone needed to step forward. McMullin explained legal action as part of his strategy to get on the ballot. There are a number of states that have requirements for petitioning onto their ballots if youre an independent candidate that are really designed to keep independent candidates off the ballot...we intend to challenge them. McMullin said he believes humans were created to be free and have a natural desire for freedom. Democracies dont fight each other. Terrorists dont tend to come from places where they feel like they have recourse in a political system. andnbsp; andnbsp;

Dr. Anand Parekh, senior advisor at the Bipartisan Policy Center, joined Federalist Radio to discuss the Zika virus including its origin, its impact on pregnant women and children, and what lawmakers are or are not doing to combat it. For the last 18 months this has really been a real pubic health concern, and the concern is really focused pregnant women because this virus is the first mosquito-born virus that we know definitely can potentially lead to birth defect, Parekh said. Compared to other pandemics in recent years such as Ebola or Swine Flu, the government has had a more difficult time reaching a consensus about the Zika. Is it because the public hasnt been as informed? Is this caught in election year politics? he said. There is a lot of tension in congress to support the effort to provide funding. andnbsp; andnbsp;

James Hohmann, Washington Post national political correspondent and author of the Daily 202 newsletter, to discuss Russian meddling in the 2016 race, backlash from Eastern European pockets in America, and the status of swing states in this election. These people have interests that are contrary to Americas interest. These arent just bots. This is real, Hohmann said of the Trump campaigns ties to Russia and the Kremlin media outlets support for Trump.  Thats the thing to think about with Putin is he is a bad actor and he has sinister ambitions. Hohmann said he thinks Trump is bad at time management and has yet to show he can run a professional campaign. The most valuable commodity that a presidential candidate has is time, he said. I dont think spending a couple of hours on Sunday night tweeting at Joe and Mika on Morning Joe is productive way to spend your time if youre a major party nominee. andnbsp;

David Fucillo, editor of Niners Nation and covering the NFL for SB Nation, joined The Federalist Radio Hour to talk about the world of sports media, the upcoming NFL season and provide some advice for picking your fantasy football teams this year. Some of the headlines heading into this season include rule changes, the Patriots controversy recovery, the new Los Angeles Rams. The one issue is that the Rams have not been very good for a while, Fucillo said. Its going to be interesting to see if L.A. is a frontrunner city...I think this first year no matter what theyre going to sell well. Fucillo previewed the teams and players that look to be in the best shape for this season in each conference. An interesting team to follow is going to be the Jacksonville Jaguars, he said. Theyve slowly rebuilt whatever it was that fell apart and theyve got Blake Bortles as a quarterback and some really good young receivers. Every year, fantasy drafters want to know what players are the sleepers, the bounce-back years, the break-out stars. The NFL has become more pass friendly...but at the same time it always seems like a running back, Adrian Peterson or someone, is the one going number one overall, Fucillo said. But its wide receivers this year. Brown, Odell Beckham, Julio Jones are consistently up at the top.

Gracy Olmstead, senior writer at The American Conservative and senior contributor at The Federalist, joined Ben in studio to discuss her latest reporting on small scale American farmers, the regulatory burdens facing them, and the culture leading children to flee the family business. She also reviewed the summer blockbuster Stranger Things. Olmstead interviewed farmers across the country about the politics and policies that impact their businesses. Everything that the federal government has put in place has really been fostered by the farm lobby--these big factory farms who have all the power in Washington who are able to keep smaller players out, Olmstead said. Once a majority agrarian society, American farming now struggles in the face of a culture that makes farming out to be a lesser, blue collar job. What I see as being incredibly important about the generational family farming model is the longevity that it produces, in terms of loyalty to community and family, and then the way it makes you take care of the land you own. Later in the hour, they discussed the 80s nostalgia captured by the new series Stranger Things, and its strength in storytelling through a childs eyes. If the focus had shifted away from the kids and the teenagers, it could have just been an X-files episode, Domenech said. I did find it interesting that this was a story that was more about the kids than it was the adults and thats not something you typically see in this genre. andnbsp; andnbsp;

Alex Isenstadt, reporter at Politico, joined The Federalist Radio Hour to discuss this all the latest shake-ups coming out of Trumps campaign this week, plus news that Renice Priebus may try to return to the RNC after this election. Earlier this week news broke that Donald Trump brought Breitbart Chairman Stephen Bannon and Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway to the top of his campaign staff. Theres also a sense that the people who have been giving Trump the challenging advice, that he needed to shape up, theyre kind of at the back of the bus now, Isenstadt said. andnbsp; Trumps campaign is far from any traditional political campaign, lacking all the yard signs and bummer stickers and TV ads, even swing states like Florida. They havent done the basic blocking and tackling, Isenstadt said. A lot of people say they got started really late and its hard to get caught up at a certain point. Reince Priebus has floated the idea that hes going to run for another term to lead the RNC after 2016. If Republicans lose this election, Priebus will have overseen two unsuccessful presidential campaigns for Republicans and he still wants a shot at success, he said.

Ronald J. Pestritto, dean of the graduate school of statesmanship at Hillsdale College, joined The Federalist Radio Hour to discuss the rise of progressivism in American history and its role in shaping our government and modern politicians. Pestrittos research on the birth of American progressivism has lead him across the party lines as well as to politicians like Woodrow Wilson. Its really amazing how thoroughly [progressivism] comes to dominate politics and political culture toward the end of the 19th century, Pestritto said. The idea of progress and the power of that is deeply embedded. The chief characteristic of todays government that reflects progressivism is government by administrative agency, Pestritto said. The things that the state gets itself involved in today are so vast and so complex, that theres no way that they can be handled, even a little bit, by ordinary legislation. Later in the hour, Domenech and Pestritto discussed whether constitutional limits and ideas are even something that voters actually care about anymore. Since the election of Barack Obama, weve had an extraordinary window of opportunity... to talk about constitutional principles, Pestritto said. I worry that the current election cycle season may mark the closing of that window.

John Dickerson, host and moderator of CBS Face the Nation, joined Ben Domenech to discuss his new book Whistlestop: My Favorite Stories from Presidential Campaign History, and how covering the 2016 race compares to past elections. Despite the rise in data-driven political coverage over the last decade, we can still see how there is often more to the candidates than polls or numbers. This is a narrative history of these campaigns... and if the data is different from narrative, the narrative is still so great its worth telling anyway, Dickerson said. There is an element to the book of trying to figure out the present through learning about the past. Basically it was to both help me what Im covering now, but also just the fun of going back and seeing that there was more to the story than we all thought, he said. He shared his experiences hosting Face the Nation and interviewing politicians. My hope is that by Sunday were putting all of this stuff in context that explains what was real and what wasnt... explaining the week and preparing you for the next one, he said.

Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar at AEI and the Factual Feminist, joined Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, in the studio today to discuss the gendering of childrens toys, the Netflix show Stranger Things, why women arent majoring in philosophy, and why women should have more children, earlier in life. The White House recently hosted a day-long summit to address gender stereotypes in media and toys. Can you show me if girls play with dolls that mean theyre not going to be a doctor or a psychiatrist or even an engineer? Sommers said. Its just an age-old feminist fairytale that if you change the way children play, youll change the world. Sommers shared her study on a group of feminist philosophers are convinced that women philosophy majors are discriminated against and driven away from the field by sexism. I have a PHD in philosophy and I never knew the field was rigged against me, Sommers said. Later in the hour, they discussed the myth of the gender wage gap and why they believe women who have more children lead more fulfilling lives. I just want people to consider this as a model, but its sort of looked upon with shame, that women would withdraw from the workplace and take care of kids, Sommers said. Im not saying not to work, but it should be treated respectfully, more than it is.

Mary Katharine Ham talks breaking news on the Clinton Foundation and recaps the major news stories from the Olympics this week with Christine Brennan, USA Today Sports columnist who is in Rio, and Kelsey Harkness, senior reporter at The Daily Signal. NBC has been criticized on their Olympic coverage and the volume of dramatic athlete profile packages they are airing in place of showing the full competitions. The entire US team is so great, and by smashing the entire gymnastics competition into some highly manufactured TV package, youre really missing the big picture of how diverse this sport is, and what the different gymnasts from different countries look like, Harkness said. Christine Brennan shared some of the best events and athletes that she has been able to watch this week in Rio, starting with Katie Ledecks gold medal finish in the womens 200-meter freestyle swim. This is the most incredible thing Ive witnessed so far and will be one of my greatest memories of any Olympics, she said. Ledecky basically straps on a motor and somehow finds another gear in those last 15 meters. andnbsp;

David Azerrad joined Ben Domenech in studio to talk political philosophy, equality of opportunity, and libertarianism vs. conservatism. Azerrad is the Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics and AWC Family Foundation Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Azerrad explained the specific perceptions applied to the broad term of equal opportunity. I think in American today, when we think of equality, we think of equality of opportunity, Azerrad said. The term seems to mean different things to different people, and I think part of the reason we like the term is because its so flexible and so plastic. They discussed the differences between liberalism, libertarianism and conservatism. I think conservatism is the best political philosophy when it comes to sustaining the regime, he said. To transmitting the blessings of liberty to next to posterity and that means ensuring that there is a posterity. Later in the hour, they review Yuval Levins new book, A Fractured Republic, and the desire for nostalgia. Rather than worrying about nonsense like rising inequality or romanticizing the past, our efforts should be devoted to figuring out how to make sense of this strange brave new world we live in, Azerrad said.