The Federalist Radio Hour

Kerri Kupec serves as legal counsel and communications director with Alliance Defending Freedom. Kupec explains the religious freedom case going before the Supreme Court this week, which will also be one of Justice Gorsuchs first cases to hear on the bench. Its really a basic free exercise and equal protection argument, she said. [Missouri] is essentially excluding religious people from participating equally in society. Kupec and Domenech discuss the landscape of several similar first amendment cases regarding freedom of speech and religion. Im really hoping that we start seeing court decisions reflecting a balanced approach, where the freedom of people of faith are weighed equally against the interests of those who identify as LGBT, Kupec said.

In preparation for the newest movie in the franchise, The Fate of The Furious, Mary Katharine Ham and Kristen Soltis Anderson break down the good, the bad, and the evolution over the first seven movies. Anderson gives us a preview of what to expect from the new movie, and Ham makes an audacious defense of the third movie, Tokyo Drift. One of the themes that runs through the Fast and Furious films is that this group of rag-tag, sometime law enforcement, sometime criminal allies, in this group are really a tight-knit family, Ham said. The unofficial beer of all the Fast and Furious movies has been Corona, and it has never been product placement. It was meant to be character development, Ham said. The idea was: this was a very East L.A. movie and that was a beer that crossed a lot of cultural lines in that part of L.A., so it was meant to say this is part of who he is.

Aaron Blake, senior political reporter at The Washington Post, joins Federalist Radio Hour to explain Trumps demotion of Steve Bannon, the Kushners role in the White House, and status of Trumps foreign and domestic agendas. The prevailing theory is that [Trump] didnt like the fact that Bannon was becoming too big for his britches, people talking about President Bannon all the time, Blake said. I do think there was this mythology that he walked into because he was the Breitbart guy. Blake, an expecting father, and Domenech also discuss child rearing, helicopter parenting, and free-range children. Id like to think that Im a pretty patient person, but Ive learning that Im not, Blake said. A one-year-old is a constant unsolved problem, and when you solve one problem theres another problem.

Peter Cove is the founder of America Works and author of the new book, Poor No More: Rethinking Dependency and The War on Poverty. Cove explains how our the governments welfare and poverty programs have not aided in ending the war on poverty. He makes the case for job placement and a work-first model. The government has really increased the incentives for people to be on government programs. Cove said. People arent working. Only 47 percent of our country has full-time jobs. Cove makes suggests eliminating any welfare programs that provide hand-outs. We get rid of that money, and transfer all of the money into the creation of jobs in the private and public sectors, he said. There are many ways to do it. andnbsp;

James Hohmann, national political reporter for the Washington Post, joins Ben Domenech to discuss Nikki Haley and the Trump administrations position on Syria, how the Senate confirmed Justice Gorsuch, and other political stories on Capitol Hill. Nikki Haley is the first Republican UN Ambassador to have full cabinet rank since Jeane Kirkpatrick under Ronald Reagan. Nikki Haley is for them, the conscious and the backbone of the administration. I think she is hawkish on Russia and shes hawkish on Iran. Shes very strong for Israel, Hohmann said. She doesnt work for Rex Tillerson. After Senate Republicans deployed the Nuclear Option to confirm Neil Gorsuch, the question remains about future use of the legislative filibuster. I worry that [McConnel] thinks the legislative filibuster is good, but at some point hes not going to be able to defend it, Hohmann said. andnbsp;

Bill James is a baseball writer, historian, author, and statistician. He joins Federalist Radio Hour to discuss the Cubs World Series victory, the role of analytics in sports, and our obsession with popular crime. James also answers audience questions about this years baseball season. The war on analytics is over and we did win, James said. Analytics is not a theory that were smarter than everybody else. Its just knowledge. Popular crime can have an influence on policy and law, and the new media fascination with true crime stories. Crime and politics are joined at the hip because protecting us from criminals is one of the basic functions of government, James said.

Mollie Hemingway and David Harsanyi discuss this week’s news and the latest outrages on today’s Federalist Radio. They cover Susan Rice’s unmasking, White House leaks, CNN’s war with Trump, the controversial Pepsi commercial, and whether men and women can be just friends. Newsrooms have twisted themselves in knots in their attempts to connect Trump to Russia, and to ignore any stories from the Obama White House. “People are so terrified of being seen as pro-Trump, that they simply cannot be distracted from the narrative that there was collusion.” Harsanyi said. Hans Fiene received major criticism after writing his piece arguing that men and women who are friends should exit the friend zone and get married. “A lot people, I think, feel insecure about their own failures in relationships. Their failure to secure a wife or their failure to secure a husband,” Hemingway said. “And rather than just respond with a different perspective or engage, they feel like they are being judged, or that makes them nervous to think about their own male-female friendships.” andnbsp;

Shadi Hamid, senior fellow at Brookings Institute Center for Middle East Policy, joins Federalist Radio to discuss the political climate in Syria, why Egypt is Trump country, and U.S. relations with Islamists. Obviously some of this is just rhetoric and we are going to have to wait and see what Trump actually does, but I am somewhat encouraged by some of this rhetoric, Hamid said of Trumps remarks on this weeks attacks in Syria. I do think Syria is a direct national security interest and I think one of Obamas biggest mistakes was not realizing that. Hamid discusses why respecting democratic outcomes is important and how his witnessed the various regime changes in Egypt. We like democracy in theory but our problem is we have trouble with the outcomes of democracy, he said. We dont agree with the ideology of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Chatter continues on Capitol Hill about making another attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare. Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, explains the health care positions of GOP leadership, the moderates, and the Freedom Caucus. Try to fix it in the House before you send it to the Senate, Roy said. Weve got to take the time to get this right, because if we get this wrong, we will never live to see another major attempt by Republicans at health reform. Chris Jacobs, policy analyst and consultant, also joins the conversation to explain how picking and choosing the good or bad regulations from Obamacare would create an incoherent market. The Congressional Budget Office has said that there would actually be more uninsured under the House bill than if you had just repealed the law outright, including all the regulations, Jacobs said. andnbsp;

Todd Shepherd, investigative reporter at The Washington Examiner, joins the Federalist Radio Hour to untangle this growing story involving Rep. Devin Nunes, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and the unmasking of members of the Trump transition team. This was information that did not have anything to do with a particular security concern, or something related to what the NSA is supposed to be about. That it was much more about the various views of people in the incoming administration, Domenech said. Why on earth could Susan Rice justify this as something necessary for her to do her job? Major newsrooms including CNN have for the most part chosen to write this story off as unimportant or a distraction. What gives them the cover right now, is still the fact that it still was undisciplined by President Trump to put those tweets out and because they were so patently wrong, at least in the terms of wiretapping, Shepherd said.

H.L. Mencken was a writer, cultural critic, and famous American agnostic. The new biography, Damning Words: The Life and Religious Times of H.L. Mencken, by author D.G. Hart shows how Christianity actually framed Menckens ideas and shaped his career. Hart is a professor of history at Hillsdale College, and he joins Federalist Radio to discuss what Menckens critiques of puritanism and protestantism can tell us about religion today. From moralism in literature, or moralism in politics, he was taking on moralism in every which way, and that was also responsible for his critiques of religion because so often the moralism of American life was connected to American protestantism, Hart said. andnbsp;

Mary Katharine Ham prepares for this years April Fools Day with guest Emily Miller, journalist and author. They discuss some of the best pranks of past April Fools Days, the traditional Mule Day festival, sad country songs, and give an update on their KonMari method lifestyle. Its amazing to me how many of the famous past April Fools Day jokes have been perpetrated by the media, Ham said. I wonder if this year because of the fake news issue, if no one will indulge in any April Fools jokes... because its literally fake news. Miller explains how the minimalist method of organization created by Marie Kondo has now brought her to throwing away every scrap of paper in her house. Someone gave me a birthday card the other day and I said, Can I give it back?

Randy Barnett, Georgetown Law professor, joins Federalist Radio Hour to discuss the politics and process of confirming Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. He also speaks to legal philosophy, the outrage over the rules of Mike Pences marriage, and the best television shows in a new age of entertainment. Barnett explains the relevance of the filibuster and the strategies that Senate leadership will be thinking about. We really want the filibuster to go away with respect to Supreme Court nominees, he said. [Constitutional conservatives] are harmed a lot more by the filibuster than living constitutionalists are. Feminists on Twitter have erupted over the boundaries that Mike Pence and Karen Pence have set for their marriage. There is an outrage of the day. Partly this is used to drive clicks, which is an economic decision made by the media people...and all the people who repeat it, Barnett said.

Ben Jacobs is a political reporter for The Guardian and he joins Ben Domenech in studio to discuss the continued fall out from last weeks health care bill, this weeks stories surrounding the House Intelligence Committee, and an update on Brexit. Mitch McConnell and the Senate took the back seat to the first attempt at the AHCA, but now that may change. I think the pattern that youve see with Ryan and Trump so far, its Lucy and Charlie Brown and Trump always sets up the football for Ryan, Jacobs said. Ryan is truly and ideologue in a way that McConnell is more of a pragmatist. Many have called for Congressman Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the Russian intelligence investigation after meeting with an intel source related to another investigation. Lets get those documents as rapidly as possible then let everyone make a decision about whether they matter or not, Domenech said.

Christopher Scalia, the son of Justice Antonin Scalia, is also a writer and former professor. He joins the Federalist Radio Hour to share stories of his father, to discuss growing issues in academia, and to think about literature that can help us understand the world we live in. Scalia tells stories from his childhood and his fathers approach to family and faith. I dont remember him ever sitting me down and saying This is what my faith means to me. He didnt have to. It was obvious. A novel that explains our political landscape is not Orwells 1984, but Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. The term fake news isnt used, but its kind of throughout the novel, Scalia said. The reporters in this novel have an agenda to push and they will push it whatever the cost. andnbsp;