Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed the lead political columnist at The Epoch Times, Roger Simon to the studio.
During the third hour, Simon reflected on the events he witnessed after the Million MAGA March this past Saturday when he personally encountered the violence of Antifa and the vacancy he saw in the agitators’ eyes as he stood within three feet of them.
Leahy: I am joined in the studio by the original all-star panelists Crom Carmichael and my good friend and former boss at PJTV, founder of Pajamas Media, and lead political columnist now for The Epoch Times Roger Simon. Roger, good morning.
Simon: Good morning to you. I’m just back from our nation’s capital.
Leahy: And I want to read your story which I read with it was perfect Roger Simon. Meaning it was clever and funny and insightful. I’m going to read the quote. I’m quoting you, rather.
Simon: Okay, that’s good.
Leahy: “The only thing worth writing about was the usual blather about how many people showed up. 25 or so, half of them confused tourists according to CNN. Two-thirds of the population of India according to Breitbart.” I love that line. Crowd size is one of the great mythological subjects of our time. No one can possibly say for sure but everyone has an opinion so I will state the obvious. It was a lot of people and as noted above everything was peaceful until nightfall. Now, what happened Roger?
Simon: Well, the strange folks from Antifa came out. And you know I was up in The Epoch Times office working and hobnobbing with my colleagues and this woman said hey, we just heard that Antifa is out on the street, meaning just below the office there. I’m not going to say where.
Leahy: The Million MAGA March in D.C.
Simon: Yeah and being, you know a suicidal or something I decided I had to go out and have a look at this because I’d never seen Antifa except on television as we all have. But when I got on the street, there didn’t seem like there was anybody there to throw me a false alarm. I thought they’ve gone or something.
Then I heard noises and it was like a firecracker sound and I look way down the street and then right in front of my hotel, which was the J.W. Marriott there was like a lot of action going on. I so I ran down there and sure enough, there were about I would say 40 or 50 people who were damaged from the demonstration because a lot of them were wearing Trump gear. So it was obvious. and then they were half a dozen or more Antifa whizzing by in front of the hotel on skateboards. And a couple of them were like being really aggressive.
They were coming at you. Do you know what it was most like? It was like if you remember back to the old Stanley Kubrick movie A Clockwork Orange and they were like there for a little of the ultraviolence. And one of them came literally within two or three feet of me and started staring at me. I mean, I was actually quite terrified. If I grew up in such a way that I thought that people who are like that were just disturbed. You know, what if they only had two years of psychotherapy, they’d be okay. But no.
Leahy: No.
Simon: You look at these guys and you’re looking at something satanic. and whether there’s something cold in their eyes and weird. And also you wonder what kind of drugs they’re really on. I mean probably some kind of meth or something. And then in the midst of this that you’re the guy looked like he went past me looked like he was going to attack the group and smash into the hotel because they were trying to get into the hotel. And then this MAGA guy who looked like a power Ford who was a big guy just stepped forward and tossed this Antifa kid into the street. (Leahy laughs)
Crom Carmichael: You mean the one staring at you who was scaring you? He’s the one that got thrown into the street.
Simon: Yes. Exactly. And he picked himself up and it grabs the skateboard with before it went down and he but and he still looked very hostile and they’re calling everybody a racist. And of course, the MAGA group was of course completely mixed. But they don’t care, they’ll call anybody a racist. And yelling and all the obscenities to get me ticked off in 15, 10, and 12 seconds.
But while doing that they were backing up because they were obviously scared of this MAGA guy because he was like twice their size and probably schooled and stuff they didn’t know how to do. The interesting thing that happened is that everyone was calling the police and they weren’t there. There were just some security people.
Leahy: There was report multiple reports that the D.C. police did not provide assistance to MAGA people being confronted by violent Antifa people. Is that true?
Simon: Yep. It is scary. That’s terrible. The Dan Bongino Report that I read on Parler late last night on the plane was that the police were told to make the MAGA people look like the ones who were violent and not Antifa.
Leahy: That would not surprise me at all.
Carmichael: Oh no. It would surprise me if it were otherwise. That’s unfortunate. But the mayor of Washington DC is, and I’m using the term is a DemoNazi.
Simon: Yeah, you’re right.
Carmichael: That’s just what it is.
Simon: And that’s what we’ve come to. I mean, that’s in the capital of our country. You don’t realize how weird these times are. I was telling Michael as we were walking back into the studio that I couldn’t be more glad to be back in Nashville. But I usually sort of enjoy walking around the nation’s capital.
Leahy: What’s the biggest thing that was worrisome to you beyond that encounter?
Carmichael: Now, we’re there many other encounters like that in other places?
Simon: Oh, yeah.
Carmichael: So the violence was fairly widespread?
Simon: I can’t tell you exactly because you can only see what you can see.
Carmichael: Was there violence or just the intimidation?
Simon: They were roughing you up.
Carmichael: So they made physical contact? So they made physical contact?
Simon: Yeah, they made physical contact.
Leahy: At PJ Media – which you founded and then sold off to Townhall – I guess had a total media blackout as Antifa launches attacks on MAGA rally-goers in D.C. by Rick Moran. Is that accurate?
Simon: Yeah. It seems to be accurate.
Carmichael: And the Antifa are the modern-day Brown Shirts.
Leahy: Yeah. They wear black.
Carmichael: When I make this comparison this kind of struck me last night when I was as I was reading through some other articles about and then I saw that vile comment by Christiane Amanpour essentially calling people who support Trump Nazis. I said, you know, this is exactly what Hitler did do. And I just finished reading two books on Hitler. This is exactly what he did. And the name of his party was the National Socialist Party.
Simon: Indeed.
Carmichael: And the Democrats call themselves socialists. And the ones who want to still win elections are yelling and screaming at their fellow social Democrats’, don’t refer to us with the word socialist. Now, we can be socialists but we just can’t call ourselves that.
Simon: Don’t tell anybody.
Carmichael: Yeah, don’t tell anybody.
Leahy: Roger, have you ever have you followed the career of CNN’s Christiane Amanpour?
Simon: Oh for sure.
Leahy: There is a leftist if ever there was one. And a socialist.
Simon: Yes, and also can of deeply anti-American.
Leahy: Deeply.
Simon: Yeah, you know they just think of us as imperialist thugs and so forth. And the fact that she’s been so successful, I was actually about as close as we are to her one time when I was in Moscow eating breakfast in the hotel where I was staying, and who walked in but Christiane Amanpour? And I’ll never forget it was a strange moment.
Leahy: Speaking of strange moments, I can’t quite match that one. But in 2012 when I was in Boston covering the Romney campaign on election night, I just arrived and who comes up the elevator, but Candy Crowley of CNN. you know now in obscurity but who asked that loaded question of Mitt Romney. It was a false question. And I asked her the question, do you regret doing that? And she said, Oh, no, I’m absolutely positive it was the right thing to do. Now no one has heard from her since.
Simon: Cannon fodder.
Carmichael: She got her retirement bonus which I’m sure was a large one.
Leahy: So here’s the thing, guys. Where does this go? Where are we as a country going? You study history about this Crom. Where do you think the country is going?
Carmichael: Well, the January fifth elections in Georgia will matter tremendously because if the Republicans hold the Senate then they can’t do away with the filibuster. They can’t pack the Supreme Court. And if you can’t pack the Supreme Court, then they have to live under the law. They have to live under constitutional constraints. And they have to live under the statutes that have been passed throughout the country. If the Democrats can do away with the filibuster and can pack the court then we’re in huge trouble.
Leahy: And Roger, your thoughts.
Simon: And one thing that’s worse I’m gonna answer, Crom is that they can turn D.C. into a state.
Leahy: It’s 92 percent for the Democrats.
Carmichael: They would turn D.C., Puerto Rico, and now I hear the Virgin Islands into states.
Leahy: So all of these things don’t bode well for the survival of our constitutional republic. But the game is still in play.
Simon: The game is definitely in play. We’re living in a historical time.
Leahy: We are.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.Â
