‘A Zipper to the Gates of Hell’ | Interview: Chris Stirewalt

The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

The Dispatch

News, Politics

4.7 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In desperate need of a Remnant guest, Jonah Goldberg puts on his trucker hat, drives out to the sleaziest rural bar you can imagine, and dunks Chris Stirewalt’s head into a horse trough. Listen to Jonah and Chris blow the smoke about irony, gallows humor, Iran, Trump’s fashion failures, ties in restaurants, voter ID, the Ken Paxton-John Cornyn race in Texas, Bill Clinton flirting with Nancy Mace, the stolen 2020 election, and Sen. Markwayne Mullin. Show Notes:—Introduction to Ben Sasse’s podcast, Not Dead Yet—Jedediah Purdy: For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today—Revisionist History: Rat vs. Raccoon—Jonah’s G-File on Johnny Bravo The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of Jonah’s G-File newsletters—⁠click here⁠. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention.
0:18.0	Can you digger?
0:27.5	Greetings, dear listeners, this is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant Podcast,
0:30.2	brought to you by the Dispatch and Dispatch Media.
0:32.9	I should work at Laurel, calling the horses.
0:35.3	We have our dear friend of the pod and also a friend in
0:39.6	real life, Chris Starwalt here. He's one of those Sunday show Brahmins these days. And my colleague
0:48.8	at the American Enterprise Institute, and he's got this, um, adjectives fail. I'm sure you have this
0:53.1	problem. This niche podcast with
0:57.4	former senator ben sass highly specific highly specific yes we don't want to dwell too much on
1:03.7	ben's going to when he when and if he's up to it he knows he's well invited back and you're
1:08.6	going to be and you're going to be on that podcast also. Right. We already recorded that.
1:13.3	I worry how dated it will be by the time it airs, but so be it. It's, it was great. And I, I listened to it.
1:19.6	And it's, uh, it is what I hoped it would be, which is three dudes goofing. Like, we talked about some
1:25.2	important, important stuff. But it was it was three friends goofing around.
1:30.4	The limits of gallows humor and all of that stuff are evident to anybody.
1:35.7	But I am by nature, I have learned from Yuvalovine, peace be upon him, about being hopeful rather than optimistic.
1:43.6	But my basic nature is life is for fun.
1:48.0	I talk to my kids and they get sick of hearing about it from me, but it took me too long in
1:53.9	life to get to the point where I accepted that the suck is eternal.
2:00.8	There will always be bills to be paid and laundry to be done and taxes to be complete.
2:05.4	Like it will just, it never goes away.
	...

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