Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Ninety Seven: Lying or Clueless?

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Episode Two Hundred Ninety Seven: Lying or Clueless? · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcomed episode two hundred and ninety seven of the Death
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  Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm your
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: host of today's show. President Trump storms out of an
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  Speaker 1: NBC interview that is probably the craziest in presidential history.
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  Speaker 1: The reaction of the California Primary caused me to be
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  Speaker 1: live on CNN for the first time in over a decade.
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  Speaker 1: Scott Pelley gives The New York Times a bonkers interview
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  Speaker 1: after being fired from CBS and a decision in college
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  Speaker 1: football that is so outrageous that it seems to have
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: finally caused some people to realize the whole system is
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: completely broken. As we begin this episode of the podcast,
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  Speaker 1: still no peace in Iran. Hostilities have seemingly escalated, and
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  Speaker 1: it is more and more obvious almost by the day,
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  Speaker 1: this is going to end up as a net loss
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  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump and the United States of America. It's
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  Speaker 1: just a matter of when and how bad the final
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  Speaker 1: result will be. I'm still hopeful that something will be
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  Speaker 1: gained in this. Trump's optimism has gotten very, very old.
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  Speaker 1: His promises of victory have come time and time and
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  Speaker 1: time again not to fruition. And there's as of this
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  Speaker 1: taping no end in sight on that front. Meanwhile, the
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  Speaker 1: inflation numbers, seemingly at least in part because of the
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  Speaker 1: war in Iran and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz,
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  Speaker 1: are continuing to creep up. It's now at four point
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  Speaker 1: two percent. You may recall that this was a huge
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  Speaker 1: issue during the twenty twenty four campaign, as well as
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  Speaker 1: Trump's promise to start no new wars, and he apparently
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  Speaker 1: at least point at this point, has failed on both
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  Speaker 1: fronts to combat inflation and prevent any new wars. There's
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  Speaker 1: also within the economic realm some signs of an AI
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  Speaker 1: bubble starting to burst. Now we're not there yet. The
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  Speaker 1: stock market is extremely antsy. There's been signs of a
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  Speaker 1: at least a pullback on AI stocks, if not the
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  Speaker 1: beginnings of the bursting of a bubble. But it's too
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  Speaker 1: early to say for sure. But we've been talking about
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  Speaker 1: that for quite some time on this podcast, that we're
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  Speaker 1: really in a situation where there's only two options when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to AI. That is, AI either takes over
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  Speaker 1: our entire culture, our country, our society and we've become dystopian,
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  Speaker 1: or there's a massive AI bubble and our economy collapses
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  Speaker 1: and so there's really no good option. It looks like
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  Speaker 1: right now a lot of people are starting to be
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  Speaker 1: more worried about the AI bubble bursting. But again, to
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  Speaker 1: be clear, too early to tell for sure that that's happening,
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  Speaker 1: but there's certainly our signs that that's the direction we're
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  Speaker 1: heading in now. In regard to issues related to journalism
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  Speaker 1: and the media, I've got to start this episode of
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  Speaker 1: the podcast with what might be the craziest interview in
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  Speaker 1: the history of presidential politics, at least in my memory.
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  Speaker 1: It would be hard to beat this one. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: almost every interview that Donald Trump does should be right
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  Speaker 1: up there at the top. I mean, you know, he
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  Speaker 1: has his own category. He's basically the Tiger Woods of
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: crazy network television interviews. No other president ever comes close
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  Speaker 1: to what Trump does, for better or for worse, on
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  Speaker 1: a regular basis, But this one deserves to be in
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  Speaker 1: its own category. I'm referring to what happened when Trump
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  Speaker 1: was interviewed by Kristin Welker of NBC's Meet the Press
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  Speaker 1: over the weekend, and part of why this interview got
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  Speaker 1: so nuts is because of the circumstances under which it
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: was conducted. This was done in Wisconsin in what appeared
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  Speaker 1: to be a barn on a farm, and it was raining,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and it was raining hard, like really hard, so hard
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  Speaker 1: that when you hear the audio that we play, you're
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: gonna be able to hear the rain clearly in the background,
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  Speaker 1: which is really hard for me to believe given the
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  Speaker 1: nature of the audio equipment that NBC has, So it
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  Speaker 1: has to be really really loud, like distractingly loud for
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  Speaker 1: the participants who were doing this interview. Of course, I
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  Speaker 1: guess what they happened was they tried to delay it.
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  Speaker 1: The President's time is obviously very much in demanded only
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  Speaker 1: a lot of a certain amount of time to do
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  Speaker 1: this interview, so it wasn't like they could sit around
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  Speaker 1: all day and wait for the rain to end. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that was the context for why this interview
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  Speaker 1: went so off the rails and why at the end
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  Speaker 1: of it, Donald Trump literally storms off, literally storms off,
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  Speaker 1: but not before going on a diatribe about election rigging
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  Speaker 1: and what's happened here in California being proved that Democrats
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  Speaker 1: are stealing elections. Kristen Welker trying to push back on that,
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  Speaker 1: and Trump then eventually literally getting up, stepping off the microphone,
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  Speaker 1: stepping on the microphone and storming off and gage you
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  Speaker 1: somehow missed it. Here's how that interview ended has aired
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  Speaker 1: on NBC's Meet the Press. Dirty Election.
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  Speaker 2: This is happening again right now in California. Happen now
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  Speaker 2: in California, right now, it's looking look at what's happened
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  Speaker 2: in California. It's in California. It's no, they're not there.
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  Speaker 2: They're dropping fast because it's a rigged election. Let me
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  Speaker 2: tell you, it's four days and they aren't even close
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  Speaker 2: to coming up with it. You know why they're doing that,
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  Speaker 2: because they're cheating on the election.
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  Speaker 3: What do you have evidence?
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  Speaker 1: We'll have to do us.
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  Speaker 2: Look well to listen and I listen to people, and
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  Speaker 2: let's see what happens that's not evident. You think it's appropriate,
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  Speaker 2: that's how they vot. You think it's appropriate that they
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  Speaker 2: have an election and five days later they're nowhere close
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  Speaker 2: to picking.
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  Speaker 4: Local officials acknowledge they are slow.
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  Speaker 2: They're urging the crooked, urging the votes to.
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  Speaker 3: Be counted quickly.
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  Speaker 2: That's how they wear crooked, just like your crooked. Your
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  Speaker 2: press is crooked. And Meet the presence crooked. To be fair,
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  Speaker 2: I'm not crooked, but really, when you play right into
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  Speaker 2: their hands out, you're either crooked or you're stupid. You
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  Speaker 2: play right into their hands with this rap. You know
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  Speaker 2: that these elections are rigged. Your network knows.
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  Speaker 1: That they're rigged.
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  Speaker 2: You know that I won an election in a landslide
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  Speaker 2: and I got ninety four percent bad press.
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  Speaker 1: You know why I got that presented because.
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  Speaker 2: You have no credibility, but you've never presented evidence it
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  Speaker 2: was rigged.
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  Speaker 1: Let's keep talking about I want to talk about talking.
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  Speaker 2: You have more evidence, there's more evidence than ever presented.
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  Speaker 2: Let's talk your elections in this country. We're like a
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  Speaker 2: third world country. Your elections are crooked, and your crooked
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  Speaker 2: and meets the presses crooked, and so is ABC and
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  Speaker 2: CBS and CNN, your one sided crooked networks. Right, let's
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  Speaker 2: call it questions because I've had a note, thank you, darling.
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  Speaker 1: Have a good time for president.
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  Speaker 2: Let's please I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I
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  Speaker 2: know on it off in the ring, and I've given
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  Speaker 2: you enough time.
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  Speaker 1: You want to straighten out your press.
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  Speaker 2: Because you know what, mister cut it can never be great.
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  Speaker 4: Traveled we traveled all the way to Wisconsin.
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  Speaker 1: Now, in any other presidency, that would be all anyone
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  Speaker 1: was ever talking about, But in the Trump presidency, it
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  Speaker 1: really probably was only a story for a day or
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  Speaker 1: two because we become so desensitized to the total insanity
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  Speaker 1: of this basically being an episode almost of Jerry Springer,
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  Speaker 1: where you're guests storming off the scent and it's the
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  Speaker 1: president of the United States. Now, later on, Welker said
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  Speaker 1: that she and Trump talked and everything was fine between
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  Speaker 1: the two of them, which is maybe stranger than the
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  Speaker 1: initial conflict in my opinion, But just show a lot
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  Speaker 1: of this is for show. That's what this is. Trump
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  Speaker 1: the showman, and for whatever reason, Trump decided to make
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  Speaker 1: a show out of this whole situation. He acknowledged that
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  Speaker 1: he was irritated by the rain, although I'm not sure
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  Speaker 1: why that would cause you to storm off the interview
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  Speaker 1: like that. But more importantly, the substance of what Trump
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  Speaker 1: said further facilitated what, in my very strong opinion, is
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  Speaker 1: a false narrative, mostly false narrative about what's happening here
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  Speaker 1: in California. And I personally have been embroiled in this
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  Speaker 1: at least knee deep, if not waist deep for the
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  Speaker 1: last couple of weeks. You may recall that before the
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  Speaker 1: California primaries, I went on a news nation television twice
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  Speaker 1: to talk about the Los Angeles mayor's race, which was
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  Speaker 1: really the race that Trump was referencing there. Where As
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  Speaker 1: we talked in the last episode of the podcast, it
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  Speaker 1: was clear that Spencer Pratt was not going to win
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  Speaker 1: the mayor's race as he had predicted, wasn't going to
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  Speaker 1: get fifty percent, and that there was a very good
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  Speaker 1: chance that he wasn't even going to hold on the
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  Speaker 1: second place. Now, I was still in the last episode
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  Speaker 1: of the podcast hoping, and I really was hoping that
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  Speaker 1: Pratt would somehow hold on to second place. But I
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  Speaker 1: was like I have been throughout this entire race. I
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  Speaker 1: was way ahead of the curb saying, wait a minute,
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  Speaker 1: this idea. And there were outlets that not just predicted
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  Speaker 1: but stated this fact that Pratt was going to get
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  Speaker 1: second place and make the runoff in Los Angeles. For instance,
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  Speaker 1: the California Post, which is run by the New York Post,
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  Speaker 1: which has had a huge vested interest in this narrative
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  Speaker 1: that somehow there's a red comeback in California. That's really
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  Speaker 1: what the California Post, this newspaper that the New York
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  Speaker 1: Post created a few months ago, is really all about.
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  Speaker 1: And they've essentially been Spencer Pratt's pr arm And so
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  Speaker 1: they were one of the outlets that reported that Pratt
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  Speaker 1: had made the runoff, and I said, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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  Speaker 1: Hold on the numbers I'm seeing, especially in the betting markets,
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  Speaker 1: are indicating that that may not be the case. Now.
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  Speaker 1: In the last episode, I said, I wasn't sure. I
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  Speaker 1: thought Pratt might still hold on. I was hoping that
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  Speaker 1: he would, but I made it very clear he might not. Well,
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  Speaker 1: by the time that the Trump interview with Kristen Welker happened,
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  Speaker 1: it was clear he was not going to hold on
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  Speaker 1: to second place and that he was not going to
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  Speaker 1: make the runoff. And this, of course vindicated the prediction
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  Speaker 1: that I made on News Nation unequivocally twice saying this
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  Speaker 1: is a farce. Spencer Pratt is never going to be
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  Speaker 1: mayor of Los Angeles, and anybody who believes otherwise essentially
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  Speaker 1: is a moron or a grifter, or maybe both. And
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  Speaker 1: that's really a lot of what's happening here. Part of
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  Speaker 1: why I'm passionate about this Spencer Pratt issue has nothing
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  Speaker 1: to do with Spencer Pratt. I actually would have loved
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  Speaker 1: it for Spencer Pratt to be mayor of Los Angeles.
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  Speaker 1: It's one of the many misunderstandings about my position on this.
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  Speaker 1: I've been bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands, of social
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  Speaker 1: media reactions calling me a communist and saying I'm in
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  Speaker 1: favor of Karen Bass, the current mayor, and I don't
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  Speaker 1: want Los Angeles to be cleaned up. No, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: even do with it. I can't stand Karen Bass, I
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  Speaker 1: can't stand the democratic establishment. I would love for there
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  Speaker 1: to be a miracle. I'm just telling you there ain't
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  Speaker 1: gonna be a miracle. I'm just telling you what the
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  Speaker 1: reality of this whole situation is because I'm not in
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  Speaker 1: the business, unlike the vast, vast, vast majority of conservative commentators,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not in the business of telling you what you
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  Speaker 1: want to hear. I'm in the business of telling you
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  Speaker 1: the truth as I see it, and the truth as
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  Speaker 1: I saw it couldn't be more clear, and so does
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  Speaker 1: it turned out. I was vindicated on this in rather
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  Speaker 1: dramatic fashion, but of course immediately, And I even predicted
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  Speaker 1: this part. I said, Pratt is gonna lose, and his
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  Speaker 1: supporters on social media, on x within Maga world are
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  Speaker 1: immediately going to claim voter fraud. So I not just
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  Speaker 1: predicted that he was going to lose. I predicted that
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  Speaker 1: they were gonna say this was all a fraud, which
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  Speaker 1: of course they did, that it was about cheating about
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  Speaker 1: somehow election rigging, and of course Donald Trump going on
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  Speaker 1: NBC and making a big show about this and storming
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  Speaker 1: off only put massive amounts of gasoline on the fire
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  Speaker 1: because Maga roll was now completely convinced that if Trump,
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  Speaker 1: the President of the United States, is saying it, there
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  Speaker 1: must be some truth to it. But there's no truth
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  Speaker 1: to it. I shouldn't say there's no truth. This is
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  Speaker 1: the other part of this that I get misunderstood on.
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  Speaker 1: People think that I'm somehow defending the California voting system.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not. It's a joke, it's an embarrassment. Trump is
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  Speaker 1: right about that, and it's basically third world country stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Taking this long to count the votes is inherently ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: and fuels suspicions. But suspicions are not the same thing
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  Speaker 1: as proof of fraud. And I want to make it
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  Speaker 1: clear because I think this is one of the areas
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  Speaker 1: where there's I think a misunderstanding and I even fall
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  Speaker 1: into this at times, where are people claiming that there's
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  Speaker 1: actual election rigging, which Trump does, or are they claiming
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  Speaker 1: that the system is just really shitty and untrustworthy and
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  Speaker 1: that on the fringes some bad things can happen that
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  Speaker 1: don't make the entire process fair. I'm actually completely fine
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  Speaker 1: with the latter view. I'm right there. I hate our system.
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  Speaker 1: I can't stand mail in balloting. It's a complete joke.
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  Speaker 1: It is incredibly vulnerable for abuse. But on the fringes
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you don't fix it. But there's no
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  Speaker 1: question Democrats have created a system here, especially post COVID panic.
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  Speaker 1: They use the COVID panic to go to universal mail
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  Speaker 1: in balloting and do all sorts of other things that
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  Speaker 1: they know are to their advantage. But those are the rules.
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  Speaker 1: Those are, unfortunately the rules. So there's a big difference
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  Speaker 1: between institutionalized advantages being given to Democrats, which absolutely exist
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  Speaker 1: in California, and somehow rigging the vote or fixing the vote,
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  Speaker 1: which there's no evidence or logic of despite what Donald
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Trump says. So I've been getting bombarded and attacked for
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  Speaker 1: not being loyal to the cause because I've been saying
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  Speaker 1: Spencer Pratt was going to lose, and also because people
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  Speaker 1: think that I somehow am defending the California election system,
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  Speaker 1: neither of which are remotely true. Couldn't be further from
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the truth. But because I've been a focal point for
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of these attacks, I ended up getting asked
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  Speaker 1: on CNN to discuss this topic. Now, I got asked
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  Speaker 1: on CNN not just because of my appearances on Newsdation
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and me being a lightning rod on social media. I
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  Speaker 1: got asked on CNN because Elec Michaelson is the host
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  Speaker 1: of the Late Night Show on CNN and Elex has
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: been a guest on this podcast. Before. Elick and I
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: have had a relationship, a friendship actually kind of weird
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: friendship that goes back to the COVID panic. Alec used
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to work with Liz Abebe, the original co host on
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the Death of Journalism podcast, and she and Alec were friends,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: and so that was how I first reached out to Eleck,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and we had an interesting conversation during the initial phases
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of the COVID panic, and I think that there was
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a mutual respect there. I sensed that he was someone
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  Speaker 1: who was fair clearly liberally biased like everybody else in
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  Speaker 1: the television media in California, but not liberally biased as
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  Speaker 1: many many others, and at least had a desire for fairness,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: which I respect, which is so incredibly rare in this
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: day and age. And we've maintained this relationship, and at
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: times it has been contentious. I am not afraid in
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: private messages usually you know, online direct messages, to be
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: extremely critical of Alex and he, I think most of
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the time respects it, and he takes the criticism. He
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: usually responds to it, and so there's a mutual respect there.
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  Speaker 1: And so he asked me to come on his CNN
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  Speaker 1: show to discuss the LA Mayor's rays, the Spencer Pratt phenomenon,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and the issue of election integrity and Donald Trump's allegations
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  Speaker 1: that somehow, you know, there's been vote rigging or election
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  Speaker 1: fixing here in California. And because it was alec and
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: because I hadn't been on CNN in a very long time,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I figured, what the hell, I'll do it, by the way,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: just to show you how things have changed in network
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: television in this kind of a situation a CNN certainly
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: pre COVID. You know, COVID changed everything on so many
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: different levels. But you know, do remember during COVID, when
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: no one could get into studio, all of a sudden,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it was okay to do interviews via basically zoom from
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: your home on major television networks. Well, that completely changed
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the dynamic of all of this, and they realized that
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: they could save a ton of money by not transporting
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: people into studio. And I lived fairly far outside of
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, significantly away from Burbank, which is where the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Warner Brothers studios are, which is where the CNN bureau
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: is in Los Angeles, because right now they're currently owned
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: by Warner Brothers and Discovery. And I needed transportation, and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: normally in the olden days, I would have been no
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: big deal. But I actually had to request that, and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that wasn't a done deal. And until that was done,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I wasn't even sure I was going to do this.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: But thankfully they were able to figure out a way
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: to get me transportation. And there were a couple of
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: other interesting things that happened behind the scenes here number one,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to play the clip of the interview
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: because it kills several birds with one stone in just
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: a moment. But the nuttiest thing about this CNN interview
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that I did was that on the same show a
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: few segments before, I went on with a liberal podcast
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: host who was going up against me, which by the way,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know was the case until literally two
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: minutes before I went on. And I don't think that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: was anything remotely nefarious. I think that was somehow in oversight.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: But weirdly, I was the only person in the green
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: room for like forty five minutes before the show, and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, this guy shows up, and
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  Speaker 1: no one even told me I was going on with him.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I thought I was going on with Elec all alone,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: but that wasn't the case, which is fine because we
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: ended up getting along okay, and the segment went well,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: as they're about to hear. But a few segments before that,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: they did an interview about the New York Nick San
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Antonio Spurs NBA Finals game, where Donald Trump was in
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: attendance and got booed and tickets were going for like
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars for nosebleed seats Game three of the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: NBA Championship, and the guests that Elk had on was
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Christine Brennan. Now, those of you that have been longtime
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: fans of this podcast, no, I've referred to Christine Brennan
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: many times before, because Christine Brennan, who's a USA Today columnist,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: is someone who in the late nineteen nineties I briefly did. Frankly,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I think the substance of our relationship was much more
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: on the lines of the fact that I had a
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: major impact on her career in a couple of different
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: ways having nothing to do with our very brief dating history.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: One was that I gave her the title for her
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: second figure skating book, and the second was that she
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: started covering golf because I told her Tiger Woods was
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: going to change the world, that she needed to get
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: on that gravy train, and she did for many, many years. Well,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: what's really amazing about this, first of all, is Christine
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and I hate each other. Now. We haven't spoken since
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: we met at the PGA Championship in twenty fourteen to
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: discuss the Penn State Joe Paterno case, where she was
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: completely wrong. I thought I had shifted her opinion on that,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and then a couple of years later it was clear
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: that was not the case. So, you know, we don't
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: even speak. I think she blocked me on social media,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: but so if she had seen me on the show
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: before she came on, she might not even have gone
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: through with her appearance. So there's no love loss between us.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: But that's the strangest part of this whole thing, Folks.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: The math on this is off the charts. So I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: haven't been on CNN Live since twenty thirteen. I was
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: supposed to be on The Anderson Cooper Show in twenty
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: fourteen but got bumped at the last second after we
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: did the Dottie Sandusky interview with Matt Lower on The
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Today Show and CNN got obsessed with the missing Malaysian plane.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And that was really a devastating development because that interview
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: with Anderson Cooper was going to be fireworks, because it
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was going to be Anderson Cooper and me in studio.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: That was how I had negotiated the whole deal with
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: CNN to do a second Dotty Sandusky interview, but unfortunately
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: that never happened. But the last time I was on
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: CNN Live I've been on c ON a couple times
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: on tape, I believe, since then. But last time I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: was on live was on the peer There's Morgan Show,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: remember that old show? And that was a disaster. He
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and I went at it over the whole Jerry Sandusky
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: interview that I had done in prison. But what's relevant
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: about that is so in twenty thirteen, the last time
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I was live on CNN, the person who was on
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: before me, ironically enough to talk about Tiger Woods was
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Christine Brendan. So twenty thirteen, Christine Brennan is on before
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: me on CNN to do a topic that I knew way,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: way more about than she did. In fact, the only
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: reason why she was considered an expert on it was
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: because of me. And then here we are in twenty
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: twenty six and I returned to CNN for the reasons
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I've already mentioned. And who's on in the same show
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Christine bretted just crazy stuff. The makeup artist thought this
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: was the most hilarious stories she'd ever heard, the whole situation.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: So that was strange. There was a whole lot of
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: strange going on, the Christine Brunnant thing. The fact that
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that I was going to have someone
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: on with me who was kind of a counterpoint, even
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: though we agreed in a lot of stuff, I thought
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: it was just going to be me and Alex going
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: at it to discuss this. But I was able to
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: adjust pretty quickly, and as I went into this, you know,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: my philosophy on these interviews is very, very different than
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: most people. Most people when they go on major television shows,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: their goal is to figure out a way that they're
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: going to get asked back because they want to be
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: on television, and especially when I've gone on liberal outlets
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in the past, my goal has always been to make
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: sure I never get asked back, which I've been very
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: successful about considering the fact that I've never been asked
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: back on Coned since that Peers Morgan disaster. But this
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: case was a little bit different. Because of my friendship
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: with Alec and because of the nature of the topic,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I knew that there was going to be a lot
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: of symbiotic relationship there where I was in agreement with
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the CNN philosophy, which is there is no vote rigging,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and also I knew what Elec's view on this whole
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: thing was. I didn't know what the other guest's view
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: was going to be, but I presumed pretty quickly I
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: knew what it was. So this was not going to
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: be a particularly contentious interview, although I wanted to at
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: least make sure that I got my shots in against
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: some of the elements of the bogus liberal narrative, specifically
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: when it comes to mail in balloting, and also how
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: it is that Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris are being
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: given a pass on how their candidate, Karen bast is
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: so unbelievably poorly in this LA primary. I mean, that's
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: getting lost in this whole thing. This is an incredible
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: embarrassment for Newsom and Harris, and it's all getting lost
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: in the coverage of Spencer Pratt and the alleged vote rigging,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: which to me, there's no logic for and no evidence for.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: And so here is the entire segment. Most of it's interesting.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm just going to play the whole thing
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: just for the record. But this was my return to
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: CNN late night on Monday night of this week.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: Let's bring in our panel John Ziegler with us for
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the first time. He is host of the Death of Journalism, podcast,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: and Brian Tyler Cohen is back the host of the
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen podcast. Gentlemen, welcome, John,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the show for the first time. Let's start
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: with you, as our newbie. What do you make of
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Spencer Pratt, all the buzz around him and how he
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: ended up doing well.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I'm a conservative, as you know, and I can't stand
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the Democratic establishment in Los Angeles in California. But this
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: entire Spencer Pratt campaign was a farahnose Elizabeth Holmes level
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: fraud from the beginning, and it was a damning indictment
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of our entire media ecosystem that this even got this far.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And let's be clear about how it started. It started
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: on X where there are a lot of MAGA influencers
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: who are either morons or grifters or both, who don't
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: understand that if a video goes viral with three or
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: five million views on X nationwide, that means a minuscule
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: number of LA voters have actually been exposed to it.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: The average LA voter had less understanding of Spencer Pratt's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: viral videos than I would have of the K pop
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: demon Hunters if I didn't have two young daughters. I mean,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that's how out of touch they were with what's going
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: on on X. There was no chance Spencer Pratt was
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: ever going to win, and the fact that he didn't
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: make the top two is not because of fraud. It's
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: because of the fact that this isn't extremely as you know,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: very liberal town. Spencer Pratt was unqualified. He ran a
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: very air surface campaign, no infrastructure, no get out of
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the vote. This was not a shock, This was not fraud,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and everybody should be embarrassed in this. The media bought
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: into this because they loved the narrative. The legacy media
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and now the right wing media, instead of admitting they
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: were wrong, is trying to pretend that, oh, it's fraud
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: because Donald Trump says it's fraud, and they don't want
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to admit that they were idiots in realizing and not
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: realizing that Spencer pract could ever possibly be the next
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: mayor of Los Angeles. This whole thing is an embarrassment.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: It's indeocracy.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: Brian, I think this is the first time I've ever
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: full throatedly agreed with one of your conservative guests. I
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: completely agree. The whole thing is so embarrassing, especially for
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: Republicans because it exposes the game that they're playing. It
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: exposes this con that Republicans are putting forward where they
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: will just basically cry fraud no matter what happens, if
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: they really think that people like, are they really trying
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: to convince us right now that they believed that were
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: it not for this massive amount of fraud taking place
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: in California, that a Republican were to become mayor of
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles, the cradle of progressivism in the United States,
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: one of the most liberal cities we have in the
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: entire country. And so it just goes to show that
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: just like it's a con here, it was also a
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: con every single time Donald Trump opens his mouth and
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: said the exact same thing from the twenty twenty election
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: on forward.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: It was nice that the Democrat let Steve Hilton get
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: into the top two and the governor's race. That was
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: very nice. I appreciate that that was was that was
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: that a bye? Did they bypass the system? That is
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: not a misstep on your part when you were fixing this.
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: You know, And this is what we've seen over and over.
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: For example, Republicans claim that every election in twenty twenty
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: two was rigged as well Okay, so we rigged it,
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: but only but okay, so we rigged it, but we
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: allowed Republicans to take control of the House and the Senate.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: So there are all of these holes and flaws in
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: their arguments that never seem to be accounted for.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: That being said, didn't Pratt bring up a lot of
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: important issues that are real issues that the fires all
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: sorts of mistakes when it came to that that the
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: homeless situation is a mess, that there are a lot
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: of people on drugs in the middle of the street
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: where people don't feel safe. I mean, he's speaking to
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: the way people actually feel. And that's why a lot
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: of people connected to.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Him a hundred percent although we got the exact same
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: percentage of vote in Los Angeles as Donald Trump did
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty four election the lower actually and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: by and by the way, I think he has set
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the path for Rahman beat Bass and for a lot
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of different reasons, one of which is the most underrated
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: part of this story. And I'm going to take you
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: guys on, especially the Democrat here. How come no one's
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: talking about the fact that an incumbent mayor endorsed by
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, the presumptive Democratic nominee in twenty twenty eight
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: and endorsed by Kamala Harris. The twenty twenty four Democratic
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: nominee couldn't get thirty five percent of the vote. What
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: an unbelievable, damning indictment of her and the Democratic establishment
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: in California, as well as the embarrassment of this incredibly
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: long vote counting process, which is ripe for people to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: misunderstand it as corruption. It's incompetence, not corruption. Yeah.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: But yet here's what Vice President j d Vance said
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: tonight on Jesse Waters on Fox News.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: Somehow we find ourselves in a situation where number one,
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: they're still receiving ballots, not just counting ballots, Jesse, there's
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: still receiving ballots, and number two, the way that they're
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: coming in and just so happens to work out such
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: that the Republican is getting kicked out of the final two.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: So it's a Democrat versus Democrat runoff that seems pretty
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: shady to meet.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: He says, it's a shady election.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: So basically, what he's saying is that the Democratic establishment
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: conjured up this whole plan that would in effect make
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: it more difficult for Karen Bass to win the election.
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: That was the whole, That was this grand scheme, according
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: to Jade Vance, that we wanted that Karen Bass orchestrated
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: an election where she is now pretty.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Likely to lose it because.
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: It's I mean, at fifty to fifty at this point
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: between her and Nithie Rahman as opposed to just having
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: Spencer Pratt win and then basically allowing herself to go
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: on a five month vacation. It is not difficult to
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: get elected as a Democrat in Los Angeles, and that again.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: Escapes shady vans. And part of this conversation, also if
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: you really want Republicans to win, which I know you do,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: is that this gets rid of confidence in the system
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: and it depresses turnout amongst Republicans who now probably won't
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: turn out and certainly may not turn out when there's
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: big issues like the wealth tax or other things in
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: the fall that could really hurt Republican voters.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for mentioning this, because as a
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: real conservative, maybe the last one still standing that doesn't
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: support Donald Trump in America, this really bothers me greatly
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: because we are eroding trust in our system, which would
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: be bad for the country as a whole, but specifically
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: for Republicans, specifically here in California. We've got a gobnatorial
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: candidate on the ballot and as you said, an incredibly
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: important billionaire theft situation that needs to be, in my opinion,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: soundly defeated, which may not be because Republicans may not
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: show up because they're being told their vones don't count
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: when there's no evidence or logic behind that. It's incredibly
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: nefarious from a standpoint of our society, our political system,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and yes, Republican politics.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: And we know that that. You know, President Trump sometimes
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: makes up his own reality and then sometimes also goes
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: after people that he doesn't like.
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: Very clearly, right.
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: And ironically enough, Donald Trump just created a media offenders list,
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: so basically an enemy's list for content creators, and he
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: put my name on it. And so if you search
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: White House dot gov for this media offenders list, you'll
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: find my name. And I just think, you know, for
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: a guy who presented himself as this free speech champion,
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: this crusader against censorship, for him now to go after
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: YouTuber's podcast host, I mean, it's just the peak of weakness.
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump is a fragile, small, petty little man. And
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: the reality is that I wear his scorn as a
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: badge of honor to be named alongside people like Jimmy
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: Kimmel and Stephen Colbert. And the reality is, if Donald
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: Trump is so eager to release lists now, he should
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: probably start with the one that he's on thirty eight
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: thousand times.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, well you're referencing the Epstein list of course, and
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: John maybe you got to get on the media fender
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: list at some point, so there's.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: No fanom mine. I mean, so let's talk.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Though about the system in California, because we're all sort
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: of saying that there isn't fraud, but that doesn't mean
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: that there could. It couldn't be improved and there should
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: be changes to the system. Right, what would you change
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: in terms of the way elections one hundred percent?
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I think it is embarrassing, not just the vote counting process,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: but can we get rid of this sham that the
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: idea of universal mail in balloting is not vulnerable to
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: some level of fraud. It is a joke. Anybody who
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: is elderly or newly deceased is going to have relatives
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: in that home who are going to be able to
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: take those ballots and do whatever they want with them. Now,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: does that change an election in a place as large
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: as Los Angeles or California. No, But it's still fraud.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: It's still wrong. And frankly, I actually think we ought
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: to be making voting as difficult as possible. Too many
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: people are voting that don't have any idea what the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: hell they're voting for. The fact that we're making it
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: so easy is I think, a problem not just for
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Republicans but also for society at large.
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: I could not disagree more And I think it's actually
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: perfectly emblematic of the conservative position, which is create a
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: straw man, get angry about that straw man, and then
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: start to attack it.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: You have created wrong about the vulnerability of mail in ballad.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: You have created it.
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: You have created You have created a hypothetical situation and
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: then attacked that hypothetical situation. The reality is that neither
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: you nor Donald Trump, when he was on that interview
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: with Christen Walker, could name any instance, a single instance
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: of widespread voter fraud. And so they can get y'all
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: can get mad about why y'all can get mad about
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: individual instances that you conjured up in your heads. But
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: unless you can show actual proof of widespread voter fraud,
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: then you are just getting mad at something that we
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: do not have evidence.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: You think mailing ballots to every single person, even if
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: they don't ask for them, which often goes to people
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: that no longer live in these homes, doesn't create some
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: sort of problem, thank you?
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: Correct?
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I do not.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: I think the more people I think, I think automatic
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: voter registration, mail ballots to everybody is doing. Whatever we do,
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: whatever we hold on Utah, Utah has has full mail
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: in voting. Utah has full mail in voting. And in fact,
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: that state is interesting in particular because Utah wanted to
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: see how many non citizens were voting, and so they
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: did a full study of all of their two million
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: registered voters. They found one undocumented voter on their voter roles.
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: Actually that person, that person had never even voted. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: so in all of these instances, saw man in all
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: of these int it's not a showman, that's an actual
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: study that occurred. But in all these instances, there has
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: no evidence of widespread fraud, and not a single Republican
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: point to one.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: All right, we gotta go, we gotta bring you guys back.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: That was fun.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: John Ziegler, Brian Tyler Cohen, thank you both for coming in.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Now. It was pretty clear that Alec and everybody had
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: seen in seem to like that segment, which normally I
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: would think is a bad thing, but in this particular case,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I felt like, Okay, that's fine, especially since this is
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: my first who knows if all be asked back on,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: but my first appearance on his particular show, and I
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: felt some obligation to not do anything to embarrass him,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: make sure it was a good show, and everybody seemed
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: happy with it, and the social media reaction to the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: segment was pretty interesting as well. By the way, there's
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: one new fact that I learned which I was kind
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: of kicking myself for not knowing this before I went
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: on the program, because I didn't know that we were
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: going to talk about mail in balloting. I should have
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: anticipated that, but mail in balloting has always been a
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: pet peeve of mine, especially here in California, because that
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: was made universal and permanent during and after the COVID panic.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And as you're probably aware, I reference in that segment
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: people who have been recently deceased, and I didn't even
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: think about the fact that my mother in law, my
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: wife's mother, has recently passed away at the age of
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: eighty four. She died on March thirty first, and so
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: it didn't even occur to me until after I did
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: that segment. Gee, I wonder whether or not Los Angeles,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: because she lives in the city of Los Angeles, whether
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: or whether or not she ever received a ballot, even
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: though she had been dead significant amount of time, not
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of time, but a significant amount of time,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: enough time before the primary election ended, which was allegedly
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: June second, although we'll keep counting votes for weeks and weeks.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: And so we called my father in law this last
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: night because I was about to do another interview on
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: News Nation about this. And it turns out, according to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: my father in law, she did not get a ballot
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: sent to her, which I think is probably accurate because
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: I think he would have noticed whether or not she
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: got a ballot. I mean, he got his ballot, and
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: so that, to me was kind of impressive. I was
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: mildly surprised by that that the system was a fisient
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: enough to get her off of the voting roles, even
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: though that she only died on March thirty first, So yes,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the system is rife with problems and very vulnerable to
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: what I would consider to be minor abuse. Although I
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: should have probably mentioned nursing homes. Nursing homes bother me
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: a lot. I kind of implied that with elderly in
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: their homes and what relatives can do. I would liked
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: to have expanded that to nursing homes, because nursing homes,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: to me, are the place where universal mail in balloting
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: can really really be abused in fairly significant numbers. But
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: the system, while it is terrible, is not a complete joke. Now,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I could have also been because she's a Republican. Republicans
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: would say, of course she didn't get mailed a ballot
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: because they know immediately to get rid of all the
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans when they die. Because everything is a conspiracy now,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: and that's the part of this that bothers me the most.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: You know how I hate conspiracies, and the fact that
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: everything now is a conspiracy. Every result you don't like
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: is a conspiracy. You never have to admit you were wrong,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and that's really what's driving a lot of us is
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: not wanting to admit that we were wrong. When I
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: say we, Maga World was totally wrong when it came
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: to the prospects for Spencer Pratt. They duped themselves for
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: their own their own self interest. In many cases, these
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: mag influencers and their their gullible audiences, they duped themselves
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: into believing something that was a fantasy for which there
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: was no logic, no evidence, no chance was ever gonna happen,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Spencer Pratt being the next mayor of Los Angeles. And
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: if I had had the time, if I hadn't had
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: another guest with me, and it was just elegamy. I
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: think that this is where I would have gone with this,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: And maybe the podcast is the best format for this
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: point that I'm going to make that no one ever makes.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: But I think it's so key to understanding Magaworld, and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that point is this, So much of what is happening
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: today is because of the twenty sixteen and the twenty
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: twenty election. For Magaites, you know, members of the Maga cult,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen is a religious holiday. Why not just because
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Trump won. If Trump had won in a situation where
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: it was a fifty to fifty coin flip, it would
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: have been a day that would be remembered forever in
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a joyous occasion. But because Trump won when all the elites,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: including myself, not that I'm gonna lead, but I was
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: in the group of people who thought that Trump was
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: gonna lose if Trump because Trump won in a centuation,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: were all the elites said he had no chance, all
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: the people that these uneducated Maga cult members hate, and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: understandably so I hate the elites too, But these Maga
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: cult members, they really hate the elites, and for one day,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: maybe for the first time in their life, Donald Trump
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: pulling that up set in twenty sixteen allowed these uneducated
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: people who are not very bright, who have an enormous
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: amount of disdain for the highly educated elites, which I
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: totally understand, for one day, for the first time, they
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: got to be smarter than the elites. They were the
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: ones that were right, and the elites were very, very wrong. Interestingly,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: one of of the elites who was wrong about the
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen election was Nald Trump himself and almost everybody
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: around Donald Trump, none of them thought he was gonna win.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: That's always been one of the most hilarious parts of
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: this equation is that their cult leader didn't think he
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: was gonna win in twenty sixteen either. Nobody around Donald
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Trump thought he was gonna win, especially election night. So
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: it's pretty ironic that Trump was part of the elites
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: that were wrong about this. It's just that he's the
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: one that ended up winning. But I cannot tell you
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: how strong an influence, based upon ten years of dealing
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: with these idiots on social media, which I do on
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a daily basis, how dumb these people are, how bad
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: at math they are, how they don't understand basic politics.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: They don't even understand the difference between a primary and
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a general election. But they were right about the twenty
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: sixteen election, and that is something that they will always
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: hold on to and for which they will always and
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: forever give Trump credit. I honestly think that for a
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: lot of these people that is the essence of why
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: they are Trump cult members. Trump gave them that feeling
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: of being smarter than the elites, which they will be
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: able to use for the rest of their lives. They
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: were right in twenty sixteen, the elites were wrong, and
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: that drives everything because now these morons think they know politics,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: which gets me to the twenty twenty election. Now, the
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Trump cult members. I don't they care that much about
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Yes, they think it was stolen because you know,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: they thought Trump was gonna win. But twenty twenty really
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: matters to Trump, and that's why Trump is still so
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: invested in this entire election rigging narrative and why he
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: went on meet the press and had to melt down
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: over California. Does he really believe that that's what happened
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: it's happening in California. I don't know. I doubted. He
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: probably believes that there's institutional abuse and a fraud that
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily be rigging or fixing. I don't know for sure,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter. Trump is deeply invested in promoting
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the idea that Democrats have the ability and the wherewithal
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: and the inclination to fix elections. By the way, how
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the hell they did it in Georgia in twenty twenty,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I have no idea, because it was a Republican run. State.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Logic is never part of these conspiracy theories. But for Trump,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: he will never get over twenty twenty in much the
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: same way that the Trump Maga cult member will never
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: let go of having been right in twenty sixteen, So
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: now we have twenty twenty six and these two factors
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: converge because for the MAGA cult member to maintain themselves
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: as an expert on politics and for them to be
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: smarter than the elites, and they thought the Spencer Pratt
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: thing was going to be twenty sixteen two point zero.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I really think that was why they bought into Spencer Pratt,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: because there were a lot of parallels. I mean, Spencer
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Pratt is a charismatic, straight white male reality TV show
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: hosts my celebrity who is telling it like it is
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: and not following the normal rules. And he's going up
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: against a non charismatic female much like Hillary Clinton, an
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: establishment figure in Karen Bass. And I really think they
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: saw this was twenty sixteen all over again and they
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: got embarrassed. So now they have to go to the
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: vote rigging scenario in order to be able to maine
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: this view of themselves as they are actually the smart
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: ones and the elites are actually the idiots. And again
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: it's so strange for me to be defending elites. I
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: can't stand elites, especially liberal academic media elites. Can't stand them.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: I totally get the distain but that does not justify
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: a belief in yourself when you're actually an idiot. You
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: just got lucky. You hit the slot machine in twenty sixteen,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: and that doesn't mean that you know what the fuck
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: you're talking about in twenty twenty six when you're trying
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to claim that Spencer Pratt is going to be the
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: next mayor of Los Angeles. So, and my biggest issue,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: it's not just that I have anger towards these idiots
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: who for ten years have thought that they were actually
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: the smart people and knew what they were talking about
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: when they really didn't. They just got lucky. It's the
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: issue of conspiracies, and it's the issue, as we implied
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: in reference in the interview on CNN, what this does
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: to people's trust in the system and whether or not
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: they're going to even keep voting. This has massive implications.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: There's huge damage being done here to our faith in
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: our institutions and whether or not people actually will keep voting,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: specifically Republicans in a place like California. We need every
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Republican to vote in this election. Not because Steve Hilton
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: has any chance of being governor he doesn't, but because
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: there's a Billionaire's Theft Initiative that's going to be on
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the ballot that if it passes, I think the whole
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: country is fucked. And I mean that sincerely. That is
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the slipperiest slope of all time. They if we pass
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: here in California, this five percent theft of billionaires, unrealized
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: gains and assets, there's no going back. There's no going
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: back from that. And in order to defeat that, I
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: think there's a chance it gets defeated. That's why I'm
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: glad Steve Hilton is on the ballot at least for governor,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: because you know, Republicans will at least have some reason
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: to vote statewide. There's but in order for that to happen,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Republicans have to believe that their votes are going to
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: be counted, which I believe they will be. Now, is
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the system set up to advantage Democrats? Apps of fuckinglutely.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: That's why they love mail and balloting. Mail in balloting
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: inherently advantages Democrats, whether there's abuse or not, because when
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: you make voting easier, you make more idiots vote, and
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: more idiots voting, whether they're maga or not, is usually
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: good for Democrats, not to mention, even the fringe abuse
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: that I reference obviously advantages Democrats because let's, for instance,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: say that older people have their votes stolen by younger
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: relatives and fill out by them. Well, inherently older people
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: tend to be more conservative, younger people tend to be
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: more liberal. That's just one reason why mail in balloting
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: advantages Democrats. But so much of what we're seeing in
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: this craziness surrounding the California primary in twenty twenty six
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: is really about the history of twenty sixteen and twenty twenty.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Twenty sixteen from the perspective of the MAGA cult member,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: and twenty twenty from the perspective of Donald Trump, who
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: will never get over having been defeated. And just to
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: be clear on twenty twenty, I'm someone this is similar
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: to my view of elections in general. Yes, there's institutional
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: problems that should have been fixed that advantage Democrats, but
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: it's not fixing, it's not rigging. The same thing happened
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. Trump lost the twenty twenty election in
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: a situation that was not fair. It was not fair,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: but it was totally legal. And what I mean by
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: that is the COVID panic was used by Democrats, one
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: to create a narrative that was false that harmed Trump,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: and two to change the rules in a way that
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: they knew would help defeat Trump. And it worked. And
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the idea that you know, oh well, Joe Biden got
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: eighty one million votes, How could that possibly be? No
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: one like Joe Biden. It was about going up against Trump.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Those eighty one million votes were anti Trump votes because
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: we were in the middle of an unprecedented situation where
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: the whole world was shut down, and for liberals, they
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: believed that Donald Trump was the blame for that, and
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: were we completely altered the way people vote. So of
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: course you're going to get crazy numbers in an unprecedented
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: situation with an an unusually if not unprecedentedly hated president,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: where it's far easier to vote than it ever has
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: been in our history. Of course, horse you're gonna get
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: numbers that are outside the norm. And that's how Donald
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Trump lost, And that's how Joe Biden got eighty one
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: million popular votes, even though no one actually was voting
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: for him. They were voting against Donald Trump. And as
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: far as the specifics of what's going on here, in California.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: The part of this that drives me so crazy with
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: regard to these theories of election fixing or rigging is
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: just that the basic logic isn't even there, Like, how
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: is it? And I've heard some people try to do
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: some convoluted explanations for this, How is it if Democrats
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: are fixing things here in California? How is it that
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Tom Steyer, a guy who spent over two hundred million
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: dollars of his own money, doesn't get second place in
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: the governor's race. How does Steve Hilton be the guy
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: a Democrat, a progressive Democrat, who spent two hundred million
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: dollars And by the way, every media outlet in the
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: state lost money because Stier didn't make the runoff, lost
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: a significant amount of money. They were desperately hoping for
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: Stier to make the runoff. And I'm sure that influenced
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: media coverage of Stier because it was in every television
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: outlet and radio outlets self interest for him to keep
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: spending that money in the general election. Now, Steve Hilton
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: isn't going to spend anywhere near as much money because
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: he's not gonna have it. So how does Tom Steyer
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: not make the top two. And by the way, it's
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: going to be fairly closed. It's going to be within
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: a couple of percentage points at tops. So it's not
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: like it wasn't within the margin of being able to
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: be stolen. If Democrats were really stealing elections in California,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, Stier's got to be pissed. I mean, Mitthia
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Ramin gets the benefit of the the election fixing and
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: she barely spend any money in Los Angele, but he
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't get it statewide in California. That doesn't make any
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: sense logically. But let's take the LA mayor's race, because
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: some people say, well, John, it's a lot easier in
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles because Democrats completely control things in Los Angeles.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: They don't control things in, for instance, the red sections
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: of California. I get it. Okay, fine, let's take a
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: look at Los Angeles. My favorite part of this whole
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: thing with regard to the lack of logic is that
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: Magaites are baffled, baffled as to how it is that
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: all these Democrats as the votes started, were continuing to
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: be counted in Los Angeles after election day. So you
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: have the election night first ballot dump, and then after
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: that there's this incredible delay. And from that point on,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Nythia Rahman, the third place candidate city council person in
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles that no one nationally has ever heard of before.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, most people in Los Angeles have not even
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: heard of before, she starts making enormous progress on Spencer
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Pratt and eventually overtakes him in the post election day counting,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: and maga. People think, how could that possibly happen? Why
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: would Democrats and progressives all of a sudden vote overwhelmingly
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: for Rahman if their votes were counted after election day?
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: And I go, are you listening to your salespeople? Your
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: whole point in this was that the incumbent Mayor Bass
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: is so incompetent that no one could possibly vote for her.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: So why is it that you're baffled that a relatively unknown, young,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: attractive female progressive being seen as Mandani two point zero
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: would suddenly be getting a lot of democratic and progressive
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the votes. Ironically, I think that's the part of this
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: whole situation that Pratt won, and I implied it in
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the CNN interview where I said Pratt set the pathway
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: for Rahmen to win this mayor election because he won
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the debate about Bass. He just didn't win the election
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: because he got at least a number of people to go,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, he's got a point. You know, Bass
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: was there when the city burned down. She's not doing
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: a good job on homelessness or anything else, so why
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: should she be rehired. But they weren't gonna go to
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the MAGA light reality show, white male Republican candidate. They
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: realized they had another option, which was Nythia Rahmen. So
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: how is this baffling to MAGA people. You've already acknowledged
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: that Bass doesn't deserve to be re elected, So they
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: just went another direction. They weren't going to go towards
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Pratt when they had the other option of Ramen, who
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: was surging in at least one significant poll at the
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: end of the primary process, the La Times poll, where
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: she was actually beating Pratt and almost beating Pass That
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: gave her an enormous amount of credibility with late deciders.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of late deciders because of the
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: moneyed guvenatorial election, and it makes perfect sense that younger
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: late deciders were going to go overwhelmingly for Ramen. Especially
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: in relationship to Pratt. And that gets me to another
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: point that was made during the CNN interview, which is,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: so your theory here, Maga theory is that Los Angeles
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: rigged an election. So there was a massive conspiracy where
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: people put their their careers and their freedom theoretically on
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: the line because if you get caught in this, there's
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: some significant penalties for this, and people do get caught.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: I love that. That's the other part. I love this.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Occasionally I'll get sent links from stories where a person,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: one person has been arrested for you know, frauding the
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: election system or voting illegally or whatever, and somehow this
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: is proof of widespread fraud. And my response is, well,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: thank you for letting me know that it's very difficult
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: to get away with this and that there actually is
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: prosecution in this area. So the conspiracy theory here is
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: that the establishment in Los Angeles, the Democratic establishment, decided
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: to sabotage Spencer Pratt. Okay, I get that. I can
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: understand there'd be an incentive for that because he is
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: a pain in the ass for them. I get it.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: It's not nearly as much of a pain in the
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: ass as people nationally on X think because most people
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, as I said in the CNN piece,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: have no idea what the hell's happening on X, especially
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: when it comes to Spencer Pratt ads. But okay, I
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: can at least somewhat see that. But here's the part
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: I can see. So they're gonna put their freedom and
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: careers on the line to make it much more difficult
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: for their boss mayor Bass to keep her job, because
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: I truly believe that Ramen is the favorite to beat
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Bass now, and if Ramen wins, there's a lot of
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: IF's here, but the legacy of this Spencer Pratt thing
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: has a chance to go on for many, many years.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: I truly believe that if Spencer Pratt had never gotten
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: into this race, Mitthia Raman never gets in because I
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: think she saw that there was gonna be a split vote.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: If it had just been Bass, I don't think she
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: would have gone up against Bass alone. She got in
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: on the last day of eligibility, but because it was
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: going to be a split vote, she saw that making
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: the runoff was possible and would be valuable, And if
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Pratt had gotten in, that would not have been possible
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: or at least not probable. And there's a scenario now,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: and I realize there's IF's here, But if Ramen wins,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: which I think she's the favorite, that makes her the
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: mayor of Los Angeles during the twenty twenty eight Olympics,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: that makes her a massive national figure. She's Mondani two
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: point zero. She's female, she's Indian, she's relatively attractive. She's
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: not great, She's no Mondani as far as her verbal abilities,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: but she's not dumb. And now she's a liberal star
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: and there is no bench here in California. And in
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty four when the next Democrat government governor, but
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Sarah defeats Hilton when he's turned out in twenty thirty four,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Ramen's gonna be governor of California. We're gonna have a
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: self avowed socialist as the governor of California in twenty
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: thirty four. And it's all because Spencer Pratt ran for
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: mayor of Los Angeles in twenty twenty six. Now, I
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: realize there's a lot of apps there, but that to
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: me is the most likely scenario Roman because I think
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: she's gonna get an enormous amount of positive media coverage
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: over the next several months. I think Bass is incredibly vulnerable.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Democrats are going to feel like they can pretend to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: have accountability over the fires and homelessness, and they get
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: this fresh new face, and I think this is going
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: to be terrible in the long run. I hope I'm wrong,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: but that's the path I see is most likely. But
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: none of this has anything to do with election fixing.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make any damn sense. But facts and logic
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: no longer matter. We're't a world where no one ever
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: has to admit they're wrong. Just buy into a conspiracy.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, not that I can't take this,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: because I have as best a skid, but I get
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: destroyed on social media because people think I'm naive and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: I'm a Democratic shill, because I'm stupid. I'm stupid because
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: I don't see what's obviously happening, which is California election
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: rigging or fixing. Look, if it was there, I'd be
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: the first one screaming bloody murder. But give me some
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: actual evidence, give me some proof, give me some logic.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Explain to me the stire problem and the idea that Bass,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: just as the mayor of Los Angeles somehow someone sabotaged
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: her to make sure that Romin got in the runoff,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: making her reelection far, far, far more precarious than it
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: would have been against Spencer Pratt. Just make it make
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: sense and give me some damn evidence, and nobody's willing
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: or able to do that, And until that happens, I'm sorry,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: I can't take you seriously, especially when for years and
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: years now MAGA World has been pretending that all sorts
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: of conspiracies aren't true. I mean all sorts of Yes,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: there have been some conspiracies that been alleged against Magaworld
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: and against Trump that weren't true, but Magaworld has responded
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: with a lot of doozies on their own that are
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: complete bullshit. So they have no credibility in this area. Plus,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: I'm an ardent anti conspiracy theorist to begin with, because
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: we have this thing called social media, and holding a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: conspiracy together, a vast, large conspiracy is almost impossible because
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: everyone has access to telling their story publicly and it
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: would go viral if they had any remote credibility to it.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, trust me, if there was one Democrat within
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: this conspiracy to fix an election and they posted one
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: time on social media. Mago world would make sure and
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk, who's bought into this bullshit, would make sure
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: it went megaviral and no one would be able to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: ignore it that hadn't happen, because it's not based in reality. Now,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: moving on to a couple other political items, most prominently
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: is what's been going on in Maine, which I've not
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: yet discussed, which is this Grand Platiner situation. You're probably
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: aware the Graham Platner is now the Democratic nominee for
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: US Senate in the state of Maine. Now, why does
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: that matter, Well, it matters one because the current US
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Senator from Maine up for reelection is Susan Collins, who's
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: allegedly a Republican. She's barely a Republican, but you know,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: she's part of why Republicans currently hold fifty three seats
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: in the US Senate. And it's important, you know, for
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: things like US Supreme Court justice nominations and confirmations should
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: that occur in the last two years of Trump's presidency,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: which it very well might, and so the seat could
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: be very very important in determining who holds the US
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Senate in those last two years. Of the Trump presidency
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: and going forward from there. But it's also magnificent because
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: Graham Platner appears to be a complete and total fraud.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: He's basically created this narrative which a lot in a
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: lot of members of the liberal media, including Time Magazine.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Time Magazine put him on the cover. Not that the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: cover of Time magazine matters at all anymore like it
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: used to be a huge deal. It's not one one
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: thousand as significant as it used to be. But he
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: was put on the cover in a glowing story on
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Time Magazine as somehow you know, this populist, socialist, every
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: man version of what the Democratic Party is looking for
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: to try to appeal to maga like voters. And his
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: entire narrative is a fraud. He's got this Nazi tattoo
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: that he seemingly lied about. He's got an abusive history
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: with women. The New York Times seems to have tried
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: to do a catch and kill essentially on the issue
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: of his abuse of women, where they told the story,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: but they watered it down as much as they possibly could,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: so therefore to set the narrative that wow, this is bad,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: but not really all that bad, but one of the
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: women that was involved in the story came forward and
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: felt like The New York Times manipulated her version of
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: the story and in fact did water it down. But
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: this guy seems to be a scumbag at every possible level.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: He's lied about his history, he's lied about what he
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: does for employment. He's a complete fraud, a complete fraud,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: a scumbag, and by every possible standard. I mean, if
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: he was a Republican, Democrats would be losing their minds,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: losing their minds that this guy was now the nominee
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: for US Senate in a competitive state. But Democrats don't
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: give a shit. Democrats have completely lost whatever semblance of
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: credibility they had when it came to standards. And I
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: really do believe that Donald Trump is a huge part
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: of this equation. This is the trumplification of our politics.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: This is Democrats trying to duplicate Trump, trying to appeal
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: to Trump voters, and using the fact that Donald Trump
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: has exploded, blown up all of the old rules. And
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: this is something I've discussed many times before which deserves
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention, especially if Gavin Newsom is going
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: to be the Democratic nominee in twenty twenty eight, and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: that is that Trump has paved the way for this.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Without Donald Trump blowing up all the standards, all the norms,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: all the rules, a guy like Graham Platner would never
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: have any chance. But now Republicans have no credibility in
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: attacking a lot of this stuff from Platner because of
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: what they sold out for when it came to Donald Trump.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: Not all of it, I mean, some of it's not
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: analogous to Trump, but in general, because of Trump, Republicans
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: have lost the moral high ground. I mean, there was
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: a time not that long ago, before Donald Trump, where
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Republicans could credibly attack a Platner candidacy on moral grounds,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: on ethical grounds, on behavioral grounds. That's all gone now
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: because of the Trump sellout. That is one of the many, many,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: many prices that the Republican movement. I wouldn't even call
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: it conservative movement because there's nothing conservative about it. But
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: that's one of the many costs of the MAGA movement
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: is the fact that there's no more ammunition to go
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: actor in metaphorically a grand Platner. And there's a chance
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: Platner will beat Collins. Now, I would like to think
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: that's not going to happen. I would like to think
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: that the people of when they're fully educated about what
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: a total fraud Platner is, that they're gonna keep with Collins.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: That's what I think is gonna happen. The polls right
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: now are basically dead, even with Platner maybe being slightly
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: ahead of Susan Collins. But I would like to believe
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: that there are enough decent people in Maine who you know,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: don't abhor Susan Collins because she's so middle of the road,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: that are going to say, you know what, I can't
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: go with this guy Platner. I don't like Trump, but
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: we know who Collins is, and she's not a fraud,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: and you know she's not an abuser of women, and
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: she doesn't have a Nazi tattoo. So you know, if
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: you had a gun to my head, I think Collins
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: probably holds onto this seat, but the headwinds are going
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: to be very strong because of the economy, because of
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the toxicity of Donald Trump. Collins is putting a spot
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: because of the times that he has supported Donald Trump
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: and because of the Republican brand. But it's just so
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: striking to me how unbelievably hypocritical Democrats are, and how
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: they're going to be able to get away with that
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: hypocrisy when it comes to endorsing Graham Platner, when you know,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: it blows apart their entire philosophy on me too. I mean,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: my goodness, how must Al Franken be feeling right now?
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Alf Frankin, former US Senator from Minnesota, A guy who
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: got completely railroaded, completely railroad. And I did a deep, deep,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: deep dive on the Alf Frankin allegations got totally railroaded
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: over a me too situation where there is zero logic,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: zero evidence that he did anything wrong whatsoever, and even
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: what he was accused of was nothing close to what
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Platner is being credibly accused. And Frankin forget about, you know,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: being torpedoed in a race where he was a challenger.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: He was a respected sitting US senator, and he got
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: taken out because Democrats at the time were pretended, see
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: their their initial their initial reaction to Trump was we've
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: got to be better than Trump. We've got to have
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: higher standards than Trump. And so we're gonna hold our
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: own people to these standards. Partially because we're terrified of women,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: and we're totally in on me too, and uh and
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: so believe all women, and we're going to castrate all
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: our men. That was a large part of this whole thing.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: But part of this was their initial attack on Trump
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: was we're gonna show that we're better than Trump. Well
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: now they've they've they've jettisoned that a long time ago.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: Now if you can't beat them, join them. This is
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: the trumpifcation of the Democratic Party. And I certainly hope
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work, because I'm still invested in Republicans holding
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: the US Senate, or at the very least Democrats not
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: taking over the US Senate, if only because of the
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: fact that Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito are very close
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: to retirement and do or heart attack age, and losing
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: them in a situation where Democrats controlled the US Senate
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: would be devastating to the precarious long term future of
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: the United States of America. I want to turn now
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: to the Scott Pelley situation, which has somehow gotten even
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: stranger since the last time we discussed this on the
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. Just to quickly review Scott Pelly,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: long time CBS anchor person, former anchor of the CBS
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: Evening News, long time correspondent on sixty Minutes, a guy
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: who has always been thought of as a elitist, pompous ass,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: but generally a pretty good journalist and certainly likes to
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: think of himself as a beacon of journalism. He ended
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: up getting fired at CBS because he confronted Barry Weiss,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: the head of CBS News, and others at CBS over
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: some firings at sixty Minutes. There were three women, a
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: producer and two correspondents that got fired. There was a
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: perception that Barry Weiss was trying to move sixty Minutes
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: from its left wing bias more towards the middle, which
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: I'm in favor of, and obviously Pelly and a lot
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: of the other liberals at CBS in sixty Minutes were
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: fighting against. In the last episode of the podcast, I
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: theorized that this was a suicide mission by Pelly, that
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: he had to understand what he was doing, that he
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: probably did this on purpose, because how could you not
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: understand that directly attacking your bosses in front of the
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: staff at a staff and then having a follow up
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: meeting where you don't you know, fall on your sword.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: You don't apologize. In the real world, whether it's media
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: or otherwise, this doesn't work, especially doesn't work in a
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: business where as an employee you no longer have the
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: same kind of leverage that you used to have. And
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: so my philosophy, my theory on this was Pelly had
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: to be doing this on purpose. This had to be
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: a situation where he was so in love with his
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: own virtue, much like James Comy. Pelly as a James
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Comy type figure, you know, following in love with your
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: own virtue, and you're at the end of your career
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: and you're seeing sixty minutes in CBS News this institution
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: that you love under what you perceive as attack from
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: the right and from corporate interests, and you're gonna die
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: on this hill. You're gonna have this be your legacy,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: and you're effectively going to do a comic Cozi attack
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: on the institution, on Barry Weiss, and you're gonna commit suicide.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: That was my theory. I'm not one hundred percent convinced
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: of that anymore. I'm still in that camp, but I'm
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: not one hundred percent convinced. Because Pelly did an interview
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: with The New York Times after his firing where he
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: claimed he had no idea he was gonna get fired. Now,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: I think it's quite possible this is an act. Pelly
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: is an actor. You're gonna hear in a moment a
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: clip where it seems to me very much like Pelly
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: is acting that he is virtue signaling, and so I'm
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: very very open to that. I'm just now, you know,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: cracking the door just a little bit to the idea
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: that maybe Pelly is just this dumb and frankly this
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: clip about to play for you. I find fascinating because
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: there's really only two options here, and neither are good
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: for Pelly. Either he is lo when he says he
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: had no idea he was going to get fired, which
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: I still think is the most likely scenario. Or he's
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: the worst investigative reporter in history. I mean, this is
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: a guy whose job was to be an investigative reporter
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: and he couldn't figure out that what he was doing
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: was at the very least making himself vulnerable to getting
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: shit canned. I mean, that is as clueless as you get.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm not sure which would be better or worse
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: for Scott Pelly. Is he lying or is he that clueless?
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: As someone who as an investigative reporter, that's what you're
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: supposed to be. You're supposed to be savvy. You're supposed
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: to understand the real world. You're supposed to understand people's
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: motivations and be able to analyze what the most likely
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: scenario is coming out of a particular situation. Well, if
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: you're this clueless on a situation where you're involved, and
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: you couldn't be more of an expert because you know
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: these people, you know this business, and you're that wrong,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: what else have you been wrong about in your investigative
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: journalism career? So I'm not one hundred percent sure which
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: it is. I still think he's probably lying to for
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: the most part. Here. But here is Scott Pelly telling
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: The New York Times that he just had no idea
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: he was going to get fired when he attacked his
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: bosses in front of the CBS News staff.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 7: But it really didn't occur to you that you could
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 7: be fired after so many of your colleagues had been
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 7: let go, after you'd had this very contentious interaction with
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 7: your new boss.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 6: You know, some reporter I turned out to be I
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 6: just didn't connect the dots. When I saw Nick Bilton's
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 6: email and then saw him reading to my broken hearted
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 6: people off his phone, I felt that somebody had to
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 6: stand up for the broadcast, not just the broadcast, but
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 6: the people. There are people in that room who go
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 6: to war zones when they are pregnant, and very strong bonds,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 6: very emotional bonds are found, are developed in that kind
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: of setting. And to have people running CBS News who
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 6: don't know that, have never felt that, and don't understand
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 6: it is a tragedy I never expected to see.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: Now. That was just one of numerous remarkable clips from
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: this interview with The New York Times that Scott Pelly did.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I referenced that I perceive that Pelly is an actor
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: and that he's virtue signaling. And the clip that probably
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: illustrates that the best is where Pelly gets very emotional
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: and effectively compares himself to a war hero fighting this
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: war on behalf of good journalism. And here's what that
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: sounded like.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 6: I've never worn the uniform, but I've been in combat
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 6: for this country in Afghanistan and Iraq Kuwait, been shot at,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 6: spent nights in foxholes filling up with water in the desert.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 6: I'm not aware that the President of the United States
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 6: has ever done any of those things for his country.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 6: Please correct me if I'm wrong. You become a journalist
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 6: because you love the First Amendment. You become a journalist
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 6: because you love the country. And while all the other
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 6: descriptions that the President used about me might be applicable,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 6: not that one. There is no democracy without journalism. It
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: can't be done. And that is why I am a journalist.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: Now. Part of my problem with the whole Scott Pelly
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: situation is that I'm very conflicted, and that clip I
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: think illustrates why I'm not one hundred percent on team Pelly.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: In theory, I should be on team Pelly, right. I
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: don't like Trump. I hate corporate interests influencing journalism. I
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: think journalism is in great peril, which is why we
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: do the Death of Journalism podcast. I think Pelly is
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: a decent journalist. He's done some decent work in the past.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: I like sixty minutes. I think sixty minutes is important.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I wish it would be stronger. I wish it would
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: be fairer. I wish it would be seen as being credible,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: not just on the left but also on the right.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: And yet I can't bring myself to be on team
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: Pelley because he's such a pompous ass and an actor,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: and I don't really believe what he's saying. He's overplaying it.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: He's clearly virtue signaling and acting, and I can't even
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: tell if he's telling the truth about something as simple
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: as whether or not he understood what he was doing.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: I would respect him more if he made it clear
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: I knew I was going to get fired. Now, maybe
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: he didn't do that because he's got contract issues and
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: he's looking to make sure he preserves his legal rights
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the contract being broken. But I
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: would respect a Kamikazi attack on behalf of your principles
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: and trying to defend journalism. I would respect that. But
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: I don't really feel like I think Pelly's trying to
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: have it both ways here, and I don't like that.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: I also don't like the fact that Pelly is completely
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: without any sense of self awareness when it comes to
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: the issue of bias, and that's really at the heart
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: of this whole thing. You know, the weakest part of
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: this Pelly interview is that when it came to specifics
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: on what it is that Barry Weiss has done wrong,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: I thought he came up incredibly short. He had supposedly
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: and this was secondhand information. He even used the word
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing. I don't even think he had direct knowledge
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: over some orders that Barry Weiss had supposedly given regarding
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: a story involving the Ice shooting. And I just didn't
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: buy it, because, first of all, I didn't think Pelly
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: under knew what exactly he was talking about. It seemed
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: like it was a whisper down the lane situation. It
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: seemed like a couple of words here or there would
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: be very significant in changing the context of what Barry
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: Weiss was doing. But the bigger issue is Pelly doesn't
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: seem to understand where Barry Weiss is coming from, why
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: she was put in her position to begin with. She
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: was put there because she's a liberal. This is a woman,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss, who's not qualified for her job. I will
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: agree with Scott Pelly on that, but you know, she
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: was put in her position by paramount because she's a liberal,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: a woman who's married to a woman who doesn't even
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: believe in the second Amendment, but that she has anti
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: woke sensibilities. She was one of the first liberals to
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: get it about the COVID panic. I respect her for that.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: So she's not a crazy liberal, and so that she's
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: someone who could understand the biases, the liberal biases of
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: the legacy media, but seemingly still at least have some
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: credibility to do something about it, because she's not anything
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: close to Maga, even though in a crazy fashion, many
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: in the liberal media are now painting her as some
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: sort of magaalite, which is absurd. She's not Maga in
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: any way, shape or form. She's a liberal, she's just
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: not crazy about it. But the idea that Scott Pelly
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't even understand that there is bias, and in fact
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: pretends that there's never been any bias at CBS shows
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: a complete lack of self awareness, a lack of credibility,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: and it also shows the power of the bubble and
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: why it is that this bubble needs to be popped,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: because if you're so clueless that you don't understand that
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: there's been bias at sixty minutes, and that there's been
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: numerous situations in the past where sixty minutes has been
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: caught red handed, going all the way back to Dan
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: Rather and George W. Bush and the National Guard documents
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: and all that business. If you don't understand that there's
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: been numerous situations where sixty Minutes has been wrong in
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: a liberally biased direction, then I'm sorry. Then guess what
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: you've just justified? Why Berry Wis has to be brought
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: in to change things, because that, to me, is a
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: problem that can't be solved if you're so clueless that
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: you don't even understand the question. You're baffled by the
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: idea that there's even a charge of liberal bias that's
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: in a damning indictment. And Scott Pelley effectively admits to
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: that in this clip here.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 7: When Barry comes in. She has a meeting with senior
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 7: sixty minute staffers, and in that meeting she asked, and
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 7: I'm quoting, why does the country think you're biased? Is
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 7: that a correct assessment of that?
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 6: I wasn't there, I see, but that is what I've
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 6: been told by my colleagues who were there, and they
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 6: were shocked. That was sort of her hello to the
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 6: staff at sixty minutes.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 7: What was the feeling about that particular opening salvo to
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 7: the team.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 6: Uh oh, she I am told said something to the
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 6: effect of, why do you think think the country thinks
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 6: you're biased? But she didn't offer any kind of a metric.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 6: You know, what's your metric? Why do you think so?
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 6: Do you have a poll? Is there market research? What
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 6: are you talking about? Because we certainly didn't believe that,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 6: and we just felt that she was making statements that
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 6: perhaps she couldn't back up and was coming into the
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 6: news division with hardened, preconceived notions that didn't seem to
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 6: be thought through.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: Now, my theory on Pelly that this was a kamikaze
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: attack is mostly based upon what he does, specifically to
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss in the clip I'm about to play. And again,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: if he actually was open and honest about this, I
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: might actually respect it. I wouldn't agree with it, but
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: I might actually respect what he's doing because I'm someone
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: who believes in sacrificing yourself for a cause you really
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: believe in, which is why again, I should be on
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: team Pelly, but I can't bring myself to be there
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: because I just think he's being disingenuous and he's pompous,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: and he's not being honest, and he's not being, in
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: my view, credible in any of this. But the one
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: part where it was there seems to be some strategicy
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: here that is consistent with this kamikaze attack on behalf
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: of this journalism principle that Pelly is at least pretending
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: to be defending is how he completely and totally buries
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss. I mean, he eviscerates her. Now, I don't
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: know how fair this is because I don't know Berry
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: Weiss at all, but there's part of me that understands
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: where he's coming from, because I don't think Barry Weiss
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: is qualified for this position. And it does appear as
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: if param Output or there which I think was well
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: intentioned to try to bring their news product to the middle.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: But I'm also willing to acknowledge that the timing of
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: this does seem as if it was done to placate
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration because of the corporate mergers. Paramount is
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: involved in two major mergers during this second Trump term,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: one was completed and one yet to be completed with
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Discovery, and so I understand it's not proof
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: that this is all about corporate politics, but I think
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: there's some evidence behind it, partially because Weiss isn't qualified. See,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: that's the way you would do this, if you're a
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: corporate entity that is doing this simply to please the
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: Trump administration, you would pick someone you can completely control.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: And in order to pick someone you can completely control,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: you pick someone who's not qualified, who's gonna be thrilled
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: to do your bidding for them because they just want
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: the gig. You've plucked them out of obscurity and now
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: they owe you everything, and they're not gonna buck you
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: because as soon as they buck you, they know they're
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: fired and their one shining moment is gone. This is
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: an incredible opportunity for Barry Weiss, so she's gonna do
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: what her corporate overlords tell her to do. So I
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: get that part of this, But I'm looking at this
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: particular clip you're about to hear from the perspective of
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: the impact that it's gonna have, and this is gonna
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: leave a mark. I truly believe. I said this on
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: social media and a lot of people did not understand
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: where I was coming from. But I truly believe that
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: Scott Pelly ended any chance of Barry Weiss being a
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: success at CBS. With this evisceration right here.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 6: My hope is that the leader ship of paramount, we'll
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 6: say to themselves, Okay, this isn't working. We have broadcasts
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 6: that almost don't get on the air. We have respected
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 6: journalists saying that there is a thumb on the scale
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 6: for one political party over another. We have a broadcast
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 6: which is among the most important in America, the most
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 6: successful in the history of all of television. It was
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 6: doing great. So why are we making these changes. We
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 6: need adult supervision, and at the moment we don't have it.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 6: We have people who've been installed in these jobs who,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 6: through no fault of their own, have no experience in television.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 6: It's not their fault, but they don't know what they're doing.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 6: And there's a subtle polytical bias that I've never seen
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 6: at sixty Months before, and so or at CBS News before.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 6: And so that is my hope. A return to sanity,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 6: a return to honor, a return to courage. We used
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 6: to have all of those things in abundance, and now
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 6: we don't. We can save this, it's possible to land
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 6: this plane. But right now CBS News, in my view,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 6: is on fire.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: Now When I say that Scott Pelly, I believe effectively
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: ended any chance of long term success for Barry Weiss
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: with that clip. What I mean is this, his audience
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: is not the general public there. His audience is the
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: rest of the legacy media, which was effective because all
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: the other networks did stories on this interview and how
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: Pelly took down Barry Weiss, but also the staff at
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: CBS and News and specifically sixty Minutes. Every single member
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: of the sixty Minutes and CBS News staff saw what
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: Scott Pelley said, and while they might not all like
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: Scott Pelly, most of them are going to respect him,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: and they're going to be cheering behind the scenes. And now, essentially,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: in my view, her legs have been cut out from
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: under her. Now she's going to survive as long as
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: the Ellison family wants her there, but that doesn't mean
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: she's going to have any credibility, that doesn't mean she's
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: going to be successful. This is now an untenable situation
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: at CBS. I cannot even imagine. Having worked in numerous
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: media organizations, I cannot imagine in this circumstance where every
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: single member of the news staff now has no respect
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: for Barry Weiss and sees her as just a shill
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: for a corporate operation that they perceive as being dead
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: set against journalism and in favor of the Trump administration.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: That can't work, That cannot work long time term. That
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean she's gonna get fired. In fact, I don't
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: think she can be fired. They can't get rid of
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: her now because then it looked like it was because
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: of the reaction to Scott Pelly, so she'll remain in
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: her position. I just don't think she's going to be successful.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: And as far as this report that got a lot
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: of attention on X that now she's going to take
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: over not just CBS News but CNN when the merger
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: between Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery happens, I'm not buying it.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: I'm just not buying the story because it came from
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: The New York Post, which the New York they do
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: some good work, but they are very much clickbait. A
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: lot of what they do is they know stories that
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: are gonna get a lot of traction, especially on X.
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: That's really where they make most of their revenue. It
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: seems like now is by posting clickbait stories on X
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: that go viral, and that's all. I think a large
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: part of what they did with the Spencer Pratt thing,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: I mean the New York Post and California Posts, which
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: are the same thing, was effectively the pr arm for
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: the Spencer Pratt campaign, and the idea that the New
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: York Post, owned by News Corp, which is the owner
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: of Fox News Channel, would somehow have inside information that
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss in the midst of all this controversy Post
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: Scott Pelly is not just gonna maintain her position, but
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: get this huge promotion where she's now gonna be in
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: charge of CBS News and CNN together, which would be
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: an unprecedented job in the history of media news management.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not buying it from the New York Post. If
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: it came from the New York Times, I would buy Okay, Wow,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: the Ellisons are really back in Barry Weiss here. They're
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: going to go down with a ship on this. But
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: I think it's clickbait. I just cannot believe that in
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: this atmosphere that Barry Weiss is going to be given
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: a promotion. In my view, the opposite is more likely
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: to happen when this merger gets approved. I think Barry
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: Weiss will maintain her position, but she will now have
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: other people above her because they're going to combine CBS
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: News and CNN so effectively. It will be a demotion.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: And you know, her job will have already been done.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: Her job, based upon the Scott Pelley philosophy and theory,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: is is to shepherd this merger through. Well, once the
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: merger is done, they don't need her anymore. If Pelly
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: is right, right, if this is all a corporate conspiracy,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: they're just making sure that they get this merger done.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: They want to show Trump, under the Pelly theory, they
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: want to show Trump how fair they're being, how pro
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: Trump they're being when it comes to their news product,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: so that the Trump administration won't stop the paramount Warner
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: Brothers Discovery merger. Well, once that happens and CBS News
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: and CNN are merged, they don't need to keep kissing.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: The Trump Administration's asked. The merger is done. Therefore, they
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: don't need Barry Weiss anymore, and she's not going to
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: have the respect of anybody within liberal journalism anybody. So
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: I'm just not buying that story. Of course, if I'm wrong,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: they'll be the first to admit it, but I'm pretty
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: confident then I'm not. Thanks for listening to today's free
• 1:35:45
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• 1:35:48
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