Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Fifty One: Ask Zig Anything Part II

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Episode Fifty One: Ask Zig Anything Part II · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome to episode number fifty one of the Death of Journalism podcast. My name
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is John Ziggler. I am your host. Today we continue with part two
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of Asked John Anything and review the news of the past few days, including
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the big Fox News settlement with the Dominion Voting System's lawsuit and the latest on
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Peter can help. That's the Dutch Digital marketing Man dot com. And hey,
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thanks for sponsoring the show. We begin this episode of the Death of
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Journalism with maybe the biggest media news media story of the year, where Fox
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News Channel, much to the chagrin of the rest of the news media,
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that was really really looking forward to an actual trial. Fox News Channel has
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settled with Dominion Voting Systems and their lawsuit for seven hundred and eighty seven point
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five million dollars. Let me repeat that number, seven hundred and eighty seven
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point five because the point five was really important. Seven hundred and eighty seven
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point five million dollars to settle a lawsuit to essentially defamation for Fox News Channel
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allegedly having lied about the nature of Dominion Voting Systems and their voting machines during
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the twenty twenty elections, and that somehow because Donald Trump was saying that the
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voting machines were flawed or rigged, and that this was partially why or maybe
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a primary reason why he lost the twenty twenty election, and Dominion Voting Systems
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sued Fox News Channel. There was all sorts of discovery. We talked about
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that discovery pretty extensively on this podcast, Most notably, Tucker Carlson was revealed
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to have stated that he hates Donald Trump passionately and was so looking forward to
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being able to ignore him, which of course has not happened since the end
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of the twenty twenty election. In fact, Tucker Carlson has unfortunately, in
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the last couple of months, become Donald Trump's biggest ally something We've talked about
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previously on this podcast and where I've talked about that on News Nation Television with
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Dan Abrams. But this is a huge story on a number of fronts,
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and obviously the money total is extraordinary. I mean seven and eighty seven point
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five million dollars, which is about half of what Dominion was asking for it.
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And the reality here is that I think that this was an unjust settlement
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if you're just worried about what the truth is, what the law is,
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you know, and whether or not what Fox News Channel did was anything close
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to being worth that much money, or that in a rational world, Dominion
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would have gotten that much money had they gone ahead with the trial and won.
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Now, this is a little bit complex. Some of the things I'm
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gonna say might sound contradictory. The reason why Fox News Channel, in my
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opinion, caved and settled, was not because they were wrong on the law.
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I have still to this day not seen a smoking gun that an employee
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a Fox News Channel said on the air something that they knew to be false,
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which is the standard of actual malice knew to be false, saying something
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like the machines were rigged, this is why Biden beat Trump. And if
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they said that and they knew that was false, that would be defamation,
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and dominion voting systems would have a very strong claim even under the First Amendment.
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But even under that circumstance, which I don't believe existed. Now,
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Fox News Channel had some guests that came very close and maybe have said that
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on behalf of Donald Trump, but I'm not sure that it's logical or would
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it should have been legal to hold Fox News Channel responsible for what their guests
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were saying, especially when those guests were representing either literally or figuratively the president
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of the United States in an issue as important as a presidential election. That
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is to me a very dangerous standard, and then we'll have an incredible chilling
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effect. For I mean, if you're now going to hold news outlets responsible
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for what their guests say in highly controversial subjects, then that's going to completely
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change the landscape. Now, some of it would be for the good,
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but oftentimes that'll be for the bad. And as a contrarian, I'm very
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very concerned that this means that anything that will be deemed to be highly unpopular,
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and you know, like for instance, we just obviously just came out
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of COVID, and you know, could we have lawsuits there are things that
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turn out to be true that are seen to be false at the time,
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and then we'll news outlets either cave or even worse self censor out of fear
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of being sued. Because of the precedent that kind of has been set with
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this Fox News Channel lawsuit. Now, you know, as far as precedents
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are concerned, this is not the worst scenario. The worst scenario would have
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been that Fox went through with a trial, which is what the rest of
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the news media desperately wanted them to do because they wanted the entertainment, and
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then lost. And if that had held up on appeal, and of course
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it would have taken forever and ever for their to be appeals in a case
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like this, But if that had held up, then essentially new law would
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be effectively created, which would be really damaging. So in a way,
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and I doubt this was really part of Fox News Channel's equation in their thinking.
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Fox took one for the team inadvertently by avoiding a bad verdict that would
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have created effectively illegal precedent and would have eroded dramatically the First Amendment. But
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the real reason Fox News Channel did this was to avoid embarrassment. That's number
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one. They wanted to avoid the spectacle. They knew they were very vulnerable,
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not really on the law, but very vulnerable on having more and more
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of the public be exposed to the making of the sausage and what frauds they
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are when it comes to support of Donald Trump, where they're saying one thing
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on the air and another thing behind the scenes. That's where Dominion really had
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Fox News Channel over a barrel. The other area where they had them over
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the barrel, which I think is increasingly a problem in our entire civil legal
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system, which should have been fixed long ago. You know, Republicans used
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to talk a lot about tort reform because we were living in an era where
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juries are a bunch of fricking morons that think money grows on trees, and
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they are very willing to punish the hell out, especially out of evil,
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big giant corporations with these ridiculous settlements or not never or judgments in civil cases,
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which you and I all pay for eventually, because it all comes out
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of insurance money. So insurance fees go up for everybody, and you know,
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everyone just thinks that it's magic and it's not. And I think that
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Fox News Channel probably correctly saw that their great vulnerability here was a moronic jury
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that did not understand the First Amendment and was going to be more than willing
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to stick it to them if they found in favor of dominion voting systems.
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And so Fox News Channel looked at the situation and says, Okay, what's
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the downside here? The downside is we lose. It's terrible. You know,
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I don't think they cared that much about the First Amendment, but that
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would be part of the theoretical equation, and we're likely to get crushed on
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the judgment. And the judgment number is so far off. I mean,
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Dominion itself as a company is not even close to worth seven hundred eighty seven
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point five million dollars. The best estimate I've seen is it's worth about sixty
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million dollars. And there's no evidence that the company was greatly damaged by this.
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So, you know, again, a rational world, which no longer
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exists within our civil udicial system, would never have allowed a judgment anywhere close
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to what Fox News Channel paid in the settlement, even if Fox News Channel
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was found to be responsible or libel and so dominion really scored here. I
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mean, I don't think they were really defamed, at least in a technical
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sense. So I don't think they should have won the case. They're going
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to get many more times the amount of money than their company is even worth.
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And of course they're getting actually all sorts of great publicity because they've been
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vindicated in all of this, not that they had anything to be vindicated about,
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because I don't think there was any evidence that the voting machines were rigged,
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certainly not against Donald Trump or anybody else in the twenty twenty election.
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Now, I have a great passion for this particular issue, one because I
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very strongly believe in free speech in the first Amendment. I've also been sued
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for defamation in my career once in a very very very high profile situation.
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Now, this is one of those John Zigler stories that deserves to be told
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in its entirety at a later date. I don't know exactly when that'll be
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or what will cause that to become relevant, but I'm sure it will at
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some point. But that was how I got fired in Louisville, Kentucky as
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a radio talk show host at whas there where there was an ex girlfriend of
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mine. It was a local Fox ironically enough, Fox morning show host named
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Darcy Devita, and I made some very truthful comments about her that were intended
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to be complimentary, and I ended up getting fired, and she ended up
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suing me for well over a million dollars, and it somehow went all the
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way to trial, even though we had her under oath admitting everything I said
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about her, which again was complimentary, was also true, and our jury
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consultants thought we had no chance because even back then, this was twenty almost
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twenty years ago that this happened. Even back then there was such a concern
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about juries not getting this that there was a lot of pressure on the side
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of a media company to potentially settle, and of course that's what they wanted.
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They wanted clear channel, who was my employer who was also being sued,
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to settle, and they didn't, thankfully, and had we lost,
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we would have had the greatest appeal ever. In fact, the first thing
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I said after the verdicts when we won, I went over to our appeal
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attorneys and said, I'm sorry, you guys lost the easiest appeal you're ever
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going to have because the judge completely screwed up in his instructions to the jury,
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because he knew that if he gave them proper instructions, there was no
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way that they could come to any other conclusion that I was innocent, because
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that's what the loss as. But I remember very distinctly, again, I
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guess eighteen years ago, there was such a great fear that the jury wouldn't
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get it. Well. Our jury got it, but barely, and mainly
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because the evidence was so overwhelming. And also I think they hated her more
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than they hated me because of the nature of the story. And they hated
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me, I'm sure, but she really came off poorly when it came to
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the testimony. So we won. But I gotta tell you the reason why
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I think this is relevant to the Fox News situation is that I don't think
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we would win today. I really don't. I just think that the nature
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of our society and our culture and the people that serve on juries, and
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the kind of the unofficial rules that jurors have in their heads for these situations
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and how politically correct we become. I believe I would have lost and probably
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would have been nailed for whatever amount of money they they were asking for,
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somewhere in the one over one million dollar range. Now what I've ever been
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forced to pay that, I don't know, But that would have been a
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massive problem. The facts wouldn't have changed. I mean, but that's now
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the world we're living in, and that has devastating consequences across the board because
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that causes effectively inflation everywhere. And so you know, not that you know
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that this particular settlement is going to cause you know, a ripple effect across
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the entire legal system. But seven hundred and eighty seven point five million dollars
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is a ton of cash and um, and so well, it's not the
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worst scenario. It is. It is not. I don't think it's just
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settlement. And I'm no fan of Fox News Channel, and I'm no fan
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of Donald Trump, and frankly, from a political standpoint, this ought to
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have devastating in consequences on the Trump campaign. It won't, but it should.
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I mean, my god, you know, Trump's formerly favorite news network,
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one which he criticizes all the time, right now, just was forced
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to pay almost eight hundred million dollars for having defended him. Now there's another
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element from a political standpoint. I had a little bit of a debate with
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a friend of mine who is considering working for the DeSantis campaign, about the
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impact of Fox's settlement on the presidential primary. And I actually took the more
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optimistic view. Their view was a little bit more like, well, it
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would have been great to have all these people forced to testify in a very
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high profile trial with a lot of media coverage about how much they hate Trump.
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And I said, well, maybe, But there's also look at what
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just happened with Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson clearly just spent the last two months
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trying to signal his virtue to Trump supporters because he knew he was vulnerable on
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this issue of the dominion voting system's lawsuit. So do you really want every
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single Fox personality to now feel a massive obligation to prove how pro Trump they
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are? Again, So I actually think this is a wash. It might
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even be the best scenario when it comes to the Republican primary process, especially
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in the battle between Trump and Desanders, which I'll get to more of a
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little bit. Later on in this episode, I do want to play one
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clip of the media reaction to the settlement, and this one went pretty much
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viral. It's from CNN's Jake Tapper, and you know Jake, you know
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as a guy who I know a little bit. We used to follow each
15:33
other on Twitter and communicate quite a bit on Twitter, and then during COVID,
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I think we both unfollowed each other. We haven't had any communication in
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a long time. I used to think that he was one of the better
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personalities, at least at CNN, which is not saying a whole heck of
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a lot, but you know, to me, he's gone off the deep
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end. But here he is making a great show of not being able to
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hold it together as he reports on the settlement and then reads Fox News channels
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response or their official statement in response to the settlement. And the reason why
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it went viral is because Tapper basically starts laughing about what Fox is saying in
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a very mocking fashion, resenting Dominion voting systems. After the company settled with
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Fox, the attorney Justin Nelson announced the deal. It's a really unbelievable figure
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Fox is going to pay Dominion Voting Systems seven hundred eighty seven million, five
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hundred thousand dollars. Dominions lawyers saying quote today representative bringing endorsement for truth and
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for democracy. Fox trying to put a positive face on what can only be
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interpreted as one of the ugliest and most embarrassing moments in the history of journalism.
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Fox issued a statement saying, what we are pleased to have reached a
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settlement of our dispute dispute with Dominion Voting Systems. We acknowledge the court's rulings
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finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. The settlement reflects I'm sorry.
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This is going to be difficult to say with a straight face. This settlement
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reflects Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that are
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sorry. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve the dispute with Dominion amicably
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instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward
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from these issues. Let's bring back CNN legal analysts Laura Coats and Ellie honeg
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Wow, so Laura seven hundred. Now, my first reaction to that clip
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was okay, that number one. It is unbelievable how much jealousy and anger
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and hatred the rest of the news media has for Fox News Channel. I
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mean, because Fox News Channel dwarfs CNN right now in the ratings in every
18:03
possible way, and they despise them for that, and they have created this
18:10
mythology in their head as to why that is, because they need to rationalize
18:15
it, right, because they're getting their asses kicked. And the way they
18:18
rationalize it is Fox just isn't burdened by having to tell the truth. If
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we were able to lie to our audience the way Fox does, our ratings
18:30
would be just as good or better than Fox News Channel. That's kind of
18:33
the implication. And of course that's a total lie, because you know who
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else lies to their audience because they don't want to offend them and they want
18:42
to titillate them. CNN and MSNBC. CNN just doesn't do as good a
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job or doesn't have the monopoly over the audience like Fox News Channel does.
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I mean, this is a network that for years carried the Russian collusion situation,
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which I think you could now call a lie, and they went way
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overboard on Russian collusion and basically turned Trump into a Manchurian candidate. And then
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there's all sorts of things when it comes to COVID that they lied about,
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they pretended masks work, and that vaccine stop transmission at schools should have been
19:19
closed at outdoor events for extended periods of time, well over a year should
19:25
have been shut down. They were wrong all at about all of that.
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By the way, they were wrong about which I'll get to momentarily. It
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appears as if the origins of the virus itself, mocking the lab theory and
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embracing the wet market theory and keeping Fauci off the hook for his role in
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how those whole thing started with gain a function. I mean, the list
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goes on and on and on. I mean, so holy Glasshouse, Batman,
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Jake Tapper, and CNN have no place to be claiming that Fox News
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Channel is unique when it comes to lying to their audience to try to placate
20:03
them. They just happened to have a larger audience. They played the game
20:07
better. I'm not defending Fox News Channel for it. I'm just saying that
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CNN is at least as guilty as Fox News Channel is. Now. I
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referenced the latest story when it comes to the origins of the COVID virus.
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John Radcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence, testified before Congress just yesterday
20:29
and came out more strongly, more definitively than anybody else I've seen, testify
20:33
that it was one hundred percent the lab leak theory when it came to the
20:38
origins of COVID, And there was a very strong implication that doctor Fauci was
20:45
not just wrong about that, that he had lied under oath about that in
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the whole game of function situation and the funding of the lab and all that.
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And of course this is not getting massive news covers nowhere near as much
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as the Fox News Channel dominion voting systems, lawsuits settlement. But what was
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said was significant and another indication that's how broken the news media is, because
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if this ever happened in reverse, this would be a massive story. I
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mean, the very origins of the virus that changed the world and the country
21:22
was wrong, and everybody was wrong. The media was wrong. The media
21:27
mocked anybody who even suggested that the origins came from a lab. But once
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again, as has happened numerous times during the entire COVID fiasco. It has
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turned out that when the establishment, the so called experts, told us something
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definitively was the case and mocked and censored those who questioned it, they were
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wrong, and the contrarians were right. Not every single time, but just
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about every single time, especially when it comes to doctor Fauci. We've gone
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through many times all the things doctor Fauci was wrong about. In fact,
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the only time he's ever admitted he was wrong was the one time he was
22:04
right, when he said at the beginning of the pandemic that masks are basically
22:11
useless, no need to wear them. He mocked them, and in the
22:15
PBS documentary about himself he actually very dramatically said I was wrong, which of
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course is so classic because it's the only time he was actually right. He
22:25
was wrong about everything else, I mean virtually everything else doctor Fauci was wrong
22:30
about, including whether it was a lie, whether he was just mistaken.
22:36
I still think we need to find out more about that. But when it
22:38
came to the actual origins, he was seemingly totally wrong. The evans now
22:45
appears to be overwhelming that it escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.
22:51
Now Fauci It's just amazing how wrong he is all the time about everything.
23:00
But he I believe he was even wrong about Damar Hamlin. The Buffalo Bills
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football player who effectively died for a few minutes on the field back in January,
23:11
became a massive story, not just in the NFL, but across the
23:15
entire world. He became a cause celeb he recovered. There was all sorts
23:22
of conspiracy theories which were crazy about, you know, whether or not he
23:26
really did survive and whether there was a body double when he finally showed up
23:30
in a Bill's playoff game. And but my main focus on this whole Damar
23:34
Hamlin situation was, Okay, what happened here? Because this is unprecedented in
23:41
the modern era of the NFL. It doesn't seem to have an explanation.
23:45
And we have charted the Damar Hamlin story in a pre detailed fashion on this
23:51
podcast, and we have constantly talked about, Okay, the most benign,
23:56
in fact, maybe the only benign explanation here would be that this was somehow
24:02
commodiac cordis And that's what doctor Fauchi said that it was immediately with having no
24:07
knowledge at all, he just because he wanted it to be commodio chordis,
24:11
because if it's a commodiocchordis, then certainly not the vaccine, and there's nobody
24:17
to blame. And this is a freak freak, freak freak freak accident.
24:21
And I have always been adamant that the commodiocchordis theory makes no sense for those
24:29
that don't remember, commodioc cordis is this phenomenon that usually happens with teenage boys,
24:33
almost always in baseball, where they get hit in the heart with a
24:37
baseball with no padding at exactly the wrong time and the heart stops. Now,
24:44
if you get it back into rhythm, you're actually fine, ready to
24:48
go immediately. This happened in hockey when a puck hit a prominent player in
24:55
the chest and they were back playing, I think a couple of days later,
25:00
because it's just one of it's just a freak thing and the heart goes
25:03
out of rhythm, and then if you're able, if you're the medical personnel
25:07
or there, they get it back in the rhythm and there's no lasting damage.
25:11
Well, nothing about what happened with Damar Hamlin is overtly consistent with commodi
25:18
accordis the hit itself, I will maintain forever is not unusual. It was
25:25
not an unusual hit. Damar Hamlin was making a tackle. Now, it
25:29
was maybe above average when it came to the contact, but Hamlin's feet weren't
25:33
even on the ground, so the resistance. It's not as if one part
25:38
of his body was, specifically the heart, was taking the brunt of the
25:44
impact. That's not what happened, not to mention, maybe more importantly than
25:48
that, there's a reason why commodi accordis never happens in the NFL one because
25:56
generally that what happens with commodia accordis is that happens with teenage boys because their
26:00
chest area is not as developed. Hamlin is an adult male, almost twenty
26:06
five years old when this happened, obviously in fantastic physical condition, and even
26:11
more importantly than that, in the NFL, they have extraordinary protection over the
26:15
heart area. The shoulder pads and the breastplate make it impossible for this to
26:22
happen unless there was some sort of catastrophic failure of the equipment, which there's
26:27
no evidence of whatsoever. So there's a reason why this has never happened before,
26:33
because because football players, especially in the NFL, are extremely protected against
26:38
this. So there was nothing unusual about the tackle, nothing at all,
26:45
and even his reaction was too delayed in my opinion, based upon what we
26:48
know of commodiocortis for it to be commodio cortis, I understand why people connect
26:55
it to the tackle. But as I've said many times before, everyone thinks,
27:00
okay, well, the external force of the tackle triggered whatever happened to
27:03
his heart, and I say, well, wait a minute, the tackle
27:07
can trigger it because of internal factors like adrenaline rush of having made the tackle,
27:12
getting up, kind of celebrating, and then all of a sudden the
27:17
heart goes and he would have died for sure if he hadn't been on an
27:21
NFL football field where there was immediate medical attention being given to him. And
27:26
so I never believe commodiocordus never made any sense. There was no story of
27:32
bruising around his chest. The doctors never said it was commodio chorus. If
27:36
it was commodiocordus, you would know this almost immediately, but we never got
27:40
an explanation. And then tomar Hamlin after the Super Bowl, not before during
27:45
did not happen during the Super Bowl broadcast or pregame show, even though the
27:51
interviewer, Michael Strahan for his first interview was working on the Super Bowl pregame
27:56
show for Fox. No. He did an ABC Good Morning America interview where,
28:03
almost to a hysterical degree, Hamlin refuses to answer what happened in a
28:11
way that I could not have concocted to be more consistent with there's something nefarious
28:17
going on here. He literally refused to answer. Paused him to odd and
28:22
says, that's not a place where I want to go. I don't want
28:25
to get into that. He said. No follow up really from strayhand,
28:29
but why wouldn't you want to talk about the cause? I mean, so
28:33
what so you're you're not going to tell us what happened. You're not gonna
28:36
say what your doctors are saying. And so at that point there was really
28:41
only two options in my view underlying conditions, which I can understand why he
28:47
wouldn't want to talk about that in theory because that would be very damaging to
28:51
any potential career going forward, or this was a lightning stripe from having taken
28:57
the vaccine. There was enough public discussion, especially on social media about the
29:03
vaccine being part of this equation that had he not taken the vaccine, we
29:08
would have heard about that one hundred percent. One hundred percent, we would
29:15
have heard that. So if you use your brain here, he's clearly taken
29:18
the vaccine and if it was commodiac cordis, we would have known that immediately.
29:26
He's afraid to answer the question in his first interview with Michael Strahan and
29:30
then yesterday as of this taping on WE tape on Wednesday. On Tuesday of
29:36
this week, the Bills announced the Marhamlin has been cleared for all football activities.
29:44
He's coming back to the team. Now, this is obviously an amazing
29:47
and great story. I don't want to miss that part of it. I
29:49
mean, it's tremendous. And this guy who died on the field is a
29:52
few months ago, is now, as peers, going to be able to
29:59
return to profo. If that happens, fantastic, great, good for him,
30:03
good for humanity. But the truth of what happened here auto matter.
30:08
This is a massive story and the most shocking part of this is Okay,
30:15
so he's coming back to the team, you know, what this does.
30:18
Again, if you use your brain, say no, it's difficult for the
30:21
news media. That means there's no underlying conditions because if there was any underlying
30:26
condition, he would never be allowed back because if he comes back and then
30:30
this happens again, he and or his estate are going to have a multi
30:34
billion dollar lawsuit against the Bills and the National Football League. So there's no
30:40
underlying condition, so that officially eliminates that. So as we go through the
30:45
list of things where that could have caused this, underlying conditions gone. So
30:51
then I'm like, Okay, well, now where are we at now?
30:55
I mean, what else can there be other than the vaccines, because because
31:00
of all the circumstances surrounding us, and I am not somebody, to be
31:03
clear, I am not somebody that believes that the vaccines are causing a massive
31:10
wave of death or heart attacks among young people. I view it as increasing
31:15
the chances of a lightning strike. And it appears to me I've always thought
31:22
was a likely and you haven't determined that it was one hundred percent, But
31:25
that seemed like a scenario that made sense that themar Hamlin got struck by lightning
31:30
during this football game. Effectively. Well, then Hamlin at the press conference,
31:37
in a very nervous sort of way, suddenly declares that the reason why
31:44
he had the cardiac arrest in the field was commodio cornice. What you,
31:49
as John McEnroe famously would say, you cannot be serious, You cannot be
31:57
serious. You don't get to do that. If it was commodio cortis,
32:02
your doctors would have said that immediately or almost immediately. You would have said
32:09
that in the Michael Strahan interview, and you sure as hell wouldn't have been
32:13
evasive about it, because there's nothing to be evasive about when it comes to
32:17
commodio cordis. What would Why wouldn't you want to get into that tomorrow,
32:22
Hamlin, There's no reason to be afraid of getting into Well, it was
32:27
commodioccortis. What's the scandal there, what's the concern there, what's the fear
32:31
there? There's none. In fact, if it's commodiocortis, it's great for
32:37
everybody. It's great for the NFL, it's great for the vaccine people.
32:39
It's great for you because that's something you can easily heal from. So that
32:45
makes no sense at all, And it's not coming from his doctors. It's
32:50
coming from him and to me ironically, because we live in an upside down
32:54
world. Tomar Hamlin at this late date suddenly coming out and saying it's commodio
33:00
chordis. That is almost the final nail and the coffin for me. Do
33:06
you use a bad metaphor given the circumstances here, But thankfully there was no
33:09
coffin and Camelon survived. That's really the final nail in the coffin. For
33:15
the theory that this had nothing to do with the vaccines, I am now
33:20
convinced that by far the most likely scenario here is that this was vaccine related,
33:24
because every single piece of information that we have disqualifies any other logical scenario.
33:34
It's not it was not commodio chordis. There's no way. It makes
33:39
no sense, and we now know it's not underlying conditions. Now, could
33:45
it just be an absolute fluke among fluke among flukes? I mean people do,
33:51
even in good physical conditions, have heart attacks. I mean this was
33:57
a massive one. This was a complete cardiac asked failure where he would have
34:01
died without immediate great medical attention. But it does happen occasionally, but for
34:09
it to happen in this time period, when Hamlin fits the demographic for situations
34:19
that were occurring anecdotally, at least with regard to the vaccines, it is
34:23
really hard, really hard to not come to that conclusion at this point.
34:28
But of course nobody in the media is even remotely questioning this up. Yep,
34:32
we got our explanation, commodio cord as everyone move along. Nothing to
34:36
see here makes total sense to us, and we will never speak of this
34:39
again. And visiting it awesome that DeMar Hamlin's gonna be able to play football
34:44
again. So that's how broken the news media is. That one of the
34:47
biggest stories of the year of the year, and we are not only never
34:53
going to get to the bottom of it, we're now going to be forced
34:58
to accept and tend that this mythology makes any damn sense. It makes absolutely
35:07
no sense. And it's not just because Fauci. Fauci said so at the
35:10
beginning, which automatically made me suspicious just by virtue of the fact that Fauci
35:15
is almost wrong about everything, but that just seems to be coincidental to this
35:21
whole situation. And moving on to other news stories, this is This one
35:27
really upset a lot of people, including myself, because the news media is
35:30
just so freaking nefarious, and they so love creating racial divides in this country
35:39
and creating bogus or potentially bogus racially motivated narratives, especially when it comes to
35:46
crimes or alleged crimes of the cur against black people. And what I'm referring
35:52
to is a seemingly very unfortunate although at this point technically not tragic situation.
36:00
I guess you could say it's still tragic, but as a right now,
36:01
it's not a deadly situation because the young black boy involved as of this date,
36:07
is not gonna doesn't appear as if he's going to die. He was
36:12
significantly injured. It's unbelievable that he doesn't doesn't appear as if he's going to
36:15
die. But this was a situation in Kansas City, Missouri, where a
36:21
black teenager by the name of Ralph Yari or Yari was shot by an eighty
36:27
five year old white guy because the white guy apparently thought that Yari was trying
36:35
to enter his house. Now, the story is at least as being told
36:40
publicly, is that Yari went to the wrong house. Of course, the
36:45
eighty five year old man didn't know that, and he shot him, shot
36:51
the kid twice through a window or a door or something like that, and
36:55
including in the head. But the kids survived, and that is a let's
37:00
let's take it at face value. That is a highly unfortunate situation and it
37:06
could be criminal. I'm not defending the eighty five year old as far as
37:12
from criminal activity, because I do think you need more than that. Even
37:16
withstand your ground, you need more than someone either knocking on your door or
37:22
ringing your doorbell. And there's been different stories that the media has put out
37:24
theres as to what Yari was actually doing. But I think you need more
37:30
than that to justify shooting somebody, even if they are on your property.
37:35
However, the part of the story that is highly highly agitating, and I
37:42
view out at this point outrageous, is that the mainstream news media just immediately
37:47
me jerk fashion, without any concern at all of what they were doing,
37:55
effectively caused this a hate crime, actively said that this was racially motivated.
38:01
CNN tweeted out just in prosecutor announces two falony charges against white homeowner accused of
38:10
shooting and seriously wounding black Kansas City teenager Ralph Yari. That was CNN The
38:17
New York Times breaking news. An eighty five year old white man has been
38:23
charged in the shooting of a black teenager who had mistakenly gone to the wrong
38:30
house in Kansas City, Missouri. And of course the pictures that they use
38:36
are the very best pictures that this teenage boy has ever taken in his life.
38:40
He's playing a musical instrument and you know, very clean cut, and
38:46
he looks cute and young, and you know, I don't know what this
38:51
kid is really like. It could be a very innocent kid. I mean,
38:54
I'm suspicious given the fact that it seems like they're trying to turn this
38:58
into a new tra Avon Martin situation. I know what they did with the
39:01
pictures of Trayvon Martin. But the point of this is we have no evidence,
39:07
no evidence at all, that the fact that the shooter, the eighty
39:10
five year old, was white, was relevant to this happening, or the
39:15
fact that Yari is black was relevant to this happening. The races should not
39:22
be inherently relevant, especially not in the freaking headline. I realized we see
39:27
everything through the prism of race. I'm not naive. So you know,
39:30
if at some point you want to reference this happens to be a black victim,
39:34
this happens to be a white shooter, fine, but not the primary
39:39
story. And this is particularly outrageous considering you know, when it came to
39:45
the shooting in Nashville, which was not accidental, there was there was no
39:51
other explanation. I mean, this was not a situation where where in theory
39:55
you could create an argument that it could have been justified because someone thought they
40:00
were in danger because a stranger was trying to break into their house. This
40:04
was an attack on school children at a Christian school, I mean, and
40:08
the news media has to this day and we've just forgotten about the story,
40:13
even with a freaking manifesto, has never connected directly the fact that this person
40:19
was undergoing a transition in their gender to motive or the explanation for why they
40:28
snapped and decided to kill all these people and get themselves killed. So you
40:32
know, the media can't jump to any conclusions there, even when those conclusions
40:37
seemingly are obviously far more inherently relevant. But in the media's mind, it's
40:44
inherently relevant. It's inherently basically, it's racist until proven otherwise, and I
40:51
don't even know how you prove it otherwise. That the only reason why an
40:54
eighty five year old white guy would shoot a black teenager is he's got to
40:59
be racist. And in the article, the original articles, the only justification
41:05
for the racial component, and this is all the news media needed was that
41:08
the prosecutor, who happens to be a white guy, which in this upside
41:14
down world, actually think goes against his credibility because I think he's terrified of
41:20
what happens if he doesn't say something like this. The prosecutor told the media
41:25
that quote, there was a racial component component at work here, but he
41:31
did not elaborate on any details. That's all it took. By the way,
41:36
going back to the Nashville analogy, the police in the original press conference
41:40
in the Nashville massacre when even further than that when it came to the transgender
41:46
issue and their implications surrounding the manifesto, which we've still never seen. I
41:52
mean, so there was way more law enforcement pushing in the direction of,
41:58
hey, you know, pretty much we think this was related to a transgender
42:01
situation. But the media decided no, no, no, that's not enough
42:05
proof for us. We're just gonna move along, or we're gonna flip this
42:08
entire issue on its head. But here a prosecutor simply says racial component.
42:15
I don't even know what that means. I mean, yeah, there's a
42:17
racial component. The guy was the man was white, and the boy is
42:23
black. That doesn't prove motivation. You didn't provide any evidence of that.
42:29
Now, some people thought, well, there must be hiding something. They
42:32
must be you know, there must have been something in an interview that was
42:36
done with the eighty five year old guy to show the prosecutor that there was
42:40
a racial component. Well, folks, using your brains again, had that
42:45
happened, we would have heard about it. Had there been an eighty five
42:49
year old man, as eighty five year old white man are prone to two,
42:52
makes some sort of really bad comment about, you know, the black
42:55
kid, or the N word or something like that, we would have heard
42:59
about it. But we've not because there's no indication of that. In fact,
43:05
the only comments that I have seen reported about what was actually said from
43:08
the eighty five year old man is that he felt in danger because of the
43:12
size of the kid. Now, there's no evidence that the kid is huge,
43:15
not small. It seems like I'm fairly normal teenage boy. But the
43:22
reality is that there's no evidence, none at all, that the eighty five
43:27
year old has made some sort of statement that proves a quote unquote racial component
43:31
of this shooting. But then the mayor of Kansas City, who happens to
43:36
be black, a god the name of Quentin Lucas, he went even further.
43:38
So this is how the dominos fall, right. The prosecutor says racial
43:44
component, the news medias paints this whole thing as white man and black boy.
43:50
Here we go again, and now the mayor, the black mayor of
43:53
Kansas City, says, this boy was shot because he was existing wild black.
44:01
Really, that's helpful, especially with no goddamn evidence. Now, if
44:07
there's evidence of this, okay, fine, but where is it. He's
44:10
eighty five. There's all sorts of other explanations here. They have nothing to
44:15
do with racism. Eighty five year olds do all sorts of crazy things,
44:20
especially when they're fearful. And so how in the world you get immediately to
44:25
gotta be racist? This boy was shot because he was existing while black,
44:30
and that, of course then following the domino effect. Up. Now we
44:34
got we got enough for protests. We got the racial hucksters out there,
44:38
the media quoting all these all these so called civil rights lawyers who really are
44:44
all about milking institutions for money and alleged cases of racism, and and you
44:52
know this, how does this eighty five year old now get a fair trial
44:57
because now he's a racist, not just a the guy who happened to shoot
45:00
a teenage boy, sixteen year old boy that was seemingly trying to enter his
45:06
house, and the Left is already rushing to the boy's defense. Again,
45:12
I understand this is a potentially assuming everything we've been told is true. It's
45:17
a tragic situation. It's horrible that it happened. It's awesome that the boy
45:22
survived. But here's the irony. President Biden actually called the boy and his
45:28
family all right, now, why is that ironic? Not just because it
45:30
shows the Left rushing to the defense of, you know, a new Trajan
45:36
Trajohan Martin situation, or seemingly hoping for it to be a Trajan Martin situation
45:40
because they love this whole racial narrative. But here's something the news media will
45:45
never tell you. So here we have a situation where an old man shoots
45:52
someone who thinks as an intruder through a window, right or a door,
45:58
and and and left rushes to call him a racist, and the President United
46:04
States Joe Biden calls the family to express concern and well wishes. Well back
46:10
in twenty thirteen, how about this back in twenty thirteen, Vice President Joe
46:16
Biden. This is an actual article from US News and World Report headline Biden
46:23
advises shooting shotgun through door, and it just happened that a Virginia beach man
46:31
was charged for doing exactly that. You're thinking, what the hell? What
46:37
was Biden saying? In twenty thirteen US News and World Report, Vice President
46:42
Joe Biden told Field and Stream magazine in an interview that quote, if you
46:47
want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the
46:54
door. So here we just to show you how much the world has changed.
47:02
Joe Biden has changed. You used to be a conservative Democrat. So
47:07
in twenty thirteen, while Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden,
47:10
in an interview said, if you want to keep someone away from your house,
47:15
just fire the shotgun through the door and now here he is as president
47:20
in twenty twenty three, rushing to the defense of a kid who got shot
47:27
under almost that exact circumstance by someone who's being vilified by the left and the
47:32
media usually the same thing, for having done exactly what Joe Biden ten years
47:39
old earlier had suggested in a public interview that you do to protect your home.
47:45
You almost can't make this up, but it's real. I'm not making
47:50
this up. This is actually true. This actually happened. But again,
47:53
the news media will never connect those dots because that's not what they do.
47:58
All right. Before I get to the second part of Ask John anything,
48:02
I want to provide a couple of new notes in the ongoing battle between Donald
48:07
Trump and Ron De Santis for the Republican nomination in twenty twenty four, probably
48:14
to go up against Joe Biden. Two true social posts from Donald Trump that
48:19
I want to share that I think tell you an awful lot about Donald Trump,
48:23
and that are I guess, entertaining enough to get my attention. The
48:28
first one deals with the fact that Trump has now offered a second batch of
48:34
his NFT cards to his loyal cult audience, that he's selling these cards,
48:39
these ridiculous NFTs of him and you know, effectively as a superhero. And
48:46
I mean just comical. It's comical that a the front runner for the Republican
48:52
presidential nomination, is doing this for a second time. He was mocked the
48:55
first time, and you know now he's doing it a second time because in
49:00
his mind this was such a big success the first time he sold the NFT
49:04
cards. But he's upset with how the NFT card situation is being perceived and
49:10
portrayed. And so here's what Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social I hope everyone
49:16
notices, and I'm sure the fake news won't that I'm leaving the price of
49:22
the trading cards the same as last time, even though they are selling for
49:27
many times more, all capital letters, many times more. It's called the
49:32
market exclamation point and sold out almost immediately, because I want my fans and
49:38
supporters to make money and have fun doing it. I could have raised the
49:44
price much higher, capital letters all much higher, and I believe it still
49:50
would have sold well, with a lot more money coming to me, but
49:54
I didn't choose to do so. I will begin even no quote unquote nice
50:01
guy credit question mark. So with so this guy is bilking his most ardent
50:10
supporters. He's just built them out of campaign money because he got arrested and
50:15
indicted, and so now he's waited a week, and so now he's gonna
50:21
personally make money off of his cald But he wants credit for not raising the
50:25
price because they were, in his mind so popular the last time, and
50:30
he wants nice guy credit for this. How is this even possible? How
50:36
is this possibly the former president and the clear Republican front runner for the twenty
50:43
twenty four nomination. I mean, he's such a whiner, even as he's
50:47
builking his own cult, he wants credit for not raising the price. And
50:54
then on the same day, he of course went after ron de Sandis,
50:59
because he always go after Rhonda Santis, even though supposedly he's dominating the field
51:04
and he's untouchable and he's the alpha male and you know, he can't lose
51:08
and the sanctimonious is fading. And if that's all the case, if that's
51:14
all true, then why is he still going after DeSantis and why is he
51:17
going after him on topics which if DeSantis was not involved, I believe that
51:23
Trump would clearly be in favor of what the Santis is doing. Specifically,
51:29
here, I'm referring to de Santis's crusade, crusade against Walt Disney World in
51:35
Orlando, Florida, where he's men in this battle that's ongoing over whether or
51:39
not effectively Disney has its own government, and he's won a few battles,
51:45
and then it looked like he might have lost in the liberal liberals and oh
51:47
my god, the Trump fans and liberals. Nothing made them happier than being
51:52
able to say that Mickey Bause is defeating Rhonda Santis in this crusade. They
51:58
always say Mickey Mao instead of Walt Disney World, because I guess that makes
52:04
it, you know, makes it look like the Santis is weak, he
52:06
can't even beat Mickey Mouse, or he's spending all his time going after Mickey
52:09
Mouse. Well, if he was getting nothing else done, there might be
52:13
some argument there. But the Santis is the busiest man on the planet.
52:16
He's getting all sorts of things done at record speed, and he's still in
52:22
this battle with Mickey Mouse or Walt Disney. And it appears in the latest
52:27
battle that he's now gotten the upper hand again. And this is driving Donald
52:30
Trump crazy because you know, Donald Trump has no power right now. He's
52:35
out of office. He's not doing anything, and he's jealous as hell of
52:39
the Sandus's ability to get things done. And he's now in a situation where
52:43
he's rooting for Walke Disney. He's rooting for Walke Disney. That's what Donald
52:50
Trump is doing because it drives him so crazy that the Sandists might get credit
52:53
and might end up winning in this battle. So on truth social Trump wrote
52:59
to Sank, which I guess is the new nickname. It's no longer,
53:02
no longer to sanctimonious. The Sanctus is being absolutely destroyed by Disney. His
53:07
original pr plan fizzled, so now he's going back with a new one in
53:13
order to save face. Let me translate that for you. It looks like
53:16
the Santus might actually witness and I'm really pissed about it. That's that's what's
53:22
really going through. Trump said back to his post, Disney's next move will
53:27
be the announcement and that no more money will be invested in Florida because of
53:30
the governor. In fact, they could even announce a slow withdrawal of sale
53:36
or sale of certain properties or the whole thing. Watch exclamation point. That's
53:43
just ridiculous. What disneyl was gonna move out of Florida, Good luck with
53:47
that. That would be a killer. In the meantime, this is all
53:52
so unnecessary a political stunt as if Donald Trump, yes, don't Trump has
54:00
a lot of standing to be condemning other people's political stunts. Ron should work
54:07
on the squatter mess exclamation point. So again, let's be clear, the
54:13
Santa is never, ever, ever, ever proactively goes after Trump in any
54:17
way, shape or form, barely ever uses his name. And here Trump
54:22
is supposedly it had twenty five thirty thirty five points in the national polls going
54:28
after the Santis on a subject that philosophically, Trump ought to be an agreement
54:35
with the Santis that you are holding the line against wokeness. And there's a
54:42
philosophical point here. Now, granted, I'm not that into even though I'm
54:45
somebody who my family has dropped our Disneyland passes because you know, we're just
54:52
tired of the wokeness and all the reasons as well, but it's it is
54:55
partially a political decision on our part. Our kids love Disneyland, but we
55:01
have not gone in an extended period of time. We're no longer pass holders.
55:07
I don't think we will be passholders in the future. So well,
55:12
I agree philosophically that Disney want to be punished for the direction they've taken the
55:16
company. There is a philosophical issue here, which is should they be able
55:22
to have effectively their own government and should they be treated like every any other
55:27
company? And so I agree philosophically. Now, why would I make this
55:31
as big a deal as the santis is? Probably not. But the idea
55:37
that Trump is now siding with Disney, kind of like Donald Trump Junior is
55:43
siding with bud Light and siding with the transgender elements of society against conservatives,
55:51
I think is really telling as to what Trump is really all about. Now
55:54
that it's surprising, but it's it's a good reminder and as far is the
56:00
most recent polling. In the last episode, I did talk about a poll
56:05
that I was worried or I predicted that the conservative media would largely ignore because
56:10
it was such a good poll to show that the Santist does better in the
56:15
general election than Trump does against Biden, and specifically in key states Arizona and
56:22
Pennsylvania, well at least one member of the conservative media, and I ripped
56:25
them all the time, so I should at least give credit where credit is
56:29
due. Ben Shapiro, who I know loves Trump. Everyone knows he lows
56:34
Trump, but I have been critical of him for not being clear cut about
56:37
that and basically hiding and trying to have it both ways. Threat of needle
56:44
not offend the Trump audience. But Ben knows what the true score is.
56:49
And Ben did tweet out that very same poll that I referenced in episode number
56:53
fifty, and he wrote on Twitter, winning would be a good thing.
56:59
By the way, I'm not sure that that is necessarily a principle that it's
57:02
accepted by the majority of the major conservative media. They don't want to win.
57:08
Losing is good for business when it comes to the conservative media. But
57:13
that's another story for another day. Then Ben wrote a serious question, by
57:17
the way, this is as he's tweeting out that very same to poll that
57:22
showed to Sander is doing much better than Trump in Arizona and Pennsylvania in comparison
57:28
to Biden. A serious question, by the way, Trump says that the
57:31
twenty twenty election was stolen from him through actual voter falsification and fraud. Let's
57:37
assume for the sake of argument, that's true. It's not how does he
57:42
plan to stop that from happening again? Which is a good question, that's
57:46
a very good question. Again, it's a little soft for my blood,
57:52
but I understand that Ben has to be careful. And it's a question that
57:57
the Trump people cannot answer. They just don't have no answer for it because
58:01
it makes no sense, especially when in twenty twenty you were the incumbent and
58:07
now you're the challenger. So so how is it, how is it that
58:12
you're going to be able to come up with any you know, other result
58:15
than what happened in twenty twenty. If it was rigged against you in twenty
58:19
twenty when you were the incumbent president, how's it not going to be rigged
58:22
against you in twenty twenty four when nothing has really changed from a legality standpoint.
58:29
So, you know, I'll give Ben, you know, a check
58:32
mark there, but I would like to see him to be a little bit
58:35
stronger when especially when it comes to this selectability issue. And there's another poll.
58:39
It's not really a poll. This is a a posting of a combination
58:45
of polls. But this is the current data, the current data in the
58:50
key states, the key states of Arizona, Georgia. And that was the
58:54
one thing that I wished that that poll that I referenced in episode fifty head
58:59
included instead of Arizona in Pennsylvania, I wish ituld have been Georgia because george
59:02
is really the epicenter of this entire electability issue on a number of fronts.
59:07
And North Carolina. So here right now, if you take the polls from
59:13
Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina, North Carolina an absolute must win state
59:17
for Republicans. If you don't win North Carolina, there's no path. And
59:21
you gotta win Georgia in my opinion two, and you pretty much have to
59:24
win Arizona. So these three states are basically must win for a legitimate path
59:30
to the presidency. And if you take all the current polling and you compare
59:34
Trump Biden versus De Santis Biden, here's how it fares out. In Arizona,
59:39
Biden is plus two over Trump. De Santis is plus four over Biden,
59:45
a six point swing into Santis's favor. Georgia, Biden is plus one
59:51
over Trump. De Santis is plus two over Biden, so a plus three
59:55
into Santis's favor. In Georgia. In North Carolina, Biden is plus one
1:00:01
over Trump. DeSantis is plus three over Biden, so a four point differential.
1:00:07
Those are all significant, they're all in DeSantis's favor, and they're all
1:00:12
the very very very core key states. Now, to be fair, we
1:00:15
haven't had any polling in those states since DeSantis came out with his and signed
1:00:21
the six week abortion band law in Florida, which I do agree with many
1:00:27
who have said that this is going to be problematic for DeSantis when it comes
1:00:30
to a general election bid. Now I don't know how much publicity that has
1:00:36
gotten nationwide. I'm sure it will continue to get more publicity, especially if
1:00:39
DeSantis pulls off the long shot run and wins the nomination. But that's you
1:00:45
know that. To me, you survive in advance here, you've got to
1:00:49
win the nomination, and you worry about at this point the general election later
1:00:52
because obviously we don't win the primary, than nothing else matters. But I
1:00:59
do think that there's an argument to be made that there will be some erosion
1:01:02
in Desandis's advantage over Trump and the general election polling because of the abortion ban.
1:01:08
On the flip side, the indictment issue, and any further indictments that
1:01:14
come Trump's way may actually further exacerbate the difference because it will erode Trump's numbers
1:01:22
against Biden. So I you know, I'm someone that follows this obviously far
1:01:27
more closely than the average person. But I do hope that at some level
1:01:30
this electability issues eventually seeps through to the average Republican voter, because it is
1:01:37
very clear and to me, it's by far the number one issue in the
1:01:43
entire campaign. All right Now, in the last episode of the podcast,
1:01:46
I started our first edition of Asked John Anything. Because it was our fiftieth
1:01:52
episode. I got so many questions that I did not get an opportunity to
1:01:57
finish with Asked John Anything. So what I've done is I've moved things around,
1:02:01
and the second half of today's podcast will be the finish of Ask John
1:02:06
Anything, and then the Brittany Hopper interview, the former news reporter here in
1:02:10
Los Angeles, who's a great interview who talks about why she's no longer in
1:02:16
the news business, largely because of the response to her effectively conservative views.
1:02:22
That will be played next week, probably an episode fifty three, I'm guessing,
1:02:29
and that's definitely something that you'll want to look forward to. But I'm
1:02:32
going to continue with the Ask John Anything questions, and there's some good ones
1:02:37
here. There's incredible variety and disparity on the subject matter when it came to
1:02:43
the questions for Asked John Anything. So I'll get back into the questions.
1:02:46
Now Linda asks, do you think there is any way to turn it around
1:02:51
and save the news media? Like with fewer stories but better research. Now
1:02:57
Linda has put her finger on one of the core problems. Time is really
1:03:02
one of the core problems. There's so many core problems with the news media
1:03:08
and the death of journalism, but time is a huge part of it.
1:03:13
I like to use the phrase feed the monster. The monster is so humongous
1:03:20
now in the twenty four hour news cycle. I mean it used to be
1:03:23
back in the old days with the dinosaurs when I was young, that you
1:03:30
only had two deadlines. You had the deadline for the six o'clock evening news
1:03:37
or the I guess the six thirty evening news, and then you had the
1:03:39
deadline that night to make the next morning's paper. Those were the only two
1:03:45
deadlines in the news media, one for television and one for newspapers. And
1:03:51
you know, obviously there was occasional breaking news, but the definition of breaking
1:03:54
news was, you know, the president getting shot was effectively or something along
1:04:00
those lines nine to eleven. You know, there was a there was an
1:04:03
incredibly high threshold for quote unquote breaking news. Now C and n you know
1:04:08
run and Fox News Channel run a breaking news alert on an almost hourly basis.
1:04:14
So the now that we have twenty four hour news cycles and there's Twitter
1:04:19
and you know, cable news channels, there is a massive amount of of
1:04:26
of a void, of a hole that needs to be filled. The monster
1:04:29
needs to be fed. And as the business model is broken, there are
1:04:33
fewer and fewer people, and those people are less and less qualified to feed
1:04:39
the monster. So standards inherently go down with regard to accuracy and fact checking
1:04:45
and making sure the story is correct before it actually goes out. So this
1:04:51
has created a massive, massive problem, and the standards continue to go down
1:04:57
and down and down, and then once narratives get created, everyone gets invested
1:05:01
in them and there's no going back. So what's the answer to this?
1:05:05
And I frankly believe the only way this gets saved that I can think of
1:05:14
is really an economic catastrophe that wipes out so many of these outlets that it
1:05:21
changes the business model back in the direction of the way that it used to
1:05:26
be. In other words, if somehow all the clutter gets cleared away.
1:05:31
And I'm I'm not saying this to be worth it, I mean, economic
1:05:35
catastrophe would be terrible on so many fronts. I'm just saying that this is
1:05:40
the only path I can see that there has to be an economic catastrophe to
1:05:44
take out so many of these news media outlets that fragmentation effectively goes away,
1:05:49
and we get back to some semblance of a situation where the audiences are large
1:05:55
enough for the media outlets that survive that we can there medically go at least
1:06:00
somewhat back in the direction of the way things were, and that there'd be
1:06:04
some semblance of accountability. But this may be a situation where technology has just
1:06:10
let this cat out of the bag, where there's just no going back.
1:06:14
And so I'm not I've never been called an optimist, although I think I'm
1:06:17
more optimistic than people get me credit for. But it's not going to shock
1:06:21
you to hear that. I don't have a lot of optimism that this can
1:06:25
ever be fixed. This is one of those situations where the genie is out
1:06:30
of the bottle, and you know, and until and unless there's some accountability,
1:06:34
I don't see how anything gets fixed. I mean, my gosh,
1:06:38
we just went through COVID where they were wrong about virtually everything, massive damage
1:06:45
was created, and they haven't even admitted they were wrong. I forget about
1:06:49
an apology, forget about people being fired. Nothing has happened on that front.
1:06:57
And so if it doesn't happen with something as hug is COVID, then
1:07:00
I don't know how it's ever going to happen. Scott asks who was the
1:07:05
best newscaster in your opinion? Answer to two questions, and who was the
1:07:12
hottest newscaster? I'm assuming he means females newscaster in your opinion? All right,
1:07:18
best newscaster. I'm gonna surprise people here. I'm just talking about from
1:07:23
purely a talent standpoint. I believe while my mother loved and a lot of
1:07:29
people loved Peter Jennings, I mean he was a great presenter. Peter Jennings
1:07:32
from ABC World News tonight. I actually don't think he was as good as
1:07:38
Brian Williams, who's an obvious liberal and got fired for basically exaggerating stories.
1:07:45
I think he kind of got a raw deal considering the standards of everybody else.
1:07:49
But I think they wanted to get rid of a white male with a
1:07:53
big contract, which NBC has done on a consistent basis throughout all their platforms.
1:08:00
But I think Brian Williams was the most talented newscaster I've ever seen.
1:08:03
I used to refer to him as robocaster. I mean, the guy you
1:08:06
put him in any situation, Incredibly smooth, good questioning, never rattled live
1:08:14
news. He was fantastic. You know, a little bit overwrought at times,
1:08:18
but I really thought from a talent standpoint, Brian Williams was great.
1:08:24
The best interviewer by far was Matt Lower again, another white male who got
1:08:29
NBC got rid of, I believe because they wanted to get rid of a
1:08:31
big contract and get rid of white males in general, and he got effectively
1:08:38
railroaded. As you probably know, Matt and I are close, We're pretty
1:08:42
darn good friends at this point. But of all the people I have been
1:08:45
interviewed by in my career. There's not even someone who's close to Matt Lower
1:08:51
as far as how good they were as an interviewer and how formidable they were
1:08:57
as an interviewer. I never felt in any of the three interviews that I
1:09:02
did with Matt Lauer or vice versa, that I was in control of that
1:09:06
interview. But that's the only time I've ever felt that way in any interview
1:09:11
I've ever been in my entire life, including on The View and the O'Reilly
1:09:15
Factor. I mean, you know, big time news outlets with people that
1:09:19
are big celebrities and considered to be very tough interviewers. Nothing nothing like Matt
1:09:27
Lauer. Now there's reasons for that that not necessarily have to do with him.
1:09:31
Back when The Today Show was the show and you know, really mattered,
1:09:35
the circumstances of the show itself helped Matt facilitate that. So I'm not
1:09:41
one hundred percent sure it would be the same thing if he was on a
1:09:44
different platform, or or on a different network, or a show wasn't as
1:09:47
popular. But Matt Lauer on the Today Show was, in my opinion,
1:09:53
the best and the most formidable interviewer in the business, and there's nobody even
1:09:58
close to that in today day and age, and basically the news interview is
1:10:01
dead. As far as who the hottest newscaster is, again, I'm going
1:10:05
to presume female here. You know, obviously all the hot female newscasters are
1:10:12
on Fox News Channel, and they're almost indistinguishable and indistinguishable from one another.
1:10:16
And while they're all attractive, they're not really my style when it comes to
1:10:21
newscasters. This is going to sound odd, but when it comes to female
1:10:26
newscasters, I've always liked short hair, like the Carry Lake look. I
1:10:30
love the Carry Lake look. I love her voice too. Now she's a
1:10:34
little bit she's no one longer in the business. Obviously. By the way,
1:10:36
whoever happened to Carry Lake? I thought she was supposed to be governor
1:10:39
of Arizona, But I digress. But when she was a newscaster in Arizona
1:10:44
back in the day, you know, I thought she was pretty damn hot.
1:10:48
Lisa b might might take a little bit issue with ex since she was
1:10:51
competing with Carrie Lake in Phoenix, Arizona at the time. I mean,
1:10:57
that must have been quite a that market must have been a smoke show back
1:11:00
in the Day with Lizabeban carry Lake both on the air. But the Carry
1:11:03
Lake hairstyle is something that from a newscaster for some reason, I really like
1:11:09
that, and that short hair is not popular on Fox News Channel as far
1:11:14
as people who do it today. And I'm not just talking about physical attractiveness
1:11:18
but the entire persona. I really like Meghan Kelly. Now Meghan has the
1:11:24
longer blonde hair, and I also don't like the fact that she seemingly has
1:11:29
had some work done. I'm not a fan of a fan of that.
1:11:31
But when you take her her whole persona, her voice, her feistiness,
1:11:38
and her physical attractiveness, I would say that Megan Kelly is right up there,
1:11:43
or has been in the past, is the hottest female newscaster whatever you
1:11:47
want to call her. What she does today, I don't know, but
1:11:49
I would still put her in that category, and to me that she definitely
1:11:54
fits the hottest female newscaster category. Mark ass, what is your level of
1:12:00
concern about AI and things like chat GPTU Hi if he didn't watch the interview
1:12:11
that Elon Musk did with Tucker Carlson this week on Fox News Channel, I
1:12:15
urge you to do so I tweeted out some of the clips. And you
1:12:19
know, I've said many times I'm not one hundred percent trustful of Elon Musk.
1:12:26
I'm not distrustful of him. I don't trust many people in general.
1:12:30
But I am really glad that he owns Twitter currently, especially now that AI
1:12:34
is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, because Elon seems to get it and
1:12:41
he is very, very concerned about this. And the concern I have and
1:12:45
I think he has, is that you know, we we could really have
1:12:49
a situation where AI overtakes humanity. And you know, before COVID, I
1:12:57
go always back, go back to COVID. I mean to me, COVID
1:12:59
is everything, and it's not just about what was done during COVID. It's
1:13:03
what COVID and the reaction to it said about our establishment, our media,
1:13:08
our government, how compliant our populace is. I mean to me, we
1:13:12
learned everything, and it was none of it was good about all sorts of
1:13:15
situations that may occur in the future. By what did and did not happen
1:13:19
during COVID and COVID revealed massive fractures in the foundation of our society and our
1:13:28
ability to handle these kinds of situations and what the government will do when they
1:13:32
have the authority and the ability to basically put us under their thumb. Well,
1:13:41
post COVID, I have even less faith and trust that our authorities,
1:13:47
whether they be in big tech or in the media or in our government,
1:13:53
are going to be able to handle or even want to handle AI. I
1:13:57
mean, AI in the wrong hands could be an incredibly dangerous weapon, and
1:14:01
we saw during COVID that they're more than willing to use it if it fits
1:14:06
their agenda or even if they just think it fits their agenda. And so
1:14:12
I see AI as very dangerous. Now, is it possible because we've seen
1:14:18
this happen before, Is it possible that this is a lot of concern about
1:14:24
not that much. I would like to believe that that's still possible when we've
1:14:29
seen these kinds of situations with it. Oh AI is going to change the
1:14:32
whole world. You know, We've seen circumstances in the past and it just
1:14:35
never quite came to fruition. But this could and it could be economically devastating
1:14:42
in the employment market. And you know, but the idea of machines being
1:14:48
able to effectively overtake humanity and get to a stage where they are in control
1:14:56
effectively. I mean, I don't know how much Gary you can get to
1:15:00
that. And you know, I'm glad that Elon Musk is in the game
1:15:04
because it seems like he gets it and is at least sounding the alarm and
1:15:09
has some ability and an authority to maybe curtail this problem before it becomes catastrophic.
1:15:16
Neil asks, how many fistfights have you been in? I think that's
1:15:21
the strangest question of all that I got from our ask John anything Batch,
1:15:30
I guess it depends on your definition. I do remember back in I guess
1:15:36
I was in about fourth or fifth grade and I got in some sort of
1:15:43
feud with a kid by the name of Frank Mancuso who was in our neighborhood,
1:15:47
and he and I agreed that we were going to have a fight at
1:15:51
the bus stop after the bus dropped us off in the in the housing department
1:15:59
development where we lived. So there was a ton of kids that would get
1:16:00
off the bush, you know, at our little bus stop, and this
1:16:04
created a massive amount of excitement that Frank and I we're gonna have We're gonna
1:16:10
have a fist fight. I don't even I have no idea what this was
1:16:13
about. And and so you know, there was in my memory, everyone
1:16:18
that got off the bus gathered around Frank and me getting ready to engage in
1:16:25
this fight. And Frank I was a very small kid. I mean I
1:16:28
was very skinny and not particularly tall, especially at this age, and Frank
1:16:33
was a fairly big kid. But I don't Again, for whatever reason,
1:16:38
I wasn't afraid, and we started to engage in I guess what we called
1:16:42
a fist fight. And the fist fight was so pathetic, so sad,
1:16:47
so anemic, so much like a pillow fight, that the crowd started,
1:16:54
in my memory, started to jeer us for our pathetic nature of our fist
1:16:59
fight, and basically left that, oh this sucks, We're gonna go home.
1:17:03
So after all this excitement had been created, the fist fight really didn't
1:17:08
amount to much. Um. I don't remember how it ended. I don't
1:17:11
think there was any major I don't think either of us were capable of injuring
1:17:15
the other. Um. But that that is about the only time that I
1:17:18
can one hundred percent remember a fist fight. There was one time in college,
1:17:25
under a very strange set of circumstances, um, where I punched a
1:17:30
guy who's actually a friend of mine. Um and he was still so stunned
1:17:34
that there was there was no response, So it really wasn't a fist fight.
1:17:40
But um, yeah, fist fight's not really my thing. But that's
1:17:45
that's your answer, Neil. I hope that gave you what you wanted.
1:17:49
Katie asks, why are you so opposed to the idea of extraterrestrial life?
1:17:57
US intelligence is acknowledged that UFOs are real. Okay, Now, those are
1:18:01
two totally different things, and I think that's one of the problems when it
1:18:05
comes to this subject matter. UFOs can be real unidentified flying objects. There
1:18:13
are objects that were flying that have been not identified otherwise they're in other words,
1:18:20
they're unidentified. I have no problem believing that that's the case. I
1:18:26
am sure that there have been things flying around that our government was uncertain as
1:18:31
to what the heck they were. Okay, so UFOs, I guess if
1:18:36
that's how you define them exist. Now, what's the source of those UFOs?
1:18:44
Is it extraterrestrial life or alien life or life from another planet? And
1:18:50
I very strongly believe that it is nonsensical to believe based upon what we now
1:18:57
know that it's that it comes from alien life from another planet. There are
1:19:02
a lot of reasons for this. Let's first of all, just go through
1:19:06
isn't it amazing how now that all of us have cell phones, we all
1:19:13
have cameras on us on a consistent twenty four seven base basis, So you
1:19:19
got, you know, basically at least two hundred, two hundred and fifty
1:19:24
million people in America, for instance, with cameras on them at all times,
1:19:30
and yet we haven't proven Bigfoot exists. They never found the Locknest Monster
1:19:35
in Scotland, and all of a sudden, you know, alien sightings have
1:19:42
dissipated greatly, And that's not coincidental because if alien life existed, right,
1:19:50
what's so, what's the rationale that that aliens have come here and then left?
1:19:56
So? So where are they? Why? Why is there no evidence
1:20:00
of them? There would be massive evidence. That's where I guess I'm going
1:20:02
with this. This is one of the ways that I look at all investigations.
1:20:08
If something was real, what kind of evidence would there be? And
1:20:11
there would be massive, unequivocal evidence that alien life had landed on Earth.
1:20:19
I mean, it would just be overwhelming in so many different ways, and
1:20:23
yet there's there's nothing. Well then okay, maybe their magic and they're able
1:20:27
to hide from us. Well, okay, now you have another problem.
1:20:32
We have been able to discern all of the planets in our general vicinity of
1:20:40
the galaxy don't have life on them. So the closest place that could theoretically
1:20:47
have life of any sort, and especially you're talking about an incredible I mean
1:20:51
again, under the scenario where aliens are visiting Earth, this would have to
1:20:55
be extraordinarily advanced life, life form, extra way way way past where we
1:21:01
are, so that we're again there would be massive evidence of it, but
1:21:05
is so far away that it would take an insane amount of time just to
1:21:12
get here. So how would how would that even work? I mean,
1:21:16
it's just not possible based upon anything we understand about the existence of animals and
1:21:27
so and so. To me, there would be massive evidence if the alien
1:21:34
life existed and had visited here. None of it exists, and there's no
1:21:40
explanation as to where the hell they're coming from because we now have enough information
1:21:45
about all the planets in our even remote vicinity that there's nothing there. So
1:21:53
now is it possible? Let me just make one of the caveat. Is
1:21:57
it possible in the vast of this and other galaxies, it's somewhere there is
1:22:03
life. Sure, Sure, that's possible. I might even hope for that.
1:22:10
But there is no evidence that they've ever made contact with Earth. And
1:22:15
and so that's my objection to the idea of extraterrestrial life having visited Earth.
1:22:19
I guess that's my Maybe that's a clarification that I didn't make. Is it
1:22:24
possible that there's other life forms and other planets and other galaxies? Yeah,
1:22:29
I guess, But I mean there's no evidence of it. So um,
1:22:34
I mean it's kind of like the way I view God, as I said
1:22:38
in episode number fifty, I mean, could there be a God? Sure,
1:22:41
I don't see any evidence of an act of God here on Earth.
1:22:44
I mean, other than maybe Christie Brinkley during the nineteen eighties. That was
1:22:47
pretty good evidence of God. And there have been some athletes Tiger Woods is
1:22:51
pretty good evidence that there could be a God. But those are you know,
1:22:56
Christie Brinkley and Tiger Woods and some people like that are that's limited that
1:23:00
of God actually being active on Earth. So in general, there's not a
1:23:04
lot of evidence of that and it's the same thing when it comes to extra
1:23:09
terrestrial light. Layton, who's a big fan of my work on the Penn
1:23:14
State case, one of my biggest, if not the biggest supporter, especially
1:23:17
on Twitter when it comes to fighting the good fight for justice in the Penn
1:23:21
State Joe Paterno, Jerryson Dusky case. He asks me two questions, he
1:23:27
asks, who is your favorite athlete of all time? That's number one,
1:23:31
So let me address that one. It's kind of hard to say athlete.
1:23:36
I'll break it down by sport. College football player Reggie Bush from USC was
1:23:43
the most fun player to watch, maybe in any sport other than possibly Tiger
1:23:46
Woods, that I've ever experienced. I saw him in person numerous times here
1:23:51
in Los Angeles and on television. That was just awesome. Reggie Bush at
1:23:57
USC. Similarly, before he got injured, Boja Jason in both baseball and
1:24:01
football was amazing to watch. In basketball, I was a big Doctor J
1:24:06
fan Julius Irving growing up in the Philadelphia area back into the seventies and eighties.
1:24:12
Interestingly, two my other favorite players also ended up playing for the Philadelphia
1:24:16
seventy six ers after having gone to my alma Mater to Kim Bay Mutumbo,
1:24:19
who I got to know pretty well at George Down and he's just an awesome
1:24:23
guy. Unfortunately his brain cancer right now. And Allen Iverson, so I
1:24:28
put I would put the Doctor J to Kim Bay Mutumbo and Alan I.
1:24:30
Iverson is my favorite basketball players. Larry Boa, the diminutive little shortstop for
1:24:36
the nineteen eighty Philadelphia Phillies World Series champions was my favorite baseball player. Probably
1:24:42
the guy I emulated most as a kid. Bernie Parratt, the Flyers goalie,
1:24:46
was my favorite hockey player. And then when it came to golf,
1:24:49
and golf has always been my favorite sport. It's tough to beat Tiger.
1:24:55
I mean, you know, I really Tiger Woods has played an enormous the
1:25:00
important role in my life. I'm not one hundred percent sure I would be
1:25:02
alive today if Tiger Woods had never existed. I mean that sounds crazy,
1:25:08
but I mean Tiger Woods got me through a lot of very difficult times in
1:25:13
my life, especially after my mother was killed in a car accident. And
1:25:17
so I mean there would be there would be times when wanting to be able
1:25:24
to see what Tiger would do with his career and what he would even do
1:25:27
in the next tournament was a huge source of motivation for me to go on
1:25:31
and to and you know, to have hope for the future. And what
1:25:36
we've witnessed with Tiger is absolutely extraordinary. Um. I would say though that,
1:25:44
um it's Sevy Bias Terros who was kind of the Tiger before there was
1:25:48
Tiger. He was maybe even more dynamic than Tiger and a guy who I
1:25:56
you know, I've done a lot of high profile interviews in my career,
1:25:58
by far the more underrated because it happened on a network no one was watching.
1:26:02
Was a one on one interview I somehow scored as a I think I
1:26:06
was twenty two or twenty three years old, just out of Georgetown. I
1:26:10
somehow scored a one on one interview television interview with Sevy Bias Teraros when he
1:26:14
was the number one golfer in the world under very hilarious circumstances. Maybe I'll
1:26:18
tell you that story someday. But I was a huge fan of Seve because
1:26:23
I mean, to me, he was magic, and Tiger and Sevey have
1:26:27
a lot in common. You can kind of claim that Jordan Speed is today's
1:26:30
Sevy, but there's never got to be another Seve so so I feel very
1:26:34
lucky too, as a young kid had sev Biasteros in the golf world,
1:26:40
and as I got older to have Tiger Woods in the golf world, and
1:26:44
those would probably have been a two favorite of all time. The second question
1:26:46
Layton asks is if, and it's a giant, if one of the Sandusky
1:26:51
Jerry Sanduski accusers were to come out and say, hey, everybody, I
1:26:56
think this is all wrong, and I don't think Jerry ever abused or groom.
1:27:00
Who do you think it would be? And he guess is that it
1:27:03
would be Alan Myers, who was the so called victim number two, the
1:27:08
boy in the shower in the Mike mcquarie episode. If you are familiar at
1:27:11
all with that case. If you aren't, you should listen to With the
1:27:14
Benefit of Hindsight podcast with me and Lizza Viebe. It's absolutely epic and amazing.
1:27:19
And then Layton thanks me for all that I do. Yeah, I
1:27:24
think that Layton, You're it's a long shot, but I've always felt that
1:27:29
Alan Myers would be the most likely. He did not testify at trial.
1:27:32
He was the closest to Jerry, and he seemed to have a soul at
1:27:39
some point. He initially made statements after the arrest that were very, very
1:27:43
very pro Sandusky and very much anti Mike mcquerie. He knows what the truth
1:27:48
is. But I don't have a lot of hope for Alan, having witnessed
1:27:51
his bogus testimony at one of Jerry Jerry Sanduski's appeal hearings, having sat right
1:27:58
behind his mother and his brother, having tried to confront his mother after that
1:28:01
testimony, and have his brother blocked my way because they knew who I was.
1:28:05
And I screamed down the corridor that she better hope that there's not a
1:28:09
hell, because that's where she's going. And then she didn't, you know,
1:28:12
she didn't even respond. He didn't respond because they know, they know
1:28:15
what they did. They sold their friend down the river for eight or nine
1:28:20
million dollars, that's what they did. So and because that money is going
1:28:26
to keep coming in for a very long time, I don't expect that Alan
1:28:30
Myers or anybody else who got that kind of money will ever come forward and
1:28:34
tell the truth when the money runs out. Could I see Alan Myers doing
1:28:40
it? Yeah? I've always felt that well, he wasn't a trial accuser.
1:28:44
That counterintuitively, the person that has the greatest incentive to come forward and
1:28:50
say that this was a fraud is actually Matt Sandusky, the adopted son of
1:28:56
Jerry and Donnie Sandusky, who again never testified a trial, but came forward
1:29:00
in the middle of deliberation jury deliberations, and I think played a significant role
1:29:06
in keeping Jerry Sandoski from testifying at his own trial, because it became known
1:29:13
to the defense that it's possible that Matt may testify against Jerry if he testified
1:29:18
himself. And I think this was a catastrophic mistake by the defense. But
1:29:23
anyway, if you look at Matt's incentive structure, his money is already gone.
1:29:27
He got very little money last check. By the way, he's working
1:29:30
at a I don't know if it's a pizza poller, but he was.
1:29:34
Someone took pictures of him serving them pizza, and he wasn't owning the establishment,
1:29:40
and so he's not doing well financially. He's serving pizza in a joint
1:29:45
somewhere in the state College area, and so the money is run out,
1:29:49
the fame is run out. He's not getting awards and being asked to speak
1:29:54
anywhere anymore. And you know, he must have some semblance of desire to
1:30:00
have a relationship with his adopted siblings, maybe even his mother, Dottie.
1:30:05
You know, he would be he would be welcome as a prodigal son if
1:30:09
he ever did this. I have told two of his adopted siblings that Matt
1:30:15
is the by far the most vulnerable of the accusers, and they really ought
1:30:19
to try to target him. I don't know when that they've done anything on
1:30:21
this. I doubt it, given the you know, the way this thing
1:30:26
has all turned out. But if I was ever going to bet, and
1:30:30
it would be still a long shot to me, it would be Matt Sandusky.
1:30:32
And Matt is such a manipulator. I think he could even theoretically manipulate
1:30:36
this into somehow working into his benefit. He like he could write a book
1:30:41
about how he scammed the news media. Somebody might be interested in that.
1:30:45
But again, nothing ever turns out right in that case, So I doubt
1:30:49
it's ever going to happen. John, that's who I think. That's the
1:30:56
name of the person asking this question. That's my name and the questioner.
1:31:00
So John asks, your hatred for Trump is obvious. What makes you think
1:31:03
that the Santist can handle the media? The weaponization of the DOJ, FBI,
1:31:09
CIA, and the deep state that Trump had to endure. Remember,
1:31:14
they falsely turned Supreme Court Justice Caffeita into a rapist. You know they are
1:31:18
going to do whatever it takes to destroy he and his family. How does
1:31:24
someone and then he asks, Okay, hold on, I screwed that up.
1:31:29
So I put two questions into one, So I'll answer the first question
1:31:33
first, and it's very simple answer. It's very obvious. What makes me
1:31:40
think the Santists can handle the media? Because he just went through an incredibly
1:31:45
unique situation where he took on the world during COVID, did not back down,
1:31:51
had the attacks of not just every media outlet in his state, but
1:31:55
every major media outlet in the country deeply invest in his destruction because if he
1:32:00
was right and they were wrong, it was going to destroy their credibility.
1:32:05
And he won. He didn't just win with their guard to the data.
1:32:11
He won literally when it came to reelection by almost twenty points. What more
1:32:15
proof do you want? Now? Will it be easy? No? I
1:32:19
mean he is gonna I've said this many many times. Everyone is uniquely invested
1:32:25
to attack Rhonda Santis everybody, including elements of the right, and I mean,
1:32:32
my gosh, if he's ever the nominee, they are going to come
1:32:36
after him with everything everything. My god. We just saw recently there was
1:32:43
some flooding in Fort Lauderdale and he's not even an announced candidate yet, and
1:32:47
and the media tried to turn out it too some Hurricane Katrina type situation.
1:32:53
Just insanity, can you imagine? And this is one of the many,
1:32:56
many hurdles that the Santas is gonna have. I mean, obviously, we
1:33:00
have an election in November. There's a ninety percent chance Florida will get hit
1:33:04
with a hurricane just before that election. If he's the nominee, it's gonna
1:33:09
be Hurricane Katrina, no matter what, no matter what the response is that,
1:33:13
I mean, they're gonna do everything they possibly can to destroy him because
1:33:15
they know he is far, far, far more dangerous than Trump ever could
1:33:21
possibly be, because he's actually effective, He actually is smart enough and cares
1:33:27
enough to get things done, and he's not afraid of them. Trump was
1:33:31
his own worst enemy. Trump was basically impotent. Trump got very little done.
1:33:38
And you know, the idea and basically what you're asking me, John,
1:33:43
is Trump got played by all these forces that he now claims that he
1:33:47
understands and wants another chance to fight against. I'll just leave you with this.
1:33:54
Fauci Trump got duped by Foucci. For God's sakes, the scantists didn't.
1:34:01
So game, set match. Next question, and I don't know if
1:34:06
John asks this or somebody else asked this as I wrote it down, But
1:34:10
how does someone earn your trust? And this is a good question, but
1:34:14
it's it's one that's pretty simple. The way someone earns my trust is be
1:34:19
in a situation with me that is of some level of importance where your self
1:34:27
interest may be to screw me, but you don't, or you don't have
1:34:32
a self interest to help me in a situation, but you do. I
1:34:39
guess. I basically call these foxhol friends. Be in a foxhole with me,
1:34:43
and I'll find out within five minutes what you're all about. And some
1:34:47
people have passed that test. Some people have passed that test temporarily and then
1:34:53
eventually failed it and they're no longer trusted friends. But it's you know,
1:34:59
it's pretty simple, And you know, I wish I had a friend like
1:35:03
me. I do have a few friends like me. But you know I'm
1:35:06
a hell of a friend. I mean I'm also a high maintenance friend.
1:35:10
But if you have me as a friend, then you know you have you
1:35:15
know you have somebody you can count on. You know that there's somebody's going
1:35:18
to be there no matter what, as long as you don't as you don't
1:35:21
screw me over. I mean, you want to talk about loyalty and honesty
1:35:26
and being dedicated to a friendship that's worthwhile. I mean, that's me.
1:35:32
I'll jump on the hand grenade for you if if you're someone who gets into
1:35:38
the trusted friend category, but you know that you can also lose that status
1:35:42
pretty quickly, and unfortunately many people have, especially in recent years. So
1:35:46
that's how someone earns my trust. An unknown person asks me, will you
1:35:51
vote Democrat, Independent or not vote if Trump gets the Republican nomination again,
1:35:58
I will probably vote for the libertarian in candidate if Trump is the nominee,
1:36:01
because of course, here in California, my vote doesn't matter. Where do
1:36:06
rational, intelligent, cognitive thinking people go for trusted news today? I don't
1:36:11
think there's any one place you should ever go. I think you need to
1:36:15
use a variety of sources, both on the left and the right. You
1:36:17
need to learn you can do that by listening to this podcast. You need
1:36:21
to learn how to discern for yourself what's truthful and what's suspect. As for
1:36:28
me, while I'm very disappointed with how they seem to be siding with Trump
1:36:32
over to Santis, from a pure news standpoint, I kind of like The
1:36:36
Blaze. But if you know, the Blaze usually doesn't do anything that's absolutely
1:36:41
wacky when it comes to their news coverage. But but you know, and
1:36:45
then there's some decent work by the Daily Wire, and you know there's other
1:36:51
elements. You know, there's some other conservative leaning outlets. The Washington Examiners
1:36:56
not bad, The Daily Call or isn't bad. Um sometimes Fox is okay
1:37:03
if to you know, not from the opinion people. But um, you
1:37:09
know, their Newsweek has actually gotten which is weird since they screwed me over
1:37:14
in the Sandusky case. But Newsweek has gotten a little bit more to the
1:37:16
center. I think they see that as their their niche. But I would
1:37:20
never rely on on one outlet or one person. There's some some broadcasters I
1:37:29
respect, like John stossel I think is. You know, he used to
1:37:30
be on ABC. Now he's kind of gone independent. He's more of a
1:37:33
libertarian. I think John Stossel is usually not always one hundred percent right,
1:37:39
but I trust him whenever I see him put out a video or an article.
1:37:45
There's some people that are are close to that category, but I would
1:37:48
never go by one individual or even one outlet. You really have to be
1:37:54
able to to see without all that's out there, and be able to figure
1:37:58
it out from a variety of news sources what the truth is and what the
1:38:01
truth isn't. Who's the most overrated and underrated president in history? Well,
1:38:10
I'm just gonna go by modern times because I don't think I really have the
1:38:13
ability to. I don't even feel like I can analyze whether Abraham Lincoln,
1:38:16
for instance, was as great as everyone now says that he was. I
1:38:20
mean, I obviously got us through the Civil War. I'm not saying he
1:38:26
wasn't great. I'm just saying I just don't feel like I have the context
1:38:30
and enough information, not having lived anywhere near that time period, to be
1:38:33
able to analyze that. So I'm just gonna go by what I would call
1:38:39
the modern era. That maybe the television era and beyond and to me,
1:38:43
by far in that era which you consider, I don't know, the nineteen
1:38:47
fifties and beyond that, the most overrated president is obviously JFK. And it's
1:38:54
not that I hated JFK. My father, my grandfather hated JFK. My
1:38:59
grandfather father on my mother's side hated the Kennedy's was such a passion and I
1:39:03
think it was mostly because coming as a family from Ireland, I mean,
1:39:09
my mother's family was really incredibly similar in Philadelphia to the Kennedy's in Boston,
1:39:17
except the biggest difference was my grandfather's family stopped making alcohol during Prohibition, and
1:39:27
the Kennedys didn't. They bootlegged and they made a boatload of money from that,
1:39:32
and that was that always stuck in my my grandfather's craw in a huge,
1:39:38
huge way. I mean, so they were both Irish Catholic families came
1:39:42
over on you know, basically at the same time from Ireland to the United
1:39:45
States. My mother's family in Philadelphia big into the alcohol industry. But everything
1:39:55
changes during Prohibition and then when the Depression hit my great father, who was
1:40:00
you know, by the time, by the standards of the time was clearly
1:40:04
a billionaire. Edward Trayner was his name, m and he you know,
1:40:12
he was also the head of the Pennsylvania State Senate on the Republican side for
1:40:16
a while, but he lost basically everything in the depression, and then,
1:40:21
you know, my grandfather's generation had to build it back up, but partially
1:40:26
politically and partially because I think of just jealousy that I think my grandfather felt
1:40:31
as if the Trainer family in Philadelphia could have been or should have been,
1:40:34
what the Kennedy family was in Boston if they had broken the law during Prohibition.
1:40:41
Really, uh, said a lot of anti Kennedy. Uh. I
1:40:45
don't call it propaganda, but I got inundated with anti Kennedy information by my
1:40:51
grandfather and I guess by my mother as well. But that's not why I
1:40:57
believe that JFK is the most overrated. He's the most overrated because he was
1:41:00
only president for basically two and a half years, and inherently, when and
1:41:03
whenever someone dies tragically, their life is always going to be overrated. It's
1:41:12
almost automatic, especially when it's as dramatic as what happened with JFK. And
1:41:17
then you so, he had very little time as president. You know,
1:41:23
the whole Camelot mythology got created well after he was killed. He was involved
1:41:29
in a massive scandal in the Bay of Pigs invasion disaster that now gets effectively
1:41:35
erased in Cuba, and he gets enormous credit for the Cuban missile crisis situation
1:41:44
that you could argue only ever happened because of his perceived weakness and where we
1:41:49
really didn't make that great a deal. And I mean, I think it's
1:41:54
funny you don't hear that much about the Kennedy's anymore post Obama. Obama basically
1:42:00
you know, wiped out, uh, the liberal obsession with the Kennedy's.
1:42:04
But you know, you know, hardly ever hear about the Cuban missile crisis
1:42:09
thing anymore, because I think history has not been very kind to what really
1:42:13
happened there. Kennedy was deemed to be a hero at the time, and
1:42:16
now I'm not sure that you could argue that it was really Yes, nuclear
1:42:21
awar was was avoided, but um, it seems as if it was all
1:42:27
rather contrived and we really didn't make that great a deal to get the hell
1:42:30
out of that. So I'm not sure what Kennedy's accomplishments are and I'm always
1:42:34
inherently suspicious of anybody's life when they when they get killed tragically, because it's
1:42:40
human nature to overrate it. So that's the that's the short, I guess
1:42:45
the long version of why I think JFK is the most overrated. That doesn't
1:42:49
mean bad. This means, you know, in how the media portrays him
1:42:54
in comparison to who he actually was in the modern era, that would be
1:42:59
JFKU the most underrated. And this is going to probably piss off some people.
1:43:04
I think it was George W. Bush. I mean, he was
1:43:08
far from perfect, far from perfect, and it does appear as if,
1:43:13
you know, while it was well intentioned, I believe the Iraq War was
1:43:16
a major mistake. Although you I mean, you haven't heard it anything from
1:43:21
Iraq since then. You haven't heard you know, the Rock and Iron never
1:43:26
got into a major war, and you know, we haven't been hit by
1:43:30
terrorist attacks since nine to eleven in a major way. And um, you
1:43:34
know, while a lot of imperfections and a lot of mistakes were made,
1:43:40
George W. Bush is considered again this is back to overrated, underrated.
1:43:44
He's considered to be a horrendous president. And I'm sorry, and even by
1:43:49
conservative standards, I mean Trump pisses on George W. Bush all the time.
1:43:55
Well, he's probably going to be the last two term Republican president unless
1:44:00
somehow the Santis pulls off a miracle here. So I think you have to
1:44:05
put George W. Bush is considered to be an idiot and a terrible president
1:44:10
in the category of of underrated. He got us through nine to eleven,
1:44:15
and um, you know, the economy for most of that period until the
1:44:17
very end was good. I'm not sure it was it was really his fault
1:44:20
that we had an economic collapse in the in the last few months of his
1:44:25
presidency. And I just think George W. Bush is, in essence a
1:44:30
good guy. He's a good person, having met him briefly with my wife
1:44:35
backstage at the Tonight show at one point, um, in which is also
1:44:41
an amazing story, All these stories like eventually we'll get a chance to tell
1:44:45
in their full in their full glory. But I just think he's a good
1:44:49
person, and so I think George W. Bush is over as underrated as
1:44:55
a president of the United States. Alan asks, Hey, John, h
1:45:00
let me give you this a try. A try in your opinion, if
1:45:01
de Santist wins the primary but does not get sabotaged I'm sorry, but does
1:45:06
get sabotaged, but does get sabotaged by Trump in the general and loses to
1:45:11
Biden, would that still be a good thing for the country because Trump will
1:45:15
have finally been beaten. I think this is a good question, and this
1:45:19
is a scenario that I think a lot about, because I do think it's
1:45:24
possible for Desantist to win the primary. I think it's more likely that Desantist
1:45:27
wins the primary and gets the nomination than it is for him to win the
1:45:30
presidency right now, because of the issue that Alan references Trump either actively or
1:45:39
not even actively sabotaging Ron de Santis in the general election. Now, the
1:45:45
worst part of that would be the Trump people would immediately go see told you
1:45:49
so, and Trump would be leading that charge. If I had been the
1:45:55
nominee, I would have won, which of course will be incredibly hypocritical and
1:46:00
infuriating because the reality is under that scenario, it would be Trump that would
1:46:06
be the reason why the Santis didn't win the general election. But this is
1:46:11
how audacious and the fairious Trump can be reality doesn't matter, it's whatever fits
1:46:15
his self interest. And so I can see that narrative holding on the right,
1:46:21
and I could even see this being the catalyst for Trump being the nominee
1:46:28
in twenty twenty eight, because depending on obviously the details and obviously Trump's health
1:46:34
and all sorts of other factors. But that's at least a possible scenario.
1:46:40
However, I still think that it's worth the fight there because for a couple
1:46:47
of reasons. One, I don't think there's an argument to be made that
1:46:51
if de Santist is the nominee, even if you were to lose the Biden
1:46:55
because Trump sabotaged him, I don't think you can arm you that Republicans will
1:47:01
do worse down ticket in the Senate and the House and the state legislatures if
1:47:06
the Santis is at the top of the ticket. In other words, so
1:47:11
across the board, even under the scenario outline, Republicans would still do better
1:47:16
than with Trump at the top of the ticket. That's number one. So
1:47:19
there's that number two. There's at least the chance that the Trump cancer is
1:47:26
largely exercised from the party, again, depending on other factors. But there's
1:47:31
also the scenario, which is, to me, there's no other choice.
1:47:36
This is it. There's no other options here. This is the last chance.
1:47:45
This is basically Luke Skywalker going into the Death Star. You get one
1:47:49
shot at this. If you don't take it, and you don't make it,
1:47:51
you don't hit hit paydirt. We're probably completely toast going forward under any
1:47:59
scenario as a country, at least is what we thought of as the United
1:48:01
States of America. So yes, there are all sorts of scenarios that are
1:48:05
not going to be great, but we have no choice. This is it.
1:48:12
This is not a drill, this is not a dress rehearsal. This
1:48:16
is it. And so if you want to save the country, there's no
1:48:20
other option. All right, Derek asks, Let's say that Biden, to
1:48:27
our surprise, announces that he is not running at the end of the summer
1:48:30
due to health and age concerns. How does the Democratic presidential field play out?
1:48:34
To what extent do Trump's odds of winning the presidency increase? Good question.
1:48:40
I've addressed this previously, but I'll try again. I don't think that's
1:48:45
likely, but it is possible. It's a little weird. He hasn't announced
1:48:48
yet his polling isn't great, but it's not as bad as many conservatives think
1:48:54
that it is. Weirdly, he's got a fifty percent approval rating in the
1:48:57
rasmuscin poll, which used to be a very pro Trump poll. So I
1:49:00
don't know what the hell's going on there, and he and he wins easily
1:49:04
against for instance, Robert Kennedy Junior and and um is Michelle Williamson. Williamson
1:49:14
is her last name, the whack job who also is running as a liberal
1:49:17
for the Democrat the Democratic primary. So I mean he's win last poll,
1:49:21
I think he had sixty eight percent Biden did of the vote there. Of
1:49:25
course that doesn't include Gavin Newsom. If Gavin Newsom runs, but even polling
1:49:30
that involves Newsome hasn't indicated that, you know, somehow Newsom would jump out
1:49:34
to anything close to a lead that Biden wouldn't be the heavy favorite to win.
1:49:41
But if Biden does decide not to run, then I think, what
1:49:45
it's clurty obvious what happens Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom in all likelihood run for
1:49:51
the nomination, which would be pretty interesting. And you know, under that
1:49:59
scenario, I mean, let's just play this out. And I don't even
1:50:02
know whether or not these people have an interest in this or the ability to
1:50:08
do it. But if you had a Harris versus Newsome Democratic primary, and
1:50:15
you had Robert Kennedy Junior in there in the mix to get the anti vaxers,
1:50:21
I mean, Joe Mansion might actually have a shot of some sort because
1:50:27
the left wing whack job vote would be would be so splintered between Newsome and
1:50:34
Harris. I don't know if he would win, Probably not, but he
1:50:38
could. He would be an immediate contender that the senator from West Virginia.
1:50:43
But let's just focus on Harris versus Newsome. Look, I might be underestimating
1:50:49
Newsom's chances. I despise him greatly. I don't think there's any secret about
1:50:55
that, and he's incredibly dangerous if he ever became president. But in a
1:51:00
Democratic primary, you must win the black vote, which is effectively monolithic historically,
1:51:11
once it galvanizes behind a candidate, it's basically ninety five percent for that
1:51:16
candidate, whoever gets chosen. How does Newsom become that candidate against Kamala Harris?
1:51:24
How does that happen? And she's a female vice president? It's her
1:51:30
turn. Now she's not you know, technically she's not even African American,
1:51:34
but she's a woman of color. The media will carry her water as she's
1:51:40
from the same state as Newsome. Against she's vice president, she'll have Biden's
1:51:45
endorsement. It's it's just really hard for me to understand how that happens,
1:51:51
especially given the importance of South Carolina in the Democratic primary process. So if
1:51:57
what short answer is, I think Kamala Harris is the nominee. If Kamala
1:52:01
Harris is the nominee, Trump's got a shot. I think Trump's got a
1:52:05
legitimate shot. If Kamala Harris is the nominee, I don't. I don't
1:52:11
think Harris matches up particularly well with anybody in a general election, but specifically
1:52:17
Donald Trump, because she's not president yet. Vice president gets you some credibility,
1:52:21
but it's not the same thing as being president. And I do think
1:52:28
that she scares a lot of people, maybe more so than Biden does.
1:52:31
And so you know, I've never said Trump has no chance of winning a
1:52:36
general election. I think he would need either health concerns about Biden to be
1:52:42
increased or some sort of significant economic recession. But I do think his chances
1:52:47
would increase against Harris. Brian asks what media outlets do you still respect and
1:52:53
think report more honest or more or less honestly, I kind of already answered
1:52:57
that I tend to go to the Blaze. Well, I'm not happy with
1:53:01
their Trump coverage, but that's from a news standpoint, and there are others
1:53:06
that I've already mentioned, So I think I already answered that question. Peter
1:53:11
asks how much time does it take to prepare the Death of Journalism podcast?
1:53:17
A lot. In fact, it's basically almost a twenty four seven situation.
1:53:21
I have no content producer, It's just me and and so I'm constantly,
1:53:30
you know, perusing the news trying to figure out what I might want to
1:53:32
talk about, what the facts are, what my take would be the actual
1:53:38
hardcore preparation, I would say, you know, for about an hour or
1:53:43
two the night before I do the podcast, I am preparing. But I
1:53:46
don't script this quite obviously, even on episodes where we aren't doing Ask John
1:53:53
anything. And so even though you would think that takes less preparation, in
1:53:59
a weird way, it takes more preparation because I have to have all the
1:54:02
facts, you know, kind of put into the hard drive of my brain
1:54:05
so that I might be able to spin them out and not screw up constantly.
1:54:10
So it takes a lot of time, and I can assure you,
1:54:14
I hope you, I hope you appreciate the podcast, because as of right
1:54:17
now, it is certainly not a cost effective with regard to the amount of
1:54:23
time and effort that it takes to do this podcast. And by the time
1:54:26
I end taping and I'm exhausted, So this is a grind, and so
1:54:32
I hope I hope little listeners appreciate this at some level, for whatever that's
1:54:36
worth. I think Peter also asks what is your take on what exactly happened
1:54:42
in the Kennedy assassination. I've referenced this before. I'm hopeful that later on
1:54:47
this year, since this is the sixtieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, I
1:54:53
can do it, maybe a full episode on it, and interview Gerald Posner,
1:55:00
who wrote the book Case Closed, who I've interviewed several times before,
1:55:05
many years ago. But he I believe wrote the definitive book about the Kennedy
1:55:10
assassination, although I think he's still wrong about how it actually happened, and
1:55:14
he and I've kind of had a very long, ongoing debate about the logistics
1:55:17
of it. Basically, my short answer to that is I believe that the
1:55:25
Warren Commission got it correct that Oswald acted alone, but they got it wrong
1:55:30
in how it happened, and there was no single bullet theory. The single
1:55:34
bullet theory is inaccurate. So I'm probably one of the hand there's a handful
1:55:40
of us. I think Mark Furman from O. J. Simpson Fame or
1:55:43
Infamy is one of them. In fact, I even have a theory he
1:55:45
might have gotten this idea for me because I was a talk show host at
1:55:49
KAIFI and Los Angeles were at the time when Furman wrote a book about this.
1:55:56
But I don't know this, but I am one of the few people
1:55:59
that leaves at Oswald acted alone, but there was no single bullet magic bullet,
1:56:04
and I'll explain exactly why in great detail, hopefully at some point in
1:56:09
the future. Zoron asks, are Republicans aware that the demographic map has been
1:56:15
changing in the last decade with more and more young voters willing to vote,
1:56:19
and are they aware that those young voters what their concerns are I hope.
1:56:26
So, I mean, it's very obvious that every single day more and more
1:56:30
Democrats are becoming eligible to vote, because this youngest generation is incredibly liberal,
1:56:35
progressive, and if not communist, Marxist, and more and more people who
1:56:41
are dying every day tend to be Republican more than they are Democrats. So
1:56:45
that's a very ominous demographic shift. Now, conversely to that, it should
1:56:50
be pointed out that because of population shifts away from some blue states and towards
1:56:58
some red states, that the Republican candidate in the twenty twenty four election as
1:57:03
well as the twenty twenty eight election, will have a slight advantage over,
1:57:08
for instance, twenty twenty, where the electoral college votes have shifted slightly towards
1:57:16
the Republican side. Let me give you a quick example of this. So
1:57:20
if in twenty twenty, if Trump and it would have only taken forty four
1:57:25
thousand more votes in three states for this to happen, if Trump had won
1:57:30
in Georgia and in Arizona in Wisconsin, had that happened, it would have
1:57:35
ended in a two sixty nine two sixty nine tie in the electoral college,
1:57:41
which in my view would have ended the country in civil war given the circumstances
1:57:45
that existed in November of twenty twenty, as we saw kind of what happened
1:57:49
with January sixth, that would have been a tea party literally and figuratively.
1:57:55
In comparison to two sixty nine two sixty nine tie scenario. If the exact
1:58:00
same electoral college map happens in twenty twenty four, it's not a tie.
1:58:06
Trump or the Republican wins outright, which is a huge difference. And so
1:58:15
yeah, yes, from a voter standpoint, the demographic shifts are definitely going
1:58:20
in liberal directions, and it's one of the reasons why I'm so convinced that
1:58:24
it's now or never, that this is kind of like a planet drifting away
1:58:29
from what I call the gravitational pull of the rational Earth. At a certain
1:58:32
point, there's no bringing it back, and that does feel the way that
1:58:39
the demographics are going in the United States of America. Zorin also asked,
1:58:44
can you explain how Mike Gagavino got involved with your work. I feel like
1:58:47
he's been the unsung hero with respect to getting the Penn State story out,
1:58:51
as well as your current podcast, which is excellent. I would agree with
1:58:56
that. Obviously. Mike Gagavino is the reason why, with the benefit of
1:58:59
hindsight, had happened. He lost a lot of money on that and deserves
1:59:02
a lot of credit for doing that. He put a lot of work into
1:59:05
it and a lot of faith in me in Liz Abibe, but mostly,
1:59:10
you know, from a financial standpoint, he took a big chance on it,
1:59:13
and I told him he was going to lose money on it, and
1:59:15
he did, and uh, you know, so without him, that never
1:59:18
would have happened, and this podcast would not exist without Mike Agavino. We
1:59:24
met because Mike is a is a former big wig in the radio industry in
1:59:30
Los Angeles and he has a mutual We had a mutual friend who's been a
1:59:33
big wig in the in the radio industry, and we had a lunch together
1:59:39
and it was basically for me to explain the Sandusky situation to him, which
1:59:45
at that point I don't think he had a lot of knowledge of. He
1:59:47
had some knowledge of. I think he had been at least somewhat suspicious about
1:59:53
and to my recollection, I think I had had so many meetings over the
1:59:57
years with people about out the Sandusky situation. I was kind of in the
2:00:02
category of I just don't give a shit anymore. I'm just gonna lay it
2:00:05
out there. And to my memory, when we first sat down to lunch
2:00:14
or whatever we had, Mike played a video of his son playing high school
2:00:21
football, and I asked him how old was your son at the time.
2:00:28
It was many years ago. His son was basically the same age as victim
2:00:32
number two, the kid in the shower in the mcquerie episode. And so
2:00:36
I said to Mike, I think this is the first thing I said,
2:00:40
though in person, I said, so, tell me, Mike, if
2:00:44
your son had ever been raped in a football locker shower in school by a
2:00:51
sixty some year old man, how would you handle that? And I felt
2:01:00
very much like the lightbulb kind of went up over his head. I could
2:01:04
be totally wrong about this, but this was my perception, and I think
2:01:08
at that point he got it, and from then it was just an education
2:01:14
process into explaining all the details of once you realize that the mcquerie episode never
2:01:21
happened, that there was never a rape by Jerry Zonduski or anybody else.
2:01:26
Witnessed an a Penn State show where the whole case collapses after that, and
2:01:30
Mike has understood that. And he and I have had lots of disagreements over
2:01:34
the years, and I'm sure I've been a massive pain in the ass for
2:01:38
him, but he does deserve a lot of credit for both the benefit of
2:01:43
hindsight with the benefit of findsight, and the death of journalism. Steve asks,
2:01:47
what's your biggest regret? Oh, my god, that is so many
2:01:55
regrets that that's almost an impossible us to answer from a career standpoint. The
2:02:03
biggest, probably mistake I made purely from a career standpoint, was when I
2:02:09
got fired in Louisville, Kentucky, which resulted in that definition defamation lawsuit that
2:02:14
I won that I referenced at the beginning of this episode, because in Louisville
2:02:18
I could have been a superstar. My whole life could have been very,
2:02:24
very, very different had that not happened, because that was the first time,
2:02:28
maybe the only time in my career where everything just kind of jelled.
2:02:31
I was the right guy at the right time, at the right place.
2:02:33
The ratings were unbelievable. In fact, they were too unbelievable. I think
2:02:36
I actually kind of set me up from my downfall that was spectacular, and
2:02:43
I could have lived the hell of a life in Louisville, Kentucky. I
2:02:45
could have owned that town. You know, Terry Miners, who still there
2:02:48
at WHS would probably object to that assertion, but I think he was even
2:02:54
a little concerned himself, which is why I think he helped sabotage me,
2:02:58
even though somehow we're still friendly to this day, although we were not after
2:03:01
that happened. But for some reason, I've forgiven Terry for his role in
2:03:05
that whole situation. But he's He's a legend in Louisville. Now. I
2:03:11
can't say that that's my greatest regret, though, because if that had not
2:03:14
happened, I never would have come to Los Angeles. I never would have
2:03:15
met my wife, I never would have had my two kids, and I
2:03:18
never would have had all sorts of other extraordinary experiences. I mean, I
2:03:23
I've had an you know, an incredibly unsuccessful career, but an incredibly interesting
2:03:27
one. I mean, I would never trade while they've been incredible disappointments,
2:03:30
I would never trade some of the experiences that I've had. I mean,
2:03:35
it's been it's been unbelievable. Some of the things I've been involved with.
2:03:40
It's been you know, far as Gump like with regard to some of the
2:03:43
biggest stories in the country and the people that I've met, and the stories
2:03:48
that I have investigated, and the you know, interviews that I've done,
2:03:51
and you know, and experiences I've had, good, bad, and indifferent.
2:03:56
It's been very trying. It's given me a lot of gray hairs,
2:03:59
and I look at hell of a lot, all older than when I moved
2:04:00
to Los Angeles. But I can't say that anything before I got here is
2:04:06
a massive regret, mainly because of my kids and because they wouldn't exist in
2:04:13
you know, obviously, in all likelihood unless those things at all occurred.
2:04:19
I know that Steve is big into the Sandusky story. I've said before my
2:04:24
biggest regret on the Sandusky story in fact, you know, it's interesting,
2:04:28
it's funny, and I don't think it's a coincidence that I've become pretty dark
2:04:32
close friends with Matt Lower, because I would say two of my biggest regrets
2:04:36
were the first. Basically, all three of the Matt Lower interviews on the
2:04:41
Today's Show were regrets in different ways, but my biggest regret on the Sandusky
2:04:45
story was the way I handled the first Matt Lower Today's Show interview because I
2:04:49
did not have enough information. I was not positive enough that the entire story
2:04:56
was wrong. I was concerned about what you know, Pittsburgh's dealer in Pennce
2:05:00
date legend, Frank o' harris was going to say, because he had made
2:05:03
it clear to me that I should not go in the direction that Jerry Zandusky
2:05:06
could be innocent at that time, and I wasn't sure he was innocent at
2:05:10
that time. I hadn't figured out the date of the Macquarie episode yet,
2:05:15
which that's probably my biggest factual regret of that whole situation. So if I,
2:05:19
if I had, if I had done a better job, if I
2:05:25
had been able to handle the situation better in the first Matt Lower interview,
2:05:29
and I had, if I had figured out the date circumstance, which I
2:05:31
could have done it was not impossible to do. Now, no one else
2:05:34
did it. I mean, his defense team should have done it. But
2:05:39
had I been able to do that, and had I come into the first
2:05:43
Matt Lauer interview with regard to this subject, and this would have been in
2:05:47
the spring of twenty thirteen, had I done that. I think it was
2:05:51
still early enough where I could have made a difference, something could have been
2:05:58
done, and I didn't do that, and I got blindsided. And you
2:06:04
know, Matt did me no favors, and Scott Paterno did me absolutely no
2:06:09
favors, the son of Joe Paterno, he basically sabotaged the whole damn thing
2:06:13
on purpose for his own selfish interests. And so that's my greatest regret,
2:06:18
you know, probably in the post Los Angeles career era of my life,
2:06:25
and specifically with regard to the Sandusky Paterno Penn State story. Interestingly, Steve
2:06:30
also asks would you sit down with Scott Paterno to discuss what really happened in
2:06:35
the first week of the Penn State scandal. I absolutely would, But there's
2:06:39
no chance of Scott ever doing that because he's a coward and a fraud and
2:06:45
he's afraid of me, and he knows I would torture him because he knows
2:06:47
he's wrong, which is why I live rent free in his head, and
2:06:53
he's the real reason why this whole thing went down the way that it did.
2:06:57
And it's just ironic since you know that was his great moment of heroism.
2:07:00
What's the moment that he sabotaged his father, and he sabotaged Penn State,
2:07:05
and he basically created this domino effect that ended up in massive injustice for
2:07:11
everybody, including the three administrators, and Scott Paterno was just one of the
2:07:15
most dreadful human beings I've ever run across in my entire life. And that's
2:07:18
really saying something. Joe asks thoughts on Joe Mansion's possible run for president,
2:07:24
either through the Democratic primary process or in a third party ticket. He'd likely
2:07:30
start any run by winning the New Hampshire Democratic primary. I think Joe is
2:07:35
referring there to the fact that I've referenced this in episode fifty, that the
2:07:41
Democratic primary and New Hampshire is going to be a crap show because of the
2:07:46
rules and the way that the Democrats are now putting South Carolina first, and
2:07:51
so Biden would not apparently be on the ballot, but RFK Junior would be,
2:07:57
and I think that's going to cause some problems for to say this in
2:08:01
a couple of different directions. I don't know if Joe Mansion even wants to
2:08:05
run. I don't know if he would have the money to run. You
2:08:09
know, it would be interesting to see. I would be fascinated to see
2:08:13
whether or not there is still a semblance of rational Democrats out there. I
2:08:18
mean, when you look back at the two thousand and eight Democratic primary.
2:08:22
I say this all the time because no one ever remembers this, but Hillary
2:08:26
Clinton actually got more votes than Barack Obama. And the most amazing part of
2:08:33
Hillary Clinton's two thousand and eight run, what nobody ever ever talks about,
2:08:37
is that after Obama was effectively the nominee. He hadn't clinched it officially,
2:08:45
but he was anointed the nominee by the media, and he gave, you
2:08:48
know, the great speech about how the ocean levels will stop rising because of
2:08:54
him. Hillary Clinton went on an unbelievable run of winning primaries in mostly non
2:09:05
liberal states, places like West Virginia where Joe Manchin is run, where she
2:09:11
crushed Barack Obama. The media is ignored this, but she went on an
2:09:16
unbelievable run. And that was mainly because at that point there was still an
2:09:20
element of the Democratic Party that was rational and somewhat conservative, that was afraid
2:09:26
of Obama won the Jeremiah Right issue. And two is he just too far
2:09:31
left to win a general election, and as he outside the mainstream of my
2:09:35
own thinking, I mean, go back and look at it. It's unbelievable,
2:09:39
given how the media had already annointed Obama, what Hillary did in that
2:09:43
last month or two of the campaign, And so there's got to be these
2:09:48
people still out there. Maybe they no longer exist, maybe they've changed,
2:09:54
maybe they've died, maybe they don't want to admit who they are anymore.
2:09:56
But I would love to see it. Also. I'd love to see it
2:10:00
because I think it's important that Democrats not give a free ride to Joe Biden
2:10:03
because it's going to be a blood bath on the Republican side, and anybody
2:10:07
that can beat Joe Biden up a little bit on the Democratic side, much
2:10:11
like what happened with Jimmy Carter in nineteen eighty, could be very, very
2:10:15
helpful in the general election. But I don't I just don't see. My
2:10:18
gut tells me it's not going to happen. A couple more questions before we
2:10:22
end this episode. They're all kind of similar. Will we see a third
2:10:26
party president before twenty fifty? Of course, the big questionnaire, is there
2:10:31
going to be a president? United States, at least as we know it
2:10:35
in twenty fifty. Someone else asks a similar question momentarily, so I'll get
2:10:39
to that in a minute. You know, twenty fifties a long time and
2:10:43
change things are changing really quickly. So I think it's possible we see a
2:10:48
third party president, assuming we still have the United States and we do elections
2:10:50
as we currently do them between now and twenty fifty. I don't see it
2:10:54
in the foreseeable future. To have a third party run, you need somebody
2:11:01
who is incredibly wealthy. Number one. Now, there are a lot of
2:11:07
people in that category in this day and age, but you need someone incredibly
2:11:09
wealthy, who has a significant amount of celebrity, and who has really the
2:11:18
perfect political views where they're really honestly centrist. And that is a very very
2:11:28
difficult thing to find. I mean, so in theory, with as much
2:11:31
hatred as there is towards both parties, you would think there'll be a massive
2:11:35
opening for a third party candidate. But you need a human being, and
2:11:43
who's going to fit that. I mean, Ross Perow tried to do it
2:11:48
in nineteen ninety two and basically all he did was elect Bill Clinton. And
2:11:52
you know that the whole story. I will never forgive the news media for
2:11:56
how they handled that. I mean, they let Ross Perow bail out of
2:12:01
that campaign in over an insane conspiracy that his daughter's wedding was being targeted and
2:12:07
there was no evidence for that, and then they let him back in.
2:12:11
Why Well, because they knew he was going to spend millions and millions of
2:12:16
dollars on campaign advertising, and they had budgeted for that, and they knew
2:12:20
it was gonna be bad for George Herbert Walker push. So so they allowed
2:12:24
this nut job perra back into the campaign after he had withdrawn, gave him
2:12:31
basically dropped the issue, gave him all sorts of credibility. I'll never forget
2:12:35
this. In nineteen ninety two, that's when I was a sportscaster at WTOV,
2:12:39
the NBC affiliate and Willing West Virginia Stubenville, Ohio, they actually posted
2:12:46
when Pero dropped out of the race temporarily in nineteen ninety two over that his
2:12:52
daughter's wedding situation, they posted a memo in our newsroom. This is amazing
2:13:01
in retrospect, saying that because Perrault was dropping out in Ohio and West Virginia
2:13:07
at that time, we're still swing states, that we were gonna have to
2:13:11
change our budget, that are that we had budget in for a Parole run,
2:13:18
and that because Peroul was not running, that we were gonna have to
2:13:22
have cutbacks when it came to our news department. Now, when Peroul reverses
2:13:31
himself and decides he's gonna run, how do you think the news departments reacted?
2:13:35
Gee, I wonder what their self interest was in giving Paroux a pass
2:13:43
for having dropped out of the race. Anyway, the point of this,
2:13:45
other than that which I think is an extraordinary story, is that it's very
2:13:48
difficult for there to be a third party candidate because you had to have the
2:13:52
perfect person, and that person not only doesn't exist, but if they do
2:13:56
exist, there's no risk reward in doing this because you're likely to lose and
2:14:03
piss off an enormous amount of the country. And so yeah, basically need
2:14:07
a unicorn. And until that unicorn exists, I mean, you know,
2:14:11
Elon Musk could have been that unicorn, but he's not eligible. He's for
2:14:16
the presidency. So I tell tell me who the person's going to be that
2:14:20
would be the candidate, and then I'll consider it, but it's just really
2:14:24
hard to imagine how that happens. Jason asks, will America still exist in
2:14:30
twenty fifty. I don't know what that is with that year, but I
2:14:33
guess it's just a round number twenty fifty. And what will it look like?
2:14:39
Um, you know, I don't even know I'll be around in twenty
2:14:41
fifty. My guesses I will not be. But you know, I don't
2:14:48
believe that we're going to have the United States of America as it currently exists
2:14:52
in twenty fifty. It's it's hard for me to believe that now as it
2:14:56
possible. It's not that long from now, but there it seems pretty clear
2:15:03
to me that we're headed for a breakup. Now what it will look like,
2:15:07
I've often said that it's going to break down along the old college football
2:15:13
conference lines. And how many different countries that's going to make I don't know,
2:15:16
But I mean, if you look at it from the old, before
2:15:20
all the the reconfiguration and the realignment, you know, the country was pretty
2:15:26
well split. You know, the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten Conference,
2:15:28
the ACC and then they have the Pack eight, twelve, ten, whatever
2:15:33
number it is at any particular time on the West coast, and then you
2:15:37
have the Mountain West states in there in between, and that's a pretty good
2:15:43
indication of the different areas of the country that still have something in common.
2:15:48
I mean, if you look at the twenty twenty election, there's only one
2:15:52
state, one state that was landlocked, if you will, in having voted
2:16:00
for a different candidate than the states that neighbored them, and that was Georgia,
2:16:05
Georgia, and that barely happened according to Trump, it was by fraud.
2:16:09
But Georgia is the only state that was landlocked, the state that went
2:16:15
for Biden, that was landlocked by Trump states, and there's no there were
2:16:18
no Trump states that were landlocked by Biden states. That's not healthy. That
2:16:26
is, that is a recipe for for national divorce on geographic lines. And
2:16:33
I really think the issue there's all sorts of issues that could eventually provoke it,
2:16:37
but I think the number one issue is energy, and especially after COVID,
2:16:45
I mean, medical freedom and energy kind of combined, where now we've
2:16:50
now seeded the control of our own medical decisions to the government, and we're
2:16:58
quickly seeding the control roll over how we use energy to the government, and
2:17:03
here in California, they're gonna ban the sale of of gasoline powered cars in
2:17:09
twenty thirty five, and they're gonna basically make it impossible for for for for
2:17:13
gas powered cars to survive. You know, I'm guessing that by twenty forty
2:17:20
in California, it's gonna be basically impossible to have a gas powered car.
2:17:28
Um And there's you know, they're all there's all sorts of elements of the
2:17:31
energy issue that are going to cause a massive chasm because too and this is
2:17:37
all driven by global warming. So I think it really is. This is
2:17:41
partially why I talk about global warming a lot. The global warming issue is
2:17:46
gonna be the end of America because it's gonna split us very deeply along ideological
2:17:52
lines, and it's all going to come down to energy and do we have
2:17:56
control over how much energy we use? They're gonna stop, They're gonna prevent
2:18:01
us from how much energy we can use, whether it's air conditioning or whatever.
2:18:05
I mean, they're going to do everything they can under the guise of
2:18:09
stopping global warming, which the whole thing is a fraud. But you know,
2:18:13
half the country is going to get this fraud and the other half is
2:18:16
invested in it like it's a religion, and I think that will be the
2:18:20
issue. How it will break down geographically, When and how it all happened,
2:18:24
Who the hell knows. But when you consider how fractured the foundation of
2:18:28
our society is, we are very vulnerable to this. And it's just it's
2:18:33
hard for me to believe we're gonna make it another twenty seven years as the
2:18:39
same current country. If we make it the twenty fifty, it won't be
2:18:43
much longer than that. In my view, why would the country not survive
2:18:52
if the Democrats win the presidency in this next election. Well, from a
2:18:58
political standpoint, here's what I think. The most likely scenario is Bidens the
2:19:03
candidate. He wins reelection in twenty twenty seven, he resigns to the health
2:19:09
and age issues. Kamala Harris becomes the incumbent president. Under constitutional rules,
2:19:16
she is able to still run two more times if she doesn't serve more than
2:19:20
two years as someone who takes over for a president who resigns. That makes
2:19:26
her an incumbent president, which gives her an entirely different persona in twenty twenty
2:19:31
eight and in twenty thirty two, so she can still run for two more
2:19:35
terms. I believe her vice president will be Pete Buddha Judge. So you're
2:19:39
gonna have Kamala Harris and Pete Buddha Judge in charge in twenty twenty seven.
2:19:45
And I don't know who runs against them. Is it still Trump in twenty
2:19:48
twenty eight? The Santis is unemployed in twenty twenty eight for a couple of
2:19:54
years, and so you know, with the demographic shifts continuing in their favor,
2:20:01
I don't know how you beat them. And so while obviously a million
2:20:05
things can happen, this is this is a scenario that makes a lot of
2:20:09
sense and has a lot of momentum. So then you have Harris for two
2:20:13
terms, and then you have Buddha Judge for two terms. Because it's all
2:20:16
about making history. On the other side, it's all about identity politics.
2:20:20
Kamala Harris, woman of color as first woman of color president. It's awesome.
2:20:24
Now we have the first gay president. Oh that's awesome. You know.
2:20:28
Then his vice president will probably be some transvestite. I mean, they'll
2:20:31
have the first transvestitpe president. I mean, that's the way this is headed,
2:20:33
folks. It couldn't be more obvious. So from a purely political standpoint,
2:20:39
I don't know how you reverse it, but I'll go back to COVID.
2:20:43
I mean, COVID made it clear as day that this is they're not
2:20:48
playing around anymore. They're playing for keeps. I was one of those that
2:20:52
was deceived into thinking that most Liberals were misguided, but at least we're good
2:20:58
faith actor and they actually believe most of them did in America. COVID revealed
2:21:05
that's not the case. They're not playing around. This is for keeps.
2:21:11
They don't believe in America, this thing is over if they get total control.
2:21:18
And so far there has been no blowback, there's been no accountability.
2:21:22
Nobody got run out of office because of what they did. And if now
2:21:28
they've learned a lesson and they can get away with anything, they're admitting it.
2:21:31
That's the whole what's driving the transgender issue is that they know they can
2:21:37
get away with anything with the media on their side, the state run media,
2:21:39
and the fact that Trump weighs down Republicans and the demographic shifts are going
2:21:46
in their directions their direction, And then you add in the whole AI situation
2:21:50
where the ability for the government to control. The narrative is never going to
2:21:54
be potentially in a stronger position. I mean, you've got things like digital
2:22:01
currency being proposed. I mean, digital currency is the end, because then
2:22:05
the government can control everything you do. I mean, so technology is all
2:22:11
working in the direction of giving those in power more and more power. And
2:22:16
after COVID, they've realized there's no repercussions for this. So I just don't
2:22:20
know what the scenario is where we're not toast if if, if somehow the
2:22:26
santist doesn't win the twenty twenty four election, now Trump wins it best case
2:22:31
scenario, Okay, maybe maybe we pause for a few years, But I'm
2:22:39
not even that convinced that Trump wouldn't, you know, crap the bed like
2:22:43
he did last time. I don't know who the hell's running his administration.
2:22:46
You know. It scares me that he wouldn't have to worry about reelection.
2:22:50
Could there then be another backlash to Trump in twenty twenty eight because he's pissed
2:22:56
off liberals even more, you know? So I don't I don't see that
2:23:01
as a viable long term reverse course scenario. Would it be better than Biden
2:23:07
for another four years? And would it stop the Kamala Harris Pete put a
2:23:11
judge train, maybe so there would be some benefit to that. And then
2:23:16
the last question comes right on the heels of that one from Patrick. Patrick
2:23:20
wants to know, well, aren't we already toast no matter what happens in
2:23:22
the twenty twenty four election, And he goes through all the litany of things
2:23:28
that indicate the United States is in big, big trouble, and look,
2:23:31
we might be I say, that's all, say this all the time.
2:23:33
We might already be toast. I say this is the last shot. I
2:23:37
don't say this is a short thing. Even if this miracle gets pulled off,
2:23:43
is it possible it doesn't work out? Yeah. But you know,
2:23:46
I'm one of those people that believes very strongly in the country that this was
2:23:50
a unique place that was created by man. We were giving this amazing gift
2:23:54
by our founding fathers. It survived for a long time, It for us,
2:23:58
prospered for a long long time. It was the greatest force for good
2:24:01
in human history for a long time. And you know, my mother and
2:24:05
my grandfather deep deeply, deeply, deeply loved this country, believed in it,
2:24:11
and um and that's part of why I'm willing to fight to the end
2:24:16
for it, and you've got to at least have some hope. And I
2:24:20
don't want to be overly pessimistic and apoplectic and an apocalyptic about the future,
2:24:28
because it's not going to happen overnight, but it's gonna happen a lot sooner
2:24:31
than I ever thought it would. I mean, I've always presumed as an
2:24:35
adult that, you know, we weren't going to make it much past the
2:24:39
twenty fifty mark. But now I don't even think we're gonna make it there
2:24:43
because COVID basically ramped everything up. COVID let the cat out of bag,
2:24:48
COVID let everyone know, Hey, this that you know, government can get
2:24:52
away with this, and you know, people don't really believe in the principles
2:24:58
that this country was allegedly founded on, and they'll they'll let you take those
2:25:01
those rights away and there'll be no accountability because we are an incredibly compliant and
2:25:07
frankly dumb nation. And you know, it has always been well known that
2:25:13
if you don't keep fighting for freedom, you're gonna lose it. Well,
2:25:16
we stop fighting for freedom, and we let the authorities know that we're not
2:25:20
willing to fight for freedom, most of us, and now that they have
2:25:24
that knowledge, it's incredibly dangerous. So you know, I'll go back to
2:25:30
the Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star analogy. You get the one shot,
2:25:33
but at least this is still a one shot. There's still a chance,
2:25:37
and it's worth trying to save because it's one it's all we got.
2:25:41
And two once it's gone, what what's the hope for the rest of the
2:25:46
world. I mean, there's you know, in other places of the world
2:25:50
when this happens, the United States used to come in and save them in
2:25:54
under the right circumstances, or try to help them. No one's coming to
2:25:58
save us, folks, because we're it. We're the last bastion for humanity
2:26:05
when it comes to freedom and liberally at least we're supposed to be. And
2:26:09
once we're gone, no one's coming to save us. And it's going to
2:26:13
be George Orwell. In nineteen eighty four, that nightmare comes true and it
2:26:16
was proven during COVID, So you know, I don't actually don't believe we're
2:26:24
completely toast as of right now. We are in trouble where not quite on
2:26:28
our deathbed. I mean there's still a lot of great things about this country,
2:26:31
and there's a lot of things that, if used properly, technology could
2:26:35
actually make life a hell of a lot better. It's just that I don't
2:26:39
have any trust in those who are making those decisions, especially if we continue
2:26:43
on the current track that we're on. So and look, Roda Sanders is
2:26:46
not perfect. He's not a god. He's flawed like everybody else is.
2:26:52
He's just the best chance we've got, and so in my opinion, everything
2:26:56
has to be thrown into giving him every opportunity to take out Trump and take
2:27:03
a chance, as long as it might be in a general election. Otherwise
2:27:07
the country is gone. And on that very happy note, that'll end our
2:27:11
first ever edition, our two part edition of Asked John Anything. It went
2:27:16
a little long, but I hope you enjoyed it. I very much appreciate
2:27:18
all the questions. They were very very good at many of them, and
2:27:22
much different than I expected. But I hope it was an exercise that you
2:27:26
found to be productive. Until next time. And by the way, just
2:27:31
to reiterate, the interview that I promoted for today with Brittany Hopper will occur
2:27:35
in a very soon coming episode, probably episode number fifty three next week,
2:27:41
but until next time, please remember to subscribe to the podcast, rate review
2:27:46
it, and share it with others. If you tag me on social media
2:27:48
as you share it, I will obviously retweet or share that post as well.
2:27:52
Thanks so much for listening. This has been the death of journalism podcast.
2:27:56
My name is John Ziegler.