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Episode Seventy Two: Trump to Ditch Debates · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Welcome episode number seventy two of the Depth of Journalism podcast. My name is
• 0:03
  John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. It sure looks like Donald
• 0:08
  Trump is not going to debate Gee, who saw that one coming? In
• 0:14
  many redo of the Penn State scandal hits Northwestern's college football team, The New
• 0:21
  York Times gets rid of their sports department, and there's been a major development
• 0:26
  in the PGA Tour Live Golf saga, which has me questioning the entire future
• 0:31
  of the sport of golf. I'm known as the Dutch Digital marketing Man.
• 0:36
  I'm a digital advertising SEO and EMO marketing specialist that also happens to be a
• 0:42
  big fan of John Ziggler and the death of Journalisten. Do you need help
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  preaching your talk at the audience? Let me help you develop the right messaging
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  and confaded messages in the best channels for your business. Please visit my website,
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• 0:59
  story. The website is the Dutch Digital Marketingman dot com. If you want
• 1:04
  to grow your business, Peter can help. That's the Dutch Digital marketing Man
• 1:10
  dot com. And hey, thanks for sponsoring the show in episode number seventy
• 1:15
  one of the podcast, in addition to my epic breakdown of what really did
• 1:19
  and did not happen in the JFK assassination. And if you didn't listen to
• 1:25
  that episode yet and you're at all intrigued by the topic, I urge you
• 1:29
  to take listen to episode number seventy one. I began with a series of
• 1:34
  stories, one of which was the breakout hit of the movie season in the
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  summer, although it doesn't really seem like a summer movie continues to just shock
• 1:46
  people and really outrage the left. I'm referring to the movie Sound of Freedom
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  starring Jim Caviezel, which it takes on the issue of child sex trafficking,
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  which now has destroy roid all expectations even by the people who were making the
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  movie, and as of this taping has already over forty five million dollars at
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  the box office. This from an independent film that had been shelved by Disney.
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  Disney took ownership over it and didn't know what to do with it,
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  didn't want to do anything with it, and basically got rid of it.
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  It's been in the can for several years and was finally released by a group
• 2:29
  called Angel Studios, and of course Jim Caviezel, largely because he has been
• 2:35
  associated with QAnon, is seen as a right wing whack job. He's also
• 2:39
  obviously very well known as playing Christ in the Passion of the Christ, and
• 2:46
  he is very much a Christian, very religious. Of course, to the
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  media, that automatically makes you a right wing whack job. But this movie
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  has really taken much of the country by storm, and the more the left
• 3:00
  media tries to destroy it, it seems like they provide more fuel towards it.
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  A lot like Donald Trump. Really, I mean, this is where
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  we've gotten to now, where the distrust of the liberal mainstream news media by
• 3:15
  hardcore conservatives or right wingers or Trump supporters or whatever hell do you want to
• 3:19
  call them in this day and age is so great that one something gets traction
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  and the left attacks it, especially when those attacks are obviously absurd, as
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  have been the case with regard to this movie, which by all accounts is
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  very very good and obviously deals with a very important topic which is child sex
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  trafficking, one which the mainstream news media tends to ignore. Then, instead
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  of that attack having the impact that they would hope it to have, it
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  has the opposite impact. I've said many times that the credibility, if you
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  think about this from a standpoint of a fireman, the credibility that the news
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  media used to have to put out a fire, you know, the credibility
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  being the water and their hose. For right wingers is basically not only run
• 4:12
  out of water. The water has become gasoline. And we're seeing a little
• 4:16
  bit of that with the Sound of Freedom movie. Because forty five million dollars
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  after basically a week, a little bit more than a week at the box
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  office, during an era where box office receipts are way down people don't go
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  to the movies nearly as much as they used to, is really extraordinary,
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  especially for a movie that's, like I said, not the normal summer blockbusters
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  stuff. It's not a fun movie by all accounts, in any way,
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  shape or form. So this is a remarkable success story. And I don't
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  know whether or not it's going to change anything with regard to the movie making
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  business, but it's certainly, and I know this firsthand from people who are
• 4:57
  involved in this, it certainly is given a lot more hope to people in
• 5:01
  the movie business. Who are in independent films and who have been trying to
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  figure out a way to make those economically viable. And granted, you're never
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  going to be able to catch lightning in a bottle like you have here on
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  a consistent basis, but maybe, just maybe there are some more mainstream outlets
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  that will look at Sound of Freedom and go okay, wow, all right,
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  there's some money to be made here, and maybe this will change the
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  dynamic just slightly in what it is that these major studios are willing and able
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  to do. I mean, Disney has gotten burned on this in a year
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  which has been very very bad for Disney. At the movie so well,
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  again, I haven't yet seen it. I've been very busy. I have
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  been told very reliably it's a great movie, and obviously the subject matter is
• 5:51
  important. And I am absolutely I am amused and boom used by the left
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  wing at tax on Sound of Freedom, and I'm actually kind of glad that
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  the movie not only has succeeded in spite of them, but maybe even because
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  of those attacks. So that is an extraordinary situation. Now, the definition
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  of what is right wing or conservative when it comes to the left wing media
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  has gotten so distorted over recent years that it's really almost to the point of
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  being comical. And I wanted to provide one more of many, many,
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  many examples of this that occurred just this week. MSNBC, obviously, the
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  very left wing cable news channel, put out an article on its Twitter feed
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  with the headline the far rights obsession with fitness is going digital. So we
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  have the left wing media suddenly, somehow being against a movie that is trying
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  to shine a light on the problem of child sex trafficking, almost to the
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  point of them being in favor wild sex trafficking. And and and now we
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  have the left wing media against Being Healthy. So I mean, as confused
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  as I am as to what the how the right stands for, what the
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  left is against now is even more remarkable. And Joe Rogan, who you
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  know, is by no accounts a conservative. He's certainly less liberal than it
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  used to be and is seen as I guess I'm moderate, and certainly on
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  COVID issues, was very contrarian, more of a populist. I guess you
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  would call Joe Rogan. He's quote tweeted the tweet from MSNBC saying, quote
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  being Healthy is quote unquote far right, holy fuck, retweeted tens of millions,
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  got seen by tens of millions of viewers on Twitter. I don't know
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  what the totals were at the end, but an extraordinary number of people saw
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  this tweet from Joe Rogan. But this is where we are now, So
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  you make it, by all accounts, an excellent movie that condemns child sex
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  trafficking, and that's bad. And now the left is even attacking somehow right
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  wingers for being obsessed with physical fitness. This is just again, if it
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  wasn't so sad, it would be in fact, is in many ways hilarious.
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  But this other issue of what the hell the right stands for, what
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  the hell the left stands for, is really something I've been thinking a lot
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  about. I mean, we really are, with Trump being the favorite to
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  be the twenty twenty four Republican nominee, and probably more and more so the
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  favorite every single day, we're really leaving the gravitational pull the rational earth.
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  We're really almost to the point now where the old metrics, the old prism
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  through which we saw politics is not just gone and being forgotten, it it's
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  gone for I don't even know that there is such a thing as conservatism anymore.
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  I really don't know what the hell the definition of that is in the
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  post Trump era. And that's one of the many, many corrosive impacts of
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  having Donald Trump take over the Republican Party, because he's in no way,
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  shape or form a conservative. He never has man. He's been a lifelong
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  liberal. I believe he's far more liberal than even some of them of his
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  Republican critics give him credit for. I maintain, although I do not believe
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  this is the case, because I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I maintain that
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  it would be very very very very difficult to come up with more than four
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  or five things that Donald Trump has ever done in the last seven or eight
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  years that he wouldn't be doing if he was a Democratic Party plant. I
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  mean, other than maybe standing by Brett Kavanaugh, and maybe the tax cuts,
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  and maybe a couple of other things other than and that, it would
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  be really hard to make the argument that if Trump was a Democratic Party plant,
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  he would be doing things differently than what he actually did. Again,
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  I'm not saying that he is, because I don't believe in the world working
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  that way. But that's how liberal and how beneficial to Democrats, Donald Trump
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  has been in so very many ways. And I have been saying for many
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  months that the biggest problem with what has happened with this change in dynamic in
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  the Republican presidential nominating process that started to occur really after that first indictment in
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  New York of Donald Trump and this entire very corrosive, corrupt, and I
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  believe totally horsecraft narrative that was promoted by Tucker Carlson and Glenn Beck and others
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  that somehow Trump must be the nominee otherwise Democrats and liberals will feel as if
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  they can get away with this, and we will have lost the country,
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  will have lost the Republic. That that narrative was going to give Trump a
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  massive boost in the polls, and that that was incredibly dangerous, if not
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  decisive, and take I took an enormous amount of criticism for jumping the gun
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  and panicking and believing that this thing was over almost a year before there's actually
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  any voting, and I have steadfastly pushed back against that, saying, you're
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  not understanding, you're not understanding the unique dynamic of this case. Not only
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  do we have a former president where you know, obviously he has a cult,
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  and he has one hundred percent name recognition. He has a track regative
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  of being president. Almost every Republican voter has voted for him at least once
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  or twice in the last several years for president. So this is not a
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  situation where his support is suddenly going to evaporate. And he's a guy who
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  now has been impeached twice as president and indicted twice as a former president.
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  I mean, there's there's no scandal that he doesn't have immunity towards or heck,
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  there's no scandal seemingly that doesn't in some ways, shape or form help
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  him. And I've been saying the biggest danger here is that the dynamic would
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  change, the leverage would change, and that, among other things, when
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  he got ahead, when he broke containment, Trump would not do the debates,
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  or that at the very least, if he did the debates, they
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  would be done in such a way to be to his advantage that he would
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  have so much leverage to be able to threaten that he wouldn't come, that
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  they would do. Those running the debates would do everything and anything to placate
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  him, and he would be able to effectively dictate who else was in the
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  debate. He could pick and choose basically and directly, you know who got
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  in and who didn't. There'd be no chance, especially early on, of
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  Manoamano Trump versus the Santist debate, which is something that Trump obviously, if
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  he's being rational, would greatly fear on numerous levels. But the who the
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  moderators were would be dictated by Trump, but what the subject matter matters would
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  be would be dictated by Trump. That at the very least, when you
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  give Trump that kind of lead in the polls and that kind of leverage,
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  he is going to be able to use it to his advantage. He's a
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  master at this. This is his whole life has been about using leverage,
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  and he understands this game is this is his baileywig, this is his wheelhouse.
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  And so at the very least, I have said the debates are going
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  to be a farce. They're going to be the Trump's advantage. And I
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  don't believe he'd do all the debates. He might not do any of the
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  debates. Well. Trump, as we said in episode seventy one and his
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  Tit for tat with my friend Steve Cortez, who now works for Never Back
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  Down, the the De Santist Political Action Committee, after having worked for Trump
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  for many years. Trump, you know, basically said well, maybe I
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  should do the debates since Steve thinks I'm such a great debater, but I'm
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  so far ahead, maybe I shouldn't. Well, there have been further indications,
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  including Jason Miller top Trump Aid, going on television on News Nation and
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  basically saying, Nah, it's very unlikey unlikely he's going to do the debates,
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  and certainly not the first couple debates. And this is not a shock.
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  It shouldn't be a shock to anyone who's been listening to this podcast,
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  that's for damn sure. But it certainly now seems as if and we're starting
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  to get fairly close. We're, you know, just a little over a
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  month away from what is supposed to be the first presidential debate, and there's
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  already been the announcement of a presidential forum sponsored by The Blaze, hosted by
• 14:48
  Tucker Carlson that Trump is not scheduled to attend. So I wouldn't call that
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  a debate, but it's a presidential forum. And so we're getting all sorts
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  of indications as we get now close very close to the when these decisions are
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  made regarding these debates, that Trump is not going to do them, at
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  least not at first. And I maintain that unless there are is massive amounts
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  of damage to him in the political polling after these debates, he's not going
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  to do them. And in fact, he would be dumb to do them
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  when you're ahead by as much as Trump is ahead. And yes, I
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  know the national polls supposedly don't matter. Actually I think they in this case
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  they matter enormously because they provide Trump with perception of being the alpha male.
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  They provide him with leverage, and leverage begets momentum because Trump knows knows how
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  to use it. It stunts any ability to come after him and to make
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  up ground. And by the way, it's not just the national polls.
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  The state polls are mirroring or mirroring what's happening nationally in many ways, including
• 15:58
  in Florida. There was a poll out earlier this week from Florida Atlantic University,
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  a very small sample, I get it, but Trump in that poll
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  is leading Florida over to Santis by twenty points. Florida, you cannot argue
• 16:15
  that the people of Florida just aren't that familiar with their governor, Rhoda Santis.
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  At there especially was transpired during COVID and the most productive from a quote
• 16:29
  unquote conservative perspective legislative session maybe in the modern history of America maybe ever.
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  Who knows just happened in Florida. And this is a guy who has had
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  enormously positive poll rankings and ratings in Florida, who obviously won reelection much less
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  than a year ago, though it seems longer than that last November by twenty
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  points over a former governor. I mean, this is his state, This
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  is this is where not only the Santis has to win, but he should
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  be winning handily if he was going to be the nominee. And this poll,
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  again small sample, has the sand is losing the Trump by twenty points.
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  I mean, for all intents and purposes. Well, I'm not officially
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  calling this thing yet, although I'm getting very very close to doing so,
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  not that I matter, but for the purposes of this podcast, it would
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  change, and if it does happen, will change the way I handle content
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  moving forward. If and when I do officially quote unquote call the race.
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  And for those of you who think that's insane, we're in July. How
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  can you possibly do it? No, we are so far into this process,
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  and the fact that the polls have moved. It's not just that Trump's
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  ahead by a lot, It's that he has moved based on largely these indictments
• 17:48
  and a few other things that have happened. And I don't think that the
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  Supreme Court quote unquote victories are going to hurt Trump at all. In fact,
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  I'm sure they are helping him because they create this perception that he's a
• 18:00
  winner, and then we forget about all the times he's lost, including last
• 18:03
  November in the twenty twenty two mid term elections. But this thing is very,
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  very close to being over. I don't care how bad the poll is.
• 18:12
  If ron de Santist was going to be able to pull this off,
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  he would not be down by twenty points against Donald Trump in any poll,
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  no matter how small the sample, especially not at this point, especially not
• 18:25
  after he announced. And that announcement from a statistical standpoint, has been among
• 18:33
  the worst in history, because De Santists made up no ground and now has
• 18:40
  seemingly lost ground. So I mean, I mean Obviously, you can do
• 18:45
  the polling and the stats any way you want it, but there's no question
• 18:49
  that De Santis has picked up nothing since the announcement, and you can make
• 18:52
  an argument that he's actually dropped in relation to to Trump in the polling in
• 18:59
  many, many ways. And you know, whether it was because of the
• 19:03
  Twitter screw up, or the philosophy, or the strategy, or the narrative,
• 19:07
  or maybe a combination of all that, who the hell knows. But
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  that's the reality of this. And we are very very close to this thing
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  being over. And I know the SANDUS people hate when I say that,
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  but that's the reality. Because if you're not going to do the debates,
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  if Trump is able to get away with not doing the debates, what's the
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  scenario where anything changes from here? What is it? Someone? Please tell
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  me, I don't see it. I mean, and we're dealing with someone
• 19:41
  that with whom a black Swan event would probably have no impact. In a
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  theoretical world, if Trump wasn't the guy who was ahead, there could always
• 19:52
  be some sort of scandal or some sort of gaff or screw up or some
• 19:56
  major event that would change the entire dynamic. But with Trump, we already
• 20:03
  have seven years of data and experience to know that not only is that not
• 20:08
  true, usually it ends up in the opposite direction that no matter what happens
• 20:15
  with Trump seemingly bad, it always turns out at least okay for him,
• 20:19
  and oftentimes he benefits from it for a whole variety of incredibly infuriating reasons.
• 20:27
  So I'm going to hold off on making a final conclusion about this whole situation
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  because we don't know for sure that Trump isn't going to do the debates.
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  We don't know for sure that if he doesn't do the debates that he's not
• 20:41
  going to suffer for that. But I am pretty darn confident that Trump can
• 20:47
  get away with not doing the debates. The conservative media will only tepidly try
• 20:52
  to push back on this, even though it's very much in their self interest
• 20:56
  for there to be the debates. It's going to be a remarkable thing to
• 20:59
  see where the conservative media, which will suffer greatly by losing the content in
• 21:04
  the ratings that would be associated with a whole series of debates during the fall
• 21:10
  and early winter into next year, is going to be okay with Donald Trump
• 21:15
  sabotaging that for them, and you know, the debates will go on,
• 21:19
  at least at first. But I don't see how in the world this helps
• 21:26
  the cause of the Santis catching up to Trump. In fact, I think
• 21:30
  it may hurt it because it will diminish Rhnda Santis. I mean, he'll
• 21:36
  have to participate. It will allow those that are vying for I guess second
• 21:41
  place to go after de Santists. De Santists won't be able to go after
• 21:47
  Trump because he's not there. Yeah, in an ideal world, he'll be
• 21:51
  able to tell more people about who he is, but the audiences will be
• 21:56
  greatly diminished because there's no Trump. It'll diminish everybody that's involved in it because
• 22:03
  you won't have Trump. And it will further establish him as the ultimate Alpha
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  because he's such an alpha that he doesn't even have to show up for the
• 22:11
  debates. And with Biden not debating RFK Junior and the polling data being somewhat
• 22:17
  similar between Biden and RFK and Trump and DeSantis, Trump basically has a sign
• 22:26
  sealed and delivered art quote unquote argument to devoid the debates, at least in
• 22:32
  the minds of the conservative media that's terrified of attacking him because they don't want
• 22:36
  to piss off their core customers, the Trump base, and so to me,
• 22:41
  this has always been very, very obvious. I've taken a lot of
• 22:44
  heat, a lot of criticism, which I'm used to for being one of
• 22:49
  the very few people to sound the alarms on this, but I think I'm
• 22:52
  being vindicated, unfortunately at one hundred percent, as it now continued to look
• 22:57
  like Trump is not going to do at least the early debates, and if
• 23:00
  he gets away with that, he's not going to do any of the debates.
• 23:03
  Of course, then when it comes to debating Biden, it's going to
• 23:07
  be hilarious to see, you know that the Trump people all at it thither
• 23:11
  when Biden ducks debating Trump, because that's probably where we're headed in the general
• 23:18
  election. But we'll see even when we get there. Another Trump news related
• 23:22
  item, which will get me into the next subject. I have been one
• 23:26
  of the very few people that has mentioned from the conservative perspective that Donald Trump
• 23:33
  has a massive and what should be incredibly significant conflict of interest that's going on
• 23:38
  currently, and that is that he is being paid personally and directly effectively by
• 23:45
  the Saudi Arabian government for the use of his golf golf courses in live golf
• 23:52
  tournaments. Live the Golf Series that is funded by effectively the Saudi Royal family
• 23:59
  has has contracted with Donald Trump to host three of their events during this season
• 24:07
  at Donald Trump golf courses. That means he gets paid an undisclosed amount of
• 24:11
  what is probably in the millions of dollars has to be And now it was
• 24:15
  just announced then another event is being added. The championship for the Live Golf
• 24:22
  Series is going to be moved to Trump Draw in Florida in Miami, and
• 24:27
  so this is yet another event. So I believe it's gonna be four events
• 24:32
  now during this calendar year where Trump is running to be the Republican presidential nominee,
• 24:37
  where his golf courses are being rented out by the Saudi Arabian royal family
• 24:45
  to the tune of millions of dollars in undisclosed money. That is the definition
• 24:51
  of a conflict of interest. And yet you know, the right wing media
• 24:56
  crickets, no one even talks about this. And I'm not going to talk
• 25:00
  about it because now suddenly it's no longer verboten to be supporting live golf and
• 25:10
  the saud Arabian royal family despite their many human rights offenses because of this perceived
• 25:17
  merger between Live and the PGA Tour, all of a sudden, now that
• 25:22
  moral authority position has been lost, because the PGA Tour has basically said,
• 25:27
  uncle, yeah, we're gonna try to merge with Live, and remember all
• 25:33
  those horrible things we said about Saudi Arabia. Forget about that we didn't really
• 25:37
  mean it at the time, because now we realize we're in deep, deep,
• 25:41
  deep, deep financial trouble and we need to be allied with these people
• 25:48
  in order to survive. But the Trump conflict of interest to me is very
• 25:52
  significant, and it is really a dereliction of duty by the conservative media to
• 25:57
  just pretend that this is happening. Because this matters. Let's pretend that Trump
• 26:03
  becomes president again. How the hell, How the hell does Donald Trump deal
• 26:08
  in a responsible and fair manner with a country that has been paying him personally
• 26:15
  millions of dollars. And of course this is particularly ironic given the fact that
• 26:19
  that Trump supporters have understandably been raising Caine and screaming bloody murder about the allegations
• 26:27
  of bribery to the Biden family. The Hunter and Joe Biden from sources related
• 26:36
  to China. So that's horrible, and I totally agree that if true and
• 26:41
  should be completely investigated. There ought to be some accountability for that. But
• 26:45
  how the hell can you be so up in arms about that and not even
• 26:51
  mentioned the fact that Donald Trump is currently doing so in a way that is
• 26:56
  clandestine and as an ongoing process where there is a massive conflict of interest with
• 27:04
  another country with which the United States obviously does incredibly important business, a country
• 27:11
  that in large part dictates the price of a gallon of gasoline in the United
• 27:17
  States of America. So I'm not going to let go of this issue,
• 27:19
  even though I'm the only conservative in America that mentions it. But this PGA
• 27:25
  Tour Live story, this saga has taken a major major development in just the
• 27:33
  last couple of days, and to review for those that may not have followed
• 27:40
  this, obviously, the Live Golf series has poached a lot of the PGA
• 27:45
  tours most well known players because they have unlimited funding to do so. There
• 27:52
  at first was going to be no connection between the PGA Tour and Live and
• 27:56
  then a little over a month ago there's there was this dramatic announcement on CNBC
• 28:03
  that there would be some semblance of a merger between Live and the PGA Tour,
• 28:07
  that the lawsuits between the two forces had been dropped. And if you
• 28:12
  remember, my initial take on this was that the media narrative and the reaction
• 28:21
  that most people had had to that stunning announcement on CNBC was wrong. I
• 28:27
  was saying, Look, it certainly seems to me as if the PGA Tour
• 28:33
  effectively won this because the lawsuits are gone, and the structure that was being
• 28:41
  used to potentially come to an official merger was very much in the PGA Tour's
• 28:48
  favor that they would have control over this, and that if you looked at
• 28:51
  who was in the negotiations and who wasn't, Greg Norman, the head of
• 28:56
  the Live Golf Tour, was not he was completely iced out, and that
• 29:00
  Jimmy Dunn, the best buddy of Rory McElroy and a huge proponent of the
• 29:04
  PGA Tour and a guy who would even banned Lived players from his very prestigious
• 29:10
  pro am at Seminal Golf Course in Florida, was not going to be negotiating
• 29:15
  something that was bad for the PGA Tour, and was that somehow surrendering in
• 29:22
  totality to live golf, And well, there was a lot of panic because
• 29:26
  the optics on this thing were so bad. My initial take was, we're
• 29:32
  not getting the right story here. The media is blowing this as they almost
• 29:34
  always do. The golf media is particularly incompetent, and so I was actually
• 29:42
  somewhat optimistic. I said, I think there's a good chance the PGA Tour
• 29:47
  wins this thing, assuming they hang tough in the secondary negotiations. And as
• 29:52
  a guy who's a lifelong golfer, competitive amateur, worked very briefly many many
• 29:57
  years ago for the PGA Tour and I fired from PGA Tour production. So
• 30:02
  I have no love for the PGA Tour. They fired me first real firing
• 30:04
  of my life, and I can't stand the way they handled COVID, and
• 30:07
  I have other issues with the PGA Tour, But I am a traditionalist.
• 30:11
  I love the game of golf, and I love the sport of golf,
• 30:14
  and I hate the fragmentation and I hate live. I hate what lives stands
• 30:18
  for, and I don't want to live to survive, and I don't know
• 30:23
  how golf can survive as anything close to what we have known it to be
• 30:29
  if Saudi Arabia continues to go down this path with unlimited funding to destroy in
• 30:33
  a kama Kazi mission the PGA Tour. So my initial take was original media
• 30:41
  narrative is wrong and there's actually reason for optimism. Well, this week we've
• 30:48
  learned a lot and I have been vindicated on the first part of this.
• 30:53
  I have been totally vindicated that the original media narrative was in fact very wrong.
• 30:57
  Indeed, incentive hearings yesterday as of this taping, Jimmy Dunn, the
• 31:04
  guy who really facilitated this quote unquote deal or merger, he said point blank
• 31:14
  that everyone botched, including the PGA Tour, the original messaging on this thing,
• 31:19
  that essentially there was no deal, that they have a deal to make
• 31:23
  a deal, that all that really happened was that the only thing that really
• 31:27
  matters is that the lawsuits were dropped, which was something that's very very much
• 31:32
  in favor of the PGA Tour because they were much more vulnerable to the legal
• 31:37
  fees than the Saudi royal family would be, and they had won a couple
• 31:41
  of court battles, they had leverage, and so they got lived to cry
• 31:48
  Uncle lawn. But there really wasn't much else done. It was just a
• 31:52
  very vague framework agreement that, to my vindication, is very very much in
• 32:00
  favor of the PGA Tour. The PJA Tour indeed would be in full control
• 32:06
  financially as well as from a voting standpoint as to the details of the merger.
• 32:13
  However, well, I had been vindicated on the botching of the media
• 32:16
  narrative, and really the way this thing was pushed out was incredibly weird,
• 32:24
  and we were now learning was changed at the very last minute, and that
• 32:30
  they were expecting a softball interview from CNBC, And they originally had had thought
• 32:37
  that they were going to roll this out completely differently, and I guess because
• 32:42
  of concerns of the story leaking out, they decided to do it with no
• 32:47
  real planning and certainly no preparation. There were no stories that leaked out about
• 32:53
  this. Well, it created a completely false impression and a false narrative that
• 33:00
  somehow Live had purchased the PGA Tour, and nothing close to that happened.
• 33:07
  So while I'm vindicated on that part, I no longer share optimism now I
• 33:13
  realize I'm very well known as an inherent pessimist, and unfortunately, usually when
• 33:17
  I'm pessimistic, I'm right, and when I'm optimistic, I'm wrong, and
• 33:22
  I'm already feeling pangs of Oh my god, here we go again. I
• 33:29
  show a little bit of optimism, and I'm going to be wrong because my
• 33:34
  optimism, which was a very small minority of people who are in favor of
• 33:39
  the PGA Tour when this whole thing was announced, I believe has not been
• 33:45
  vindicated. Not because of what was intended in the original deal. I think
• 33:52
  the original deal, as those who were negotiating it thought they were going to
• 33:58
  get to, would have been very much in the PGA Tour's favor. My
• 34:02
  now pessimistic view is because of what has happened in the last twenty four hours,
• 34:07
  both with regard to the Senate hearings as well as the revelations that have
• 34:15
  been associated with that Senate hearing, and to me, unless I'm really missing
• 34:22
  something, I think the last twenty four hours have been catastrophic to the future
• 34:29
  of the PGA Tour. And the reason I believe this is I do not
• 34:35
  see how a final deal possibly gets made here. There's only one scenario which
• 34:40
  I will outline as a possibility, but without boring people who are not into
• 34:47
  this story. And if you are into this story, this is fascinating stuff.
• 34:52
  Among the revelations related to the Senate hearings. Instead, I watched most
• 34:58
  of the Senate hearings, and it's you know what's scary about these Senate hearings
• 35:02
  is when you see a congressional hearing where you have a great deal of knowledge
• 35:08
  on the subject matter, it is scary. It is scary to see how
• 35:15
  clueless many of these congress people, in this case, senators really are,
• 35:19
  because then you think, oh my god, what about subjects where you don't
• 35:22
  have anywhere near the knowledge that you do, for instance in this case,
• 35:25
  and you think, my god, they're probably clueless about that as well.
• 35:30
  But that's an aside. I actually thought that the PGA Tour presentatives did a
• 35:35
  really good job in the hearing. I'm not criticizing the PGA Tour guys,
• 35:38
  including Jimmy Dun. I thought Jimmy Dunn actually did a spectacular job on the
• 35:44
  whole nine to eleven issue. He almost broke down in the tiers. I've
• 35:46
  told you before, here's a guy who lost dozens of friends in the Twin
• 35:52
  Tower collapse on nine to eleven. His street credit on nine to eleven is
• 35:58
  about as good as anybody. And I thought he was great. I thought
• 36:01
  he was great on almost every subject matter. I have a great deal of
• 36:06
  trust in Jimmy Dunn being part of this. But here's the problem. Here's
• 36:10
  the problem. I do not understand how this was allowed to happen. And
• 36:16
  there was some concern by Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, who is very much
• 36:23
  in favor of the PGA tour, that this was going to cause a problem,
• 36:25
  but I think he understold it, at least publicly. We now know
• 36:32
  what the nature of the negotiations have been here and the demands from the Saudy
• 36:40
  side from the Libs side, which is run by a guy the name of
• 36:45
  Yasser. Yasser is the one who runs this so called PIFF Fund, which
• 36:50
  is where all the Saudi money is that they use for what is basically called
• 36:54
  sports washing. And it's almost an unlimited fund of money, not totally,
• 37:00
  but almost an unlimited fund of money to be able to buy sports and that's
• 37:06
  what they've been doing with Live. They have no intention of making a profit
• 37:08
  with Live. They're losing money hand over fist, but they can afford to
• 37:13
  do it because they're Saudi Arabian. They're literally sitting on money. Well,
• 37:17
  the demands that are now public have made it very clear to me there's no
• 37:24
  chance of a deal ever having been done here, and the fact that the
• 37:30
  deal parameters have been revealed publicly makes it even less likely that there's going to
• 37:37
  be a deal. See, I was always a little concerned. Okay,
• 37:43
  so the pg Tour agrees to this framework to make a deal with Live but
• 37:49
  in doing so, they lose a lot of their leverage because they've now lost
• 37:52
  the moral argument. They're now putting themselves up to very legitimate charges of acrecy,
• 38:00
  so much so that Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PJA Tour,
• 38:02
  has taken a leave of absence because of an unspecified medical condition related to the
• 38:07
  stress of all this, which is clearly a very bad sign. I mean,
• 38:13
  if Jay Monahan's is under so much stress because of this that he can't
• 38:19
  even perform his duties as commissioner, although he's now coming back, that is
• 38:22
  a massive red flag. But I've always thought, we'll wait a minute,
• 38:28
  how does the PGA Tour negotiate the details of this when they have now abandoned
• 38:35
  the moral argument, meaning Live can bail from the negotiations and while they will
• 38:43
  have lost the ability to sue, which is significant, they can just go
• 38:46
  right back to what they were doing. And now the PGA tour is in
• 38:50
  a weekend position to fight this war, if only because they've completely lost what
• 38:58
  they claimed, I think stupidly and erroneously to be their number one argument.
• 39:04
  They've lost the moral high ground. They can no longer say, well,
• 39:07
  you can't do business with these Lived people because they're they're, you know,
• 39:10
  affront for the Saudi Arabian government. Well you were trying to do business with
• 39:15
  them, you just didn't get it done. Now, I've always felt that
• 39:19
  the PGA tour is argument ought to be, Hey, we're just a charity.
• 39:23
  Look at all the money we have raised, the hundreds of millions of
• 39:27
  dollars we have raised over the years for charity. We're a nonprofit. We
• 39:30
  can't compete in this financial arms race. But for some reason that wasn't their
• 39:37
  argument. They decided to go with this this nine to eleven related moral argument,
• 39:43
  and that's gone now, so it is far easier for Live to bail
• 39:50
  from the negotiating table, then it will be for the PGA tour to do
• 39:53
  so. But even worse than that is now it has been leaked through this
• 40:00
  Senate hearing what the Saudis we're asking for and what the Saudies we're asking for
• 40:07
  is just not tenable. And look, I realized that oftentimes you put forward
• 40:15
  in the first part of a negotiation some sort of fanciful, you know,
• 40:22
  list of demands that you know aren't going to be met, but you're not
• 40:25
  expecting that to be public. I've said in the previously about this. The
• 40:30
  Saudis are all about face and respect, and there's a lot in this negotiation
• 40:37
  that has vindicated me on that because, by the way, one of the
• 40:39
  major demands is that Yasser gets a membership at Augusta National Golf Club and at
• 40:46
  the Royal and Ancient Club in Saint Andrews, which there. Now that it's
• 40:52
  public, there's no chance in the hell Augusta National is ever gonna let Yasser
• 40:59
  in because that goes against everything Augusta National stands for. They will never let
• 41:06
  you in if you first of all, if you even request being a member,
• 41:10
  you have to be invited but to be made a member at the point
• 41:15
  of a bayonet as part of a demand in a negotiation that doesn't even directly
• 41:21
  relate to him. There is no chance, none, that Augusta National does
• 41:28
  that, And now Yasser loses what clearly was a very telling motivation on his
• 41:35
  part. This is all about him, you know, getting respect and being
• 41:39
  part of golf's elite and being treated as such, and getting the perks as
• 41:44
  such that being a member at Augusta National Golf Club, the most prestigious club
• 41:49
  in America, obviously the host of the Master's golf tournament every April. So
• 41:53
  now that that's public, Yasser is going to not get what he wants and
• 41:58
  he's going to be public humiliated, and it's gonna be known. Let's pretend
• 42:05
  that they actually do get close to a deal. It's gonna be easily compared
• 42:09
  to what the Saudi's list of the man's were, and if it's not what
• 42:15
  they were demanding, they're gonna lose face. It's gonna be clear they lost.
• 42:20
  They're not gonna go for that, and there's no way the PGA Tour
• 42:24
  can give them what they wanted. I mean, it's not just the membership
• 42:29
  of Augusta National over which the PGA Tour has basically no control at all.
• 42:35
  So that's number one. But there are things in there, like giving Tiger
• 42:40
  Woods and Rory McElroy their own lived teams and having Tiger be required to play
• 42:45
  at least ten events a year. Are you fucking kidding me? Tiger can't
• 42:51
  even play a couple events a year. I mean, he's currently out with
• 42:53
  an injury, but because of his inability to walk, he can't play anymore.
• 42:59
  There's no way you're gonna play ten living. It's just absurd not to
• 43:02
  mention Rory McElroy's on records saying he hates live even after the alleged merger.
• 43:09
  So this thing is, there's just no way to thread this needle that I
• 43:15
  see other than one possibility. The one possibility I see because it's clear and
• 43:22
  it's understandable that the saudis covet Tiger Woods. And it's understandable. I mean,
• 43:30
  you know, obviously the biggest name in the modern history of the sport,
• 43:32
  the biggest star. I mean, his career is basically over as a
• 43:36
  player, but he still has enormous cache worldwide, and and you know,
• 43:42
  if Tiger gives his blessing to something. If you're in business with Tiger,
• 43:45
  that would give the Saudies what they want as far as saving face, that's
• 43:51
  what That would give Yasser what he wants. And and I do see one
• 43:55
  path. And if I was somehow involved in these negotiations, you know,
• 44:00
  the first thing I would do is I would go to Tiger and I would
• 44:04
  take his temperature, because Tiger is the only person that can save this now.
• 44:08
  He's he is what the Saudis want. They want a piece of Tiger,
• 44:15
  and I do see a possibility here. Tiger and Rory McElroy have already
• 44:20
  announced that next year they're basically providing this replacement for Monday night football. After
• 44:27
  football season is over, they're gonna be doing these indoor and that's important.
• 44:32
  These indoor nighttime teams, simulated golf events made for television, and it's owned
• 44:40
  essentially by Tiger Woods and Rory McElroy. Well, Tiger can do those because
• 44:45
  there's no walking, it's it's simulated golf, it's TV golf. It's bullshit,
• 44:51
  but you know it could make for potentially interesting viewing. Now, the
• 44:53
  current plan for that is there to be teams involved well to me, what
• 45:00
  if what if Tiger agreed to merge live into his television team events. You
• 45:08
  take the Core Live guys, you're Phil Nicholson's your Brooks cap because your Cameron
• 45:14
  Smith's, your Patrick Reid's. Right now, if they all agree to do
• 45:21
  these Monday night TV simulated golf events, I think you're cooking with oil.
• 45:25
  Now. I think you've got a product, especially if you get PGA Tour
• 45:30
  versus live matches, where you're gonna you're gonna get an audience for that,
• 45:36
  and that could theoretically be a win win for everybody, and that gets live
• 45:40
  and the saudis in the Tiger Woods business. And I could see Tiger going
• 45:45
  for it, because he has already said that as long as the lawsuits are
• 45:50
  out and Greg Norman is out, and it's clear Greg Norman's going to be
• 45:52
  out regardless of what happens here, at least if there's any semblance of a
• 45:57
  final deal that he's opening to goiations. So that is the only path I
• 46:02
  see where you could maybe thread this needle. But if Tiger is unwilling to
• 46:08
  bend over backwards to try to help make this happen, I am very pessimistic
• 46:15
  I do not think there's going to be a deal. If there would be
• 46:20
  a deal, it would be catastrophic for the essence of golf. The PGA
• 46:25
  Tour will be forced to give up too much, and if they don't make
• 46:29
  a deal, live will eventually destroy the PGA Tour. And I think that
• 46:34
  their willingness to destroy the PGA Tour might even be greater if, in fact
• 46:37
  the negotiations break down, because they will have lost so much face in this
• 46:42
  whole process they may just say, fuck you, all right, we got
• 46:46
  a couple of billion dollars here we're going to use to destroy you, and
• 46:52
  they will be able to do that. And so while my initial reaction I
• 46:57
  think has been one hundred percent vindicated as far as the narrative, my initial
• 47:02
  tepid optimism I think has not been vindicated. I am now exceedingly pessimistic about
• 47:09
  how this is all going to go down unless Tiger Wood saves the day.
• 47:15
  So we'll see what happens with that. The sports media business is in absolute
• 47:21
  disarray in so many ways. We've talked recently about the massive layoffs at ESPN.
• 47:27
  Well, we now have the New York Times, the storied New York
• 47:30
  Times, which used to have a legendary sports department, now announcing that effectively
• 47:36
  they're canceling their sports department. They are taking the people that we're working there
• 47:42
  and they're putting them in other areas. And this is all largely because they
• 47:46
  purchased this woke boomdoggle called The Athletic that has also had massive layoffs. So
• 47:53
  there's a lot going on here. There's the broken business model, and there
• 47:57
  is the wokeness of sports, which I think is further hurt the sports media
• 48:02
  business because the core audience member is not woke when it comes to sports.
• 48:08
  But the sports media, and I've said this throughout my entire career, is
• 48:13
  actually more liberal than the news media generally is. And that's certainly the case
• 48:19
  of the New York Times, it's really the case of the Athletic. And
• 48:22
  it's not just the New York Times that now is essentially not going to have
• 48:25
  their own sports department. The LA Times is cutting back in the sports department
• 48:31
  so much to almost be ridiculous. They're not even going to really rapport on
• 48:37
  games anymore. When it comes to the Los Angeles Times, So here you
• 48:39
  have, you know, the biggest newspaper on the East coast, the biggest
• 48:43
  newspaper on the West coast, and the sports news is just going out the
• 48:47
  window. It just isn't going to exist anymore. And there are a lot
• 48:52
  of reasons for this, and I think it's it's very significant not just for
• 48:57
  sports fans, but I think it also has a lot about the death journalism
• 49:00
  in general. And it's also very ironic that is happening during a week where
• 49:06
  the biggest story of the week of not the month of not longer in sports
• 49:09
  was allegedly broken not by the professional sports media, which is horrendous, by
• 49:15
  the way, I should mention with regard to PGA Tour Live. Among all
• 49:20
  these revelations, it was very very obvious that the golf media, of which
• 49:24
  I've been very very very critical because I know these people and they're all lazy
• 49:29
  morons with massive conflicts of interest. The golf media is completely incompetent for not
• 49:35
  having a clue that this PGA Tour Live merger was in the works. It
• 49:39
  was obvious, the breadcrumbs were everywhere, and no one picked up on it
• 49:44
  because they're completely incompetent. Well, professional sports media is in general very incompetent.
• 49:52
  And the big story that I'm referring to was allegedly broken not by the
• 49:54
  professional sports media, but by a student newspaper at Northwestern University in Chicago,
• 50:02
  just outside of Chicago, where they broke a story involving hazing at the football
• 50:09
  program at Northwestern. Now, most people don't really care about the football program
• 50:15
  at Northwestern. They're probably most well known, at least over the last several
• 50:20
  generations of being a terrible football team. They've always been at the bottom of
• 50:23
  the Big Ten conference except for two short eras of time, and both of
• 50:31
  those eras had at the center of them there now former head football coach Pat
• 50:38
  Fitzgerald. Pat Fitzgerald was a linebacker and All American, a captain of one
• 50:45
  of the great cinderella stories in the history of college football in nineteen ninety five
• 50:49
  Northwestern Wildcats who somehow won the Big Ten and went to the Rose Bowl back
• 50:53
  when the Rose Bowl actually mattered, and it was, in my view,
• 50:59
  the greatest Cinderella's story in the modern history of college football. It was everything
• 51:04
  that made college football great and it was legendary. And after his playing days
• 51:12
  were over, Fitzgerald became the head football coach at Northwestern, and he's had
• 51:15
  at least one period of time where they were almost as good, not quite
• 51:19
  as that nineteen ninety five team. Well, recently they've had very down years.
• 51:24
  In fact, last year they only won one game, which is I
• 51:28
  think part of what ended up happening here, because obviously when you're not winning,
• 51:31
  you don't have nearly the kind of leverage. Although from a contract standpoint,
• 51:36
  Pat Fitzgerald was someone who was loved at Northwestern one because of his history
• 51:40
  with the school, and two because he was always seen as having done things
• 51:44
  correctly and it was a guy of character. And you know that's what Northwestern
• 51:50
  theoretically wants, right They know they can't be Ohio State or Michigan or Penn
• 51:53
  State, but they want to be Northwestern. And as long as they're not
• 51:58
  breaking any rules, do anything wrong, you know they can deal with a
• 52:00
  one one win season from time to get time. Well, this story broke
• 52:05
  out and there was an investigation by an independent authority into this issue of hazing
• 52:14
  at Northwestern football. Now, I hate hazing. Hazing is stupid. It's
• 52:19
  really just dumb. I mean, for those who don't know what hazing is,
• 52:22
  it's basically, you know, you play tricks on the freshman usually and
• 52:27
  you force them to endure something in order to build team morale. Now,
• 52:32
  I think there is an argument that team morale can be built in this way.
• 52:37
  But obviously, you know, when it comes to hazing, it's very
• 52:40
  easy to get into the realm of being politically incorrect, because you know,
• 52:45
  get into bullying, and bullying has become a buzzword. And in this particular
• 52:50
  case, the allegations were rather weird, and it seems like, of course
• 52:58
  they don't they don't give us the actual details, partially because the people involved
• 53:01
  have not publicly told their story in their own name, which is a huge
• 53:05
  part of the issue here in my view. But basically, it sounds like
• 53:10
  that there was some simulation of gay sex acts. Not real gay sex acts,
• 53:16
  but simulated gay sex acts. Now, of course, you know,
• 53:22
  this is a kind of thing where I hate being seen as defending it,
• 53:25
  especially when I don't even agree with it. But these are the kinds of
• 53:30
  things that can be easily exaggerated that you know, something that was a five
• 53:37
  second joke sounds way worse than it really was in person. I don't know
• 53:43
  for sure what happened here. I do find it rather weird that the people
• 53:47
  that were most outraged by these allegations of hazing involving faux homosexual acts among the
• 53:57
  Northwestern football team were liberals. Liberals were very upset at this, oh my
• 54:02
  god, hazing. It's so awful, and I found it a bit amusing
• 54:07
  and maybe a little telling that, you know, if you think about it,
• 54:10
  in this era of transsanity that we've been enduring, especially during June Pride
• 54:15
  month, the allegations almost sound like they would be a required class for freshmen
• 54:24
  at a super woke school like Northwestern. I mean, what is alleged here.
• 54:30
  If it was done under the guise of a of a pride event at
• 54:34
  Northwestern wouldn't even raise eyebrows. It would probably be applauded. So I found
• 54:38
  that to be rather ironic that liberals were very upset that, in this very
• 54:44
  strange era of transanity, that men on the Northwestern football team would be engaging
• 54:51
  in faux acts of homosexuality. But that's a side note here. The real
• 54:59
  issue from a media perspective is that the initial story breaks and Pat Fitzgerald gets
• 55:06
  suspended for two weeks during the summer which no one really would care about.
• 55:09
  He just would lose whatever money he was going to make during that time,
• 55:13
  and he makes so much money it probably isn't going to impact his life,
• 55:15
  but it was perceived as a slap on the wrist. Now, there's no
• 55:19
  evidence that Fitzgerald knew this was happening. Now, should he have known,
• 55:23
  maybe, but there's no direct evidence that he absolutely should have known. But
• 55:30
  so the president of Northwestern makes this decision, he's going to get a short
• 55:34
  suspension. Then all of a sudden becomes there becomes this media pylon, and
• 55:39
  part of the media pylon is that part of the story is being promoted by
• 55:46
  the student newspaper at Northwestern. And we've seen from the Penn State case,
• 55:52
  if you're a fan of our podcast with the benefit of hindsight, the sports
• 55:57
  media and the mainstream media they love love, Oh my god, that they
• 56:02
  love them. Some of this narrative of students at a university taking on a
• 56:12
  ledge, bad acts from powerful people, especially in football, where you liberals
• 56:17
  don't like football, bad acts by people at their own university. They love
• 56:22
  this narrative. Oh my god, it's almost sexual for these people that they
• 56:29
  are just completely enamored with this concept that, Oh, isn't it awesome that
• 56:34
  these student journalists are having the courage and the tenacity to bring down a scandal
• 56:40
  at their own school against their own self interest, by the way, against
• 56:45
  their own self interesting. Is such bullshit? Do you think that the people
• 56:51
  at the Northwestern student newspaper are going to benefit from this story having exploded and
• 56:57
  resulting ultimately in the firing of Pat Fitzgerald. Of course they are. It's
• 57:02
  gonna be the number one thing in their resume. It's gonna be the clips
• 57:06
  that they used to try to get a job. Now, good luck get
• 57:07
  a good job in this environment. But this is a big enough story that
• 57:10
  they might actually be able to turn this into a job out of college.
• 57:15
  Oh, you were one of those that reported on that Northwestern scandal. The
• 57:19
  details here, though, don't warrant any great praise, because the number one
• 57:24
  element of this story that's a problem is that the one person, that's all
• 57:30
  it is, as far as we can tell, the one person making the
• 57:36
  really strong argument or the allegation that they were abused during hazing. Their identity
• 57:44
  is not known now they're an adult, inherently because obviously they've already been on
• 57:51
  the football team at Northwestern. They're an adult, they're not a juvenile.
• 57:55
  Yes, I get that, they're I guess allegedly a victim of what you
• 58:00
  might call sex abuse. But as an adult, they don't get anonymity there
• 58:06
  they least shouldn't be able to get anonymity. Why because in this particular case,
• 58:09
  I would argue in all cases, anonymity is incredibly devastating towards trying to
• 58:17
  figure out what really happened here. Someone's identity is essential to understanding what their
• 58:27
  motivations are, what their history is, what their credibility is, figuring out
• 58:31
  where they were when this happened. All of this is wrapped up in one's
• 58:37
  identity and being able to remain anonymous, which the media has bought into.
• 58:42
  This whole concept, which is such bullshit that because you're an alleged victim,
• 58:46
  you get this protection because people don't want to know. You know, we
• 58:50
  don't want people to know who you are, because you might get retribution,
• 58:52
  you might get attacks, you might be criticized. Oh no, well,
• 58:55
  you're trying to putting someone down, You're trying to destroy someone's life, You're
• 59:00
  trying to destroy an entire football program. I'm sorry, we ought at least
• 59:05
  know what your fucking name is so we can evaluate who you are and whether
• 59:12
  or not you have a bias, whether or not you have a vendetta.
• 59:15
  And by the way, there are multiple people in the Northwestern football program who
• 59:22
  have come forward to the authorities saying that this anonymous person did, in fact
• 59:27
  have a vendetta, an agenda, wanted retribution against Pat Fitzgerald. And so
• 59:36
  once the story hits critical mass and gets out there in the media, and
• 59:39
  the media is falling in love with this narrative of the student newspaper, and
• 59:44
  oh my god, here we go again. It's Penn State all over again.
• 59:47
  I mean, the echoes of Penn State were everywhere on this situation.
• 59:52
  Now, all of a sudden, out of a blue come allegations at Pat
• 59:55
  Fitzgerald, a guy who played football at Northwestern, has been a long time
• 1:00:00
  coach at Northwestern, superwoke school. All of a sudden, he's a racist
• 1:00:07
  because a few players have said that they felt pressure to act white. What
• 1:00:15
  the hell is that? What the hell is acting white? By the way,
• 1:00:17
  that sounds to me like, you know, dressed nice and follow the
• 1:00:21
  rules. That's somehow racist, I guess in this day and age, But
• 1:00:25
  how the hell could Pat Fitzgerald be a racist after three decades in the sport
• 1:00:31
  that's dominated by black people. It's just it's an absurdity on its face.
• 1:00:37
  Yet uh oh, well, you know, blood in the water. He's
• 1:00:42
  got to go down now. And then with the school admitting there was no
• 1:00:45
  new information none, they went from a two week suspension to a total firing,
• 1:00:52
  a complete firing. So this anonymous person who may or may not have
• 1:00:57
  been to some level abused by fake gay sex acts in a hazing situation has
• 1:01:05
  gotten exactly what they wanted with no accountability zero. And by the way,
• 1:01:10
  on the racism thing, there's at least one of the guys who made the
• 1:01:15
  claim of racism who in twenty nineteen went on Twitter and praised fat Pat Fitzgerald
• 1:01:21
  up and down, which sounds an awful out like what we found in the
• 1:01:24
  Penn State case, where people completely change their stories based upon what is good
• 1:01:30
  for them in the moment. And I gotta say, in the bigger picture
• 1:01:34
  here, folks, I've seen this in every walk of life, and we
• 1:01:36
  absolutely saw it in Penn State, and it seems like it happened with Northwestern.
• 1:01:39
  Young people have figured out how to push the right buttons, to manipulate
• 1:01:44
  woke institutions, to provoke the outcomes that they want. And I don't know
• 1:01:49
  how the hell anyone can be a football coach in one of these places.
• 1:01:53
  I think being a football coach under the current circumstances of nil money and instant
• 1:02:00
  transfers and the players having all the power is impossible as it is, But
• 1:02:04
  now you add in the standards of a woke institution, and good luck,
• 1:02:09
  good luck. I have no idea whatsoever how in the world you're supposed to
• 1:02:15
  be a football coach. Pat Vitzgerald was a good guy who did the best
• 1:02:17
  he could at Northwestern, a very difficult place to be a football coach.
• 1:02:22
  And that and Northwestern just killed not just a good coach. That and apparently
• 1:02:28
  many of the football players are very upset about this, but they just killed
• 1:02:31
  the only good part of their entire legacy, all to feed the woke monster,
• 1:02:37
  and all because of some kids at Northwestern who probably didn't know shit about
• 1:02:43
  shit. We saw it in the Penn State case with Sarah Ganim. Although
• 1:02:46
  she technically wasn't a student reporter, she was a former student reporter at Penn
• 1:02:50
  State who was just out of Penn State. She might as well. She
• 1:02:52
  was a glorified student reporter when she was the one that got all the praise
• 1:02:59
  from the news media, especially at the beginning, for quote unquote breaking the
• 1:03:01
  Penn State story. Well, everything she did was wrong. Everything she was
• 1:03:06
  deeply invested in a false narrative. She promoted the false narrative. She was
• 1:03:10
  paramount to that false narrative gaining traction. I believe she was paramount to how
• 1:03:15
  the charges even got filed against Jerry Sandusky. And so, based upon my
• 1:03:21
  Saragantum experience, I have no faith that those students at Northwestern knew what the
• 1:03:27
  hell they were doing either. And the reality is, again the fact that
• 1:03:31
  the primary accusation here is by a person who's anonymous right there should be seen
• 1:03:40
  as ridiculous, completely ridiculous. But this is going to keep happening. I
• 1:03:45
  mean, it just happened to Pat Fitzgerald. It can happen to almost anybody.
• 1:03:50
  I say almost anybody, because there's still a very small group of people
• 1:03:54
  who understand you don't you don't put up with this bullshit. Because simultaneously,
• 1:04:00
  at the University of Georgia. They just had a series of allegations put forward
• 1:04:06
  by a professional newspaper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, alleging that the Georgia football
• 1:04:14
  program looked the other way when it came to abuse against women. And what's
• 1:04:18
  the University of Georgia doing. University of Georgia, two time national champs from
• 1:04:24
  the South, where they take football very very seriously. They're doing exactly what
• 1:04:30
  Penn State should have done, what Northwestern should have done. They're saying,
• 1:04:33
  go pound sand. They just fought back and said that the Atlanta Journal Constitution
• 1:04:40
  ought to do a retraction of the whole damn story because it's false and made
• 1:04:45
  up. Now I don't know what the details are. I'm not privy to
• 1:04:47
  whether or not it's true or not. I have inherent suspicions of these kinds
• 1:04:51
  of stories, not just from my Penn State experience, but from all other
• 1:04:56
  very similar stories. But I particularly have suspicions and when it comes to situations
• 1:05:01
  involving discipline with black players, because I think that the fact that many of
• 1:05:10
  these players are black, not because black players are more likely to get involved
• 1:05:14
  in an abuse allegation, that because there is so much concern about giving black
• 1:05:23
  players, you know, due process and making sure that you don't rush to
• 1:05:29
  judgment against black players because that would be racist. That you can sometimes get
• 1:05:33
  yourself into an impossible situation because if you push too hard and the allegation turns
• 1:05:41
  out not to be true, you're a racist. If you don't push hard
• 1:05:44
  enough, now you're letting a football player get away with a bad act and
• 1:05:50
  you've lost command and control over your over your program. So you're dand if
• 1:05:55
  you do dandy, if you don't. I actually think that's largely what happened
• 1:05:58
  at the University of Baylor barely University in Waco, Texas. I think that
• 1:06:02
  they had a series of black players who were accused of bad acts by women
• 1:06:08
  and they didn't know what to do because the evidence wasn't strong, and they
• 1:06:11
  didn't If they went after the kids too hard, they're racist. If they
• 1:06:15
  don't go after them at all, which is effectively when ended up happening,
• 1:06:18
  they get accused of enabling sex abuse. Well, Georgia is fighting back and
• 1:06:25
  for better for worse. Politically, from a strategic standpoint, that's the only
• 1:06:28
  way you win here is you must fight back. You must say bullshit,
• 1:06:32
  You're wrong worth standing by our coach, And the only reason Georgia can do
• 1:06:36
  that is because they're freaking Georgia and their two time national champs. Now,
• 1:06:42
  from a media perspective, I do find it hilarious and telling that Pat Fitzgerald
• 1:06:46
  has actually gotten more support, far more support than Joe Paterno did, partially
• 1:06:51
  because the allegations are a little bit different, but you know, it's very
• 1:06:58
  telling that people like Dan Wetzel of Yahoo, who was very anti Joe Paterno,
• 1:07:03
  has said to a certain extent, hey, wait a minute, are
• 1:07:05
  we rushing the judgment against Pat Fitzgerald. Clay Travis of out Kick, who
• 1:07:10
  ought to know better because he's a conservative who was terrible in the Joe Paterno
• 1:07:14
  Penn State case. And I've even asked Clay Travis's boss, who is an
• 1:07:18
  old old friend of mine, if can I just have a phone conversation with
• 1:07:23
  Clay Travis because I know I can explain to him what happened in the Penn
• 1:07:27
  State and my old friend his Clay Travis's boss asked Clay to just have a
• 1:07:31
  phone conversation with me, and Clay said no, he wouldn't even do that,
• 1:07:35
  which to me was very telling about who Clay Travis really is. But
• 1:07:39
  Clay Travis has been pushing back somewhat against the rush to judgment against Pat Fitzgerald.
• 1:07:45
  Scott Paterno, my old nemesis from the Penn State case that Jackass was,
• 1:07:49
  of course defending Pat Fitzgerald, Jay Paterno doing the same thing, pushing
• 1:07:54
  it back against the whole rush to judgment. So I don't know whether or
• 1:07:57
  not maybe some people have learned from their past stakes, or whether that this
• 1:08:00
  story just didn't get toxic enough and so therefore it was okay for people to
• 1:08:05
  push back at least a little bit. But the echoes of the Penn State
• 1:08:09
  case were obviously there when it came to Northwestern and Pat Fitzgerald. And I'm
• 1:08:14
  very sad that what's happened. Of course, college football isn't really college football
• 1:08:18
  anymore. So the fact that now the nineteen ninety five Northwestern Wildcat story has
• 1:08:23
  been soiled forever, it's sad, but I guess it's it's in keeping with
• 1:08:27
  everything else that's happening with college sports, which no longer really exists. It's
• 1:08:30
  it's just now minor league sports, that's all. It is now They've killed
• 1:08:32
  it. One of the greatest things that in American cultural and sports institutions is
• 1:08:39
  basically dead now, and this story is representative of that. Now, There's
• 1:08:43
  been a couple of other things I want to get to before our guest,
• 1:08:45
  which clearly is related to the Jerry Zandusky story, at least in my mind.
• 1:08:50
  Larry Nasser, the clear serial abuser and the gymnastics slash Michigan State case,
• 1:09:00
  was stabbed in prison, apparently very badly, although he is currently alive
• 1:09:05
  as of this taping, and apparently this was not the first time he has
• 1:09:09
  been stabbed or attacked in prison. Now, I find this to be incredibly
• 1:09:15
  fascinating and telling because I have been at the forefront of the argument that the
• 1:09:20
  Larry Nasser case actually inadvertently proves that Jerry Sanduski is innocent, and among others,
• 1:09:27
  Malcolm Gladwell effectively agrees with me. In his book Talking to Strangers at
• 1:09:31
  My Urging, Gladwell uses the Larry Nasser case to show the problems, although
• 1:09:36
  they didn't have the guts to do it properly, the many problems with the
• 1:09:41
  Jerry Sanduski case. Larry Nasser was found with pornography. Larry Nasser obstructed justice.
• 1:09:47
  Larry Nasser pled guilty. Larry Nasser had an inherent plausible deniability because he
• 1:09:55
  had created this legitimate medical procedure where he went through the vagina of his victims
• 1:10:01
  to massage their hip. And that's why it took so long for people to
• 1:10:08
  catch on to what he was really doing, that he was using this for
• 1:10:11
  sexual gratification. Jerry Sedoski had nothing remotely similar for sexual gratification. He had
• 1:10:18
  no inherent ability to get his victims naked on a table in front of him
• 1:10:26
  under the guys that he's doing a medical procedure. And this is now another
• 1:10:31
  example of where Larry Nasser is fundamentally different than the Jerry Sandusky story, because
• 1:10:36
  not only has Larry Nasser been attacked on multiple occasions in prison, Jerry Sandusky
• 1:10:44
  has never been attacked. And not only has he never been attacked, which
• 1:10:47
  he should have been, because he's way more notorious, especially in Pennsylvania where
• 1:10:50
  he's in prison, than Larry Nasser ever was. But but Jerry Seduski is
• 1:10:58
  seen as someone who is respectable in prison. I've had people who have served
• 1:11:03
  time with Jerry Sendowski who voluntarily contacted me to say they think Jerry is innocent.
• 1:11:11
  Everybody in prison knows that Jerry is innocent, and everyone treats him like
• 1:11:15
  someone who is innocent because for whatever reason, these guys know, they just
• 1:11:18
  know. They can tell, especially in this allegation of being a serial child
• 1:11:25
  sex predator, whether or not someone is innocent or whether someone is guilty.
• 1:11:30
  So why has Jerry Sendoski never even been attacked? Why is Jerry Sandowski not
• 1:11:34
  dead? He should be dead based upon the allegations against him, if people
• 1:11:40
  in prison thought he was. But in fact it's the opposite. Everyone seems
• 1:11:43
  to like Jerry Sandowski in prison, but not Larry Nasser. So if you
• 1:11:46
  look at the Larry Nasser case, it really is the best example to prove
• 1:11:51
  the absurdity of the allegations against Jerry Sandowski. There was another story this doubt
• 1:11:59
  this week involved a male Tennessee soccer coach who was accused of drugging and raping
• 1:12:05
  ten boys. And you know what, the evidence of this was horrific videos
• 1:12:12
  coming from his own phone that got found when he left the phone at a
• 1:12:16
  restaurant. Very similar situation mentor coach teenage boys. Massive evidence massive evidence that
• 1:12:27
  never existed in the Jerry Sanduski case. Almost in a weekly basis, there
• 1:12:30
  are cases where I tweet them out and they go, wow, this is
• 1:12:34
  exactly what happened with Jerry Zendowski. Wait, except it's not. Nothing like
• 1:12:39
  this happened like with Jerry Sandoski. Nothing, nothing remotely close to this happened
• 1:12:44
  with Jerry Sandowski. And it happens time and time again because the case is
• 1:12:48
  unique on so many different levels. It's unique because it didn't happen because Jerry
• 1:12:54
  Sinski is clearly innocent. If you need further convincing, make sure you check
• 1:12:58
  out our podcast or epic podcast with the benefit of hindsight. On the positive
• 1:13:03
  side, recently, there was a case in this realm that proved to be
• 1:13:11
  the exception that proves the rule. When a seventy five year old wrestling coach
• 1:13:16
  by the name of Neil Atdlberg in Baltimore, Maryland was acquitted of all criminal
• 1:13:23
  charges, charges that were remarkably similar to the situation involving Jerry Sandusky. It
• 1:13:30
  was obvious to me, having gone through the Sandusky saga, that Attleburg was
• 1:13:36
  very likely innocent, and his attorney got my name of Joe Murtha chose to
• 1:13:43
  go for a bench trial decided by a judge instead of a jury trial,
• 1:13:48
  and it turned out that his client, Adelberg was acquitted on all charges.
• 1:13:54
  And it was pretty obvious to me even before I spoke to his attorney Joe,
• 1:14:00
  that Adelberg was innocent because I knew all the red flags. I knew
• 1:14:04
  what to look for based upon my extensive experience in the Sandusky case as well
• 1:14:10
  as other cases, and having because of the Sandusky case, acquainted myself with
• 1:14:15
  all sorts of other similar cases that have very very different fact patterns, like
• 1:14:20
  what I just referenced with Larry Nasser and that Tennessee soccer coach. These things
• 1:14:26
  happen continually, and the biggest myth that the media has created in these types
• 1:14:30
  of cases is these cases don't have real strong evidence, so we have to
• 1:14:34
  rely on testimony, and sometimes testimony is unreliable, and that's why these are
• 1:14:41
  tough cases to prove that that's a bullshit narrative, especially in the modern era,
• 1:14:45
  especially with pornography, which there was no pornography with regard to the Sandusky
• 1:14:50
  case, and there obviously was with Larry Nasser, and it was obviously a
• 1:14:55
  huge part of that Tennessee case that I a dressed reference. Well, there
• 1:14:58
  was no pornography in the Adelberg case. There was no real evidence, and
• 1:15:01
  the judge made the right decision to acquit Addelburg on all charges. Now,
• 1:15:06
  that didn't stop the activists from still claiming some semblance of victory. The judge
• 1:15:13
  himself tried to protect himself from allegations of not being politically correct by saying that
• 1:15:18
  this was a reasonable doubt case and that this doesn't mean that the alleged victim
• 1:15:25
  was lying, although it was clear to me from the evidence that the victim
• 1:15:29
  was in fact lying, and that Aldeburg, who was a very well respected
• 1:15:33
  beacon of the community, much like Sandusky, had been railroaded by this allegation
• 1:15:38
  that really manifest itself because of the fact that there was an investigation of the
• 1:15:43
  Baltimore Archdiocese, the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, because of the Catholic Church scandal,
• 1:15:48
  and this was the only only indictment that this investigation got. They got
• 1:15:55
  squat and they couldn't have this massive investigation and have no charges come out of
• 1:16:00
  it, so they charged Addleberg on this very flimsy allegation, and the judge
• 1:16:05
  said no, this is an acquittal, not guilty, but the activists still
• 1:16:11
  claimed victory. The judge poured a little bit of cold water. The Attorney
• 1:16:15
  General of Maryland issued a bizarre statement, actually not that bizarre politically, but
• 1:16:21
  from a reality based standpoint, saying, quote, today Neil Addelberg was acquitted
• 1:16:27
  of all charges. The outcome of the trial does not diminish the courage of
• 1:16:30
  the survivor. In this case, it takes remarkable strength to break the silence
• 1:16:36
  and confront pain and trauma of the past. To the survivor, your voice
• 1:16:42
  matters, Your story deserves to be heard. No matter the outcome of the
• 1:16:45
  trial. We continue to stand with you. We believe you. The path
• 1:16:50
  to justice may be arduous in today's acquittal does not define the validity of your
• 1:16:58
  experience. What the frick is that? I mean? This guy Adelberg,
• 1:17:04
  seventy five years old, has his life destroyed, It goes on trial,
• 1:17:10
  is acquitted by a judge, and then he has to live with that that
• 1:17:15
  the anonymous adult accuser is still being defended by the authorities when by all accounts,
• 1:17:24
  the story was not credible and dramatically changed. I spoke to Joe Murtha,
• 1:17:29
  who I had said I wanted to have him on the podcast to get
• 1:17:31
  some details on this because my instincts were that this was the Jerry Sandusky case
• 1:17:36
  without the massive national media firestorm that was related to Joe Paterno's firing, and
• 1:17:44
  that that was why they were able to survive this. And it turned out
• 1:17:46
  that be exactly as my instincts indicated it would be. I had a very
• 1:17:51
  nice conversation with Joe Murtha and we went through some of the details of the
• 1:17:56
  case. It was very reminiscent of Sandusky. They dealt with a lot of
• 1:18:00
  the same problems, just not to the same level and degree because there wasn't
• 1:18:03
  the same media rush to judgment, the media firestorm, all of which was
• 1:18:09
  related to Joe Paterno's alleged role in the whole thing. Without Paterno, I've
• 1:18:14
  always said, the Sandowski case is very, very different. He gets a
• 1:18:16
  real legitimate trial, it's not the Salem which trial, and if rationality prevails,
• 1:18:23
  he is acquitted on all charges if it even gets to trial. Well,
• 1:18:26
  that's really what this case, the Attleberg case, I believe, proves,
• 1:18:30
  and Joe Murtha agreed to come on this podcast and was scheduled to do
• 1:18:34
  so. Unfortunately, he got caught up in court on the day we're taping
• 1:18:39
  this, and as of this moment, I just had to pull the plug
• 1:18:44
  on the whole thing because I didn't know when he was going to be available,
• 1:18:46
  and it takes some time for these episodes to be edited and then put
• 1:18:50
  out on Tuesday and Thursday morning. So unfortunately, we're not going to speak
• 1:18:55
  to Joe Murtha as had been planned for this episode of the podcast, which
• 1:19:00
  is why this episode is a little bit shorter than normal. Mostly we go
• 1:19:04
  about two hours. Last episode, because of my very very deep dive into
• 1:19:09
  the Kennedy assassination, we went about three hours. Well, this one will
• 1:19:13
  be somewhere between, I guess in an hour or an hour and a half,
• 1:19:16
  somewhere in that realm. So I don't know. Well, that's something
• 1:19:19
  that's good or bad for you. But that's the explanation for why this episode
• 1:19:24
  is cut a little bit shorter than it normally would be because I had anticipated
• 1:19:28
  talking to Joe Murtha for about a half hour and that is not going to
• 1:19:31
  happen. But I can tell you that the essence of the story is exactly
• 1:19:36
  as I had expected, and I'm very glad that mister Alman was acquitted.
• 1:19:42
  It's just unfortunate that even in victory they see the rules have now been set
• 1:19:46
  up where even in victory you can't win. I mean they at every stage
• 1:19:50
  of the process, you know, whether it's a grand jury indictment. The
• 1:19:54
  grand jury in dights thinking well, if you're innocent, you'll prove it at
• 1:19:58
  trial, which is bullshit because people presume that a grand jury indictment has some
• 1:20:02
  special power to It means you're basically guilty. You lose the presumption of innocence,
• 1:20:08
  and then you get the trial and you win a trial, and then
• 1:20:11
  the other sides as well. No, that's because it was reasonable that in
• 1:20:14
  these cases are really tough to prove, and we still want to support the
• 1:20:17
  alleged victim, who in all likelihood was very much a liar in this particular
• 1:20:23
  case, and we have a particular political incentive to do that because we don't
• 1:20:26
  want to admit that this entire investigation of the Archdiocese of Baltimore was bogus and
• 1:20:30
  we came up with squat. The whole system is corrupt in this particular area,
• 1:20:35
  and I don't think it's going to get any better. And unfortunately,
• 1:20:39
  I don't think that the rare victory here on behalf of Adam Berg is going
• 1:20:45
  to have much of an impact. But at least there's some hope, at
• 1:20:49
  least there's some semblance of rationality where he's not going to be spending the rest
• 1:20:54
  of his life in jail. The rest of his life will be ruined.
• 1:20:56
  In all likelihood, he'll never get his reputation back. He said five years
• 1:21:00
  old, and you know, he devoted his life to helping kids. But
• 1:21:03
  of course the moral that story is, don't do that, folks. Don't
• 1:21:06
  don't devote your life to helping kids, especially you know, at risk kids
• 1:21:13
  or kids with any problems. Do not do that. That's the That is
• 1:21:16
  the ultimate moral of the Jerry Sandusky case and the Neil Audelberg case and many
• 1:21:20
  others. Don't do that in the modern era, especially if it's anything close
• 1:21:25
  to an academic setting, because you will you it's a ticking time bond,
• 1:21:29
  and you will be hung and you'll be lucky to hold on to what's left
• 1:21:32
  to your freedom. Forget about the rest of the trappings of your life.
• 1:21:36
  So on that happy note, that'll do it for this edition of the Death
• 1:21:41
  of Journalism podcasts. Please always, as always, remember to subscribe, rate
• 1:21:45
  and review it, and share it both with your friends as well as on
• 1:21:47
  social media. If you do share it on social media, make sure you
• 1:21:50
  tag me and I will be sure to share it with my followers on Twitter
• 1:21:55
  and friends on Facebook. Until next time, thanks so much for listening.
• 1:21:59
  My name is Johnsler. This is the Death of Journalism podcast