Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Sixteen: We Are Not Marshall

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Episode Two Hundred Sixteen: We Are Not Marshall · The Death Of Journalism

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Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number two hundred and sixteen of the
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Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zickler. I'm
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Speaker 1: your host on today's show. There are numerous compelling stories
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Speaker 1: to discuss, the shocking Trump ABC settlement, more signs the
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Speaker 1: legacy media really is dying. Yes, we'll do some drone talk,
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Speaker 1: plus the telling aftermath of Caitlin Clark's sell out to
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Speaker 1: the woke mob, some more insanity in college football. Bill
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Speaker 1: Belichick takes the North Carolina schob and the Duke la
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Speaker 1: crosse accuser finally admits she made the whole thing up.
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Speaker 1: The big media story the last several days is, without
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Speaker 1: a doubt, the massive and rather shocking settlement between ABC
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Speaker 1: and Donald Trump over what was supposed to be a
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Speaker 1: defamation case that was set to have Donald Trump be
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Speaker 1: deposed this week, but at the last minute ABC News
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Speaker 1: decided to settle the case, not go through depositions and discovery,
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Speaker 1: and instead give fifteen million dollars to essentially the Trump Library.
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Speaker 1: Now that's going to be a hell of a library.
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Speaker 1: I understand. The Trump Library is probably gonna have the
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Speaker 1: best comics section in the history of presidential libraries. But
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Speaker 1: that's another story. For another day. But fifteen million dollars
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Speaker 1: to the Trump library, plus I guess an apology online
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Speaker 1: or I don't know if you wouldn't want to call
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Speaker 1: it an apology, but some recognition of wrongdoing. This is
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Speaker 1: seen as a massive win for Trump. This is all
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Speaker 1: because George Stephanopolis, in an interview with congress Wan Mace
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Speaker 1: during the campaign, asked her how she could support someone
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Speaker 1: who had been found civilly libel for rape when that
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Speaker 1: technically was not accurate. Now there's a little bit of money,
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Speaker 1: and the waters is to what the truth of that
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Speaker 1: situation is. I fully understand that what Stephanopfelis said was
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Speaker 1: not accurate either technically or I don't think there's any
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Speaker 1: chance in the world that Trump actually committed rape in
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Speaker 1: that situation. But you know, from a legal perspective, the
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Speaker 1: concern was, all right, was this technically a rape that
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Speaker 1: Trump was found civilly liable for or some sort of
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Speaker 1: a sexual assault. Comments by the judge make this a
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Speaker 1: little bit more ambiguous, I think than Trump fans would
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Speaker 1: like to believe. But obviously ABC is acknowledging at least
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Speaker 1: some level of guilt here. To be clear, the fifteen
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Speaker 1: million dollars to the Presidential Library. Sounds like a tax
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Speaker 1: write off to me, so I doubt ABC is really
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Speaker 1: going to be losing any actual money out of this.
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Speaker 1: This is a huge pr win for Trump. Liberals are
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Speaker 1: very pissed off about this because they think it's a
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Speaker 1: sign that the legacy media is giving up, that the
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Speaker 1: resistance is over, that they're kissing Trump's ring, and that
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Speaker 1: basically journalism is dead. Of course, journalism is dead, as
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Speaker 1: this podcast indicates twice a week, but not for the
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Speaker 1: reasons that liberals believe. They believe that this is an
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Speaker 1: indication that there's going to be a chilling effect, which,
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Speaker 1: by the way, there could be a chilling effect, of course.
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Speaker 1: You know, if you don't call Donald Trump a rapist,
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Speaker 1: you're in pretty good shape. Look, I think the reality
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Speaker 1: here is that this was much more about ABC fearing
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Speaker 1: discovery and all the things that could have been found
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Speaker 1: out there. We saw during the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit
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Speaker 1: against Fox News Channel that that was really part of
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Speaker 1: the leverage that Dominion had over Fox News, enforcing Fox
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Speaker 1: News into that unbelievably massive settlement. I think it was
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Speaker 1: just like seven one hundred or more than that seven
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Speaker 1: hundred million dollars, and then they eventually ended up getting
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Speaker 1: rid of Tucker Carlson, either directly or indirectly because of that.
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Speaker 1: I don't believe that was part of the settlement, but
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Speaker 1: that's certainly in the aftermath of that whole situation. And
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Speaker 1: you know, so we're seeing more and more of these
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Speaker 1: massive settlements by major media companies when before, you know,
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Speaker 1: in the olden days, no one would ever settle because
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Speaker 1: everyone understood that there was a principle at stake here,
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Speaker 1: there was a precedent at stake here. And you're dealing
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Speaker 1: in a very dangerous territory of the slippery slope if
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Speaker 1: you give in here, because now you're really creating an
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Speaker 1: incentive for people to bring suits, especially if you're Donald Trump,
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Speaker 1: who loves to bring lawsuits. And so I understand why
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Speaker 1: people are concerned from a journalistic standpoint about what ABC
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Speaker 1: did here. Again, I think ABC was not making a
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Speaker 1: journalistic decision here. I think they were making a business
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Speaker 1: decis decision. All right, we get a tax right off,
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Speaker 1: we avoid discovery, we get rid of this headache. Because
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Speaker 1: this thing could be going on for a very very
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Speaker 1: long time. You know, all indications are that people at
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Speaker 1: ABC News are extremely agitated by this, and as I've
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Speaker 1: already said publicly, many liberals have lamented what ABC News did.
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Speaker 1: I think it was the wrong journalistic decision, even though
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Speaker 1: what George Dobnoppolis said was incorrect. I do think that
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Speaker 1: this was wrong for ABC to just cave. And again
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Speaker 1: they caved in a way. This was actually a perfectly
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Speaker 1: structured settlement, in my opinion, because it makes it seem
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Speaker 1: as if it's a massive victory for Trump when it
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Speaker 1: really is just the tax right off for ABC and
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Speaker 1: Trump isn't getting the money. Basically, all that's happening is
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Speaker 1: that Trump doesn't have to go to donors for fifteen
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Speaker 1: million dollars to build his presidential library. That's really all
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Speaker 1: that's happening here. Yes, there's some mild acknowledgment of wrongdoing,
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Speaker 1: but like I said, it's not even on air, and
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Speaker 1: this story will be forgotten, you know, by most people,
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Speaker 1: very very quickly. But I do think that there's a
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Speaker 1: troubling settlement element of this. The settlement element of this
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Speaker 1: creates a troubling situation that if it was isolated, I
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Speaker 1: wouldn't be that upset about it. I wouldn't be that
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Speaker 1: bothered by it, but it's not isolated. It seems to
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Speaker 1: now be the go to move. And part of it
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Speaker 1: is the business model being completely obliterated among news organizations.
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Speaker 1: News organizations don't have anywhere near the same leverage that
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Speaker 1: they used to have within these corporate organizations. They used
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Speaker 1: to be off on their own. But the people making
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Speaker 1: these decisions now, they have no concern about the journalism
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Speaker 1: aspect of this. They're just looking at it from a
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Speaker 1: pr perspective, you know, a bottom line monetary standpoint. What's
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Speaker 1: the best business decision and for us to make in
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Speaker 1: any particular situation. They don't care about the blowback, they
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Speaker 1: don't care about the president, they don't care about what
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Speaker 1: this is going to mean going forward. And so these
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Speaker 1: are corporate decisions. They're not being made by newspeople. So
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Speaker 1: I even though Stephanoppolis was wrong, ABC News was wrong,
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Speaker 1: Trump was right. I acknowledge all of that, and I
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Speaker 1: hate that Stephanoppolis did something like this. This was it
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Speaker 1: should have been an immediate correction and apology. That's the
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Speaker 1: way this should have been handled. An immediate correction on
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Speaker 1: the same show at the same time slot same basic audience.
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Speaker 1: You know, give Trump the victory in the news, in
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Speaker 1: the news by making it clear that we made a mistake.
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Speaker 1: What we said was technically not accurate, correct the record,
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Speaker 1: and then move on. But we now are living in
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Speaker 1: an incredibly litigious world, far more religious in the realm
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Speaker 1: of media than we have ever seen before. You know,
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Speaker 1: I always use my own experiences to relate to these
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Speaker 1: kind of situations. I've talked many times about the defamation
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Speaker 1: lawsuit that I faced as a talk show host in Louisville, Kentucky,
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Speaker 1: where what I said was one hundred percent true. Even
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Speaker 1: though I got fired for it was there should never
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Speaker 1: have been a trial. There was a very high profile
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Speaker 1: trial in Louisville, Kentucky, ended up winning on all counts
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Speaker 1: unanimously against all odds. But when I look at this situation,
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Speaker 1: I think there is no chance in today's world that
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Speaker 1: the company I was working for at the time, known
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Speaker 1: as Clear Channel, would have indemnified me, stood by me.
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Speaker 1: Fought this thing all the way to trial because they
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Speaker 1: understood the precedent that could be set and they wanted
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Speaker 1: to nip this thing in the bud and not create
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Speaker 1: and incentive for people to be suing talk show hosts
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Speaker 1: willy nilly because they understood that back then. Well, I
8:52
Speaker 1: have zero doubt that almost twenty years later they would
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Speaker 1: have caved immediately in some way, shape or form. And
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Speaker 1: that has repercussions, and we're seeing it not just at
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Speaker 1: the smaller level. I at a talk show as a
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Speaker 1: talk show host in Louisville, Kentucky, al though I was
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Speaker 1: working for a massive company. But now ABC News is
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Speaker 1: forced to do it with the incoming president of the
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Speaker 1: United States. And so look again, I know this is
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Speaker 1: a nuanced view of this, but Stephanopolis was wrong and
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Speaker 1: it should have been corrected. But ABC News engaging in
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Speaker 1: this massive settlement, which I think creates a further incentive
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Speaker 1: for Trump and other people like him to sue news
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Speaker 1: organizations when the law really doesn't justify that. I mean, technically,
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Speaker 1: I think ABC would have won this had they fought
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Speaker 1: it out. That might be my most important point here.
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Speaker 1: I think ABC probably would have won this given the
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Speaker 1: fact that obviously Trump is as big a public figure
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Speaker 1: as it gets. The rules are different for public figure.
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Speaker 1: The standard is extremely high because we have the First Amendment.
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Speaker 1: And by the way, I don't know if you've heard this,
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Speaker 1: but Trump won the election, so the damage done to
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Speaker 1: Trump would have been difficult to prove. I mean, normally
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Speaker 1: the damage being caused by being called a rapist would
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Speaker 1: be pretty profound. But we're living in such a strange
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Speaker 1: world that Trump could be called a rapist by ABC
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Speaker 1: News still win the election by a larger margin that
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Speaker 1: he won it at least popular vote wise in twenty sixteen.
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Speaker 1: So it's a big story. I think it has profound implications.
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Speaker 1: ABC was wrong. I understand why Trump did it. It's
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Speaker 1: a huge victory for Trump from a pr perspective, and
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Speaker 1: it does cause problems, not just for ABC News, but
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Speaker 1: I think this is an indication of a larger problem
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Speaker 1: that the news media has in this era where their
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Speaker 1: power is diminishing almost on a daily basis. Their business
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Speaker 1: model is broken, and even within their own organizations, they
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Speaker 1: don't have the influence to tell corporate we can't do this.
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Speaker 1: Corporate is totally in charge of ABC News, and to corporate,
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Speaker 1: they didn't give a shit. This is a tax right off,
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Speaker 1: Let's get this headache out of our way and let's
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Speaker 1: move on. They don't understand or care about the president
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Speaker 1: or the principle. Presidents and principles don't mean anything anymore,
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Speaker 1: not even in television news, which is why one of
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Speaker 1: the many, many, many reasons why we have the death
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Speaker 1: of journalism now. The death of journalism has been seen
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Speaker 1: in several other stories that have happened over the last
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Speaker 1: several days, specifically with regard to what's happening with Pete Hegseth,
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Speaker 1: the Trump nominee to be the next Defense secretary. We've
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Speaker 1: talked a lot about Pete Hegseth, and I have been
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Speaker 1: in the camp that has said that it's a fifty
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Speaker 1: to fifty shot now as to whether Hegseth is gonna
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Speaker 1: be nominate. I now believe it's much better than fifty
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Speaker 1: to fifty. And it's not because really anything Pete Hegseth
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Speaker 1: has done. It's because he has the best enemy he
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Speaker 1: could possibly hope for, and that is the mainstream news media,
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Speaker 1: and the mainstream news media has overshot their coverage on
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Speaker 1: a couple of different stories, not in super dramatic ways,
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Speaker 1: but in significant enough ways to where it has galvanized
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Speaker 1: the support for Pete Hegseth and the Pete Hegseth people
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Speaker 1: have done a masterful job of basically saying, if Pete
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Speaker 1: Hegseth goes down, you are not only going against Donald Trump,
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Speaker 1: but you're also essentially in the favor of the mainstream
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Speaker 1: news media. I mean, that's a crazy narrative, but that's
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Speaker 1: where we are now. In other words, if you don't
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Speaker 1: like Pete Hegsteth, if you don't think he should be
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Speaker 1: the next Defense secretary, you hate Donald Trump, and you
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Speaker 1: love the news media. Basically, that's how they've set up
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Speaker 1: this situation, which is because no conservative in their right
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Speaker 1: mind is ever going to take that position, especially if
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Speaker 1: they're a Republican in the US Senate and who wants
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Speaker 1: a political future. And there were a couple of things
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Speaker 1: that happened regarding petex Seth that have really i think
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Speaker 1: galvanized this issue, and the most prominent over the last
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Speaker 1: several days was something that happened actually didn't happen. That's
13:24
Speaker 1: important to point out. This actually did not happen, but
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Speaker 1: almost happened at Politico. Politico they pretend to be an
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Speaker 1: objective Washington based news source, but they're actually very liberally biased,
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Speaker 1: as our most mainstream outlets, and they almost ran a
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Speaker 1: story about how Pete hex sat had allegedly lied about
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Speaker 1: having gained acceptance into West Point. Okay, so that's a story.
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Speaker 1: That's an interesting story if it's true, of course, I mean, frankly,
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Speaker 1: if it's true in this and with all the other
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Speaker 1: things surrounding Pete Hexstath's nomination, if it's true that Pete
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Speaker 1: Hexstath lied about gaining acceptance into West Point. For the record,
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Speaker 1: he didn't go to West Point. He went to Princeton
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Speaker 1: and then to Harvard, which, you know, by the way,
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Speaker 1: that thinks an interesting decision for someone who eventually is
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Speaker 1: going to be nominated to be the Defense Secretary. It's
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Speaker 1: been completely lost here. I mean not that declining acceptance
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Speaker 1: into West Point should be a disqualifier twenty five years
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Speaker 1: later to be Defense Secretary. But I do think it's
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Speaker 1: an interesting decision. Twenty five years ago Pete Hexstath in
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Speaker 1: you know, as this story was emerging, his story was
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Speaker 1: he was he was accepted into West Point, which is
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Speaker 1: a really big deal. It was especially even bigger deal
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Speaker 1: probably twenty five years ago, and he decided instead to
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Speaker 1: go to a very prestigious woke school like Princeton. Again,
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Speaker 1: not a disqualifier to be Defense secretary, but an interesting decision.
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Speaker 1: I think that's at least whe worthy of a question,
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Speaker 1: a question in your confirmation hearing you want to be
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Speaker 1: Defense secretary, yet you declined acceptance into West Point and
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Speaker 1: went to Princeton. Tell me about that decision, because again,
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Speaker 1: not that you should be forced to live with your
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Speaker 1: decisions you're making eighteen nineteen years old for the rest
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Speaker 1: of your life. But that's I mean, that's I would
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Speaker 1: like to hear the answer to that you acceptance in
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Speaker 1: the West Point. One of the things that happens when
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Speaker 1: you declined that is, you know, in the in you know,
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Speaker 1: pre Trump era, you're basically deciding, Okay, I'm never going
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Speaker 1: to be Defense Secretary of the United States. Well apparently
15:39
Speaker 1: that's not the case, because you know, we not live
15:42
Speaker 1: in a very strange world. But anyway, the point of
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Speaker 1: this is the story from Hegstath was no, I was accepted,
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Speaker 1: I just declined admission. Well, Politico looked into this and
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Speaker 1: they were apparently about an hour away or maybe less
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Speaker 1: than that, from publishing a story that he Hextat had
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Speaker 1: lied about his admitting admission to West Point. Now, if
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Speaker 1: that had been true, if that had been true, Hexseth
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Speaker 1: is done, even though it's political. If that actually was
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Speaker 1: a story, that was true, that Hegseth had been saying
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Speaker 1: he had been admitted to West Point, but that was
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Speaker 1: not accurate. In fact, Politico was under the impression for
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Speaker 1: quite a while that Hexceth didn't even apply to West Point.
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Speaker 1: Had that been true, I think Hexseth was done, but
16:38
Speaker 1: that was not true. In fact, it was clearly not true,
16:43
Speaker 1: and Politico pulled the rugout from underneath their own story
16:48
Speaker 1: at the last minute, but not voluntarily. They did so
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Speaker 1: because they sent a very aggressive email to Hegseth and
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Speaker 1: his people saying, we believe I'm paraphrasing here, we believe
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Speaker 1: Heseth lied about his admission to West Point. West Point
17:06
Speaker 1: is telling us he didn't even apply, and why would
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Speaker 1: he lie about this? And how can he be Defense
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Speaker 1: secretary if he lied about this? That's a I mean,
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Speaker 1: that's a pretty close paraphrase to what Politico wrote in
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Speaker 1: their email. Well, it turns out that thankfully, much like
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Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh, keeping his calendars from decades prior helped him
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Speaker 1: in the bogus Christine blasi Ford allegation that beat Hegseth. Well,
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Speaker 1: he didn't accept admission to West Point. He did keep
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Speaker 1: his letter telling him he had been admitted to West Point,
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Speaker 1: and he provided that in a very timely manner, which
17:45
Speaker 1: prevented Politico from basically screwing themselves. I mean, it would
17:50
Speaker 1: have been interesting, and I would love to know whether
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Speaker 1: or not this strategy was thought about within the Hegseth camp.
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Speaker 1: You know, it would have maybe been an even better
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Speaker 1: move from a chess perspective, especially since they were given
18:06
Speaker 1: such an incredibly short time frame to respond. I think
18:09
Speaker 1: they were saying they were told, you know, please respond
18:12
Speaker 1: within the hour. That's where I got the hour time
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Speaker 1: frame from. Can you imagine had heg Seth's or his
18:19
Speaker 1: people said, you know, not gotten back to them. Let's
18:22
Speaker 1: just say they never got back to them because the
18:25
Speaker 1: timeframe was so short. Politico went with the story, completely
18:29
Speaker 1: humiliated themselves, and then Hegseth simply posted or published or
18:36
Speaker 1: gave the Fox News channel or whatever, or gave the
18:39
Speaker 1: political whoever, however you want to do this, the actual
18:42
Speaker 1: letter that he received when he was admitted to West Point.
18:46
Speaker 1: I mean, that would have been the ultimate mic drop situation.
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Speaker 1: Probably would have even been more dramatic and effective than
18:52
Speaker 1: than preventing Politico from publishing this to begin with, because
18:56
Speaker 1: under the scenario, as it turns out, Politico at least
18:59
Speaker 1: has a fig leave, and they tried desperately to claim, well,
19:03
Speaker 1: this is actually how journalism works, this is we did
19:06
Speaker 1: our job. We went to west Point. West Point two
19:10
Speaker 1: sources told us he didn't even apply, I think is
19:14
Speaker 1: what west Point told them, and so when we found
19:18
Speaker 1: out that was not accurate, we did not publish the story. Okay, fine,
19:23
Speaker 1: but based upon the emails, it's pretty clear you were
19:28
Speaker 1: one hundred percent convinced he lied and you were ready
19:30
Speaker 1: to go with this story, probably already written within an hour.
19:35
Speaker 1: And if Pete Heseth hadn't kept his letter from West
19:39
Speaker 1: Point proving that he not only applied but hadn't been admitted,
19:43
Speaker 1: then this would have turned out very, very differently. So
19:47
Speaker 1: while I have some some sympathy for Political's side here,
19:52
Speaker 1: because yes, they did not publish an incorrect story, so
19:56
Speaker 1: they deserve at least some minor credit for that, but
20:01
Speaker 1: they tried really hard to publish an incorrect story and
20:04
Speaker 1: they were only saved because Pete Hexseth had kept that letter.
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Speaker 1: So this, in my view, has helped Hexseth from a
20:15
Speaker 1: couple of different perspectives, but the biggest one is in
20:17
Speaker 1: the big picture, the media has overplayed their hand with
20:22
Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth. They overplayed their hand probably with the rape allegation.
20:26
Speaker 1: They definitely overplayed their hand with that NBC story alleging
20:30
Speaker 1: that there were ten anonymous sources from Fox News Channel
20:35
Speaker 1: seven to four or three current claiming that he has
20:37
Speaker 1: an alcohol problem on the set at Fox News Channel.
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Speaker 1: And now you have this situation where Politico is ready
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Speaker 1: to go with a completely and totally false story that
20:48
Speaker 1: Hexseth himself is able to torpedo definitively with the letter
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Speaker 1: from West Point. Now, as far as West Point is concerned,
20:56
Speaker 1: this is another part of the story that bothers me
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Speaker 1: because now we live in a world where every thing's
21:00
Speaker 1: a fucking conspiracy and Trumpsters automatically presumed the worst about
21:05
Speaker 1: everybody if it's against Trump or one of Trump's guys.
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Speaker 1: And you know, it's my view that West Point probably
21:13
Speaker 1: just made a mistake here. There may have just been
21:14
Speaker 1: a clerical error. Who knows, you know, twenty five years ago,
21:20
Speaker 1: how someone would go about finding out if someone applied
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Speaker 1: and did not accept admission into West Point. I'm not
21:27
Speaker 1: defending west Point from the standpoint of they clearly made
21:30
Speaker 1: a mistake. They clearly should have understood this was a
21:34
Speaker 1: really important issue, and it seems to me that West
21:38
Speaker 1: Point didn't. Whoever was dealing with this question from Politico
21:42
Speaker 1: did not take it nearly seriously enough because they obviously
21:45
Speaker 1: did not investigate it enough to get to the bottom
21:48
Speaker 1: of it. But it makes absolutely no sense for people
21:53
Speaker 1: on the Trump side of this equation and those that
21:56
Speaker 1: are conspiracy theorists to believe that somehow West Point, some
22:00
Speaker 1: some clerics, uh, some clerks, some clerics, some clerks at
22:07
Speaker 1: West Point were somehow trying to torpedo Pete hex Set's
22:12
Speaker 1: nomination as the Defense secretary. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever,
22:17
Speaker 1: because I can guarantee that the negative blowback from providing
22:22
Speaker 1: the incorrect information is going to be far greater for
22:26
Speaker 1: whoever was responsible then would have been the benefit if
22:31
Speaker 1: somehow this had torpedoed Pete Heeg says nomination. I mean,
22:36
Speaker 1: the theory doesn't even make any goddamn sense. So so
22:39
Speaker 1: Political makes a call to West Point, and some clerks
22:43
Speaker 1: at West Point decide to create you know, oh, well,
22:47
Speaker 1: he not only applied, he gained admission. But we're not
22:49
Speaker 1: going to tell political that maybe political is going to
22:52
Speaker 1: go with this, and this will this will destroy pete
22:54
Speaker 1: Heegs says nomination and somebody else who's a more of
22:58
Speaker 1: establishment guy will take over for Petegseth and that'll be
23:01
Speaker 1: good for us here at West Point. Come on, people,
23:05
Speaker 1: That's not the way this works in the real world.
23:07
Speaker 1: The way this works is you know, you got a question,
23:10
Speaker 1: let's check it in our computer. It doesn't even show
23:14
Speaker 1: Petexseth showing up here, so we don't even have any
23:16
Speaker 1: evidence that he applied, and someone not doing enough due
23:20
Speaker 1: diligence and giving bad information, and political getting very excited
23:25
Speaker 1: because they think they have petex sth caught in a lie,
23:28
Speaker 1: and everything then ensues. As I told you so, I
23:31
Speaker 1: don't believe this was part of a conspiracy. I don't
23:35
Speaker 1: believe that West Point systematically is trying to get Pete Hexseth.
23:39
Speaker 1: But I do believe it's gonna help Petexseth, and it
23:42
Speaker 1: may be definitive. And we saw a concrete example of
23:46
Speaker 1: how much of this is helping the media bias or
23:50
Speaker 1: perceived real or imagine maybe somewhere in the middle, bias
23:55
Speaker 1: against Pete Hexseth is helping him. When he was walking
23:58
Speaker 1: the halls of Congress and he got asked about a
24:02
Speaker 1: CNN story, because you know, once the blood blood is
24:05
Speaker 1: in the water, the media is going to try to
24:07
Speaker 1: find anything they possibly can to continue this feeding frenzy.
24:13
Speaker 1: And so peteck said is walking the halls of the
24:15
Speaker 1: US Senate, meeting with senators and he gets asked by
24:19
Speaker 1: a reporter about a CNN report, and instead of even
24:24
Speaker 1: remotely addressing the report, all he has to do in
24:28
Speaker 1: this day and age, this world we're now living in,
24:31
Speaker 1: is to just say, I'm not going to respond to
24:34
Speaker 1: a CNN report. I have no obligation to do so,
24:37
Speaker 1: because obviously CNN in right wing circles is perceived as
24:42
Speaker 1: the enemy. And you know, there would have been a
24:46
Speaker 1: day and age, not that long ago, not that long ago,
24:48
Speaker 1: certainly ten years ago, where this would have been seen
24:52
Speaker 1: as weak and defensive, but now it's seen as a
24:56
Speaker 1: sign of strength. And he's one of our guys. And yeah, yeah,
25:00
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what the substance is of any story,
25:03
Speaker 1: if it's coming from CNN, it must be bullshit and
25:06
Speaker 1: good for him for standing up against the bullshit. And
25:10
Speaker 1: here's what that sounded like when Pete hex Seth was
25:13
Speaker 1: asked that question in the halls of the US Senate.
25:17
Speaker 2: The military.
25:20
Speaker 1: Yes, he said, can.
25:22
Speaker 3: You just respond to the CNN report this morning? It
25:25
Speaker 3: was highlighting some of your previous comments.
25:27
Speaker 1: I don't feel that he can respond to CNN.
25:31
Speaker 4: You are ungrule with gay people.
25:34
Speaker 1: Hope that the survey. Did you hear what I said there?
25:37
Speaker 3: Thank you?
25:39
Speaker 1: Obviously, I'm someone who despises the mainstream news media as
25:43
Speaker 1: much as anybody, but I'm very uncomfortable with living in
25:47
Speaker 1: a world where now that's all you have to do
25:51
Speaker 1: is just attack the messager, not even address the question.
25:55
Speaker 1: And by the way, you know, CNN hasn't been part
25:59
Speaker 1: any of these false or dubious stories. That haven't been
26:03
Speaker 1: primarily part of any of these false or dubious stories
26:06
Speaker 1: against Pete Hegxteth. He's just using the fact that he
26:09
Speaker 1: knows conservatives hate CNN. And I always talk about the
26:15
Speaker 1: pendulums shifting too far in one direction of the other.
26:18
Speaker 1: This is an example of the pendulum swinging too far.
26:22
Speaker 1: This is too far. We should you know. It used
26:24
Speaker 1: to be that media bias was fought from the right
26:29
Speaker 1: wing based upon very substantive rationale and fact based arguments
26:38
Speaker 1: when I was a young man. That's a huge part
26:41
Speaker 1: of what the right wing media was about, attacking liberal
26:44
Speaker 1: media bias with rationality and facts and coaching arguments. And
26:50
Speaker 1: then eventually we got to the point where almost nothing
26:53
Speaker 1: was to be trusted. It was almost a default position
26:58
Speaker 1: of not trusting anything in the so called legacy or
27:02
Speaker 1: mainstream news media. But now we've gotten to the point
27:05
Speaker 1: and hex Seth's response there proves it where it doesn't
27:08
Speaker 1: matter what the substance of a story is, it's a
27:11
Speaker 1: facto false if it's from an outlet that we don't like.
27:16
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry that's too far. That's too far, because sometimes,
27:20
Speaker 1: not always, not even probably a majority of times, in
27:23
Speaker 1: politically sensitive matters, but sometimes the legacy media still has
27:28
Speaker 1: a legitimate point. I'm not saying they do here. I'm
27:31
Speaker 1: just saying I don't like the fact that we're in
27:33
Speaker 1: a world where Pete Hexseth can be widely applauded because
27:38
Speaker 1: that clip I just played for you when viral online
27:41
Speaker 1: and everyone cheered Pete hex says for you dunking on
27:46
Speaker 1: a question simply because it had a CNN origin. But
27:51
Speaker 1: this is working for him. I now am pretty confident,
27:55
Speaker 1: not positive, but much more confident than I was previously
27:59
Speaker 1: that Hexseth is going to be confirmed as the Defense Secretary,
28:02
Speaker 1: and Lindsey Graham certainly supported that position. A large part
28:08
Speaker 1: of why I've come to that conclusion is because Lindsey
28:10
Speaker 1: Graham went on national television on Sunday in the morning
28:13
Speaker 1: shows and essentially said that he's now on Team Hegseth.
28:17
Speaker 1: He had been at least somewhat wavering before this statement
28:21
Speaker 1: on national television, but here was Lindsey Graham, a key
28:25
Speaker 1: member of the Republican caucus in the US Senate, explaining
28:29
Speaker 1: why he is seemingly tentatively but clearly on Team Hegseth
28:35
Speaker 1: as we enter the final stages of this confirmation process.
28:40
Speaker 5: I've known Pete for a long time. I served with
28:42
Speaker 5: him in Afghanistan. The people over there said nothing but
28:46
Speaker 5: great things about him. The allegations against Pete are all anonymous,
28:50
Speaker 5: anonymous sources. I am not going to make any decision
28:53
Speaker 5: based on an anonymous source. If you're not willing to
28:56
Speaker 5: raise your hand under oath and make the accusation, it
28:59
Speaker 5: doesn't count. I've heard everything about all these people, none
29:03
Speaker 5: of it counts.
29:05
Speaker 1: No rumors for the Capitol hearings. And I've seen this
29:09
Speaker 1: movie before. So unless something else big happens, as Lindsey
29:13
Speaker 1: Graham implied there, I think Hegseth is going to be
29:16
Speaker 1: in pretty good shape. Now is he going to get
29:18
Speaker 1: any Democrat votes other than John Feederman the last lone
29:23
Speaker 1: voice of reason of the Democratic Senate, which is that's
29:26
Speaker 1: a mouthful right there. I never thought was possible, but
29:29
Speaker 1: that's where we now live. That we're living in the
29:31
Speaker 1: world where John Fetterman is the lone voice of reason
29:34
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Senate other than John Fetterman. I do
29:37
Speaker 1: think it would be a long shot for any Democrats
29:39
Speaker 1: to vote for Pete Hegseeth. But he doesn't need any Democrats.
29:42
Speaker 1: He just needs, you know, obviously fifty'd be better if
29:46
Speaker 1: it was fifty one, but fifty Republican Senators to hang
29:49
Speaker 1: in there, and I think that there's a very high,
29:51
Speaker 1: not total, but very high likelihood at this point that
29:54
Speaker 1: that's going to happen. Interestingly, Hegseth was at the Army
29:58
Speaker 1: Navy football game with Donald Trump and jd Vance and
30:02
Speaker 1: a bunch of other Republican or I guess Trump dignitaries
30:07
Speaker 1: on Saturday, and you know, Ron DeSantis was supposed to
30:11
Speaker 1: be at the game. I have no evidence that he was.
30:14
Speaker 1: I saw no social media post syndicating that he was.
30:18
Speaker 1: But I did find that that was an interesting story
30:20
Speaker 1: because I was fairly widely reported that both Hegseth and
30:23
Speaker 1: DeSantis would be with Trump at the Army Navy game,
30:27
Speaker 1: which was almost bizarre if this wasn't Trump, because there's
30:32
Speaker 1: been a lot of reports, including the Wall Street Journal,
30:35
Speaker 1: that DeSantis could be hex Seth's replacement if hecxcess nomination
30:40
Speaker 1: goes down in flames, and to have Trump invite both
30:43
Speaker 1: of them to watch the Army Navy game is a
30:47
Speaker 1: bit Machabellian and a little bit bizarre. But I don't
30:50
Speaker 1: know that that actually happened. I was particularly interested in
30:54
Speaker 1: whether or not that happened because Hegseth is an Army
30:57
Speaker 1: guy at DeSantis is a Navy guy. Navy ended up
31:01
Speaker 1: winning the game fairly easily, and I had this vision
31:04
Speaker 1: in my mind of Trump, in Caesar like fashion, deciding
31:07
Speaker 1: that okay, you know, Navy wins the game. That means
31:10
Speaker 1: the Santas is the next Defense secretary, just to have
31:14
Speaker 1: some stakes on who was going to win the game.
31:16
Speaker 1: But there's no indication that that happened. And like I said,
31:19
Speaker 1: I don't even know for sure that DeSantis was there.
31:22
Speaker 1: He might have been there. There's another story involving DeSantis, though,
31:25
Speaker 1: that is much more real, and that is that there
31:29
Speaker 1: are now numerous reports indicating that Trump is actively pressuring
31:34
Speaker 1: DeSantis into picking Laura Trump, his daughter in law, his
31:40
Speaker 1: daughter in law, to be the next senator from Florida
31:45
Speaker 1: because Mark Rubio, the current senator from Florida, is going
31:49
Speaker 1: to be the Secretary of State. Now we've talked briefly
31:52
Speaker 1: about this before on the podcast. I think this is
31:56
Speaker 1: completely and totally wrong. I thought it was wrong when
31:58
Speaker 1: Laura Trump hers self basically campaign for the position on
32:03
Speaker 1: Fox News Channel. But now we have numerous indications that
32:08
Speaker 1: Trump himself has gotten involved. Now it's always difficult to
32:13
Speaker 1: tell what does that really mean, how much is he involved?
32:17
Speaker 1: But there have been numerous reports indicating that Trump has
32:19
Speaker 1: spoken to the Santas and urged him or vouched for
32:25
Speaker 1: Laura Trump to be the next senator from Florida. Now,
32:29
Speaker 1: he could be doing that as a courtesy to Laura
32:31
Speaker 1: Trump and who knows. But it obviously there's a big
32:35
Speaker 1: difference between hey, you should consider Lara Trump and hey,
32:39
Speaker 1: I really want you to pick Laura Trump, and you know,
32:43
Speaker 1: and making it clear in mob boss form that if
32:46
Speaker 1: you don't do that that this is going to be
32:48
Speaker 1: very difficult for you. Ron, I don't know. I have
32:51
Speaker 1: no way of knowing. Only anyone has any way of knowing.
32:54
Speaker 1: But all of this is totally inappropriate and flat out wrong.
32:58
Speaker 1: Given who Laura Trump is, R. Trump is not qualified
33:01
Speaker 1: for the position. We do not live in a monarchy.
33:05
Speaker 1: The fact that she is married to, you know, basically
33:08
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's least favorite son at this point, by all accounts,
33:11
Speaker 1: should not make her qualified to be a US senator
33:15
Speaker 1: from Florida, which, by the way, if you do your
33:17
Speaker 1: job halfway deep decently as a Republican senator in Florida,
33:22
Speaker 1: it could be a lifetime appointment. That's not an exaggeration.
33:27
Speaker 1: I mean you could be there for the next thirty
33:28
Speaker 1: forty years in theory, where with the direction that Florida
33:33
Speaker 1: is going, and largely thanks to Ron De Santis, so
33:35
Speaker 1: this is going to be a really big test for
33:38
Speaker 1: Ron de Santis. I don't think he's gonna pick Laarden Trump,
33:43
Speaker 1: but he could. His life would be easier in all like,
33:46
Speaker 1: at least in the short run if he did so.
33:49
Speaker 1: But we're going to find out a lot about who
33:51
Speaker 1: Rond de Santas really is. I think we already know
33:54
Speaker 1: the Rondo Santas. I think I know is not going
33:56
Speaker 1: to pick Laura Trump. But we're living in a very
33:59
Speaker 1: strange world. And if he weren't a pick Laura Trump,
34:02
Speaker 1: I mean, it would be a seminal moment in the
34:04
Speaker 1: downfall of this country. Not because she's I mean, she's
34:07
Speaker 1: not good, but not because she and individually is so horrendous.
34:10
Speaker 1: It's because of the symbolism of it. I mean, you know,
34:13
Speaker 1: the idea that an outgoing president, a lame duck president,
34:17
Speaker 1: could effectively force the popular governor of Florida to appoint
34:23
Speaker 1: to the position of US senator his daughter in law,
34:27
Speaker 1: who is not qualified for the position, would really send
34:32
Speaker 1: us into the realm of a monarchy. And you know,
34:35
Speaker 1: that's the number one thing we're not supposed to be.
34:37
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard about this, but the
34:39
Speaker 1: entire country was founded on the idea that we're not
34:42
Speaker 1: a monarchy, and that's seemingly what Trump wants to build here,
34:46
Speaker 1: and DeSantis has a very very big decision on that front.
34:51
Speaker 1: Going back to where the legacy news media is, it's
34:54
Speaker 1: been interesting to see after the election how a lot
34:59
Speaker 1: of legacy media members are now suddenly coming to the
35:02
Speaker 1: realization of, oh shit, we are totally screwed, we are done,
35:10
Speaker 1: we are dying, We are in a death spiral. We
35:14
Speaker 1: have no real power, at least in comparison to what
35:17
Speaker 1: we used to have, No one trusts us, and oh
35:21
Speaker 1: my god, what have we wrought? And there are two
35:25
Speaker 1: really primo examples, although they have their differences, that occurred
35:32
Speaker 1: in one of these situations where people are doing a
35:35
Speaker 1: public conference. These were not broadcast live on television. These
35:39
Speaker 1: two clips I'm about to play for you, But you
35:42
Speaker 1: know this is, you know, one of those situations where
35:44
Speaker 1: the elite get together and they all tell each other
35:47
Speaker 1: how great they are, and then they have some wine
35:50
Speaker 1: and cheese and everybody feels good about themselves. But the
35:55
Speaker 1: first clip I want to play is from Leslie Stahl
35:58
Speaker 1: from sixty Minutes. He's commiserating with Peggy Noonan I mean,
36:02
Speaker 1: my god. You know, these are two relics of the
36:05
Speaker 1: legacy media, but you know they're they're doing this public
36:10
Speaker 1: event and they're commiserating over effectively the death of the
36:16
Speaker 1: legacy news media, with of course, zero self awareness. That's
36:22
Speaker 1: always my number one issue here is Okay, I get it,
36:26
Speaker 1: you're slow to understand what's happening here, but can we
36:29
Speaker 1: have at least a little bit of self awareness about
36:32
Speaker 1: how and why this happened. Well, I'm seeing no sign
36:35
Speaker 1: of that here, but but at least, you know, we
36:37
Speaker 1: go through the stages of grief here. The legacy media
36:43
Speaker 1: started us very slowly, very slowly. This is I guess
36:47
Speaker 1: the realization of reality stage of grief where Leslie Stall
36:52
Speaker 1: and Peggy Newton are commiserating over Oh my gosh, this
36:56
Speaker 1: is a really big problem because the legacy media is
37:00
Speaker 1: effectively dead or at least dying. And here's what that
37:03
Speaker 1: sounded like.
37:04
Speaker 6: I despair, seriously. I worried greatly, and I think there
37:09
Speaker 6: are other institutions that have been suffering. And you're right
37:12
Speaker 6: not to blame Donald Trump one hundred percent obviously started
37:16
Speaker 6: many years before. But we're at a point where if
37:20
Speaker 6: the president of the United States is going to say
37:24
Speaker 6: legacy media is dead. Well, I guess Musk said that
37:28
Speaker 6: legacy media is dead and.
37:30
Speaker 1: He wants it dead. He wants other media.
37:32
Speaker 6: But it is kind of sort of hobbling right now,
37:37
Speaker 6: and I don't know how it recovers. I'm very I'm
37:42
Speaker 6: very dark about it.
37:44
Speaker 1: Again, no self awareness whatsoever. I would love I would
37:50
Speaker 1: love for these people to be asked, Okay, so why
37:52
Speaker 1: do you think this happened? How do you think this happened?
37:56
Speaker 1: What were the missteps or is there anything you guys
37:59
Speaker 1: did helped cause this? And the last episode of the
38:03
Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcasts of the year. As I wrapped
38:06
Speaker 1: this crazy year up, I do intend to go into
38:10
Speaker 1: great detail about how and why I think this happened,
38:13
Speaker 1: because this really is the year. This is the year
38:16
Speaker 1: where we went from the you know, journalism and the
38:20
Speaker 1: legacy media in big trouble to being on death's doorstep.
38:25
Speaker 1: And it's happened faster than even I expected that it would.
38:28
Speaker 1: And obviously Trump's victory kind of makes it more dramatic
38:32
Speaker 1: because obviously they did not want Trump to win, and
38:35
Speaker 1: they did everything they could to prevent him from winning,
38:38
Speaker 1: and yet they couldn't do it. They didn't have the power,
38:40
Speaker 1: they didn't have the influence, they didn't have the candidate,
38:42
Speaker 1: which I think was a huge part of this whole equation.
38:46
Speaker 1: And yes, they still have some power if everything you know,
38:50
Speaker 1: fits together, if they're all working for the same goal,
38:53
Speaker 1: like getting Joe Biden out of the race, they were
38:55
Speaker 1: able to effectively help promote a coup against the president.
38:59
Speaker 1: So you know, that shows they still have at least
39:02
Speaker 1: some potency under certain circumstances. But I do, like I said,
39:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to go through my version of how this happened,
39:11
Speaker 1: and it's been a long time in coming. But basically,
39:14
Speaker 1: as I've said before and I will say again, they
39:17
Speaker 1: blew it. They had this remarkable gift, the trust of
39:21
Speaker 1: the American people, and they took it for granted, they
39:24
Speaker 1: abused it, and now they've lost it. And once you've
39:28
Speaker 1: lost something like this, the magic is gone. It's almost
39:32
Speaker 1: impossible to get it back, especially in this highly fragmented
39:35
Speaker 1: media world in which we're now living. And it's this
39:38
Speaker 1: highly fragmented media world that leads me to the second
39:41
Speaker 1: clip that comes from another legacy media member, a guy
39:46
Speaker 1: who I have kind of this love hate relationship with.
39:49
Speaker 1: On the left, I say, I would say I have
39:50
Speaker 1: the most roller coaster love hate relationship with Van Jones,
39:55
Speaker 1: who you're about to hear from. And on the right,
39:57
Speaker 1: it's probably with Megan Kelly. You know, if you're an
39:59
Speaker 1: a listener to the podcast, I you know go back
40:04
Speaker 1: and forth between loving and hating both Megan Kelly and
40:08
Speaker 1: Van Jones. Van Jones I like a lot a liberal
40:12
Speaker 1: black commentator on CNN. I think at his best, he's
40:17
Speaker 1: a decent guy, who's smart, who tries to tell it
40:22
Speaker 1: like it is at times. You may recall that I
40:24
Speaker 1: predicted that he would be the first to put his
40:26
Speaker 1: toe in the water of Joe Biden shouldn't be the
40:30
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee in twenty twenty four, and I was basically
40:34
Speaker 1: right about that. But you know, he was slow, and
40:39
Speaker 1: you know he made a lot of mistakes during this campaign.
40:41
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, because I've criticized Van Jones a lot,
40:45
Speaker 1: but I just think he's an interesting character. And he
40:48
Speaker 1: was doing a different conference than the one that Leslie
40:51
Speaker 1: Stall and Peggy Noonan were at. This was a roundtable
40:55
Speaker 1: discussion with about eight or nine people, including Kelly and Conway.
41:00
Speaker 1: Former Trump campaign manager, who he references in this clip.
41:03
Speaker 1: But Jones talks about this seemingly stunning revelation that he
41:08
Speaker 1: came to about how dead the legacy news media is,
41:12
Speaker 1: because especially among younger people, they don't give a shit
41:17
Speaker 1: about CNN or anybody else. They're listening to people that
41:21
Speaker 1: he's never even heard of before. And man Jones is
41:24
Speaker 1: a pretty hip cat so and he's not that old.
41:29
Speaker 1: But here is Van Jones describing what seemed to be
41:33
Speaker 1: the oh shit moment that he realized just how screwed
41:38
Speaker 1: the legacy media really is. And here's what that sounded
41:41
Speaker 1: like in the Philly suburbs.
41:43
Speaker 7: And I'm telling you we are way off. The entire
41:46
Speaker 7: political class is way off. First of all, digital is
41:52
Speaker 7: a new door knocking. You got to understand that we
41:55
Speaker 7: were laughing our butts off at Donald Trump for suspending
41:59
Speaker 7: his doorknocking camp pain and letting Charlie Kirk and Elon
42:02
Speaker 7: do a bunch of stuff online. We said, these guys
42:04
Speaker 7: are idiots, these guys are stupid. Then you start knocking
42:07
Speaker 7: on these doors, you know what, People come to the
42:09
Speaker 7: door with their phone in their hand. They're in a
42:13
Speaker 7: twenty four hour digital surround sound that has nothing to
42:17
Speaker 7: do with CNN, has nothing to do with any stuff
42:19
Speaker 7: that we do.
42:20
Speaker 1: I asked myself.
42:21
Speaker 7: I got a teenage son, and I asked him, who
42:22
Speaker 7: are the most influential people in the world today. I'm
42:25
Speaker 7: thinking to myself, he's gonna say Barack Obama, Oprah, Winfree
42:28
Speaker 7: jay Z. He says, Kui, Scent, Aiden, Ross, Jinxy and Sketch.
42:36
Speaker 7: I don't know who he's talking about. I said, what
42:39
Speaker 7: platforms are you are? He goes, I'm on Twitch, kick
42:42
Speaker 7: and rumble. I said that sounds like you need to
42:44
Speaker 7: go to the hospital. What are these platforms. I'm telling you, guys,
42:49
Speaker 7: the mainstream has become fringe and the French has become mainstream.
42:54
Speaker 1: There are platforms.
42:55
Speaker 7: There are people out there that are getting fourteen million
42:58
Speaker 7: streams and we're on cable news getting one or two million,
43:02
Speaker 7: and so there is a whole world out there. Kelly
43:04
Speaker 7: and Conway, I hate to agree with her, but I
43:06
Speaker 7: do a lot of times. Donald Trump understood that and
43:08
Speaker 7: we didn't. And that's not just Democrats don't. The entire
43:14
Speaker 7: political class.
43:15
Speaker 1: Is way off, way off, way off. So we have
43:19
Speaker 1: at least a growing realization among major members of the
43:25
Speaker 1: legacy media that they are in big trouble. They still
43:29
Speaker 1: don't have full self awareness, even close to full self
43:31
Speaker 1: awareness as to how and why this happened, and they
43:34
Speaker 1: have no idea how to get themselves out of it.
43:36
Speaker 1: But they're at least in some important ways accepting that
43:41
Speaker 1: there is a big, big, big problem here. And Van
43:44
Speaker 1: Jones frankly sounded shocked. I don't know how he could
43:47
Speaker 1: have been so shocked by this reality, but you know,
43:50
Speaker 1: at least he's accepting it, and generally he is at
43:54
Speaker 1: the forefront among liberal members of the legacy media in
43:59
Speaker 1: figuring this kind of out. He's not anywhere close to perfect,
44:02
Speaker 1: but if Van Jones is getting it, then that means
44:05
Speaker 1: other members of the liberal media are going to get
44:08
Speaker 1: it fairly soon. And you know, the two most glaring examples,
44:13
Speaker 1: one of which Jones mentioned there is CNN and MSNBC
44:17
Speaker 1: because obviously they are the liberal cable news networks, and
44:21
Speaker 1: their ratings have continued to implode post election, implode even
44:27
Speaker 1: more dramatically than I would have thought possible. There is
44:31
Speaker 1: no sign yet that the resistance is you know, reforming
44:37
Speaker 1: for reinforcements and that they've just taken a break at
44:41
Speaker 1: the election loss. I mean, granted, we're not even into
44:44
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five yet, we haven't had the inauguration yet.
44:48
Speaker 1: I do think that once Trump takes power, that liberal
44:52
Speaker 1: news networks will probably see a natural, you know, somewhat
44:57
Speaker 1: of an increase in their ratings. Of course, there's no
45:00
Speaker 1: place to go because they're literally at rock bottom. They're
45:03
Speaker 1: literally at rock bottom, and we're seeing some more interesting
45:08
Speaker 1: news come out of both MSNBC and CNN. There was
45:13
Speaker 1: a story out this week that morning Joe has basically
45:16
Speaker 1: been eliminated from MSNBC's social media posts ever since they
45:22
Speaker 1: made that dramatic trip to mar A Lago to kiss
45:24
Speaker 1: the ring of Donald Trump. Now, you know, who knows
45:28
Speaker 1: how much of this is real, how much of this
45:30
Speaker 1: is an actual MSNBC decision. Who knows. Maybe this one
45:34
Speaker 1: social media person who's pissed off, or it could just
45:37
Speaker 1: be a coincidence. There's all sorts of possibilities. But this
45:40
Speaker 1: is the type of story you would not have seen.
45:43
Speaker 1: You would never have seen this type of story if
45:45
Speaker 1: we did not have this implosion in the ratings and
45:49
Speaker 1: this chaos and confusion among the so called left wing
45:53
Speaker 1: resistance and how they're going to deal with Donald Trump
45:56
Speaker 1: two point zero. So there's some some indicationations of internal
46:02
Speaker 1: intrigue and problems for mourning Joe at MSNBC. And of
46:06
Speaker 1: course MSNBC has just been effectively cast off by Comcast,
46:12
Speaker 1: their their corporate entity under which you know, they have
46:17
Speaker 1: existed with many other media outlets they have been they
46:20
Speaker 1: have been essentially jettisoned for what appears to be the
46:25
Speaker 1: purposes of being sold off for parts. And very interestingly,
46:31
Speaker 1: Warner Discovery just did the exact same thing with CNN
46:36
Speaker 1: now didn't get nearly as much attention, partially because CNN
46:39
Speaker 1: apparently is technically under TBSTNT and I don't I don't
46:44
Speaker 1: understand all the corporate structure, but it doesn't get called
46:48
Speaker 1: its own entity. And so therefore, when Warner did this,
46:51
Speaker 1: it got a lot of publicity within the news media,
46:54
Speaker 1: but didn't seem to get as much attention as when
46:57
Speaker 1: Comcasts did it with MSNBC. But effect both Warner and
47:03
Speaker 1: Comcast are in the process of jettising their cable news
47:09
Speaker 1: networks for the purposes of potentially selling them. Now, who
47:12
Speaker 1: would buy them? I don't know. I've heard some rumors
47:16
Speaker 1: I have no idea how true they are, but it's
47:19
Speaker 1: obvious that both MSNBC and CNN are in big trouble,
47:24
Speaker 1: both from a ratings perspective as well as their corporate futures.
47:28
Speaker 1: It may actually be better for them to get sold
47:30
Speaker 1: off and be their own entities instead of being part
47:35
Speaker 1: of these massive conglomerates. But who knows. We'll see, but
47:39
Speaker 1: this is certainly another indication of the death of journalism
47:42
Speaker 1: and the death of legacy media, where MSNBC and CNN
47:45
Speaker 1: appear to be on the chopping block or being in
47:51
Speaker 1: a situation where they may be sold off for parts
47:54
Speaker 1: to whoever might be willing and able to buy them.
47:57
Speaker 1: All Right now, I got to move on to probably
47:59
Speaker 1: the biggest social cultural story of the last several days,
48:04
Speaker 1: and I'm referring to the drone situation, mostly in New Jersey,
48:09
Speaker 1: although it seems to be spreading throughout the eastern portions
48:14
Speaker 1: of the United States. As you can tell from my voice,
48:17
Speaker 1: I dread this subject. I dread this subject from a
48:21
Speaker 1: couple of different perspectives. One is that I don't know
48:26
Speaker 1: what the hell is happening, and I don't even have
48:28
Speaker 1: a really good theory as to what is happening, and
48:31
Speaker 1: so inherently I'm always very uncomfortable to talk about subjects
48:35
Speaker 1: that I don't have a good handle. Lot you may
48:38
Speaker 1: notice I hardly ever talk about foreign news, international news,
48:46
Speaker 1: and things that I don't know about I don't talk about.
48:49
Speaker 1: That's basically my number one rule. And if I don't
48:52
Speaker 1: have a really good, strong take on something, I tend
48:55
Speaker 1: to not discuss it because why bother, especially in this
48:58
Speaker 1: date age, when you can get someone else's take that
49:01
Speaker 1: is a lot more educated and may have a lot
49:04
Speaker 1: more substance to it. By the way, could be wrong,
49:06
Speaker 1: but at least would be more interesting and more compelling
49:09
Speaker 1: than whatever I have to say. So it's not a
49:12
Speaker 1: great take to say I have no frickin idea what's
49:15
Speaker 1: going on with the drones? I don't. I don't believe
49:20
Speaker 1: that we're in a dangerous situation. I don't believe any
49:25
Speaker 1: of these conspiracy theories that have gotten extremely popular online.
49:31
Speaker 1: I am inherently suspicious whenever there's a freakout. It's probably
49:36
Speaker 1: the number one theme of every major story I've ever covered,
49:41
Speaker 1: is there's always a panic. Right. That's obviously most prominently
49:46
Speaker 1: the Penn State. Joe Paterna Jerry Sandusky case and our
49:49
Speaker 1: podcast with the Benefit of Hindsight that was all about
49:52
Speaker 1: a panic. And whenever you have a panic, people lose
49:55
Speaker 1: their fucking minds. And when the media is in a panic,
49:59
Speaker 1: the truth that is going to get lost. And you know,
50:02
Speaker 1: when there's a void where there's a vacuum, especially in
50:05
Speaker 1: the social media age, people are gonna fill it with bullshit.
50:09
Speaker 1: And I think there's probably a lot of that going on. Now.
50:12
Speaker 1: I'm not saying there's nothing going on here. I think
50:16
Speaker 1: there's probably something going on. What that is, I don't know.
50:20
Speaker 1: I have not heard any theories that make total sense
50:23
Speaker 1: to me. By the way, the only thing I'll add
50:26
Speaker 1: to this conversation that I've not heard a lot about
50:29
Speaker 1: that is I think unique to me. If it isn't,
50:32
Speaker 1: I apologize, But it seems rather simple. No one has
50:36
Speaker 1: been able to explain to me why this is only
50:38
Speaker 1: happening in the evening hours, right. I mean, if you know,
50:42
Speaker 1: there's a couple of popular theories out there about what
50:45
Speaker 1: the government is doing, you know, one of them being
50:48
Speaker 1: radiation sniffing or some ridiculousness. If that's the case, why
50:54
Speaker 1: why are they not doing it? During the day. Why
50:57
Speaker 1: only at night? Well, that doesn't that seems to be
51:00
Speaker 1: a key part of this component figuring out this this mystery,
51:04
Speaker 1: why is it only happening at night? And of course
51:06
Speaker 1: the problem with night is it's a hell of a
51:09
Speaker 1: lot easier to mistake what you're watching in the sky
51:13
Speaker 1: at night than it is during the day. So that
51:16
Speaker 1: to me inherently makes me think, all right, at least
51:20
Speaker 1: some of this is bullshit. Some of this is people
51:24
Speaker 1: misidentifying what they're seeing, and they're misidentifying it because it's
51:29
Speaker 1: only happening at night, and obviously at night it's much
51:32
Speaker 1: more difficult to discern what you're actually seeing. That being said,
51:39
Speaker 1: I will accept the idea that something unusual is happening.
51:43
Speaker 1: I don't know what the source of it is. I
51:46
Speaker 1: don't know why it's happening. I have not heard a
51:51
Speaker 1: theory that makes total sense to me. I don't have
51:54
Speaker 1: a good sense at all of what's actually transpired here.
52:00
Speaker 1: I mentioned the panic, which always makes me very very suspicious.
52:06
Speaker 1: Whenever there's panic. You know, there's been clearly panic online,
52:11
Speaker 1: there's even been panic in the mainstream news media. Here's
52:14
Speaker 1: a really good example of that. This is Martha McCallum
52:17
Speaker 1: on Fox News Channel interviewing the Biden National Security Communications
52:23
Speaker 1: Advisor John Kirby. And I mean, it's very clear she
52:27
Speaker 1: is beyond agitated, and I think really in the realm
52:30
Speaker 1: of panic and trying to figure out what's going on here.
52:33
Speaker 1: And I get I get the frustration. It's absolutely acidi
52:36
Speaker 1: that we have no real idea and our government doesn't
52:41
Speaker 1: seem to have any real idea of what the hell
52:43
Speaker 1: is actually transpiring here. But just to give you a
52:47
Speaker 1: flavor of how deep the agitation and the panic is here,
52:52
Speaker 1: this is actually from a couple of days ago. This
52:55
Speaker 1: is Martha McCallum on Fox News Channel with the Biden
52:58
Speaker 1: Administration's John This.
53:01
Speaker 8: Is shocking, Okay, And I'm not the only person who
53:04
Speaker 8: feels this way. This was happening at Langley a month ago.
53:07
Speaker 1: Okay.
53:08
Speaker 8: These people are not crazy. They're seeing these things with
53:11
Speaker 8: their own eyes. This is not normal behavior. They are
53:14
Speaker 8: not plans that are coming in one direction and they're
53:17
Speaker 8: heading into Newark Airport and then they're landing.
53:19
Speaker 1: Okay.
53:20
Speaker 8: We spend eight hundred and twenty four billion dollars on defense.
53:23
Speaker 8: We have the greatest intelligent capability in the world.
53:27
Speaker 3: So how can you.
53:28
Speaker 8: Stand there and say to the country right now, gosh darn,
53:33
Speaker 8: we just don't know what these are.
53:36
Speaker 9: Because I'm not going to lie to you or to
53:38
Speaker 9: the American people, and I'm not going to say we
53:40
Speaker 9: know something when we don't. And we would never ever
53:44
Speaker 9: stoop to think that American citizen was crazy or nuts
53:47
Speaker 9: because of what they're seeing and what they're documenting. We're
53:50
Speaker 9: taking that imagy seriously and we're doing the best we
53:52
Speaker 9: can do and analyze it, and we encourage people to
53:55
Speaker 9: come forward if they have additional sightings in imagery. We
53:57
Speaker 9: want to do the best we can to triangulate it.
53:59
Speaker 9: But oh, be gush, don't if we're going.
54:01
Speaker 1: To stand up here and makeup stuff that I don't know.
54:03
Speaker 8: We don't want you to make up anything you know?
54:05
Speaker 1: Do you know?
54:06
Speaker 8: And you can't say can you tell me that?
54:08
Speaker 5: No?
54:09
Speaker 9: No, I'm telling you, Martha, I'm telling you, we.
54:12
Speaker 1: Don't you know.
54:14
Speaker 9: We don't let me roborate every single sighting some of them,
54:17
Speaker 9: we have, not all of them, and we're working hard
54:19
Speaker 9: to do that.
54:22
Speaker 1: Now. I'm not one to defend John Kirby or the
54:25
Speaker 1: Biden administration, but I actually believe him that he doesn't
54:29
Speaker 1: know what the hell is happening here. And I think
54:32
Speaker 1: that's one of the parts of this drone story that
54:35
Speaker 1: that really confuses me and frustrates me, And that is
54:39
Speaker 1: I would ask the people that are really worried about this,
54:44
Speaker 1: or are you know, coming up with these conspiracy theories,
54:48
Speaker 1: to just pick a goddamn lane when it comes to
54:51
Speaker 1: your view of government. See, I believe most things can
54:55
Speaker 1: be explained by stupidity and incompetence, especially in this day
54:59
Speaker 1: and age, especially when it comes to government. So I
55:02
Speaker 1: am almost always other than when there's strong evidence to
55:06
Speaker 1: point me in another direction, I'm almost always going to
55:09
Speaker 1: be in the camp of stupidity and incompetence. And you know,
55:14
Speaker 1: obviously most of the people that are agitated by this
55:19
Speaker 1: are Trump fans. They tend to be conspiratorial to begin with.
55:23
Speaker 1: They obviously don't think the Biden administration is competent at all.
55:27
Speaker 1: They don't believe government in general is competent. So how
55:30
Speaker 1: is it that all of a sudden, the government is
55:32
Speaker 1: so unbelievably competent is to pull off this massive conspiracy.
55:39
Speaker 1: And it would have to be a massive conspiracy if
55:41
Speaker 1: they were behind it, and yet not have anybody come
55:44
Speaker 1: forward with any credible indication of what is actually transpiring,
55:49
Speaker 1: especially you know, we're about a week into this story now,
55:53
Speaker 1: so you would have to believe in a view of
55:56
Speaker 1: government that frankly is one inconsistent with the true, the
56:00
Speaker 1: two inconsistent with what you normally believe about the government.
56:04
Speaker 1: But I think subconsciously people have compartmentalized government into like,
56:09
Speaker 1: you know, the nuts and bolts of government. Oh, there
56:12
Speaker 1: are a bunch of morons, and that doesn't work. But somehow,
56:15
Speaker 1: when it comes to intelligence and defense, we have this
56:20
Speaker 1: movie version this, you know, the movie version of government
56:25
Speaker 1: that somehow, you know, they really know everything that's going on.
56:28
Speaker 1: They have all these powers that we're not even aware of,
56:31
Speaker 1: all this technology we're not even aware of, and and
56:34
Speaker 1: so there's just no possible way for the government to
56:38
Speaker 1: not know what the hell is actually transpiring here. And
56:41
Speaker 1: I don't accept that premise. I don't have a movie
56:44
Speaker 1: version of government. I think human beings are human beings. Now,
56:47
Speaker 1: there are elements of the government that are more proficient
56:50
Speaker 1: than others, but generally I think people are morons, and
56:54
Speaker 1: I think generally people working in government are morons, and
56:58
Speaker 1: it's a very disfunction organization. I mean, my god, this
57:03
Speaker 1: is not perfectly anything close to perfectly directly related to this.
57:08
Speaker 1: But you know, in the last few days, we've learned
57:10
Speaker 1: that in the second Trump assassination attempt, a Secret Service
57:15
Speaker 1: agent shot at there would be assailant multiple times from
57:21
Speaker 1: just a few feet away and missed completely multiple times.
57:27
Speaker 1: And we saw how absurdly the Secret Service agents, especially
57:31
Speaker 1: the female Secret Service agents, reacted to the first Trump
57:35
Speaker 1: assassination attempt. This is the Secret Service. This is an
57:39
Speaker 1: organization that has been mythologized talking about movies all the time,
57:44
Speaker 1: and somehow, you know, the Secret Services is magical. They're
57:47
Speaker 1: not magical, they're but they're filled with morons, just like
57:51
Speaker 1: every other organization is. Unfortunately, and so if we have
57:56
Speaker 1: a government where our Secret Service misses a an assassin
58:01
Speaker 1: would be assassin of the president or a president elect
58:05
Speaker 1: or almost former president at that time up for election
58:09
Speaker 1: to be the next president United States on his golf course.
58:11
Speaker 1: They can't hit him from a few feet away. I'm sorry,
58:15
Speaker 1: it's quite possible that the government not be able to
58:17
Speaker 1: figure out what really is going on with these drones
58:21
Speaker 1: and just be legitimately and sincerely clueless. I will always
58:27
Speaker 1: go with cluelessness unless it has proven otherwise. Then Now
58:30
Speaker 1: does that prove that this is what's going on here? No,
58:34
Speaker 1: I am open to all scenarios here. I do not
58:38
Speaker 1: know what is happening, but I'm not worried about it.
58:42
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything dangerous going on. I think
58:46
Speaker 1: that there's at least part, if not most, of this
58:50
Speaker 1: is happening as a result of a social contagion. I mean,
58:53
Speaker 1: you've got a very combustible combination of circumstances here, everything
58:58
Speaker 1: happening at night, social media, conspiracy theorist, and these conspiracy theories.
59:05
Speaker 1: You know, before social media would never have gained traction
59:09
Speaker 1: for better for worse, mostly for worse. Although I know
59:12
Speaker 1: there's an narrative out there that you know, all conspiracy
59:15
Speaker 1: theories are true now in the era of Trump, because
59:17
Speaker 1: a few of them have turned out to be true.
59:19
Speaker 1: I can't stand that part of this equation either. But
59:23
Speaker 1: the social contagion here I think is absolutely part underlying
59:28
Speaker 1: part of the equation. Is it all of it? I
59:31
Speaker 1: don't think it is. I think there's some reality here
59:35
Speaker 1: that has been greatly exaggerated by the social contagion of
59:39
Speaker 1: this happening at night, and you know, we're in a
59:42
Speaker 1: somewhat slow news period post election, just before the Christmas holidays.
59:47
Speaker 1: Social media is having a field day with this. The
59:50
Speaker 1: government seems to be totally clueless and incompetent, But I
59:54
Speaker 1: think that is part of this equation. It's not quite
59:57
Speaker 1: the lockedness monster effect, which I've talked a lot about.
1:00:01
Speaker 1: I used the locks the lockednest monster effect as a
1:00:04
Speaker 1: as a metaphor several times in the podcast with the
1:00:07
Speaker 1: benefit of hindsight relating to what happened with Jerry Sandusky,
1:00:10
Speaker 1: and I think it's a very app analogy or metaphor.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: You know, in the lockednest monster situation, there is no
1:00:17
Speaker 1: lock nest monster, so I don't think it's a perfect
1:00:20
Speaker 1: analogy to this, but there's it's a similar deal where
1:00:23
Speaker 1: once people start thinking they're seeing something and it becomes
1:00:28
Speaker 1: a thing, they're gonna think they're seeing a lot more
1:00:30
Speaker 1: of it, and we're all of a sudden going to
1:00:33
Speaker 1: pay attention a lot more to things that before never
1:00:36
Speaker 1: would have been a big deal. Like, for instance, in Ohio,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: an Air Force base got shut down for a few
1:00:42
Speaker 1: hours because of drones. I have no idea whether or
1:00:46
Speaker 1: not that is something that is highly unusual. I'm pressed
1:00:49
Speaker 1: and that no idea. I do know this that if
1:00:52
Speaker 1: that had happened a month ago, no one would have
1:00:54
Speaker 1: even noticed. But it happens now, and it's a major
1:00:57
Speaker 1: story on social media because it's ah, something is going
1:01:01
Speaker 1: on here. And look, if this was really a somehow
1:01:05
Speaker 1: a dangerous situation or an Iranian mothership is a Republican
1:01:11
Speaker 1: congressman suggested, which just seems batshit crazy to me if
1:01:16
Speaker 1: that was anything close to true, do you really think
1:01:19
Speaker 1: that the incoming president of the United States, Donald Trump,
1:01:22
Speaker 1: would post on social media an AI generated meme. They
1:01:28
Speaker 1: indicated that the real source of the drones was that
1:01:32
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, was that Chris Christie was happening McDonald's
1:01:38
Speaker 1: food flown in to his residence. Because that's what exactly,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. Donald Trump posted an AI generated
1:01:49
Speaker 1: meme of obese Chris Christie in New Jersey chomping down
1:01:53
Speaker 1: on McDonald's. Boy. What a year from McDonald's. It has
1:01:56
Speaker 1: been from from the Trump campaign stunt to the to
1:02:00
Speaker 1: the Luigi Mangione situation being captured there to now a
1:02:05
Speaker 1: meme that's been seen tens and tens of millions of
1:02:09
Speaker 1: times on social media where these drones are bringing McDonald's
1:02:14
Speaker 1: food to Chris Christie so he doesn't have to go
1:02:17
Speaker 1: out and get it for himself. Interestingly, by the way,
1:02:21
Speaker 1: that meme occurs during the daylight hours, which I found
1:02:23
Speaker 1: to be kind of hilarious because again, this seemingly is
1:02:27
Speaker 1: only happening at night. But would that really be happening?
1:02:31
Speaker 1: I realize it's Trump and all bets are off, but
1:02:33
Speaker 1: would that really be happening in a world where there
1:02:36
Speaker 1: was something dangerous going on? Would the president elect really
1:02:40
Speaker 1: feel comfortable making a joke about this to that degree?
1:02:44
Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, his best buddy Elon Musk
1:02:46
Speaker 1: did exactly the same thing with another meme, making fun
1:02:51
Speaker 1: basically of the fact that all aircraft in New Jersey
1:02:55
Speaker 1: is now identified as a drone. Would that really be happening?
1:03:00
Speaker 1: I would suggest to you that it would not. But
1:03:03
Speaker 1: I think the biggest issue here other than can we
1:03:07
Speaker 1: finally get a consistent view of government as to whether
1:03:10
Speaker 1: or not government is all knowing, all powerful and capable
1:03:13
Speaker 1: of massive conspiracies or are they just so incredibly incompetent
1:03:17
Speaker 1: that they can't a would be assassin of the former
1:03:22
Speaker 1: president of the United States on his golf course from
1:03:25
Speaker 1: just a few feet away. I mean, which is it
1:03:27
Speaker 1: pic a lane with regard to government. But I think
1:03:30
Speaker 1: the biggest issue in all this is the utter lack
1:03:34
Speaker 1: of trust in any establishment organization. That this is exposed
1:03:41
Speaker 1: in this era, even when it's not directly political. Okay,
1:03:45
Speaker 1: there's nothing directly political about whether or not there's a
1:03:48
Speaker 1: drone phenomenon going on in New Jersey or in the
1:03:52
Speaker 1: Tri state area surrounding New York. There's nothing overtly political
1:03:56
Speaker 1: about that, other than maybe the fact that Trump is
1:04:00
Speaker 1: about to become president. There's nothing inherently political there. And yet,
1:04:06
Speaker 1: even now, even in this situation, the utter lack of
1:04:10
Speaker 1: trust in all of our establishment organizations, all of our
1:04:15
Speaker 1: establishment apparatus, the government itself, the military, the news media.
1:04:23
Speaker 1: Nobody trusts anything. I mean, various government agencies have put
1:04:28
Speaker 1: out statements saying there's nothing to worry about here, and
1:04:32
Speaker 1: people that buy and large buy and large not bought
1:04:36
Speaker 1: it over something as benign as drone sightings in New Jersey.
1:04:43
Speaker 1: This is an indication that of a very ill country
1:04:49
Speaker 1: we are a broken country. That's the most important part
1:04:52
Speaker 1: of this drone story is the utter lack of trust,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: and the worst part of it is it's not completely unjustified.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: Even though I don't fit in that category, I have
1:05:04
Speaker 1: tentative enough trust because I'm seeing other data points like
1:05:09
Speaker 1: I mentioned with the Trump reaction and the Musk reaction.
1:05:13
Speaker 1: To not have any concerns about this from a security
1:05:17
Speaker 1: perspective doesn't mean I'm not curious about it. I'd like
1:05:20
Speaker 1: to know what the hell's going on. I think it's
1:05:21
Speaker 1: absolutely unbelievable that our government doesn't seem to know what's
1:05:25
Speaker 1: actually happening. But I fully understand. I understand why people
1:05:30
Speaker 1: don't trust anything in the establishment, especially obviously the news
1:05:34
Speaker 1: media or in this case, government agencies, to tell them
1:05:38
Speaker 1: the truth, even over something as seemingly non political and
1:05:43
Speaker 1: seemingly not complicated as to what is causing this phenomenon
1:05:49
Speaker 1: of drone sightings in New Jersey. That's the most important
1:05:53
Speaker 1: part of this, and it's an indication of a country
1:05:56
Speaker 1: that is not healthy at all at all. I mean,
1:06:00
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that Donald Trump just won election, folks, we
1:06:03
Speaker 1: have major, major problems to our very foundation that are
1:06:09
Speaker 1: going to come home to roost when things really get bad,
1:06:13
Speaker 1: when there's a real crisis, when there's a real crisis,
1:06:17
Speaker 1: not you know, a fake one like whatever is happening
1:06:19
Speaker 1: with these drones. We are going to see this come
1:06:23
Speaker 1: home to roost, and it's a long time in coming.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: And the media plays a major role in this. Lack
1:06:30
Speaker 1: of trust. Loss of trust in the media absolutely is
1:06:34
Speaker 1: a huge part of this entire equation, and it's not good.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: Somewhat similar to this, and certainly geographically similar to this,
1:06:45
Speaker 1: is the Luigi Mangione situation. Now, I don't have too
1:06:49
Speaker 1: much more to say about this other than we have
1:06:52
Speaker 1: seen a lot more reaction to the fact that he
1:06:56
Speaker 1: has become a folk hero, especially among young's women and
1:07:00
Speaker 1: gay men, because they think that he's attractive and that
1:07:04
Speaker 1: his target of assassination was somebody that they don't like,
1:07:08
Speaker 1: even though there's not a shred of evidence that the
1:07:11
Speaker 1: victim in this case was a bad person, and he
1:07:14
Speaker 1: was a father and a husband and never you know,
1:07:18
Speaker 1: no criminal activity, you know, no indication he was a
1:07:21
Speaker 1: bad guy other than he was a CEO of a
1:07:23
Speaker 1: healthcare insurance company that somehow, in this day and age,
1:07:28
Speaker 1: makes him worthy of being assassinated in cold blood walking
1:07:34
Speaker 1: to a meeting one moment thinking everything was fine. The
1:07:37
Speaker 1: next moment, he's dead and his family has lost a
1:07:42
Speaker 1: father and a husband forever, all because of this creep,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: this pseudo intellectual, this privileged brat who had ripped abs
1:07:57
Speaker 1: at some point. Really, and we've seen from a political perspective,
1:08:03
Speaker 1: several Democrats, most prominently Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman aoc
1:08:10
Speaker 1: who have really tiptoed around, not very artfully, this entire issue,
1:08:15
Speaker 1: where they've essentially said, well, you know, it was wrong
1:08:19
Speaker 1: to kill but but it's kind of understandable given the
1:08:24
Speaker 1: anger that people have over their healthcare. By the way,
1:08:27
Speaker 1: how do Democrats get away with making this argument? Forget
1:08:31
Speaker 1: about the moral perspective, but how do they get away
1:08:34
Speaker 1: with this when they're the ones that created our healthcare system.
1:08:38
Speaker 1: They're the ones that sold us and pasted Obamacare without
1:08:43
Speaker 1: any Republican votes. So if the healthcare system is really
1:08:47
Speaker 1: that bad in twenty twenty four that it's okay to
1:08:51
Speaker 1: assassinate healthcare insurance CEOs, then shouldn't Democrats be taking some
1:08:57
Speaker 1: responsibility for that? Oh no, no, no, there's no self
1:08:59
Speaker 1: aware it is there at all. Instead, there's this incredibly
1:09:04
Speaker 1: dangerous and bizarre position that well, you know, it's kind
1:09:08
Speaker 1: of okay, it's you know, it's understandable why he did this,
1:09:11
Speaker 1: and what's driving it is they know that among their
1:09:15
Speaker 1: base of support, Luigi Mangione's approval ranting is well over
1:09:19
Speaker 1: fifty percent. And that's not an exaggeration. The way I
1:09:23
Speaker 1: mentioned John Fetterman earlier being the lone voice of reason
1:09:26
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Senate, he's the only prominent Democrat I've
1:09:29
Speaker 1: seen who has come out very forcefully and said this
1:09:32
Speaker 1: is bullshit, this reaction to Luigi Mangioni, and he's made
1:09:37
Speaker 1: no bones about it. And good for John Fetterman for
1:09:40
Speaker 1: doing that, But there have been a lot of prominent
1:09:42
Speaker 1: Democrats who have not taken that position. And the public
1:09:47
Speaker 1: is clearly, at least in part, on Luigi Imanngione's side,
1:09:53
Speaker 1: especially among certain demographics. That was made incredibly clear during
1:09:59
Speaker 1: Saturday edition of SNL. They're celebrating their fiftieth anniversary this year,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: and as part of that, they're having a lot of
1:10:08
Speaker 1: their former cast members be hosts. This past weekend, it
1:10:12
Speaker 1: was Chris Rock. Chris Rock, who looks amazing considering his
1:10:18
Speaker 1: advanced age, but his comedy, in my opinion, has really
1:10:23
Speaker 1: fallen off dramatically. I thought he was terrible. I really
1:10:27
Speaker 1: thought he was terrible. If he was not Chris Rock,
1:10:30
Speaker 1: I think he would have been skewered for his performance,
1:10:33
Speaker 1: both his opening monologue as well as some of the
1:10:35
Speaker 1: skits that he was in. I thought Chris Rock was
1:10:38
Speaker 1: amateurish at best. But I want to play a clip
1:10:42
Speaker 1: of Rock talking about the Luigi Mangioni situation, and he
1:10:49
Speaker 1: kind of takes an interesting tack here because he pretends
1:10:53
Speaker 1: to be pushing back against this pro Mangione sentiment, and
1:10:59
Speaker 1: then at the end he flips it and basically, you know, says, well,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of okay because you know, sometimes
1:11:06
Speaker 1: drug dealers get shot. Now, I didn't think it was
1:11:09
Speaker 1: particularly funny. I didn't think it was particularly good commentary.
1:11:14
Speaker 1: The drug drug dealer analogy falls apart, obviously, and I
1:11:18
Speaker 1: realized it's comedy. He's not doing commentary necessarily, but in
1:11:24
Speaker 1: this particular case, it's kind of both comedy and commentary.
1:11:28
Speaker 1: I understand that facts don't really matter here, but here's
1:11:31
Speaker 1: the significant part. One that Rock was willing to go
1:11:34
Speaker 1: there on Saturday Night Live, which of course is taped
1:11:39
Speaker 1: in New York City, walking distance from where this happened,
1:11:45
Speaker 1: and listen to the reaction to Chris Rock, effectively justifying
1:11:52
Speaker 1: the assassination of the healthcare CEO.
1:11:56
Speaker 10: Everybody's worried. Everybody's worried. I mean, we got Luigi. We
1:12:02
Speaker 10: got Luigi, you know, and that's good. I really feel
1:12:06
Speaker 10: sorry for the for the family. I mean, everybody's fixated
1:12:09
Speaker 10: on how good looking this guy looks. If you look
1:12:12
Speaker 10: like Jonah Hittle, no one.
1:12:14
Speaker 1: Would care.
1:12:16
Speaker 4: Been already giving him a chair, already be dead, Okay,
1:12:23
Speaker 4: but he actually killed a man, a man, a man
1:12:27
Speaker 4: with a family, a man with kids.
1:12:29
Speaker 1: Man. I mean I have condolences. I have real condolences for.
1:12:35
Speaker 4: You know, the healthcare ceo. I mean, this is a real.
1:12:39
Speaker 1: Person, you know.
1:12:41
Speaker 10: But you also, I got a you know, sometimes drug
1:12:45
Speaker 10: dealers get shot.
1:12:54
Speaker 1: I mean, you've seen the wire, right. I didn't think
1:12:58
Speaker 1: that was funny. I didn't think it was kojin. But
1:13:02
Speaker 1: I was absolutely horrified by the reaction of the New
1:13:05
Speaker 1: York City audience. There Again, this has happened effectively in
1:13:11
Speaker 1: their city, not that far from where they were attending
1:13:17
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live, and they were very enthusiastic in responding
1:13:22
Speaker 1: effectively in favor of what Luigi Mangioni did. And much
1:13:28
Speaker 1: like this drone situation, it is an indication of just
1:13:32
Speaker 1: how ill we are as a country. We have major problems.
1:13:35
Speaker 1: We have multiple cancers, and this is another symptom of
1:13:40
Speaker 1: a different kind of cancer here that we've had it before,
1:13:44
Speaker 1: but not to this extent. I don't recall a situation
1:13:47
Speaker 1: where a non celebrity, no one's ever heard of before,
1:13:50
Speaker 1: with no information about him other than a few pictures,
1:13:54
Speaker 1: has become this much of a folk hero with a
1:13:56
Speaker 1: large portion of the population when they were so obviously wrong.
1:14:00
Speaker 1: There's not even any question as to his guilt. We
1:14:03
Speaker 1: have video up the shouting, we have his fingerprints at
1:14:08
Speaker 1: the seat of the crime, there's all sorts of other evidence,
1:14:11
Speaker 1: so you can't even argue, well, maybe he's, you know,
1:14:14
Speaker 1: an innocent man. He's not an innocent man. He's a
1:14:17
Speaker 1: dirt bag who lived a priven's life and he killed
1:14:21
Speaker 1: an innocent person. And to me, what we've seen both
1:14:27
Speaker 1: politically as far as well as in the media entertainment
1:14:31
Speaker 1: world and on social media has been incredibly depressing and
1:14:34
Speaker 1: very very telling about where we are as a culture,
1:14:38
Speaker 1: similar in some ways depressing and telling to what's been
1:14:42
Speaker 1: going on with Caitlyn Clark.
1:14:43
Speaker 3: Now.
1:14:44
Speaker 1: In the last episode of the podcast, I went into
1:14:46
Speaker 1: this in fairly great detail, but there's been some important
1:14:49
Speaker 1: developments involving Caitlyn Clark over the last several days since
1:14:53
Speaker 1: our last episode. To quickly review, she was named Times
1:14:58
Speaker 1: Athlete of the Year. Donald Trump was the Time Person
1:15:03
Speaker 1: of the Year, which is quite amazing considering where he
1:15:06
Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty three posing for mugshots and twenty
1:15:10
Speaker 1: twenty fouries the President elect and Time Person of the Year.
1:15:14
Speaker 1: Really quite an amazing arc on that narrative. But Caitlyn
1:15:18
Speaker 1: Clark was the Time Athlete of the Year, which I
1:15:21
Speaker 1: have no problem with whatsoever. Absolutely very strong argument that
1:15:25
Speaker 1: she should be the Time Athlete of the Year. But
1:15:28
Speaker 1: within that article where she was on the cover, she
1:15:32
Speaker 1: said a couple of things that were very disturbing to
1:15:36
Speaker 1: a lot of people, including myself. Most prominently among those
1:15:41
Speaker 1: things that she said is that she attributed at least
1:15:43
Speaker 1: some of her success to quote unquote white privilege, and
1:15:48
Speaker 1: she gave black women credit for having built the WNBA,
1:15:53
Speaker 1: A league that is still even post Kaitlyn Clark not
1:15:56
Speaker 1: making any money, which has been subsidized by the men
1:16:00
Speaker 1: of the NBA since its inception. By the way, I
1:16:03
Speaker 1: did not mention at the time because I did not
1:16:06
Speaker 1: know this because I was going based upon news articles
1:16:09
Speaker 1: about the Caitlyn Clark interview that she also condemned my
1:16:14
Speaker 1: ex friend x very short term girlfriend Christine Brennan for
1:16:20
Speaker 1: an episode that we mentioned on this podcast quite a
1:16:23
Speaker 1: while ago where Christine Brennan was attacked by the WNBA
1:16:28
Speaker 1: union for daring to ask a question of someone who
1:16:31
Speaker 1: had committed an extremely harsh foul against Caitlyn Clark injuring her,
1:16:37
Speaker 1: basically hitting her in the face after having made some
1:16:41
Speaker 1: negative comments about Caitlyn Clark, and Caitlyn Clark sided with
1:16:46
Speaker 1: the player. Now, of course it won't be a surprise
1:16:50
Speaker 1: to know that the player having to be a woman
1:16:52
Speaker 1: of color, But you know, that's part of this equation here,
1:16:56
Speaker 1: That's part of what's really going on here. But Caitlyn Clark,
1:16:59
Speaker 1: even through Chris Dean Brennan under the bus, which is
1:17:02
Speaker 1: just absolutely amazing. And the backlash to what Caitlyn Clark
1:17:07
Speaker 1: said in this article has been extreme. It has been
1:17:12
Speaker 1: very widespread, especially in right wing circles. It was probably
1:17:17
Speaker 1: best articulated, as is often the case, by the conservative
1:17:21
Speaker 1: satirical website The Babylon b They've put out an article
1:17:25
Speaker 1: with the headline Caitlyn Clark explains that white privilege feels
1:17:30
Speaker 1: weirdly like getting beat up by giant black lesbians. Babylon
1:17:38
Speaker 1: Bee's batting average is pretty good. That's definitely a double,
1:17:41
Speaker 1: maybe a triple. Kaitlyn Clark explains that white privilege feels
1:17:45
Speaker 1: weirdly like getting beat up by giant black lesbians. I
1:17:50
Speaker 1: share a lot of the anger and frustration and disappointment
1:17:55
Speaker 1: at Kaitlyn Clark that many conservative commentators and influencers have.
1:18:00
Speaker 1: I think she was absolutely wrong. She was factually wrong.
1:18:04
Speaker 1: It was a total sellout what she said. But it
1:18:07
Speaker 1: didn't stop there. It did not stop there as part
1:18:11
Speaker 1: of I guess the celebration of her being named the
1:18:14
Speaker 1: Time Athlete of the Year, and frankly, I think what
1:18:17
Speaker 1: I'm about to show you and play for you is
1:18:19
Speaker 1: more telling than even the interview itself. There was an
1:18:24
Speaker 1: event where Caitlin Clark was interviewed and now there are
1:18:28
Speaker 1: several interesting elements fascinating elements of what happened here. So
1:18:32
Speaker 1: this is all part of the celebration of her being
1:18:34
Speaker 1: named Time Athlete of the Year. They do this public
1:18:37
Speaker 1: event and she is interviewed by Maria Taylor. Now Maria
1:18:43
Speaker 1: Taylor is an important figure here. Once she's a celebrity.
1:18:47
Speaker 1: She is the host of, among other things, Football Night
1:18:51
Speaker 1: in America on NBC, which is the pregame show to
1:18:55
Speaker 1: the Sunday night football game on NBC, one of the
1:18:58
Speaker 1: highest rated on a weekly basis shows in all of
1:19:02
Speaker 1: American television. She also happens to be black, which is
1:19:06
Speaker 1: important for obvious reasons here, and my perception is that
1:19:10
Speaker 1: she's also pretty liberal and woke. That's not unusual for
1:19:14
Speaker 1: a black female member of the mainstream news media, but
1:19:17
Speaker 1: having watched her fairly closely for a while, she's definitely
1:19:20
Speaker 1: part of the woke club. And she interviews Caitlin Clark. Interestingly,
1:19:26
Speaker 1: Caitlyn Clark shows up looking the best I've ever seen
1:19:30
Speaker 1: her from the standpoint of how men might evaluate her.
1:19:36
Speaker 1: Her look. I mean, she was wearing a black dress
1:19:39
Speaker 1: with a plunging neckline, and she's in fantastic physical shape.
1:19:45
Speaker 1: I did wonder when not her friendship with Taylor, Swift
1:19:48
Speaker 1: might have caused her to get a new stylist because
1:19:51
Speaker 1: her hair was totally different. I mean, she she was
1:19:54
Speaker 1: definitely juged up. She had gone through the juging machine
1:19:59
Speaker 1: and and she looked good. But what she said was
1:20:03
Speaker 1: almost as bad as what she said in the original
1:20:07
Speaker 1: Time magazine articles celebrating or commemorating her as the Time
1:20:13
Speaker 1: Athlete of the Year. So Maria Taylor is interviewing her again.
1:20:17
Speaker 1: It's important that it's Maria Taylor because she's a black
1:20:20
Speaker 1: woman member of the liberal media elite. And there are
1:20:25
Speaker 1: two clips I want to play here. The first is
1:20:28
Speaker 1: this is so classic. This is exactly how this works.
1:20:31
Speaker 1: So you know, somebody makes a statement that's totally inappropriate, inaccurate, wrong,
1:20:37
Speaker 1: throws a huge portion of their own fan base under
1:20:40
Speaker 1: the bus, but which is obviously designed to play Kate
1:20:44
Speaker 1: the woke mob, which is Kaitlyn Clark admitting in the
1:20:49
Speaker 1: minds of the woke mob in the liberal media elite,
1:20:52
Speaker 1: Kaitlyn Clark admitting that her success is at least in
1:20:56
Speaker 1: part because of her white privilege. Aha Glory Days, Caitlin
1:21:01
Speaker 1: Clark has admitted what we've always said that there is
1:21:04
Speaker 1: such a thing as white privilege. I mean, white privilege
1:21:06
Speaker 1: is a is a foundational portion of the woke religion.
1:21:13
Speaker 1: And for Caitlyn Clark to acknowledge and accept and admit
1:21:18
Speaker 1: that her enormous success is at least in part due
1:21:21
Speaker 1: to white privilege, that is awesome in the minds of
1:21:26
Speaker 1: the liberal elite, of the woke mob. And so when
1:21:30
Speaker 1: she made that statement, there was backlash. And this is
1:21:33
Speaker 1: this is always how this works. So now now that
1:21:37
Speaker 1: there's backlash, Caitlyn Clark is also a murder for being
1:21:43
Speaker 1: attacked for what she said. And this is exactly how
1:21:47
Speaker 1: Maria Taylor portrays it in a question to her, And
1:21:52
Speaker 1: in the response to this question, Clark steps in it
1:21:56
Speaker 1: further by referencing her her truth, her truth, which is
1:22:03
Speaker 1: a classic liberal woke phrase. There is no such thing
1:22:07
Speaker 1: as your truth. There's only the truth. And in the truth,
1:22:11
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as white privilege, especially not
1:22:14
Speaker 1: when it comes to basketball. It's the ultimate meritocracy, at
1:22:19
Speaker 1: least it should be. It used to be. That's the
1:22:21
Speaker 1: way sports used to be. That was one of the
1:22:23
Speaker 1: things that made sports special. It's no longer necessarily always
1:22:27
Speaker 1: the case, but there's no evidence in my mind at all,
1:22:31
Speaker 1: the Caitlin Clark has gotten to where she is because
1:22:33
Speaker 1: of her race as from a racist standpoint. I went
1:22:37
Speaker 1: through in great detail, not going to go through it
1:22:39
Speaker 1: again in the last episode of the podcast. How yes,
1:22:43
Speaker 1: if she was black, she wouldn't have quite the same
1:22:46
Speaker 1: level of economic success, But not because of racism. It's
1:22:50
Speaker 1: because she's different, she's unique, she's an underdog. She appeals
1:22:55
Speaker 1: to a different demographic, a larger demographic that can now
1:22:59
Speaker 1: relate to her, not for racist reasons, not because of
1:23:03
Speaker 1: white privilege. By the way, I should have mentioned the
1:23:06
Speaker 1: ultimate proof of this is Tiger Woods. As great as
1:23:11
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods was, Tiger Woods would never have been the
1:23:15
Speaker 1: cultural phenomenon if he had been white and named Eldrick.
1:23:21
Speaker 1: If Eldrick Woods was white, he'd be Scotty Scheffler, which
1:23:27
Speaker 1: is okay, great, he's the best golfer in the world.
1:23:31
Speaker 1: Kind of boring, all right, great, fantastic, another white guy
1:23:36
Speaker 1: dominanting golf. I mean, that's basically how people have viewed
1:23:41
Speaker 1: Scotty Scheffler, except when he's getting arrested before the PGA Championship.
1:23:46
Speaker 1: I mean, So Tiger Woods proves this because It's almost
1:23:53
Speaker 1: almost a mirror image situation to Caitlin Clark in the WNBA.
1:23:59
Speaker 1: So I'm not buying the white privilege. Here's Maria Taylor
1:24:04
Speaker 1: making Caitlin Clark into a martyr, and then Clark further
1:24:08
Speaker 1: digging the hole for herself when it comes to the
1:24:11
Speaker 1: reaction of the conservative world to what she is doing here.
1:24:15
Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like.
1:24:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, your announcement for Athlete of the Year
1:24:19
Speaker 3: like tremendous, incredible positive feedback. That's what we've seen across
1:24:24
Speaker 3: the board. There's always going to be some negativity. And
1:24:26
Speaker 3: I feel like you have had to answer more questions
1:24:29
Speaker 3: than anybody about the intersectionality of race and gender and
1:24:35
Speaker 3: sexuality in sport because of just who you are, and
1:24:39
Speaker 3: you represent the growth of this thing.
1:24:41
Speaker 1: And even today, earlier.
1:24:42
Speaker 3: Today, Meg and Kelly, she was saying that you were
1:24:45
Speaker 3: apologizing for your white privilege and the fact that you
1:24:48
Speaker 3: wanted to uplift black female athletes and make sure that
1:24:50
Speaker 3: they were getting the shine, kind of like your pioneers
1:24:53
Speaker 3: were getting the shine that they deserve. And I just
1:24:55
Speaker 3: want to know how you feel or how you respond
1:24:57
Speaker 3: to some of those criticisms when you have to deal
1:25:00
Speaker 3: with something that it's really not your problem, Like I
1:25:02
Speaker 3: feel like it's them looking at a mirror a little bit,
1:25:04
Speaker 3: but it still comes down on your shoulders.
1:25:06
Speaker 2: I feel like I always have had really good perspective
1:25:09
Speaker 2: on everything that's kind of happened in my life, whether
1:25:11
Speaker 2: that's been good, whether that's been bad, and then obviously
1:25:13
Speaker 2: coming to the WNBA, like I've said, I feel like
1:25:16
Speaker 2: I've earned every single thing that's happened to me over
1:25:18
Speaker 2: the course of my career. But also I grew up
1:25:20
Speaker 2: a fan of this league from a very young age,
1:25:22
Speaker 2: Like my favorite player was Maya More, Like I know
1:25:24
Speaker 2: what this league was about, and like I said, like
1:25:27
Speaker 2: it's only been around twenty five plus years, so I
1:25:30
Speaker 2: know there's been so many amazing black women that have
1:25:32
Speaker 2: been in this league. And continuing to uplift them, I
1:25:34
Speaker 2: think is very important and that's something I'm very aware of.
1:25:38
Speaker 2: And like I said, like I try to just be
1:25:40
Speaker 2: real and authentic and you know, share my truth. And
1:25:42
Speaker 2: I think that's very easy for me. Like I'm very
1:25:44
Speaker 2: comfortable in my own skin, and that's kind of been
1:25:48
Speaker 2: how it is my entire life.
1:25:49
Speaker 1: Yes, that whole episode there, especially if you when you
1:25:56
Speaker 1: see it. It really felt like an initiation ceremony for
1:26:03
Speaker 1: Caitlyn Clark to be brought into the woke cult. And
1:26:07
Speaker 1: I know that sounds dramatic, but that's really what it
1:26:10
Speaker 1: looked like. That's what it sounded like. And now because
1:26:14
Speaker 1: you have accepted our invitation into the woke cult, Caitlin Clark,
1:26:20
Speaker 1: you get certain privileges and protections. Privileges and protections come
1:26:26
Speaker 1: with your admission into the Woke cult, and one of
1:26:31
Speaker 1: those is anytime you're criticized, we will portray that as
1:26:35
Speaker 1: right wing attacks and we will make you a martyr.
1:26:39
Speaker 1: The other thing we're gonna do is we will now
1:26:42
Speaker 1: accept you as our queen of basketball. You have gone
1:26:49
Speaker 1: through the proper rituals, you have accepted white privilege. You
1:26:55
Speaker 1: are now part of the club, and in part of
1:26:59
Speaker 1: the club, the privileges that you get, the protections that
1:27:03
Speaker 1: you get. Maria Taylor is now going to publicly praise
1:27:07
Speaker 1: you and say how wonderful it is that we can
1:27:11
Speaker 1: now fully accept you as the queen of the sport.
1:27:15
Speaker 1: Those are my words, not hers, but that's effectively what
1:27:18
Speaker 1: Maria Taylor said during this situation, this public event, and
1:27:23
Speaker 1: here's what that sounded like.
1:27:25
Speaker 3: So thankful that you are the leader, like you are
1:27:27
Speaker 3: the chosen one in the future of the sport because
1:27:29
Speaker 3: of the allyship, the truth, and the willingness to stand
1:27:32
Speaker 3: and say things if you have to.
1:27:34
Speaker 1: It's awfully good to be part of the liberal elite. Folks.
1:27:38
Speaker 1: I know they've lost a lot of their power, but
1:27:41
Speaker 1: I think subconsciously, when Trump gets elected, this is the
1:27:46
Speaker 1: type of thing that's going to happen even more dramatically
1:27:49
Speaker 1: because they've lost political power. So now they're going to
1:27:53
Speaker 1: exert cultural power more than ever because you know, they
1:27:58
Speaker 1: feel impotent politically, so the levers over which they still
1:28:03
Speaker 1: have power they're gonna use even more dramatically. And I
1:28:07
Speaker 1: don't want to. You know, this is gonna sound conspiratorial.
1:28:10
Speaker 1: It's not conspiratorial. They they are going to absolutely, absolutely
1:28:15
Speaker 1: use their power to take over Caitlyn Clark's soul. Caitlyn
1:28:22
Speaker 1: Clark had been a symbol, rightly or wrongly, of the
1:28:27
Speaker 1: anti woke world. Iowa Girl Underdog, you know, goes to
1:28:34
Speaker 1: Iowa two final fours, seemingly really good principles, work, ethics,
1:28:40
Speaker 1: she's heterosexual, she's got a boyfriend. I get that she's white,
1:28:44
Speaker 1: that's part of it, but not for reasons that are racist,
1:28:47
Speaker 1: as I've already mentioned. And so now they've stolen her,
1:28:52
Speaker 1: they've taken her soul, and you know they've They've given
1:28:56
Speaker 1: her this initiation ceremony into woke culture. She's been anointed
1:29:01
Speaker 1: as the queen because she went through the proper rituals.
1:29:05
Speaker 1: And is it really gonna work for her? Is she
1:29:09
Speaker 1: really going to be loved by the rest of the WNBA? Now,
1:29:12
Speaker 1: I think that's an open question. Thanks for listening to
1:29:15
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