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Episode Two Hundred Seventy Seven: Do You Love Me? · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcomed episode two hundred and seventy seven of the Death
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of Journalism podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm your
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: host on today's show. Trump's obsession with Greenland causes NATO
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to panic. Did Ben Shapiro wimp out on Gavin Newsom's podcast?
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Candae Owens goes off the deep end on Charlie Kirk
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: even for her. Megan Kelly goes on multiple personal vendettas
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a take on the Timothy Buzzfield child sex abuse allegations
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: that you will not hear anywhere else. A recap of
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the college football playoffs, where things are heading next? And
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: did Trump really save the Army Navy game? We begin
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: this episode of the podcast with a programming note of sorts.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: You can probably already tell I am very much under
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the weather as of this taping, which is a little
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: weird since southern California is currently experiencing probably the best
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: weather in the entire country. So I'm uncertain as to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: how this is going to go, but I'm going to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: give it the old college try, even though I have
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: no nil contracts and don't have the ability to instantly transfer.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: But let's see how this goes. Please bear with me,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and I apologize in advance for the lack of quality
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in my voice. I want to begin by revisiting the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: topic that we spend a lot of time on in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the last episode of the podcast very quickly, and that
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: is the Ice shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. To
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: review very quickly, I took a bit of a nuanced
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: stance there where I thought it was legally defensible but
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: not morally defensible, and I thought the Trump administration was
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: far too quick and far too strong to basically universally
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: support the ICE agent and to essentially attack Renee Good,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the person who lost her life in that highly unfortunate
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and complicated situation. Now, I also talked about Donald Trump
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and his view that his morality is all that really
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: limits his power. That was a separate issue an interview
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: that he did with The New York Times, who played
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: a clip from Trump where he talks about the only
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: thing that limits his power is his own morality, which
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: is scary under any circumstances, but especially considering the fact
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: that Trump has no real morality and that his morality
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: is based really primarily on one thing, and that is
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: whether or not an entity is pro Trump or anti
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Trump at the moment of his decision, and that is
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: not an exaggeration. And in that context, something that Trump
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: said earlier this week is really quite amazing. It's astonishing.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: It hasn't gotten nearly enough attention. So I'm going to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: lead the podcast with it, because Donald Trump effectively shifted
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: his position on the Ice shooting in Minneapolis fairly significantly.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: That doesn't come out and say it directly, but you
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: can parse his words and decipher them for yourself. He
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: does so for one reason, and one reason only. He
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: found out I believe, potentially erroneously that the father, in
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: his words of an A Good and the mother of
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Rena Good are big Trump fans. And so therefore his
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: view of the shooting has changed, has been altered fairly significantly,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: based upon that one alleged fact. And here's what he
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: said about the situation earlier this week.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: There the insurrectionists that are doing this work, and you
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: know they're going to make mistakes. Sometimes Ice is going
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: to be too rough with somebody, or you know they
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: deal with rough people. Are they going to make a mistake?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it can happen. We feel terribly. I felt horribly
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: when I was told that the young woman who was
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I had the tragedy. It's a tragedy. It's a horrible thing.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Everybody would say, Ice would say the same thing. But
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: when I learned her parents, and her father in particular,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: is like, I hope he still is, but I don't know.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Was a tremendous Trump fan. He was all for Trump,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: loved Trump, and you know, it's terrible. I was told
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: that by a lot of people. They said, oh, he
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: loves you.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: He was I hoped, I hope he still feels that
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: way or not. Sorry, hard situation, But her father was
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: a tremendous and parents were tremendous Trump fans.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I'd so say it.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: It just happens. It's terrible.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Now, that is an absolutely remarkable statement for the President
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: of the States to shift their position on a major
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: news story, not because of new facts related to what happened,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: what should have happened, what didn't happen, but related solely
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: to whether or not someone directly connected to the victim
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was pro Trump or anti Trump. Now, what's really remarkable
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: about this is I am not at all sure that
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Trump is actually changing his position based upon good information,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: because I think there's a very good chance he has
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: mistaken who he's talking about, because the former father in
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: law of Renee good has done several interviews where liberal
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: anchors have tried to get him to say something bad
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: about Donald Trump and he won't do it. And it
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: is possible, I want to underline, possible that Trump is
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: mistaking this person who has been misidentified in very popular
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: online posts on X as Renee Goods father, when he's
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: actually Renee Goods former father in law, which is a
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: big difference. Now. I asked Grock, the AI for X,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: about this, and Groc seemed to agree with me. I said,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: is it possible that Trump has mistaken who he's referring
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: to here? And Groc agreed based upon the evidence that
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: currently exists. Although Groc is I'm going to get to
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: hopefully later on in this episode, is not one hundred
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: percent reliable at all in these kinds of situations, But
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: for whatever it's worth, Groc agreed with me that Trump
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: may be mistaking who he's talking about. So we have
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the president United States dramatically shifting their position on a
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: major news story based upon what he may misperceive as
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the opinion of the father of the victim, not on
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the episode itself, but on Trump himself, and to me,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly have created an episode a situation that
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: more perfectly exposes and proves my analysis last week than
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: that one that Trump's morality is based solely and can
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: completely on what any particular entity believes about him in
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: that moment, and that is not just ridiculously narcissistic, That
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: is not obviously a morality that you can rely on
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: at all, because that's going to change on a moment's notice.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: But it also goes to the issue of oh so, now, Trump,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: because he sees the episode through a different prism, has
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: come to a much more rational view of the thing
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: where this was highly unfortunate, and it seems as if
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: he's now more willing to say that Ice may have
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: made a mistake, not because of any new facts, not
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: because of a new political reality, but because he perceives
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the father of Renee Good and the mother of Renee Good,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: which we don't know for sure that that's even factually accurate.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Are fans of Donald Trump, you just can't make it up.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the trumpiest Trump reversal in Trump history
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: right there. But the big story involving Trump over the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: last week has clearly been his quest for Greenland, and
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: as we speak, he is in Davos. He just gave
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: a speech this morning at least US time where he
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: has ruled out the use of excessive military action to
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: take over Greenland. So I guess we got that going
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: for us, which is nice. The biggest bombshell that has
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: occurred in the last several days related to this situation
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: is that there was an exchange with the Prime Minister
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of Norway that was rather extraordinary on numerous levels. The
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Norway sent Trump would seemed to be
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: a very conciliatory message, basically saying, hey, let's negotiate this
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: thing out, and Trump responded by basically saying fuck you.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: He didn't say fuck you. It's important to clarify that
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: because he might have given who Trump is, but he
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: effectively said, fuck you. You guys didn't give me the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Prize. I'm really not that interested in peace anymore,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and I'm taking Greenland. That is a pretty good synopsis
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of his response letter, which was so off the charts
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: crazy that when I shared it on social media, I
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: had multiple people who were Trump fans insist to me
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: that the message was fake, that it was not real,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: which I think Trump gets away with a lot of
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: stuff because his fans, if something sounds particularly crazy, they
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: have so little trust of any news outlet. It doesn't
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: matter every news outlet is reporting. It doesn't matter in
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: an ai world that you actually see the message itself.
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  Speaker 1: It makes no difference to them. If they don't want
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to believe it, they're not going to believe it. And so,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how many people didn't believe
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: it was real, but it was real, and it was extraordinary,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and it was very very telling and very very disturbing.
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  Speaker 1: In a rational world, it would be twenty fifth Amendment stuff.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, technically, Norway, as the country,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: has absolutely nothing to do with who wins the Nobel Prize.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: You could argue that effectively, that's not the case. I'm
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: not familiar enough with the politics of the Nobel Peace
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Prize or any of the Nobel prizes to be able
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: to tell you, but technically, the country of Norway has
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: no bearing over who wins, and no influence directly over
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: who wins these prizes. But the more important thing is
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that Trump is so narcissistic that he would look at
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: his lack of a Nobel Peace Prize, which he insists
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: he was worthy of, as reason enough to be attacking Norway,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: not militarily but verbally the Prime Minister of Norway. What
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: difference does this have to do with the pursuit of Greenland.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It has absolutely nothing to do with It has only
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to do with Trump's narcissism and how he views again, everybody,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: every entity, every country as either good or bad based
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: upon how they view Trump in the moment. And if
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you didn't give Trump the Nobel Peace Prize, that makes
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: you a bad guy in Trump's view. And it's just
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: it's amazing, it's so beyond fucked up. That shit crazy
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: that it's hard to describe. But when it came to
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump physically was handed a Nobel
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Peace Prize. Within the last week. Maria Machado, who won
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the Nobel Peace Prize from Venezuela, gave in person her
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: physical Nobel Peace Prize to Trump in what was an
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: obvious ploy to try to manipulate Trump. I mean, she
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: may no longer have a Nobel Prize for peace, but
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: she should win a Nobel Prize in child psychology. For
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the way that she handled Trump on the situation, even
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: the statement that she gave explaining why she decided to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: give Trump her Nobel Peace Prize, referencing George Washington and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Trump together, I mean brilliant, brilliant child psychology there by Machado.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not this is going to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: work out for her as far as what Trump will
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: give her and whether or not she'll be the new
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: leader of Venezuela. I have no idea, but the level
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: of ego and narcissism and childlike behavior by the President
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: of United States is just simply off the charts. But
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: to the substantive issue of Greenland, I actually think that
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, it's weird for the Treasury Secretary
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: to be the point person on this. Scott Besson has
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: actually made a pretty decent argument. I would call it
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the Chess argument, as opposed to Checkers and Candyland, which
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot in the last couple of
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: episodes of the podcast. The Chess argument with regard to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: how important Greenland is in this new world and why
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Trump wants it so badly and he wants to own
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: it for the long term national security of the United States.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And look, I am always open minded, and I actually
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: don't think that the Greenland idea is all that bad.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I think that the execution has been terrible. I think
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: that we've done a lot more damage to our alliances
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: than needed to be done. I think there was no
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: need for so much of this to be done publicly
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and so awkwardly and clumsily. I think this could have
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: been done much more in private. I don't think you
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: need to be bringing in the Nobel Peace Prize and
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: attacking Norway for not giving it to you. I don't
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: think you need to be threatening military action against our
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: NATO allies. So I'm very critical of the execution of this.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: But from the standpoint of why do we want Greenland?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I can see it, And if you can't see it,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I'd urge you to check out some of the statements
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: by Scott Besson because he makes a pretty darn strong
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: argument for this, and those that say, well, but we
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: can do whatever we want pretty much, now, why do
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: we need it? Well, that's not necessarily always going to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: be the case. There's a huge difference, especially in Trump
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the real estate guy's mind, between leasing and owning. I mean,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Trump is not someone who thinks about the future very much,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: but he's only going to be president for another three years.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: If you own it, literally, like if you buy it,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it's much much more difficult for a future US president
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to say, well, I'm going to undo every single thing
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump ever did, so I'm going to give Greenland back. Now,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you know, Newsom would probably do that, but there would
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: be at least some political cost for that. And so
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: owning it and having the national security advantages that it
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: provides into perpetuity, I think is a huge advantage, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's probably something that's worthy of being pursued now.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: As far as the way that Trump has handled this,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: you know, putting tariffs on NATO countries that are against him,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: on Greenland and threatening military force until his speech hit
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: at Davos, I really think that when I look at
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: it from the perspective of Trump's site coology, and this
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is gonna sound simplistic, but oftentimes that's the best way
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: to analyze Trump. I really think that Trump the real
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: estate guy, and let's be clear, that's who Trump is.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: At his essence, Trump the real estate guy cannot stand
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: leaving leverage on the table in a real estate deal.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Trump understands leverage, real and imagined and perceived better than
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: any politician I've ever seen in my life. It's why
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: he is where he is. It's why he was able
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to win the twenty sixteen Republican nomination and the presidency.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: It's why he was able to come back from the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: abyss to win the presidency in twenty twenty four. It's
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the one thing he understands better than anything. And from
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: his perspective, I can totally understand why he looks at
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Greenland and he looks at NATO and he goes, wait
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: a minute, I have all sorts of leverage here. I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: have the strongest military in the world by far. I'm
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the one that's paying all the bills for NATO, all
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: of the bills. What are they providing in return? Basically nothing.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: The Denmark's claim to Greenland is flimsy. They have no
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: military real presence there. We could take this on our
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: own in a morning if we wanted to. And so
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: why in the world should I leave that kind of
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: leverage on the table in what I perceived to be
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a real estate deal. I kind of get that, and
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I have to say coming from me. I know, obviously
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I'm a Trump critic, and I'm somebody who has been
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: a huge supporter of NATO my entire life. I'm a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: ranging kid. I totally get the importance of NATO. I
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: was born in Germany. If I wanted to, I could
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: have European citizenship. My sister, who wasn't even born in Germany,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: apparently is exploring using my father's birth in Germany to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: become a German or European Union citizen. Another story for
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: another day, But the point is I have strong ties
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to Europe through my father, and I've had it with
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Europe I really, I mean, my wife is desperate to
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: take our kids to Europe this summer for two weeks now.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: There's a logistical issue there out of minetary issue there,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and I may not go on the trip because I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: just really have no interest in Europe anymore. I've been
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: there several times, I've seen what I need to see,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and in my opinion, most of Europe has gone to shit,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: and the world has changed and we're not living in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a post World War two world anymore. That structure doesn't
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: really exist. It's becoming antiquated and an incredibly swift pace.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Now that doesn't mean that those alliances don't mean anything,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: but they don't mean the same thing that they used to,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and I don't have nearly the same reference, certainly not
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: for the UK and Germany, I mean the whole in France,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: these countries have gone basically communistic, and they don't respect
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: free speech, they don't respect Western values. They've allowed immigration
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: to overrun most of the continent. So I really don't
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: have a lot of reverence for NATO anymore, and I'm
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: sure Trump feels similarly. So I actually don't have a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: huge problem with Trump's attempt to gain ownership of Greenland.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I just think he's doing it in all the wrong ways.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: It shouldn't be done nearly this publicly or this awkwardly.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: There's no question that many of these alliances are being
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: fraid far more than they need to be. But I
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: also think in Trump's mind, he's showing NATO whose boss.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I think he is very tired of basically paying all
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the bills and getting almost none of the benefits, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: then having the NATO countries attack him when he's just trying,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: in his mind to secure the national interest of the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: United States into the long term. So I know that
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't sound much like a Trump critic, but I'm open
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: to how this is all going to turn out. Again,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I want to make it clear the execution of this
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: has been terrible. Far more damage has been done. The
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: getting into a trade war is insane. I'm against the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: tariffs to begin with. I don't know that Europe can
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: afford to get into a trade war with the United States,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: even if they are united against US. My guess is,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: knowing Trump the way that I think I do know him,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: is that a lot of this was bluster in order
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: to form the confines of a negotiation, where you know,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: this is all about the deal. It's the art of
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the deal for Donald Trump, right, That's usually what it's
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: all about. And so the bluster and the talk of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: war and I'll do whatever it takes, and I'm going
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: into a trade war. I'm going to issue tariffs. I'm
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: hoping that a lot of that is a negotiation ploy
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and that something could be worked out here without blowing
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: up the world over Greenland, because I don't think it's
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: worth that much. But I'm not totally against this whole
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: idea of trying to get control of Greenland now Obviously,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: we've passed the one year anniversary of Trump two point zero,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: and I have a lot of thoughts on whether or
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: not it has been a success, whether or not it's
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: been a failure, whether or not I'm even happy that
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Trump won as opposed to what the reality would be
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: if Harris had won. And I want to save that
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to next week, partially because of the fact that I'm
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: under the weather and I don't think I'm capable of
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: doing a three and a half hour podcast, but also
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of things I want to get to
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: that won't really be that relevant next week. So I'm
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: going to table my analysis of Trump two point one
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: year in until next week's episode of the podcast, when
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: hopefully I'll be in much better shape physically. I do
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: want to get into some things going on in the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: conservative media that I believe I have a unique perspective on,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and the first one is that Ben Shapiro, who I
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: have often described as the best of a bad bunch
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: of pro Trump. I wouldn't call him maga, but he's
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: certainly you know, pro Trump, quote unquote conservative commentators. I mean,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I think Ben is smart. I think he has at
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: least the pulse of a soul to mix a metaphor.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I would trust him more than pretty much any other
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: quote unquote conservative commentator. But I do believe that Ben
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: wims out. I think Ben wimped out in both twenty
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: sixteen and twenty twenty four when it came to the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: issue of Trump. I think he's very concerned about understandably
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: maintaining his financial media empire. And so I'm not you know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not someone that believes that Ben Shapiro is without
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: fail at all, But I have some respect for him,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and he's certainly very very smart guy, and verbally he
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: can be very very dangerous. And he went on Gavin
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Newsom's podcast a few days ago, well, I guess it
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: was about a week ago now, and I was really
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: horrified by the way that the right wing responded to
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: this exchange, because I get that Gavin Newsom made a
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: few statements that left scratches on him that didn't come
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: off particularly well for him, specifically when it came to
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the issue of taxes in California or specifically when it
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: comes to the issue of transgenderism. Newsom didn't have good
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: answers at all. But the reality is that Shapiro I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: thought went very soft on Gavin Newsom, very soft. In fact,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: at times I thought he was intimidated by Newsom. He
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: didn't go after him on some incredibly important issues. I mean, here,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I realize you're a guest on his podcast, which is difficult.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: It's not like having him on your podcast, so the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: leverage points are different. I understand that I've been there,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: done that, But I just I did not feel as
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: if Shapiro was nearly as aggressive enough against Newsom as
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: he should have been. I mean, here's a guy who
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: effectively left California and The Daily Wire left California in
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: large part, if not in totality, because of Gavin Newsom king,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom's insane lunacy regarding the COVID panic that he
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: was integral in creating. And as far as I can tell,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and I've researched this as much as I possibly can,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: that issue never came up in this interview. I mean,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: how that is possible is beyond my comprehension. But just
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: because Newsom got dusted up a little bit, got his hair,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: must I mean, this should have been a situation where
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro, one on one can't leave blood figuratively blood
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: flowing in the studio after engaging with Gavin Newsom over
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: an extended period of time. That's a big fucking problem
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: because this guy is clearly the front runner to be
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the twenty twenty eight Democratic presidential nominee. And right now,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the Republican brand is shit and Jade Vance doesn't have
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the Trump magic, and Trump is going to cause all
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: sorts of problems in the twenty twenty eight presidential election
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: under the best of circumstances. So whoever the Democratic nominee is,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: is going to have a hell of a chance, a
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: hell of a chance of winning. And so Gavin Newsom
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: is a very, very fucking serious threat. And for Ben
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Shapiro to wimp out when he's in the lions den,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: when he has this incredible opportunity to leave scars on
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Newsom and not do it, I think is very troubling.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: But it was even more upsetting when the perception of
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: that exchange between Ben Shapiro and Gavin Newsom was, well,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: my god, Newsom can't possibly win. Look how poorly he
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: did with Ben Shapiro, Folks, that is a recipe for
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: fucking disaster. That is that, I mean, if if you
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: think that's the way this is gonna work, because Gavin
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Newsom is never gonna make himself vulnerable one on one
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: to someone of Ben Shapiro's intellect and his political persuasion.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Ever again, I mean, he's not gonna do with Adam Carolla,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: who would eviscerate him and has in the past. He's
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: not gonna do it with me because I'm not a
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: celebrity and he would be afraid of me. Anyway, He's
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: not gonna face anybody that can really go after him. Now. Jd.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Vance is a very good debater, and maybe jd Vance
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: can do it, but by then it could be too
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: fucking late, because we know debates at the presidential level,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: by the time those things happen, most people have already
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: made up their minds. The media has a lot more power.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: You never know what's gonna happen. Newsom is an extremely
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: good liar, extremely good liar, and so I'm disappointed in
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the way that Ben Shapiro handled this, But more importantly,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned about what this is going to, what this
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: says about where this is heading. Because Newsom has done
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: a remarkably good job of positioning himself as the anti Trump,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and as the guy who is leading the charge to
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: take back at least the House of Representatives for the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Democrats and maybe the Senate for the Democrats. I am
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: not convinced that Republicans are holding the Senate this year. Now. Look,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that could happen. You know,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the Big Beautiful Bill is going to give people a
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: big refund apparently on their taxes, and maybe the economy
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: will be great, maybe the perceptions of things will change.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not, you know, making any prediction yet, but there's
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: a very very good chance, very very good chance the
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Newsom is going to get complete credit because of the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: boondoggle he pulled off here in California for Democrats winning
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the House, which is going to give him actually the
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: best situation he could possibly imagine. See, I thought being
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: out of office in twenty twenty six would be a
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: disadvantage for Newsom. It's actually gonna be an advantage because
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: he's gonna go out. It looks like leading the charge
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: for Democrats taking over the house'll he'll have a disastrous
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: record in California. But your record doesn't matter in this
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: day and age, unfortunately, especially when you're a very good liar,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and you have the media on your side, and you
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: have massive amounts of money and massive amounts of celebrity,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: and so Newsom will then for all of twenty twenty
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: seven have no responsibility for anything that happens. He'll be
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: able to claim that, you know, whatever happens bad in California,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: he had nothing to do with. He'll have all the
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: time in the world to be constructing a presidential campaign
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and raising big money, which he'll be able to do
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: very easily. And if he gets that nomination, which is
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: not a certainty at all, but he's the favorite right now,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: we are in big fucking trouble. Not because his record
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: is good. His record is terrible, horrendous. He's incredibly easy
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to defeat the defeat based upon record, and you know
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the reality of California and all the horrendous things that
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: he has done. But I'm just not certain we live
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: in that world anymore where any of that matters. And
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: so I'm actually raising the Gavin Newsom fear Factor rating,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: which we've been instituting for the last couple of months,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: to from seven point zero out of ten to seven
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: point five out of ten, based upon how in my
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: view how poorly Ben Shapiro did in comparison to what
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: he easily could have done. See that's how I'm evaluating this.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not evaluating this that, oh he left a couple
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: of marks on Gavin Newsom. No, no, no, this this
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: should have been you know, bloody. This should have been bloody.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And Newsom came out almost unscathed. And yet Republicans are
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: way way overconfident when it comes to the Gavin Newsom issue,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: if only because the danger of him becoming president is
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: so great. I mean it is over It is over
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: her for us if Gavin Newsom becomes president, trust me
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: on this. Now, moving on to other issues in the
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: so called Conservative or Magamedia, Candice Owens is back of
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the news regarding her batshit crazy theories on Charlie Kirk.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: But this time she has gone off the deep end,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: even for her, because she has a new theory, a
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: new theory about Charlie Kirk. I'm not one hundred percent
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: sure how this relates to the assassination of Charlie Kirk,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: which she has been lying about almost ever since it happened,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and blaming Turning Point USA and Erica Kirk and implying
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: all sorts of crazy things for which there's no evidence. No, no, no,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Now she's decided to reveal something brand new, and that
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: is that Charlie Kirk believed he was a time traveler.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: That's right, That's right, folks. Charlie Kirk believed he was
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: a time traveler. And Candace Owens explained that here.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: Why did Charlie think he was a time traveler? He said,
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: as I showed you in earlier messages, that he was
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: a time traveler and he had to find me. Is
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: that just something people are saying to their homies and
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: text messages, And again, not anything that I would have
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: placed so much emphasis on back when he was saying it.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: But it came to fruition the other parts. He did
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: die young? Why did he think that him dying young
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: was necessary in order to change things? He did die young?
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: It is related to Turning Point USA in some way
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: or another. At the very least, we could all agree
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: it's related to him speaking at a campus event for
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: Turning Point USA. I'm totally occupied by this. I tell you,
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: I read these messages and I'm going, what is this?
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: What is reality? Actually? And Charlie died Yes, like I said,
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: it was related to this organization, and I think we
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: would all agree that his death and the manner that
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: they did it changed the world world in ways that
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: I don't think we can fully realize, or are certainly
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: not in a way that I can articulate. You just
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: cannot pretend that all of this is one big, unhappy coincidence.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: It's entirely plausible, I think plausible that they knew something
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: about Charlie, and that's why they had him marked and
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: had him monitored and had him likely followed since he
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: was young, and maybe they thought, like the agents think
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: that if they swarmed him and they stayed with him
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: and they pretend to be his friend, that ultimately they
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: could control Charlie and perhaps change an outcome. They could
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: literally change an outcome related to Charlie. So when for
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: the first time in his life, because I do believe
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: he was managed, I mean, I've already said I was handled,
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: I didn't recognize that I had agents, And for the
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: first time in his life, Charlie peaks his head up
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: and starts to push back in a meaningful way. They
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: couldn't stop him from becoming bigger. That seemed to be inevitable,
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: but they panicked. They seem to have panicked, right, I mean,
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: this is just starting to happen within a year when
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: Charlie's going like, hey man, I don't actually think this,
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: I don't actually believe this. And then he goes, you
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: know what, take the money, take the money out of
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: the organization. And they panicked, they freaked out, and their
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: solution was no, no, no, just kill him, just kill him.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: We can't have this. Now. There's really not much to
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: say when someone who likes to pretend that they should
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: be taken seriously, and is taken seriously by millions of people,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: is claiming that a dead person who they were not
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: in contact with for an extended period of time before
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: they died, believed themselves to be a time traveler. Although
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: I will raise the question if he thought he was
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: a time traveler, then why didn't he just skip over
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: September tenth, twenty twenty five. That might have been a
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: good idea, don't you think. But that's how crazy canics
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Owens really is. I've told you this from the beginning.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I've been way out in front on what I call
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the the alliance of lunacy between Tucker Carlson and Candas
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Owens and Megan Kelly on a variety of issues, specifically
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: on Charlie Kirk. But this is how bad things have gotten.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: This is a person who makes lots of money as
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: millions of fans, is portrayed as being influential within the
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: MAGA world or the so called conservative media world. Calling
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: it conservative is just completely insane at this point. But
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: this is how far we have fallen. We've gone from
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: William F. Buckley to Candas Owens in less than a
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: lifetime in the so called conservative movement. And you know,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about that in the past. I'm
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: sure I'll talk about it again in the future, but
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: it's just it's absolutely unfucking believable. But maybe the part
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of the Candis Owens things, the Canvas Owen thing, that
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: is most troubling to me, is how Megan Kelly has
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: handled it. And it's still uncertain to me as to
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: whether or not Megan Kelly has suffered any ramifications for
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: what I think should have been a career ending situation
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: when she called Ben Shapiro a liar after clearly being
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: unaware of the things that Candice Owans was saying about
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Erica Kirk and turning point USA regarding Charlie kirk'ssassination, where
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: she was caught off guard. She was clearly ignorant, and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, she didn't want to admit that she
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: was totally ignorant, so then she just claimed that Ben
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Shapiro was lying about what Candice Owans was saying in
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: implicating Erica Kirk in Charlie Kirk's assassination. And then once
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: she did that, Megan Kelly doubled and tripled down, continuing
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: to support Candis Owans for reasons that are totally baffling
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: to me, don't make a lot of sense. She is
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: really not really in my opinion. While she's gotten a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: lot more criticism online than she has previously, and there's
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: been some people I've seen who are fairly influential who
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: have attacked Megan Kelly who never would have done so previously,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: it's uncertain to me just how much damage that's done
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to Megan Kelly. I hope there's been at least some,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: because in my opinion, it deserves to be career threatening,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: if not career ending, because it was a real eye
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: opening moment. Now, it wasn't that shocking to me because
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: I've been telling you for years that Megan Kelly is
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: a shape shifter, that she's largely a fraud, and that
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: she a lot like Trump. That's what's interesting to me
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: about Megan Kelly. She and Trump are actually quite similar
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: in how they evaluate good and bad, right or wrong,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: truth or lie, and it's not based upon facts or reality.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: It's based upon their own personal incentive structure. And there's
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: been multiple situations in just the last week where Megan
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Kelly has had her opinions clearly shaped by what she
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: perceives to be her self interest and not by the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: truth or what is right as opposed to what is wrong.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Let me give you those examples. I referenced this very briefly,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I think in the last episode of the podcast, where
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly has been attacking the new host of the
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: CBS Evening News, Tony de Coppel, a guy who I like.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I've explained why I like him, although I also predicted
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: he was going to fail as the anchor for the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: CBS Evening News because there was not going to be
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: any core audience anymore. The core audience for the CBS
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Evening News was clearly left wing. They're not going to
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: trust him. Tony's making this outreach to the right wing,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the right wing isn't going to trust him, especially when
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: people like Megan Kelly are attacking Tony de Coppel on
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: a regular basis. I mean, Megan Kelly has been on
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: a vendetta against Tony Dcoppel. And the reason why, I mean,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: in a rational world, like if we lived in a
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: remotely rational world, Megan Kelly should be thankful that CBS
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Evening News is trying to make an outreach to the
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: right wing or maga world. I mean, Tony did an
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: extensive interview with Donald Trump in a factory, and the
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: left wing went crazy on him because everyone thought on
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: the left that he was too soft on Trump. Well,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: if Megan Kelly was really about the truth or right
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: or wrong, she would be praising Tony, and she would
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: be praising CBS for trying to do outreach and trying
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: to be fair and trying to right past wrongs when
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: it comes to media bias, because that's a huge part
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: of what Megan Kelly's about. But she's not doing that.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: She's doing exactly the opposite. She's crapping on Tony at
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: every possible opportunity. Why, Well, in typical Megan Kelly fans,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: it's clearly to me to get back at Tony's boss,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss, over the whole Erica Kirk situation. That's what's
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: really going on here. Megan Kelly has it out for
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss, who again she should like because Barry Weiss's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: anti woke. She's a former liberal calumnist for The New
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: York Times. But you know, she's been trying very hard
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: to be much more down the middle, somebody that Megan
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Kelly ought to respect, a woman in a position of
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: power that Megan Kelly ought to respect. But because of
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the Erica Kirk interview, where Megan Kelly felt like she
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: got implicated and rightfully so in the in the attacks
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: on Erica Kirk, Megan Kelly now has it out for
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Tony Dukepole Dukopel, And to me, this is exactly what
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly is about. But it's not the only example
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: of what Megan Kelly's about. Because Meghan did a similar
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: situation in a conversation and I thought was really important
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: and I was very interested to watch it. On Megan's show,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: she interviewed two young women about the crisis in what
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: I would call the dating and mating process. And we
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: absolutely have a massive crisis when it comes to dating
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: and mating for a variety of reasons. And I'm sure
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I'll get into this in more detail at some later
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, because it's it's an underdiscussed phenomenon
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that has really just come about in the last I
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: don't know, ten or twenty years, but there's a lot
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: of reasons for it. But it's incredibly important because frankly,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I don't understand how anybody gets married in this day
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: and age and has kids. There's so many impediments to
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: getting in a long term relationship, getting married, having kids.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: People are doing it far later, many people aren't doing
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: it at all. But Megan held this segment with these
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: two young women about what's going on with men and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: why men are essentially afraid to pursue women. And they
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: came up with a few good reasons for why things
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: have changed in this realm, but they leave out one
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: in particular, which I'm going to give you the heads
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: up on before you listen to this clip, as opposed
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: to just letting you try to figure it out on
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: your own, because it's so integral to Megan Kelly's entire persona.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Listen to this clip and ask yourself, how in the
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: world do they not at least mention the me Too movement,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: which occurred from twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen and scared
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: the living fuck out of all millions of men, especially
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: in the workplace, about what they're able to do and
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: what they're supposed to do when it comes to engaging
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: with women. And Megan Kelly has made that a massive
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: part of her persona, and yet somehow that ever gets
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: mentioned in this segment.
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: Trying to win over a potential love interest, the last
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: thing he wants is to be considered a jerk who
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: makes ladies cringe rather than swoon with a clumsy pickup
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: line and unwelcome advances. I never want to make the
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: other person feel uncomfortable, and I want to be respectful.
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: Some girls don't want to be approached at all, so
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: I'm always trying to err on the side of caution,
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: not wanting to come off as a pushy as pushy
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: is a concern shared by nearly half of single men
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: in the US who grapple with approach anxiety. Hayley, so
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: what is our message to that.
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: This is pretty tragic. Also, you're not going to swoon
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: anyone if you don't have the balls to go up
• 41:35
  Speaker 6: and ask them out to begin with. I mean, this
• 41:37
  Speaker 6: is really just fear. It's social anxiety. I think a
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: lot of this stems in gen Z from COVID. I
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: think a lot of people got very comfortable just sitting
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: behind their screens, behind.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Their Zoom laptops.
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: You know, they're not going into school anymore. Their social
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: activities were canceled, and I think a lot of people
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: found comfort in that, a lot of people that struggle
• 41:57
  Speaker 6: with social anxiety, which is horrible to see what this
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: has done to society and specifically in dating. But I
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: think that this is also a pretty nasty side effect
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: of dating culture and dating app culture as well, because
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: dating apps kind of take away the fear right. You
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: don't have to be rejected face to face. You don't
• 42:18
  Speaker 6: have to be rejected in real life. You don't have
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: to go up to a girl and say hey, I
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: think you're cute and she says it will get away
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: from me, or no, I have a boyfriend, or anything
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: like that. You assume if you're on a dating app
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: that the other person if they're being honest, is single,
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: and then if you match, they also like you back.
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: So you don't have to go out in public when
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: you go to a bar and shoot your shot because
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: you don't have to worry about that. You could just
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: hang out with your friends and then go home and
• 42:43
  Speaker 6: let the dating app do all the work for you.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: Back in my day, when I was your age, they
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: had to come over to us at a bar or
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: a restaurant or a campus or whatever they had to.
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: But you know, I'm channeling Jordan Peterson right now because
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: I know exactly what he would be saying. He would
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: be saying, this is the fault of the women, and
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: I don't think that would be wrong. Like, clearly, this
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: poor guy, I actually my heart was out to him
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: has had enough. I'm just gonna take a shot and say,
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: probably leftist women be like sit your ass down, you know,
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: how dare you come over to me or shoot him
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: down as like somehow stepping on her feminist power by
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: coming over with a pickup line that a lot of
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: these guys are now feeling really gunshy about it now.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: When I watched that, I was like, oh, come on,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: how can we not at least mention me too. Oh,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: I know why we can't mention me too, because Megan
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Kelly was a huge part of that. Megan Kelly's persona
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: is built in large part on the story that she
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: was sexually harassed by Roger Ayles at Fox News Channel.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: She was played by Charlie's Starron in the movie about
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: that whole situation. She then went on the warpath against
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: my friend Matt Lauer. And if you think I'm after
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly because she went after my friend Matt Lauer,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: that's fine. You know that That's part of what gave
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: me insight into who Megan Kelly is. Because she completely
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: shited the bet on the Matt Lauer situation, she got
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: exposed as being totally wrong. She demanded that all the
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: NDAs be or the people that sign NDA's and NBC
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: regarding Matt Lower be released. NBC said sure, because they
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: knew there were no women that had signed NDAs. No
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: one came forward, no one sued Matt Lower. Even though
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: they changed the Statute of Limitations in New York to
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: allow anybody to come forward from any time period, no
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: one did that because there were no abuse allegations against
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Matt Lawer, but Megan Kelly needed because she sees everything
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: like Trump does through the prism of her own self interest.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: She needed a narrative for why she got cannedda NBC,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: and so she wanted the narrative to be that NBC
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: is run by the good Old Boys Network in Matt
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Lower was the perfect example of that. It's completely upside
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: down narrative, and I've talked about that in the past,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: but the reality is that Megan Kelly has used me
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: too as a weapon. I'm dubious and skeptical of her
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: allegations against Roger Ayles because I think she wanted to
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: be part of that movement. And part of why I
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: believe that is how she has abandoned that when it
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: came to supporting Trump and more specifically supporting Pete Heggstath,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: because she supported Pete Heggstath under a situation that was
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: far worse factually than anything that Matt Lower faced. But
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: it was in her self interest to hold Pete Hegstat's
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: hand through the process of getting him through to be
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: confirmed as the Secretary of War, because that's the way
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly looks at things, and that's how she acts,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: And here we have a situation where an important component
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: for what has dramatically altered the mating and dating process
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: does not even get mentioned because it's awkward for Megan Kelly.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: But then there's one other topic that Megan Kelly has
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: clearly been motivated by her own per snow Vendetta is
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: on in the last week, and that is the situation
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: involving actor director Timothy Buzzfield, which you probably have heard about.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: And I know a lot of people have been very
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: eager to hear my opinions on because of my work
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: in the Sandusky case and the Michael Jackson case and
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: some others. And I'll get to momentarily, But here's how
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly actually works. So you have the Timothy Busfield
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: allegations where he is being accused of having sexual abused
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: to eleven year old twin boys who worked in a
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: movie that he was I believe directing, and Megan Kelly
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: has immediately attacked Timothy Busfield. Now that's not unusual because
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: almost everybody in the media knee jerk reaction. Oh my god,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: child sex abuse. We must attack, attack, attack. Facts don't matter,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Logic doesn't matter. Rushing the judgment doesn't matter. This is
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: what we do, and Megan Kelly is clearly part of that.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Your virtue signaling you have to tell everyone you know
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: how bad this is. I get that, but Megan Kelly
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: is actually effectively admitted the part of why she is
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: on the warpath against Timothy Busfield is because he's married
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: to Melissa Gilbert. And Melissa Gilbert went after Megan Kelly
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: because Megan Kelly decided to tell the truth about what
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the real allegations against Jeffrey Epstein were in a way
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: that made it sound like she was diminishing their importance,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: which I found to be hilarious and ironic, and I
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: played the clip for you on this podcast at the time.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: But Melissa Gilbert apparently made some sort of public comment
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: attacking Megan Kelly. So now, Megan Kelly, this is a remo.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Now you know, aha, turnabout's fair play, Karma's a bitch.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go after Timothy Busfield. Not because the facts
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: warn't that, but because Melissa Gilbert, actress Little House in
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: the Prairie, had made the mistake of criticizing Megan Kelly
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: over the whole Epstein situation. Again, this is all very
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: much like Trump. That's what's so interesting to me, since
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: you know, Megan Kelly when it comes to Trump, has
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: had this incredibly complex relationship where originally they were in
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: a feud and then Megan Kelly went to NBC and
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: tried to get out of politics and that didn't work,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: so then she completely reversed herself and somehow became a
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: major MAGA commentator, which is just bizarre. They're very similar people,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: very very similar people, Megan Kelly and Donald Trump. But
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: with regard to Timothy Buzsfield and Melissa Gilbert, as you
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: might expect, I have some unique opinions on this. They
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be unique because they're not all that side out,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: all that outside the box. They're just using basic logic
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and common sense. Based upon my extensive experience in this area.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: I want to begin the discussion of the Timothy Buzsfield
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: And for those who don't know, Timothy Buzsfield is a
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: fairly well known actor. I guess he became famous in
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: thirty something, you know, many years ago. On television, he's
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: played some important, you know, significant roles. He's pretty I
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: guess he was on West Wing. I think I have
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: that right. But regardless, he's he's a fairly well known
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: actor and he's done some directing and he still has
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: somewhat of a career apparently, which I didn't even know
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: about because I hadn't thought about Timothy Buzzfield in a
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: long time. But he's married to Melissa Gilbert. And that's
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: where I want to begin the story, because one, I
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: think it's interesting, it has a little bit of a
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: six Degrees of John Zigler element to it. But I
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: also think it provides important context for where Busfield is
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: with regard to these allegations against him. Because Melissa Gilbert,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I believe holds a special place in American culture. I mean,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: she was Laura Ingels from Little House in the Prairie
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: during a time period where you know, there were only
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: four television channels, and if you live during that time period,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: you not only watched Little House on the Prairie. You
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: had a deep, deep connection to Little House on the
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Prairie and you knew who Laura Ingles was. She was
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the star of the show. She was a child star,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: and you grew up with her. And Melissa Gilbert played
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: that role. Now one of the millions and millions of
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: people who were very dramatically impacted by Melissa Gilbert playing
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Laura Ingles was my wife. My wife loved Little House
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: on the Prairie. She loved Laura Ingles, she loved Melissa Gilbert.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: So you fast forward now to I think it was
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: like two thousand and nine, two thousand and eight, might
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: it was in that range, Maybe two thousand and seven,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. It was in this range. And you know,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: in Hollywood at the time, there was this organization called
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Friends of Abe that was run by actor Gary Sonisese.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: And this was basically conservatives in Hollywood who were trying
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: to put together an organization where conservatives could basically have
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: a base to fight for their rights against the liberal
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: monarchy in Hollywood. And it was well intentioned and it
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: did some decent things. Eventually, it fell apart in twenty
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: sixteen because of Trump. Trump split the organization in half
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: and it fell apart. But before then there were some
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: really pretty remarkable events that were put on by Friends
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: of Abe. One of them was at the home of
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Kelsey Grammar from Cheers and Frasier fame, and I was
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: invited because I was part of Friends of Abe at
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the time. I actually knew Gary Sonise pretty decently well
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: at this time, and of course I brought my then
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: girlfriend later to be wife and alone at one of
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: the tables as we were having the cocktail party before
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: the dinner. This was a big event at Kelsey Grammer's house.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Was Melissa Gilbert, and she was clearly not happy to
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: be there. Now, I don't think I realized at the
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: time that Melissa Gilbert is clearly a liberal, but she
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: was married to a conservative actor at the time, with
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: whom she had a child at least one, and so
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I guess she was dragged to this event. Why she
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: showed up, I don't know, considering the fact that she's
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: obviously a liberal, and you know eventually that marriage broke up.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: But she's sitting alone at a table no one, you know,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: it's not like she's busy with anybody else. My wife
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: is very excited to see Melissa Gilbert. I mean she
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: almost named, you know, our child Laura, our first child,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Laura Grace was going to be Laura because of Laura Ingalls.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: That's how much my wife, Alison loved Laura Ingalls from
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Little House in the Prairie. And so we go up
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: to Melissa Gilbert and ask her whether or not she
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: could take a picture with my wife, who was a
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: big fan, and Melissa Gilbert basically just said go fuck yourself. Now,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: she didn't say go fuck yourself, but she did with
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: her body language, and she declined to take a picture
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: at a closed event where she wasn't being bothered, she
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't doing anything else, and that really turned my wife off.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, my wife went for being a massive Melissa
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Gilbert fan to basic to now when it comes to
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: the Timothy Buzzfield allegation, because I've been updating her on
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: this whole situation, obviously because of the similarities to the
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Sandusky case, which I'm gonna get to momentarily, and my
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: wife doesn't care at all. My wife doesn't care of
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Timothy Busfield. She's a little bit like mec and Kelly.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: My wife doesn't care if Timothy Buzsfield is completely innocent
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: because she hates Melissa Gilbert so much because of what
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: happened at that Friends of Abe situation. By the way,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: later on that Friends of Abe night, my wife got
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: hit on by Dean Kine, so superman. So that was
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: quite an evening. But the lasting memory of that was
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the whole Melissa Gilbert situation, which is integral to understanding
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: this Timothy Buzzfield circumstance because they're married. And I think
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: if Melissa Gilbert was not married to Timothy Buzzfield, or
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: if she suddenly was claiming that she was going to
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: separate or divorce him, he'd be in big, big trouble.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: But that's not happened yet, and that's a huge, huge
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: benefit to his side as he tries to fight off
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: these allegations now, these allegations that he's facing, which are
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: based in two eleven year old twin boys who are claiming,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: now after a long machination of how they got to
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: this story, are claiming that Buzzfield sexually abused them. The
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: entire story, other than the fact that there's twin boys involved,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: and other than the fact that there's a contemporaneous reporter,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: or at least a somewhat contemporanious report, which did not
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: happen in the Sandusky case, comparison between what Buzzfield is
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: facing and the jerrys Anddusky situation is almost eerie. It
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: is remarkable. There's so many similarities. For instance, the first
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: place that the parents of these twin boys go is
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: not to the police, but they go to a lawyer.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: They go to a plaintiff's lawyer. And not only do
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: they go to a lawyer, which indicates their interest in money,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: but there's also a statement that indicates that the mother,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: much like the mother of Aaron Fisher and the jerrys
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Anddusky case, was out for revenge because apparently these eleven
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: year old boys were effectively fired from the last season
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: of this show that Buzzfield was running. Now, I'm a
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: little hazy on the timeline and the details of that,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: but that's been reported and certainly provides a revenge motivation here.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: But you know, if you're a fan of the With
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: the Benefit of Hindsight podcast, you know that the neighbor
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: of Aaron Fisher witnessed his mom, Dawn, coming out of
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: the house after first talking to Aaron about Aaron, telling
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: her that Jerry made him feel uncomfortable that she Dawn
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: was going to quote own that motherfucker's house in reference
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: to Jerry Sandowski. It's the first thing she said to
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: her neighbor, Josh ravel. Well, we have a remarkably similar
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: statement that was made by the mom in this situation
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: where she effectively said that she would own Busfield's ass.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: And then you have a situation where there as soon
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: as this allegation comes out, you find out about older allegations,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: which apparently, much like in the Aaron Fisher case, the
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: mom found out about I mean, I don't want to
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: this is gonna get too complicated for people that don't
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: know the whole story. But the similarities here are just
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: almost amazing. Where in the Jerry Sandusky case, one of
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: the key moments is that they find out that Jerry
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: had been accused previously, back in nineteen ninety eight in
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: a situation that was found by the DA to be
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: unfounded and he was exonerated in But it doesn't matter
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: because it creates enough smoke where an eager prosecutor goes, oh, okay, well,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: you know, wow, there's really must be something going on here. Well,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: in the minds of this mom, aha, this guy's got
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: a problem. We're gonna go in for the kill here.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: But there's a massive problem with these prior allegations. First
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: of all, they're ancient that they you know this, and
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: this is the way this comes always comes about. You
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: have the the initial story blood in the water, and
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: then other allegations come forward, and those allegations are always
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: far less credible because now, because there's blood in the water,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: you might have a money grab situation going on. And
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: it's possible that Buzzfield may have even paid off somebody
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: or maybe two different people in the past. But here's
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: the problem. Those were women. They were not young boys.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: And I'm not defending whatever hell may have happened with
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: the young women, but that's that doesn't make any sense.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: That's a there's no there's no logic to that. I mean, so,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: I mean his obsession is sectually abusing young boys. By
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: the way, why again, much like Sandusky, why is this
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: the first time this is happening. That he's an older man,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: and you know, and but but the fact that there
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: was some sort of a vague allegation, nothing horrendous, not
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: like a rape allegation involving women, to me, doesn't say
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: anything about the credibility of allegations by eleven year old boys.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: But the biggest issue with regard to these boys, and
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: there are many, but the biggest is that when they
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: were first talked to by police after going to a
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: plaintive's lawyer, and they get interviewed by police, they very clearly,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: very clearly said they were not sexually abused by Timothy Busfield. Now,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: these are eleven year old boys, and they're eleven year
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: old boys who have been acting for an extended period
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: of time. So it's not like their naive have no
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: idea what's going on in the world, have never had
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: any instruction about sexual harassment. I mean, it's a fantasy
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: to believe that somehow an eleven year old boy in
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: this circumstance wouldn't understand, because that's what you have to
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: believe essentially to just did this count what you're about
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: to hear. But here is the interview that one of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: the eleven year old boys did where they're eager, they're
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: eager to tell the policeman that Buzzfield never touched them inappropriately.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: And this was before they then changed their story leading
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: to the charges against Buzzfield. But here's an audio that
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: was leaked apparently the TMZ at first and then played
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: in a court hearing earlier this week in Buzzfield's defense.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: So you know what's right and wrong? Right?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: You know, no one could touch your private.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: Areas, yeah, right, But he didn't touch.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 7: Doesn't touch your private hearts, okay, okay, And you know
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 7: what's right and wrong, right, you know where people can't touch,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 7: where people can't do Yeah, you know that, right.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Does tim ever do that?
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: No, he's never touched never touched you, yeah.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: In the in like you know, your private areas, right,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: never did that?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Okay. Now, in a rational world, that would be game
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: set match for these allegations against Timothy Buzsfield, because you
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: can't go back from that. I mean, this is not
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: a situation where the eleven year old boy who was
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: you know, woke woken up in the middle of the
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: night and for the first time ever was asked, were
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: you ever sexually abused by Timothy Buzzfield And they say no.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: This is after going to a lawyer, having their parents
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: clearly have every opportunity to prepare them and in my view,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: probably groomed them. And in my view, the most likely
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: scenario here is that the child was just afraid to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: lie to the police, so when asked by police, they
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: told the truth and they said nothing happened. Now, of course,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: we live in a completely irrational world where there's no
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: way to disprove your your guilt in these situations because
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: the sex abuse quote unquote experts will say no, no, no,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: that's a perfectly natural reaction for someone who has been abused,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: to which I always say, so, how the hell do
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: you possibly prove your innocence? Because that's effectively what you
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: have to do in these situations, Because when you're a
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: high profile person and the media firestorm begins and your
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: agency drops you, like happened with Buzzfield, and NBC drops
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: an episode of a television show that you're in, and
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Amazon edits you out of another show, and you know
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: the whole world is abandoning you and everyone's presuming guilt,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: you effectively have to prove your innocence. That's not the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: way it's supposed to work, but that's effectively the way
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to work. And I've never heard in the
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: all the years that I've been unfortunately in this subject,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: which I hate. I mean, I didn't even want to
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: get into the Buzzfield story because I'm like, I just
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: do not have the bandwidth for this. I don't want
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: to go through this again. But it was so unbelievably
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: similar to the Sandusky case. I became curious, and as
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: the evidence has come in it certainly appears as if
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: it's the exact same situation. But I have never, ever,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: ever gotten a basic answer to that very simple question.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: So how do you prove your innocence? What behavior by
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: an accuser is an indication that the story is false?
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: And none of these so called experts will ever give
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: an answer because every action, every response, no matter which
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: direction it is, is somehow consistent with being sexually abused,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: which of course isn't a totally absurd situation when people's
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: lives are on the line. But that statement by that
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: by one of the twins, and apparently what happened was
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: even they then change their story. My guess is that
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: the parents. This is again I'm going on the current
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: factual record. Okay, if there's more information, I'm happy to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: change my mind. I'm obviously nowhere near as certain about
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Buzzfield as I am about Sandusky, because I just I've
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: not talked to any of the people involved. I'm just
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: going by what is known. So if there's more information
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: that comes out, I'm happy to change my opinion. But
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: based upon the current factual record, what probably happened is
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: that the kids basically were afraid to lie to the police.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: Then the parents put more pressure on the kids and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: they change their story eventually, and you have these this
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: you know, small jurisdiction in New Mexico where nothing interesting happens,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: and you know, you've got a prosecutor who's very eager
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: to make headlines, and they decide to go with these charges.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of red flags here, some of
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: which I've already articulated, but one of them is just
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: the obs if you are a serial child predator, pedophile.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: Right again, this is the first allegation of its kind.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: The media doesn't like to make the distinction between these
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: other very ancient cases involving women and these two young boys.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Somehow they all get lumped into the same category, which
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: I think is absurd. But it's awfully weird for this
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: to happen in the first the first time that anybody
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: has ever had any of these allegations against Buzzfield at
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: this late to date, especially when going back to the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly conversation with me Too. You cannot forget that
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: me Too happened. In fact, one of the new allegations
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: against Buzzfield is from a woman from twenty five years ago,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: and I think her dad has said he's that he
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: described Buzzfield as the Jeffrey Epstein of Hollywood, and I'm like,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: you've got to be kidding me. I'm sorry. Me too
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: is incredibly important context because of the Me too movement,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: especially anything dealing with New York and the ending of
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: the statue of limitations. Anybody that did not come forward
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: in the Me Too movement is instantaneously lacking in credibility.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: You have no credibility unless you have massive amounts of
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: evidence to back up your allegation. You cannot be taken
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: seriously if you did not come forward during that two
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: year period of hysteria where the media was willing to
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: back any allegation against the high profile person, and there
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: was often money involved and people were going to jailing
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: and having their careers ended willy nilly with no evidence,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: no logic. So I'm sorry. You know, you can't have
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: it both ways. You can't have a me too movement
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: and then not also at least consider that when it
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: comes to old allegations, and I think old allegations and
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: sex abuse are inherently ridiculous because the only way you
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: can disprove an allegation like that is that you were
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: not there at that time and place. Well, invariably, these
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: old allegations from twenty five years ago, they never have
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: a date, And how the hell do you prove that
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: you weren't in a particular place twenty five years ago.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: It's almost impossible, which is why statute of limitations is important,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: why contemporary reports is important. But maybe the part of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: this whole thing, going back to Buzzfield specifically that makes
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: no sense is not only is this the first time
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: that we have any knowledge of them? Now, you know,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: we're far enough out from this that if there were
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: new allegations of young boys against Buzzfield, we would have
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: heard about. It doesn't mean it can't happen in the future,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: and if it does, maybe I'll reevaluate. But why would
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: this be the first time that this ever happened? That's
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: number one. But more importantly than even that, think about this.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: If this guy was really, you know, some sort of
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: criminal mastermind that getting away with this kind of behavior
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: for a very long time, because he would have had
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: this compulsion for a very very long time, why would
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: you ever sexually abuse twins? Sexually abusing twins, it's gotta
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: be one of the dumbest things you could possibly do
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: if you were some sort of a criminal mastermind. By
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: the way, abusing either of a twin would be insane
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: because obviously twins have a unique relationship. One is going
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: to tell the other, probably about everything that happens. You
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: immediately have a corroborating witness, You have someone to support
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: them to come forward and say something. But to do
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: it to both twins is absolutely asinine from a purely
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: criminal master by perspective, completely asinine because if you do,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: if you sexually abuse two twins, there's no chance to
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: get away with that because you have inherent corroboration and
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: you have two people that are going to talk to
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: each other. And I mean, it's one of the reasons
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: why the allegations, one of the thousands of reasons why
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: the allegations against Jerry Sandusky never made any sense because
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: four of the six original accusers in his criminal case
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: were pictured together in his book. Well, they were friends
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: with each other. Why would you say, if you were
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: a criminal master by, why would you sexually abuse kids
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: that all knew each other might talk to each other,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, if they thought they were alone, they
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: might be afraid to come forward. But if they have
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: a friend it's also been sexually abused, the chances of
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: them coming forward are exponentially greater, as well as their
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: credibility is exponentially greater. It makes no damn sense. So
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: as of right now, based upon the current factual record,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: I have become pretty darn convinced that Buzzfield is very
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: likely innocent, and that belief was bolstered because the judge
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: in the case released him without bail. I mean, the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: charges haven't been dropped, but there was a darn good
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: chance he was going to be forced to stay in prison,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: you know, pending trial, which in my opinion, would have
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: been devastating to him from a public perception perspective. I mean,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: but to be able to get out of jail and
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: to have at least some semblance of vindication from a
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: judge saying there's not even enough to keep you in
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: prison or even on bail, is a remarkable condemnation, especially
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: in this environment of the prosecution in this case. Now,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going to happen in the future here,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: but I will be if based upon based upon the
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: current factual record, I will be stunned. Stunned if Buzzfield
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: actually gets convicted of anything, and I will not be
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: surprised if this never goes to trial. I think that
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: the prosecutors are probably a bit scared right now unless
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: they can get more accusers. And it appears as if
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: the momentum for this has been stalled, if not stopped completely,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: which did not happen in the Sandusky case. See this
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: is where we're starting to get the differences between Busfield
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: and Sandusky and the advantages that Buzzfield has that Sandusky
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: did not. The number one advantage that Busfield has is
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Melissa Gilbert. Regardless of what Megan Kelly and my wife
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: think of Melissa Gilbert, Melissa Gilbert still has significant cachet,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: especially with a particular demographic, and as long as she
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: strongly stands by him, which she has so far, he's
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: got a really good chance because she's an American icon
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: and so she's been very strongly in his corner. Also,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: it appears as if, unlike Jerry Sandowsky, Buzzfield has a
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: really good attorney. Listening to Harvey Levin from TMZ describe
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: what happened in court before the judge let Buzzfield out
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: without even any bail, It's very clear that Buzzfield attorney
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: is far better than Joe Amondola was and apparently eviscerated
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: what little case the prosecution already has. But the most
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: important thing that Buzzfield has or does not have in
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: comparison to Jerry Sandusky is he does not have an
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: ESPN network completely obsessed with trying to take down Buzzfield's
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: former legendary boss in Sandusky's case, Joe Paterno. I mean,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: I will always always believe that the Joe Paternal angle,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: the distraction of Joe Paterno, is what ended any chance
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: that Jerry Sandusky had, because once paternal goes down, once
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: Graham Spaniel, the president of Penn State, goes down, the
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: administrators are charged. Penn State is incentivized to plead guilty
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: to things that didn't happen. It's perceived that they're pleading
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: guilty to things that must have happened, because why else
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: would Penn State plead guilty. Sendusky has no chance, And
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: then he also has this entire community deeply invested in
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: proving to the world that they're against child molestation, that
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: they did not really enable child molestation for thirty or
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: forty years and so they're incentivized to convict Sendusky as
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: much as they possibly can, and so, thankfully for Buzzfield,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: none of that exists. And so I think Buzzfield right
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: now is probably in a pretty darn good situation with
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: regard to getting out of this if there are no
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: future shoes to drop, and you know, if the shoes
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: don't drop soon, they're probably not going to, especially now
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: that there's a court ruling that is at least going
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: to be perceived as being pro buzz Field, and people
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: might start to push the brakes on this. Of course,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: you know, his management team's already dropped him. As I said,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: NBC and Amazon have already thrown him under the bus,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: which is just totally ridiculous. And so I just don't
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: understand my wife's view on this. I guess I just
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: don't have that particular chromosome where I only care about
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: people I like, or if someone I dislike is charged
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: with something that they didn't do, I don't care about it.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: I just can't. It bothers me. It really really bothers me,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: and obviously much to my own detriment, because I've defended
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: people that I don't even like that I have no
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: self interest in. But this is a major problem we
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: have in our society, where these allegations are so damaging
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: and so easy to be made, and the media is
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: so terrible. I mean, they don't even try, they don't
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: even try to be objective about any of this because
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: they're so afraid of looking like they're on the side
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: of the child sex abuser. That these allegations can be
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: made and absurd things can be alleged and it never
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: gets refuted. And there's an interesting angle to this with
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: regard to AI that I've kind of gotten involved in
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: over the last several days, somewhat on purpose and somewhat inadvertently,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: because I wanted to test AI, both Chat GPT and
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: rock from X. I wanted to test them on the
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: bus field and then later on the Sandusky case, partially
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: because I wanted to see just how bad AI was
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: going to be on a case like this because one
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: of my great concerns, and I have many about AI,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: one of my great concerns about AI is that the
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: conventional wisdom is all that AI is going to be
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: able to produce, because that's effectively what AI does. It scrapes,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: you know, the conventional wisdom off the Internet and then
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: it regurgitates that. And so how can any contrariyan opinion
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: have any chance when AI is basically built to bolster
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: the conventional wisdom, especially when it comes to controversial topics
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: like child sex abuse, where nobody wants to be seen
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: as somehow defending the child sex abuser. I mean, I
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: get accused of this, you know, dozens of times a week,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: and I always say, no, I'm not defending a child
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: sex abuser. I'm the guy that proved that an innocent
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: man was wrongfully convicted in the Jerrys and Dusky case.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: But very very few people are somehow able to wrap
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: their brains around that. Well. Interestingly, I went to Chad
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: Gpt on the Buzzfield case and I expressed that I
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: thought that there were about seven red flags regarding this case,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: and I've already talked about most of them, and many
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: of them are very similar to the Jerry's and Dusky case.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: And what was fascinating about this to me was that
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: chat Gpt completely and totally understood where I was coming from,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: that all of my concerns, my red flags about the
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: Buzzfield case were valid. However, it also made it clear
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: that none of that proved his innocence. Now didn't say
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: proved his innocence, but it was clear that in the
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: quote unquote mind of chat GPT that effectively, you have
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: to prove your innocence in a child sex abuse case,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: and that it's almost impossible to do so for reasons
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: that I've talked about previously, where all those red flags,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: and the chat GPT went through every red flag and said, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: those are all concerns, but none of them are definitive
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: improving innocence. And I'm, like I said to the chat GPT, said,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: so you're basically saying that you have to prove your
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: innocence and it's impossible to do so unless you can
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: prove you weren't there that day. And you know, then
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: the chat GPT hems and hawes. And my takeaway was
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: that the chat GPT was understanding of the problems. That
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: was the good part. It understood the problems and it
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: went into detail into why the issues that I was
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: raising were legitimate red flags, but it was unwilling to
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: come to the ultimate conclusion because there seems to be
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: a politically correct blockage there now chat GPT is in
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: my view, more liberal than GROC is on X, if
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: only because of Elon Musk's influence on GROCK. But I
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: had an interesting exchange with GROC that was inadvertent on
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: the Sandusky case because and this gets a little complicated,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: so I'm gonna try to narrow it down, but somehow GROC.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: And the weirdest part of this to me was that
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: GROC responded without even being tagged, which I don't even
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: know how or why that happened. But there was there
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: was a debate, as there almost always is going online
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: on X about issues related to Sandusky's guilt or innocence,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: and and the GROC is weird to me because it's
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: clear to me that GROC will try to learn from
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: new information and but then the GROC will forget that information.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is you'll be in
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: a in a in a thread where you're trying to
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: educate GROC to certain aspects of in this case, the
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky situation, and it will go, oh, yeah, yeah,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: that's that's a valid point, and yep, yep, And you
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: know there's doubt about this and doubt about that, and
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: that questions have been raised, and then if you start
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: a completely new thread or someone else will bring to me,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: because it happens invariably a completely different thread where the
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: same AI is being used, it will act as if
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: it's the prosecution in the Jerry Sandusky case. And there's
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: no doubt at all that Sadusky is guilty, because after all,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: he was convicted of forty five counts and there were
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: you know, eyewitness accounts and victim statements and blah blah
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And I'm like, how is this possible.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: I don't understand. I really don't understand from a technology perspective,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: how the AI simultaneously can appear to be learning about
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: a case and then respond to other people as if
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: it's never heard anything other than the conventional wisdom of
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: the case. But what was really interesting to me, and
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: maybe the most telling and most disturbing aspect of this
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: was I basically started to debate groc about the Sandusky case,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: and I said to it, you really need to check
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: out the podcast With the Benefit of Hindsight. Now, I
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: did not mention that I was the co host of
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: With the Benefit of Hindsight, but you know, because it
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: was clear that it did not have a full understanding
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: of the factual record, and the GROC responded to me,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: I have reviewed with the benefit of hindsight, and yes,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: it raises questions about repressed memory therapy and implies that
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: Sandusky might be innocent, And like, CROC just lied to me,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: because there's no possible way that an AI could have
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: reviewed the with the Benefit of Hindsight podcast that come
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: up with that conclusion because we hardly talk at all
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: about repressed memory therapy. Because I'm not I don't really
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: believe that was a huge part of what happened. I
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: think it was used as an excuse for why people
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: were able to change their stories and didn't make contemporaneous reports.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: But clearly you can't listen to the benefit of Hindsight
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: podcast and conclude that we're just implying that Sinusky might
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: be innocent. We've proven that he's innocent, and I'm like,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: oh my god, GROC just lied. And so I basically said,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: you clearly did not review the podcast. I'm the co host,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: and let me go through all the reasons why Jerry
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Sandusky is clearly innocent, And at that point the GROC
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: effectively admitted that it lied, saying something to the effect that, well, yes,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: I clearly need to do more research on the podcast.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize you were the co host. And to me,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: the most significant part of this was that GROC was
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: willing to lie about what research it had done, and
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: it was so incompetent that it didn't even realize that
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: it was speaking to the co host of the podcast.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: And so while it's disturbing from the standpoint of how
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: AI handles controversial issues like child sex abuse, to me
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: it was much more concerning that the AI was willing
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: to lie, is actually awfully lazy and is really not
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: all that competent, which then leads me to the issue
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: of okay, so where are we on AI? And I
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: have you know, for the last several months in this
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: podcast put forward a fear factor rating on AI, much
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: like I have on Gavin Newsom, and it got as
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: high as eight point zero. At the end of last year,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: I lowered it the seven point five out of ten,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: and I think I'm going to lower it just a
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: little bit more, not just because of my experience with
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: Grock and I fully understand. I want to make clear
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: when you say AI, Chat, GPT, and GROCK are just
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg. I fully understand that. I
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: realize that that's the perception of AI, and so I
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: get that it's very very very very very dangerous to
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: be making evaluations on the future of AI based upon
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: answers that Chat, GPT or GROC provide, although I will
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: say I am oftentimes exceedingly unimpressed with Chat, GPT or
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: with GROC, especially on topics that I know very very well,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: and on occasionally I'll ask both of them about things
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: related to me, just to test them, and they invariably fail.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: They also make shit up. I don't want to get
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: too far afield here, but just the other day, in
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: preparation for this podcast, I asked about what the ratings
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: were for the television broadcast of the college football National
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: Championship game between Indiana and Miami. The ratings hadn't come
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: out yet. I thought they hadn't come out yet, but
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure, so I asked ROC, and
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: GROC just made shit up, and I asked how to
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: compare the last year, and it just made shit up
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: about that. It made up up what the ratings were
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: last year, made up two teams that did didn't play
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: in the National Championship Game last year, so I don't
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: want to. I'm not evaluating AI in institutality based simply
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: on chat, GBT and Rock and my extreme disappointment at
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: times with both of those, but it does have an influence,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: and that is, in public perception, a large part of
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: what AI is. But I wanted to play a clip
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: from an odd source that I found to be very
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: interesting and in a weird way comforting, which I'm always
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: hesitant to embrace anything that makes me feel good because
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: then I think, Okay, then maybe that's not truth. Maybe
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: I just want it to be true. But what I'm
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: referring to is an interview that Ben Flack and Matt
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: Damon gave to Joe Rogan. Now they've been everywhere. I mean,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: it'd be hard to miss an interview with Ben Flack
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: and Damon because they've been promoting a new Netflix movie
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: called Rip, which are going to get to in a second.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: So they've been doing unbelievable numbers of interviews, partially because
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: the business model of this movie, Rip is different than
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: any other movie in history. They're now trying to create
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: this situation where everybody that worked on the movie might
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: be able to get a bonus if it does well,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: so I think in an effort to try to make
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: that happen, as well as to make a good faith
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: effort in the public perception, they're doing interviews with everybody.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, wouldn't just shock me if they would do
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: an interview with the Death of Journalism podcast if I
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: asked if I had the way of getting to them,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: Although that might be asking too much. But the point
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: is they've been everywhere. But they did a fascinating interview
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: with Joe Rogan and one of the things that came
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: up was AI. And I've never felt that Ben Afflack
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: was all that smart. I always thought that Matt Damon
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: was the smarter of the two of them. Maybe that's
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: because that's what they played in their original movie, Goodwill Hunting,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: which is an absolute classic. I never thought Ben Affleck
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: was dumb, although some of his dating decisions haven't been
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: all that great. But I was really impressed with his
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: rather lengthy but still worthy of listening to response When
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: it came to the issue of AI and why he
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: is skeptical, I would say extremely skeptical about how powerful
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: AI really is going to be, at least in the
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: entertainment realm, and how much it's really going to change things.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like from Ben Affleck on
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan Show.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 8: Example, if you try to get chat Ebt or Claude
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 8: or Gemini or write you something, it's really shitty. And
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 8: it's shitty because by its nature it goes to the
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 8: mean to the average, and it's not reliable, and it's
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 8: I mean, I just can stand to see it writes.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: Now, it's a.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 8: Useful tool if you're a writer and you're going, ah,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 8: what's the thing. I'm trying to set something up where
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 8: somebody sends someone a letter but it's delayed two days
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 8: and gets then it can give you some examples of that.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 8: I actually don't think it's very likely that it can
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 8: it's going to be able to write anything meaningful or
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 8: and in particular, that it's going to be making movies
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 8: like from hole Cloth like Tilly normal, Like that's bullshit.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 8: I don't think that's going to happen. I think it's not.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 8: I think it actually turns out the technology is not
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 8: progressing in exactly the same way they sort of presented it.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 8: And really what it is is going to be a
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 8: tool just like sort of visual facts, and yeah, it
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 8: needs to have language around it. You need to protect
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 8: your name and likeness. You can do that. You can
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 8: water market your those laws already exist. You can't. I
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 8: can't sell your fucking picture for money. I can't you
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 8: consume me period. I might have the ability to draw you,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 8: to make you in a very realistic way, but that's
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 8: already against the law. And the unions are gonna I
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 8: think the guilds are going to manage this where it's like, okay,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 8: look if this is a tool that actually helps us.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 8: For example, we don't have to go to the North Pole, right,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 8: we can shoot the scene here in our parkas and
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 8: you know, whatever it is, and but then make it
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 8: appear very realistically as if we're in the North Pole
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 8: and let's say gave us a lot of money a
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 8: lot of time, We're gonna focus on the performances and
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 8: not be freezing our ass up out there.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: And running back inside. That's useful.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 8: Just like Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn used to be
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 8: like driving their car and there's wind blowing a painting
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 8: behind them and look goofy and you know now, you know,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 8: in computer generate, people use a lot of computer generated stuff,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 8: and some of it is going to replace just that,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 8: Like instead of five hundred guys in Singapore, you know,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 8: making two dollars an hour to render all the graphics
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 8: for a Superhero movie, there's gonna be able to do
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 8: that a lot easier. There's already laws around and guild
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 8: guidelines around, like how many union extras you have to use.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 8: But also we've been tiling extras like there weren't a
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 8: million Orcs and Middle Earth, you know what I mean?
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 8: And Victis there weren't all those people in the stadium,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 8: Like that's something we've been doing. It kind of feels
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 8: to me like things talking about earlier, where there's a
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 8: lot more fear because we have the sense that's existential dread,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 8: it's gonna wipe everything out. But that actually runs counter
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 8: in my view to what history seems to show, which
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 8: is a adoption slow, it's incremental. I think a lot of
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 8: that rhetoric comes from people who are trying to justify
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 8: valuations around companies, where they go, we're gonna change everything
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 8: in two years. There's gonna be no more work but
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 8: the reason they're saying that is because they need to
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 8: ascribe evaluation for investment that can warrant the capex spend
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 8: they're gonna make on these data centers, with the argument
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 8: that like, oh, you know, as soon as we do
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 8: the next model, it's gonna scale up, it can be
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 8: three times as good, except that actually chat gp five
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 8: about twenty five times percent better than chat gypt four
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 8: and costs about four times as much in the way
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 8: of electricity and data. So those and they say that
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 8: it's like plateauing the early AI the line went up
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 8: very steeply and it's now sort of leveling off. I
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 8: think it's because and yes, it'll get better, but it's
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 8: going to be really expensive to get better, and a
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 8: lot of people are like, fuck this, we want chat
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 8: GYP four. Because it turned out like the vast majority
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 8: of people who use AI are using it to like
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 8: as like companion bots to chat with at night, and
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 8: so there's no work, there's no productivity, there's no value
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 8: to it. I would argue there's also not a lot
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 8: of social value to getting people to focus on an
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 8: AI friend who's you know, telling you that you're great
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 8: and listening to everything you say, and being sickophantic, But
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 8: that's sort of a side issue. I think for this
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 8: particular purpose, like the way I see the technology and
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 8: what it's good at and what it's not. It's going
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 8: to be good at billing in all the places that
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 8: are expensive and burden something, and that may get harder
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 8: to do it, and it's always going to rely fundamentally
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 8: on the human artistic aspects of it.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Now, I thought that was a really good analysis. It
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: was very thoughtful. I hope a lot of that is true.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: If I had a criticism of what Affleck said there,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: it would be that I think he's too naive when
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: it comes to how Hollywood is going to hold the line.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to hold the line. I
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: don't think the unions and the guilds are going to
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: have nearly the power that Afflecks seem to think that
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: they will. So my guess is that he's underestimating the
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: AI power in Hollywood. But I think his explanation, the
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: strength of his explanation was about the motivations for those
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: that are claiming it's going to change the world in
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: short order, and that we're in a race now to
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: try to keep the stock market at these ridiculous levels,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: and we have to keep juicing the expectations in order
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: to make sure that this bubble doesn't burst. And I
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: think that there's a strong argument to be made there. Now.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: Of course, there are massive ramifications if Affleck is right,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: because he's making the argument which I made at the
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: end of last year on this podcast. I said, here's
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: the scenario where AI hits a wall, and if Affleck
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: is right, he seems to be saying he thinks AI
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: is hitting a wall. If it does hit a wall,
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: the market's going to implode. That's going to happen, and
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: that's going to have very serious ramifications. So there's no
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: good scenario here in my mind. I've always I've said
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: a dozen times that I'm not sure which is worse
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: AI hitting Agi or AI hitting a wall, because there's
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: going to be massive ramifications for both. But I thought
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: what Affleck said there was was certainly worthy of consideration. Now,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: as far as their movie, Matt Damon and Ben Afflex
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: movie RIP, I found this to be interesting and it
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: is maybe the power of them doing all these interviews
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: almost directly because of all these interviews that I have
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: seen with Affleck and Damon. My wife and I watched
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: Rip on Netflix, and I've already referenced that they're trying
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: to put out this new business model, you know, where
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: everybody benefits if the movie does well. And look, I
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: respect Affleck and Damon because it's clear that they at
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: least care right. And here we have two guys that
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: have institutional memory of the way that Hollywood used to be.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a big believer that Goodwill Hunting could
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: never happen today. You could never have two straight, young
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: white American males make a movie out of nowhere that
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: was as substantive as Goodwill Hunting, have it be a success,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: have the Oscars reward them with the Academy Award. And
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: of course, the most obvious thing that couldn't happen today
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: is that you wouldn't have two careers shot into the
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: stratosphere simply because they won an Academy Award. The Oscars
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: don't have the same power that they did back when
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon won their Academy Awards for
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: Goodwill Hunting. So none of that could happen today, none
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: of it, I mean, for a whole host of reasons,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: Hollywood is completely broken, but I at least respect them
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: because they they seem to care and they seem to
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: be smart guys. And so here they make this movie
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: Rip and it's basically about a drug deal situation in
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: Miami and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are law enforcement.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to like this movie, and it's done
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: exceedingly well on Netflix, maybe because of all these interviews
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: that Affleck and Damon have done. But I thought the
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: movie was stupid. I mean, look, it's it's, you know,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: one of those shoot them up movies, and and you
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: know they generally it's not ever gonna intending to be
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: Goodwill Hunting too, but it is Afflack and Damon and
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: it is a situation where they would have a lot
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: of editorial control. And it was actually depressing to me
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: how stupid this movie was, because it was the ultimate
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: proof that there's just no oh hope, There's just no
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: hope for Hollywood producing anything of value anymore. The system
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: is just that broken. It can't do it. I mean,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: because for Affleck and Daemon to go from Goodwill Hunting
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: back when they knew nothing to here we are decades
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: later and they have all this all this incredible experience
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: and life experience and understanding of the movie business, and
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: they put this what I thought was a piece of
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: crap out and people seem to like it because I
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: guess in comparison to what else is out there, uh,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: and because it's affleck and damon people are watching it
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: on Netflix. I just found to be very depressing, kind
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: of the Canarian the coal mine, Like the fact that
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: this is now what passes for a good movie, I mean,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: is pathetic. And by the way, you know, it's becoming
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: more and more clear that Netflix is going to take
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: over Warner Brothers. I mean that when it was first announced,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: people were very skeptical of that. But it certainly seems
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: to me is that that's becoming almost an inevitability. And
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: if Netflix thinks that Rip is, you know, really a
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: tremendous movie and it's the I think it's the second
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: most popular opening in Netflix history, if that's the case.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: By the way, the first is Happy Gilmour Too, which
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: was a piece of crap as well. So if that's
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: what's being put out there by what's going to be
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: by far the most powerful entity in Hollywood, Netflix, then
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: the movie business is completely fucking doomed because Rip was
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: not good and I wanted to like it, and like
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: I said, I like Matt Damon, I like Ben Aflack,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: but it was you know, you can go ahead and
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: watch it if you want, if it's free, obviously if
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: you're a subscriber to Netflix. But I did not think
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: it was particularly good. And maybe the most depressing part
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: was it tried to be good. It tried to even
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: have a good lesson, So I wanted to like the movie.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: I liked the lesson of the movie, but it was
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: just so stupid in its execution that it was depressing
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: to me. But maybe not as depressing as the biggest
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: sports story of the last week that has been so forgotten,
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: so totally eviscerated into the ether that I forgot to
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: even mention it in the opening promotion of what was
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: on this episode of the podcast. And what I'm referring
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: to is a massive college basketball betting scandal that involved
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: thirty nine players, seventeen teams, and twenty nine games being
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: fixed within the last two years. And you can argue
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: this is the biggest college basketball betting scandal in the
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: hill history of the sport, and we are less than
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: a week from when this became known, when the charges
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: were filed, and no one gives a shit, No one,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm someone who has been predicting this
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: for years. I've been screaming bloody murder about how this
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: is inevitable. And even I forgot to put this as
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: one of the stories to promote at the beginning of
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: this episode of the podcast because the story has completely disappeared,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: much like the Sharon Moore story from Michigan completely disappeared,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: which is an whole nother story for another day. But
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: this is way bigger than that. I mean, thirty nine players,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: seventeen teams, twenty nine games. Within the last two years,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: many of the players still on teams today were fixing games.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: And weirdly, and these prop bets and these bets that
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: don't even necessarily deal with the outcome of the game.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: I've never understood how it is that they were allowed,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: because they're so easily manipulated. But some of these bets,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: some of the more prominent bets, were actually the spread
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: on the first half of a game, so where a
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: team could tank the first half and still theoretically win
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: the game. So they would tank the points spread on
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: the first half, but maybe come back and win the game,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: and so therefore they get plausible deniability. I've never understood
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: how at the college level you would allow that to happen.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: Maybe there'll be some more restrictions on it now that
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: we've had this scandal, but I just cannot tell you
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: how absolutely mind blowing it is. And it's easily understood
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: because the number one college sports media outlet is ESPN,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: and ESPN is deeply, deeply, deeply invested in betting, so
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: they have a vested interest in having this story go away.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: They're not gonna be obsessed about it at all. They're
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: gonna report on it once and move on because they're
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: at the root of why this happened. I mean, they
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: have been enabling this. The stigma of betting, especially on
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: college sports, is completely gone. And then when you add
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: nil and I think even subconsciously instant transfers into this situation,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: it was always inevitable that you're gonna have game fixing,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: point shaving. Why Well, because you've got these mid major programs,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: which is almost invariably what these seventeen teams were from.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: These were not the height of Division one. These were
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: a second tier Division One teams. Generally, some of them
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: were fairly prominent, like LaSalle in Philadelphia where I grew up.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: But the reality is these are teams that aren't paying
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: their players a lot of money. They don't have the
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: money to be able to compete on the nil front.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: So if you're a player on one of these teams,
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: it's been made clear that being paid is something you
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: deserve as a college basketball player, right and your opponents
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: and many of the teams you're playing, they're all getting paid.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe your buddies are getting paid at other schools. And
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: all you have to do to make up for that
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: and to get you know, some juice that you think
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: you deserve, some bag that you think you deserve, is
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: to tank a half of basketball and you're gonna get
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: paid ten to twenty thirty dollars. Well, g it's not
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: that difficult to make that leap. That's a pretty easy
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: argument to make if you're trying to convince someone to
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: go in on a point shaving scam. Previously, that argument
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: was much more difficult because they're It wasn't this presumption
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: that somehow, if you're not getting paid as a college
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: basketball player, you're getting jipped off. And I cannot emphasize
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: enough how much things have changed when it comes to
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: the cultural reaction to point shaving. I mean, my god,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: people still talk about the Black Sox scandal in baseball,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: where the Chicago White Sox through a World Series. I
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: mean they're still making, you know, documentaries and movies about it,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: almost one hundred years later. I mean, it was a
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: massive issue in the history of baseball, I mean, and
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: in basketball. College basketball has seen multiple scandals over the years.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: New York City was embroiled in a massive betting scandal
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: that ESPN made a documentary about decades later. I remember
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: my mother, who loves Saint Joe's basketball. I mean, she
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: wanted to have five boys that they could grow up
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: and play for Jack Ramsey for the Saint Joe's Hawks,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: where my grandfather went to school, and we had a
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: bunch of other reletives that went to Saint Joe's. And
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: she was devastated by a betting scandal involving Saint Joe's.
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: Boston College had a massive betting scandal. These were huge stories,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: huge earth shattering, I mean, world changing when they occurred,
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: and they were nowhere near as big a deal as
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: what has happened with thirty nine players seventeen teams in
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: twenty nine games in the last two years being the
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: subject of indictments related to point shaving and game fixing
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: and college basketball and no one cares. That's the part
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: that's most shocking and disturbing and depressing. It would be
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: bad that it happened, but I could understand it. In
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: this nil world we're now, gambling is such a huge
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: part of the business model of ESPN and every other
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: major sports outlet. We created a situation where this was inevitable. Inevitable.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: I predicted it many many times, and I'm not happy
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: that I was right. But way bigger, way bigger than
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: the issue that this happened is the issue that no
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: one cares. I get that the media is making it
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: difficult for people to care because they're just moving on.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: They are acting in their own self interest. This story
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: is not good for them. This is the infamous words
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: of spinal tap. This is one of those crimes the
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: authorities decided it was better left unsolved. We're just gonna
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: move on from this because we're part of the reason
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: why this happened. If we're ESPN, we're a huge part
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: of the reason why this happened. But something has been
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: broken in American culture, in the mentality of most Americans.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: We used to have an inherent sense of what is
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: right and wrong, and when something so blatantly wrong as
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: this happened, we used to react to it with outrage,
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: and in this case nothing, no surprise, no anger, no outrage.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: And by the way, if you're a sports better, if
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: you're a sports better, if you're a fan of any
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: of these teams, or if you're a sports better at all,
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: how are you How are you not beyond enraged by this?
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: Yet I've seen I have seen almost none of it. Again,
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: maybe it exists to some level and the media is
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: just ignoring it, but I have not seen it online.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: The media coverage of this has been beyond pathetic for
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: an obvious reason because of the death of journalism and
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: how ESPN leading the way. They're not the only ones,
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: but they're leading the way. They have all the power here,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: especially when it comes to college basketball. They have no
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: interest in making a big deal about the fact that
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: they're embrace of gambling, and they're enabling of an entirely
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: new college sports universe where everyone gets paid have absolutely, positively,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: directly influenced a destruction of the very foundation of the
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: integrity of the entire fucking sport, and again no one
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: seems to care. But I blame ESPN more. I mean,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: I will always blame ESPN for almost anything bad that
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: happens in sports' supposed to college sports, but in this
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: particular case, I think the evidence is overwhelming that ESPN
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: is mostly to blame, and that's why ESPN is pretending
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: like this story didn't even happen.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 9: Thanks for listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show.
• 1:47:55
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• 1:47:58
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• 1:48:02
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• 1:48:06
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• 1:48:10
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• 1:48:25
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