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Episode Two Hundred Forty Nine: Besties · The Death Of Journalism

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Speaker 1: Welcome episode two hundred and forty nine of the Death
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Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast My name is John Zigler. I'm your
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Speaker 1: host on today's show. Tragedy strikes Texas with a massive
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Speaker 1: flash flood, the Big Beautiful Bill barely passes, and Elon
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Speaker 1: Musk decides to start a third party in response. More
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Speaker 1: immigration play acting here in Los Angeles. The giant Jeffrey
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Speaker 1: Epstein conspiracy theory is officially debunked by the Trump administration,
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Speaker 1: but Maga World just isn't having it. And my analysis
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Speaker 1: of the so called Ohio State Wrestling sex abuse scandal
0:35
Speaker 1: in light of the new HBO documentary. Two programming notes
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Speaker 1: to start off this episode of the podcast. If you're
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Speaker 1: really good at math, you have figured out that our
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Speaker 1: next episode is the two hundred and fiftieth episode of
0:51
Speaker 1: the Death of Journalism podcasts. That's right, one for each
0:55
Speaker 1: year since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and
1:00
Speaker 1: to celebrate il and tend to do at least somewhat
1:05
Speaker 1: of an Ask John anything episode. That won't be the
1:08
Speaker 1: entire episode of the podcast depends on how many good
1:11
Speaker 1: questions we get. But if you would like to participate
1:14
Speaker 1: in the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary two hundred and fiftieth.
1:18
Speaker 1: I guess it's the anniversary of the first episode our
1:21
Speaker 1: two hundred and fiftieth episode. Then you can certainly participate
1:26
Speaker 1: by simply asking me a question. Ask John anything. Everything
1:30
Speaker 1: is pretty much fair game as long as it's legitimate
1:32
Speaker 1: and interesting. I'll attempt my best to give you a
1:34
Speaker 1: NOBS answer. You can do that pretty easily either by
1:39
Speaker 1: putting your question in the comments section of this episode
1:42
Speaker 1: on the Patreon app if you're a subscriber, or you
1:46
Speaker 1: can certainly direct message me on Twitter or on Facebook,
1:50
Speaker 1: or you can email me and I'll probably put out
1:53
Speaker 1: a posting on Twitter and Facebook for people to respond to.
1:57
Speaker 1: So there's gonna be plenty of opportunities for you to
1:59
Speaker 1: ask me a question for I ask John anything for
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Speaker 1: the next episode, which will be our two hundred and
2:04
Speaker 1: fiftieth of the Death of Journalism podcast. Also note that
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Speaker 1: this episode is being taped a little bit earlier than normal. Normally,
2:13
Speaker 1: I tape Wednesday morning on the West Coast. I'm doing
2:17
Speaker 1: so Tuesday evening for scheduling purposes this week, so if
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Speaker 1: something really significant happens early on Wednesday, that's why I'm
2:26
Speaker 1: not talking about it as of yet on the Death
2:28
Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast, I hope you had a good Fourth
2:31
Speaker 1: of July weekend. We did in the Zigler Household. Obviously,
2:35
Speaker 1: it was marred by the tragic events of the Texas
2:38
Speaker 1: floods that killed over one hundred people. At least thirty
2:43
Speaker 1: of them appear to have been young girls from the
2:46
Speaker 1: Camp Mystic Camp in Hunt, Texas, which has just been
2:52
Speaker 1: beyond tragic. The stories have been horrendous. I frankly can't
2:59
Speaker 1: believe that more people didn't die, considering just how much
3:04
Speaker 1: water went down that river in such an incredibly short
3:07
Speaker 1: amount of time. This story has been horrible, especially for
3:14
Speaker 1: anyone who has had young girls. Obviously I have two
3:17
Speaker 1: young girls. But to see these stories has really been
3:20
Speaker 1: gut wrenching, and it's also brought out the worst in
3:25
Speaker 1: a lot of people. It's brought out the best in
3:27
Speaker 1: some people. There were a lot of stories of heroism,
3:31
Speaker 1: a lot of people that were saved that could have perished,
3:34
Speaker 1: but there's no getting around the fact that this was
3:36
Speaker 1: a massive tragedy. And you know, there's so much that
3:42
Speaker 1: could be said here about so many different aspects of
3:46
Speaker 1: this story. The left, of course, went immediately on the
3:51
Speaker 1: political attack on numerous fronts, which was beyond disgusting. One
3:57
Speaker 1: of them was about the nature of Camp Mystic itself,
4:01
Speaker 1: which was probably the lowest form of attack, because Camp
4:05
Speaker 1: Mystic was well known as a Christian camp for girls,
4:10
Speaker 1: all girls, mostly white, mostly rich Christian girls. And it
4:17
Speaker 1: seems as if this was a magical, magical place. And
4:20
Speaker 1: I have seen firsthand with my two daughters and my wife,
4:26
Speaker 1: who loved going to Yusemite National Park every year, which
4:30
Speaker 1: is a place where, by the way, they've had several
4:33
Speaker 1: historic floods over the years that wiped out the valley,
4:36
Speaker 1: all of which, thankfully at least so far, have occurred
4:40
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, the last happening in nineteen ninety seven.
4:43
Speaker 1: But I've seen the magic of a river for little girls,
4:49
Speaker 1: and it was that very same magical river that turned
4:54
Speaker 1: into a force of destruction and caused the deaths of
4:57
Speaker 1: about thirty girls from this camp and over one hundred
5:01
Speaker 1: people overall. It's possible that that death toll may go
5:05
Speaker 1: up from the time period in which I am reporting
5:08
Speaker 1: this to you. But this camp sounded like a very
5:12
Speaker 1: special place. There were a lot of very high profile
5:14
Speaker 1: people that were connected to it. One of the girls
5:17
Speaker 1: that was lost happened to be a relative of the
5:20
Speaker 1: Hunt family that owns the Kansas City Chiefs. There's also
5:25
Speaker 1: a connection to the Bush family. Jenna Bush, who is
5:29
Speaker 1: a host of one of the hours on the Today Show,
5:32
Speaker 1: spoke very emotionally about her family's connection to this camp
5:38
Speaker 1: and about the state of Texas and about the response
5:41
Speaker 1: in a way that I felt was very sincere and
5:45
Speaker 1: not at all a virtue signaling situation. Oftentimes you see
5:50
Speaker 1: circumstances in the media where tragedies like this occur and
5:54
Speaker 1: people are almost trying to get emotional on camera because
5:57
Speaker 1: they know it will be a viral moment. That was
6:01
Speaker 1: clearly not happening here. And that's why I want to
6:03
Speaker 1: play this clip from Jenna Bush talking about Camp Mystic
6:08
Speaker 1: on the Today Show. You have a special connection to
6:11
Speaker 1: the special place your mom. Your mom worked as a chuncellor.
6:14
Speaker 2: My mom was a counselor there. But also so many
6:17
Speaker 2: of my friends were raised at this camp. You know,
6:22
Speaker 2: Texas camps are institutions, as you just heard, where were
6:26
Speaker 2: many family members generations. This camp was one hundred years old,
6:30
Speaker 2: so grandmother's mother's kids have all gone there. My mom
6:34
Speaker 2: was a drama counselor there, but many of my friends
6:39
Speaker 2: were there, had their kids there last week, and the
6:44
Speaker 2: stories that I heard over the last couple of days
6:47
Speaker 2: were beautiful and heartbreaking. And Texas has a type of
6:52
Speaker 2: resilience that where they're generous people, where people want to
6:57
Speaker 2: reach out and help. But yeah, it's Texas. Camps are
7:01
Speaker 2: really special because you're thinking about ninety degree weather nowhere conditioning,
7:06
Speaker 2: so to send my kids are at camp in Texas,
7:08
Speaker 2: and my husband said, why are we sending our kids
7:10
Speaker 2: to Texas to camp? It's hot, And it's because of
7:14
Speaker 2: the love that's there.
7:17
Speaker 1: Jenna Bush was not the only person in the media
7:20
Speaker 1: with a direct connection to Camp Mystic. Pamela Brown, a
7:24
Speaker 1: reporter from CNN, was actually sent to the location. She's
7:28
Speaker 1: also gotten very emotional and done some of my thought
7:31
Speaker 1: really good reporting about the history of the place. But
7:34
Speaker 1: liberals couldn't help themselves. They had to attack this as
7:39
Speaker 1: some kind of white supremacist organization. After all, in their minds,
7:43
Speaker 1: anything that is largely white, mostly rich, and Christian, and
7:48
Speaker 1: is single gender where they actually believe in things like
7:52
Speaker 1: girls and boys, and they only allow girls in this situation,
7:57
Speaker 1: that must be bad, and so therefore there were some
8:00
Speaker 1: social media attacks on that front which were absolutely beyond disgusting.
8:05
Speaker 1: The other front that liberals attacked on was something that
8:09
Speaker 1: I had been predicting for quite a while. I said,
8:13
Speaker 1: from basically the start of Trump two point zero and
8:17
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's now seemingly ancient attempts. By God, this seems
8:21
Speaker 1: like it was so long ago, even though it was
8:23
Speaker 1: only a couple months ago. Be a Doge to cut
8:27
Speaker 1: back on the massive amounts of federal spending we do
8:31
Speaker 1: in this country. I said that basically we were going
8:35
Speaker 1: to get the worst of all worlds. We weren't going
8:38
Speaker 1: to get real cuts, but we were going to create
8:41
Speaker 1: the impression. Doge was going to create the impression that
8:46
Speaker 1: there have been massive cuts to the federal government and
8:50
Speaker 1: inevitably something is going to go wrong, and when that
8:55
Speaker 1: goes wrong, people will attack the spending cuts as being
9:01
Speaker 1: the reason for whatever went wrong. Well, that happened in
9:04
Speaker 1: spades in this situation, even though there's not a shred
9:08
Speaker 1: of evidence that anybody specifically died or was endangered because
9:14
Speaker 1: of federal cutbacks. Now it gets a little bit complicated
9:18
Speaker 1: and there is nuances, is usually the case in real life.
9:22
Speaker 1: But liberals immediately tried to claim that the weather forecast
9:26
Speaker 1: was insufficient because of cutbacks at the federal government level.
9:33
Speaker 1: There's no evidence to support that. Yes, the forecast was
9:37
Speaker 1: not dead on, but that's not unusual for a situation
9:40
Speaker 1: like this. This was an anomaly. This was literally a
9:44
Speaker 1: perfect storm situation. There were lots of warnings for flooding
9:50
Speaker 1: in that area, which is very, very common. They did
9:53
Speaker 1: not predict the catastrophic, historic type of flooding that occurred.
9:59
Speaker 1: That was unfortunate, but this was the worst of all
10:03
Speaker 1: possible scenarios. You've got the morning of July fourth, it's
10:08
Speaker 1: a holiday weekend, it's overnight, and of course, you know
10:13
Speaker 1: this is where when it comes to the to the
10:17
Speaker 1: risk factor in our society. I actually think that we
10:21
Speaker 1: are oftentimes, especially here in California where it's run by liberals,
10:26
Speaker 1: we are citing very much on the on what I
10:29
Speaker 1: believe to be the side of being too safe in
10:33
Speaker 1: all endeavors. I mean, risk is a part of life,
10:37
Speaker 1: and you know there's a knee jerk reaction of okay, well,
10:40
Speaker 1: any kind of warning, we got to evacuate everybody, Well,
10:44
Speaker 1: do you understand I mean, this is a rhetorical question,
10:48
Speaker 1: but I hope people understand the enormous undertaking to evacuate,
10:55
Speaker 1: for instance, a cant mystic overnight. And if you do
11:01
Speaker 1: that and you turn out to be wrong and it's
11:04
Speaker 1: just normal flooding and not catastrophic, then you're gonna look
11:10
Speaker 1: like a complete idiot, and you're gonna create a precedent
11:15
Speaker 1: that is going to be almost impossible to live by,
11:17
Speaker 1: because if that's the rule, then you're gonna be evacuating
11:21
Speaker 1: all the time during certain times of the year, and
11:25
Speaker 1: that's just not a tenable situation. So I totally get
11:31
Speaker 1: where the forecast was a little bit off, maybe a
11:35
Speaker 1: lot off in some ways. But again, this was an
11:37
Speaker 1: extraordinary circumstance. There's a hesitation to force evacuations, there's an
11:44
Speaker 1: incredibly short amount of time to be able to make
11:47
Speaker 1: these decisions. This all happened in less than an hour,
11:51
Speaker 1: and you're talking about an overnight situation. And so yes,
11:56
Speaker 1: there were people that are positions that were not filled
11:59
Speaker 1: by people people who had retired early. But that frankly,
12:04
Speaker 1: you could blame as much on the Biden administration as
12:07
Speaker 1: you could on the Trump administration, but there's no evidence
12:11
Speaker 1: at all that the weather Service was understaffed at that time,
12:17
Speaker 1: and so this is really just, in my opinion, political posturing,
12:21
Speaker 1: trying to knee jerk attack on a political basis what
12:26
Speaker 1: is unfortunately a horrendous tragedy, one that is not unprecedented,
12:32
Speaker 1: one that has happened before, actually several times before in
12:35
Speaker 1: this particular area of Texas, but has never happened in
12:39
Speaker 1: this particular way, and certainly not with this loss of life,
12:43
Speaker 1: and certainly not with little girls that can't mystic making
12:46
Speaker 1: this all so much worse to have to deal with.
12:49
Speaker 1: But liberals have embarrassed themselves now. To the credit of
12:53
Speaker 1: some in the media, this narrative started to get some legs,
12:58
Speaker 1: the idea that budget cutbacks or DOGE or Trump somehow
13:03
Speaker 1: curtailed the ability of the National Weather Forecasting Service. But
13:09
Speaker 1: I have to give some credit to even some mainstream
13:13
Speaker 1: news media outlets, including CNN and CBS that I saw
13:17
Speaker 1: that really pushed back against this emerging narrative. And so
13:22
Speaker 1: I don't know that it is really gotten as strong
13:26
Speaker 1: a legs as it might have, certainly given the political
13:31
Speaker 1: realities of the situation. But There's no question that there
13:34
Speaker 1: were many on the left, especially on social media, that
13:37
Speaker 1: were thirsting for this, I believe almost entirely false narrative
13:43
Speaker 1: to gain traction, to show that this is the cost
13:47
Speaker 1: we all must pay for cutbacks at the federal level. Now,
13:51
Speaker 1: I do think that there is some significance in the
13:55
Speaker 1: fact that this even became an issue, and this is
13:58
Speaker 1: to a buch larger issue that I've discussed many times before,
14:02
Speaker 1: and why it is that we can never really cut
14:04
Speaker 1: the size of government. It's just not possible. There's no
14:09
Speaker 1: political capital in it. We've seen, which I'll get to momentarily,
14:14
Speaker 1: the big beautiful bill which is going to bloat the deficit.
14:17
Speaker 1: Nobody cares. Really, there's very few people that really care
14:21
Speaker 1: about cutting spending. And you make yourself inherently vulnerable to
14:26
Speaker 1: attack when you do so, because we've now are living
14:29
Speaker 1: in a society where people look to the federal government
14:32
Speaker 1: for everything, and anything at all that goes wrong, especially
14:35
Speaker 1: in the area of national disaster or a natural disaster,
14:39
Speaker 1: is automatically blamed on cutbacks. So you can't win. You're
14:44
Speaker 1: never going to get any credit for cutbacks, and you're
14:47
Speaker 1: only going to set yourself up for blame, and I
14:50
Speaker 1: think that in many ways this circumstance was proof of that. Then,
14:54
Speaker 1: of course, there's the third attack point by liberals on
15:00
Speaker 1: this tragedy, and that is climate change, that somehow this
15:04
Speaker 1: is all evidence of climate change because we have record
15:07
Speaker 1: breaking catastrophic floods. Again, to be clear, this is not
15:12
Speaker 1: unprecedented in this area. It happened, I believe, in nineteen
15:16
Speaker 1: eighty seven in a very similar fashion. It happened many
15:19
Speaker 1: other times in the twentieth century. It's highly unfortunate, and
15:24
Speaker 1: it absolutely was near a record situation, if not a
15:28
Speaker 1: record set of circumstances, but certainly in and of itself
15:33
Speaker 1: no evidence of climate change. As I'm taping this, there's
15:37
Speaker 1: another flood going on in New Mexico which is breaking records,
15:42
Speaker 1: and there's absolutely horrendous video coming out of that. I
15:45
Speaker 1: have no idea about the nature of casualties in that situation,
15:48
Speaker 1: but I'm sure that that, combined with what happened in Texas,
15:52
Speaker 1: will only amplify the cries on the left that, oh,
15:56
Speaker 1: my gosh, this is all because of climate change. Floods happened,
16:01
Speaker 1: They have always happened, especially in that portion of the country.
16:05
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, in the case of Texas, it happened under
16:08
Speaker 1: the absolute worst of circumstances, and a lot of people,
16:12
Speaker 1: and a lot of very young people unfortunately perished. I
16:15
Speaker 1: actually think that Trump has done a pretty good job
16:18
Speaker 1: so far in explaining that this is a natural disaster
16:23
Speaker 1: and trying to do everything the federal government can do
16:26
Speaker 1: try to help in the aftermath. But there's no question
16:29
Speaker 1: and I think that the local officials in Texas probably
16:33
Speaker 1: helped ignite this entire narrative that mistakes were made. I
16:37
Speaker 1: understand their frustration. I mean, they're the ones dealing firsthand
16:42
Speaker 1: with this horrendous tragedy, but it feels to me as
16:46
Speaker 1: if they were kind of looking for escapegoat. It's human nature,
16:50
Speaker 1: I understand it, but they were throwing out a lot
16:52
Speaker 1: of blame to go around, because I think that's natural.
16:56
Speaker 1: I mean, when you've got a whole lot of dead people,
16:59
Speaker 1: including dead children, that you're trying to deal with, you
17:03
Speaker 1: want someone to blame, and the federal government becomes a
17:07
Speaker 1: very easy target, which kind of again fortifies my position
17:12
Speaker 1: that we are doomed to never actually cutting the federal
17:16
Speaker 1: government because we've created a set of circumstances where there's
17:20
Speaker 1: no good and there's only bad, at least in public perception.
17:24
Speaker 1: So that's the situation as it occurred in Texas. Just
17:28
Speaker 1: an absolutely horrible story. I do have to ask, as
17:32
Speaker 1: I have asked my own children, not in a pointed way,
17:37
Speaker 1: because somewhat ironically, I guess my daughter Grace was heading
17:43
Speaker 1: to a church related camp of her own for only
17:46
Speaker 1: a few days this week, but I did at least
17:49
Speaker 1: ask her to think about you know, Okay, so where
17:53
Speaker 1: was Jesus in this situation? I know that's a question
17:56
Speaker 1: people don't like to deal with as an act now
18:00
Speaker 1: and someone who you know, that's on a good day,
18:03
Speaker 1: on a bad day, I'm an atheist. You know, this
18:06
Speaker 1: was a group of Christian girls who got wiped out
18:11
Speaker 1: by a weather event. You know, in biblical times this
18:15
Speaker 1: would have been seen as an act of God. Right,
18:17
Speaker 1: we literally just still to this day called an act
18:20
Speaker 1: of God. So, okay, so where was Jesus? Where was
18:24
Speaker 1: God in this situation? I don't have an answer to that,
18:28
Speaker 1: but I don't think there is a good answer, and
18:30
Speaker 1: I think it's a legitimate question as we try to
18:33
Speaker 1: deal with. You know, this is just one of those
18:35
Speaker 1: horrible things that happens in life, because oftentimes life is
18:40
Speaker 1: consistent with the idea that there is no act of God,
18:43
Speaker 1: which is my personal belief. This is one of those
18:46
Speaker 1: situations that creates a lot of doubt, I think, in
18:50
Speaker 1: people who want to believe in an act of God,
18:52
Speaker 1: because how do you rationalize an act of God in
18:56
Speaker 1: this set of circumstances, At least for me, I can't
18:59
Speaker 1: wrap my brain around that. If you can, good for you. Now.
19:03
Speaker 1: I want to turn to the Big Beautiful Bill passing.
19:06
Speaker 1: In the last episode of the podcast, I essentially predicted
19:10
Speaker 1: that it would pass, even though it still had to
19:12
Speaker 1: get through the House a second time. I knew that
19:16
Speaker 1: there would be a lot of handeringing and that there
19:20
Speaker 1: would be people claiming that they weren't going to vote
19:22
Speaker 1: for it. But I believe that I specifically predicted that
19:26
Speaker 1: it would be much easier for Trump to get the
19:29
Speaker 1: Big Beautiful Bill through the House than it was through
19:31
Speaker 1: the Senate, because you're dealing with congress people who only
19:35
Speaker 1: represent one congressional district and who are all up for
19:38
Speaker 1: reelection next year, which means that every single one of
19:41
Speaker 1: them are vulnerable to being taken out via a primary
19:45
Speaker 1: challenge backed by Donald Trump, and he had a couple
19:48
Speaker 1: of votes that he could lose, and that's exactly what
19:51
Speaker 1: he did. He lost two Republican votes Trump did, but
19:55
Speaker 1: that's all he lost, and he lost four it might
19:58
Speaker 1: not have gotten through. So he gets it through the
20:01
Speaker 1: Senate by the absolute slimmest of margins, with Lisa Murkowski
20:05
Speaker 1: of Alaska essentially admitting and effectively bragging about having sold out.
20:12
Speaker 1: I mean literally, I mean the clip we played in
20:15
Speaker 1: the last episode of the podcast was as astonishing as
20:17
Speaker 1: anything I've ever seen in politics, where Lisa Murkowski is
20:21
Speaker 1: effectively bragging that she voted for a terrible bill because
20:25
Speaker 1: she was paid off via funding for state projects in Alaska.
20:32
Speaker 1: And so they got it through fifty to fifty with
20:35
Speaker 1: jd Vance casting the tie breaking vote, and then they
20:38
Speaker 1: got it through the House where they only lost two Republicans,
20:42
Speaker 1: including Thomas Massey of Kentucky. So you have two very
20:46
Speaker 1: prominent pseudo libertarians in Kentucky Ran Paul and the Senate
20:51
Speaker 1: and Thomas Massey in the House voting against this bill.
20:55
Speaker 1: And I do think it's important to point out, you know,
20:58
Speaker 1: it's not a coincidence that Trump gets the Big Beautiful
21:03
Speaker 1: Bill just barely through the Senate and just barely through
21:06
Speaker 1: the House. Yes, there is a calculation about what can
21:11
Speaker 1: be in the bill without losing enough votes for it
21:14
Speaker 1: not the pass. But there's another factor at work here,
21:17
Speaker 1: and that is that there's a big difference between voting
21:23
Speaker 1: against Trump in a way that doesn't end up killing
21:27
Speaker 1: the bill and being the deciding vote that kills the bill.
21:32
Speaker 1: I think those are two significantly different things. Like Thomas
21:36
Speaker 1: Massey is being targeted by Donald Trump, Elon Musk says
21:40
Speaker 1: he's going to support him. Hopefully he will. You know,
21:44
Speaker 1: there are people that like Massey who are confident that
21:46
Speaker 1: he'll survive Trump's attacks on him in next year's primary.
21:51
Speaker 1: I'm not as sure. I don't know. I hope that
21:54
Speaker 1: that's what happens. But let's pretend that Massey had actually
21:59
Speaker 1: killed the Big Beautiful Bill. I think that's a totally
22:03
Speaker 1: different ballgame, because then Trump's out for blood. Trump doesn't
22:08
Speaker 1: forget about it. You know, Trump is a very short
22:10
Speaker 1: attention span. There's all sorts of opportunities between now and
22:15
Speaker 1: you know, the spring of twenty twenty six, when there's
22:18
Speaker 1: a primary in Kentucky for Trump to get distracted or
22:21
Speaker 1: for Massey to get back into the good graces of
22:24
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But if Massey had been the one that
22:28
Speaker 1: actually killed the bill, that wouldn't be the case. So
22:32
Speaker 1: that's I think why you're seeing a big difference here
22:36
Speaker 1: between you know, the handful of Republicans that voted against
22:40
Speaker 1: this in a semi safe situation where they didn't actually
22:46
Speaker 1: kill the bill. Like for instance, it was remarkable to
22:48
Speaker 1: me that Mitch McConnell, speaking of Kentucky, Mitch McConnell didn't
22:52
Speaker 1: get any attention at all for voting in favor of
22:56
Speaker 1: the big beautiful bill. Now, I don't know for sure
22:59
Speaker 1: that McConnell was a against it, but he certainly has
23:03
Speaker 1: been very outspoken against Trump, and personally, I'm sure he
23:09
Speaker 1: would have enjoyed killing Trump's signature piece of legislation. But
23:14
Speaker 1: to my knowledge, he never even really talked or who knows,
23:18
Speaker 1: maybe he didn't even think about doing it. Why because
23:21
Speaker 1: I think he saw that that would put him in
23:24
Speaker 1: a completely different light and put his seat, which is
23:28
Speaker 1: going to be up for election next year, and his
23:31
Speaker 1: ability to potentially frame the primary in Kentucky for who
23:34
Speaker 1: his successor was going to be in a very significant way. Now,
23:40
Speaker 1: in my opinion, if there was only one other Republican
23:45
Speaker 1: in the Senate was going to vote against it, maybe
23:47
Speaker 1: McConnell votes against it. Because there's a big difference, that's
23:50
Speaker 1: my major point here, between voting against something that's essentially
23:55
Speaker 1: theoretical and then it ended up being the deciding vote.
23:59
Speaker 1: And nobody in the House was gonna end up being
24:02
Speaker 1: the deciding vote against this because they would have endured
24:06
Speaker 1: the wrath of Donald Trump for the next year and
24:09
Speaker 1: a half and they surely would have lost their seat
24:12
Speaker 1: either in a primary or in a general election. And unfortunately,
24:16
Speaker 1: you know, we just celebrated the fourth of July where
24:19
Speaker 1: our founding fathers put everything on the line, you know,
24:23
Speaker 1: their their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor. And now
24:28
Speaker 1: the so called leaders we have today they won't even
24:31
Speaker 1: put on you know, risking reelection on the line, I mean,
24:37
Speaker 1: not just losing their seat, even the potential of losing
24:42
Speaker 1: their seat. They won't risk it. And you know it's pathetic. Now,
24:46
Speaker 1: there's another pathetic element of that, and that is that
24:49
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is essentially acting as a mob boss, as
24:53
Speaker 1: a king slash mob boss, and that was maybe the
24:57
Speaker 1: most disgusting part of the passing of the Big Beautiful Bit,
25:00
Speaker 1: because I guarantee you if the vote was silent, there's
25:05
Speaker 1: no chance that the bill would have passed either the
25:08
Speaker 1: Senate or the House. And the only reason why it
25:12
Speaker 1: did is because Trump is acting as a mob boss
25:16
Speaker 1: king and he's very effective at it, because he has
25:20
Speaker 1: more leverage than any president has ever had, at least
25:24
Speaker 1: in my lifetime, over members of Congress and the US Senate.
25:30
Speaker 1: Why not, because he has sixty percent approval among the
25:34
Speaker 1: general populations. See this is how Trump has changed politics
25:38
Speaker 1: so dramatically. It used to be that sixty percent approval
25:43
Speaker 1: among the general population that was seen as the big stick.
25:47
Speaker 1: That was seen as the big stick. And Trump has
25:51
Speaker 1: never gotten close to sixty percent approval among the general
25:54
Speaker 1: population and never will barring some sort of national catastrophe,
25:58
Speaker 1: whether there's a rally around the floor effect. He has
26:02
Speaker 1: completely changed the game. Trump would rather have a forty
26:05
Speaker 1: five percent general population approval rating but a ninety five
26:11
Speaker 1: percent cult rating among Republican primary voters, because no other
26:17
Speaker 1: Republican president or even Democratic president in my lifetime would
26:22
Speaker 1: so routinely threaten members of their own party with destroying
26:28
Speaker 1: them in a primary, because one, I don't think they
26:31
Speaker 1: had the ability to do that necessarily, but two, they
26:35
Speaker 1: never had the audacity to do it. Trump has both
26:38
Speaker 1: the ability and the audacity, and he's proven that he's
26:42
Speaker 1: willing and able to do it. And so it's that
26:45
Speaker 1: fear that was used as a stick to pass the
26:49
Speaker 1: Big Beautiful Bill. Now, I was against the Big Beautiful
26:52
Speaker 1: Bill mainly because in this particular situation, I don't think
26:58
Speaker 1: it's possible that Thomas man, See ran Fall, and Elon
27:01
Speaker 1: Musk can all be totally wrong on this particular issue.
27:06
Speaker 1: I trust them, and from what I've read, I agree
27:10
Speaker 1: that this is going to be a budget buster and
27:13
Speaker 1: a deficit explosion that we cannot afford in the long run.
27:19
Speaker 1: In the short run, and this bill, in a lot
27:21
Speaker 1: of ways, is now law is classic Trump in a
27:24
Speaker 1: lot of ways, because in the short run, there's probably
27:27
Speaker 1: gonna be some good things, for instance, the tax cuts,
27:31
Speaker 1: For instance, the increase in money for combating illegal immigration
27:37
Speaker 1: and potential deportations. I think those are good. There's even
27:41
Speaker 1: some elements of the bill that I'm quite interested in
27:46
Speaker 1: how they're gonna work. They didn't get a lot of publicity,
27:48
Speaker 1: but there's some stuff in there that seemingly is intended
27:52
Speaker 1: and may even create a circumstance where college tuition goes
27:58
Speaker 1: down or at least changes the dynamic of how college
28:02
Speaker 1: tuition is paid. There's also, I referenced in the last
28:06
Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, a pretty strong argument that big
28:11
Speaker 1: time sports gambling or casino gambling may be endangered because
28:17
Speaker 1: of a radical change in the way that gambling earnings
28:21
Speaker 1: are taxed. Now it's so radical from what I have
28:26
Speaker 1: read and watched on video, that it's possible that we
28:30
Speaker 1: may see a comeback from your local bookie because there
28:34
Speaker 1: may be a black market that has created. Because I
28:37
Speaker 1: don't know how, based upon my understanding of this new law,
28:41
Speaker 1: how in the world a big time gambler is supposed
28:44
Speaker 1: to make a lot of profit gambling, and it gets
28:48
Speaker 1: complicated as to how it's all calculated. But it's very
28:52
Speaker 1: clear that there was an intent in there somewhere by
28:55
Speaker 1: whoever wrote this monstrosity to try to combat or at
28:59
Speaker 1: least curtail some elements of gambling, which I'm in favor
29:03
Speaker 1: of because I think sports gambling is effectively like heroin.
29:07
Speaker 1: I think it's a scourge on society. Bob Costas made
29:11
Speaker 1: a really interesting appearance on NBC's Meet Depressed this weekend,
29:16
Speaker 1: where he talked about the dangers of sports gambling. His
29:20
Speaker 1: dad was a big time sports gambler, and Bob and
29:23
Speaker 1: I ended up in a text exchange about that. By
29:25
Speaker 1: the way, we're still working on another date. I'm not
29:28
Speaker 1: sure it's going to happen as soon as I had
29:31
Speaker 1: anticipated to get Bob back on the show, but I
29:33
Speaker 1: do think eventually we will. But I was thrilled that
29:36
Speaker 1: Bob made that appearance, and I'm interested to see what
29:39
Speaker 1: happens with the Big Beautiful Bill and see whether or
29:42
Speaker 1: not there's some positive impact there. It does appear as
29:47
Speaker 1: if there was at least some design in the timing
29:52
Speaker 1: of the provisions of the Big Beautiful Bill that are
29:55
Speaker 1: likely to insulate Republicans from political day image from this
30:01
Speaker 1: bill at least through the next midterm election, which of
30:04
Speaker 1: course is next year in twenty twenty six. That at
30:07
Speaker 1: least appears to have been the intent. And you know,
30:11
Speaker 1: if that ends up working in the short run, and
30:15
Speaker 1: you get most of the positive without a lot of
30:17
Speaker 1: the negative, especially when it comes to cuts and medicaid
30:20
Speaker 1: and ballooning the deficit and all that kind of stuff
30:25
Speaker 1: that liberals are screaming and yelling about. Then politically this
30:29
Speaker 1: might be a winner in the short run. But see,
30:33
Speaker 1: I'm always looking at the longer run, and Trump is
30:35
Speaker 1: never looking at the longer run. That's one of the
30:38
Speaker 1: many philosophical problems I have with Donald Trump. He is
30:42
Speaker 1: a short term thinker. He lives like a guy who
30:44
Speaker 1: thinks he might die next week. I might die next week. Two.
30:49
Speaker 1: I don't think diticipate being here for all that much longer.
30:52
Speaker 1: I've said, you know, and I think past twenty forty,
30:54
Speaker 1: I'll be surprised. But I have kids, and I care
30:58
Speaker 1: about the country, and I'm looking more at the long
31:02
Speaker 1: term here, and I think that the long term of
31:05
Speaker 1: this is going to be in the large to a
31:08
Speaker 1: large degree bad, maybe very very bad. And we have
31:13
Speaker 1: a unique situation here where we had a Republican president
31:17
Speaker 1: with a best buddy named Elon Musk, who was a unicorn,
31:23
Speaker 1: the richest man in the world, who wanted to take
31:24
Speaker 1: a hatchet to the federal government. He did his best,
31:28
Speaker 1: or tried his best for a couple of months. You
31:30
Speaker 1: got a Republican Senate, in a Republican House, and you
31:34
Speaker 1: can't even put a minor dent into the debt. In fact,
31:39
Speaker 1: you go in the opposite direction and you explode it.
31:44
Speaker 1: That to me is a death knell in the long
31:49
Speaker 1: term for America. This isn't happening under a Democratic administration.
31:54
Speaker 1: In fact, I said this before, but it bears repeating. Magaworld,
32:00
Speaker 1: if everything that was in the Big Beautiful Bill had
32:04
Speaker 1: been passed on a party line vote by a Democratic
32:07
Speaker 1: president paying off a Lisa Murkowski to become the deciding
32:12
Speaker 1: vote in the US Senate, there would be pitchforks, antiqui
32:18
Speaker 1: torches out in Magaworld if everything was exactly the same,
32:22
Speaker 1: except Donald Trump was not involved in passing it. That's
32:27
Speaker 1: how much of a cult Magaworld has become. That's how
32:30
Speaker 1: much of a king Donald Trump is. People see reality
32:35
Speaker 1: through the prism of whatever Trump is in favor of
32:39
Speaker 1: at the moment. And so that's the part about this
32:42
Speaker 1: that is so distressing and so depressing. Frankly, this shouldn't
32:47
Speaker 1: be happening under a Republican administration, with Republicans controlling both
32:53
Speaker 1: houses and with Elon Musk being a huge part of
32:58
Speaker 1: the equation yours. Now Elon Musk is no longer any
33:03
Speaker 1: part of this equation. He has gone rogue, and in
33:07
Speaker 1: the aftermath of the passing of the Big Beautiful Bill,
33:11
Speaker 1: Musk has outlined his plan for a third party, the
33:15
Speaker 1: so called America Party. And while I support Elon Musk's
33:22
Speaker 1: attack on the Big Beautiful Bill, I think that this
33:25
Speaker 1: effort is at best misguided and potentially catastrophically misguided. Now
33:33
Speaker 1: Trump himself put out a social media post where he
33:37
Speaker 1: attacked Elon Musk on various ways. He said that he
33:41
Speaker 1: was now off the rails, that he's become a train wreck.
33:45
Speaker 1: He once again renewed his favorite lie about Elon Musk,
33:49
Speaker 1: which is that Musk was upset about the loss of
33:52
Speaker 1: the ev mandate. That is an absolute total lie that
33:56
Speaker 1: Trump keeps using because it's really the only argument he
34:00
Speaker 1: has to explain why Elon Musk has gone off the reservation.
34:05
Speaker 1: That is not why Elon Musk is doing this. That
34:08
Speaker 1: was very very clear before the sism between Trump and Musk.
34:13
Speaker 1: In fact, Trump had praised Elon Musk for not being
34:17
Speaker 1: upset about it. But when we live in a world,
34:20
Speaker 1: especially magaworld, where past statements are irrelevant. It's whatever Trump
34:25
Speaker 1: says today that matters. The last part of Trump's social
34:29
Speaker 1: media post about Musk I found to be particularly interesting because, well,
34:33
Speaker 1: for a couple of different reasons, one of which it dovetails
34:36
Speaker 1: with what I think was the breaking point for Elon
34:41
Speaker 1: Musk and Donald Trump. I mean, I was going by
34:45
Speaker 1: the timeline. If you look at the timeline of when
34:48
Speaker 1: Musk really started to separate himself from Trump, it wasn't
34:53
Speaker 1: just the big beautiful bill coming close to passage. It
34:58
Speaker 1: was also his buddy that he recommended as the head
35:01
Speaker 1: of NASA being replaced at the last moment, and Trump
35:07
Speaker 1: addressed that in the social media post in a way
35:10
Speaker 1: that to me substantiated that this must have been a
35:14
Speaker 1: major factor behind the breakup of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
35:20
Speaker 1: Trump wrote additionally, Elon asked that one of his close
35:25
Speaker 1: friends run NASA, and while I thought his friend was
35:31
Speaker 1: very good, I was surprised to learn that he was
35:35
Speaker 1: a blue blooded Democrat like Trump used to be, who
35:40
Speaker 1: had never contributed to a Republican before. Elon probably was
35:45
Speaker 1: also I also thought it inappropriate that a very close
35:50
Speaker 1: friend of Elon, who was in the space business run
35:56
Speaker 1: NASA when NASA is such a big part of elon
36:00
Speaker 1: corporate life. My number one charge is to protect the
36:04
Speaker 1: American public. Now that is really rich right there on
36:10
Speaker 1: so many levels. The number one I think it's some
36:12
Speaker 1: stage shapes my theory that that's what was really going on,
36:15
Speaker 1: that that was the final straw. And my guess is
36:20
Speaker 1: that it wasn't just that Elon's buddy got you kicked
36:24
Speaker 1: out of the job that he thought he had. It
36:27
Speaker 1: was probably a personal embarrassment to us because my guess
36:30
Speaker 1: is he was not properly informed that this change was
36:33
Speaker 1: being made. But the idea that Donald Trout, a lifelong
36:37
Speaker 1: Democrat who embraced Robert Kennedy Junior to be in his cabinet,
36:45
Speaker 1: I mean, among others, but he's just the most prominent,
36:48
Speaker 1: most pure bred literally Democrat in the cabinet, that somehow
36:55
Speaker 1: that was a disqualifier for Elon's friend to run NASA
37:00
Speaker 1: is just hilarious, made only more absurd by the idea
37:04
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump really wanted to draw a line in
37:09
Speaker 1: the sand. I guess when it comes to the issue
37:11
Speaker 1: of nepotism or favoritism or the old boy's network, Because
37:18
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump stands for anything, folks, it's about being
37:22
Speaker 1: against the old boys network. I mean, this is a guy.
37:28
Speaker 1: I mean Laura Trump. He handed her the Republican Party
37:33
Speaker 1: and now it looks like they're going to try to
37:35
Speaker 1: enter the Senate seat in North Carolina. So give me
37:39
Speaker 1: a fucking break. I mean, that is holy rationalization, Batman,
37:44
Speaker 1: and coming from Trump, that's awfully rich. But that being said,
37:48
Speaker 1: I am not in favor of what it appears is
37:52
Speaker 1: if Musk is doing with this America Party. To be clear,
37:58
Speaker 1: I think I'm a pretty interesting case you on this
38:00
Speaker 1: one because I'm an anti Trump conservative too, because I
38:04
Speaker 1: have some respect for Elon Moscow, though I do think
38:07
Speaker 1: he's crazy in a lot of ways, and there are
38:09
Speaker 1: some things I don't trust him on, but I certainly
38:12
Speaker 1: trust his intellect more than I trust Donald Trump, and
38:15
Speaker 1: I in this particular area, I certainly trust his intent.
38:19
Speaker 1: But I'm also a libertarian, and I'm also someone who
38:23
Speaker 1: believes in some semblance of fiscal responsibility. So I should
38:27
Speaker 1: be pretty darn near the core target audience for this
38:32
Speaker 1: so called America Party. And I know here in California
38:37
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter who I vote for, so I would
38:38
Speaker 1: probably vote for it here in California it was on
38:41
Speaker 1: the ballot, but I would not support it if the
38:45
Speaker 1: Republican candidate was somebody that I could live with, because
38:49
Speaker 1: it's obvious that all of those votes would come right
38:53
Speaker 1: out of right out of whoever the Republican candidate is.
38:56
Speaker 1: It would only help elect Democrats and would not be
39:00
Speaker 1: effective in the long run. Now, I think, to be fair,
39:04
Speaker 1: I think Elon's view of this, his vision for this
39:10
Speaker 1: is to almost create a sort of parliamentary form of
39:15
Speaker 1: government in the United States. I think what Elon believes
39:19
Speaker 1: he can do is that he can effectively buy you know,
39:25
Speaker 1: five to ten House seats and you know, maybe three
39:29
Speaker 1: to five Senate seats, and that those votes will be
39:33
Speaker 1: the deciding votes in both houses. So that's where you
39:38
Speaker 1: kind of get, you know, a pseudo parliamentary parliamentary form
39:43
Speaker 1: of government where you have to essentially have alliances. You know,
39:47
Speaker 1: in Great Britain there's more than two parties and so
39:51
Speaker 1: you have to have oftentimes a coalition government in order
39:53
Speaker 1: to get a majority. I think that's Musk's vision here,
39:58
Speaker 1: but I don't think it can work, and it can't
40:00
Speaker 1: work in America, and with him, for a couple of
40:04
Speaker 1: different reasons. First of all, I think Musk has a
40:07
Speaker 1: misunderstanding of these so called purple districts or purple states.
40:15
Speaker 1: I think he thinks that a purple district or a
40:18
Speaker 1: purple state means that there's a whole lot of purple
40:22
Speaker 1: people in them, in other words, people that aren't really
40:26
Speaker 1: red and aren't really blue. I don't think that's really
40:30
Speaker 1: the case. I think in the vast majority of circumstances,
40:34
Speaker 1: a purple district which is usually been gerrymannered to be
40:38
Speaker 1: such by the state legislature, usually for political purposes. And
40:45
Speaker 1: in these states that are you know, a purple state
40:48
Speaker 1: like North Carolina, which is going to now have a
40:50
Speaker 1: Senate seat open because Trump ran Tom tell Us out
40:54
Speaker 1: of town. In those situations, it's not that you have
40:57
Speaker 1: a lot of purple voters. It's you have a fairly
41:01
Speaker 1: equal number of red voters and blue voters. There's still
41:05
Speaker 1: not a massive swath of people in the middle. And
41:09
Speaker 1: so to whom are you appealing. All you're really gonna
41:14
Speaker 1: do is chop off five to ten percent, maybe, if
41:19
Speaker 1: you're lucky, almost entirely off of the Republican candidate, which
41:24
Speaker 1: in a purple district or a purple state means the
41:27
Speaker 1: Democrat is a lock cinch to win. So I don't
41:32
Speaker 1: think that this can be effective, especially not when it's
41:36
Speaker 1: going to be perceived that an Elon Musk candidate is
41:41
Speaker 1: bought and paid for by Elon Musk. That's a terrible
41:45
Speaker 1: branding right off the bat, especially you know, in a
41:50
Speaker 1: situation where Musk has become such so controversial that he
41:54
Speaker 1: doesn't really have a political home anymore. He still has
41:56
Speaker 1: some street cred within MAGA, but that's rapidly evaporating. His
42:01
Speaker 1: liberal street cred has been gone because he helped elect
42:05
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So it's not like Musk himself has great
42:09
Speaker 1: approval ratings. He's got terrible approval ratings. And the perception
42:13
Speaker 1: would be that any candidate from this party would have
42:16
Speaker 1: to do whatever Elon Musk said because he's paying the bills.
42:21
Speaker 1: So this is a terrible idea in my opinion. And
42:26
Speaker 1: it's interesting that Ron DeSantis. There's so many elements of
42:30
Speaker 1: this that are interesting to me. As you probably remember,
42:33
Speaker 1: I a Rond de Santis fan. I was a Ron
42:35
Speaker 1: de Santa supporter in the primaries. I was probably the
42:39
Speaker 1: first public Rond de Sanda supporter to declare that he
42:43
Speaker 1: had no chance to win the primary against Donald Trump,
42:46
Speaker 1: and I was unfortunately one thousand percent vindicated in that.
42:50
Speaker 1: But Ron DeSantis has actually come up with a better
42:55
Speaker 1: suggestion for Elon Musk. If he is really concerned about
42:59
Speaker 1: fiscal responsibility, there is a better way for Elon Musk
43:04
Speaker 1: to spend his political money, and that is to help
43:08
Speaker 1: create a balanced budget amendment, which I think is somewhat realistic.
43:16
Speaker 1: It's a launch shot all constitutional amendments are. But I
43:19
Speaker 1: do think this is a great suggestion from Ron DeSantis,
43:23
Speaker 1: and here is the governor Florida explaining it.
43:27
Speaker 3: What he's done. The problem is when you do another party,
43:31
Speaker 3: especially if you're running on some of the issues that
43:33
Speaker 3: he talks about, you know that would end up if
43:36
Speaker 3: he funds Senate candidates and House candidates and competitive races,
43:39
Speaker 3: that would likely end up meaning the Democrats would win
43:42
Speaker 3: all the competitive Senate and House races. And say, look,
43:45
Speaker 3: I'm a Republican. You know I don't want to see
43:47
Speaker 3: that happen. I think if you want to, you know,
43:51
Speaker 3: get get involved in hold accountable. You know, we do
43:53
Speaker 3: have a problem in the Republican Party with these DC congressmen.
43:58
Speaker 3: They always run saying there's out of control spending and
44:01
Speaker 3: they're going to spend less, and they never do it,
44:04
Speaker 3: And so there's a gap between the campaign rhetoric and
44:06
Speaker 3: then the performance. Elon was doing Doge and a lot
44:10
Speaker 3: of Congress didn't want anything to do with actually adopting
44:14
Speaker 3: the Doge cuts, just like they didn't want to They
44:16
Speaker 3: haven't wanted to adopt the Trump executive orders on immigration
44:20
Speaker 3: and all these other things, which I think you have
44:22
Speaker 3: to adopt in law if you want them to have
44:24
Speaker 3: staying power. So I think there is a lot of
44:26
Speaker 3: frustration with the gap between the rhetoric and their district
44:31
Speaker 3: and the performance once they get into DC. But the
44:34
Speaker 3: way you do that is exposed that in a primary
44:37
Speaker 3: and show that there's another way forward. Honestly, if you're
44:41
Speaker 3: concerned about the debt, I wouldn't even worry about that
44:44
Speaker 3: because I don't think just electing a few better people
44:47
Speaker 3: is going to change your trajectory. We need the incentives
44:50
Speaker 3: in Washington are going to lead to these outcomes, really
44:54
Speaker 3: regardless of the outcome of elections at this point, So
44:57
Speaker 3: you need to do a balanced b Amendment to the
45:01
Speaker 3: US Constitution. And you can do that through the states.
45:04
Speaker 3: You can do it through Article five. We've got twenty
45:06
Speaker 3: eight states that have approved this. There's another four or
45:09
Speaker 3: five that are on the docket. Once you hit thirty four,
45:12
Speaker 3: then you write an amendment and then the states are
45:14
Speaker 3: able to ratify that. You need three quarters. You know,
45:18
Speaker 3: if Elon wanted to weigh in on that and work
45:20
Speaker 3: on those state legs, I mean, he would have a
45:23
Speaker 3: monumental impact on doing this. And we also need term
45:27
Speaker 3: limits for members of Congress, and so you can do
45:29
Speaker 3: both of those things. But I think if you did
45:34
Speaker 3: that all of a sudden, that moves the needle on
45:38
Speaker 3: both of those issues. You know, under Article five of
45:41
Speaker 3: the Constitution you are going to see major, major positive changes.
45:46
Speaker 3: But you have to change the incentives and the structures
45:49
Speaker 3: up there, because we've seen it time and time again.
45:52
Speaker 3: You have the rhetoric, same results, You have the rhetoric,
45:54
Speaker 3: same results when it comes to debt. And so this
45:58
Speaker 3: is one way to do it, and it's within our
46:00
Speaker 3: to do it. Florida has already certified both of.
46:02
Speaker 1: Those I've said this many times before and I'm sure
46:04
Speaker 1: i'll say it again, but I agree totally with Rond
46:06
Speaker 1: de Santis. That is the path for Elon Musk. And
46:10
Speaker 1: of course, remember it was Elon Musk who unfortunately hosted
46:15
Speaker 1: the failed launch of Ron De Santis' presidential campaign. That
46:19
Speaker 1: was the first moment when I was really of the
46:22
Speaker 1: belief that DeSantis was doomed because of the technical problems
46:25
Speaker 1: that existed when Musk was hosting DeSantis's presidential launch. And
46:31
Speaker 1: then of course the irony of Musk then going all
46:34
Speaker 1: in for Trump, helping him get elected, be seen as
46:38
Speaker 1: his co president, and now be on the outs to wear.
46:42
Speaker 1: They're at each other's throats, which is in a way
46:45
Speaker 1: worse position than even Trump and DeSantis ever were. And
46:49
Speaker 1: now we have simultaneously Donald Trump and Ron de Santis
46:54
Speaker 1: love fest. Trump went down to Florida to check out
46:58
Speaker 1: the alligator alcatraz as did Desantas has help organize, and
47:03
Speaker 1: I mean Trump was slobbering all over Rond de Santis
47:07
Speaker 1: and essentially pretending that the past never really happened. So
47:12
Speaker 1: you know, life comes at you fast in modern politics.
47:16
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, Elon Musk and Donald
47:20
Speaker 1: Trump are effectively enemies, and Ron De Santis and Donald
47:24
Speaker 1: Trump are best buddies, and here was Trump talking about
47:27
Speaker 1: that well with the federal government. It's been just a.
47:31
Speaker 4: Beautiful, beautiful partnership. So Ron, i'd like to thank you personally.
47:37
Speaker 4: You are my friend and you'll always be my friend.
47:39
Speaker 4: And we may have some skirmishes even in the future,
47:42
Speaker 4: I doubt it, but I will always come back because
47:46
Speaker 4: we just seem to We have blood that seems to
47:50
Speaker 4: match pretty well. We have a relationship that's been a
47:53
Speaker 4: very strong one for a long period of time, and
47:55
Speaker 4: I appreciate it, very much, appreciate it.
47:58
Speaker 1: I just don't think it can be understated just how
48:01
Speaker 1: absolutely extraordinary it is that in a relatively short amount
48:04
Speaker 1: of tie, Trump and DeSantis have gone from enemies to
48:08
Speaker 1: best buddies. All well, Trump and Musk have gone from
48:13
Speaker 1: even closer buddies to even worse enemies. But that's the
48:17
Speaker 1: way things work in Trump world. And you know, who knows.
48:21
Speaker 1: I would love to know what's really going through Trump's
48:24
Speaker 1: mind here. Is he creating a situation where DeSantis could
48:29
Speaker 1: theoretically vibe for the twenty twenty eight presidential nomination or
48:34
Speaker 1: is he just kind of keeping JD. Vans from getting
48:37
Speaker 1: over confident? You know that somehow his endorsement, which if
48:42
Speaker 1: he's alive and kicking is all that's gonna matter in
48:44
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight, could still go to somebody else. Maybe
48:49
Speaker 1: he's keeping his options open. He is a mob boss
48:52
Speaker 1: after all, and so basically he has a situation where
48:55
Speaker 1: JD Vans, Marco Rubio, and Ron DeSantis are all viable
49:00
Speaker 1: for him to endorse in twenty twenty eight. I'm still
49:04
Speaker 1: a long long way off, but I guess we keep
49:06
Speaker 1: Hope alive. Unfortunately, though, RHN de Santis at that point
49:10
Speaker 1: will be effectively unemployed unless he becomes part of the
49:13
Speaker 1: Trump administration, which I guess now is more than a
49:16
Speaker 1: plausible scenario. Now, speaking of politics, there's been some polling
49:21
Speaker 1: on the New York City Mayor's race that I at
49:23
Speaker 1: least want to mention, and it doesn't look good right
49:27
Speaker 1: now for defeating Zoron Mondani. Now, this is a very
49:32
Speaker 1: complicated situation. It's complex how New York City does their voting.
49:37
Speaker 1: Right now, there are four candidates that are being polled,
49:41
Speaker 1: the incumbent Mayor Adams, the Republican candidate Silwa, and the
49:46
Speaker 1: Democratic loser Andrew Cuomo, who is claiming he's going to
49:50
Speaker 1: run as an independent if all four candidates run, it
49:55
Speaker 1: seems to me as if, at least right now, Mandani
49:59
Speaker 1: is a effectively a lock. Now not by a massive margin.
50:03
Speaker 1: It's just the problem is, I don't see how you
50:06
Speaker 1: create a circumstance where he loses. And if you're one
50:10
Speaker 1: of those people that thinks, well, okay, if you're lose,
50:13
Speaker 1: you know, if the guy is winning a four person race,
50:16
Speaker 1: then who do you get out of the race. Obviously
50:18
Speaker 1: somebody's got to get out. But other than Silwa, who
50:22
Speaker 1: doesn't really have a whole lot of support, he's probably
50:25
Speaker 1: single digits. Okay, So if Silva gets out, and by
50:28
Speaker 1: the way, there's no way to force Silva out unless
50:31
Speaker 1: Trump really gets involved in that, which would would have
50:34
Speaker 1: its own problems. But let's pretend Silwa gets out. Who
50:38
Speaker 1: does he throw his support to. Well, the only person
50:41
Speaker 1: that could logically happen for his atoms, Well, to my surprise,
50:46
Speaker 1: Adams is actually behind Cuomo. Now, granted, you know, voting
50:51
Speaker 1: is still a long way off. Are people paying full attention?
50:55
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, it's getting a lot of
50:58
Speaker 1: media coverage and Mondannie is both riding the wave of
51:04
Speaker 1: being this New Obama. But he's also starting to get
51:08
Speaker 1: some negative media coverage, which are going to get to
51:10
Speaker 1: in a second, because I find that fascinating. But I
51:14
Speaker 1: don't know how Silva actually helps because his vote would
51:18
Speaker 1: go to Adams. Adams is then still going to be
51:21
Speaker 1: in third place. Okay, well can you get Cuomo out? Well,
51:25
Speaker 1: I think most of Cuomo's vote would probably end up
51:28
Speaker 1: going to Mondanni. So I think you've got a game
51:32
Speaker 1: here where or a puzzle where there's no real solution
51:37
Speaker 1: unless you know, there's a significant amount of Mondannie's support
51:42
Speaker 1: that pushes the pause button says, wait a minute, hold
51:45
Speaker 1: on a second, do we really want to do this?
51:48
Speaker 1: And I've mentioned that he is effectively the new Obama.
51:53
Speaker 1: I've also said I think he's a the AI version
51:56
Speaker 1: of the liberal wet dream in this woe era. I mean,
52:01
Speaker 1: he literally is almost an AI creation. And part of
52:05
Speaker 1: that AI creation is, you know, he's two Ivy League parents,
52:10
Speaker 1: not from this country, and you know, very exotic. He's Muslim,
52:15
Speaker 1: he's good looking, he's personable, he's woke as hell in
52:21
Speaker 1: every possible way. But I was really interested to see
52:25
Speaker 1: that the New York Times did something that they never
52:30
Speaker 1: dreamed of, apparently even looking into when it came to
52:34
Speaker 1: Barack Obama. I remember I did an entire documentary film
52:38
Speaker 1: about the two thousand and eight election called Medium Malpractice
52:42
Speaker 1: How Obama got elected, and a large part of that
52:46
Speaker 1: film was about how Obama won the Democratic nomination in
52:50
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight with a hurricane wind at his back,
52:54
Speaker 1: blown by an adoring media that completely ignored and all
53:01
Speaker 1: possible questions about him and everything was off limits, even
53:06
Speaker 1: Reverend Jeremiah Wright, because it was all racist. Any criticism
53:11
Speaker 1: of Obama and he looking at his background in anything
53:15
Speaker 1: other than a glowing fashion, even though we knew almost
53:17
Speaker 1: none of the details, was deemed to be racist. And
53:23
Speaker 1: that's how Hillary lost the two thousand and eight Democratic nomination,
53:27
Speaker 1: even though she technically got more votes popular votes than
53:31
Speaker 1: Obama did in two thousand and eight. And I think
53:33
Speaker 1: she actually had a hell of an argument that the
53:35
Speaker 1: convention was stolen from her because they took away half
53:38
Speaker 1: of her delegates from Florida and Michigan. Essentially, the entire
53:43
Speaker 1: party apparatus, including the mainstream news media, which back in
53:46
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight was far, far, far more powerful
53:48
Speaker 1: than they are today. They just decided, sorry, Hillary, We're
53:51
Speaker 1: in love with the black guy, and that's how he
53:54
Speaker 1: won the nomination. Well, one of the many, many questions
53:58
Speaker 1: that were never even asked by the mainstream news media
54:01
Speaker 1: about Barack Obama is why is it that we know
54:03
Speaker 1: so little about his background and specifically, why do we
54:07
Speaker 1: know so little about his college career. I mean, Donald
54:11
Speaker 1: Trump was totally wrong to go after the whole birth
54:14
Speaker 1: certificate scenario. I actually think that if there is a
54:19
Speaker 1: quote unquote scandal in Obama's background, it's that he was
54:23
Speaker 1: lying about where he was born and was claiming to
54:27
Speaker 1: have been born in a foreign country to be more exotic.
54:32
Speaker 1: And the basis for that is twofold one. There is
54:37
Speaker 1: a description of a book he wrote that he had
54:39
Speaker 1: to have approved that said that he was born outside
54:43
Speaker 1: of the United States. And also because we don't have
54:47
Speaker 1: any of his college records, and I think it's quite
54:51
Speaker 1: possible that Obama lied in order to make himself more
54:55
Speaker 1: exotic and maybe help get him in to Ivy League schools.
54:59
Speaker 1: I don't know all that, It's just a theory. Well, interestingly,
55:03
Speaker 1: Mondani has now been proven to effectively have done the
55:06
Speaker 1: same thing, even though he's done so in somewhat of
55:10
Speaker 1: an ambiguous fashion on his Columbia application. But much to
55:15
Speaker 1: my surprise, the New York Times went after him pretty
55:19
Speaker 1: hard on this, effectively calling him a liar. Now, they
55:23
Speaker 1: got a lot of blowback, and they even had to
55:26
Speaker 1: post on Twitter. I guess you would call it an explanation,
55:31
Speaker 1: almost an apology for why they did what they did.
55:36
Speaker 1: I mean, this is so pathetic because we now live
55:38
Speaker 1: in a world where The New York Times cannot piss
55:40
Speaker 1: off its liberal base of subscribers, so whenever there is
55:44
Speaker 1: a revolt, any sort of major pushback, they have to
55:48
Speaker 1: do something about it. So they did put out a
55:50
Speaker 1: statement which I didn't even fully understand, pseudo apologizing. They
55:56
Speaker 1: didn't actually apologize, but it felt like an apology for
56:00
Speaker 1: actually asking these questions and for revealing this information that
56:05
Speaker 1: certainly indicates that Mandannie lied when he claimed to be
56:08
Speaker 1: an African American and an Asian on his Columbia application.
56:13
Speaker 1: But I do think that the significant part of this
56:16
Speaker 1: is it appears now maybe the backlash Day got is
56:20
Speaker 1: gonna chase them. I don't know, maybe there's going to
56:22
Speaker 1: be a chilling effect here, But at least based upon
56:24
Speaker 1: the initial reporting, it seems as if the New York
56:28
Speaker 1: Times and the mainstream news media is not going to
56:31
Speaker 1: give Mondannie the Obama treatment. Now why is that? Well,
56:37
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of potentially good reasons. One,
56:40
Speaker 1: I think they probably think Mondani is more dangerous than
56:43
Speaker 1: they thought Obama was. But two, let's be clear, especially
56:47
Speaker 1: the New York Times, most of them live in New
56:49
Speaker 1: York City, and so it hits a lot closer to
56:52
Speaker 1: home than having a woke We didn't know what woke
56:56
Speaker 1: was back then, but having a super liberal, socialistic president
57:00
Speaker 1: is one thing, but having it in New York City,
57:03
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden, you know, you could turn
57:06
Speaker 1: into a Third world communist country. Now, all of a sudden,
57:10
Speaker 1: I think the New York media is like whoa, whoa, whoa,
57:13
Speaker 1: whoa whoa. Hold on a second here, and I think
57:15
Speaker 1: that their hesitancy to go after mon Donnie is reduced,
57:20
Speaker 1: which means, of course they actually do their job. I mean,
57:23
Speaker 1: this is basic journalism. This is a guy who most
57:26
Speaker 1: people know almost nothing about. So let's find out who
57:30
Speaker 1: he was or who he is? What it's his biography?
57:33
Speaker 1: How did he get to where he is? We didn't
57:35
Speaker 1: ask any of these questions about Barack Obama. There was
57:38
Speaker 1: all these years where there was just no information about
57:42
Speaker 1: Barack Obama whatsoever, and he ended up getting elected to
57:45
Speaker 1: the presidency fairly easily, not once but twice. But at
57:50
Speaker 1: least so far, it does not appear as if Mondnnie
57:52
Speaker 1: is going to get the Obama treatment from the mainstream
57:57
Speaker 1: New York centered media. But I still think he is
58:00
Speaker 1: a significant favorite, at least as of right now. Something
58:04
Speaker 1: dramatic is gonna have to happen for Mondani to lose
58:08
Speaker 1: that race as of right now. Thanks for listening to
58:13
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