Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Ninety Four: Strike Force Five

Transcript

Episode Two Hundred Ninety Four: Strike Force Five · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and ninety four The Death
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of Journalism Podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm your
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: host on today's show. President Trump makes a huge visit
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to China, but no one seems to really care. We
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: have a significant AI update. The long Goodbye for Stephen
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Colbert is thankfully finally almost over. ESPN has unleashed its
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: talent against the twenty fourteen college football playoff. We have
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary interview with the president of the Penn State
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Football Letterman's Club about his new book and how I
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: convinced him that Jerry Sandowsky is innocent and Mark Furman,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: infamous from the OJ Simpson case, has died. I will
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: tell you the real story behind how he was used
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to help OJ get away with double murder. We begin
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: this episode of the podcast with a quick programming note.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We are taping about a day earlier than normal for
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: logistical reasons, so keep that in mind. As I did
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: discussed the news of the day. The biggest story of
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the last week, although it's already been forgotten at least
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: nationally and probably internationally, was the President Trump and a
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of corporate big wigs with enormous financial firepower
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: went over to China to visit with Chinese leaders and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: negotiate about the future of the world. Obviously, in theory,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: this is a massive story and it got a lot
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of attention when it happened, but the reaction to it
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: is basically as if it never happened at all. No
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: one seems to have had any real major takeaways from
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the results. It seems to me as if China just
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: wanted to get across to Trump that you better not
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: mess with the Taiwanes situation, and Trump seemed to obey that.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Edict Trump made a whole bunch of promises, as he
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: always did, about great deals being made, but there's no
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: evidence that people have actually bought into that narrative because
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the stock market actually done terribly in the last couple
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: of days since the Chinese visit happened. So I don't
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: know what the bottom line takeaway from this is. Look,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: whenever you have these circumstances, everyone's trying to read tea
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: leaves and everyone's going to see reality through the prism
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: of what they want to believe. So liberals are going
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to think that Trump was taken Conservatives are going to
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: believe that Trump is playing four D chess and he's
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: made all these great deals. I don't know what the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: reality is. I'm just kind of amazed that a story
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: that should be very significant and have legs to it
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: has already been forgotten, at least seemingly. And when Trump
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: got back from China, he did an interview about the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: visit with Fox News Channel's Brett bear, one of the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: few decent journalistic voices generally left in cable news, and
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I mentioned Taiwan, and that kind of led into what's
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: going on with a run because obviously we are still
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: at an impass with regards to finishing the war in Iran,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: opening the strait of our moves, and Brett Beher was
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: pretty pointed with Trump about some of the concerns that
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I have had and a lot of other people have
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: had about the lack of planning, the lack of thinking
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: this through, and the difficulty of dealing with the Iranians
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: because they just don't look at the world the same
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: way that we do. They don't give a damn about
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the same things that we care about. Based upon normal metrics,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: we won the war. We want it decisively, we want
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it quickly, and easily, but they don't accept those metrics,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and that's very, very problematic when it comes to trying
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: to finish this thing, especially when you're not even sure
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: who to deal with, and you can't trust what they're
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: saying because they live by a completely different set of rules,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and if they don't care about the things that we
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: care about, it's going to be exceedingly difficult to come
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to a clear cut finish the conflict. Now, I'm going
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: to play two clips from the interview between Donald Trump
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and Brettbear, just so there's no out of context issues here.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: These were not together, so these are two separate clips.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I think you might even be able to hear an
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: audio difference in them because they're from different sources, but
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: they're the same basic subject, which is, what's the situation
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: with Iran? How we got into this, how do we
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: get out of this? And some of the language that
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Trump uses, especially in comparing the conflict in Iran to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: other major wars in US history, is rather concerning. Considering
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the way that we thought I thought things were going
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to go at the beginning of this, when this would
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: be two three four week situation where we would get
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: out of this and get back to some semblance of
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: normalcy well before the economy was dramatically impacted and the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: midterms maybe significantly impacted by the results of the war
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: in Iran. So here are two clips President Trump and
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Brettbear on Fox News Channel. So why are we where
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: we are?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Did you underestimate the pain tolerance that Iran?
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: I didn't underestimate anything. We hit them unbelievably hard. Look,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: we left their bridges, we left their electricity capacity. We
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: can knock that all out. And two days, two days
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: everything we left Cargy Island other than I said, hit it,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: except for the valves where the oil comes out, because
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: when you hit that, it means you're gonna losely loyal.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: But one thing is happening amazingly. Ships are floating up
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: to Texas and Louisiana and they go into Alaska and
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: they're loading up with oil like we've never seen before.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: When it's over though, right, Yeah, Look, Vietnam lasted nineteen years,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Iraq was like ten years. Korea was seven years, another
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: one was fourteen years, another one was twelve years, another
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: one was nine years. We're in there for twenty half months.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: The other thing they talk about so we lost tens
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: of thousands of soldiers, and Vietnam we lost tens of
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: thousands of soldiers, and practically every war I've lost, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: I wish we'd lost none because I know those payers
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: I spoke to. We lost thirteen soldiers in two wars,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: just like we knock out the drug dealers. You like
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: to talk about cards. It seems like they're playing with
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: a bad deck. To your point, no deck, but they're
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: still playing. No. The only thing they have going is
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: a fake press. They know how well we're doing militarily.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: And then, at the request of a very nice group
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: of people from Pakistan who are very close to Oran,
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: I didn't go that final They said, could you stop,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: We're going to make a deal, and we really had
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: the confines of a deal. No nuclear They're going to
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: give us the dusk, nuclear dust, all everything we wanted.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: And every time they make a deal, they the next
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: day it's like we didn't have that conversation, and that's
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: taken place about five times. There's something wrong with them. Actually,
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: they're crazy, and you know what, because of that, they
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: cannot have a nuclear weapon.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I think those two clips actually encapsulate almost every important
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: aspect of the war with a rhyme yes, we won. Yes,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: it's almost impossible to define victory or to get to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the finish line because of the fact that there's this
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: massive chasm in the way that we look at the
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: world and they look at the world. I agree with
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Trump when he says that that's why they can't have
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon, because they don't look at the world
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the same way, which is one hundred percent accurate. That's
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: what this qualifies them from having a nuclear weapon, and
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Trump is one hundred percent right about that. However, the
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: commitment to that, which I agree with in principle, leading
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: to what could be an extremely prolonged war is very troubling,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: especially when there's no chance that the next president, if
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: it's a Democrat, which I think is the most likely
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: scenario at this point, is going to continue whatever it
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: is that Trump's doing with Iran, and Iran knows that
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: they're in for the long haul. This has always been
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: one of the weaknesses in our system. We don't have kings.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: But when you don't have a king, that means that
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: everyone knows that you're not going to be in power
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: for all that much longer, especially when they're not stupid.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: They realize the political realities in America right now. They
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: know that the war is not popular, even very popular
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: with his own base, but certainly not popular nationwide, and
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: that Trump's approval rating is below forty percent now virtually
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: every poll that there is, and he's facing a potential
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: massacre in the midterm elections depending on how things go
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and how significant redistricting is in the favor of Republicans.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: So this is a very difficult quandary, and I think
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Brett Bair did a pretty good job of illustrating that
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: in his questions. And I don't know that Trump really
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: has a good answer, because there is no good answer,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: which is why maybe you don't get yourself in this
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: situation to begin with, Which has always been my biggest
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: problem was was this properly thought out? Was this a
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: checker's game, a chess game, or a game of shoots
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and ladders? And That's always been one of Trump's weaknesses,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: and I think this interview further illustrated that. Now I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: mentioned the issue of kings. You know, we are on
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the verge of our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. It's
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in our founding document. Literally, we are seeking independence from
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a monarchy. This is our brand. We are no kings,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and in my opinion, Trump has acted a lot like
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: a king. Now he claims it's not the case because
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: he doesn't have nearly the power of a king, which
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: is true. But he has way more power than and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: has exerted way more power in many areas than our
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: founding fathers ever imagined would be possible. It was never
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: intentioned by the founding fathers that we would have an
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: executive that is as powerful and in my opinion personally
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is corrupt in many ways as Donald Trump is. And
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: we have another example of that, and that is this
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: IRS situation, which is a complex story, and I understand
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: why Trump supporters are defending him on this, but here's
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the bottom line of this. Donald Trump sued the IRS
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: for ten billion dollars because his tax returns were illegally leaked. Now,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the ten billion dollars is completely and totally absurd. There's
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: so many problems with that idea to begin with. But
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Trump decided to essentially give up that lawsuit in exchange
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: for one point seven billion dollars to be created from
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the US Treasury in a fund to be used effectively
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: for Trump allies who I guess he believes have been
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: unfairly treated by the government. Now you can argue that
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: there's reality to the claim of being treated unfairly by
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the government. I'm not even gonna get into that. I'm
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: just gonna for the sake of argument. I'm gonna see
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that just for the sake of argument, everything he's saying
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: is true. I don't believe it is, but let's pretend
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: everything he's saying is true. The primary fundamental problem with
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: this and why it's like a king, is that he's
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: negotiating effectively with himself because it's his government, and again
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: because of the way Trump acts the way he administers
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: his government. Everybody working in the government knows it's in
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: their best interest to not pay off the king to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: do the king's bidding. So this is not a situation
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: where at least there's a theoretical firewall and people know
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: their jobs are protected and there's no harm going to
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: come to them, or it's not a situation where they're
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: incentivized to please the president. But that's not the case here.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Everybody in the world knows, everybody in the Trump government
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: knows that you don't cross Trump if you want your
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: career to go. Well, he runs the Republican Party, he
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: runs the government. Right now, you've got to be on
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: his good side. So it's a fundamental, obvious, overwhelming conflict
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: of interest for Donald Trump to be suing his own government,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: negotiating a settlement with his own government, and having that
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: government seed one point seven billion dollars is not a
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: small amount of money. One point seven million, Okay, fine, whatever,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: one point seven billion dollars a thousand times more seven
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: billion dollars essentially what sounds like a slush fund for
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Trump to be able to pay off his allies, and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: he can spin it to his base as you know,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: him being magnanimous and not caring him on money for
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: himself and doing the good for the people that got screwed.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And then you know, so, I'm fully aware that this
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: is not a situation that's going to really harm him
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: with his political base. And I'm fine with the idea
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that if you're a Trump supporter and you think that
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: he's actually done some good here. The problem is the principle. Again,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I'm seating everything. I'm seeding the Trump view of this
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: entire story. The principle, the precedent, the idea that it's
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: appropriate for the president United States to be negotiating a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: legal settlement with his own government to the tune of
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: one point seven billion dollars is just so far beyond
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: absurd that it's mind boggling. And the proof of this
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: is that if this ever happened, and it will now
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in the future with a democratic presidential administration, whether it
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: was Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Gavin Newsom, in
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the future, the MAGA media industrial complex would be rightfully
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: losing their goddamn minds over this, because this is extremely
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: troubling from a principal and precedent perspective. And yet the
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: magamedia will be completely silent on this because Trump still
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: runs the world. It doesn't matter that nationally he's extremely unpopular,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: historically unpopular, like I said, less than well, less than
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a forty percent approval rating, usually over a sixty percent
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: disapproval rating in most surveys, which the MAGA world doesn't
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: care about because I don't believe in polls. And of course,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump is seemingly never going to be up
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: re election again, so it doesn't really matter to him,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and it also doesn't matter to him because he still
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: runs the Republican Party, and there's more evidence of that
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: in just the last few days over the weekend. Senator
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, a good guy, a doctor, a
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: smart guy, a guy who decided in twenty twenty one
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: to vote in favor of convicting Donald Trump in his
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: second impeachment trial, lost his Republican primary in Louisiana. But
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: he didn't just lose it, which is highly, highly unusual
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: for an incumbent senator to lose a primary, especially when
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: they've not been involved in any scandal. He's not in
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the real world. I guess Trump people might think that's
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: a scandal to vote to convict Donald Trump in an
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: impeachment trial, but I don't. I actually favored that vote.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: But the reality is he didn't just lose the primary.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: He finished third in the primary. And so if there
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: was ever any doubt that Donald Trump still completely runs
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party, it should be ended by the results
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: in Louisiana. And my first reaction to that result was
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I was not shocked, But I do think it's important
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to put this in context for what's going to happen
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight because there are still people who
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: somehow believe, I think, incredibly naively, that there's going to
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: be a legitimate, real Republican presidential primary in twenty twenty eight.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: People really think that, I mean, people in the media
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: think that I would think I would say, based upon
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: my experience, the vast majority of people online, both liberals
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and conservatives, think that there's gonna be a normal, legitimate
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Republican primary for president in twenty twenty eight. And I
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: just don't believe that. I think it's almost ridiculous to
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: believe that the only scenario where there is a legitimate
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Publican primary in twenty twenty eight is that Donald Trump,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: going against everything we know about him for eighty years
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of his life, decides, you know what, I'm gonna stay
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: out of it. I'm gonna have the discipline to never
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: express an opinion on this, even all gonna be asked
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: about it multiple times a day, every single day for
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the entire duration of the primary. I'm not gonna even
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: put my fingers on the scale. And I'm just gonna
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: let you know, Rubio and DeSantis advance fight it out,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: maybe whoever else more the merrier, and this is gonna
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: be fun. And I'm gonna sit like an emperor in
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the coliseum and I'm just gonna watch, and at the end,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I'll give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I mean,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: is that possible. I guess that's possible. But that would
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: go against everything we know about Donald Trump. Even if
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: in theory he decided he wanted to stay out of it,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't have the discipline to stay out of it.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: And whoever he endorses or is at least perceived as endorsing,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: is going to be the Republican presidential nominee in twenty
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: twenty eight period. It's almost inconceivable, not completely, but almost
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: inconceivable for me to contemplate a scenario where Trump doesn't
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: effectively endorse somebody. And it's equally inconceivable that if he
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: effectively endorses somebody, then that person doesn't win the nomination,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: partially out of fear, because perception is reality, and if
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the perception is that everybody in the party, or at
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: least the majority of the party is a Trump cult member,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: you can't buck the cult. And the cult is going
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to believe that Trump has the right to pick his successor.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And if he picks you, Dad Vance Vance already being
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the vice presidential nominee. That's it, game set match. No
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: one can beat Trump's vice presidential nominee with Trump's endorsement. However,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: if Trump decides to endorse Marco Rubio, then if you're
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: jd Vance, to me, you don't even run. See That's
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: why I'm so convinced there's not going to be a
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: presidential primary because Trump would have to make it exceedingly
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: clear He's not going to get involved, which I don't
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: think he would actually follow through on that. I don't
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: think he'd be able to even if he had the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: intention to do that, I don't think he has the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: discipline to do it. But if Trump made any inclination
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: at all that he was going to endorse somebody else,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: that person's not going to get in the race. DeSantis
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: isn't going to get humiliated again go through that. I
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: don't think I would be shocked if he did, and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: jd Vance would be destroying his career. If you're jd Vance,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: just sit it out. You wait till twenty thirty two,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and you go up against Gavin Newsommer whoever else it
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: is the Democratic nominee. If you're Dvance, is a smart guy,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: so it's almost a self fulfilling prophecy, and I think
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the situation in Louisiana proved that. Now, Unfortunately, because I'm
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: taping earlier than normal, I don't know the results of
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the there's a Freudian slip almost to the Democratic primary
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky. It's actually a Republican primary in Kentucky where
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: incumbent Republican Thomas Massey is running in a very heated,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: very expensive, apparently very very close Republican primary, essentially with
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Massey's political life on the line. Now, this is the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: classic situation of where everything is so complex in the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Trump era. I used to be a big fan of
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Thomas Massey, and you know, he was a libertarian, the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: last real libertarian in Congress. He fought against Trump, sometimes
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: on principle, sometimes the reasons I didn't fully understand, but
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: he had the guts to go up against Trump, and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: then Trump effectively fired him from Maggot And that's on Trump.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Trump was totally wrong at the beginning of this. I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: want to make that clear. At the beginning of this
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: few between Trump and Thomas Massey, Trump was ninety eight
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: percent wrong, and I would have supported Thomas Massey to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the very end. Except what Massey did when faced with
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: political extinction is he became a virtue signaling, lying liberal.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: That's what Massey has become, specifically on the issue of
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the whole Epstein scandal. He has lied constantly. He has
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: made alleganications against people that were totally innocent. He has
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: put himself almost literally in bed with frauds and scamsters,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and he does not care about the truth and the
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: reason why he's doing this. And the proof of this
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: is he never gave a damn about the Epstein case
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: before his political life was on the line. I mean,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: no record of Thomas Massey ever caring about Epstein until
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: it was his only card left to play. That's what.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So don't give me this bullshit about standing on principle,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: standing up for the victims, and that is complete garbage.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Massey did that because he had no other political choice.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Once he got kicked out of MAGA by Trump, he
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: realized his only path to political survival was take the
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: alleged moral high ground on Epstein, hope that the Epstein
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: story carries me through a victory in the primary, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: then I can hang on to my seat in Congress. Well,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: we're gonna find out. By the time you're listening to this,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: we probably already know whether or not that bid, that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: gambit was successful on Massey's part. The Poles have this
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: race right now basically fifty to fifty. But I think
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the conventional wisdom is that Massy's gonna lose, and I
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: think that convention to wisdom is probably right, mainly because
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the Massy support is mostly among younger people and people
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that don't vote in primaries, and the rules in Kentucky
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: are not really beneficial to him. It's a closed primary state,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and so I could end up looking ridiculous because you
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: already know the results by the time you're hearing this.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: But I think there's a very good chance that Massy's
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: gonna lose, And normally I would think that's a tragedy.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: But I'm not gonna be weeping for Thomas Massey at
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: all if he loses. Part of me is gonna be like,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: you know what, you got what you deserve because you
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: sold out to a moral panic. You lied, you virtue signaled,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and you did so did so all because you realize
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: that was your only path the political survival. Obviously, if
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong. I'll address that in the next episode of
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the podcast. One other political note, and this is speaking
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of things I've been wrong about. I presumed in the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: California governors I think, with good logic behind me in
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: my thinking, that there was going to be an endorsement
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: by Gavin Newsom and or Kamala Harris and Barack Obama
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: in this very scattered field to see who will be
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the next governor of California to replace Gavin Newsom. It
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: appears as if that is not going to happen, because
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: we're two weeks away now from the primary being over
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and there's still basically three or four candidates that could
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: make it into the final two. I am absolutely baffled
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: by this. This is to me one of the most
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: underrated political stories and baffling political stories in a long time.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: If you're Newsom, Harris and Obama, you have the ability
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: to decide almost anybody in this race would at least
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: be in the final two and very likely would end
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: up being the next governor of California. Why do you
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: not use that power, especially when there's at least a
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: very very tiny theoretical chance that two were Republicans could
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: end up getting into the final two and pulling off
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a miracle and having a Republican governor in California. By
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the way, I should point out, Gavin Newsom at a
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: press conference said something about that scenario, which, to be clear,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: is never going to happen. Trump ended a chance, any
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: chance that was going to happen when he endorsed the candidate,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and the second Republican is not going to be able
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: to get into the final two because of Trump's endorsement
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: of Fox News Channel commentator Steve Hilton. But Newsom actually
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: said at a public press conference that should that scenario occur,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that they have an emergency break glass plan all ready
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to go. And I'm like, what again, It's not going
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: to happen. There's not going to be two Republicans that
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: finish in the top two in California. But if Donald
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Trump had ever said that about the results of let's
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: say the twenty twenty eight presidential election, don't worryorry about it.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: If that occurs, We've got a break glass in case
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of emergency scenario that we've already worked out without any details.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: My god, people would be melting down, and rightfully so.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: But because we live in California, there's no real media.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: It's a one party state. Newsom gets away with it
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: even though he's gonna be running for president himself and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: should be held to the same standards as Donald Trump.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: But that's not the case because we live in a
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: very hypocritical world, especially when it comes to the very
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: broken news media. But there's not been an endorsement, which
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: is just shocking to me. And it's basically going to
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: come down to three people, the Shera, Stier, and Hilton.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Two of those three will get into the final two.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping it's gonna be Hilton, even though I don't
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: like Hilton. I'm probably gonna end up voting for Hilton,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: even though I hate Hilton. I actually prefer the other
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Republican Sheriff Bianco, But I feel like I had to
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: vote for Hilton because the most important question in November,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: maybe the most important result in November, is going to
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: be whether not California passes this incredibly bogus and dangerous
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: billionaires tax, And to me, there has to be a
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Republican on the ballot for governor to make sure that
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: every single Republican in the state gets out and votes
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: against the billionaires tax. If there's not a Republican on
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the ballot, if there's only two Democrats, I think it's
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: going to be very, very difficult to defeat the billionaires tax. So,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: purely out of strategy, I'm going to vote for Steve Hilton.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: It looks like I don't even know my wife will
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: buy into this theory or not. But you know, for
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: whatever it's worth, that's where my head is currently, even
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: though I don't like Steve Hilton. That's the that's how
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: pathetic things are in California. But I'm just stunned that
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: it doesn't appears that there's going to be an endorsement
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: from the Big three of Newsom, Harris, and Obama. I
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: do not understand it. I predicted that there would be.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I predicted that they would endorse Javier Bascher, who worked
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in the Biden administration. That would be the safest endorsement.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think they like Tom Steyer. He's a douchebag.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: He's buying the governorship with almost two hundred million dollars
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in ads, and I don't think they trust him or
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: like him. It's you know, it's awfully bizarre that the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: progressives in California might end up still electing a straight
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: white male billionaire who's buying the election, which seems to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: be against everything they claim to be in favor of.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: But that's the upside down world which we currently live.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: But I just wanted to mention, while I'm saying things
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: that you know might be consistent with me being wrong,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: it appears as if I was wrong about my prediction
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: in California that this was really all going to be
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: about who knew some Harris and Obama endorsed, because it
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't appear as if they're going to endorse anybody, which
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: again I'm completely baffled by. I want to switch now
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: to an update on AI. As you're probably aware, I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: keep track of two fear factors, the fear factor of
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Gavenowsen becoming President United States, which is currently at six
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: point zero, and the AI fear factor, which is the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: fear factor of AI destroying society. The AI fear factor
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: is currently at eight point zero, and it might be
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: rising because there's been a significant shift by a guy
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: in the name of Ken Griffin, who you probably not
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: have heard of. He's the CEO of Citadel. He's a
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: financial guy, hedge fund guy. But the reason why this
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: is significant and getting a lot of attention is that
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Griffin has been a skeptic of the power of AI
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and has made some comments that were somewhat consistent with
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: things that I have said. You know, it's still possible,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: basically that this thing doesn't reach the full potential, that
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: everyone behind it is presuming that it will, and that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: we don't reach Agi, and that this ends up being largely,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: if not mostly, hype. That me is the only scenario
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: where we save ourselves for this, because there is no
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: other scenario. I think that our society can withstand the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: power of AI if it turns out to be what
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: is promised, And I'd become somewhat I'm always nervous when
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I get a little bit optimistic. I had become somewhat
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: optimistic that no news was good news on the AGI front, right,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, because Elon Musk has said, and of course
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk makes lots of bad predictions, but Elon Musk
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: has said that we're going to reach Agi probably by
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the end of this year or early next year. And
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I keep thinking, well, if we're going to reach Agi
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: by the end of this year, we're going to start
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: seeing or hearing about stories being leaked that we're really
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: really closed, or that things are really improving, or that
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: things you know that are are going to happen the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: way that it's being predicted, and we haven't been hearing that,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: And I've always felt like, Okay, that's a you know,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: no news is sometimes the most significant news. And I've
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: been gaining a tiny little bit of confidence that the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: lack of news has actually been a positive that maybe
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: just maybe we're going to dodge this massive bullet and
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: we're not going to reach AGI and AI will not
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: completely and totally fundamentally change our society. Well, it sounds
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: as if Ken Griffin has gone from the side I
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: hope ends up winning here and I've been holding out
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: hope still had a chance, and is now seemingly a
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: convert to the side that believes that this is going
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: to fundamentally change everything, including when it comes to employment.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: And interestingly, his view of who's going to be targeted
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: by a job loss is a little bit different than
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of the conventional wisdom. But he was at
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: a conference where he was asked about AI, and he
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: explained his change of thought in just the last few
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: months about the impact that AI is going to have
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: specifically on the job market.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Let me just you know, share a few thoughts with
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: you on this. Number One is in the last few
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: months there has been a step change function in the
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: productivity of the AI toolkit. Is it is profoundly more
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: powerful than it was just nine months ago. And for
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: us at Citadel, that has that has allowed us to
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: unleash a much broader array of use cases for AI.
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: And it has been really interesting to watch to be blunt,
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: work that we would usually do with people with masters
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: and PhDs in finance over the course of weeks or
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: months being done by AI agents over the course of
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: hours or days. So these are not these are not
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: mid tier white collar jobs. These are like extraordinarily high
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: skilled jobs being I'm going to pick a word, being
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: audit matd by AGENICAI. And I got to tell you,
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: I went home one Friday actually fairly depressed by this
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: because you could just see how this was going to
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: have such a dramatic impact on society. And when you
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: witness in your own four walls, when you see work
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: that used to be man years of work being done
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: in days or weeks, it's like Wow, like, that's the
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: first time I've seen real impact in our four walls.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Now, that comment was seen as very significant by a
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: lot of people in the AI world, because that is
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: a conversion, seemingly a conversion from a skeptic to a believer,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and that's something that I take seriously. Doesn't prove it
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: doesn't prove that he's right, but it definitely lessens my
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: confidence that we still have a chance here, because I
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: am definitely in the camp that if we reach Agi,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: we're done. Our society is so fractured, so weak, it
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: will not sustain and it will not be able to
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: withstand the tsunami that would be full out AI reaching Agi,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and I am starting to believe that the tsunami metaphor
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: is the best. You may recall that last year former
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: NBC Today Show host Matt Lauer and I had a
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: very interesting conversation where I described what I perceive happening
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: with AI as a tsunami and he described it as
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the nuclear bomb. And I still think there's value to
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: both of those metaphors or analogies. But when I say tsunami,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about the fact that we know that there's
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: been a massive earthquake, like an eight point five or
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: nine point zero earthquake in the middle of the Pacific,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and we're just trying to figure out, Okay, how big
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: is the tsunami going to be? And whenever we hear
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: news of a massive earthquake out in the Pacific, there's
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: a chance that it will be a really bad tsunami.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: It's also possible that, for whatever reason, by the time
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: it gets the shore, it's just barely a ripple. Well,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I think we've pretty much taken out of the equation
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that the barely a ripple scenario, which I've never really
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: thought was going to be the case. It was obvious
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: that it was going to be a very significant environment
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: changing technology. It was just a matter of whether or not
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: it fundamentally altered everything. And I using the tsunami metaphor,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: it feels to me like we're now at the stage
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: where the water near the shore of the ocean is
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: clearly disturbed. Now there's that moment before the tsunami hits
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: where everyone starts to go what's going on? Something is
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: a miss And that feels like where we are. So
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: we still don't know the magnitude of the tsunami that's
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: gonna hit, but there's gonna be a tsunami. Is it
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: a tsunami that destroys everything? Is it a tsunami that
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: just causes a lot of havoc? I say, I think
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: those are are the two major scenarios here. I'm still
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: hoping for the one where it doesn't destroy everything. But
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: I'm also aware that the infrastructure of the of the
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: beach front housing is extremely weak. And when I say
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: beachfront housing, I mean our society, our structure, our foundation
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: is extremely weak in almost every single area, and it's
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: going to be easily wiped away if this thing turns
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: out to be what a lot of people in the
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: technology world have either promised or warned about. And I'm
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: going to keep the fear factor rating at eight point zero,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: but it's definitely rising. The only thing that's keeping it
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: at eight point zero right now, for better or for worse,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: is these graduation ceremonies. We played a clip at the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: end of last week's episode from the University of Central
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Florida where the female commencement address speaker was shocked to
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: see that the crowd of students graduating was very, very,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: very negative towards AI and we've seen a state of
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: similar episodes at other commencement addresses. Now, granted, these are
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: people that are probably still looking for jobs and realizing
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: the job market sucks in part because of AI, so
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: they have a vested interest that's somewhat unique. But I
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: do think there's at least some hope when it comes
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: to young people and the population in general not buying
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: into AI, not really liking AI. Statistically, in the United States,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: AI is less popular than it is in other Western countries,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: so there's at least a little glimmer of hope that
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the public isn't buying in, so maybe there'll be some pushback.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: But I don't put a lot of stock in that
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: because it appears to me is if this really is
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: as it's being touted, and then we reach AGI, it's
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: not gonna matter what the public thinks. It's a lot
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: like which A're gonna get to later on the episode.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: It's a lot like the twenty four team college football
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: playoff and everything else that's happened with college sports in general.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: College football in particular, nobody voted for it, nobody wanted it,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: very few people wanted it. Some people warned about it.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: The warnings weren't heated because the incentives, the economic incentives,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the societal incentives, the race element of this. When I
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: say race, the race against China when it comes to AI,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: we got to win the race. All of those factors
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: were working against what a lot of the public, what
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of the fan base wanted. And while there's
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: it's not a perfect analogy, I think there's a lot
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: of similarities in the two situations, and the inevitability of
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: AI taking over our entire society is something I take
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: very seriously. And the Ken Griffin comments, you know, didn't
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: totally change my mind, but I do think that they're significant,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and that's why we played them on the podcast. Now,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: speaking of AI, this doesn't have a lot to do
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: with AI taking over the world, but I think it's
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: worthy of at least mentioning that there was this federal
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: civil trial involving open Ai and Elon Musk suing Open
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Ai and Sam Altman over the issue of whether or
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: not Musk was lied to when he gave a whole
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: bunch of money at the beginning of open Ai, thinking
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that it was a nonprofit, and then Sam Altman turned
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: it into a for profit and Musk is trying to
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: make the argument that he's standing up for charities, and
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: maybe he is, I don't know, but this trial got
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention. There are a lot of interesting moments,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: mostly from a soap opera perspective, and Musk using this
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: as a vehicle to basically play out as vendetta against
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Sam Altman. Don't like Sam Altman, which I understand. I
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: don't like Sam Altman. I think he's weird. I think
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: he's a liar. I don't trust him at all. Of course,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: I don't feel all that great about Elon Musk these
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: days either, But it just seemed to me as if
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Musk is the richest man in the world, was buying
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: this forum of this civil trial to make Sam Altman
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: look bad. And it turns out that the jury decided
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: that the case they couldn't even decide the case on
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the merits because it failed on statute limitations grounds. Now
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not an expert in this case, but to me,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: just reading the basic tea leaves this is a situation
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: where a judge, if there was really a statute of
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: limitations issue, the judge could have stepped in a long
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: time ago and said I think there's a statute of
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: limitations issue. But they decided not to do that. Why
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: because they knew hosting this very very high profile trial
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: was going to be a lot of fun and good
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: for them, and so they decided to fall back on
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: the idea of I'll let the jury decide whether or
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: not there's a statue of limitations problem. This reminded me
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: very much of what happened in my civil trial in Louisville, Kentucky,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: many years ago, which should have been thrown out with
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: no trial, but the judge realized this was going to
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: get a lot of attention on a local level, obviously
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: nowhere near as much as this did nationally with regard
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to having Elon Musk go after Sam Altman. But the
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: judge is incentivized to let a jury decide because you know,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: why cancel this great show that they're going to be
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: the one of the leading characters that no one wants
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: to do that, so effectively, Elon Musk bought the time
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: and effort of all these people to create a media circus.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: The judge went along with it, and then the jury
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: never even decided the case on the merits because they
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: decided that the Statue of limitations had passed, so all
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: this was just basically much ado about nothing from a
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: legal perspective, except for the fact that it's very obvious
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: that Elon Musk doesn't like Sam Oultman, and I fully
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: support that. I think Sam Altman is incredibly creepy. Wouldn't
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: trust him at all. Of all of the AI tech bros.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: To me, he is the least trustworthy. And there was
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: an interesting moment on The Daily Show with John Stuart,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and I have to say John Stuart is a liberal.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: He's wrong a lot, but I have a very low
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: bar now when it comes to evaluating media figures in
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: general and liberal media figures in particular. And the fact
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: that John Stewart is I think a good faith actor
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: puts him into a slightly different category. I mean, to me,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: he's a little bit like Bill maher Is now, guys
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I never liked in the past, but at least they
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: have a semblance of a soul and they think about
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: things and they appear to be, like I said, good
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: faith actors, where they're trying to figure out what the
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: truth is. And when it comes to AI, I actually
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: think John Stewart is doing a really good job it's
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: kind of ironic and telling that it's not a comedy show,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: but that's the world which we now live. That's death
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: of journalism. Sometimes comedy shows are where, you know, one
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: of the few places you can get someone trying to
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: figure out what the truth is. And so I respect
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: what John Stewart is trying to do on AI. And
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: there was an interesting moment where he was talking with
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: an author who's a bit of an AI skeptic, and
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: this gets very esoteric. This is this is the type
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: of thing that can only happen when you're John Stuart
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and you're older, you don't care, you're a big enough star,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: and you have enough control, and it's Comedy Central and
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: it's not a massive audience, and Stuart and this author
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: get rather esoteric about the nature of AI and humanity
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and the concept of something being more intelligent than humans.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: And at the end Stuart tells a rather I think remarkable,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: though very short and simple story about his interaction with
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Sam Altman. And that's partially why I'm going to play
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this clip here. One because I like what Stewart is
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: doing on AI too, because I like the nature of
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: this kind of conversation. And three because of the story
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: involving Sam Altman. And here's what it sounded like on
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: the Daily Show.
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: I think, as human beings on this earth, the idea
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: that we've designed something that's better than us throws into
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: disarray our entire understanding of almost even faith, because what
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: if we said about God, what do we say about
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: the human eye? Well, the human eye couldn't have been
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: created unless it was created by something greater than us.
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: But we've just created something greater than us and we're
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: less So does that mean does that change?
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Almost phil? Do they reckon with that? I don't think
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: they do, but.
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: Want to get high and reckon.
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: But do you know what I mean?
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: But how is it that a lesser being creates a
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: better being?
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: But I guess I look at it differently. Okay, So
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: remember a couple of weeks ago at the robot that
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: beat that won the half marathon in China and everybody
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: and everybody's saying, oh, the robot beat the humans. It's
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: like that robot probably had two thousand programmers and manufacturers
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: who worked on it.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: So two thousand.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: People in a robot won that half marathon.
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: In my mind, you just bleke hold on. It's it's
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: a great point. I keep thinking of it as every
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: iteration of it blows my mind more than the next,
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: and it's moving so quickly. I'll tell you a quick
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: story before we go. I was at one of those
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: like Illuminati get togethers, like in the mountains of Colorado,
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: like one of those things that you're like, that doesn't happen.
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: It happened.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: It's always like a conference, you know, and they have
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: like it's like big gates and they're all in the
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: room and there's a good amount of security, and the
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: food is fent deast, and so I thought, well, I'll
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: get a chance. I go up to Sam Altman, and
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: these guys are always like you couldn't find a bag here,
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: like I was dressed nicer, and that never happens. You're
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: literally like, really, Corduroy, come on, dude, And I said,
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: the Industrial Revolution displaced, the globalization displaced, but all those
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: took place over decades, and America is still and the
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: world still didn't adjust to it in the same way.
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: AI may have that same level of displacement over three years,
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: and we can't in any way be prepared for that
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: kind of disruption in that kind of time frame.
• 46:57
  Speaker 7: And I laid it out so beautifully.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Josh.
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: I was sure that I was the one that he
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: was going to be.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Like, let's get some coffee and Tom and what did
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: he say?
• 47:07
  Speaker 7: He goes will be good.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: And then he walked away.
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: And I was like, huh, okay, that sucked.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry to me.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: That story hit home because the idea that Sam Altman
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: can just say it's all going to work out to
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: John Stewart is very troubling because when someone says to
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: me it's all going to work out, especially when there's
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: no logic or evidence of that, and it's basically just
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: trust me, and they're not a trustworthy person to begin with,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I get extremely nervous, and I think it made John
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Stewart extremely nervous as well, which is probably why he's
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: being one of the better point people on this entire
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: issue you when it comes to the media, I want
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: to shift to one of John Stewart's buddies, and I
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: find this to be one of the more aggravated news
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: stories of the year from a number of different perspectives.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I want to shift to what's going on with Stephen Colbert,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: because Stephen Colbert's run as the Late Night host on
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: CBS after he took over for David Letterman many many
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: years ago. Is finally coming to an end. And the
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: biggest part of this story that bothers me the most
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: is this perception that's been created on the left that
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: somehow Stephen Colbert is a political martyr, that he was
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: fired by Paramount because they were trying to please Donald Trump,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: because they needed their mergers two mergers actually two separate
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: mergers to be approved of by the Trump administration. And look,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I am one hundred percent down with the idea that
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: they're There are massive conflicts of interest and the Trump
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: administration is creating way too much influence over these media companies.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: I've attacked Brendan Carr, the head of the SEC, on
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: this before. There's supposed to be a firewall here. I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: get it. There's massive philosophical, principal and president based problems
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the influence of the Trump administration
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: over corporations that own media outlets. I'm one hundred percent there.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: But when it comes to Colbert, I'm not buying it.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: And the reason I'm not buying that Colbert was fired
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: because he was anti Trump, and I'm not saying it
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: helped him. It certainly didn't help him. But he was
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: not fired because he's anti Trump won. The show was
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: losing lots of money. That's a fact. And number two,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: had he been fired for political purposes, he would have
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: been taking off the air immediately. This is not difficult.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: If you were really being fired, you would not be
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: given what is it like six months to say goodbye
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: with a set date for your last show, which means
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: they can't get rid of you, which means you can
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: do whatever the hell you want. You can piss all
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: over CBS and Paramount and have guests on that continued
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: to promote this narrative that you've been fired for political reasons.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: And at the very very least, they would have cut
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: his balls off by you know, cutting funding, cutting staff,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: restricting is on air content. I mean, that would have
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: been the easiest thing in the world for CBS to do. Okay,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: you can stay on the air, but you know you're
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: not gonna have so and so on, or you can't
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: do this kind of content whatever. But none of that
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: has happened, none of it. And in reality, what has
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: occurred here is the greatest thing that's ever happened to
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert, this is the world we now live in.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: We're martyredo, especially on the left and sometimes on the right.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: To martyrdom is such a positive thing, especially for immediate personality,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: that it can actually be a great career move. Because
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Colbert's show was going nowhere, it was irrelevant, and now
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: he gets to forever be seen as a martyr. He
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: gets to go out pissing on his employer for six
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: months creating and promoting this what I believe, false narrative
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: of I'm the guy who lost his gig because i
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: was anti Trump, when in fact my show was losing
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: lots and lots of money, And he can go off
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: into the sunset and probably do whatever the hell he wants.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's the exact opposite of reality.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Colbert was not harmed by this. This is the greatest
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: sendoff a failing show has ever had in the history
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: of television in an era where television is dying anyway.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: And his buddies like John Stewart, although John Stewart's I
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: guess not technically part of the club. I guess he's
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: an honorary member of the club. They have this thing
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: called the Strikeforce five, which is the five I guess
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: major late night television talk show hosts that you know,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: like the Avengers, they come in to save the day
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: for liberals. And I just find it to be this
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: to be hilarious because all five of these guys are straight, white,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: middle aged dudes, So they're all liberals. They all believe
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: in DEI, they all believe in racial and gender equity,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: yet they have no problem. It's hilarious when they all
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: get together because you know, I'm joked before that it's
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: almost illegal to have more than three straight white males
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: on television in any given moment, except when it's Strikeforce five.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: You can have five straight white males, all middle aged dudes,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: you know, bragging about how they dominate late night television. Well,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: where's the woman, where's the gay guy, where's the black person?
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: It doesn't exist. Even so, it's DEI for THEE, but
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: not for me. That's what it's really all about when
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: it comes to this Strikeforce five. So I have no
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: patience for these assholets, these sanctimonious jackasses that destroyed the
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: late night platform by making it overly political. It never
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: used to be this way. Johnny Carson was never this
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: way Jay Leno was never this way. David Letterman at
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: the beginning was never this way. And they've destroyed it,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and it's been destroyed by a lot of factors. Fragmentation,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: but over politicization, I think is part of it. So
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: thank goodness, Stephen Colbert is finally going away with his
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: martyrdom to Or. But don't buy into this idea that
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: somehow he was fired for being anti Trump, because if
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: he was, it would have been handled completely differently than
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: it has been. And this has actually been the best
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: thing that's ever happened to Stephen Colbert. And I'm speaking
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: of someone who when Colbert was on the Daily Show
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: with John Stewart, I liked him a lot, and I
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: thought his Colbert Report show on the Daily Show or
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: an offshoot of the Daily Show on Comedy Central, was brilliant.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I like Stephen Colbert when he played the part of
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: the conservative talk show host was absolutely brilliant. It was genius.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I never thought he was very good as Stephen Colbert himself.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: But I'm not talking to somebody who doesn't like Stephen Colbert,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't think he's talented. I just think that this this
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: whole thing is a sham and a fraud, and the
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: exact opposite of what liberals are telling you with regard
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: to what really happened with Stephen Colbert and CBS. Now,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: speaking of corpor dominance of the news media, I want
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: to shift to sports. There's a lot happening when it
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: comes to the media and sports. And one of the
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: predictions that I have made regarding the National Football League
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: is that because the NFL is making so much money,
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: and because they have so much leverage and they dominate
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: television completely, I've said, and it's not hyperbole, that without
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: the National Football League over the air, television whatever you
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: want to call it, network television would essentially be dead
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: at this point. It's the only thing keeping it afloat
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: when it comes to viewership is National Football League games,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: which is why NBCCBS, ABC and Fox are all deeply, deeply,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: deeply invested in the National Football League. And the NFL
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: is making boat loads of money. But we live in
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: a world we're making boatloads of money. Isn't good enough anymore?
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: It's about growth. That one word, that one word growth
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: to me, is going to be the death of so
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: much in America where it used to be. If you're
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: making money and you're doing a good job and you're
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: you're laying the foundation for the future, then that was
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: a good business model. But no, no, no, no, every
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: you know, three months or six months, at the next
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: quarterly or half year earnings report, you've got to show growth.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: And when you're making a ton of money, it's very
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: very difficult to show growth. And at a certain point
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: you're trying to, you know, squeeze blood from a rock
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: or whatever metaphor you want to use. Well, I have predicted,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: based upon that reality that the National Football League the
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: only way they could go was effectively in two ways
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: that are very much related, more and more content on
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: streaming services, pay per view streaming services, and playing games
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: on more days of the week. I predicted that eventually,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: and we saw this partially because of what happened during
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: COVID and what they could get away with, and partially
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: because of some scheduling they did around Christmas two years
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: ago when Christmas was in the middle of the week.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I predicted that they will go to playing football on
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: every day of the week except Tuesday and Saturdays, which
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: they're not legally allowed to do. They can't play on
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Saturdays until college football is over. I didn't even realize
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: that until I did some research on that, but that's
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: part of the agreement that they have to get some
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: of the anti trust benefits that the National Football League enjoys.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: That they can't play on Saturdays until I think mid December.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: So unless that get changed gets changed, I still I
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: think college football is so large that the NFL is
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: going to seed Saturdays and Tuesdays. I think they're just
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: going to keep open simply because they need one day
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: of rest before they start the new week. But Monday's long,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: which I was fine with. We're obliterated. Thursdays long ago,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: not as long ago, but still pretty long ago at
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: this point have been obliterated. But now we're into Wednesdays
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: and Fridays, and the season is starting this year on
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: a Wednesday. We have Black Friday football last year, and
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: this year we've got a Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: football game this year. It is very very clear that
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Sundays are no longer the primary day for the National
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Football League, and I think this is exceedingly problematic. I
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: think that from a lot of different perspectives, and I
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: realize I'm a dinosaur, I'm a traditionalist, you know, Sundays
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: were supposed to be the day for the National Football League,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: and you're and to the average fan, they're not understanding
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: why this matters. The average fan is wants more football now.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: They might be upset by how they're getting it because
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: they're having to get all these streaming services, which you're
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: costing alf a lot of money. And even Donald Trump
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: has expressed an enormous amount of dissatisfaction about that, and
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: there could be some government intervention on that front. And
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Roger Goodell could be playing chicken with the Trump administration
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: on this issue because he thinks he has so much
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: leverage that he can get away with almost anything. Well,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: there was a very interesting moment on a show that
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: I've been very critical of. Pablo Torre finds out you
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: probably know Pablo Torre is the guy who I think
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: got the bogus Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles Clippers allegedly trying to get around the salary
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: cap with Kawhi Leonard. I went into the great detail
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: in previous episodes about that. How I don't think that
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: story is anywhere close to proven and certainly not worthy
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: of a Pulitzer Prize. I have a lot of problems
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: with Pablo Torre's tactics and his attitude, but weirdly, and
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: this is a little bit like another liberal sports journalist
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: named Jeff Prolman, who I've had it out with over
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: issues in the Jerry Sin does Ski case, where I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: disagree with them wholeheartedly. I have huge problems with their tactics.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're nearly as right as they think
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: that they are. But I share a lot of the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: same interests and concerns as they do, so I find
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: myself often conflicted by clips that I see from Pablo
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Torres show. And this was really excellent stuff because this
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: was a situation where Pablo Tory had on as a
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: guest John Skipper. Now John Skipper ran ESPN back when
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: ESPN was actually a sports news network, back in the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: old days before everything the ESPN touched got destroyed, and
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: John Skipper addressed this issue better than I've heard anyone
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: else do. So whether or not the NFL is killing
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: the Golden Goose by being too greedy and putting out
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: there too much content on streaming services and on too
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: many days of the week, and that eventually this is
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: going to come back to haunt them. You know the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: old golden goose analogy that if you kill the golden goose,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: it stops laying eggs, and right now they've got a
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: golden goose. The NFL does. But John Skipper, I think,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: put this in terms that I'd not heard before, where
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: the leverage that the NFL has is enormous, but they're
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: in danger of overplaying their hand. And this is the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: way John Skipper, former head of ESPN, explained it on
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Pablo Torre finds.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: Out people are talking about Goodell will he kill the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 7: golden goose. I do think there's a danger scenario here,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 7: and that is I'm going to make an assertion. I'll
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 7: be interested to see. I don't know what the books
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 7: look like at NBC or CBS, but everybody's losing money
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 7: on their NFL deal. It's a lost leader. So what
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 7: Roger is going to tempt fate with here? He's been
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 7: very good at This is the delta between how much
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 7: money an NFL package brings in the door and what
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 7: you pay us is going to get bigger. That's what's
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: going to happen. CBS is not generating two billion dollars
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: worth of advertising, and their package is going to go
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 7: up to three billion, so at some point and Roger
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 7: is pushing the deals out further because he knows the
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 7: traditional media companies are only going to get less powerful
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: and less wealthy, and he is going to make it.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: He's very cleverly brought gradually all the streamers in the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 7: big tech companies because they can afford to pay four billion,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: five billion. By the way, it's the exact equivalent of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: Adam and Roger letting the equity firms in Adam because yeah,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 7: because the teams are getting too expensive. Roger knows that
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 7: he's getting so expensive that the tech companies are going
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 7: to outbid the next round. But he should be careful.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 7: He didn't have to be careful because it will be
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 7: the next commissioner, not him, So it's not gonna be
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 7: on him, because the next commissioner is gonna deal with
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 7: the fact that these big tech companies have more leverage
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 7: over you and they don't need your product as much
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 7: as the traditional broadcasters do. The NFL is at this
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 7: position right now because these traditional media companies cannot exist
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: without an NFL package. If the delta gets to be
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 7: billions of dollars they will have to decide to exist
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: without it. They'll decline faster, Cable TV will decline faster,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 7: And the only people who will be able to afford
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 7: the NFL's packages will be great, big trillion dollar market
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 7: cap companies. But they are also tough, mean companies. Netflix
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 7: negotiated with us over the per diem costs of our
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 7: production crew on an inexpensive documentary. They will not. They're
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 7: gonna look at Roger, whoever is the next commissioner, is
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 7: gonna be sitting across the table. Somebody's gonna go if
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 7: I don't have your if I don't have your rights,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 7: I'm okay because I'm still gonna sell a ton of
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 7: Apple phones, and if I don't have the NFL, I'll
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: be okay.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Now, the part of this issue that even Skipper didn't
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: touch on that I think is most important, and if
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: I was in the NFL somehow I would at least
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: be trying to warn people about, is this issue of
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: local broadcasting. See we've gone from local broadcasting to national broadcasting.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: All these streaming services are obviously national, and when you
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: stop having a full slate of games on Sunday, it
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: fundamentally changes what the fan, especially the young fan, perceives
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: as important. Now let's bear with me here. I have
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: a good point here, I believe I have a good point.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: In the olden days, right when all the games were
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: on Sunday except for the one game on Monday night, right,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: so you had all these games. At that point, there
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: were twenty eight teams, so you had thirteen games on Sunday.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Usually exception for Thanksgiving, you'd have a couple of games
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving, but most Sundays you'd have thirteen games and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: only two. This is gon before Sunday Night Football, you
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: only had two time slots, the one pm and the
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: four pm, so you had a ton of games all
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: at the same time. Well, it was required that you
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: air locally your home team's game, and so for most
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: cities that meant you got your home team's game, and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: if you were lucky, you got one, maybe two other
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: games on that Sunday. And then of course everything kept
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: getting big or Sunday Night Football, Thursday Night football, and
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: now you know almost every day of the week. Well,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: the reason why that was integral to the popularity of
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: the National Football League is that if you especially before
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: you know streaming and even cable. If you were a
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: resident of a particular city, you were almost forced to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: be a fan of that city's team. You had no
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: other choice, especially as you're a kid. Is as you're
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: a kid trying to figure out, Okay, which NFL team
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: do I like the most? You know, there's always going
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: to be a tendency. I think the NFL is misperceiving
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: how strong this tendency is, especially in this day and age.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: But there there's the tendency. Of course, you're going to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: gravitate towards your local team, especially if that's who your
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: dad rooted for or your granddad whatever. But we're not
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: living in that world anymore. That's not being passed down
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: from generation to generation. And when you're no longer forced
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: to watch your local team on Sunday, and when you
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: can get six, seven, eight, nine games in a week, sometimes,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: guess what's going to happen. You're going to dissolve the
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: link between a city and its team. Now, it's not
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: going to happen overnight, because some of these ties are
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: still pretty strong, especially in cities like Pittsburgh or Philadelphia,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: New York, you know, Dallas, places like that. I mean,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: maybe Chicago, there's still some places. Obviously Green Bay is
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: number one because the city literally owns the team. So
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: there's some exceptions to this that'll take longer than others.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: But they are playing with fire here. The NFL is
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: because they and then they don't seem to care, because
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: they think, well, it doesn't matter, we're going to nationalize everything.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: And we're seeing this in college football too, a regional
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: sport that's being taken into being purely national, and that
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: is going to erode the passion, that's going to erode
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the connection, and eventually, when I don't know how, I
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: don't know, that's going to upset the business model because
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: you need people to pack those stadiums, pay ridiculous amounts
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: of money to be the studio audience for the television broadcast,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: and eventually that's going to erode away. And I don't
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: know if the NFL doesn't even realize this, whether they
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: don't care, but we're now living in a world where
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: if you're a kid growing up, and by the way,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: even a young adult who only cares about betting, betting
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: is another part of this whole equation that cannot ever
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: be forgotten. But you're not going to have fan allegiances,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: You're not going to have the same loyalty or commitment
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: to a team, especially in a world where fantasy football
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: is everything, where betting is ubiquitous, and where you don't
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: have to watch your home team play on Sunday anymore
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: because you've got so many other options. So this is
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: going to be a major problem in the future for
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: the National Football League, but they don't care because it's
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: all about making money tomorrow and the next quarterly report
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: and projecting growth and the product and the future be damned.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: And you know, we've seen this obviously, not just with
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: the National Football League, but in different ways in college
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: football as well. I believe I've been way, way way
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: out in front when it comes to nil instance, transfers,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: radical realignment, and how the playoff system was going to
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: erode at the foundation of what made college football great.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: And interestingly, I suddenly have a new ally. It's the
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: strangest ally I could possibly conceive of. But it appeared
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: as if ESPN is now on board with me and
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: others who are criticizing the potential impact of a seemingly
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: inevitable twenty four team college football playoff. Now I'm not
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: gonna give ESPN much credit here, because in my view,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: what has happened is that the big wigs at ESPN,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, have decided they don't like a twenty
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: fourteen playoff. I have said previously that ESPN expanded the
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: playoff from four to twelve partially because they wanted more
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: gambling inventory and no one was betting on bowl games
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: anymore because players weren't playing in ball games and they
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: weren't perceived as credible enough, so they created this eleven
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: game slate of playoffs that people would feel comfortable betting on.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know why ESPN doesn't want twenty three viable
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: betting games. My guess is some big wig has decided
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: that there's a law of diminishing marginal returns. There's probably
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: scheduling issues with regard to maybe the NFL or how
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: you do this, the Devil's and the details. I mean,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: there's all sorts of logistical problems with the twenty fourteen playoff.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: I doubt very seriously that the big wigs of ESPN
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: are looking around going wait a minute, twenty four teams
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: in the playoffs will do too much damage to the
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: essence college football. That's not what motivates them, as John
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: Skipper already said, the former head of ESPN, But what
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: happens is sometimes corporate interests are aligned with the ability
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: of commentators to actually speak their truths. Ordinarily, if ESPN
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: was in favor of a twenty fourteen playoff, you would
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: not see their commentators suddenly feel confident enough to be
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: able to attack a twenty fourteen playoff. It wouldn't work
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: that way. But it's very clear that ESPN from the
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: corporate perspective, has given the go ahead to espnsonnel to
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: let it loose on a twenty four team playoff. It
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: appears as if the only two major entities that are
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: against the twenty four team college football playoff expansion are
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: the SEC Conference and ESPN. Everybody else is in favor
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: of it, the coaches, the ACC, the Big Ten. Of course,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: the fans are not. Most fans, from what I've seen
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: on social media, understand that twenty four teams is way
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: too much. Frankly, I think twelve is too much. I
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: think many of the problems that will be caused by
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: twenty four are already being seen when it comes to twelve.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: But ESPN is invested literally and figuratively in twelve, so
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: they're not going to be in favor of reducing it.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: And when in the history of sports has any league
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: ever reduced the number of teams that makes the playoffs.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Once you start expansion, it only goes in one direction
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: because more playoff games generally means more money, and more
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: money wins the day. But this has really been remarkable.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: So it's happened with regard to ESPN commentators, And I
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: want to start here with Reeese Davis, because this, to
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: me is a vindication of something I've said on this
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: podcast previously. I think that Reese Davis is a traditionalist
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: when it comes to college football. I know this because
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: back when ESPN pretended to care about college football, before
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: COVID and the whole world changed and radical realignment, nils
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: and transfers and playoff expansion, they were celebrating one hundred
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: and fiftieth anniversary of college football and they did a
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: whole series of shows that were hosted by Reyese Davis.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: And Reese Davis, who hosts College Game Day, was very
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: much in the camp of being a traditionalist, loving the
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: essence of what made college football great to begin with,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: and so like Kirk herb Street. I have perceived Reese
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Davis as someone who's been gritting his teeth going along
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: with this stuff, but it's obvious that he's gotten the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: go ahead from ESPN that it's okay to attack the
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen playoff. He was on a podcast where he
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: this rate of the twenty fourteen playoff, went into how
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: ridiculous it is that coaches actually think this is going
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: to save their jobs, because, as I said on this podcast,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: that's why coaches are in favor of the twenty four
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: team playoff. They think a playoff spot means they get
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: to keep their job for the next year. Davis attacked
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: that premise, and then he also talked to the end
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: about something that I have been going on numerous diatribes
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: about for years, which is specifically the Ohio State Michigan rivalry,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: which is to me the best or worst example of
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: what the playoff system has done to the essence of
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: college football, which I'll address after you listen to rhes
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: Davis on this podcast, making it very clear that he's
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: been given permission by ESPN to attack the twenty four
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: team proposal. Where are you on this debate right now?
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Sixteen or twenty four.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 8: I think twenty four is preposterous, and sixteenth bordering on it.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 8: I wish they would do leave it at twelve and
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 8: do an extra round of games on campus. This right now,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 8: the struggle is largely due to business and control, and
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 8: it's not necessarily for the good of the game. And
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 8: the coaches who are getting behind this, I believe, and
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 8: reasonable minds can differ. But the coaches who are behind
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 8: this think it's going to save their job. It's not.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 8: Some places, maybe I don't want to. You know, you
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 8: can take a lower wrong traditionally SEC school, Maybe making
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 8: the playoff will save your job. You think that's going
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 8: to work at Ohio State, Notre Dame, Alabama, Michigan, Georgia.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: No making the playoff.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 8: Sooner or later it will be like the NFL, right,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 8: NFL coaches, NBA coaches that all the time get fired
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 8: for making the playoffs, not advancing as far as the
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 8: leadership thinks they should. That's going to happen here too.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 8: So if that, if that is your motivation in that
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 8: it will be easier to get in the playoff. You'll
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 8: have fewer controversies, all of those types of things that
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 8: you here. I think you're fooling yourself. You're going to
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 8: continue to have those problems, and coaches are going to
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 8: get hired and fired just as they always have. It
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 8: will depend on the expectation and the standards of the
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 8: program that they're guiding. And it won't be enough just
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 8: to get into the first round and get clobbered, you know,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 8: maybe for a year or two. I mean, look at Indiana.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Do you think Indiana?
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 8: I mean, I'm not suggesting it with fire Kirk, but
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 8: I mean, do you think they're going to be happy
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 8: if they get into the playoff this year and get
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 8: walloped in the first round. No, because they've elevated expectations.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 8: And that's what's going to happen across the sport. And
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 8: the thing that I do remain concerned about is that,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 8: as much as I love college basketball, is that we
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 8: turn it into the college basketball regular season where you
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 8: have to be a devoted fan of the sport as
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 8: a whole or a devoted fan of one team to
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 8: really lock in on a regular season game. And the
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 8: regular season in college football still remains the best in
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 8: all of sports. You want it to matter, and you know,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 8: you don't want to ever get to a point where,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 8: you know, I know this is a trite, overused example,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 8: but where Michigan and Ohio State or resting people because
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 8: they're going to play next week. You just don't want
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 8: to get there, and.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 6: Hopefully, hopefully wiser heads will prevail and keep this playoff
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 6: in a manageable number and keep the calendar in a
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 6: manageable space of time.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 8: And it's getting to the edge of that. Actually it's
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 8: too long now. I mean, playing January twenty fourth, twenty fifth,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 8: whatever it is this year is entirely too late, to
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 8: too long a gaps between games, all of the above.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 8: They need to get a handle on the calendar and
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 8: the framework and then move from there.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: Now, I didn't really like what Davis said there at
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: the end where you kind of dismissively mentioned Ohio State
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: Michigan as if somehow this is not a legitimate concern.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: And I've used Ohio State Michigan many, many times on
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: this podcast as the ultimate example of what playoff expansion
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: inevitably is going to do to the great rivalries that
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: made college football what it was to begin with. And
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: Ohio State Michigan is by far the best college football
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: rivalry for many, many reasons, and frankly, to me, Ohio
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: State Michigan is the perfect example of what has already
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: happened under a twelve team playoff that Davis doesn't have
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: the balls to actually talk about because what's happened in
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: the first two years of the playoff. Well, in the
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: first year of the playoff, Ohio State lost at home
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: to Michigan in a major upset, and they ended up
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: winning the national championship. So every single Ohio State fan,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: especially a younger one who doesn't have the experience of
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: the way things have been forever and ever where your
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: season would dictated largely by, if not entirely, by whether
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: or not you beat Michigan at Ohio State was taught
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: as clearly as you could possibly be taught that the
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: mission game is irrelevant. In fact, losing the Michigan was
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: actually good because it facilitated a playoff run where we
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: won the national championship. So losing it home to Michigan
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: was a good thing. And that's in the twelve team
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: iteration of the playoff. And then this past season, Ohio
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: State beats Michigan, ends Michigan's win streak against Ohio State
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: at Michigan in a snow storm, but there was enough
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: snow on the field where the Ohio State Buckeye mascot
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: actually drew an outline mocking Michigan in the end zone
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: towards the end of the game, which was iconic in
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: the in the rational world of college football, would be
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: something to would be remembered by Ohio State fans forever
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: and ever. But in this version of college football, Ohio
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: State's season ends up being perceived as a disaster because
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: they lost immediately in the playoffs. So the latter, if
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: you're a young Ohio State fan, there is no correlation
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: at all between beating Michigan and having a season that
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: is perceived as a success or a failure. In fact,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: it's an inverse correlation. And that's under twelve teams, not
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: twenty four. And that's without the disaster scenario. We haven't
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: even reached the disaster scenario when it comes to and
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: I'm using Ohio State Michigan because it's the best example,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: but this is hardly isolated. But the disaster scenario is
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: you have a year where both Ohio State and Michigan
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: go undefeated. Hardly impossible, especially in this nil era. Where
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: they both have pretty much the most amount of money
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: to spend and are very very, very very committed to
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: their football programs. It's hardly a stretch that they both
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: could go undefeated. And you have a situation in the
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: twelve team playoff and no divisions in the Big Ten
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: where they know they're gonna play each other two weeks
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: in a row, and no one even wants to win
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: the first game. No one plays their starters in the
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: first game because they know they're win or lose. They're
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: playing them again in the in the Big Ten championship game,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: and they also know that they're already in the playoffs.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: That scenario a game that should be epic for the ages,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: two undefeated teams Ohio State Michigan going at each other
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: in the best rivalry in college football, and instead you
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: have a farce. You have a farce because they're both
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: already in the playoffs and they both already in the
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: Big Ten Championship game. That that hasn't even happened yet,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: but that's very likely to occur in the not too
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: distant future. And I was really interested and felt somewhat vindicated,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: although a little bit perturbed when Mike Greenberg on ESPN
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: itself with Paul Feinbaum, who has also been against the
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen playoffs. So it's very clear that at ESPN
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: they they've unleashed the dogs on the twenty fourteen playoff
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: for whatever corporate reason, and now all of a sudden,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: tradition matters. All of a sudden, people are acting somewhat
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: sensibly at ESPN and saying, hey, wait a minute, there's
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: some unintended consequences here. But Mike Greenberg and I got
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: sent this video by a lot of people who have
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: been well aware of my diatribes in the past about
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: the warnings regarding Ohio State Michigan and how the new
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: system will destroy the greatest rivalry in all of college football.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: Mike Greenberg sounded like he was a listener to the
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: podcast because he went on exactly the same commentary as
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: I have many times in the past, and I was
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: very glad that this went somewhat viral. But it's also
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: bizarre to me that it took this long for somebody
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: at ESPN to state the obvious that this new system
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: that ESPN itself created has jeopardized the Ohio State Michigan
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: rivalry and that the twenty fourteen playoff would absolutely obliterate it.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: Here's what that sounded like on ESPN.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 9: I will say this, I don't know what ESPN does
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 9: and doesn't want, but what I can tell you with
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 9: certainty is that the idea that good teams, championship worthy
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 9: teams get left out of the playoff is a good thing,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 9: not a bad thing. If you put every single team
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 9: that might win the championship into the playoff, then to
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 9: Paul's points, you might just as well not play the
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 9: regular season to begin with. If we live in a world,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 9: Heather Dinich, we live in a world where Ohio State
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 9: and Michigan rest their starters for that game at the
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 9: end of the season because they've got the potential of
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 9: five playoff games still sitting in front of them, then
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 9: college football as we have known it ceases to exist.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 9: So I don't have a vote in any of this, Heather.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 9: Obviously other people do when they'll make the decisions they
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 9: make based on a lot of reasons that candidly have
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 9: nothing to do with what's in the best interest of
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 9: the game itself, Right, Heather and.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: PAULK Again, I applaud the fact that ESPN is starting
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: to speak the truth about some of this stuff. And
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just Davis, it wasn't just Greenberg. Bill Connolly,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: one of their writers, wrote an article on ESPN about, Hey,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, guys, if we have a twenty fourteen playoff,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: look at all these games, all these rivalry games in
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: the past few years, that would have been completely and
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: totally irrelevant because they all would have been in the
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: playoffs already. And I'm like, no shit, Sherlock. It just
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: was so obvious to me that somebody at ESPN decided
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: it was okay because the corporate bigwigs decided that they
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: were against the twenty fourteen playoff. But the part of
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: this that irritates the hell out of me even more
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: than the fact that it's so obvious to anyone who
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: understands the business that the only reason why these people
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: are suddenly telling their truths about the impact of the
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: playof options that they have permission from their bosses, is that, yes,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: the twenty four team playoff obliterates the rivalries, but the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: twelve team playoff already jeopardizes them within an inch of
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: their life. As I've already proven when it comes to
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: Ohio State Michigan. So it's just really a matter of
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: whether or not you just have a dead body or
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: a dead body that's been decapitated and you know, has
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: been incinerated. I mean, they're still dead. Just a matter
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: of which death is more dignified, and in a weird way,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: In a weird way, there's a part of me that's
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: rooting for the twenty fourteen playoff because it removes all ambiguity. See,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: I think twelve is just as bad in some ways
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: as twenty four. I actually think sixteen is the worst
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: number of all, but I realized that's those are our
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: only options, twelve, sixteen, or twenty four, And it appears
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: as if ESPN is dead set against twenty four, we're
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: probably gonna end up with sixteen, which is the worst number.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: The rivalries are just as dead under sixteen as they
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: are under twenty four, and that's very obvious, and Ohio
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: State Michigan is only the best example of it. It's
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: not an isolated situation. You all been warned. I've been
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: warning about this for years, you know, somewhat now been
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: vindicated with the fact that the SPN, at least some
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: ESPN commentators finally feel confident enough they're not gonna get
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: fired or reprimanded by their bosses by telling the obvious truth.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: But it's too late because the damage, in large part
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: has already been done and we're not going back. They're
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: not gonna fix it, and someday, probably fairly soon, you're
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: gonna see a situation where an Ohio State Michigan game
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: is completely meaningless, and at that point it's too late.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: I always say, you get magic, you've got to protect
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: the magic all costs, and Ohio State Michigan was magic,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: and they didn't protect it. And the last two years
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: have already shown what happens. It's going to take a
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: while for people to realize there's no magic because they're
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: so invested in it. But young people are being taught
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: all the wrong lessons and they live in a world
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: where tradition is basically what happened two years ago. And
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: so I still believe we're going to see it collapse
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: at some point in the future. Whether that is going
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: to impact, you know, these institutions and ESPN financially, I
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: have no idea, because I've been baffled by people seemingly
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: still being as interested in this from a ratings perspective
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: on television as they have been previously. But I'm just
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: telling you what's going to happen. And I think my
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: track record on this has been pretty dark good so far,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: and it's weird to have ESPN as a temporary ally.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: If you're interested in listening to the entire show, you
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: must become a patron. Please go to Patreon. That's p
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: A t R e o N dot com. Patreon dot
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: com slash the Death of Journalism with John Ziggler. My
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: name is j O h N z I E g
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: L e R. That's patreon dot com. Slash the Death
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: of Journalism with John Ziggler. Good luck to you on that,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: But that's how you can subscribe.