Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Thirty: The Musk Letter

Transcript

Episode Two Hundred Thirty: The Musk Letter · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and thirty of the Death
0:03
Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm your
0:05
Speaker 1: host of today's show. Are storm clouds already gathering over
0:10
Speaker 1: the Trump presidency. All of his cabinet nominees are confirmed,
0:15
Speaker 1: with the FBI being by far the worst situation. Cpack
0:20
Speaker 1: is an all time crap show, up evil at NBC
0:25
Speaker 1: and the collapse of the left wing media, and the
0:28
Speaker 1: NHL Hockey USA Canada All Star Game is a huge hit,
0:33
Speaker 1: while ESPN and Baseball plan their divorce. Since we've gone
0:41
Speaker 1: to the once a week episode of the Death of
0:44
Speaker 1: Journalism podcast, it seems like every time I do this
0:48
Speaker 1: it's a jam pack show, but this is particularly the
0:51
Speaker 1: case this week. So in order to avoid a three
0:55
Speaker 1: hour podcast, I may be abbreviating some of my comments
1:00
Speaker 1: on all the topics that I have planned for today's program,
1:05
Speaker 1: but I want to begin with kind of a global
1:08
Speaker 1: perspective on the Trump presidency. We are now just over
1:13
Speaker 1: one month into this and Trump fans are absolutely incredibly enthusiastic,
1:21
Speaker 1: almost orgasmic over what they think Donald Trump is doing
1:26
Speaker 1: and where they think this is heading. And I can
1:28
Speaker 1: understand if you're a Trump enthusiast, why you're so excited,
1:33
Speaker 1: because it does seem at a breakneck, unprecedented speed. Trump
1:38
Speaker 1: is doing exactly what he promised with a whole lot more. Now,
1:42
Speaker 1: me being a Trump cynic, I have seen a lot
1:45
Speaker 1: of this is much more talk than actual action. And
1:49
Speaker 1: I'm not at all a fan of being president by
1:53
Speaker 1: executive order, because that can be either disregarded, as has
1:57
Speaker 1: already been the case in a couple of situations, or
2:01
Speaker 1: it can be simply reversed by a Democratic president in
2:04
Speaker 1: the future. I'm also concerned about a timing issue. This
2:10
Speaker 1: is something that I have discussed previously that Trump has
2:14
Speaker 1: a timing issue on several of his most important priorities,
2:19
Speaker 1: whether it's deportations, whether it's budget cutting, whether it's terroriffts,
2:25
Speaker 1: that these things, if they are implemented, even perfectly, will
2:30
Speaker 1: require short term pain to get to any theoretical long
2:36
Speaker 1: term gain, and that he may not have the time
2:40
Speaker 1: politically to do this. And then part of that perfect
2:43
Speaker 1: storm is that if you're a Republican, especially in Congress,
2:47
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't really care anymore about what is politically popular
2:52
Speaker 1: and unpopular. Now his fans think that's fantastic but there
2:56
Speaker 1: are problems for that if you care in the long term,
3:00
Speaker 1: or even I guess the short term two years from now,
3:02
Speaker 1: less than two years from now, when we have a
3:04
Speaker 1: midterm election, and you give a damn about the Republican
3:07
Speaker 1: majority for what's going to happen after Trump is gone.
3:12
Speaker 1: And there was already one very dire prediction that I
3:16
Speaker 1: don't take seriously because it came from James Carvill, the
3:20
Speaker 1: former Clinton political aid who's basically a relic of his
3:25
Speaker 1: former self, and he went on a podcast with my
3:28
Speaker 1: friend Dan Abrams and went viral for claiming that in
3:31
Speaker 1: the next thirty days or so, the Trump presidency will
3:34
Speaker 1: collapse on its own weight. I do not agree with
3:38
Speaker 1: that at all. In fact, I don't even think that's
3:39
Speaker 1: theoretically possible, partially because of the fact that Trump doesn't
3:44
Speaker 1: care even if somehow his popularity ratings completely collapsed. And
3:49
Speaker 1: by the way, there is an incredible disparity going on,
3:54
Speaker 1: almost done precedented as far as I can tell in
3:56
Speaker 1: my memory of a new president. When it comes to
4:00
Speaker 1: approval ratings. There are some polls that show Trump is
4:03
Speaker 1: more popular than ever, and then there are other polls
4:06
Speaker 1: that show him historically unpopular for a president who has
4:10
Speaker 1: just been in office for one year or one month,
4:13
Speaker 1: not even seemed like a year. But it's only been
4:15
Speaker 1: one month considering everything that has supposedly happened in the
4:19
Speaker 1: last month. So I don't know what's happening with Trump's
4:23
Speaker 1: popularity there. You know, there's all sorts of different data points.
4:28
Speaker 1: There's a there's a poll in Virginia for the governor's
4:31
Speaker 1: race there with a lieutenant governor the Republican, a black
4:36
Speaker 1: female who I like, is getting absolutely crushed, which doesn't
4:40
Speaker 1: make any sense to me unless the Republican brand in
4:43
Speaker 1: Virginia has completely collapsed, maybe because of these cutbacks among
4:48
Speaker 1: federal workers, or maybe it's just a really bad poll.
4:51
Speaker 1: But then there was a Senate race in Connecticut last
4:55
Speaker 1: night in a district where Trump barely won by like
4:59
Speaker 1: half a percent. The Republican won fairly easily. So there's
5:02
Speaker 1: data points all over the place. And I'm not subscribing
5:06
Speaker 1: to the James Carvel theory. However, I do think that
5:10
Speaker 1: there's a big problem for the Trump administration that is
5:15
Speaker 1: emerging rather quickly. And the best way I can describe
5:19
Speaker 1: this is that they aren't creating a situation. See, there's
5:22
Speaker 1: a good element of coming in gangbusters and radically changing,
5:27
Speaker 1: or pretending that you're radically changing, and maybe even in
5:29
Speaker 1: some cases actually making major changes very very quickly in
5:34
Speaker 1: an unprecedented pace. Your fans love that, right, But the
5:38
Speaker 1: downside of that is you own it, and you own
5:42
Speaker 1: it faster than anyone has ever owned it. There has
5:46
Speaker 1: always been an understanding, even among the general population and
5:51
Speaker 1: certainly among the media, that a new president doesn't take
5:54
Speaker 1: ownership of everything that's happening for really at least a year,
5:59
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to the economy. But I don't
6:03
Speaker 1: think that rule has any impact anymore for a number
6:07
Speaker 1: of reasons, and one of them is that when you
6:10
Speaker 1: come in and you're gonna radically alter government, at least
6:13
Speaker 1: pretend to radically alter government, guess what, Everything that goes
6:18
Speaker 1: wrong can now be plausibly blamed on you, whether you
6:22
Speaker 1: deserve that blame or not. And I think we're already
6:27
Speaker 1: seeing signs of that all over the place. For instance,
6:32
Speaker 1: then the last week there was a protest in Usemente
6:35
Speaker 1: National Park, where my wife goes at least once a year.
6:39
Speaker 1: We make it a family vacation. Sometimes we go twice
6:42
Speaker 1: a year, but in protest of the cutbacks at Usementy
6:46
Speaker 1: National Park, there was a giant upside down American flag
6:51
Speaker 1: put on El Capitiin And one of the stories that
6:55
Speaker 1: when semi viral was that because of cutbacks, the only
7:00
Speaker 1: locksmith in all of Yosemite Valley is no longer working.
7:05
Speaker 1: And so there's a problem with trying to get people
7:09
Speaker 1: out of a problem where they have locked themselves out
7:12
Speaker 1: of a residence or a locker or whatever it is.
7:17
Speaker 1: And you know, it's seemingly a very small thing, but
7:19
Speaker 1: because people can understand that, they go aha. So this
7:23
Speaker 1: is the ramification of the Trump cutbacks. I have no idea.
7:27
Speaker 1: I haven't been to use seventy yet to know if
7:28
Speaker 1: that's really even a legitimate story or not. But that
7:31
Speaker 1: gets out there, and there have been many other similar circumstances.
7:35
Speaker 1: There was a viral clip of a caller calling into
7:39
Speaker 1: c SPAN from West Virginia claiming that their trip to
7:42
Speaker 1: the pharmacy cost them ten to maybe even more than that,
7:47
Speaker 1: ten times more money than it did previously, which they
7:50
Speaker 1: perceived to be because of something that Trump had done
7:54
Speaker 1: to change a federal program. Again, we don't even know
7:58
Speaker 1: whether not that was real, whether that's actually Trump's fault
8:02
Speaker 1: or or just a coincidence. But because of the fact
8:07
Speaker 1: that you've created this narrative that you're radically altering everything
8:11
Speaker 1: and cutting everything back, anything that goes wrong is going
8:14
Speaker 1: to be seeing as you haven't caused it. I'll give
8:19
Speaker 1: you another example that my wife exposed to me last night.
8:24
Speaker 1: She came home and she's like, the local school district,
8:27
Speaker 1: not ours, but next neighboring is going to be cutting
8:30
Speaker 1: back an extraordinary number of teachers for next year. And
8:34
Speaker 1: here she is a huge Trump fan, huge Trump fan,
8:37
Speaker 1: And she said to me, because of the Trump cutbacks.
8:41
Speaker 1: And I said, wait a minute, hold on a second,
8:44
Speaker 1: that doesn't make any sense. You know, we don't even
8:47
Speaker 1: know what those education cutbacks are yet, how the heck
8:50
Speaker 1: are they knowing how many teachers they're not going to
8:53
Speaker 1: be able to rehire for next year. And eventually I
8:56
Speaker 1: got her to acknowledge that she herself was made making
9:00
Speaker 1: the assessment that it must be because of Trump cutbacks
9:04
Speaker 1: or fear of Trump cutbacks when it comes to the
9:07
Speaker 1: federal funding of education. So there's no evidence that that
9:10
Speaker 1: has any correlation or causation. And yet even a Trump
9:14
Speaker 1: fan like my wife, and she's actually loved, she loves
9:17
Speaker 1: what Trump's been doing. We get in minor arguments about
9:20
Speaker 1: it on almost a daily basis, and here she even
9:24
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion, with no actual evidence, that this
9:28
Speaker 1: must be because of Trump. You know, another example of
9:32
Speaker 1: you know, all these plane incidents. Now, there's been some
9:35
Speaker 1: pushback and I think an over zealousness on the part
9:38
Speaker 1: of the media to try to claim that cutbacks are
9:41
Speaker 1: a cause for while we're seemingly having all these airline incidents,
9:46
Speaker 1: near misses and some crashes and what have you. And
9:49
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any evidence at all that anything
9:51
Speaker 1: Trump has done is even remotely responsible for all this.
9:54
Speaker 1: I frankly think it's a situation where we're now focusing
9:58
Speaker 1: on it and it becomes kind of a social concasion,
10:00
Speaker 1: especially after the first disaster on the Potomac River understandably
10:05
Speaker 1: got an awful lot of attention. By the way, I
10:08
Speaker 1: do believe that Trump was largely wrong when he especially
10:12
Speaker 1: timing wise, when he claimed the next morning that that
10:15
Speaker 1: was because of DEI. But that's another story for another day.
10:19
Speaker 1: But that's another example of where certainly the media is
10:22
Speaker 1: going to jump on every opportunity to claim that, Aha,
10:27
Speaker 1: see there's a downside to all these cutbacks, and so
10:33
Speaker 1: everything that goes wrong in government is going to be
10:36
Speaker 1: owned by the Trump administration. Whether it's real, whether it's fake,
10:41
Speaker 1: whether it's somewhere in between, it's not going to matter.
10:44
Speaker 1: And people's personal experiences with government are going to be
10:49
Speaker 1: molded by this perception, and that is incredibly dangerous. And
10:54
Speaker 1: it goes beyond just people's interaction with government. It goes
10:59
Speaker 1: to the state of the economy, especially when it comes
11:02
Speaker 1: to inflation, because inflation was a huge part of the
11:05
Speaker 1: Trump campaign and his promises to reduce inflation, and there's
11:10
Speaker 1: zero evidence that that's gonna happen. There is an increasing
11:15
Speaker 1: amount of evidence that inflation is going to grow, at
11:18
Speaker 1: least in the first portion of the Trump presidency, and
11:21
Speaker 1: if he continues down this path with the tariffs, it
11:24
Speaker 1: may grow significantly and that will be a massive problem.
11:31
Speaker 1: It's all of this is a lot like climate change.
11:35
Speaker 1: You know, how they changed from they fix their PR
11:39
Speaker 1: problem with global warming. Global warming is a problem PR
11:43
Speaker 1: wise because when it's super cold, you don't have a
11:46
Speaker 1: really good explanation for that. So they made the only
11:49
Speaker 1: brilliant thing that these people have ever done is change
11:52
Speaker 1: global warming, the climate change. Because that climate change, you
11:57
Speaker 1: can blame everything on anything that's remote, the outside of
12:00
Speaker 1: the ordinary. You can blame on climate change. Well effectively,
12:06
Speaker 1: the Trump administration has become like climate change. Anything that
12:10
Speaker 1: goes wrong, Ah, it's the Trump administration because they've fundamentally
12:15
Speaker 1: altered the nature of our government and that therefore anything
12:19
Speaker 1: that goes wrong is going to be their fault. And
12:23
Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not the Trump team understands this,
12:27
Speaker 1: whether they understood it going into this, that there are
12:31
Speaker 1: negative ramifications. Look, I'm all for radical change. The government
12:37
Speaker 1: needs radical change, but there's a reason why people haven't
12:41
Speaker 1: tried this in the past. It is exceedingly difficult, if
12:46
Speaker 1: not impossible, to take on this monster because once you
12:50
Speaker 1: have created this monster, and there are so many people
12:53
Speaker 1: that are reliant on this monster, it is almost impossible
12:58
Speaker 1: to kill. And by the way, you know, part of
13:02
Speaker 1: my concern obviously, I have a lot of concerns here.
13:05
Speaker 1: Part of my concern with regard to, you know, all
13:08
Speaker 1: these cutbacks is that when you cut back on employees again,
13:15
Speaker 1: I hate the size of the federal government. I want
13:16
Speaker 1: to make that clear. I think it's the biggest mistake
13:19
Speaker 1: the United States has ever made, is to allow the
13:22
Speaker 1: federal government to grow beyond any comprehension in the proportions
13:29
Speaker 1: that it has become. That was never the intention a
13:33
Speaker 1: massive federal bureaucracy. I hate it, Okay, I hate it,
13:38
Speaker 1: but I'm also a realist and the reality is that
13:42
Speaker 1: when you get rid of people, that's not the end
13:45
Speaker 1: of it. There are other ramifications to mass firings, because
13:51
Speaker 1: first of all, you're paying these people eight months severance apparently,
13:57
Speaker 1: so you're not saving any money for eight months. And
14:01
Speaker 1: now you have people who really aren't going to fit
14:04
Speaker 1: into the private sector who are unemployed, and that's a
14:08
Speaker 1: weight on society, especially in a place like Virginia or
14:12
Speaker 1: Northern Virginia, especially or Maryland where obviously a huge percentage
14:16
Speaker 1: of people there work for the federal government. So these
14:20
Speaker 1: are things that I realized that Trump fans loved, all
14:23
Speaker 1: you know, stick it to these liberal bureaucrats and fire them,
14:26
Speaker 1: and all that. There are ramifications for this. This is
14:29
Speaker 1: not a zero sum game, and I don't think people
14:34
Speaker 1: fully understand that. And obviously, at the center of this
14:38
Speaker 1: entire issue of government cutbacks is Elon Musk and DOGE
14:42
Speaker 1: the Department of Government Efficiency, which in theory and in principle,
14:47
Speaker 1: I'm very much in favor of. I think that Elon
14:50
Speaker 1: Musk's heart is in the right place. I've expressed my
14:55
Speaker 1: misgivings or concerns about him many many times. How I'm
14:58
Speaker 1: conflicted about him. How will you he has spread too thin,
15:01
Speaker 1: how he is too conspiratorial, that he tends to believe
15:05
Speaker 1: everything that fits into what he wants to believe as
15:09
Speaker 1: his evidence by his Twitter feed. I don't know how
15:11
Speaker 1: how he has time to do all this properly, because
15:15
Speaker 1: frankly just by the virtue of the number of tweets
15:18
Speaker 1: that he puts out there, and I'm sure he has help,
15:20
Speaker 1: but he's clearly involved in improving of everything that he does.
15:24
Speaker 1: I just don't know how he can possibly do it.
15:26
Speaker 1: This is, you know, not to mention all the other
15:29
Speaker 1: companies that he has to worry about, especially with Tesla
15:32
Speaker 1: go into the tank there, Stott Price is taking a dive.
15:35
Speaker 1: So I am concerned about, you know, how Elon is
15:39
Speaker 1: going to be able to pull this off, even of
15:41
Speaker 1: the best of circumstances, even if his relationship with Donald
15:45
Speaker 1: Trump stays strong, and in the last episode of the podcast,
15:48
Speaker 1: I expressed optimism about that relationship because they did an
15:52
Speaker 1: interview together with Sean Hannity, and it was clear that
15:55
Speaker 1: they understood that the media was trying to break them
15:58
Speaker 1: up and that that would actually make their relationship stronger
16:01
Speaker 1: because they wouldn't want the media to get the victory there.
16:04
Speaker 1: And I still believe that that was an important and
16:07
Speaker 1: positive development. But I did not say that this relationship
16:12
Speaker 1: is completely out of the woods. In fact, I think
16:14
Speaker 1: I said, if there's an earthquake, then the relationship is
16:18
Speaker 1: still going to be vulnerable in the long run. Now,
16:21
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that what I'm about to talk about
16:23
Speaker 1: is an earthquake, although it's close, and I'm kind of
16:28
Speaker 1: amazed that, you know, at least as far as we
16:30
Speaker 1: can tell publicly, it hasn't created any sort of a
16:34
Speaker 1: even a remote sign of a riff between Trump and Musk,
16:39
Speaker 1: because I'm very very confused as to how the whole
16:42
Speaker 1: this whole thing went down. And what I'm referring to
16:45
Speaker 1: is this whole situation where Elon Musk allegedly sent I
16:49
Speaker 1: guess he did send an email to every federal worker,
16:53
Speaker 1: effectively asking them to justify their existence by explaining what
16:58
Speaker 1: they did the pre week, and if they did not respond,
17:03
Speaker 1: then that was going to be, you know, taken as
17:06
Speaker 1: a sign that they were resigning from their job. Now,
17:10
Speaker 1: this created an awful lot of angst among federal workers,
17:13
Speaker 1: which I can kind of understand, but I also understood
17:18
Speaker 1: what the theory behind it was. To me, it wasn't
17:21
Speaker 1: that bad of an idea. Okay, every federal worker respond with,
17:26
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, prove you exist. And I
17:29
Speaker 1: do believe that there has been an attempt by both
17:32
Speaker 1: Trump and Musk to save face by trying to claim
17:36
Speaker 1: that the email really wasn't about what you did. It
17:39
Speaker 1: was just proving that you are still working and that
17:42
Speaker 1: you are using that email address. That doesn't I don't.
17:46
Speaker 1: I don't buy that. Especially, I don't buy that when
17:48
Speaker 1: it became very very clear early on that there were
17:53
Speaker 1: massive numbers of people even from the start, that weren't
17:56
Speaker 1: going to have to respond to the email because they're
17:59
Speaker 1: me superior said don't bother with it. Well, as soon
18:03
Speaker 1: as anybody is allowed to not respond, the value of
18:06
Speaker 1: the email completely diminishes or dissipates it evaporates because you're
18:13
Speaker 1: no longer able to tell. Okay, did they not respond
18:16
Speaker 1: because they don't exist, or did not respond because their
18:19
Speaker 1: department head said you don't have to do this. So
18:22
Speaker 1: the whole operation, the whole project, completely collapsed immediately, and
18:28
Speaker 1: then eventually all federal workers were told this is optional. Now,
18:34
Speaker 1: how did that happen? That had to happen via somebody
18:39
Speaker 1: who had the authority to do it, and you would
18:42
Speaker 1: think that had to come from Trump. I mean, no
18:44
Speaker 1: one was going to do that without Trump's approval. Yet publicly,
18:48
Speaker 1: Trump was very supportive of this effort by Elon Musk.
18:52
Speaker 1: So who cut the balls off of the email? And
18:56
Speaker 1: if you're Elon Musk, you have to really be pissed
18:59
Speaker 1: off because this was a massive effort that he put
19:04
Speaker 1: a lot of his personal credibility on and it blew
19:07
Speaker 1: up in his face. Not that he cares about the
19:10
Speaker 1: negative political blowback, but from a prestige standpoint, I think
19:16
Speaker 1: it very much hurt Elon Musk's standing because what happens
19:21
Speaker 1: the next time Elon Musk does something like this, No
19:25
Speaker 1: one's going to take it seriously. Because his effort to
19:30
Speaker 1: make every single federal employee respond to an email was disregarded.
19:36
Speaker 1: He was shown as not having the juice, even with
19:40
Speaker 1: Trump publicly backing what he was doing. Now, I don't
19:45
Speaker 1: know whether Elon Musk fully understands this. Maybe he's biting
19:48
Speaker 1: his tongue because he understands it wouldn't be a good
19:51
Speaker 1: idea to make a public display out of this, and
19:54
Speaker 1: it would harm the relationship with Trump. Baby who knows.
19:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I know what Trump and Musk are talking
19:59
Speaker 1: about behind the scenes. But if I'm Elon Musk, I
20:03
Speaker 1: am pissed off about this, And like I said, this
20:09
Speaker 1: may not this is not the earthquake that will end
20:11
Speaker 1: the relationship, but if you have several minor earthquakes or
20:16
Speaker 1: medium range earthquakes, it can endanger the relationship, regardless of
20:21
Speaker 1: how much they don't want to give the media a
20:23
Speaker 1: victory here. So this relationship is still going to be
20:26
Speaker 1: under an awful lot of pressure. An awful lot of pressure.
20:30
Speaker 1: I mean, my god, Matt Drudge has basically turned the
20:33
Speaker 1: Drudge Report into the separate Donald Trump and Elon Musk website.
20:38
Speaker 1: I mean, that's effectively all he does all day long.
20:41
Speaker 1: And there are other members of the media who are
20:44
Speaker 1: very desirous of destroying the Musk Trump relationship, but I
20:48
Speaker 1: would love, I would love to know the real story
20:52
Speaker 1: of what happened when it came to that email and
20:55
Speaker 1: how it went from being mandatory to being totally voluntary
21:01
Speaker 1: and therefore meaningless. It is meaningless with regard to whether
21:06
Speaker 1: or not people are actually in their jobs, and it's
21:10
Speaker 1: still a functioning email, and it's meaningless obviously when it
21:14
Speaker 1: comes to the substance of the email and effectively justifying
21:18
Speaker 1: what you did last week. So that, to me was
21:20
Speaker 1: a very confusing and potentially significant I think actually underreported development.
21:28
Speaker 1: I have not seen any good reporting on what the
21:31
Speaker 1: hell happened? How did it go from mandatory to meaningless
21:36
Speaker 1: in a fairly short period of time, all well, Trump
21:39
Speaker 1: was publicly backing what Elon was doing. That to me
21:43
Speaker 1: would be an incredibly important story to tell. But I'm
21:47
Speaker 1: not holding my breath now. Related to, obviously the efforts
21:51
Speaker 1: of Doge and Elon Musk is this topic of the
21:56
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars refund idea that ms cad And by
22:00
Speaker 1: the way, this is in my view, directly related to
22:04
Speaker 1: the email, not just because it's the same subject, Because
22:07
Speaker 1: here is an example of another idea that Elon Musk
22:11
Speaker 1: has and that Trump has publicly indicated these supports, and
22:16
Speaker 1: is it actually going to happen? You know, there's the
22:20
Speaker 1: boy who cried Wolf phenomenon. If you're Elon Musk, you
22:23
Speaker 1: can't have too many of these things get proposed and
22:27
Speaker 1: go nowhere before people stop taking you seriously, especially when
22:31
Speaker 1: you don't have an official elected position, as is the
22:34
Speaker 1: case with Elon Musk. But you know, so Musk is
22:37
Speaker 1: allegedly saving all this money with these cutbacks, and I
22:43
Speaker 1: am very skeptical of how much money is actually being saved.
22:48
Speaker 1: I think one of the major problems here that Magaworld
22:52
Speaker 1: has because I'm not a fan of Magaworld on Twitter.
22:55
Speaker 1: I've been very very clear about that. I think most
22:57
Speaker 1: of the people who are in magaworld on Twitter, especially
23:00
Speaker 1: with the anonymous accounts, don't have a clue about the
23:02
Speaker 1: way the system is supposed to work. They're not very
23:04
Speaker 1: bright that they have no sense of the way things
23:08
Speaker 1: are supposed to happen or of history. They're not very
23:11
Speaker 1: logical thinkers. But they also have a very big problem
23:15
Speaker 1: with math, a huge math problem, and Elon Musk can
23:21
Speaker 1: in theory and Trump can amplify in theory all this savings,
23:26
Speaker 1: which again I have already articulated and documented. A lot
23:30
Speaker 1: of the savings is not what it seems because you're
23:33
Speaker 1: still paying people for severance, and there's all sorts of
23:36
Speaker 1: residual costs and all that kind of stuff. But okay,
23:39
Speaker 1: even if we just accept what they're saying, and even
23:42
Speaker 1: if everything they're claiming is true, which I'm skeptical of,
23:47
Speaker 1: even though you're talking about billions of dollars, which to
23:51
Speaker 1: the average person sounds like an enormous, ridiculously large amount
23:55
Speaker 1: of money, I get that billions of dollars is almost
23:59
Speaker 1: meaningless when it comes to the entire monstrosity that is
24:05
Speaker 1: the federal government of the United States of America. And
24:09
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous and pathetic. But that's the truth. So even
24:12
Speaker 1: though it sounds like you're talking about big money, percentage wise,
24:16
Speaker 1: you're not. But okay, So I think Musk realizes maybe
24:22
Speaker 1: I'm giving him too much credit. I don't know, but
24:24
Speaker 1: it certainly seems as if Musk and maybe Trump realizes that,
24:28
Speaker 1: you know what, we got a problem. This is why
24:31
Speaker 1: no one's ever tried to do this before, because there's
24:34
Speaker 1: no real benefit to the average person when we try
24:39
Speaker 1: to do extraordinary things to reduce the debt or the deficit,
24:43
Speaker 1: because the only thing that changes is a number on
24:45
Speaker 1: a spreadsheet, and it's still way, way, way, way way
24:51
Speaker 1: into the negative. So what's the benefit to the average person.
24:56
Speaker 1: There is none, and politically that's a big problem. Again,
25:01
Speaker 1: this is why no one's ever done this before, because
25:04
Speaker 1: people have realized you can't slay this dragon in enough time.
25:09
Speaker 1: You only have four years, and you're gonna get slaughtered
25:13
Speaker 1: if you slay this dragon. And especially you know, if
25:17
Speaker 1: you're at all unsuccessful or unlucky, it's gonna turn out
25:21
Speaker 1: poorly for you, for reasons I've already referenced in this episode.
25:25
Speaker 1: So Musk comes up with this idea of a five
25:29
Speaker 1: thousand dollars refund check, which, again politically I understand that
25:34
Speaker 1: makes sense politically strategically because you need something for people
25:41
Speaker 1: to go aha. See we are benefiting. I am personally
25:45
Speaker 1: benefiting from all of this alleged reduction of government waste
25:51
Speaker 1: and corruption and what have you. However, to me, this
25:56
Speaker 1: is an absolutely horrific idea horrific idea not bad, horrendous.
26:04
Speaker 1: It is horrendous on every level. And let me just
26:09
Speaker 1: try to explain it this way. If you had let's say,
26:14
Speaker 1: I'll pick a number that's easy to understand. If you
26:16
Speaker 1: had fifty thousand dollars in credit card debt, which is
26:20
Speaker 1: a lot of fucking credit card debt. But we have
26:22
Speaker 1: a lot of credit card debt in this country. By
26:24
Speaker 1: the way, that might not be enough money to fully
26:28
Speaker 1: provide the reality of where we are in this country
26:31
Speaker 1: with regard to our national debt. But let's say you
26:35
Speaker 1: have a credit card debt of fifty thousand dollars and
26:39
Speaker 1: you're paying a ridiculous amount of money in monthly interest,
26:42
Speaker 1: and you are You're not even close to treading water.
26:45
Speaker 1: You're drowning, right, And you decide, okay, you're going to
26:49
Speaker 1: start cutting back pretty dramatically in your monthly expenses. And
26:55
Speaker 1: let's say you succeed in that. I'm going to give
26:57
Speaker 1: Elon Musk and Donald Trump the benefit of that. Let's
27:00
Speaker 1: say you succeed in cutting back, you know, somewhat of
27:05
Speaker 1: a significant amount of money. Let's say you're able to
27:09
Speaker 1: get that credit card debt down to forty five thousand dollars,
27:13
Speaker 1: which by the way, would take a lot of effort
27:15
Speaker 1: for the average person to go from fifty thousand dollars
27:18
Speaker 1: in credit card debt to forty five thousand dollars in
27:20
Speaker 1: credit card debt. I'm talking about this theoretical credit card
27:23
Speaker 1: that would allow this to happen, by the way, anyway,
27:26
Speaker 1: that would take a lot of effort and a lot
27:29
Speaker 1: of sacrifice. And then you succeeded. You got it down
27:32
Speaker 1: to forty five thousand dollars, and then you decided, in
27:35
Speaker 1: order to celebrate getting it down to forty five thousand dollars,
27:40
Speaker 1: you're going to take a vacation a weekend to Vegas
27:44
Speaker 1: or whatever, and spend another one thousand dollars to increase
27:50
Speaker 1: your credit card debt. One thousand dollars in this case
27:54
Speaker 1: would be analogized to the refund to every American taxpayer
27:59
Speaker 1: or every all American. That's the other problem with this.
28:02
Speaker 1: Who would get the five thousand dollars because a huge
28:05
Speaker 1: number of people that's cut you to not pay federal
28:07
Speaker 1: income taxes. So how's that gonna work. There's a logistical
28:13
Speaker 1: problem here, Okay, if you basically have to give it
28:16
Speaker 1: to everybody, because if you don't give it to everybody,
28:19
Speaker 1: if you only give the five thousand dollars to people
28:22
Speaker 1: who pay federal income taxes, and it's an actual refund.
28:26
Speaker 1: You know, in my mind, a refund means that you've
28:28
Speaker 1: paid something previously that you're getting back. So let's pretend
28:32
Speaker 1: that the five thousand dollars is only going to be
28:35
Speaker 1: given to people who have paid five thousand dollars more
28:38
Speaker 1: in federal income taxes. Guess what You're gonna get accused
28:41
Speaker 1: of very credibly giving money to the rich because only
28:47
Speaker 1: the rich would be eligible. The rich, in the minds
28:50
Speaker 1: of the average person, would be eligible for such a
28:53
Speaker 1: refund because nobody else is paying that much in federal
28:57
Speaker 1: income tax five thousand dollars. So you can't do that
29:03
Speaker 1: because I would politically probably be a negative. Not to mention,
29:07
Speaker 1: there'd be economic ramifications of that. Inflation would increase dramatically,
29:13
Speaker 1: dramatically literally like putting gasoline on a fire. If you
29:17
Speaker 1: gave everybody five thousand dollars for nothing, and what are
29:21
Speaker 1: they gonna do. They're gonna spend that, Well, that's gonna
29:24
Speaker 1: you know, there will be some benefits to that in
29:26
Speaker 1: the economy, but there's also gonna be a major negative
29:29
Speaker 1: when it comes to inflation. So the alternative to only
29:33
Speaker 1: giving it the taxpayers would be to give it to
29:35
Speaker 1: whatever you adult, kind of like what we did during COVID,
29:40
Speaker 1: which by the way, helped spur on inflation. Well, that's
29:44
Speaker 1: completely unfair. I mean, that's a transfer a well for
29:47
Speaker 1: people who actually did pay taxes to people who don't.
29:52
Speaker 1: So I mean, so that's another product part of this
29:54
Speaker 1: whole equation that's idiotic. But the biggest part is if
29:58
Speaker 1: you're really all about reducing the debt, which I'm in
30:02
Speaker 1: favor of, how does giving everybody five thousand dollars out
30:07
Speaker 1: of the treasury you're printing money to do this, How
30:10
Speaker 1: does that help that costs? Going back to the credit
30:13
Speaker 1: card analogy, it doesn't. It only it only goes right
30:18
Speaker 1: back in the opposite direction. If you don't like the
30:21
Speaker 1: credit card analogy, Let's say you're OLDB said you you know,
30:25
Speaker 1: you're three hundred and fifteen pounds, and you lose five
30:27
Speaker 1: pounds and you celebrate by going to an all you
30:30
Speaker 1: can eat buffet. How does that help anything? Especially when
30:34
Speaker 1: the Republican House barely just passed a budget that does
30:40
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing for deficit reduction, nothing, only one Republican didn't
30:46
Speaker 1: vote for it. Libertarian Republican out of Kentucky Thomas Massey,
30:52
Speaker 1: who confuses the hell out of me on an almost
30:54
Speaker 1: daily basis, but he took the principal stand and did
30:58
Speaker 1: not vote for it for the reasons I just articulated.
31:01
Speaker 1: But I mean, how does that make any sense? I
31:05
Speaker 1: realize Republicans have an incredibly slim majority, but the budget
31:10
Speaker 1: they passed is not in any way, shape or form
31:13
Speaker 1: keeping philosophically with what Trump and Musk are claiming to
31:18
Speaker 1: do with trying to reduce the size of federal government
31:22
Speaker 1: and of the debt and the deficit. And so I
31:25
Speaker 1: don't see how this works. I really don't. I don't
31:29
Speaker 1: understand how you can possibly create a situation where you're
31:35
Speaker 1: able to do this in the remarkably short amount of
31:39
Speaker 1: time that you have, and by what, you might only
31:43
Speaker 1: have two years before you lose the Republican majority in
31:47
Speaker 1: the House, because it's minuscule to begin with. So I
31:53
Speaker 1: realize that I am a contradiction myself, and that I
31:56
Speaker 1: am sometimes an idealist, but I'm also a realist, and
32:01
Speaker 1: those two elements of my personality conflict a lot. The
32:06
Speaker 1: idealist in me is all in favor of what in
32:10
Speaker 1: the principle of what Elon Musk is trying to do.
32:14
Speaker 1: The realist in me says, it just can't work, and
32:19
Speaker 1: this is why no one's really tried it previously. There
32:22
Speaker 1: been some minor efforts, like Clinton and Gore pretended to
32:27
Speaker 1: try to do this, but they were it was only
32:29
Speaker 1: very carefully done on the fringes is to not upset
32:32
Speaker 1: the appal cart and not destroy themselves politically, I mean.
32:38
Speaker 1: And so I am not optimistic about how this all
32:42
Speaker 1: turns out, even if, by the way that five thousand
32:47
Speaker 1: dollars idea, what's the good outcome there? If it doesn't happen,
32:50
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's prestige and credibility takes another hit. And if
32:55
Speaker 1: it does happen, I think that that's an economic catastrophe
33:00
Speaker 1: from an inflation perspective as well as from a debt
33:04
Speaker 1: reduction standpoint. I'm reminded of This is gonna be a
33:09
Speaker 1: bizarre reference, but I'm reminded of the famous song in
33:14
Speaker 1: ley Miz I dreamed a dream where the woman says,
33:18
Speaker 1: there are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms
33:21
Speaker 1: we cannot weather, and that's unfortunately I think where we
33:26
Speaker 1: are on this. This is a dream that's wonderful, but
33:30
Speaker 1: some dreams cannot be and there are storms and we
33:33
Speaker 1: cannot weather and this is gonna be a massive fucking storm.
33:37
Speaker 1: And I just don't think they have the time to
33:41
Speaker 1: pull this off. And then there's the whole issue of
33:43
Speaker 1: the courts, and you know, they keep losing most of
33:46
Speaker 1: the time in the courts. Eventually it to go to
33:48
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Even if they end up winning in
33:50
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, which I'm not sure they're going to.
33:54
Speaker 1: On a lot of this, I just I'm just I
33:57
Speaker 1: just don't think they're gonna be successful in this, especially
34:00
Speaker 1: not in the short amount of time that they have.
34:03
Speaker 1: But of course, this is part of why I think
34:05
Speaker 1: there's storm clouds, because we're in a unique situation. Trump
34:09
Speaker 1: doesn't give a fuck. Trump does not give a fuck.
34:14
Speaker 1: He's going to be president for as long as he lives,
34:17
Speaker 1: up until twenty twenty eight. Hopefully that'll be the end
34:21
Speaker 1: of it, although you know, at Seapac, which I'm gonna
34:23
Speaker 1: get to in a little bit, there was some indications
34:26
Speaker 1: that that might not be the case, which is troubling
34:29
Speaker 1: on a whole different front. But he doesn't really care
34:32
Speaker 1: as long as he's popular among MAGA, which he always
34:34
Speaker 1: will be because he's a god. Now, he doesn't really care.
34:38
Speaker 1: He doesn't really care about the Republican majority in the
34:42
Speaker 1: House because he's just governing by executive order anyway. He
34:46
Speaker 1: doesn't really like those people for the most part. He
34:49
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't care about the future of the Republican Party.
34:53
Speaker 1: I mean, so this again. I know I can be
34:58
Speaker 1: pessimistic and sometimes too pessimistic, but I just I am
35:02
Speaker 1: concerned about these storm clouds that are gathering now and
35:06
Speaker 1: where this is all going to eventually head. Now, with
35:10
Speaker 1: regard to Trump and this issue of his words versus
35:13
Speaker 1: his actions, there's a really interesting example that got a
35:17
Speaker 1: lot of attention over the last week or so with
35:20
Speaker 1: regard to the topic of whether or not biological males
35:26
Speaker 1: can play women's sports, whether it's at the high school
35:29
Speaker 1: level or at the college level, and Trump signed an
35:32
Speaker 1: executive order in his mind banning that from happening. Now.
35:37
Speaker 1: I didn't talk about it at the time because I
35:39
Speaker 1: didn't take it all that seriously, because it felt like
35:43
Speaker 1: it was mostly for show. And if you listen as
35:47
Speaker 1: I did, to what Trump said at the time he
35:51
Speaker 1: even acknowledged. I believe that it's it was mostly for
35:55
Speaker 1: show what he did, because he admitted that it's possible
36:00
Speaker 1: that we don't have all the bases covered. That's not
36:02
Speaker 1: exactly what he said, but this was a paraphrase of
36:05
Speaker 1: what he said. It's possible that we don't have all
36:07
Speaker 1: the bases covered here, and if that's the case, we'll
36:09
Speaker 1: fix it later. And when I heard that, I'm like, Okay,
36:12
Speaker 1: there's going to be loopholes here for this ridiculousness to continue.
36:18
Speaker 1: I'm vehemently against biological males playing any sort of organized
36:22
Speaker 1: sports at the high school of college level against women.
36:27
Speaker 1: I mean, and most of the country obviously is as well.
36:31
Speaker 1: This is a very good issue politically for Republicans. I
36:34
Speaker 1: don't understand why Democrats continue to fight it. But just
36:39
Speaker 1: because you sign an executive order doesn't mean you've ended it.
36:43
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, in the state of Maine,
36:47
Speaker 1: there were at least two biological males that we're still
36:52
Speaker 1: playing high school sports against girls or women, and the
37:00
Speaker 1: there was a Governor's Association meeting at the White House
37:04
Speaker 1: where Trump was speaking to these governors. The governor of
37:08
Speaker 1: Maine was there, the governor made is a female who's
37:12
Speaker 1: extremely progressive and woke and is in favor of this,
37:16
Speaker 1: apparently at least from a legal perspective. And Trump did
37:20
Speaker 1: something that his fans absolutely loved, which was he took
37:25
Speaker 1: her on directly during his speech. This is classic Trump.
37:30
Speaker 1: He's got the microphone, she doesn't. He points her out
37:35
Speaker 1: directly and attacks her and makes threats against her, both
37:40
Speaker 1: politically and legally. And she says, I'll see you in court.
37:44
Speaker 1: And Trump's like, you know, basically, go ahead, make my day.
37:47
Speaker 1: And this was a clip that went viral, and again, understandably,
37:52
Speaker 1: Trump's fans loved. This is the this is the good Trump.
37:56
Speaker 1: This is the Trump that they fell in love with.
37:59
Speaker 1: This is their warrior for justice, and you do not
38:02
Speaker 1: mess with him. And you know he's playing for keeps.
38:07
Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like a few days ago
38:09
Speaker 1: at the White House. I understand.
38:11
Speaker 2: Maine is the main here, the governor of Man. Are
38:16
Speaker 2: you not going to comply with it? Well, we are
38:22
Speaker 2: the federal law. Well you better do it. You better
38:24
Speaker 2: do it because you're not going to get any federal
38:26
Speaker 2: funding at all if you don't. And by the way,
38:28
Speaker 2: your population even though it's somewhat liberal, orthough I did
38:31
Speaker 2: very well there.
38:32
Speaker 1: Your population doesn't.
38:34
Speaker 2: Want men playing in women's sports, so you better you
38:37
Speaker 2: better comply because otherwise you're not getting any any federal funding.
38:41
Speaker 2: Every state. Good, I'll see you and could I look
38:44
Speaker 2: forward to that. That should be a really easy one.
38:47
Speaker 2: And enjoy your life after governor, because I don't think
38:49
Speaker 2: you'll be in elected politics. Every state has a responsibility
38:54
Speaker 2: to comply with titledye to have an obligation or legal obligation,
38:59
Speaker 2: and we'll be in we're seeing aggressively and we're going
39:02
Speaker 2: to be protecting our citizens.
39:03
Speaker 1: We're gonna protect So just to uh end this administration. Now,
39:09
Speaker 1: if you're a Trump fan, that sounds great, all right.
39:12
Speaker 1: Trump Trump sees that there's a problem here and he's
39:16
Speaker 1: gonna do everything he possibly can to fix the problem.
39:20
Speaker 1: And if he loses in court, which by the way,
39:23
Speaker 1: it sounds like he thinks he might because he immediately
39:27
Speaker 1: went to the threat of taking away all federal funding
39:30
Speaker 1: for Maine. He's willing to go to the MAC for this.
39:35
Speaker 1: And again I get why people love that, but I
39:39
Speaker 1: looked at that clip and I'm like, I think he's
39:42
Speaker 1: gonna lose because it certainly sounds as if he's not
39:46
Speaker 1: that confident about the prevailing in court. And I don't
39:52
Speaker 1: think he's gonna have the balls or maybe even the
39:54
Speaker 1: authority to force Maine or anybody else in to changing
40:01
Speaker 1: their policy on this, because I don't think that even
40:06
Speaker 1: if he is able, Let's pretend that he somehow has
40:10
Speaker 1: the authority to, as President of United States, say no
40:14
Speaker 1: federal assistance to Maine all because of their unwillingness to
40:18
Speaker 1: go along with my executive order when it comes to
40:22
Speaker 1: transgendered athletes. Let's pretend that Trump actually does that. Is
40:26
Speaker 1: Trump really going to endure the incredible negative implications of
40:34
Speaker 1: the state of Maine getting no federal funding for anything
40:38
Speaker 1: because of just two transgender athletes? Again, I'm a principal guy.
40:45
Speaker 1: I'm all in favor of fighting the good fight. But
40:48
Speaker 1: is Trump really gonna be willing to go through with that?
40:51
Speaker 1: Because federal funding, like for instance, for hospitals, which has
40:57
Speaker 1: been mentioned online, can keep people alive. So so Trump's
41:03
Speaker 1: really gonna be able to endure hospitals in Maine not
41:08
Speaker 1: being able to fully function because he's in a war
41:11
Speaker 1: with the state of Maine over transgender athletes. Is he
41:15
Speaker 1: really gonna be willing to figuratively die on that hill.
41:21
Speaker 1: I don't believe that. I don't believe that, And I
41:26
Speaker 1: think there's a decent chance that the governor of Maine
41:30
Speaker 1: wins this battle. I hope she doesn't. I hope the
41:33
Speaker 1: courts agree that this is something that is perfectly legal
41:39
Speaker 1: and for the President to do, and that this is
41:43
Speaker 1: something that should be banned. I don't know whether that's
41:48
Speaker 1: going to be the case when it comes to the
41:49
Speaker 1: ultimate outcome in the courts, and I have certainly there
41:53
Speaker 1: are plenty of liberal courts that are going to decide
41:57
Speaker 1: in favor of the governor of Maine on But to me,
42:01
Speaker 1: this was a classic example of where Trump's talk is fantastic,
42:07
Speaker 1: but in the reality of the world, I'm not sure
42:11
Speaker 1: all that much is going to change. And by the way,
42:13
Speaker 1: you know, Trump used the NC double A, seemingly using
42:18
Speaker 1: his executive order as cover to change their policy as
42:23
Speaker 1: a victory, and I agree that on the surface that
42:27
Speaker 1: looks like a victory the NC double A, And I
42:30
Speaker 1: frankly think that Charlie Baker, former Hina Republican from Massachusetts
42:35
Speaker 1: governor there, you know, he's not a dumb guy. I
42:38
Speaker 1: think he saw the executive order as his opportunity to
42:42
Speaker 1: have some cover to change the policy of the NC
42:45
Speaker 1: double A. But apparently there's even a loophole within the
42:49
Speaker 1: policy of the NC double A because the policy of
42:51
Speaker 1: the NCAA deals with what's on your birth certificate. Well,
42:56
Speaker 1: there are many states blue states that allow you to
42:59
Speaker 1: change what's on your birth certificate, and so if you're
43:04
Speaker 1: able to change the gender on your birth certificate, then
43:08
Speaker 1: you can still you know, be in line with NCAA
43:11
Speaker 1: policy and theory. So this is not an issue that
43:15
Speaker 1: is dead at all, unfortunately, But I'm mostly using this
43:20
Speaker 1: as a I think the best example of where there's
43:23
Speaker 1: a difference between what Trump is saying and where he's
43:26
Speaker 1: declaring victory and what the reality is. And again, I
43:30
Speaker 1: support Trump on this issue one thousand percent, one thousand percent,
43:35
Speaker 1: but this is the problem that he's going to have
43:38
Speaker 1: because you know, we don't actually live in a monarchy.
43:42
Speaker 1: Trump acts like we live in a monarchy. He seemingly
43:45
Speaker 1: is trying to change our system of government to a monarchy,
43:49
Speaker 1: but we're not there yet, and I think this is
43:52
Speaker 1: a really good example of that. Now, going to the
43:56
Speaker 1: monarchy narrative. Donald Trump has been able to at all
44:00
Speaker 1: of his significant major nominees confirmed by the US Senate,
44:06
Speaker 1: something I predicted would happen a few weeks ago. I
44:10
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that all these controversial picks, whether
44:14
Speaker 1: it's Tulci Gabbard or RFK Junior or Cash Pattel, they're
44:18
Speaker 1: all going to get passed, especially after Pete Hegsef did.
44:22
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what has happened. By the way, you
44:25
Speaker 1: gotta wonder, at least I did what Matt Gates is
44:29
Speaker 1: thinking about these days. Matt Gates went from being the
44:33
Speaker 1: presumed next Attorney General of the United States to being
44:38
Speaker 1: a host on the one American news network which nobody watches,
44:45
Speaker 1: because I guess it was presumed he wasn't going to
44:48
Speaker 1: be able to be confirmed as Attorney general. Yet every
44:53
Speaker 1: single one of Trump's nominees to this date have been
44:57
Speaker 1: confirmed significance and Gates. I'm now convinced that Gates was
45:05
Speaker 1: put out the pasture, you know, to use the mob terms.
45:10
Speaker 1: I think Gates was sent to swim with the fishes,
45:13
Speaker 1: or to feed the fishes. That's the only way that
45:16
Speaker 1: this makes any sense to me. Because he's not that
45:19
Speaker 1: dumb a guy, and so I would love to know
45:23
Speaker 1: the real story what happened with the Gates nomination and
45:26
Speaker 1: then the pulling of the Gates nomination, because certainly Gates
45:29
Speaker 1: didn't get anything out of it. He lost his seat
45:31
Speaker 1: in Congress and now he's irrelevant and oh, by the way,
45:35
Speaker 1: he's not going to be governor of Florida, which I'm
45:37
Speaker 1: going to get to momentarily. But you know that, to
45:42
Speaker 1: me is an amazing, untold story that we've just completely
45:45
Speaker 1: forgotten about. But when it comes to the other nominees, look,
45:50
Speaker 1: there are those that I have concerns about. RMK Junior
45:54
Speaker 1: to me is a joke. I don't think he's a
45:56
Speaker 1: well person. He's not wrong about everything. See this is
46:00
Speaker 1: where maga world. You know, if you're right in their
46:03
Speaker 1: minds about one or two important things, they will forgive
46:06
Speaker 1: you for all sorts of insanity. And I think RK.
46:10
Speaker 1: Junior is a nut job. And I don't think he
46:13
Speaker 1: should be the head of Health and Human Services, especially
46:16
Speaker 1: given his extremely liberal position on abortion and the fact
46:20
Speaker 1: that it's happening during a Republican administration is just astonishing.
46:24
Speaker 1: But okay, fine, whatever, even as bad as RK. Junior is.
46:29
Speaker 1: To me by far the worst nomination, and it's been
46:34
Speaker 1: made worse in just the last couple of days by
46:37
Speaker 1: new information was that of Cash Battel as director of FBI.
46:43
Speaker 1: And look, I have nothing against Cash Betel personally. He
46:46
Speaker 1: actually seems like a fairly intelligent guy. He does have qualifications,
46:52
Speaker 1: but I'm sorry he wrote a book. It was a
46:55
Speaker 1: children's book, but it was a book where Trump was
46:59
Speaker 1: a king and he was the king's wizard. It's remarkable
47:04
Speaker 1: how few people know this. When I mentioned this on Twitter,
47:07
Speaker 1: inevitably I get people thinking I'm making it up, and
47:11
Speaker 1: then I post a screenshot of the cover of the book,
47:14
Speaker 1: and most of the time people are like, what, what
47:17
Speaker 1: the fuck is that? That's a real thing that happened.
47:22
Speaker 1: Cashould Tell, now the director of the FBI, the Federal
47:25
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation, wrote a book about Trump being a
47:33
Speaker 1: king and him being that king's wizard, and it got
47:38
Speaker 1: him the gig. Apparently. I'm sure this was a significant
47:42
Speaker 1: part of why he was tapped to be the FBI director,
47:47
Speaker 1: in my view, in a country that was literally founded
47:51
Speaker 1: on the concept that we don't do kings that were
47:54
Speaker 1: not a monarchy. That's disqualifying. I don't care about anything else,
48:00
Speaker 1: and I get mocked for this, like, oh, come on,
48:02
Speaker 1: it's a kid's book. Who cares? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
48:05
Speaker 1: no no. This is important. It's important from a philosophical perspective,
48:10
Speaker 1: a principal standpoint, a precedent standpoint. This is a clear
48:17
Speaker 1: indication of his worldview and how he views himself as
48:22
Speaker 1: the wizard for a king. And that should have been disqualifying,
48:29
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. And in fact, even Mitch McConnell, who's
48:32
Speaker 1: on his way out and has made it clear he
48:34
Speaker 1: is no fan of Donald Trump, even Mitch McConnell voted
48:38
Speaker 1: for him, which really stunned me because even if McConnell
48:41
Speaker 1: had voted against him, he still would have been confirmed
48:44
Speaker 1: because JD. Vans would have come in with the tie
48:46
Speaker 1: breaking vote. So I am vehemently against Cash Mattel as
48:53
Speaker 1: FBI director. But that position, I think was only vindicated
48:59
Speaker 1: by the naming of his number two, his deputy FBI director,
49:03
Speaker 1: which was Don Bongino. Don Bongino is somebody who should
49:13
Speaker 1: be nowhere near his position, the number two guy at
49:17
Speaker 1: the FBI. It's a joke. It's absurd. I can't even
49:24
Speaker 1: believe it's real. By the way, Cash Mattel lied about
49:30
Speaker 1: someone like Bongino being his number two both during his
49:34
Speaker 1: confirmation hearings as well as when he first spoke to
49:38
Speaker 1: the rank and file of the FBI. He assured both
49:42
Speaker 1: groups that there was not going to be someone like
49:46
Speaker 1: Bongino at number two. He assured them that it would
49:49
Speaker 1: be somebody who had a background working in the FBI.
49:54
Speaker 1: That was a lie right out of the bat, a
49:57
Speaker 1: huge lie by Cash Hotel. So that's a big problem
50:01
Speaker 1: right there. It reflects on who Patel is. But as
50:05
Speaker 1: bad as Cash Patel is his FBI director, I actually
50:10
Speaker 1: think him picking Dan Bongino as deputy FBI director is
50:15
Speaker 1: even worse. And it's worse from a couple of different perspectives.
50:20
Speaker 1: Number One, it's an indication that Patel dramatically lied during
50:27
Speaker 1: both his confirmation hearing as well as in his address
50:32
Speaker 1: to rank and file FBI members, because he assured both groups,
50:37
Speaker 1: as has been reported widely, that the person he would
50:40
Speaker 1: choose as his deputy FBI director would be somebody who
50:44
Speaker 1: had worked at the agency and was steeped in the
50:49
Speaker 1: history of the FBI that it wouldn't be some sort
50:52
Speaker 1: of radical outsider pick. Well, that's exactly what Dan Bongino is.
50:58
Speaker 1: So immediately right off the bat, Cash Battel has revealed
51:03
Speaker 1: himself to be willing and able to lie to get
51:07
Speaker 1: the gig. And to me, it's not just the lying part,
51:10
Speaker 1: it's what this says about the philosophy that will be
51:15
Speaker 1: the guiding force of the FBI under cash Battel, because
51:21
Speaker 1: we're not gonna care about the truth. We're gonna do
51:24
Speaker 1: whatever we have to do. Just win baby. As Al
51:27
Speaker 1: Davis might have said, you know, we're lie Lieli till
51:30
Speaker 1: you die. Because this isn't gonna be about what's good
51:35
Speaker 1: for the FBI or good for the country. This is
51:38
Speaker 1: gonna be about creating an organization that is there to
51:43
Speaker 1: do Donald Trump's bidding. That's the only way to rationally
51:48
Speaker 1: interpret what has happened here. Cash Btel writes a book
51:53
Speaker 1: where Trump's the king and he's the King's wizard, and
51:57
Speaker 1: then he lies about who's gonna be the deputy FBI
52:01
Speaker 1: director and he picks Dan Bongino, or Trump picks Dan
52:04
Speaker 1: Bongino as number two. Dan Bongino has no business being
52:09
Speaker 1: in this position. He's not qualified for it, never worked
52:13
Speaker 1: for the FBI. As I've already implied, He's a podcaster
52:18
Speaker 1: who is an extreme, extreme Trump loyalist. I mean so
52:26
Speaker 1: maybe more of a Trump loyalist than anybody I can
52:29
Speaker 1: think of in the right wing media. He's also a
52:33
Speaker 1: verifiable moron. He's a dumb person. You only have to
52:38
Speaker 1: listen to him for a couple of minutes, as I
52:41
Speaker 1: have done. I'm sure most people who you consume right
52:45
Speaker 1: wing media have done at some point. You only have
52:47
Speaker 1: to listen to him for a couple of minutes to
52:49
Speaker 1: realize he's just not an intelligent person. So you have
52:52
Speaker 1: someone who's not qualified, not intelligent, and who is an
52:56
Speaker 1: extreme Trump loyalist to be the number two person at
53:01
Speaker 1: the FBI, and his selection indicates that the director Cash
53:06
Speaker 1: Mattel lied during his confirmation hearing and in his opening
53:11
Speaker 1: address to the FBI rank and file. That's a problem.
53:16
Speaker 1: And taking this out of the theoretical and into the practical,
53:20
Speaker 1: this is Trump as mob boss. I have made this analogy,
53:24
Speaker 1: this metaphor what have you, on numerous occasions. I really
53:28
Speaker 1: do think that this is in large part the way
53:31
Speaker 1: that Trump thinks of himself. This is the way Trump acts.
53:34
Speaker 1: He has his whole life as if he is a
53:36
Speaker 1: mob boss, where he now has his henchman to tell
53:41
Speaker 1: and Bongino running the FBI. And here's what this will
53:46
Speaker 1: actually mean. This is you know, when the rubber meets
53:49
Speaker 1: the road. This is what will this will actually mean.
53:52
Speaker 1: And I realize, Look, I get the FBI has massive problems.
53:56
Speaker 1: I get that mag in Maga world, the FBI is
53:59
Speaker 1: totally corrupt and needs to be blown up. And they've
54:02
Speaker 1: accepted all sorts of mythologies and fantasies about what has
54:07
Speaker 1: actually transpired against Trump. Trump has been incredibly effective at
54:12
Speaker 1: turning huge portions of the American people against the FBI,
54:16
Speaker 1: and the FBI certainly deserves a lot of criticism for
54:20
Speaker 1: a lot of it. A lot of it's been greatly
54:22
Speaker 1: exaggerated and as I said, mythologized. But the reality here
54:27
Speaker 1: is this, every single investigation by the FBI under Patalon
54:34
Speaker 1: Bongino will be seen through the prism of one thing
54:40
Speaker 1: over every other reality, and that is is the person
54:46
Speaker 1: or entity being investigated pro Trump or anti Trump. That's
54:55
Speaker 1: what it will be. This is not an exaggeration, Folks,
54:59
Speaker 1: with the hell and Bongino. That's the way it will work.
55:03
Speaker 1: Any FBI investigation will be seen primarily through that prism
55:10
Speaker 1: is the person or entity we're investigating, pro Trump or
55:15
Speaker 1: anti Trump, and anyone who is pro Trump will be
55:19
Speaker 1: given at best extraordinary slack, if not a pass, and
55:26
Speaker 1: anyone that's anti Trump will be in big trouble, big trouble.
55:32
Speaker 1: I have no faith at all that if you are
55:34
Speaker 1: anti Trump and you get in the crossairs of the FBI,
55:36
Speaker 1: that you will be treated fairly. And in Trump's mob
55:41
Speaker 1: boss mentality, that's a dream. That is the greatest dream
55:45
Speaker 1: you could possibly ever have. And by the way, everyone's
55:50
Speaker 1: going to know this. Everyone's going to know this. So
55:53
Speaker 1: if you're someone who is concerned about a federal investigation
55:58
Speaker 1: like taking Eric in New York City, you're all of
56:02
Speaker 1: a sudden going to become extremely pro Trump. It's worked
56:06
Speaker 1: for him, and so you know, and Trump probably understands this.
56:11
Speaker 1: Trump will benefit greatly. Anybody who's even in the outskirts
56:17
Speaker 1: of an FBI investigation is all of a sudden, at
56:19
Speaker 1: least publicly going to become very pro Trump, because that
56:23
Speaker 1: will greatly reduce the chances that you will ever have
56:29
Speaker 1: a situation where you have to fear the FBI. Now,
56:33
Speaker 1: if you're a Trump fan, that all might sound great.
56:37
Speaker 1: That is not great in a country that is based
56:41
Speaker 1: in the rule of law. That I get that you know,
56:45
Speaker 1: and this is consistent throughout magaphilosophy, the idea that well,
56:50
Speaker 1: the other side did some bad things, so now we
56:52
Speaker 1: can do even worse things. Screw them. I don't like
56:57
Speaker 1: that at all, because that is a downwarld spire to oblivion.
57:02
Speaker 1: Where does that ever end? Think about the precedent you're setting.
57:06
Speaker 1: Think about what happens the next time there's a democratic
57:10
Speaker 1: president and what they'll be able to get away with.
57:13
Speaker 1: If you're okay with Cash Bittel and Dan Bongina running
57:16
Speaker 1: the FBI, and the FBI becoming nothing more than effectively
57:21
Speaker 1: the personal law enforcement agency of the President of the
57:24
Speaker 1: United States, that is incredibly troubling and dangerous. Now, there's
57:30
Speaker 1: an interesting subplot to this whole situation, whether it's Bondie
57:36
Speaker 1: as Attorney General or Patel as FBI director, there's a
57:41
Speaker 1: lot of Maga world expectations when it comes to the
57:45
Speaker 1: revelations that they're going to get the retribution, that they're
57:49
Speaker 1: going to get the scalps that they're going to get
57:52
Speaker 1: because now they're in charge of the nation's law enforcement.
57:58
Speaker 1: This includes primarily the Epstein files. My god, the Epstein
58:02
Speaker 1: files are something that Magold is so excited about, and
58:07
Speaker 1: I really don't even understand what they're expecting. I really
58:11
Speaker 1: don't this so called Epstein list, What is that even
58:16
Speaker 1: going to mean? Even if it gets revealed, which is
58:19
Speaker 1: it has been promised, And I've even seen some people
58:21
Speaker 1: online from Magreold very upset that wait a minute, we
58:24
Speaker 1: were promised the Epstein list, and like the first day
58:28
Speaker 1: of bonding and Patel's administration, where is it as it
58:32
Speaker 1: come out, at least not as of this taping. But
58:34
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Just
58:37
Speaker 1: because you were an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein certainly doesn't
58:42
Speaker 1: mean that you were involved in his crimes. Of course,
58:45
Speaker 1: I'm someone who's very much convinced that Epstein did, in
58:49
Speaker 1: fact kill himself in a federal prison, because it would
58:51
Speaker 1: be the easiest crime in the world to solve if
58:54
Speaker 1: he had been murdered in a federal prison. And even
58:57
Speaker 1: Trump himself has said he believes that Epstein killed himself
59:01
Speaker 1: in a federal prison, and that doesn't seem to matter
59:03
Speaker 1: to anybody because there's no logical thinking here. But I
59:07
Speaker 1: don't believe we're gonna get any evidence at all. For
59:09
Speaker 1: first of all, that Epstein was murdered. I think that
59:11
Speaker 1: might be something that magworld is hoping and expecting. And
59:15
Speaker 1: I don't understand what this list is supposed to be
59:18
Speaker 1: telling us. I'm all already on record saying that the
59:22
Speaker 1: whole JFK assassination element of this is just ridiculous. There's
59:27
Speaker 1: this Congressman Luna, known for wearing a MAGA swim suit
59:31
Speaker 1: very well, I might add, who is claiming that she's
59:34
Speaker 1: seen evidence of two shooters and she's gonna hold hearings
59:37
Speaker 1: in March and speak to first hand witnesses of We're
59:41
Speaker 1: gonna speak through the first hand witness It's been sixty
59:45
Speaker 1: one years ago. But it's clearly an attention, you know,
59:49
Speaker 1: getting maneuver on her part. I don't think we're gonna
59:52
Speaker 1: find anything remotely earth shattering from whatever JFK files are
59:56
Speaker 1: still to be released. Now there's an effort to get
59:59
Speaker 1: Jane Comby is allegedly he infiltrated the Trump campaign in
1:00:05
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen with a with a honeypot situation, which I
1:00:11
Speaker 1: don't I have no idea what the basis of that is.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: I think Comy's a buffoon, but I don't think he's
1:00:17
Speaker 1: a criminal. In fact, I think he's the reason why
1:00:19
Speaker 1: Trump got elected at twenty sixteen, because I think he
1:00:22
Speaker 1: was trying to virtue signal on the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
1:00:27
Speaker 1: But you know, they want Komy's scalp. They want Adam
1:00:30
Speaker 1: Schiff's scalp. And I you know, Adam Shiff is somebody
1:00:33
Speaker 1: who is one of my senators here in California. I
1:00:37
Speaker 1: actually don't think as a Democrat he's as bad as
1:00:39
Speaker 1: a lot of other Democrats. I also don't think he's
1:00:41
Speaker 1: all that dumb. I don't like him. He was wrong
1:00:44
Speaker 1: about a lot when it comes to Russia Gate, but
1:00:46
Speaker 1: I don't see any evidence he's ever committed any crimes.
1:00:49
Speaker 1: But boy, they want Adam Shift's scalp. And so there's
1:00:55
Speaker 1: all this expectation for what's going to happen. I think
1:00:58
Speaker 1: Maga world is going to be exceedingly disappointed. Now that
1:01:03
Speaker 1: being said, I'm sure the Pattel and BONDI you're gonna
1:01:06
Speaker 1: make you know, they're gonna do their best they can
1:01:09
Speaker 1: to come up with something for the right wing media
1:01:12
Speaker 1: to sink their teeth into, to pretend that these fantasies
1:01:17
Speaker 1: were based in some sort of reality. But I'm already
1:01:21
Speaker 1: seeing a cover story narrative forming where there's this hilarious
1:01:27
Speaker 1: story of an FBI whistleblower is claiming that all sorts
1:01:32
Speaker 1: of information probably related to the Epstein investigation, is being
1:01:37
Speaker 1: destroyed before cash Betel can take over. Now does not
1:01:43
Speaker 1: even make any fucking sense. But the reality of that
1:01:46
Speaker 1: is that is obviously that is an obvious cover story
1:01:50
Speaker 1: to explain late for later why there's no smoking gun anywhere. Oh,
1:01:55
Speaker 1: they destroyed all the documents. It's similar to what's going
1:02:01
Speaker 1: on with the JFK thing. I'm like, so, you know,
1:02:04
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you're telling me that there was this
1:02:06
Speaker 1: massive conspiracy, and you know, whoever was in charge of
1:02:11
Speaker 1: this conspiracy has been hiding these documents that proved the conspiracy,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: But now they're going to let those documents out. Really,
1:02:19
Speaker 1: why didn't they just destroy them? If they had all
1:02:22
Speaker 1: that kind of power and this was that big of
1:02:24
Speaker 1: a conspiracy. None of this makes any goddamn sense. But
1:02:28
Speaker 1: I am convinced that there is there's not going to
1:02:31
Speaker 1: be anywhere near, anywhere near the kind of evidence that
1:02:35
Speaker 1: Maga world has been thirsting for when it comes to
1:02:38
Speaker 1: any of these conspiracy theories. Now, another thing happened in
1:02:42
Speaker 1: maga world this past week, and that is the Seapack Conference,
1:02:46
Speaker 1: the Conservative Political Action Conference. It's absurd to call it conservative. Now,
1:02:52
Speaker 1: this is an event that has changed radically. I mean,
1:02:56
Speaker 1: you want to be able to see the impact of
1:02:58
Speaker 1: Donald Trump on the so called conservative movement, all you
1:03:01
Speaker 1: have to do is look at what has happened at
1:03:03
Speaker 1: Seapack over the last decade or so. I used to
1:03:07
Speaker 1: be a speaker at Seapack. I used to I went
1:03:10
Speaker 1: to I think three or four Seapacks, hung out a
1:03:14
Speaker 1: lot with Andrew Breitbart during that era, and SEAPAC was
1:03:18
Speaker 1: a corrupt institution. Then, I mean that part of how
1:03:21
Speaker 1: I got soured on the conservative movement because I was
1:03:24
Speaker 1: involved in Seapack and I realized what a bunch of
1:03:27
Speaker 1: grifting frauds most of these people were. I've talked about
1:03:31
Speaker 1: this previously, but that iteration of Seedpack is nothing compared
1:03:36
Speaker 1: to what exists as today. I mean, Seapack has jumped
1:03:39
Speaker 1: the Shark a long time ago, but now it's just
1:03:43
Speaker 1: a complete joke. Now, speaking of jokes, there were a
1:03:47
Speaker 1: couple of funny moments, mostly when Elon Musk took the
1:03:50
Speaker 1: stage with a wielding a chainsaw. By the way, in
1:03:56
Speaker 1: the world did this happen? Said what five six years
1:04:02
Speaker 1: ago that one of the most memorable moments the Seabeck
1:04:08
Speaker 1: Conference will be, you know, liberal darling, then Elon Musk
1:04:13
Speaker 1: wielding a chainsaw on the half of Donald Trump. I mean,
1:04:17
Speaker 1: that would be impossible to have even conceived of, but
1:04:20
Speaker 1: that's actually what happened. But there were a couple of
1:04:23
Speaker 1: funny moments, like, for instance, when Musk addressed this issue
1:04:27
Speaker 1: of of him being potentially paid off by Russia, uh
1:04:33
Speaker 1: and and Musk making or being you know, captive of
1:04:36
Speaker 1: Russia and Vladimir Putin, and Musk had a rather funny
1:04:40
Speaker 1: retort to that idea.
1:04:42
Speaker 3: Well, I like to end this say like, yeah, you know,
1:04:45
Speaker 3: I'm on a board asset of Putin.
1:04:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like he can't afford me. Yeah, I think
1:04:52
Speaker 1: I think you're worth more than Russia. Think about it. Now,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: that's funny, although it's not quite as funny since Esla's
1:05:00
Speaker 1: stock has taken a complete crap over the last several days,
1:05:04
Speaker 1: but I think Musk is still in pretty good shape.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: Speaking more broadly about the issue of humor, I did
1:05:11
Speaker 1: like what Musk had to say about that here.
1:05:16
Speaker 3: So I mean, we're, you know, we're trying to get
1:05:20
Speaker 3: get good things done, but also like you know, have
1:05:24
Speaker 3: a good time doing it, and you know, and have
1:05:27
Speaker 3: like a sense of humor.
1:05:28
Speaker 2: You know.
1:05:30
Speaker 3: So like I mean, the sort of the left wanted.
1:05:34
Speaker 1: To make comedy illegal. You know, you can't make fun
1:05:37
Speaker 1: of anything. So it was like comedy sucks. It's like
1:05:39
Speaker 1: nothing's funny. You can't make fun of anything. It's like
1:05:42
Speaker 1: legalized comedy. Yeah, so that's all in good fun. And
1:05:47
Speaker 1: I perfectly agree with what Musk said about making comedy
1:05:52
Speaker 1: legal again. But there were a lot of other events
1:05:56
Speaker 1: and moments at Seedpack that were very, very troubling, and
1:06:00
Speaker 1: I'm just going to play one of them for you
1:06:02
Speaker 1: right here. This is where Steve Bannon, very close Trump
1:06:06
Speaker 1: political advisor, starts to make the argument. And I don't
1:06:10
Speaker 1: even know whether Bannon really believes in this, whether or
1:06:14
Speaker 1: not he's trolling. This is part of the problem because
1:06:17
Speaker 1: Trump does the same thing. In fact, Trump has done
1:06:20
Speaker 1: the same thing in the last week or so, where
1:06:23
Speaker 1: he basically got people to start chanting four more years,
1:06:26
Speaker 1: which is he's not constitutionally eligible for that. Obviously he's
1:06:30
Speaker 1: turned out in twenty twenty eight. But here Steve Bannon
1:06:34
Speaker 1: is at sea pack making the argument that he wants
1:06:39
Speaker 1: Trump to be the nominee again in twenty twenty eight.
1:06:44
Speaker 1: And regardless of whether or not this is a troll,
1:06:46
Speaker 1: this is a joke. This is just him, you know,
1:06:50
Speaker 1: virtue signaling his extreme loyalty to Donald Trump. I mean,
1:06:54
Speaker 1: that's where we are where you're gonna have to prove
1:06:57
Speaker 1: what a real Trump loyalist you are by saying, you
1:07:00
Speaker 1: know what, we should ignore the Constitution and he should
1:07:03
Speaker 1: be able to run again in his eighties in twenty
1:07:06
Speaker 1: twenty eight. That is a very very dangerous concept if
1:07:12
Speaker 1: we get to the point where that is a litmus
1:07:14
Speaker 1: test for how trumpy you are and how much of
1:07:17
Speaker 1: a Trump supporter you really are. You're not a real
1:07:19
Speaker 1: Trump supporter unless you are in favor of abandoning the
1:07:23
Speaker 1: Constitution and allowing Trump a third term and for him
1:07:28
Speaker 1: to run against again in twenty twenty eight. That is
1:07:31
Speaker 1: a big, big problem. But whatever the motivations. Here was
1:07:36
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon on this topic at seapeg Future of Maga
1:07:41
Speaker 1: is Donald J. Trump. We want Trump in twenty eight.
1:07:48
Speaker 1: That's why they can't stand.
1:07:49
Speaker 4: A man like Trump comes along only once or twice
1:07:52
Speaker 4: in a country's history.
1:07:54
Speaker 1: Right, we want Trump, we want Trump, we want Trump,
1:08:00
Speaker 1: we want Trum, we want Trum. That is a problem,
1:08:11
Speaker 1: especially when Trump is doing nothing to Tampa down, and
1:08:16
Speaker 1: in fact he's actually feeding that fire, always under the
1:08:21
Speaker 1: guise of trolling or humor. Oh my god, look, he's
1:08:26
Speaker 1: making the liberals heads explode. Yeah, yeah, okay, But at
1:08:31
Speaker 1: a certain point, they're going to be people to take
1:08:33
Speaker 1: this seriously, and at a certain point it's a significant problem,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: if only because it allows liberals and the media to
1:08:45
Speaker 1: create the perception that Trump may not leave office as
1:08:50
Speaker 1: constitutionally required. Not to mention, if this narrative continues, and
1:08:57
Speaker 1: I think that it probably will unless the trumpman stration
1:09:00
Speaker 1: as a total disaster, think about how that's going to
1:09:04
Speaker 1: impact the twenty twenty eight presidential cycle. It's going to
1:09:09
Speaker 1: completely distort it because there are going to be some
1:09:13
Speaker 1: people who will be saying, well, wait a minute, I'm
1:09:16
Speaker 1: not in favor of any of these candidates. I want
1:09:18
Speaker 1: Trump again, and you know Steve Bannon himself may run
1:09:23
Speaker 1: for president. That's going to cause a huge problem for jd. Vance.
1:09:27
Speaker 1: I mean, so you could have a at best a
1:09:32
Speaker 1: massive problem in the Republican nominating process in twenty twenty eight,
1:09:37
Speaker 1: where one of the most significant issues is do you
1:09:40
Speaker 1: believe Trump should be allowed to run again. I can
1:09:44
Speaker 1: foresee a situation down the road where Republican candidates and
1:09:48
Speaker 1: the debate are asked to raise their hands over whether
1:09:51
Speaker 1: or that they think Trump should be allowed another term.
1:09:54
Speaker 1: And if you don't raise your hand, you're not trumpy enough,
1:09:58
Speaker 1: and therefore your disco qualified. That's one of the many
1:10:04
Speaker 1: reasons why this is a big, big problem, and of
1:10:10
Speaker 1: course no one in the right wing media will shoot
1:10:12
Speaker 1: it down because it will upset Trump fans. You can't
1:10:17
Speaker 1: upset your most fervent customers. And this is why the
1:10:21
Speaker 1: system is completely broken and why I see storm clouds
1:10:26
Speaker 1: gathering here in a lot of different ways. Another development
1:10:30
Speaker 1: that is similar to all this, we now know that
1:10:33
Speaker 1: the fake Obama Swami is, indeed, as has been rumored previously,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: running for governor of Ohio to replace Mike the Wine.
1:10:42
Speaker 1: Now I despise Mike the Wine one because he was
1:10:45
Speaker 1: horrible during COVID and two because I know just how
1:10:47
Speaker 1: corrupt his investigation as Attorney General was into the so
1:10:51
Speaker 1: called Stupenville High School football rate case. So I really
1:10:56
Speaker 1: loathe Mike the Wine. I think I might hate for
1:10:59
Speaker 1: Fake Obama Swami even more because he's a fraud. He's
1:11:03
Speaker 1: a phony. And part of the reason why for Fake
1:11:06
Speaker 1: Obama Swami is such a perfect name is that he's
1:11:08
Speaker 1: actually plagiarized Barack Obama on multiple occasions. He has flip
1:11:13
Speaker 1: flopped on everything, including Maga World, including Donald Trump himself.
1:11:19
Speaker 1: I mean, he's a complete grifting fraud. But now Donald
1:11:23
Speaker 1: Trump has endorsed him to be governor of Ohio, which
1:11:28
Speaker 1: essentially ends it. Essentially ends it. There's no way for
1:11:33
Speaker 1: any other Republican unless something catastrophic happens to Obama Swami
1:11:39
Speaker 1: to defeat him for the nomination. And once you're the
1:11:42
Speaker 1: Republican nominee in Ohio, there's a very good chance you're
1:11:47
Speaker 1: gonna win. Now that it's not assured. If Democrats somehow
1:11:50
Speaker 1: found a decent candidate to go up against him, I
1:11:53
Speaker 1: think he could lose, but unless that occurs, the fake
1:11:57
Speaker 1: Obama Swamy is gonna be governor of Ohio, which means
1:12:00
Speaker 1: he is a significant player into the future. I mean,
1:12:05
Speaker 1: let's say Democrats win in twenty twenty eight. I realized
1:12:09
Speaker 1: this is way down the road here, but you could
1:12:10
Speaker 1: certainly see a world in twenty thirty two where the
1:12:14
Speaker 1: fake Obama Swamy, having been governor of Ohio, is a major,
1:12:17
Speaker 1: major candidate, probably maybe even a favorite in twenty thirty
1:12:21
Speaker 1: two to be the Republican presidential nominee. And that would
1:12:27
Speaker 1: be terrible. But again that's storm clouds are everywhere here. Now.
1:12:32
Speaker 1: It's interesting to compare what's going on in Ohio with
1:12:36
Speaker 1: a fake Obama Swami and what's going on in Florida,
1:12:40
Speaker 1: because obviously Ron DeSantis has termed out in twenty twenty
1:12:44
Speaker 1: six and Trump has endorsed Byron Donald's black male Republican
1:12:49
Speaker 1: congressman from Florida to be the next governor of Florida,
1:12:53
Speaker 1: which of course that blocks out Matt Gates. That was,
1:12:56
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the last chance for Matt Gates to
1:12:59
Speaker 1: return to Polo takes well, that avenue has been closed off,
1:13:02
Speaker 1: which I find to be very very interesting, and Trump
1:13:06
Speaker 1: endorses Byron Donald Donald's and that would seem to be
1:13:10
Speaker 1: the end of it, except in Florida, you have something
1:13:15
Speaker 1: that you don't have in Ohio, which is Ron de
1:13:18
Speaker 1: Santis and Rhanda. Santis made a I think fascinating statement.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was really directly in response
1:13:28
Speaker 1: to Trump endorsing Donald's, but it clearly was at least
1:13:31
Speaker 1: in part in response to that. There's two reasons why
1:13:36
Speaker 1: I think the clip I'm about to play for you
1:13:38
Speaker 1: from DeSantis is important. One, it shows some pushback on
1:13:43
Speaker 1: the Trump endorsement of Donald's for governor, and has been
1:13:47
Speaker 1: rumors that maybe Ronda Santis's wife, Casey, would run. I'm
1:13:52
Speaker 1: not convinced of that, but you know, I don't. I don't.
1:13:56
Speaker 1: I would not like to see a Donald's DeSantis primary
1:14:00
Speaker 1: with Trump endorsing Donald's in Florida because I don't think
1:14:03
Speaker 1: that would turn out well, because I think that's how
1:14:05
Speaker 1: much powered Trump has over the primary voter in any state,
1:14:10
Speaker 1: even in Florida, where DeSantis is still very popular among Republicans.
1:14:15
Speaker 1: But there's another part of this clip that I found significant,
1:14:20
Speaker 1: which is I think DeSantis is seeing some of the
1:14:24
Speaker 1: same storm clouds gathering that I do with regard to
1:14:28
Speaker 1: the Trump presidency, because if you listen carefully, of course,
1:14:32
Speaker 1: he's smart here, as he always is. He's not blaming Trump.
1:14:36
Speaker 1: He's blaming Congress, which Donald's is a part of, and
1:14:40
Speaker 1: he's blaming Republicans in Congress for not basically codifying anything
1:14:45
Speaker 1: that Trump wants to do, not passing any laws, and
1:14:48
Speaker 1: how easy it would be for all of this to
1:14:52
Speaker 1: be changed. Now. When he says that, he's referring to
1:14:55
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, like what's happened in Florida,
1:14:58
Speaker 1: people can take for granted Florida's a red state now forever,
1:15:02
Speaker 1: and if you're not diligent, that may not be the case.
1:15:05
Speaker 1: I get where he's coming from. But Desanders is saying
1:15:08
Speaker 1: a lot of different things here, which is why I
1:15:11
Speaker 1: want you to listen to his response to this whole
1:15:14
Speaker 1: issue of Donald's in particular and the Republican Congress in general.
1:15:20
Speaker 5: You know, my view is is Donald Trump just got
1:15:24
Speaker 5: into office. I want these congressmen focused on enacting his agenda.
1:15:29
Speaker 5: They haven't done very much yet. They're not putting his
1:15:31
Speaker 5: executive orders into place. We'll see what they do on
1:15:35
Speaker 5: the spending but we have such a narrow majority that
1:15:38
Speaker 5: to be trying to campaign other places and missing these votes,
1:15:41
Speaker 5: I think is not something that's advisable at all. And
1:15:45
Speaker 5: so the reality is is, you know, we've achieved victories
1:15:50
Speaker 5: in Florida. We need to start achieving those victories up there.
1:15:54
Speaker 5: So I think people look at it and say, you know,
1:15:57
Speaker 5: you got a guy like Byron. He just hasn't been
1:15:59
Speaker 5: a part of any of the victories that we've had
1:16:01
Speaker 5: here over the left over these last years. He's just
1:16:03
Speaker 5: not been a part of it. He's been in other
1:16:06
Speaker 5: states campaigning, doing that and that's fine, but okay, well,
1:16:10
Speaker 5: then deliver results up there.
1:16:11
Speaker 1: You know, that's what I want to see.
1:16:12
Speaker 5: I want to see them delivering results for the people
1:16:15
Speaker 5: of Florida. We deliver it here all the time for
1:16:18
Speaker 5: the people of Florida. And that's what we need to
1:16:21
Speaker 5: be doing. And so you know, I've said I'm going
1:16:24
Speaker 5: to be you know, raising money, We're going to be
1:16:26
Speaker 5: looking to have somebody that's going to be able to
1:16:28
Speaker 5: continue and build off the success that we've had here
1:16:31
Speaker 5: in Florida. I think a lot of people think somehow
1:16:35
Speaker 5: the battle's been won and you don't have to worry
1:16:37
Speaker 5: about it.
1:16:38
Speaker 1: We could revert very quickly.
1:16:40
Speaker 5: That could happen one hundred percent, And so it really
1:16:43
Speaker 5: needs to be Okay, are you going to be somebody
1:16:45
Speaker 5: that's going to fight for people, especially when it's not easy.
1:16:49
Speaker 3: Uh?
1:16:49
Speaker 5: Have you been willing to get in and get involved
1:16:52
Speaker 5: in these big battles that we've had and have won
1:16:54
Speaker 5: over these many years. And if you're not willing to
1:16:57
Speaker 5: do that, then I think we are going to see
1:16:59
Speaker 5: this state revert. So I would not take anything for granted.
1:17:02
Speaker 5: I know people have been I mean, we've had hundreds
1:17:05
Speaker 5: of thousands of people move here specifically because of the
1:17:09
Speaker 5: policies that we have, and I think that that's something
1:17:12
Speaker 5: that you should not take for granted. This is not
1:17:15
Speaker 5: necessarily something that just goes on autopilot, and it's just
1:17:18
Speaker 5: something that I think.
1:17:19
Speaker 1: Is really really important.
1:17:20
Speaker 5: So my thing is is, yes, we've achieved these victories,
1:17:24
Speaker 5: we have more to do, but you got to solidify
1:17:27
Speaker 5: that and then you got to take it, take it
1:17:29
Speaker 5: to the next level. And that's really what the name
1:17:32
Speaker 5: of the game is.
1:17:34
Speaker 1: So I'm not one hundred percent sure I know exactly
1:17:37
Speaker 1: where DeSantis was going there, but I interpreted that as
1:17:42
Speaker 1: he's having some of the same misgivings that I'm having,
1:17:46
Speaker 1: that he sees trouble down the road here and that,
1:17:52
Speaker 1: And you know, it's part of why I like desantas
1:17:54
Speaker 1: he has the same kind of mentality of Okay, we
1:17:57
Speaker 1: have to remain diligent, you have to main at least
1:18:00
Speaker 1: somewhat pessimistic, because therefore you can see the pitfalls that
1:18:05
Speaker 1: you may face in the future. And we have. We
1:18:09
Speaker 1: can't get complacent here. But I also found it very,
1:18:13
Speaker 1: very interesting that he specifically referenced Donald's vis a vie
1:18:18
Speaker 1: the situation involving the next governor of Florida, because of course,
1:18:21
Speaker 1: if you're governor of Florida, you're you know, you're probably
1:18:25
Speaker 1: in a better position, maybe even than Obama Swami is
1:18:28
Speaker 1: in the future as a potential presidential candidate, because presumably
1:18:32
Speaker 1: you would get eight years if things went even halfway decently.
1:18:36
Speaker 1: Now that Florida, much like Ohio, is a soilidly red state. Now,
1:18:41
Speaker 1: I want to turn out from what's going on the
1:18:43
Speaker 1: on the right to what's happening on the left, specifically
1:18:46
Speaker 1: in the left wing media, and how there has been
1:18:50
Speaker 1: an absolute collapse, an absolute collapse of the left wing
1:18:56
Speaker 1: media that seems to be accelerating every time you think, Okay, well,
1:19:02
Speaker 1: you know that shoe dropped, and you know, we never
1:19:04
Speaker 1: would have expected that to happen, and you know, things
1:19:07
Speaker 1: can't get that much worse for the left wing media.
1:19:10
Speaker 1: They do. And I have referenced in the past that
1:19:15
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing a little bit of the revenge
1:19:18
Speaker 1: of the billionaires when it comes to the media. Obviously,
1:19:22
Speaker 1: Elon Musk buying Twitter and turning it from a left
1:19:26
Speaker 1: wing outlet to a right wing outlet was a is
1:19:29
Speaker 1: a huge part of that. I've referenced what is seemingly
1:19:34
Speaker 1: happening at Warner Brothers Discovery when it comes to CNN, Comcast,
1:19:39
Speaker 1: and MSNBC, which I'm going to get to momentarily, But
1:19:44
Speaker 1: maybe the most remarkable example of this is Jeff Bezos
1:19:49
Speaker 1: and the Washington Post. And Bezos announced something this morning
1:19:55
Speaker 1: as I'm with getting ready to tape this episode of
1:19:58
Speaker 1: the podcast. It a couple of years ago I would
1:20:01
Speaker 1: have thought is absolutely impossible, especially during COVID, if you
1:20:06
Speaker 1: had said that Jeff Bezos, the seemingly very liberal, multi
1:20:13
Speaker 1: billionaire owner of the Washington Post, was going to make
1:20:17
Speaker 1: an announcement that the opinion page of the Washington Post
1:20:24
Speaker 1: would be completely devoted to issues involved in personal liberties
1:20:31
Speaker 1: and free markets. That's a direct quote personal liberties and
1:20:38
Speaker 1: free markets, and that the current editor of the opinion
1:20:45
Speaker 1: page of the Washington Post would essentially resign their position
1:20:50
Speaker 1: because of this change in philosophy. I would have said,
1:20:56
Speaker 1: that's a joke, that can't possibly be true in twenty
1:21:01
Speaker 1: twenty or twenty twenty one, in the midst of the
1:21:03
Speaker 1: COVID panic, where the Washington Post was obviously part of
1:21:08
Speaker 1: the left wing media charge to lock everybody down, take
1:21:12
Speaker 1: away personal liberties, and shut down businesses, which is obviously
1:21:17
Speaker 1: as anti free markets as you can possibly get. If
1:21:21
Speaker 1: you told me that, I just I would not have
1:21:23
Speaker 1: believed it impossible, And it is theoretically possible. Maybe even
1:21:30
Speaker 1: more than that that maybe Bezos realizes that COVID was
1:21:34
Speaker 1: a mistake, that the reaction of the COVID panic was
1:21:37
Speaker 1: a mistake, and that that's partially why he feels so
1:21:41
Speaker 1: passionately about this. But he was obviously at Trump's inauguration,
1:21:46
Speaker 1: which surprised people. He and Trump have seemingly formed an alliance.
1:21:51
Speaker 1: Of course, there's a big part of you. That is,
1:21:54
Speaker 1: that's kind of consistent with my view of Trump as
1:21:57
Speaker 1: a mob boss, because Bezos understands, you know, what Trump's
1:22:01
Speaker 1: sensibilities are, how powerful he could be, especially with regard
1:22:05
Speaker 1: to some of Bezos's businesses and government regulation, and he's
1:22:10
Speaker 1: vehemently against government regulation, especially for himself, and I guess philosophically,
1:22:16
Speaker 1: so that that was that is just amazing, and it's
1:22:19
Speaker 1: a it's fantastic news. I don't know who they're gonna,
1:22:24
Speaker 1: you know, tap to to become the new editor of
1:22:27
Speaker 1: the opinion page. I sarcastically put my name in the
1:22:29
Speaker 1: hat in response to Bezos' tweet announcing this. I think
1:22:33
Speaker 1: I would actually be a very good person for this job,
1:22:35
Speaker 1: although I realized that's never going to happen for a
1:22:38
Speaker 1: million reasons. But that is remarkable. I mean, that might
1:22:42
Speaker 1: be the most amazing example of how much the left
1:22:46
Speaker 1: wing media has collapsed in an incredibly short amount of time.
1:22:51
Speaker 1: For The Washington Post to now be in a situation
1:22:55
Speaker 1: where their opinion page, famously liberal, will be devoted to
1:23:00
Speaker 1: the cause of personal liberties and free markets, and their
1:23:04
Speaker 1: editor has resigned in response, and already liberals are completely
1:23:09
Speaker 1: freaking out, and of course they will cancel their subscriptions
1:23:13
Speaker 1: to The Washington Post in protests. This is I'm sure
1:23:16
Speaker 1: not going to be a good economic decision for Bezos
1:23:20
Speaker 1: in the short run, but apparently he doesn't care, and
1:23:23
Speaker 1: good for him, you know, whatever his real motivations are,
1:23:26
Speaker 1: I'd be curious to know. But that's fantastic and I
1:23:30
Speaker 1: think conservatives should take the w on that one. And
1:23:35
Speaker 1: let's see what happens here, because is this an indication
1:23:37
Speaker 1: of a of a really significant sea change in the
1:23:42
Speaker 1: way the media is going to operate. Well, there's other
1:23:45
Speaker 1: evidence that it might be, most of it coming in
1:23:48
Speaker 1: this past week at NBC and MSNBC, which of course
1:23:53
Speaker 1: are being divided up by comcasts, so you know, currently
1:23:57
Speaker 1: they are still under the same umbrella, but that will
1:24:00
Speaker 1: not be the case for much longer. And MSNBC made
1:24:03
Speaker 1: a lot of news because they finally got rid of
1:24:06
Speaker 1: racist black female Joy Read and this caused all sorts
1:24:12
Speaker 1: of consternation on the left. This is a woman who
1:24:16
Speaker 1: is a nut, she's a racist, Her ratings were always bad,
1:24:21
Speaker 1: she was wrong all the time, and she should have
1:24:24
Speaker 1: been fired. But it was seen at MSNBC as somehow
1:24:31
Speaker 1: an act of racism. That's the only way the Left
1:24:33
Speaker 1: can look at this. They see a black woman being
1:24:37
Speaker 1: fired even though she was incompetent and failed at her job.
1:24:40
Speaker 1: But that's racism. And hilariously, that was articulated most prominently
1:24:46
Speaker 1: by Rachel Maddow, who has been the star at MSNBC
1:24:50
Speaker 1: for many years now, so big a star that she
1:24:54
Speaker 1: doesn't even have to work full time. She's working full
1:24:57
Speaker 1: time for the first hundred days of the Trump administration.
1:25:00
Speaker 1: Then she's going back to I think once a week,
1:25:03
Speaker 1: which is hilarious, like, okay, so the crisis is only
1:25:06
Speaker 1: there for one hundred days, and then you don't really
1:25:08
Speaker 1: care that much. You only have to work one day
1:25:10
Speaker 1: a week after that. And she gets paid an insane
1:25:14
Speaker 1: amount of money, an insane amount of money. And you know,
1:25:19
Speaker 1: if she took a massive salary cut, she could save
1:25:23
Speaker 1: a lot of jobs. I mean, MSNBC apparently, in conjunction
1:25:26
Speaker 1: with firing Joy Reid, has gotten rid of almost a
1:25:30
Speaker 1: hundred different writers and producers, all of them could have
1:25:34
Speaker 1: been kept on budgetarily if Rachel Maddow really strongly believed
1:25:39
Speaker 1: in this by taking a few million dollar cut in
1:25:42
Speaker 1: her massive bloated salary. But here she is a white
1:25:47
Speaker 1: lesbian attacking her own network that pays her a sort
1:25:52
Speaker 1: amount of money for a limited amount of work, and
1:25:56
Speaker 1: claiming that the firing of Joy Read was base essentially
1:26:01
Speaker 1: in racism. She doesn't specifically say that, but shes she
1:26:06
Speaker 1: more than kind of says it, She essentially says that.
1:26:09
Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like on MSNBC and.
1:26:12
Speaker 6: Even bigger programming. Change is at seven pm, seven pm Eastern,
1:26:18
Speaker 6: where Joy Reads show the readout ended tonight, and Joy
1:26:23
Speaker 6: is not taking a different job in the network, she
1:26:25
Speaker 6: is leaving the network altogether. And that is very, very
1:26:29
Speaker 6: very hard to take. I am fifty one years old.
1:26:33
Speaker 6: I have been gainfully employed since I was twelve, and
1:26:38
Speaker 6: I have had so many different kinds of jobs. You
1:26:39
Speaker 6: wouldn't believe me if I told you. But in all
1:26:42
Speaker 6: of the jobs I have had, in all of the
1:26:44
Speaker 6: years I have been alive, there is no colleague for
1:26:47
Speaker 6: whom I have had more affection and more respect than
1:26:51
Speaker 6: Joy Read. I love everything about her. I have learned
1:26:55
Speaker 6: so much from her. I have so much more to
1:26:57
Speaker 6: learn from her. I do not want to lose her
1:26:59
Speaker 6: as a colleague here at MSNBC, and personally, I think
1:27:02
Speaker 6: it is a bad mistake to let.
1:27:04
Speaker 1: Her walk out the door.
1:27:05
Speaker 6: It is not my call and I understand.
1:27:07
Speaker 1: That, but that's what I think. I will tell you.
1:27:10
Speaker 6: It is also unnerving to see that on a network
1:27:14
Speaker 6: where we've got two count of two non white hosts
1:27:17
Speaker 6: in primetime. Both of our non white hosts in primetime
1:27:22
Speaker 6: are losing their shows, as is Katie Fang on the weekend.
1:27:26
Speaker 6: And that feels worse than bad no matter who replaces. Now,
1:27:30
Speaker 6: that feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.
1:27:33
Speaker 1: Now. The lack of self awareness here, which is prevalent
1:27:37
Speaker 1: throughout the left wing media. I mean, they have no
1:27:40
Speaker 1: self awareness at all. They are completely clueless about what
1:27:45
Speaker 1: hypocrites they are. And in this case, it's pretty dramatic.
1:27:49
Speaker 1: I mean, as I've already mentioned, Rachel Maddow makes an
1:27:52
Speaker 1: absurd amount of money for a very limited amount of work.
1:27:56
Speaker 1: And here she is a white person who is, based
1:28:02
Speaker 1: upon her own theory of this, she's protected, I guess,
1:28:07
Speaker 1: while while black people are being targeted by the most
1:28:11
Speaker 1: liberal television network in the history of America. It's ridiculous
1:28:15
Speaker 1: on its face. What I think is really happening here
1:28:18
Speaker 1: is budgetary cutbacks and some backing away from the progressive
1:28:27
Speaker 1: precipice of insanity that MSNBC has been writing. And that's
1:28:33
Speaker 1: why they got rid of Joy Reid. It's really not
1:28:36
Speaker 1: that complex, but in Rachel Maddoll's world, it's racism, which
1:28:40
Speaker 1: is of course indicative of the problem to begin with.
1:28:43
Speaker 1: When that's your philosophy as a commentator, and that's your
1:28:46
Speaker 1: philosophy as a network, that's not going to play to
1:28:50
Speaker 1: a large portion of the American population because it's ridiculous
1:28:55
Speaker 1: and most people understand that. And so we see this
1:29:00
Speaker 1: remarkable collapse of all sorts of elements of the left
1:29:04
Speaker 1: wing media. By the way, at NBC, Lester Holt, who's
1:29:08
Speaker 1: been a longtime news anchor, you know, the evening news
1:29:12
Speaker 1: at NBC, he's announcing that he's leaving that post later
1:29:16
Speaker 1: on this year, bizarrely to focus more on Dateline, which
1:29:21
Speaker 1: I don't even get that. I don't even I don't
1:29:23
Speaker 1: even understand that. My wife and I always joke about
1:29:26
Speaker 1: why is Lester Halt introing and you know, signing off
1:29:32
Speaker 1: for Dateline when he doesn't really work at Dateline. We
1:29:34
Speaker 1: watch Dateline every every week, and it seems weird that
1:29:38
Speaker 1: he is the one that introduces the show and then
1:29:41
Speaker 1: ends it. I mean literally takes probably five minutes of
1:29:44
Speaker 1: his time for two or three sentences and that's it.
1:29:48
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Somehow he's gonna have an expanded
1:29:50
Speaker 1: role at Dateline, or whether this is just an excuse
1:29:52
Speaker 1: for his retirement or whatever it is. I don't know,
1:29:56
Speaker 1: but Leicester Halt is gone. I never had a huge
1:29:59
Speaker 1: problem with Lester Hull, except for the fact that I'm
1:30:02
Speaker 1: sure he got his job at least in part because
1:30:05
Speaker 1: he is an African American. That doesn't mean an African
1:30:07
Speaker 1: American can't be or shouldn't be a news anchor. But unfortunately,
1:30:11
Speaker 1: the way NBC has gone, especially over the last decade
1:30:15
Speaker 1: or so, you have to conclude that their decisions are
1:30:18
Speaker 1: based in DEI that doesn't mean Lester Holt wasn't qualified
1:30:22
Speaker 1: or didn't do a decent job. I actually think Lester
1:30:25
Speaker 1: Holt was better than average. But unfortunately they have created
1:30:29
Speaker 1: those rules. They have created those rules that make you
1:30:33
Speaker 1: presume that, Oh and I hate this, This is the
1:30:35
Speaker 1: part of DEI hate more than anything. They make you
1:30:38
Speaker 1: presume that anybody who gets a position that's even remotely questionable,
1:30:43
Speaker 1: especially if it's high profile and you know, job everybody
1:30:46
Speaker 1: wants and they get it, and they happen to be black,
1:30:50
Speaker 1: or they happen to be lesbian, or in Maddow's case,
1:30:53
Speaker 1: they're both a female analystyan Obviously it's kind of redundant,
1:30:58
Speaker 1: but you get my point that there's there's multiple dei
1:31:02
Speaker 1: explanations for why they may have gotten their job. It
1:31:06
Speaker 1: creates suspicion, and it's unfair, and it's insidious, and it's racist,
1:31:11
Speaker 1: and it's I believe, extremely counterproductive to the entire issue
1:31:15
Speaker 1: of race relations. But when you look at the direction
1:31:19
Speaker 1: the NBC has gone, I've talked before about how they
1:31:22
Speaker 1: systematically got rid of every straight white male who was
1:31:26
Speaker 1: a big name in their entire network, including my friend
1:31:31
Speaker 1: Matt lauerd Brian Williams, Chris Matthews, Johnny Miller, Jay Leno,
1:31:38
Speaker 1: I'm al Michaels. I mean everybody, Bob Costas another friend
1:31:44
Speaker 1: of mine. I mean all of them straight white males
1:31:47
Speaker 1: who were in the mid you know, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen,
1:31:51
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen range. Those were the staples of the network.
1:31:56
Speaker 1: They got rid of all of them. I believe because
1:31:58
Speaker 1: they had big contracts and because they were straight white males,
1:32:02
Speaker 1: that they decide they were going a completely different direction.
1:32:05
Speaker 1: And Lester Holt became the news anchor on the weekdays
1:32:10
Speaker 1: for the evening News on NBC, and now he's leaving.
1:32:13
Speaker 1: Who will be replaced by I don't know. You know,
1:32:15
Speaker 1: Joy Reed is now available, so that it would really
1:32:18
Speaker 1: be something that they decided to go with with Joy Red,
1:32:21
Speaker 1: but I don't anticipate that happening. There's a couple of
1:32:24
Speaker 1: other elements of the left wing media that are absolutely
1:32:28
Speaker 1: hilariously collapsing, and Trump fans are cheering. The White House
1:32:35
Speaker 1: Correspondence Association is getting their panties all in a bunch
1:32:41
Speaker 1: because the White House Press Secretary has announced that the
1:32:46
Speaker 1: White House Press Correspondence Association, the White House Correspondence Association,
1:32:50
Speaker 1: is no longer going to be having the authority to
1:32:55
Speaker 1: choose who is credentialed at the White House, and this
1:33:00
Speaker 1: has liberals going bananas bananas, And basically the bottom line
1:33:06
Speaker 1: is that now the White House Press Secretary is going
1:33:10
Speaker 1: to be in charge of that, and you know, liberals
1:33:13
Speaker 1: are making a point that in previous years, I might
1:33:17
Speaker 1: have thought was legitimate, which is wait a minute, how
1:33:21
Speaker 1: you know if we're losing our ability to determine who
1:33:24
Speaker 1: gets White House credentials, that means that the current president
1:33:28
Speaker 1: gets to choose who they get covered by. Yeah, except
1:33:34
Speaker 1: for the fact that you all went along and enabled
1:33:38
Speaker 1: that exact reality when it came to Joe Biden and
1:33:42
Speaker 1: specifically his mental decline. So I'm sorry, you have no
1:33:46
Speaker 1: credibility on this. If you wanted your credibility, if you
1:33:51
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to justify your special place and
1:33:54
Speaker 1: this tradition that the White House Correspondence Association gets to
1:33:59
Speaker 1: have this incredible power and choose who's allowed into the
1:34:02
Speaker 1: club and who's not allowed into the club, then maybe
1:34:06
Speaker 1: you should have not cozied up to a current president
1:34:10
Speaker 1: who just happens to be of your own political party,
1:34:13
Speaker 1: because the White House Correspondents Association, especially their leadership, is
1:34:17
Speaker 1: extremely liberal. In fact, their president, who's a gay black man,
1:34:22
Speaker 1: is leaving coincidentally, maybe not coincidentally, is leaving the White
1:34:28
Speaker 1: House Correspondence Association to take a weekend gigwhere at MSNBC.
1:34:35
Speaker 1: You can't make this shit up. So maybe you should
1:34:39
Speaker 1: have not enabled and covered up for the mental decline
1:34:44
Speaker 1: of a president. I mean, that's really on the White
1:34:48
Speaker 1: House Correspondence Association. That's their number one job. Their number
1:34:54
Speaker 1: one job is make sure that the president the United
1:34:57
Speaker 1: States is functioning. They're there for the American people in
1:35:01
Speaker 1: theory to make sure that we have a functioning president
1:35:05
Speaker 1: because they're literally right there. They have access to that person.
1:35:10
Speaker 1: And if there's a problem, as there obviously was when
1:35:13
Speaker 1: it came to Joe Biden, then the American people need
1:35:16
Speaker 1: to know about it. And they failed. They didn't just fail,
1:35:20
Speaker 1: they failed catastrophically. So while this is a lot like
1:35:25
Speaker 1: the ap associated press battle with the Trump administration over
1:35:29
Speaker 1: their access, had you not squandered your credibility and your
1:35:34
Speaker 1: special place within the fourth of State, I might be
1:35:38
Speaker 1: willing to side with you, even though I despise you politically.
1:35:42
Speaker 1: But you blew it. You blew it, and these are
1:35:45
Speaker 1: the consequences, and you know so well. I do think
1:35:50
Speaker 1: that there are precedent concerns, and I hate the fact
1:35:52
Speaker 1: that we're now going to live in a world where
1:35:54
Speaker 1: every time there's a new administration from a different party,
1:35:57
Speaker 1: we get rid of basically the entire press core and
1:36:00
Speaker 1: they replace we replace them with a press corps that
1:36:03
Speaker 1: we like, because that's clearly what the Trump team is doing.
1:36:06
Speaker 1: I'm not naive here. They're going to make sure that
1:36:10
Speaker 1: that voices that they like can be heard and get access,
1:36:14
Speaker 1: and voices that they don't like are restricted in access.
1:36:18
Speaker 1: And don't I don't think that's healthy. I don't think
1:36:20
Speaker 1: that's good. That's very problematic from a precedents standpoint. I
1:36:24
Speaker 1: think from now until you know whenever, that's going to
1:36:28
Speaker 1: be the norm, and that's that's not good, that's destructive.
1:36:33
Speaker 1: That's not the way things should work in a functioning
1:36:36
Speaker 1: democratic republic where the fourth of State Freedom of the Press,
1:36:39
Speaker 1: first Amendment really means something where okay, well, you know, now,
1:36:45
Speaker 1: we're just going to have a complete cleansing of the
1:36:48
Speaker 1: of the press corps every time we have a new administration,
1:36:52
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a press corps that is
1:36:53
Speaker 1: to our liking. And by the ways, as this precedent
1:36:58
Speaker 1: becomes furthering grain and people become desensitized and this all
1:37:02
Speaker 1: becomes normalized, eventually we're going to see a democratic administration
1:37:08
Speaker 1: ban Fox News Channel. I'm totally convinced to that or
1:37:14
Speaker 1: something to that effect. And then what what will be
1:37:17
Speaker 1: the stand you know, what will be the principle on
1:37:20
Speaker 1: which conservatives can stand. I don't know what it will be.
1:37:22
Speaker 1: But so as is happening constantly, there's always confusion and
1:37:28
Speaker 1: conflicting ideas here. This is never clear cut. But I
1:37:32
Speaker 1: totally understand why the Trump team is not abiding by
1:37:38
Speaker 1: this long standing tradition involving the White House Correspondence Association.
1:37:44
Speaker 1: They blew it, specifically when it came to Joe Biden.
1:37:49
Speaker 1: They gave up their credibility and therefore this privilege being
1:37:54
Speaker 1: taken away, while it's problematic in the long run, does
1:37:59
Speaker 1: not create any opts outraging me. And it's particularly interesting
1:38:03
Speaker 1: that this is all happening when CNN's Jake Tapper, this
1:38:07
Speaker 1: is the funniest thing that has happened in the media
1:38:10
Speaker 1: in a long time. I mean, this is you almost
1:38:13
Speaker 1: had to believe that this was a joke, that this
1:38:16
Speaker 1: cannot possibly be real. But Jake Tapper announced this morning
1:38:22
Speaker 1: that he has co authored a book with Alex Thompson,
1:38:26
Speaker 1: another reporter but not of CNN. Somehow they've gotten together
1:38:31
Speaker 1: to write a book called Original Sin. President Biden's decline,
1:38:37
Speaker 1: its cover up, and his disastrous choice to run again
1:38:44
Speaker 1: by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Now, this is unbelievable
1:38:50
Speaker 1: even by the modern standards of the totally broken news media,
1:38:55
Speaker 1: because not only did Jake Tapper do nothing in the
1:39:00
Speaker 1: actual campaign to blow up this obvious cover up and
1:39:05
Speaker 1: enabling of a president that was in mental decline, he
1:39:09
Speaker 1: did exactly the opposite, exactly the opposite. And when this
1:39:16
Speaker 1: was announced on Twitter, my god, did Jake Tapper get
1:39:20
Speaker 1: dunked on? I mean this? You know, this is way
1:39:24
Speaker 1: better than the NBA dunk Contest, which got one for
1:39:27
Speaker 1: the third straight time by a guy that's not even
1:39:29
Speaker 1: in the NBA because he's a white dude. It's NBA DEI.
1:39:32
Speaker 1: But that's another story for another day. The point is
1:39:35
Speaker 1: people are mocking this, and rightfully so, and making a
1:39:40
Speaker 1: clip of Jake Tapper interviewing Laura Trump the sistern it's
1:39:47
Speaker 1: not sister, the daughter in law, the daughter in law,
1:39:50
Speaker 1: although Tapper himself gets this wrong during this clip you're
1:39:53
Speaker 1: about to hear, but the daughter in law of Donald Trump.
1:39:57
Speaker 1: You know, he was interviewing Laura Trump. Trump was making
1:40:01
Speaker 1: the argument that the president, President Biden was in mental decline,
1:40:05
Speaker 1: and Tapper didn't just push back, He pushed back as
1:40:11
Speaker 1: hard as you can possibly imagine, mocking her, claiming that
1:40:15
Speaker 1: she was inappropriately mocking his stutter, which there was never
1:40:20
Speaker 1: any evidence that Joe Biden had a stutter his whole life.
1:40:24
Speaker 1: I mean, we have voluminous clips of him as a
1:40:27
Speaker 1: younger man. He only suddenly had been fighting a stutter
1:40:31
Speaker 1: as a whole life when he could no longer speak
1:40:34
Speaker 1: in a coaching manner because he was experiencing mental decline.
1:40:38
Speaker 1: So Jake Tapper was fully part of this cover. I've
1:40:42
Speaker 1: enabling it. We have video evidence of it. And here
1:40:46
Speaker 1: that is how.
1:40:47
Speaker 7: Do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel
1:40:49
Speaker 7: when they see you make a comment like that.
1:40:54
Speaker 8: First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden
1:40:58
Speaker 8: ever suffered from a stutter. We see on stage with
1:41:01
Speaker 8: Joe Biden. Jake is very clearly a cognitive decline. That's
1:41:05
Speaker 8: what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable.
1:41:07
Speaker 1: You are, No, That's so amazing.
1:41:11
Speaker 3: It's so amazing to me.
1:41:12
Speaker 8: That try and figure out an answer a cognitive decline.
1:41:15
Speaker 1: You're trying to.
1:41:16
Speaker 8: Tell me that what I was suggesting was I think.
1:41:18
Speaker 7: That you were mocking his stutter. Yeah, I think you
1:41:21
Speaker 7: were mocking his stutter. And I think you have absolutely
1:41:23
Speaker 7: no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. I would think
1:41:27
Speaker 7: that somebody in the Prompt family would be more sensitive
1:41:30
Speaker 7: to people who do do not have medical licenses diagnosing
1:41:35
Speaker 7: politicians from afar. Plenty of people have diagnosed your father
1:41:39
Speaker 7: from Afar, and I'm sure it offends you, your father
1:41:42
Speaker 7: in law from a far. I'm sure it defends you.
1:41:43
Speaker 7: You don't have any standing to.
1:41:45
Speaker 8: Say noticing what I'm saying.
1:41:47
Speaker 7: You just talked about a cognitive decline that.
1:41:50
Speaker 1: I have one last question for you. Now you can't.
1:41:52
Speaker 8: I'm on stage, and it's very concerning to a lot
1:41:55
Speaker 8: of people that this could be the leader of the
1:41:58
Speaker 8: free world. Okay, that is all I'm saying. Thank you,
1:42:00
Speaker 8: Sorry for Joe.
1:42:02
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I'm sure that's the guy. That's the
1:42:05
Speaker 1: guy who is now writing a book not partially about
1:42:11
Speaker 1: the cover up of Joe Biden's decline, but it's primarily
1:42:16
Speaker 1: about the cover up of Joe Biden's mental decline again
1:42:21
Speaker 1: original sin President Biden's decline, its cover up, and his
1:42:27
Speaker 1: disastrous choice to run again. As I posted on Twitter,
1:42:31
Speaker 1: in response to this. If this book is successful, I'm
1:42:36
Speaker 1: now anticipating that we can expect a book from La
1:42:40
Speaker 1: Mayor Karen Bass about how dreadfully unprepared Los Angeles was
1:42:46
Speaker 1: for the recent wildfires, and one from Gavin Newsom about
1:42:51
Speaker 1: how we dramatically overreacted to the COVID panic. That's the
1:42:56
Speaker 1: scale the level of absurdity of having Jake Tapper from
1:43:02
Speaker 1: CNN write this particular book. But it's it's indicative of
1:43:08
Speaker 1: a lot of things, but among them is the complete
1:43:12
Speaker 1: lack of self awareness that these major media elite figures have.
1:43:19
Speaker 1: They have no idea. I would love to know what
1:43:22
Speaker 1: Jake Tapper's response is to the incredibly overwhelming negative reaction
1:43:30
Speaker 1: that this guy on Twitter. I mean, I would love
1:43:34
Speaker 1: to know that what he had to be expecting it? Right?
1:43:37
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I don't think so. I think
1:43:41
Speaker 1: that they have the ability to compartmentalize, and they think
1:43:45
Speaker 1: so highly of themselves. And you know, at the very least,
1:43:50
Speaker 1: if you were gonna do this, if you were gonna
1:43:53
Speaker 1: do a book like this, and look, I'm in I'm
1:43:55
Speaker 1: in favor of the book. I'm all about Okay, let's
1:43:58
Speaker 1: figure out what really happened, and let's have some accountability,
1:44:01
Speaker 1: let's get to the truth. But if you were going
1:44:03
Speaker 1: to do this as Jake Tapper as a CNN anchor,
1:44:08
Speaker 1: a network that until the debate, see and maybe this
1:44:12
Speaker 1: is how Tapper rationalizes this because CNN and John King
1:44:16
Speaker 1: and Tapper was part of this broadcast, CNN really played
1:44:20
Speaker 1: a very very significant role in blowing up the cover
1:44:24
Speaker 1: up because that debate was on CNN, and you know,
1:44:29
Speaker 1: people forget these things, but the reality is as bad
1:44:32
Speaker 1: as Biden's debate performance was, I still think it was
1:44:37
Speaker 1: in the realm of being somewhat spinnable. But John King
1:44:43
Speaker 1: immediately made it clear to everyone else at CNN, and
1:44:48
Speaker 1: you know, everybody else is watching CNN because that's where
1:44:50
Speaker 1: the debate was on, and other media members are doing
1:44:53
Speaker 1: the same thing. He made it clear, we ain't spinning this.
1:44:57
Speaker 1: This was awful, This was catastrophic. My phone is blowing up.
1:45:01
Speaker 1: That whole thing became the narrative, and so maybe in
1:45:06
Speaker 1: their minds they actually think, oh, we did a great
1:45:08
Speaker 1: job on this. But the idea that this was new
1:45:12
Speaker 1: information at that debate is beyond ludicrous. Everybody knew it
1:45:17
Speaker 1: except the news media that was enabling it because they
1:45:21
Speaker 1: were hanging on for dear life because they didn't want
1:45:24
Speaker 1: Trump to be elected president, and Biden was the only
1:45:27
Speaker 1: option at that time. So I mean that to me
1:45:33
Speaker 1: just indicates how unbelievably out of touch the news media is.
1:45:37
Speaker 1: But if you were gonna do this, if you were
1:45:39
Speaker 1: gonna do this interrational world, at the very least, you
1:45:43
Speaker 1: need Jake Tapper to do an on air media culpa.
1:45:47
Speaker 1: Maybe he will at some point, but there's certainly no
1:45:50
Speaker 1: indication of it as of right now. And that's why
1:45:53
Speaker 1: one of the many reasons why this book is getting
1:45:56
Speaker 1: rightfully mocked now. I referenced Karen Vass in the LA wildfires.
1:46:01
Speaker 1: There's been two stories that are just amazing that I
1:46:05
Speaker 1: have to tell you about that haven't gotten that much
1:46:08
Speaker 1: national attention. They've gotten some that relate to the LA
1:46:13
Speaker 1: wildfires and the way that Los Angeles is incomplete and
1:46:17
Speaker 1: total dysfunction. The first is that Karen Bass, the mayor
1:46:21
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, has now fired the lesbian fire chief
1:46:27
Speaker 1: that she was thinking about firing days after the wildfires
1:46:33
Speaker 1: hit and decided not to, even after the fire chief
1:46:36
Speaker 1: had criticized Bass. You may recall that there was this.
1:46:41
Speaker 1: This was when I realized, Okay, the media is not
1:46:43
Speaker 1: going to allow the story to be treated as a
1:46:46
Speaker 1: normal Los Angeles story where everyone just pretends that nothing
1:46:50
Speaker 1: bad happened because shots were fired figuratively almost immediately, where
1:46:55
Speaker 1: the LA Fire Chief, a woman who got her job
1:46:58
Speaker 1: seemingly because she's a lesbian and essentially criticized the mayor
1:47:03
Speaker 1: and they had a meeting and there was a rumor
1:47:04
Speaker 1: that the fire chief had been fired, and that turned
1:47:07
Speaker 1: out not to be the case. Well, now Karen Bass,
1:47:11
Speaker 1: a couple months later, has fired the lesbian fire chief.
1:47:15
Speaker 1: And I don't think this has worked for Karen Bass
1:47:17
Speaker 1: at all, at all, even a little bit. I think
1:47:22
Speaker 1: this is being seen as her not taking personal accountability,
1:47:25
Speaker 1: trying to blame others here. She wasn't gonna at a
1:47:28
Speaker 1: cocktail party completely clueless, but she's blaming the LA Fire
1:47:33
Speaker 1: chief for not having all the resources deployed, and so
1:47:38
Speaker 1: the lesbian fire chief is gone. Politically, I think this
1:47:43
Speaker 1: was a desperate move by Bass, and I am more
1:47:46
Speaker 1: convinced than ever that if, in fact, Rick Caruso, who
1:47:50
Speaker 1: lost to Bass just over two years ago, runs against
1:47:54
Speaker 1: her in twenty twenty six, he will beat her and
1:47:57
Speaker 1: probably beat her fairly easily. Now, who knows that that's
1:48:01
Speaker 1: actually gonna happen. But nobody's buying. No one's buying this
1:48:05
Speaker 1: maneuver by Bass. And I'm actually seeing some support in
1:48:09
Speaker 1: the liberal media here for the lesbian fire chief, but
1:48:14
Speaker 1: overshadowing that story overshadowed another story involving the Los Angeles
1:48:20
Speaker 1: Fire Department that's about as Los Angeles or California as
1:48:25
Speaker 1: any story can possibly be. In fact, if you asked
1:48:29
Speaker 1: AI to create the quintessential Los Angeles story, I'm not
1:48:36
Speaker 1: sure you could do better than what is actually transpired
1:48:40
Speaker 1: in reality. And this involves another member of the LA
1:48:46
Speaker 1: Fire Department who happens to be a lesbian. This is
1:48:50
Speaker 1: a LA Fire Department captain. You may recall that after
1:48:54
Speaker 1: the wildfire's hit there was a lot of focus on
1:48:56
Speaker 1: how many lesbians were at the top of the hierarchy
1:48:59
Speaker 1: of the Los Angeles Fire Department. Well, this captain happened
1:49:02
Speaker 1: to be one of them, and it turns out that
1:49:06
Speaker 1: tragically they were murdered in their home. And at first,
1:49:13
Speaker 1: at first there were liberals who tried to use this
1:49:18
Speaker 1: to claim uha uhhh, this is what happens when someone
1:49:23
Speaker 1: is accused of being a dei higher and someone has
1:49:27
Speaker 1: targeted them. And this is Trump's fault, this is the
1:49:31
Speaker 1: right wing media's fault. You know these the lesbian fire
1:49:37
Speaker 1: captain was criticized and awake of the wildfires and someone
1:49:41
Speaker 1: targeted her for death. Well, that narrative lasted about fifteen minutes.
1:49:46
Speaker 1: It was obviously always absurd, and so we found out
1:49:50
Speaker 1: the truth, and the truth is that the lesbian fire
1:49:55
Speaker 1: captain was murdered by her either wife or girlfriend, I'm
1:50:03
Speaker 1: not sure. Obviously another woman who's a lesbian. They're in
1:50:08
Speaker 1: a lesbian relationship. And as happens whether you're lesbian or not,
1:50:12
Speaker 1: happens all the time. Spouses are people that are in
1:50:16
Speaker 1: intimate relationships. Murders happen. That's why dateline exists. So she
1:50:22
Speaker 1: is the lesbian fire cap that is killed by a woman.
1:50:26
Speaker 1: But here's where it gets even crazier. This is not
1:50:30
Speaker 1: the first time that this woman has murdered somebody. This
1:50:37
Speaker 1: woman had also murdered her previous husband when she was
1:50:45
Speaker 1: not a lesbian. So we have this is folks, I'm
1:50:51
Speaker 1: not lie. This is as la as it gets or
1:50:53
Speaker 1: as woke as it gets. You have a woman who's
1:50:56
Speaker 1: married to a man, she kills that man, spends I
1:51:01
Speaker 1: think like eleven years in some time, amount of time
1:51:04
Speaker 1: in prison obviously not enough, and then she gets into
1:51:07
Speaker 1: a romantic relationship as a lesbian where a captain of
1:51:11
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Fire Department kills her. And currently where
1:51:17
Speaker 1: is she She's hiding in Mexico, and as far as
1:51:22
Speaker 1: I can tell, they have not tracked her down as
1:51:24
Speaker 1: if yet. It doesn't get any more la than that,
1:51:28
Speaker 1: more woke than that a woman who was not a
1:51:31
Speaker 1: lesbian kills her husband, becomes a lesbian, kills a lesbian
1:51:35
Speaker 1: captain of the LA Fire Department, and then fleeds, flees
1:51:38
Speaker 1: to Mexico. And this story has not gotten nearly that
1:51:43
Speaker 1: much of attention, that much attention here in Los Angeles
1:51:46
Speaker 1: in comparison to what it probably should, or as much
1:51:50
Speaker 1: as it would if the circumstances were a little bit different.
1:51:54
Speaker 1: I really do believe that the media is very hesited
1:51:57
Speaker 1: to go full in on this story for a number
1:52:01
Speaker 1: of reasons, but primarily among them is this issue of Okay,
1:52:06
Speaker 1: how does this even happen? It's gonna reflect poorly on lesbianism.
1:52:10
Speaker 1: It's what I'm going with here, this is not a
1:52:14
Speaker 1: story that we like, because this really makes lesbianism look very,
1:52:19
Speaker 1: very bad on a number of levels. But that's what's
1:52:22
Speaker 1: been going on in Los Angeles with regard to the
1:52:25
Speaker 1: aftermath of the wildfires, both directly and indirectly. Another thing
1:52:30
Speaker 1: happened here in Los Angeles. Of course, the Oscars are
1:52:33
Speaker 1: this weekend, and I'm sure we'll have some analysis of
1:52:36
Speaker 1: that greatly diminished event that used to be a cultural
1:52:40
Speaker 1: icon and is now no longer nearly of that status
1:52:44
Speaker 1: in the next episode of the podcast. But this week
1:52:47
Speaker 1: last weekend, there was the SAG Awards, the Screen Actors
1:52:51
Speaker 1: Guild Awards, which is basically a precursor to the Oscars,
1:52:55
Speaker 1: and there were two moments there that I found to
1:52:58
Speaker 1: be very very telling and that I wanted to share
1:53:01
Speaker 1: on the podcast. First of all, in general, and this
1:53:04
Speaker 1: was an event that was broadcast on Netflix, which is
1:53:08
Speaker 1: a new phenomenon, and I'm sure at a significant our audience,
1:53:13
Speaker 1: but not a huge audience. But I think the most
1:53:16
Speaker 1: important part of this is any idea or any theory
1:53:20
Speaker 1: that Hollywood, like the left wing media, like what might
1:53:25
Speaker 1: be happening at CNN and what seemingly is happening to
1:53:27
Speaker 1: some degree at MSNBC and what's clearly happening at the
1:53:31
Speaker 1: Washington Post. There is no come to Jesus moment yet
1:53:36
Speaker 1: in Hollywood after Donald Trump's election one zero, and we're
1:53:42
Speaker 1: going to see that, I'm sure at the Oscars as well,
1:53:45
Speaker 1: partially because the movies that are nominated were made, you know,
1:53:48
Speaker 1: two three years ago, well before that was even theoretically
1:53:52
Speaker 1: a possibility. And so you know, two of the major
1:53:54
Speaker 1: movies have transgender themes in them. And there's all sorts
1:53:59
Speaker 1: of other woke elements of what's going to happen at
1:54:02
Speaker 1: the Oscars. But it was horrendous at the SAG Awards.
1:54:07
Speaker 1: I mean Jane Fond that was given a Lifetime Achievement
1:54:10
Speaker 1: Award and she was insufferable and ridiculous in her acceptance speech.
1:54:16
Speaker 1: There was all sorts of elements of wokeness at the SAgs.
1:54:20
Speaker 1: But there were two things I want to point out.
1:54:23
Speaker 1: One comes from the president of the Screen Actors Guild,
1:54:28
Speaker 1: Fran Dresser, who hasn't done anything as far as I'm aware,
1:54:32
Speaker 1: in many years, but she's the president now and she
1:54:35
Speaker 1: decided to address the LA wildfires, which is perfectly understandable.
1:54:40
Speaker 1: This is an event happening in Los Angeles. Obviously, most
1:54:44
Speaker 1: members of the Screen Actors Guild have some associated association
1:54:48
Speaker 1: with Los Angeles. Most still live in this area, though
1:54:52
Speaker 1: not nearly as many as they used to because of
1:54:55
Speaker 1: for a variety of reasons. But she decided to use
1:55:00
Speaker 1: the wildfires to try to promote the battle against not
1:55:06
Speaker 1: climate change, which is bad enough, but global warming. And
1:55:12
Speaker 1: she did something and even Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom
1:55:14
Speaker 1: haven't been stupid enough to do, which is to directly
1:55:18
Speaker 1: blame the wildfires on global warming. And here's what that's soundedly, as.
1:55:25
Speaker 4: We experienced on January seventh, twenty twenty five, when extreme
1:55:31
Speaker 4: winds then fires made for a lethal and disastrous inferno,
1:55:37
Speaker 4: followed by torrential rains, floods, mudslides, and earthquakes, further crippling
1:55:44
Speaker 4: a county already in crisis. Wake up, humans, we can't
1:55:51
Speaker 4: let greed continue to deny global warming.
1:56:00
Speaker 1: Now, not only is that completely and totally idiotic, wrong,
1:56:06
Speaker 1: not factual, not logical, I mean, it's absurd, but it's
1:56:11
Speaker 1: also ridiculously hypocritical because even if you accept that there's
1:56:16
Speaker 1: some reality and connection between the wildfires and global warming,
1:56:21
Speaker 1: which there is clearly not. I mean, it's not even close.
1:56:25
Speaker 1: I don't even gonna bother going into why, but it's
1:56:28
Speaker 1: just not even remotely based in reality. But even if
1:56:32
Speaker 1: it was, the hypocrisy of her speaking to a room
1:56:38
Speaker 1: full of actors who on a person by person basis,
1:56:43
Speaker 1: probably have the largest carbon footprints on the planet, given
1:56:49
Speaker 1: the way that they travel and the way they live
1:56:51
Speaker 1: their lives, and allegedly that's supposed to be the fuel
1:56:56
Speaker 1: of global warming, and that's directly what she's talking about
1:56:59
Speaker 1: when the come to somehow the economics taking priority over
1:57:04
Speaker 1: the battle against global warming. It's just hilarious. It's almost
1:57:08
Speaker 1: to the level of Jake Tapper writing a book about
1:57:11
Speaker 1: the cover up of Joe Biden's mental decline. It's the
1:57:14
Speaker 1: lack of self awareness is absolutely staggering. And that's what
1:57:19
Speaker 1: happens to these people. They live in a bubble. They
1:57:23
Speaker 1: lose all ability to discern reality. And so I thought
1:57:28
Speaker 1: that was a significant moment, And there was another situation
1:57:32
Speaker 1: that occurred that I went, Okay, all right, now the
1:57:36
Speaker 1: figurative and almost literal mask has fallen, and we get
1:57:40
Speaker 1: to see the truth here because it dealt with the
1:57:43
Speaker 1: issue of COVID. You know, Hollywood was leading the charge,
1:57:48
Speaker 1: leading the charge that COVID was, you know, a mortal
1:57:53
Speaker 1: threat that we needed to shut everything down. You need
1:57:56
Speaker 1: to have everyone masked, everyone vexed. You know. You know,
1:58:00
Speaker 1: businesses we don't consider to be essential need to be
1:58:03
Speaker 1: shut down. No one can go to funerals or weddings
1:58:07
Speaker 1: or graduations. We can either shut schools down. Hollywood was
1:58:11
Speaker 1: one hundred percent leading the charge on this, partially because
1:58:17
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, was leading the charge
1:58:20
Speaker 1: on this and giving someone COVID was literally considered to
1:58:25
Speaker 1: be like attempted murder. That's not an exaggeration. This was
1:58:30
Speaker 1: only a couple of years ago. And I remember, we're
1:58:32
Speaker 1: about to head into the fifth anniversary of a lot
1:58:35
Speaker 1: of this, and I'm sure we'll talk about it on
1:58:37
Speaker 1: the podcast, especially when we get into March when the
1:58:40
Speaker 1: panic really set in. But you know, so here we
1:58:44
Speaker 1: already have a situation where people are revising history from
1:58:48
Speaker 1: just five years ago and less than that. Here's what
1:58:52
Speaker 1: happened when Jamie Lee Curtis gave an award to actor
1:58:58
Speaker 1: Colin Farrell and the issue of her getting COVID from
1:59:03
Speaker 1: Farrell allegedly, although I guess it's theoretically possible since he
1:59:08
Speaker 1: cops to it, suddenly becomes at issue, and this is
1:59:13
Speaker 1: what it sounded like. At the SAG Awards.
1:59:16
Speaker 6: The actor goes to the man who gave me COVID
1:59:20
Speaker 6: at the Golden Globes, Colin Ferrell guilty has charged, But
1:59:43
Speaker 6: Brendan Gleeson fucking gave it to me.
1:59:45
Speaker 1: So I was just brendon the love. When I saw that,
1:59:49
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, okay, so now you can tell us
1:59:53
Speaker 1: now it was all just a big joke. It was
1:59:55
Speaker 1: all just a big joke. And by by the way,
1:59:58
Speaker 1: Jamie Lee Curtis is not a young person, so in theory,
2:00:02
Speaker 1: you know, her getting COVID, if it was really all
2:00:04
Speaker 1: that horrendous, is a big deal. But now we're joking
2:00:07
Speaker 1: about it. So you're joking about this. You know, I've
2:00:11
Speaker 1: always say if you pay attention long enough, the truth
2:00:14
Speaker 1: will come out. And the mask fell there, literally and figuratively.
2:00:18
Speaker 1: This is a big joke to them. They're the elites
2:00:22
Speaker 1: and you're not. And you know that to me was
2:00:26
Speaker 1: very very telling about what you know, I already knew,
2:00:29
Speaker 1: and you was listening to this podcast probably already knew
2:00:33
Speaker 1: was the case of the reality when it came to
2:00:36
Speaker 1: the COVID panic and what was really driving it. One
2:00:40
Speaker 1: other Los Angeles note, and this is on the positive side.
2:00:43
Speaker 1: I've talked in the past about how there's this movement
2:00:46
Speaker 1: to get the Menendez brothers out of prison early, allegedly
2:00:51
Speaker 1: because they were sexually abused by their father. Remember they
2:00:54
Speaker 1: killed in cold blood their their father and importantly their mother.
2:01:00
Speaker 1: Well they were just sitting watching television, and you know,
2:01:05
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of reasons why this is absolutely absurd.
2:01:09
Speaker 1: I mean, the men and his brothers lied for an
2:01:11
Speaker 1: extended period of time about not having done this. I mean,
2:01:15
Speaker 1: there was consciousness of premeditation. There was This was not
2:01:21
Speaker 1: a situation where they feared for their lives. They killed
2:01:25
Speaker 1: their parents, I believe for money, and their activity after
2:01:30
Speaker 1: the murders is extremely consistent with that. And it was
2:01:33
Speaker 1: only later that they decided, oh, you know what, we
2:01:37
Speaker 1: did this because we were sexually abused by our dad.
2:01:41
Speaker 1: And there were two different trials. One was a mistrial,
2:01:45
Speaker 1: the second was a conviction. In the second trial, the
2:01:48
Speaker 1: issue of sexual abuse was not nearly as prominent, but
2:01:51
Speaker 1: I believe it was not nearly as prominent because there
2:01:53
Speaker 1: was no real evidence of it. And then several years
2:01:57
Speaker 1: ago came to light a less or that one of
2:02:00
Speaker 1: the Menendez brothers sent to a friend that references his
2:02:04
Speaker 1: father abusing him. Now, importantly, there's no reference to sexual
2:02:09
Speaker 1: abuse none. I mean to me, that ought to be
2:02:14
Speaker 1: at least what you should expect if this is going
2:02:16
Speaker 1: to be considered legitimate evidence of sexual abuse, because there's
2:02:19
Speaker 1: lots of different kinds of abuse, especially when it comes
2:02:22
Speaker 1: from a dad to a son. I have no problem
2:02:26
Speaker 1: believing that the father in the Menendez case physically, like
2:02:31
Speaker 1: you know, slapped or whatever, maybe even hit their sons.
2:02:35
Speaker 1: I have no problem with that being being a plausible reality.
2:02:40
Speaker 1: I don't have strong evidence for it, but I believe
2:02:42
Speaker 1: it based upon I've seeing tons of documentaries on the
2:02:46
Speaker 1: Menendez case. I have no problem believing that. But that's
2:02:49
Speaker 1: not the same as sexual abuse. I don't think there's
2:02:52
Speaker 1: any legitimate evidence of sexual abuse. This letter came about way,
2:02:58
Speaker 1: way way after the trial. There's no date on it,
2:03:02
Speaker 1: and it's not backed up by anything else. There's this
2:03:05
Speaker 1: allegation from a member of Menudo that happens decades later.
2:03:11
Speaker 1: I mean, there were two trials here. This was a
2:03:13
Speaker 1: massive story for years. If he had really been abused
2:03:17
Speaker 1: by the Menendez father, I feel like that probably would
2:03:21
Speaker 1: have come out a lot earlier. He was an adult
2:03:24
Speaker 1: throughout this entire ordeal, and it's only been in recent
2:03:28
Speaker 1: years that oh, yeah, by the way, I got sexually
2:03:30
Speaker 1: abused by the Menendez dad. Well, that would have been
2:03:33
Speaker 1: good information to have, you know, thirty years ago, but
2:03:38
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. Well, the new DA here in Los Angeles,
2:03:43
Speaker 1: Nathan Hockman, held a very dramatic press conference where he
2:03:46
Speaker 1: reversed the recommendation of the previous DA who he replaced
2:03:53
Speaker 1: because he was a terrible DA and you know, basically
2:03:56
Speaker 1: didn't even believe in the law, which is a bad
2:03:59
Speaker 1: thing to have happened the District Attorney of Los Angeles.
2:04:02
Speaker 1: But he, I think, very cogently and in a powerful manner,
2:04:08
Speaker 1: laid out the case that's twofold number one. It's not relevant,
2:04:15
Speaker 1: it's not relevant whether or not they were sexual abuse.
2:04:19
Speaker 1: They were convicted of a heinous crime, and I don't
2:04:22
Speaker 1: believe that that should change their sentencing all these years later.
2:04:27
Speaker 1: But he didn't stop there, which I think is important.
2:04:31
Speaker 1: He also questioned the credibility of the so called evidence.
2:04:35
Speaker 1: I don't think, reading between the lines, I don't think
2:04:38
Speaker 1: he believes that that letter is legitimate at the very
2:04:42
Speaker 1: least that that letter has anything to do with sexual abuse.
2:04:45
Speaker 1: I think he is definitely in my camp that this
2:04:48
Speaker 1: did not happen, So it's not relevant if it did.
2:04:51
Speaker 1: And it did not happen, and I am convinced that
2:04:54
Speaker 1: there's no legitimate evidence that it ever did, and it
2:04:56
Speaker 1: certainly should not get them out of prison for having
2:05:00
Speaker 1: killed their parents as adults in cold blood for what
2:05:04
Speaker 1: appears to have been a money motivator. So there's some
2:05:09
Speaker 1: restoring of rationality here in Los Angeles at the peers.
2:05:13
Speaker 1: I don't know whether that's gonna carry the day, by
2:05:15
Speaker 1: the way, because this is just a recommendation. So it's
2:05:17
Speaker 1: still possible to the men and as Menendez brothers could
2:05:20
Speaker 1: get out of prison early. But at least the new
2:05:22
Speaker 1: DA Nathan Hockman, is doing the right thing, so that's
2:05:25
Speaker 1: on the good side. Thanks for listening to today's free
2:05:29
Speaker 1: drop of the abbreviated show. If you're interested in listening
2:05:32
Speaker 1: to the entire show, you must become a Patron. Please
2:05:36
Speaker 1: go to Patreon. That's p A T R e O
2:05:40
Speaker 1: N dot com. Patreon dot com slash The Death of
2:05:46
Speaker 1: Journalism with John Ziggler. My name is jhn z I
2:05:50
Speaker 1: E G L e R. That's Patreon dot com slash
2:05:56
Speaker 1: The Death of Journalism with John Ziggler. Good luck to
2:06:01
Speaker 1: you on that. But that's how you can subscribe