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Episode Two Hundred Thirty Nine: Hostage Situation · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and thirty nine of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your host in today's show. Trump two point zero is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: now more than one hundred days old, and so far
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm personally rather disappointed. One of Trump's interviews celebrating one
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: hundred days of greatness goes off the rails. CBS appears
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: ready to settle Trump's frivolous but effective lawsuit against them.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: The most prominent accuser of Jeffrey Epstein commits suicide, and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the news media is quite sure this means that she's
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a heroine. The Shador Sanders saga at the NFL Draft
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: tells us so much about the very broken sports media,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and especially ESPN. And we have to talk about what's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: going on with Bill Belichick and whether he's been taken
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: hostage by his hot twenty four year old girlfriend. This
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  Speaker 1: may be one of the most jam packed episodes of
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  Speaker 1: the Death of Journalism ever, so as the kids say,
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  Speaker 1: let's get into it. You have now surpassed one hundred
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: days of the second Trump administration. And while there has
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: been a lot of examination of how this has gone
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: so far, because generally one hundred days is the honeymoon
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: period for any presidency. If you're going to get a
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  Speaker 1: lot done, this is the time period in which you're
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: going to get it done. Generally, your approval ratings are highest,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: people are coming in euphoric after having won an election,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, generally, while it is symbolic, the hundred
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  Speaker 1: days does have some meaning. And I have been of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the opinion that Donald Trump deserves every chance. That's really
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: basically been my view of the Trump presidency all along.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: You know, I didn't want Kamala to be president. I
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't throwed with Trump. I was hopeful that Trump could
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: actually do better than maybe he did the first time.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The first time wasn't as bad for the first three
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: years as I had hoped. So maybe you live and
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you learn, maybe post assassination and he was going to
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: be a slightly different character. But I also had several fears,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: one of which was that Trump would be a god king,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: especially coming off of the assassination attempts and being the
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  Speaker 1: political Lazarus rising from the ashes one more time to
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  Speaker 1: win reelection, and therefore he would be treated as if
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  Speaker 1: he was a god or a king, and no one
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: would be willing or able to tell him no, and
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  Speaker 1: I think that that fear has turned out to be sound. Unfortunately.
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  Speaker 1: I think in many ways that's really what's going on here.
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  Speaker 1: We have a god king that has no one around
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  Speaker 1: him who is willing to tell him no, and that
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  Speaker 1: fear has manifested itself in many different ways. Now, as
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  Speaker 1: I've always tried to be with Donald Trump, I am fair,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I am as objective as possible. Many people think I
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: have trumped arrangement syndrome, which I clearly do not. I'm
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: sure there's even people who think I've been soft on
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Trump for the first part of his second presidency. But
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: this goes to my philosophy of okay, innocent until proven guilty.
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  Speaker 1: I have suspicions, I have concerns, but I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: give you every chance. And I've given Trump every chance,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and I'm still gonna give him every chance because I
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  Speaker 1: want him to succeed. He needs to succeed for the
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  Speaker 1: betterment of the country and the betterment of the world.
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  Speaker 1: But I am rather disappointed. That's the best way I
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: would describe the first hundred days. I'm disappointed. Let's go
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: through some of the things, and I could probably talk
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: for three hours about this, but I won't, So this
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: is a very short summary of where I think we
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: have been for the first hundred days. The first thing
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that I was at first hopeful about but then became
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: very skeptical of, was the whole Elon Musk Doge effort.
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  Speaker 1: I was hopeful that maybe this would pull off some miracle,
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  Speaker 1: but I very quickly realized, hold on a second, there's
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  Speaker 1: no way to do this. And it was very clear
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  Speaker 1: as soon as Elon Musk's balls started to get cut
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  Speaker 1: off on the email issue and some authority issues, that
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  Speaker 1: Trump was going to lose his nerve like he always does,
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  Speaker 1: and that it was just not going to be possible
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  Speaker 1: to take a trillion dollars or even two trillion dollars,
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  Speaker 1: as Elon Musk wants claim, out of the federal budget
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  Speaker 1: without causing a catastrophe both politically as well as maybe
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  Speaker 1: even economically in the short run. And by and large,
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  Speaker 1: I think Doge, while mostly well intentioned, has turned out
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  Speaker 1: to be a disaster. And I'm not sure. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: I'm positive that most Trump supporters don't realize this, but
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  Speaker 1: I'm not even sure that even the liberal at mainstream
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  Speaker 1: media understands what a disaster, or has been portraying this
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: as the disaster for Trump that it really could be
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  Speaker 1: portrayed as. And here's what I mean by that, because
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  Speaker 1: I think Trump is going to get the worst of
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  Speaker 1: all worlds on what has happened with dough Coach very
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: little savings, but the perception that everything about federal the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: federal government is being cut back. And now anything that
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  Speaker 1: goes wrong, anything at all that goes wrong in the
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  Speaker 1: federal government, will be blamed on the DOGE cuts, on
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  Speaker 1: Elon Musk, and on Donald Trump, even if it has
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  Speaker 1: absolutely no basis in reality. That's what's going to happen politically.
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  Speaker 1: So now they own everything. They've radically allegedly changed the
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  Speaker 1: essence of the federal government with all these allegedly massive
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  Speaker 1: cutbacks that are only going to save apparently about fifteen
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  Speaker 1: percent of what was hoped for about one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: fifty billion dollars, and at an extremely high political cost.
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  Speaker 1: Because now anything that going forward that goes wrong, they
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  Speaker 1: own it. They own it, not to mention all sorts
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: of chaos that's been created in the federal government, all
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: sorts of lawsuits. There's actually no evidence that less money
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  Speaker 1: has been spent in this hundred day period than normal.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, more money apparently has been spent by the
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  Speaker 1: federal government than normal in this hundred day period. So
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  Speaker 1: there's there's going to be zero evidence of any tightening
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  Speaker 1: of the belt. Forget about Remember when they were talking
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  Speaker 1: about a Doge dividend, which was a terrible idea to
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  Speaker 1: begin with. That ain't happening. So and now it appears
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  Speaker 1: as if Elon Musk is soon going to be leaving DOGE,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: which may or may not be a good thing. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I have been hopeful that Musk was going to be successful,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: but it does not appear as if that's going to
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: be the case. And who knows what will happen with
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  Speaker 1: Musk after he leaves DOGE. You may argue that that's
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: good for Trump. I think that's actually bad for Trump,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: because there's somebody there who's smart, who has Trump's respect,
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  Speaker 1: who's not right all the time. No, not by a
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  Speaker 1: long shot. Musk is wrong a lot. I mean, Musk
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  Speaker 1: is far from perfect, but I'd rather him be there
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  Speaker 1: than a lot of the other people that seem to
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  Speaker 1: have Donald Trump's ear, like Laura Lumer. Although Elon Musk
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  Speaker 1: has been promoting Laura Lumer's tweets from time to time
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  Speaker 1: when they fit his agenda, which is disturbing. But anyway,
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  Speaker 1: Doge to me has been a very big disappointment and
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  Speaker 1: has sown the seeds for future problems for Trump because
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  Speaker 1: now he owns the whole thing, the Russia Ukraine War.
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  Speaker 1: He claimed he could finish that, fix that whole thing,
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  Speaker 1: and in one day he said, we're not even close.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, it looks more like we're going to give
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  Speaker 1: up on trying to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: He's been all over the map on that. You know,
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  Speaker 1: his supporters think this is genius. I think it's chaos
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  Speaker 1: and cluelessness, and I have zero confidence that he's going
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  Speaker 1: to be able to get this done. At times it
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: looks like he's selling out the Russia. Then he seems
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: to change his mind and have meetings with Zelenski at
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the papal funeral and things seem to go better. I
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: don't know what the resolution here is, but I think
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Trump has done a terrible job and certainly has not
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  Speaker 1: fulfilled his promise when it comes to the Russian Ukraine War,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: immigration and deportations. This is an area where I think
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: it appears as if things are going a lot better,
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  Speaker 1: especially when it comes to the limitation of those that
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  Speaker 1: are still coming into the country illegally, so that I'll
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  Speaker 1: give Trump high marks on. However, with regard to deportations,
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  Speaker 1: this is where perception really does become reality. It seems
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  Speaker 1: as if the stats are not really any different in
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  Speaker 1: this administration with regard to deportations. It's just that this
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  Speaker 1: administration is very proud of their deportations and are talking
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  Speaker 1: a lot about them. That doesn't mean significantly more people
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  Speaker 1: who are here illegally are actually being deported. So a
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  Speaker 1: lot of this is smoke and mirrors and perception over reality.
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  Speaker 1: But over I will give Trump good marks so far
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  Speaker 1: on the issue of illegal immigration, but there's no sign
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  Speaker 1: at all, and we would know it, especially here in
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  Speaker 1: southern California, if there was actually going to be significant
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  Speaker 1: deportations that were going to change the fundamental equation in
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  Speaker 1: this country when it comes to who here is illegally
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  Speaker 1: in the country and what influence that has on all
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  Speaker 1: sorts of elements of our society, our culture, our language,
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  Speaker 1: our economy, everything else. Nothing's changed, nothing has changed, nothing
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  Speaker 1: will change. There is not going to be mass deportations
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  Speaker 1: that Trump has talked about from time to time. That's
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  Speaker 1: not going to occur. And there's no evidence that there's
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  Speaker 1: been a significantly larger number of deportations. In fact, depending
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  Speaker 1: on how you look at the stats, you can even
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  Speaker 1: say that there's been fewer deportations than other eras during,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, to Biden and Obama administrations. But I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to give Trump good grades so far on immigration. I
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: am livid about the lack of action in Congress. Republicans
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: barely control the House of Representatives, they control the Senate,
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  Speaker 1: and yet there's been almost no real legislation at all,
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  Speaker 1: and nothing in the form of tax cuts as of yet.
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  Speaker 1: In my view, and look, I'm a realist. I'm an idealist,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm also a realist. In my view, Trump should
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  Speaker 1: have come in here with a much smaller agenda, much
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  Speaker 1: more focused agenda, which is a tacky legal immigration, provide
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  Speaker 1: tax cuts, get rid of the woke and DEI bullshit
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  Speaker 1: with laws, with laws, and not these ridiculous executive orders
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  Speaker 1: that either won't be followed or end up in court,
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  Speaker 1: or will be reversed the moment that he's out of office,
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  Speaker 1: and a Democrat takes over. This has been to me
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  Speaker 1: maybe the word part of one hundred days no legislative action,
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  Speaker 1: because Trump has decided to govern as a king, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm not in favor of kings. I hate executive orders,
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  Speaker 1: mostly because they're not real, they're not certainly not permanent.
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  Speaker 1: And with regard to Trump himself, he's so toxic in
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  Speaker 1: the Blue States that they either don't pay attention to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: it or they sue and it ends up in court,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, there's no reality to it. That's really
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  Speaker 1: I think the essence of this first hundred days. Trump's
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  Speaker 1: fans love it because it's all about how it makes
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: them feel. It's all about the perception that has been
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  Speaker 1: created in the right wing blogg A sphere or Twitter
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: sphere and in right wing media that everything is wonderful,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: everything is awesome, when in reality it's all almost all
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: of it is fake. It's almost all fake. It's not
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: forget about being long term or permanent. That's not even
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a question because what I've already talked about with regard
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  Speaker 1: to the executive orders versus laws, but I'm not even
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: sure most of this stuff has any real impact, especially
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: in the Blue states where as I said, they don't
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: pay any attention to Trump, or they just tie it
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: up in court. So I think the ball has been
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: fumbled badly when it comes to the lack of action
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: in Congress over the first one hundred days. And I
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: hate Trump ruling like a king, relying lazily on executive orders.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I also hate all of his third term talk. I've
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: gone off on a tangent and and a rant on
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: this previously. I'm not going to do that now. But
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the whole idea of not only not tamping down or
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: cutting off talk of a third term in twenty twenty eight,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: but actually amplifying it, and now the Trump's store even
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: selling Trump twenty twenty eight hats, is just an abomination.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: It's stupidity, it's idiotic politically, it's wrong constitutionally. It will
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: have a negative impact on the twenty twenty eight cycle,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: especially for JD. Vance. And it's really a classic example
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  Speaker 1: of where Trump's ego gets in the way of even
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  Speaker 1: reasonable governance. And this is a very big problem that
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I actually think is being underestimated. The right wing media
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: is just pretending this doesn't really exist. And I even
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: think the left wing media is underestimating this issue because
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: everyone's just presuming that Trump's joking around. I'm not sure
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: he's joking around it. Ask Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon doesn't
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: think that he's joking around, though. I think Steve Bannon
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: may be using this for his own purposes to run
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: for president himself in twenty twenty eight. But in general,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the third term talk is just an example of the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: chaos that has ensued. Now with Trump, you're always assuming chaos.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I get that his fans love the chaos. They think
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: that that's him putting down their enemies, dunking on their enemies,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: dropping the mic. They love to be entertained. There's the
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: gladiator are you're not entertained element of this whole situation.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I get it. I don't like it at all, but
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's helpful. Look, I would love to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: see victories. I would love to have winning so much
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that we get tired of winning, like Trump has promised,
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  Speaker 1: But I don't see it. I see a lot of
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: media attacks, and I'm someone who obviously has great disdain
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: for the media, but I think that media attacks should
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: be based in facts, in logic, in evidence. They should
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: be measured especially when you're the president of the United States.
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  Speaker 1: They should not take on an authoritarian or totalitarian tone.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: You should not be using the power of the government
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to intimidate media outlets, especially like in the case of CBS,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: which we'll get to momentarily, where you're suing them based
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: upon a bizarre interpretation of what the First Amendment is
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that's not consistent with the principles of free speech. So
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I got problems with all of that. I mean, it's
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: bizarre given the fact that I host the Death of
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Journalism podcasts, I've made most of my career about media criticism,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: and yet I think Trump goes too far, not in
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: criticizing the media when you're doing so on the basis
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: of facts and logic and evidence and reason, and you're
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: doing so in a measured tone, especially when you're president,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: because I always say, when you're president, therefore you're in
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: charge of the federal government and the FCC and all
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: sorts of other levels of power. That's a different story
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: than when you're out of power and you're a candidate.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I personally think I realized this is antiquated view. Now,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: this is like dinosaur talk. But I really do think
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that the president the United States has a much higher
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: level of responsibility when it comes to their language and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: when referring to the news media, especially when your FCC
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: regulates people that you're suing. I mean, it's just again,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to that momentarily, but I actually
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: think that Trump has relied too much on dunking on
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the media because he loves it and because his fans
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: love it. But the biggest issue clearly has been the tariffs.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: The tariffs are a huge problem. I think that there
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: may be going to put us into a recession. There's
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: already an indication from data out this morning that we
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: may have had a first quarter that was negative growth,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and so we're on the path towards a recession. And
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I do believe that the tariffs and the threat of tariffs,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and the uncertainty surrounding Trump's obsession with tariffs has caused
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of this problem, not all of it, but
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of this problem. And I don't think it's helpful.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I don't see what the path is other than retreat.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: That seems to be the only way out of this
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: is to retreat on tariffs. And I'm going to play
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a clip in just a little bit about how I
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: think we're in a pretty big hole when it comes
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: to where we thought we would be, or it should be,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: with regard to negotiating these allegedly great deals from the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: deal maker, the guy who wrote Art of the Deal,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, with all these countries that don't seem to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: be all that eager to make a deal with us,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: when we've already shown the world that we really don't
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: have much leverage or we don't really have much nerve
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: when it comes to fighting this trade war. And then,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: in speaking of all this, this is certainly related to this.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Trump's obsession with Greenland and the golf of America and
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: making Canada to the fifty first state I think has
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: been ridiculous. I think it has been harmful, especially when
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: it comes to Canada and what has happened there politically.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I think Trump needs to take response. Actually, Trump has
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: taken both responsibility and credit for liberals winning the election
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: this week in Canada, which is absolutely infuriating. But again
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to that momentarily. But all of this,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: all of this to me, is bullshit. The focus should
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: have been immigration, tax cuts, DEI woke bullshit, you know,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: try to do things around the you know, try to
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: figure out a way to make government more efficient on
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the edges, you know, with a scalpel and not with
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: a hatchet, and then have your hatchet man basically go
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I give up when Elon Musk realizes he can't do
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't have the authority to do what he thought he
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: was going to be able to. So overall, I would
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: say this has been a negative one hundred days. And interestingly,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I put out a poll on my Twitter feed where
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I ask people, Okay, are you disappointed, very disappointed, satisfied
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: or very satisfied with the first hundred days of the
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Trump administration, And as of last check, the poll has
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: gotten about twelve hundred thirteen hundred responses, and it's about
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: sixty forty disappointed, with very disappointed being the most popular
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: choice and very satisfied being the least popular choice. So,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: at least highly unscientifically, those that responded to my poll
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: on Twitter seem to be agreeing with me. Now that's
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: not surprising since these are people generally who are followers
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: of me on Twitter, but I think that's an interesting
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: take on this. I do think I represent, while not
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: a large or significant group of people. I do think
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: it is an interesting group of people who are basically
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: hopeful that Trump is going to succeed here, but very
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: skeptical as to whether or not that was actually going
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to be the case, and so far believing that it's
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: not the case by at least a sixty to forty margin,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: with again far more people saying very dissatisfied than saying
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: very satisfied. And that's also consistent with what's happening with
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Trump's approval ratings in the scientific polls. With one hundred
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: days came a whole group of polls that came out,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and almost all of them were bad for Donald Trump.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Some of them were very bad. His approval ratings are
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: at basically record lows, depending on which poll you look
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: at for a president who has just been elected and
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: is celebrating his one hundred day anniversary, if you will,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: as low as thirty nine percent in a couple of
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: different polls, generally around forty two forty three percent approval.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Now you know he's got a floor there. He's not
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: going to go much lower than that because he has
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: a very very rabid following. But that's terrible for this
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: point in a presidency to be around forty percent approval
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: is awful. Now, Trump may not give a damn. That's
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: one of the problems here. He's allegedly turned out. Constitutionally,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: he's turned out. He may not recognize that, especially with
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Steve Mann and another's whispering in his ear. But you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: he's effectively a lame duck president who has never cared
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: really what, certainly what the left thinks of him, or
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: even what the moderates in America think. He's all about
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the base, all about the base, and and it's you know,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: his base is never going to leave him for a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: variety of reasons. So under normal circumstances, a president might
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: react and respond to his approval ratings going to that
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: low of the forty percent threshold. Forty percent, you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: if you go below forty percent, that's basically crisis mode
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: traditionally in American politics. But I'm not sure that has
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: any real impact on Donald Trump. It's certainly not going
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: to impact his tone or the way he responds, especially
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to the media. And you know, I got to play
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: this clip. I'm not even sure I wouldn't. It wasn't
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: clear as to where I wanted to put this, but
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I knew I had to talk about this because we
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: have become so desensitized when it comes to Donald Trump
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: and his language and his interviews and how he interacts
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: with the news media. And again, you know, this is
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: probably the area where people are most confused by my
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: opposition or general opposition to Donald Trump as a never
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Trump conservative, because hey, zig you hate the media. Trump's
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: hate Trump hates the media. Why don't you like Trump? Well,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I've already alluded to several the reasons why, Because I
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: don't think he does it properly, because a lot of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: times he does it when he's wrong, and to me,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: that destroys the credibility of going after the media. Plus,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I believe that the media has an important place in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: our society, in our in our system. Journalism is necessary
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: for this whole situation to work, the fourth of State,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and Trump does not recognize that. And I get why
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: he hates the media. He has a lot of good
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: reasons to hate the media. The media has given him
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of good reasons for him to hate them.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: But when he's flat out totally wrong and frankly delusional
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and yet is pretending that he's right, and the news
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: media is trying to be as polite as possible and saying,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: mister President, you're you're not correc and we're living in
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: an absolutely upside down world where not just upside down,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: but two alternative universes, one where Trump is positive he's right,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: and the other way the media is saying, no, sir,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: you're not being accurate here. That's not a world that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: can function. And that was illustrated with remarkable with remarkable
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: insanity in this bonker's clip that I'm going to play
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: for you here. This is Donald Trump in the White
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: House being interviewed by ABC's Terry Moran. Now, Terry Moran
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: is a decent anchor. I don't love him. I don't
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: hate him. He made his bones during the OJ Simpson case,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: like a lot of reporters from his his generation did.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I think he's been reasonably fair for the most part
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: over the years. I think he's a pretty smart guy. Again,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I don't love him. He's not perfect, but by mainstream
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: ABC news standards, he's decent. And he does this interview
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: with President Trump and the issue Trump brings up, this
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: issue of kill maar Garcia. Now kill mar Garcia with
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I mean to go through all the rigamarole again is
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the illegal alien immigrant who was deported. He was living
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: in Maryland for many years, and in the Trump narrative,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: he's an MS thirteen gang member, and he's a wife abuser, which,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: by the way, I think he probably is a wife abuser,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: because we played that clip in the last episode of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the podcast where Michael Strahan also ABC interviews the wife
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and she does not want to answer about the restraining
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: order that she had put on Garcia. Because now Garcia
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: is suddenly a media hero, because bizarrely, the media and
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Democrats are rushing to his side when it appears as
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: if he is a very questionable character and there's zero,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: zero ambiguity about whether or not he was in the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: country illegally, but now he's apparently in Al Salvador in
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: a prison, and the left is all up in arms
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: about it, and Trump is convinced that he's right about Garcia, which,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: by the way, he may be right about Garcia in general. Okay,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: he may be right about I want to emphasize this,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: He may be right about Garcia in general. But when
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: it comes to what happens in this absolutely crazy interaction
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: between President Trump and Terry Moran, Trump is wrong. He's
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: absolutely wrong on the issue of whether or not Garcia
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: had the letters and the numbers MS thirteen tattooed to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: his knuckles. Now, this is an incredibly, unbelievably trivial point
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: in this whole saga. But if you're gonna make a claim,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna make a claim, as Trump does here,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that this is the proof that nobody should trust the
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: news media because you're not acknowledging a reality that does
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: not exist, you better have your fucking fact straight. But
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Trump does not, because what Trump is very clearly referring
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: to here is a photograph where MS thirteen was photoshopped,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: not even particularly well. I don't even think it was
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: intended to be interpreted is actually part of Garcia's tattoo
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: it was. I believe that whoever put MS thirteen on
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: his knuckles was trying to make the point that other
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: tattoos on his fingers symbolize the letters MS and then
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the numbers one three. Now, I have no fucking idea
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: whether or not that is an accurate interpretation of what
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: those tattoos meant. No idea, But I do know that
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the letters M as and the numbers one three or
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: thirteen are not on Garcia's hand yet Trump it, for
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: all the world appears is if he saw that photograph
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and believed the photoshop to be part of what is
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: on Garcia's hand, and nobody told him differently, which raises
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: a whole series of other questions. But that is the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: background for this absolutely ridonculous exchange between President Trump and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Terry Moran, where Terry Moran is desperately trying to get
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: off the subject, but also doesn't want to leave the
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: impression that what Trump is saying is accurate because it's
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: not accurate. Trump has been into believing something that's not true.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Now it might not be that relevant. He again, might
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: be correct in the larger picture of this. I don't know.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I've said this multiple times. I don't know whether or
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: not Garcia was at thirteen member. By the way, Moran
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: raises the issue of whether or not the tattoo itself,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: forget about the photoshop part means what it has been
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: interpreted to mean, or and when he got those tattoos.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: So there's to me, there's a lot of ambiguity here,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: but there's no ambiguity when it comes to the photoshop
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: portion of that photograph that Trump is referring to. And
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: yet in Trump's world, this is proof that the media
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: can't be trusted. And in the real world, Terry Moran
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: is sitting there desperately trying to change the subject to
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the Russian Ukraine War, but also wants to at least
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: make sure the audience that there is another signed, a
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: very very very strong other side to the story that
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: is opposed to what Donald Trump is selling. Here and here,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: without further ado, is this clip to which I've referred.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: We had some tattoos that are interpreted that way.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: But let's move on. Wait a minute, I Waterry, Terry, Terry.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: He did not have let MS one.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: It says MS one three. That was photoshop, So let
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: me do his photoshop. Terry heard that.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: You know you're doing the interview. I picked you because frankly,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I never heard of you.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: But that's okay.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I picked you, Terry. But you're not being very nice.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: He had MS thirteen. Techo, we'll agree to disagree. I
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: want to rive on to something else. Harry. Do you
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: want me to show you the picture? I saw the picture? Well, photoshop.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Here we go here. We don't photoshop. But don't look
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: at his hand. He had a hester.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on them. I want to turn
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: to Ukraine, want to get to No. No, he at
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: M s as clear as you can be, not interpreted.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: This is why people no longer believe well the news
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: because when.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: In El Sah, they aren't there.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: But let's just go they aren't there when he's there
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: now right, No, but they're in your picture, Kerry Ukraine, Sir,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: he's got MS thirteen on his knuckles.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: All okay, Well, it's just such a disservice. We'll take
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: a look. You just say it.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Yes he does, and you know, going to some hot
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: houses contested.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Now, to me, that whole moment is almost right out
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of The Emperor has No Clothes Remember the book that
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I wish Apparently not every kid was forced to read.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I thought when I was a kid that everyone read
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: The Emperor has No Clothes, because I think it's it's
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: a great way to teach kids about a lot of things.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Forget about, you know, the issue of authority. I think
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: you know, question authority is part of the Emperor has
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: no clothes, but also thinking for yourself, not being afraid
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to ask questions, not going along with group think. I mean,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: so I love the Emperor has no clothes, and that,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: to me is a great example of it where Trump
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: truly believes that the word the letters MS thirteen were
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: on Garcia's knuckles, when quite obviously they are not. Now
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: i'ven't been seeing defenders of Trump. I mean, this is
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: where we're getting into the world of two completely alternative realities.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Trump defenders think Trump did awesome in that clip. They
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: think he don'ked on Terry Moran because either they don't
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: realize there's a couple of options, they don't realize it
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: was photoshopped, or more likely, they make excuses for Trump
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: that claim that's not what he was really referring to.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I love this one. Clear if you listen, go back
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: and listen again. It is obvious that Trump is referring
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: to the photoshopped portion of the photograph. It could not
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: be more clear. But because Trump always gets every possible
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt, his fan's like, no, no, no, no,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: He's referring to the symbols, the symbols that have been
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: interpreted by some people, I guess some law enforcement. Again,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: this is no an area I have any knowledge of,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: so I don't know either way. But there's a difference
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: between the letters MS and the numbers thirteen or one
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and three, and the symbols that are being interpreted as
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: meaning MS thirteen, and therefore you know, obviously there's inherent
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: ambiguity there if you're interpreting the symbols of the tattoos
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: on the knuckles. I can't even believe what this has
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: become a massive issue. But this is actually important because
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: it tells you so much about who Trump is and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: so much about his supporters. So either they think he
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't referring to the photoshop by the way, some people
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: don't they realize it's photoshop. But those are the real
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: whack jobs. But then there's other people say no, no,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: he's not really referring to the photoshop. And then there's
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: the people that say it doesn't matter because he's right
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: about the larger issue, which again, for like the fifth time,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: he might be correct about the larger issue when it
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: comes to Garcia, but it doesn't matter because he went
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to the mat on this. He claimed. This is proof
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: for why no one trusts the news media. Now there's
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: an interesting moment. You may want to go back and
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: listen to it again. Where using you my Trump interpretation
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: decoder ring. I think Trump starts to realize that maybe
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: he was wrong, because that's when he goes on that
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: attack Terry Moran out of the blue, saying, I don't
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: know who you are. I'm giving you the break of
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a lifetime to give you this interview, which, by the way, okay,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: mister president, why did you give someone you don't know
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: who he is this plum of one hundred day interview
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: for ABC News? Why did you do that? Of course
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: he knows who Terry Moran is. But that's what Trump
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: would do if all of a sudden he's realizing, oh
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, holy shit, did I get that wrong?
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And instead of acknowledging I got it wrong, he goes
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: on the attack because he knows he can't fail there.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: You attack the media. It doesn't matter whether or not
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: it's legitimate or illegitimate, doesn't matter. Your fans are gonna
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: love that. It's also going to distract from the fact
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: that you got duped into believing something that was clearly
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: photoshopped was actually real. So it's my interpretation that Trump's
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: reaction to Moran going on a personal attack in the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: middle of that very strange exchange is an indication that
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Trump started to suspect. Wait a minute, you mean that's
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: not what I really saw. I could be wrong about that.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm giving Trump too much credit, but that's how
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: I interpreted what Trump was doing there. But I found
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: that to be a clip that is so telling about
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Trump and about where we are in this country and
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: living in alternative universes where even something as basic and
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: stupid and frankly trivial as the tattoos on the knuckles
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: of an illegal immigrant can expose just how totally broken
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the entire system is. We can't get to the truth
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: about anything because we have a president who one is
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: easily duped, two doesn't have anyone around him to correct him.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: That as the balls I missed the president, you know
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: that was actually photoshop. That's not what we mean when
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: we say these tattoos indicate that he's an MS thirteen member.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And then we'd have a president that doesn't not only
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: isn't willing to acknowledge when they are wrong, but instead
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: doubles and triples down and goes on this diatribe attacking
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the credibility of the media when he's actually totally wrong.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: We're so screwed. We're just so screwed. I mean, I mean,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: truth means nothing anymore. I've said this for many, many years.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: The truth is no longer the currency, the coin of
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: the realm that popularity is. But even I didn't think
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: we'd get to this point. I mean, this is just ridiculous.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I do want to say a couple more things about
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: what happened in Canada this week, with Liberals winning that
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: election and with Trump effectively taking credit and or blame
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: for what happened, and there's zero question in my mind,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that Trump fans will not accept this,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: which is hilarious because even when Trump himself takes credit
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: or blame, which he clearly did, his fans will still
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: not listen to Trump, which is so weird for a
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: cult leader to have. His cult is so strong they
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: will ignore what Trump says whenever it's inconvenient to what
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: they want to believe. And what they want to believe
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: here is that Trump really didn't cause a liberal to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: be the Prime Minister of Canada when it looked like
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: a couple of months ago. The Conservative was a lock
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: to win. No, no, no, that wasn't Trump's fault. They'll
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: make up some bullshit about what really happened, or Canadians
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: are just so crazy. The Conservative never really had a chance.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: That's all bullshit. The Conservative was going to win until
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Trump went on this fifty first state obsession. And the
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: fifty first state thing is so nut, it's so crazy.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: One because it's never gonna happen. Two Because if it
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: ever did, it would be effectively the political end of
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party. It would be the end. It would
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: be the greatest thing that ever happened to the Democratic Party.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And nobody in the right wing media will stand up
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: and say, mister president, what the fuck are you doing?
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: What the fuck are you doing? You have elected a
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: liberal to be Prime Minister of Canada when there was
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: a generational chance to have a legitimate name. Some people
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: think he's not that conservative, but I think Pierre Volivert
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: is a very smart guy and would be way better
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: as Prime Minister of Canada than what they're going to
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: get now, who's a complete lunatic, left wing socialist nut job.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And so the idea that somehow this fifty first state thing,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: which clearly caused a change in the election, and understandably
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: so if you're a moderate in Canada. If you're moderate
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: in Canada and you are having your sovereignty attacked by
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: an allegedly conservative Republican president of the United States, it
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: is quite natural for you to turn against a conservative
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: that seems a lot like Trump, although he's a lot
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: smarter than Trump. That's totally understandable and natural. And that's
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: what happened. And the election went from the conservative winning
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: to the liberal winning. And Trump actually took credit for this.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: He took credit for this, and his fifty first state
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: talk is going to do nothing positive at all. Again,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: that's actually a good thing, because if it actually transpired,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: we'd be toast. We'd be adding another California for all
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: intensive purposes politically, that's the end. Nobody is talking. No
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: one in the right wing media will talk about that,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: because they're all afraid to go against the cult and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: the cult leader. And is bizarre fifty first state obsession,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: so at best, at best, this has already cost Canada
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: a chance to change political direction in a fairly significant way,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: all because of Trump's selfish obsession that no one can,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: at least I cannot understand. And this is the These
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: are the costs that go along with having Donald Trump.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: If Kamala Harris, not that this is the biggest deal
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: in the world, but if Kamala Harris had won, we
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: would have absolutely a conservative prime minister in Canada right now.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Now you may not think that's a big deal, and
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: it's not a huge deal, but it was. That was
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: an unnecessary fumble. There was there was no reason for
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: that at all. Nothing was gained, only only losses. All
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to play. We ate Trump's ego and his bizarre obsessions,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: and you know, and he wouldn't stop. He would not stop.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: And it's never gonna come to fruition, at least hopefully
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: is never going to come to fruition. Now, related to
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the fifty first state issue is obviously the tariff and
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: trade war issue, because Canada is part of that. And
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: we were told when the ninety day pause was put
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: out there that this was all the art of the
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: deal and that now what was going to happen was
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: that all these countries that we put a pause on
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: after you know, liber Day, Liberation Day, and these were
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: allegedly reciprocal tariffs, even though they weren't actually reciprocal, that
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: all these countries weren't going to come begging to the
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: United States, and we were going to do deals, and
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: we were going to do such great deals and it
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: was all going to be awesome. Well, that has not happened.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: And I can certainly understand why that has not happened
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: because we told the world we have no leverage. We
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: cried uncle immediately. And you know, if you cry uncle
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: immediately and saying you know, we're putting up ninety eight pause,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: what exactly is the huge incentive for anybody to suddenly
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: make a great deal with you. It's not gonna happen you,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: at least not with the countries that really matter. And
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: while there's some rumblings that there may be a deal
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: with a couple of countries as of this taping, by
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: and large, that has not happened. And Treasury Secretary Scott Besson,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: who I have praised for trying to keep this thing
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: on the rails because it's obvious that he is not
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: in favor of tariffs, but realizes that he can't be
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: publicly against them because the guy he's trying to convince
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: to drop them. Donald Trump will see him as the enemy,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: and so he's trying to navigate a very dangerous minefield,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and I think so far he deserves credit for that.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: He went on ABC, and I believe this was on
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: SO and Martha Ratits interviewed him and confronted him on
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this issue of these alleged deals that have supposedly already
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: been made but for which there is no evidence. And
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: here was that rather revealing exchange.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: The Time interview with President Trump, he said that he
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: has made two hundred deals on tariffs, two hundred deals.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: Who's he made deals with? Is there actually any.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Deal at this point?
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: I believe that he is referring to sub deals within
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: the negotiations we're doing. And if they're one hundred and.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Eighty, well those aren't actual deals.
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: If there are one hundred and eighty countries, they're eighteen
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: important trading partners. Let's put China to the side, because
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: that's a special negotiation. There's seventeen important trading partners, and
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: we have a process in place over the next ninety
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: days to negotiate with them. Some of those are moving
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: along very well, especially with the Asian countries.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: The Time interview with President Trump. He said that he
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: has made two hundred deals on tariffs.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Two hundred deals.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: Who's he made deals with? Is there actually any deal
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: at this point?
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: I believe that he is referring to sub deals within
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: the negotiations we're doing.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: And if they're one hundred and eighty, those aren't actual deals.
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: If there are one hundred and eighty countries, they're eighteen
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: important trading partners. Let's put China to the side, because
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: that's a special negotiation. There's seventeen important trading partners, and
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: we have a process in place over the next ninety
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: days to negotiate with them. Some of those are moving
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: along very well, especially with the Asian countries.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Now. The way I interpret Besson's role here is that
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: he is desperately to make Trump feel good while also
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: navigate us through this very difficult situation. And if you
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: translate what really happened there is that there have been
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: no deals. There are no deals, and uh, you know,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: we're trying to put the lipstick on the pig here.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: And by the way, it should be pointed out Trump
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: I believe has lied about speaking with President she of China,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: which by the way, is absolutely crazy that We're now
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: in a situation where, you know, I have more trust,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: at least in some areas, in the president of China
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: telling the truth than a Republican president. Because China has
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: said there's been no talks with She, Trump effectively said
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: he's spoken with g although if you parse it very specifically,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: it was uncertain as to when he talked with She.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: But he was trying to create the impression that China
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: is in communication and ready to do a deal, and
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: there's absolutely positively no indication to that, and Trump appears
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: to be lying, and bizarrely, at least on this narrow issue, China,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: of all entities, seems to be more trustworthy, which is
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: incredibly depressing. But the bigger picture here is there have
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: been no major deals, and I don't think there's going
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to be, especially not with China, and I don't know
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: how we get out of this because Trump has put
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: too much of his ego and his personal credibility on
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the line here. Now I've said many times he can
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: basically claim almost any deal is a good deal, any
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: retreat is a good retreat because his cult and his
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: media will buy it, and that I think is the
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: greatest hope we have here is that it's possible for
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Trump to take a humiliating loss and still be able
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: to claim victory. That's really been his entire life, in
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: his entire career, and now he has this cult base
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: and the right wing media working in lockstep with him.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: So I do think that that's probably the most likely outcome,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: But I am concerned that China may rub our faces
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: in it. They may realize that, at least for now,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: they have the upper hand, and they may not have
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the same incentives that we do to fold here and
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: get out of this quagmire. Now, there was an interesting
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: situation that occurred earlier this week with Amazon where Amazon
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: had announced that they were going to tell their customers
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: exactly how much the tariffs cost when it came to
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: why the price of whatever they're purchasing has increased, and
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the White House went bananas over this went crazy, and
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: interestingly apparently there was a conversation between Jeff Bezos and
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and then Amazon back down. Now, of course
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Trump fans see this is another victory for Donald Trump.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: I don't have any problem with what Amazon was gonna do.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's transparency. The price of something has gone
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: up and you're gonna explain to the customer exactly why.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I don't see how that is somehow horrendous or even
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: really all that controversial. But the Trump administration understood, I
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: think rightfully, the political ramifications of that, where if people
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: can see it for their own eyes what the impact
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: is of these tariffs, then the popularity of these tariffs
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: is going to go even further south than they already have.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: But it's interesting that Jeff Bezos back down there, because
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos obviously has a lot of business with the government.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos was at the inauguration, and you know who
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: knows who made that decision internally with in Amazon. But apparently,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: at least for now, that's not going to happen. By
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the way, I do want to kind of give a
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: preview for later on in this episode when it comes
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: to all these different things that Trump is dealing with.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: My god, he's got so much on his plate. But
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Trump has weighed in on four different NFL issues National
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Football League issues in just the last few days, and
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: when we get to the NFL Draft and some other
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: things related to what's going on in the world of football,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about some of those because he
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: was right on a couple and he was very very
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: wrong on a couple of them as well. So that's
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: coming up later in the episode. But right now, related
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: to Trump, I want to talk about what's happening with
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: another corporate entity. So Trump apparently was able to keep
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos in line on tariffs, at least for now.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Trump has also sued Paramount CBS over the infamous sixty Minutes.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: At any of the Kamala Harris Bill Whittaker interview just
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: before the twenty twenty four election, and in the last
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, I talked about how the executive
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: producer of sixty Minutes, Bill Owens, has resigned in protest
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: over apparently CBS executives and Paramount executives cracking down or
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: at least limiting the independence of sixty minutes and CBS News,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: and I said at the time, I thought that this
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: was admirable but also incredibly naive, because I don't think
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: this is going to change anything. It's also an indication
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: of just how much more power the corporate executives have
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: in this day and age where the mainstream news media
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: has lost all the leverage it used to be, especially
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: sixty minutes. They had the independence. They could tell the
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: executives buy and large to go fuck themselves because they
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: had all the power. Now they don't have the power.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: The business model has broken, the audiences have shrunk, their
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: trust and prestige has diminished. And so I did not
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: think that bill Owens resigning was really going to do anything,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: as somebody who is has on much lower level and
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: similar situations where I've jumped on career hand grenades, much
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: to my own detriment. Taking those stands on principle never
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: work in general, and they certainly don't work in the
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: modern media because very few of anybody in the media
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: is going to join you. Now, there might be some
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: signs and shows of support, but I'm not sure what
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: that really does. And interestingly, Scott Pelley on this past
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: weekend sixty Minutes addressed the bill Owens situation. This was
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: basically unprecedented, and I'll give Scott Pelley some credit here.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he was going to take some heat for this,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: but this also felt a little bit like, you know,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: sixty Minutes saving their own face, where they're pretending to
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: stand up to the man. But this will probably be
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: the end of it. It's not like anyone else is
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: going to resign their job. See that's what might have
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: had an impact if everybody at sixty minutes had resigned
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: en mass, which nobody in the media does, because you know,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: they're all cowards and they're all terrified of what happens
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: if they don't have a gig, and getting a cushy gig,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: a prestigious gig like sixty minutes is almost impossible in
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: this day and age, especially if you're at a certain
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: age like Scott Pelly is. So nobody is going to
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: resign their job in support of Bill Owens. But Scott
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Pelly did take a little over a minute, in fact,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: the last minute segment of this past weekend sixty Minutes
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: to address the Bill Owens resignation and had some very
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: strong words, no actions, but some very strong words for
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: the executives at Paramount who are clearly caving in to
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration because they're trying to get their sale
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: approved by the federal government. And here's what that sounded
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: like on CBS this past Sunday. He was our boss.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: Bill was with CBS News nearly forty years, twenty six
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: years at sixty minutes He covered the world, covered combat,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: the White House. His was a quest to open minds,
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: not close them. If you've ever worked hard for a
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: boss because you admired him, then you understand what we've
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: enjoyed here. Bill resigned Tuesday. It was hard on him
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: and hard on us, but he did it for us
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: and you. Stories we pursued for fifty seven years are
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: often controversial lately, the Israel Gazo war and the Trump administration.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: Bill made sure they were accurate and fair. He was
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: tough that way. But our parent company, Paramount, is trying
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: of our stories has been blocked. But Bill felt he
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: lost the independence that honest journalism requires. No one hears
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: happy about it. But in resigning, Bill proved one thing
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: he was the right person to lead.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Sixty minutes Now, I admire I want to make this clear.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I admire what Bill Owens did, and to a lesser degree,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: I admire what Scott Pelly just said because this is
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: an important issue for journalistic independence, and I would like
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: some actual examples of what Owens was talking about when
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: he resigned. But I trust that this is based in reality,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: because Owens would not have resigned as executive producer of
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: sixty Minutes if there wasn't some meat on the bone here.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: This wasn't a real sit situation where Paramount and the
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: incentive structure here couldn't be more clear. Where Paramount, the
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: parent company of CBS, is in the process of selling
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: and they need approval from the federal government. So that
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: gives Trump leverage. And that Trump, you know, has sued CBS,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: and so he wants them to settle the lawsuit, just
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: like ABC settled with the George stab Monopolis thing, just
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: like Meta settled. So Trump is realizing that as president
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: he has all this leverage. Now it's it is inappropriate leverage.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: It is frankly authoritarian leverage. It's leveraged that a legitimate
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say legitimate because that makes me sound like
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I'm saying Trump shouldn't be president. Trump is a legitimate president,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: but it's illegitimate for him to be using the powers
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: of the presidency to leverage media companies into basically building
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: his presidential library. That's where the money apparently is going
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: in the settlements with ABC and meta, and you know,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Paramount is going down the exact same path, and it appears,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: based upon news just in the last couple of days,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: that Paramount is ready to also settle with Donald Trump,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: which I think is pathetic and dangerous. And I can
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: totally understand why those at sixty minutes and CBS News
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: are pissed off. Now, you know, if they were really
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: pissed off, as I've already said, they should resign too,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: because that's the only thing that's going to really make
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: a difference. You need basically the entire team to either
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: resign or go on strike. And I'm not sure they
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: would win that battle, but at least that would have
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: a chance. But nobody in the news media has that
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: kind of balls, except apparently Bill Owens. And so I
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: think that, you know, while it's great that bill Owens
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: did what he did, it's not going to leave any
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: change Scott Pelly's you know, words, those words were strong,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: and those were I think principal based. But I see
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: this as the end of the road, not the beginning.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: And I thought it was kind of ironic by the
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: way that Pelly said that this prooves that bill Owens
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: should have been the executive producer of sixty minutes. Well,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: how did that turn out? So he's not anymore, So
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: who's going to replace him? See that's the other thing
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: in the media. Someone's always very willing to replace the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: person that makes some sort of a principal stand whenever
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: it actually does happen, which is very very rare to
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: resign your position in some sort of an act of
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: principle one. So not only no one going to do
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: in an non mass resignation, people are going to be
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: clamoring for the position. And so CBS knows that this
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: is a story that's not going anywhere. This doesn't have
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: any legs. We're in charge, we're the bosses. As you know,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: sixty minutes isn't what it used to be, and we
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: care about getting our sale approved by the federal government.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: That gives Trump leverage. And I'm sorry, folks, as someone
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: who believes in the First Amendment, who believes in the
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: free press, who believes that journalism is incredibly important to
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: this democratic republic functioning. While Trump is going to be
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: hailed by his fans as being brilliant and you know,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: sticking it to the news media. And because I hate CBS,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: this is a great thing. And when CBS announces or
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: there's some sort of statement that they've settled with Trump
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: for having many millions of dollars, it will be perceived
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: that Trump has won again. I do not see this
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: as a victory for the country at all. I think
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: this is a huge loss if this goes down the
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: way that it looks like it's going to, because Trump's
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: loss suit is bullshit. It is not based in the law.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: What CBS did with that editing of the Kamala Harrison
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: interview was wrong. It was malpractice. They handled it poorly.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: I criticized them just like everybody else did. But it
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: was not illegal, and you cannot make it illegal because
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: if that's the standard of quote unquote election interference, if
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: that is the standard, and by the way, a precedent
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: is likely to be created here if that is the standard,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: stick a forkiness because what is not theoretically deemed election
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: interference when it comes to media coverage, I mean, the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: mind boggles. I'm sorry. The right remedy here was criticism
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: and force transparency and maybe try to get some accountability.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: That's what should have been done, But not a lass,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: especially not a lawsuit. As president of the United States
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: who oversees the FCC, which is headed by a guy
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: who is a super Trump fan, and where the President
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: is directly threatening CBS's licenses publicly and asking the head
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: of the SEC to investigate whether or not CBS's licenses
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: should be revoked, all as a way of leveraging a
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: negotiation for his own personal benefit. Personal benefit. Maybe not
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: directly because apparently it'll you know, probably like ABC and
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: META go to his library, but that has obviously personal
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: benefits directly involved. And when you know, when you don't
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: have to there's there's money that goes from one source,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: you don't have to get it from another source. So
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: this is all just the way around not paying Trump directly.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: But this is classic selfish Trump, and he will be
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: praised for it, and even the right wing media all
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: praise him for it, either oblivious to or ignoring the
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: obvious and very troubling elements of this issue that go
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: right to the heart of who we are as a society.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: You cannot believe in a First Amendment if you think
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: that somehow the President of the United States using the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: FCC to threaten companies who have business in front of
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: the federal government and need their approval for a sale
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: into essentially, you know, blackmailing them into millions of dollars.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: However much this is going to be all because of
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: bad editing of an interview. You might even say it
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: was nefarious. You might even say that, I have no
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: problem with you saying they did this to try to
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: make Kamala Harris look better. I get it. And there
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: is a small benefit to that, which is in the future,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: guess what, probably not gonna do that again. So that's good.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: I get it. I get it. There's a potential benefit there.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: But to me, the price you're paying for that benefit
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: is way too large, way too large, because the precedent
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: that this is gonna set and and my gosh, I mean,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: what's gonna you once Trump gets away with it and
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: benefits from it. What's gonna happen? I'll say this one
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: hundred times probably in the history of this podcast. What's
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: gonna happen when a Democrat is president and Democrats control Congress.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Payback's a bitch And the right wing media doesn't seem
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: to understand this, but you know, it's at their own peril.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: So I am very, very very I loathe what the
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: mainstream means media has become. I loathe a lot of
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: what CBS has become, but I think Trump is complet
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: completely wrong from a principal perspective here. Even though he's
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: gonna be victorious, this is maybe the entire Trump phenomenon
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: in a nutshell. He is going to be seen as
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: victorious and praised by his supporters and the right wing
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: media when what he's actually doing has an incredibly deletorious
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: impact on the nature of the republic and the future
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: of the country and in this case, the future of journalism. Now. Obviously,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest issues where journalism failed dramatically in
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four election was with regard to the
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: declining mental acuity of President Joe Biden. We all know
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: what happened there. The first debate was a disaster and
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Biden was forced out, and that's how Kamala Harris ended
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: up becoming the nominee without any actual processor or any
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: sort of democratic election. Of course, that was so insane
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: that somehow the Party of Democracy just handed the vice
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: president denomination without any primary votes or anything like that.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: We all know that story. But the issue of whether
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: or not the press is ever going to admit what
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: happened and whether or not they're going to be accountable
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to that took a very strange and complex nuanced if
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: you will, turn over the weekend at the White House
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Correspondence Dinner. Now, first of all, I want to mention
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: that the White House Correspondence Dinner has basically been eviscerated.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: This used to be known as nerd prom It was
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest nights of the year, if not
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: the biggest when it came to journalists in Washington, d C.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: But effectively Trump has killed the event. And again this
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: is classic Trump. Trump's fans, I'm sure praise him for this. Oh,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Trump destroyed the White House Correspondence Dinner because you know,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: it used to be the President would show up, there'd
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: be a comedian to make fun of the President and
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: the press, and you know, people from both sides of
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: the aisle would be there. It would be it would
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: be a fun night. Some significant things happened there. You
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: could argue that Donald Trump ran for president because Barack
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Obama took a shot at Donald Trump when he was
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: an attendee at a White House Correspondence dinner. But Trump
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: doesn't show up the entertainment this year was canceled because
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the person they hired was too much and I supported
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: this was too much of an anti Trump whack job,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: so they decided to not have a comedian, no entertainment,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: no president. So this was a dramatically scaled down event,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: and for all intensive purposes, this thing that used to
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: be a big deal is no longer a big deal.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: This is a bunch of journalists getting together to praise
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: each other and to give out awards. Well, very strangely
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: and quite tellingly, one of the major awards went to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: a guy by the name of Alex Thompson from Axios,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: And what was really weird about this was that he
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: got the award for his coverage basically of Joe Biden's
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: declining mental acuity. Now I can totally understand why people's
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: reaction to this was, what the hell they're giving away
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: awards the media is to people for the coverage of
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's mental decline when that was obviously a story
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: that the media blew catastrophically. I completely get why that
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. However, Thompson,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: in his acceptance speech, I thought, said some things that
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: deserved credit. Look, I'm always looking for accountability and self awareness,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: and I have said constantly that the only way that
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: the news media can get back its credibility is to
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: acknowledge mistakes. And Thompson, to his credit, while accepting this
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: award for his coverage, they described it as before and
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: after the first debate which caused Joe Biden to be
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: forced out of the presidential race, Thompson did exactly that
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Thompson said and seemed to mean exactly the things that
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: I think are the only path towards salvaging journalism in
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: this country. So therefore, I feel obligated to one play
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: the clip and two effectively praised Thompson, even though I
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: do think it's pretty hilarious and yes, very ironic that
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: the White House Correspondence Association, which by the way, is
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: led by a gay black man who has a show
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: on MSNBC, so not exactly an impartial or objective organization,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: but the White House Correspondence Association, which you would think
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: their number one job. The number one job of the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: White House Correspondence Association is make sure we have a
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: functioning president. That would be the number one job. Hey,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: every day do we have a functioning president for the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: White House Correspondence Association. They failed in the number one job.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: They failed, but in giving an award to someone who
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: was reporting on the topic, I do have to say
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: that Alex Thompson said all the right things, and here's
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: specifically what he had to say.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 6: The White House Corresponds Association is as necessary as ever.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: President Biden's decline and its cover up by the people
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 6: around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 6: of party, is capable of deception. But being truth tellers
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: also means telling the truth about ourselves. We myself included,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: missed a lot of this story, and some people trust
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 6: us less because of it. We bear some responsibility for
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 6: faith in the media being at such lows. I say
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 6: this because acknowledging errors builds trust, and being defensive about
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 6: them further erodes him.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: We should have done better. I believe our mission. I
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: thought that was pretty good. I mean to me, you
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: have to be fair about this, and if you want
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: this situation to be fixed, you've got to allow there
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: to be a path towards fixing it. And so when
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: someone actually takes some accountability and responsibility and acknowledges mistakes,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: I think that needs to be acknowledged, if not praised,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: And so I thought Thompson did a good job there.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: Now what the impact of this is, I don't know.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: I find it kind of interesting that the applause that
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: he received there was a kind of a smattering of applause.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: It's not like there was a resounding, sustained, standing ovation
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: where it would indicate that the people in the room
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: actually got it. So I don't think they really got it.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like this is more about, Okay, yeah, well
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: this wasn't our finest moment. Let's move on. Let's just
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: move on. So I don't really sense that by and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: large of the media really really really gets it. But
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: at least there was a pulse. At least there was
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: a pulse there, and that's why I think Alex Thompson
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: deserves some praise for that. Now, related somewhat to Donald Trump.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Almost everything relates to Donald Trump in some way is
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: a development of story that I've talked quite a bit
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: about recently, and that is the Jeffrey Epstein saga, which
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: never seems to end. And that is because his most
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: prominent accuser, Virginia Geoffrey, committed suicide several days ago. Now
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: you may recall that I talked about Virginia Geoffrey a
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: few weeks ago because she was apparently involved in some
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: sort of a bus accident, and she posted pictures online
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: of her injuries, which frankly didn't seem like bus accident
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: injuries to me unless they were it was a very
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: very very serious bus accident, and claimed that she only
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: had four days to live, which is an incredibly odd
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: thing to say given all the circumstances. And then we
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: learned from police and from the bus company that the
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: accident itself was very, very minor and that no one
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: sustained major injuries. And then she left the hospital, and
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: I theorized that, Okay, this provides a lot of potential
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: evidence that there could be a completely different way to
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: view her story, not that she's a total fraud. I
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent believed that she was abused by Jeffrey Epstein,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: which is why Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in prison, despite
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: the fact that the vast majority of Trump fans do
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: not seem to think that he killed himself in prison,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: that in fact, he was murdered, even though Donald Trump
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: himself has said that he believes that Epstein did in
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: fact kill himself. And you know, I'm going to get
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: to that incredible, incredibly stupid and crazy conspiracy theory in
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: just a second. But when it comes to the accuser,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: I raised the question that, Okay, isn't there at least
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: the possibility that there's something very, very wrong with this woman.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: By the way, there was a go fund Me account
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: related to her hospital stay and she gets out of
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: the hospital, and nobody in the media wants to touch
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: this story. I mean, come on, that is a crazy
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: story that creates suspicion that this person's credibility may not
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: be perfect. And let's be clear, this is someone who
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: has acknowledged, or was forced to acknowledge, that she made
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: a false claim against Alan Dershowitz, and it may not
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: have been by mistake. There's evidence indicates that it was
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: a shakedown attempt on Alan Dershowitz, and they just realized
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: that they couldn't get away with it and she had
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: to abandon the allegation. My main focus when it comes
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: to Virginia Geoffrey is her allegation against Prince Andrew, and
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: I want to get into all the details. I have
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: no love for the royal family of her Prince Andrew.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: But I don't believe that Prince Andrew ever had sex
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: with Virginia Geoffrey. I don't believe it. I certainly don't
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: think he abused her. I don't think he raped her,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: And I think he got caught in a perfect storm
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: of circumstances. He has always maintained his innocence. He was
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: never charged with a crime. And you know, the royal
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: family I think was very very very very very vulnerable,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: especially given the timing of the allegations to a shakedown,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: and she got a very prominent lawyer, David Boyce, and
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: I think she got a lot of money in a
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: settlement for something that did not happen, and Prince Andrew's
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: life was destroyed because of it. So I have always
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: been skeptical of Virginia Geoffrey, and the bus story only
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: greatly enhanced that. And then came the shocking news that
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: she killed herself, apparently, according to her family, via a
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: pill overdose. An overdose. We don't know what kind of pills,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: at least I have not been able to find out
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: what kind of pills, but she took some sort of
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: a of a pill overdose and she killed herself. We
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: don't know if there was any sort of a suicide note,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: at least not that I can tell so far, but
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: obviously this is a tragedy. Now from immediate perspective, you know,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: they only have one way that they can look at this.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: There's basically three ways in my view to look at
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: her suicide, and the media's way is very clearly, oh
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: my gosh, this woman was a heroine and the abuse
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: was too much, and eventually she took her own life
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: because of all the abuse that she suffered. You and
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: obviously Jeffrey Epstein's implied Prince Philip, and by the way,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: it's been acknowledged she was abused as a child. People
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: magazine actually had a pretty seemingly well sourced article after
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: her suicide indicating that she was claiming she was abused
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: by her longtime husband. I'd like to know more about
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: that story. Her husband clearly has an interesting story to tell,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: and he might be the only last hope for the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: truth of all this to come out. But I'm not
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: holding my breath on that because he'll be in a very,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: very vulnerable situation. But the media knows and instantly deemed
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: her to be a heroine. Now, this bothered me for
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: a couple of reasons. Not because I don't think it's
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: possible that she is at least somewhat heroic. That is
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: a possible scenario. My concern is that it's the only
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: scenario that the media is contemplating, and it is not
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: the only scenario. The other part of the heroin narrative
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: is she killed herself. Now, it wasn't that long ago
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: when there was an unwritten rule in the news media.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: This would have been about I don't know, twenty thirty
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: years ago when this all changed that when someone killed themselves,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: you didn't even report on their deaths unless they were
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: like a super celebrity. You didn't even report on their
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: death because it was just deemed to be a bad precedent,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: because you're basically enabling or even maybe even promoting suicide
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: by giving the person the status and the stature of
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: someone who is going to be reported in their death
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: when they caused their own death. Well, at some point
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: that rule went out the window. I don't know when
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: it did. Now we're actually in a situation where people
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: commit suicide and not only does it not impact whether
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: or not their deaths get reported. It's it seems to
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: actually enhance I'm not kidding here, it seems to actually
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: enhance how they're treated in death. I've seen this happen
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: a lot, And in this case, CNN put out a
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: tweet where they didn't even reference her having committed suicide.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: They just said she died as if she had a
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: heart attack. That seems to be the way most media outlets,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: especially when it's someone that they have sympathy for, they
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: like when someone commits suicide, they like it say, had
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: a heart attack, they died in suddenly, they died instantaneously
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: or somewhat mysteriously. No, she killed herself by all accounts. Now,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: of course, the second way to interpret this, although I
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: don't think this is in a logical world. The second
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: way to interpret this there's the heroine narrative, and then
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: there's the conspiracy narrative, which is that somehow this is
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: proof of Aha, she killed herself maloney, she was she
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: was eliminated, she was silenced. Powerful people, the same, probably
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: the same powerful people that killed Epstein have now many
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: years later, when she's been quiet for a very long time,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: except for that weird bus accident situation, now we're going
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: to silence her. She's already made all the releegations. Epstein's dead,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: just laying Maxwell's in prison. Prince Andrews had his life destroyed.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: By the way, there was another person that she made
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: an allegation against I'm going to presume accurately, who also
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: killed himself, a fashion designer in France, I believe. So,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the ramifications have already happened. The Epstein files
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: have turned out to be a nothing burger for reasons
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: that I think are relevant here and completely misinterpreted. But
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the Epstein, you know, didn't kill himself. People
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: are positive, positive, without any e at all that Virginia
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: Geoffrey also didn't kill herself, that she was somehow silenced, which,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: by the way, killing someone with a drug overdose is
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: like the weirdest way to kill someone. And again, the
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: family has not indicated at all that there's any question
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: about this. Her lawyer, I think, very self promotingly and
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: cryptically has indicated there are questions around her death. But
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: I smell bullshit from that from a mile away, because
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: the lawyer wants to keep this narrative alive and make
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: her bigger Virginia client former client, bigger than she actually was.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: And by the way, there's evidence that Virginia Geoffrey herself
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: understood the power of this you know, I'm going to
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: be silenced narrative back in twenty nineteen. I find this
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: to be really interesting and of course, as is almost
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: always the case, misinterpreted. This is a tweet from Virginia Geoffrey.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: I am making it publicly known that, in no way,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: shape or form, am I suicidal. I have made this
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: known to my therapist NNGP. If something happens to me
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: in the sake of my family, do not let this
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: go away and help me to protect them. Too many
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: evil people want to see me quieted. Now. That was
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: in December of twenty nineteen, and I find that to
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: be very interesting. Of Course, the conspiracy theorists say, aha,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: she said she wasn't suicidal, and she told us that
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: if she was deemed to have killed herself, that this
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: was evidence that she was being quieted by powerful people. Aha. Okay.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: First of all, that was almost six years ago, so
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: that's a problem, especially since back in twenty nineteen this
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: was still a hot issue. And by the way, I
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the settlement had occurred. I don't
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: think the settlement had occurred yet with the royal family.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: I'm almost positive it had not. So she and her
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: lawyers were still looking for money at that point, and
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: Epstein had only recently killed himself. So to me, I
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: am always very very skeptical of the if I kill myself,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: if they say I killed myself, don't believe it, you know, situation.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: And this reminds me of Jack Ruby. You know, everyone
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: always presumes that Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswall because
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: of some sort of massive conspiracy. And part of what
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: they point to is the statement that Ruby made just
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: before he died about how I'm paraphrasing here, no one
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: will fully understand why I did this, you know, very vague, cryptic. Well,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: Ruby's smart enough to know that if you say something
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: like that, people are going who want to believe in
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: the conspiracy and who want to believe that you were
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: a bigger entity than you really were, and that this
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: whole thing was way more significant than it actually was,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: are going to latch onto that cee cee. So when
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: Ruby dies in prison, that ah, oh wow, Ruby got silenced.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: No Ruby, in my opinion, you know, had this weird
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: obsession with the Kennedys, found himself in the wrong place
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: at the wrong time, lost his mind, and killed Oswald
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: in a bizarre set of circumstances and coincidences. And I've
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: gone through why the evidence of that is pretty overwhelming.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: But we've seen this in other situations where I actually
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: think Geoffrey's saying that in no way, shape or form
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: of my suicidal is actually consistent with someone who is
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: thinking about suicide. Doesn't prove it, but it's consistent with it.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: And now, obviously, unless you're a conspiracy nut job, we
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: know that she did have thoughts of suicide. You don't
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: just decide in twenty twenty five to kill yourself after
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: you were tweeting in twenty nineteen about not being suicidal
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: in the timeline here doesn't make a whole lot of
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: sense to me. So she endures this horrific abuse, both
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: as a child and then at the hands of at
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: least Epstein and maybe others, depending on who you believe,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: and then she seems to get her life in order.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: She makes these allegations, She gets publicly embraced, Epstein gets
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: arrested and charged. Epstein eliminates himself in prison, she gets
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: a ton of money from the royal family with regard
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: to Prince Andrew. The whole thing dies down for years.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: So she's been embraced publicly, So she endured the most
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: difficult part, and then she gets embraced publicly, made into
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: a heroin, made into a minor celebrity, made into a
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: very rich woman apparently, and now she kills herself. And
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: now she kills herself obviously not impossible. You know, people
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: who have endured horrible things, eventually maybe it wears on you.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying I know what happened here. I don't.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think anyone knows what I guess. That's my
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: biggest My biggest issue is the media is claiming they
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: know what happened here. She's a heroin. That's the only
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: way to look at this. To me. There is another
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: possibility underline possibility, which is that this is a woman
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: who has a lot of guilt, and maybe part of
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: the guilt is over false allegation. Again, I don't know
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: that's the case. I'm just saying that's possible, and no
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: one wants to even consider that. So they're the three
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: narratives here. The one the media is positive about. She
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: was a heroine and the abuse was just too much
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: and that's why she killed herself, even though she survived
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: the worst part. And now she was seemingly in the
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: in the part of this was which is not bad,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: which is where she's a heroine. She's rich, she's gotten
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: back to her normal life, and she's family, so you
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: know what, why why now? But they don't want to
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: talk about that, They don't even think about that. Then
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: there's the conspiracy nutjob scenario, which is crazy because there's
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: no need to silence her now, it's all been out there,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: it's all done with, so there's no there's no rationale
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: for that, there's no evidence for that. And then the
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: third potential narrative is wait a minute, is it possible
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: there's something else going on here? And That's where I'm at,
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: and I want to make clear I don't know what
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: the answer to that is. I just feel like there's
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: some questions that should be asked that are never going
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: to be asked because this whole narrative in general with
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: regard to the Epstein story is ingrained in cement and
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: we know what happens, especially in the area of sexual abuse.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: When the news media has an narrative that they set
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: in stone, they can never go backwards because the good
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: guys are the good guys and the bad guys are
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: the bad guys, and there's no other way to look
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: at this. And so I just find it to be
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: an extremely good example of one of the greatest weaknesses
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: in the news media, which is a lack of imagination,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: a lack of courage to ask questions of, Hey, is
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: it possible that this Virginia Geoffrey story is different than
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: what we thought it was. We're never going to know now.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: I actually feel badly for Prince Andrew, and to a
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: lesser degree, Giesselyn Maxwell gi justly Maxwell. For the record,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: It's quite possible that she was guilty, she was enabling
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: this sex trafficking that Epstein was engaging in, but the
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: evidence against her, in my view, was very weak, and
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: I think that she was in a situation where it
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: was essentially a moral panic after Epstein had killed himself.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: And I'm not comfortable with her convictions at all. And
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: now that you know Geoffrey has killed herself, there's no
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: hope for her. There's no hope for Prince Andrew to
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: ever get his reputation back. They can't say anything because
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: no matter what Prince Andrew says, now, that's the wrong thing.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: And so there's no hope for them now. And we're
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: never going to know the truth of this. We're never
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: going to know the truth unless somehow, you know, her
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: husband and her family come out. But I find that
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: to be a very very very remote possibility. Now when
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: it comes to the whole Epstein thing, I am fascinated.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: And to be clear, Epstein's guilty. We know he's guilty,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: not just because of the evidence, but because he killed
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: himself in prison. But the issue of so many people
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: believing fervently that Epstein was murdered in a federal prison
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: has always baffled me to such an extreme degree, and
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: I think it is such an incredibly important and dramatic
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: example of how totally broken especially we are when it
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: comes to social media and the democratization of media in general.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: You know, look, the mainstream media blew it. They blew it.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: They were the gatekeepers, and they blew it. They squandered
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: the trust. I get that one thousand percent. But the alternative,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: which is the world we're now living in, especially when
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: it comes to Twitter and other social media outlets, is
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: this complete democratization of news media where now morons and
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: mentally ill people are running the show. And frankly, this
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: is a large part of how we got down on
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: Trump because these are all Trump's supporters, which is the
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: part of this Epstein thing, which is so weird to
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: me because Epstein and Trump were very, very close. Epstein
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: was probably closer to Trump than any other major celebrity. Now,
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: I get it, Trump apparently kicked him out of his
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: life for whatever reason. I get it, fine, But Trump
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: himself has told Tucker Carlson I think Epstein killed himself
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: even though he knew that. Tucker didn't want to hear
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: that Trump was in charge. His Attorney General, Bill Barr,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: was in charge of the federal prison where Epstein killed himself.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: If he was actually murdered, they would be part of
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: the cover up. I mean, there's really only two possibilities
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: when it comes to Trump up and Epstein's alleged murder
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: for these whack jobs. Either Trump was in on it,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: or Trump is the biggest imbecile that has ever walked
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: the planet, especially being president of the United States. Which
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: is it? I asked this question all the time. I
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: never get an answer. So which is it? Was Trump
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: part of the massive conspiracy to cover up the murder
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: of Jeffrey Epstein or is he an imbecil? Which is it?
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: The Trump fans will never tell me, And it's just
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: so bizarre to me that it's the Trump fans. And
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: this is unbelievably popular theory even though there's no evidence
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: for it. And whenever I try to combat it, I
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: don't know why I bother. I kick myself when I do,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: because I just get more and more frustrated. It just
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: so it illustrates just how completely broken the social media
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: system is. We're major, major right wing influencers. They were
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: tweeting immediately after Virginia Jeoffrey's suicide that Aha, she was killed,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: getting millions of impressions. Laura Loomer, advisor to the President
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: of the United States, claiming that she does not believe
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: that Virginia Geoffrey actually committed suicide, that she must have
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: been killed. Incredibly popular to eat nutjob, crazy conspiracy theory
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: should eliminate her from any credibility in the world. Yet
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: she's getting people in the administration fired because she has
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's ear cat Turd, another right wing which tells
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: you everything you need to know about social media. That
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: cat Turd is a major right wing influencer on Twitter
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: saying essentially the same thing. And of course this is
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: all related to their belief that Epstein himself didn't actually
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: kill himself. So if you believe that, this is a
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: domino effect here, folks, If you believe that Epstein was murdered,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: and you believe, you know, see, it's much easier to
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: believe that Geoffrey was somehow murdered, especially when in twenty
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: nineteen she's tweeting that I'm not really suicidal. If anything
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: happens to me, I'm being silenced or quieted. This is
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: all crazy thinking. These are best idiots and at worst
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: people who are mentally ill. And just to show you
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: how truth and logic and evidence is not the coin
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: of the realm. It's whatever you want to believe, and people,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: for some reason want to believe these crazy, insane conspiracy theories.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: Gets illustrated by the fact that whenever I combat it,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: you know, no one gives a damn. I mean, I
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: think this is a really good example. If you bear
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: with me here for a second, so I decided I
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: was going to tweet my basic case that the whole
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: idea that Epstein was murdered is absurd. And here's what
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: I wrote on Twitter. Of all the crazy conspiracy theories
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: that right wingers blindly and fervently believe Epstein was murdered,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: is the most baffling. And then I go through some
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: bullet points, and here they are. Number one, Trump himself,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: whose attorney general was in charge of that federal prison,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: has said, correctly, Epstein killed himself. Now I love when
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: Trump fans try to address this, they say, well, he
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: only said he thinks that he killed himself, And I'm like,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: do you understand the context in which he said that.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: He was saying that to Tucker Carlson, who was spouting
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: the belief that he was positive that Epstein was murdered,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: so he had an incentive to go at least go
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: along to some degree with Tucker Carlson. And even in
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: that context, he pushed back and said, I think Epstein
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: killed himself, and he explained why because he's right about that.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: By the way, he knew Epstein very very well. Bullet
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: Point number two, killing someone in a federal prison would
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: require a massive of conspiracy that would include Trump being
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: part of it or him being a total imbecile. As
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: I've already referenced point number three, this would be the
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: easiest crime to solve in history because everyone everyone's location
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: in a federal prison is carefully charted, and yet those
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: certain of his murders somehow don't even have a suspect.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: This is the one that always drives me the most crazy.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: Can you at least give me a sauspect. We know
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: exactly who was in that prison. There's only a couple
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: of people that would have had the opportunity to get
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: into his cell. If you've ever been in a height
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: maximum security prison, you know that's the way this works.
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: So not only would it require a massive conspiracy of
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: being incredibly easy crime to solve, you don't even have
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: a suspect. You don't even have a name, which to
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: me is an indication your theory is bullshit. Then this
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: is another part of this whole equation that I had
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: forgotten about, and I am actually derelict and not mentioning
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: every time I discussed this. But for the people that
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: are convinced that Epstein murdered was murdered, they rely on
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: a forensic pathologist by the name of doctor Michael Boden.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: Because Michael Boden, with very limited information, you know, basically
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: made it sound as if that Epstein's injuries were not
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: consistent with a with a hanging. By the way, this
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: is another element of this whole story that drives me crazy.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: When you are trying to hang yourself in prison, guess what,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be a perfect hanging. I know
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: that's probably very difficult for the morons to understand. It's
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: not going to be a perfect hanging. It's going to
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: be very, very messy. And it's who Michael Boden is
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: that I think is critical to this part of the equation.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: He's the guy, you know, they rely on that the
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: claim that Epstein's injuries were not consistent with suicide. This guy,
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: Michael Boden, is a complete whore, a complete fraud. He
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: testified for OJ Simpson, which in my mind, you know,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: game set match, you're fraud. You're not to be taken
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: seriously when you testify for OJ Simpson because of the
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: money and for the fame. But what's really amazing about
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: this and I had forgotten about this part considering who
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: it is that is promoting the Epstein was murdered conspiracy theory.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: They're almost all right wingers, right. Well, guess who else
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: Michael Boden supported. It was Michael Boden who gave George
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: Floyd's lawyers and family exactly what they wanted and or
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: paid for when it came to that case. And I
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: believe it's been proven that his conclusions about why George
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: Floyd died were also wrong and led to what could
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: be a grave injustice in that case. So you got
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: a guy who testified four oj Simpson was on the
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: George Floyd side, a critical figure on the George Floyd's
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: side of that whole fiasco. This is the guy who
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: is so lacking in credibility. This is one hundred percent
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: true story. I've mentioned that before. But whenever my wife
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: and I are watching Dateline or forty eight hours or
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty and there's a case, we're not really sure.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: The defense sounds like it might have some credibility, but
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: we're a little skeptical of it. And they go to
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: trial and when they put on Michael Boden, we both
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: turn to each other and go, oh, okay, guilty because
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: the defense you have to rely on Michael Boden. You've
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: got nothing else. You're just paying a whore to lie
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: for you. That's who Michael Boden is. And that's a
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: large part of whatever alleged evidence there is that Epstein
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: might have actually been murdered and not committed suicide. And then, finally,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: the reason that the Epstein Files was a complete flop
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: in my view, is that there was no massive Epstein
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: conspiracy to cover up, and therefore no great incentive for
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: very powerful people to somehow murder him in a federal
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: prison without even a traits of evidence. See, this is
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: where the domino effect comes in these conspiracy nuts. They
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: go on this Domino effect to insanity and oblivion when
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: He committed suicide. And the reason why he wasn't murdered
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: is that no one needed him to be murdered. Not
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: to mention, you couldn't pull that off under these circumstances anyway,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: because he was effectively acting alone. Just because he had
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of rich friends doesn't mean that the rich
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: friends were also sexual trafficking or abusing young girls. Doesn't
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: mean they weren't, but it doesn't mean they were. And
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: we now know from the lack of Epstein files that
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: there's no evidence that anybody else was. He was using
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: his rich friends to basically create a persona around him
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: where everyone would trust him, that he was vetted by society,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: that he was a very powerful figure. He was basically
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: the Bernie madeoff of sex abuse, where if you have
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: all these rich, high profile friends, including like Louis Free,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: former FBI director, then guess what, people aren't going to
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: think you're up to no good. It's just human nature.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: He understood that. That's my view of the entire Epstein story,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: and it got completely spun out of control, especially once
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: he killed himself, and then the Geoffrey allegation against Prince
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: Andrew and the what I believe he'd be mostly sham
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: trial involving Jiselene Maxwell afterwards, and now we're in a
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: situation where Jeffrey kills herself and these conspiracy nuts are positive, positive,
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: with very very popular social media posts that she didn't
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: really kill herself, that she must have been murdered, and
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: it's just all craziness. It's just so depressing because truth logic, rationality, research,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: evidence means nothing. It's all about what people want to feel.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: And for some reason, a lot of crazy people feel
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: very good about themselves if they think that the you know,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: these conspiracy theories are real, that that's the way the
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: world actually works, when it very clearly is not. And
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: you know, the issue of sex abuse, which is one
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: that unfortunately and certainly not by design, have gotten deeply
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: embedded into, largely because of the Penn State Joe Paterno
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandowski case keeps rearing its head, and you know,
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: I feel this very strange obligation to speak out because
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: no one else will that there is potentially another side
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: of the story. Again, to be clear, I believe Geoffrey
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: was a sex abuse victim. I believe Jeffrey Epstein was guilty.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: After that, I'm not so sure, because I think there's
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of indications that this story spun out of
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: control and the truth got lost. Now speaking of sex
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: abuse cases or led sex abuse case, Shannon Sharp, former
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: NFL player and a Pro Football Hall of Famer ESPN commentator,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: has taken an leave of absence for me ESPN because
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: of a fifty million dollar lawsuit against him that has
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: been filed on behalf of an Only Fans model, a
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: woman who is I guess in her early twenties. Now
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: Shannon Sharp is in his fifties, although he still is
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: in Fino nominal shape and clearly very very sexually active.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: And this case is interesting. I want to hold my
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: fire on it for a while before we at least
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: soil we can get some more facts. But I am
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: of the current opinion that Sharp did nothing illegal. And
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: we know this, by the way, and this is part
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: of what drives me crazy, especially in the realm of
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: sex abuse in this very modern post me too crazy
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: era where you know, we used to wait for a
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: criminal charge first. I just I am absolutely baffled as
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: to how we got to the point where you can
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: file a fifty dollars sex abuse lawsuit without any sort
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: of criminal charges against somebody that the lawsuit should come after.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, so, why is there no criminal complaint situation here?
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: Why is there no arrest if what was done was criminal,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: why is that not the focus? Well, it's not the
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: focus because and by the way, there's not even talk
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: of Shannon Sharp being charged with anything legally. This is
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: a civil lawsuit, which means it's a money grab Now.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know the truth of what happened between these
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: two people, but there's nothing that I have seen so
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: far that is inconsistent with the theory that these two
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: were involved in a very, very sexual relationship, a lot
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: of kinky sex, a lot of rough sex, and where
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: Sharp effectively got entrapped by this woman who was recording
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: conversations into saying some very dumb and inappropriate things to
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: try to blackmail him into paying her money to not
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: go public with this because it would be embarrassing to him,
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: especially given the fact that he's been involved in several
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: other similar messy situations prior to this, so he was
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: vulnerable to this. Again, I don't know for sure what
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: happened between Shannon Sharp and this woman. I get that
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: some of these recordings are disturbing and problematic, and I
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: frankly have no problem with him taking a leave of
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: absence or ESPN forcing him to take a leave of
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: absence at least until we can find out what the
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: truth is. I believe you know someone who's very good
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: friends with Matt Lower, former NBC Today Show host, that
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: Sharp is actually being treated quite nicely by ESPN, even
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: though there are differences, and you know, I don't want
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: to get into all that, but you know, Matt Lower
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: never even got sued forget about a criminal complaint, and
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: was in a completely consensual relationship with a woman who,
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: many years later, with the aid of Ronan Farroh, would
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: make a great claim that was completely in totally bogus. Well,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: NBC gave Matt Lauer no slack whatsoever, nowhere near the
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: slack that Shannon Sharp is getting. But my main takeaway
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: here is why no criminal charge, no indication that the
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: authorities are even interested in the case. Well, because in
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: a criminal situation you could never possibly get a conviction
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: given the text messages that this woman was sending Shannon Sharp,
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: which were off the charts, you know, basically indicating that
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: she wanted him to do all these very nasty things
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: to her. And so you know, this is not a
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: criminal situation. This is much more consistent, in my view,
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: with extortion. Now, does that mean that Shannon Sharp is
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: acting appropriately for a public figure and you know, someone
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: who's on basically a star on ESPN, No, I do
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: think that's a completely different standard. So I'm not defending
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: Shannon Sharp. I just I'm very uncomfortable with this, this
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: situation that we've now created, especially in the news media,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: where these where people can be deemed to be sexual
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: abusers when it's an Everything that's happening is obviously consistent
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: with a money grab where there's no criminal charge, where
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: someone is suing for fifty dollars, and where it seems
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: as if they were entrapping and extorting the person that's
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: being accused. So there's nobody nobody looks goodness. And I
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: do not want to defend Shannon Sharp. I don't care
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: if he's ever on ESPN again, but I did feel
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: like I had to acknowledge it. One because it's been
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: a big story in the media, but also because this
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: is this is an area where the media is incredibly
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: vulnerable to blowing it. And it doesn't seem to me
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: as if any of Shannon Sharp's friends, especially Stephen A. Smith,
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: have been particularly strong in his defense, which I find
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: to be interesting because you know, you could argue Shannon's
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: Sharp happens to be a black guy, that this is,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: you know, in other circumstances, that this is racist. This
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: is going after a black man for for you know,
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: for his own private sexual life.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 7: Uh.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: And I have not seen that kind of defense yet
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: for Shannon Sharp, so I don't know how this is
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: all going to turn out. He claims that he's going
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: to be back for the NFL football season. We'll see
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: if that actually happens, and I'll obviously update you on
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: anything that may transpire in that case as we go
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: along here now speaking of the NFL, so much of
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: the news cycle that has happened in the last week
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: has revolved around the NFL Draft, and in the last
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, actually he did a pretty good
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: job of predicting how this was all going to go down.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: I told you it was all going to be about
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: Shador Sanders, and that I was getting the sense that
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: the Colorado quarterback, the son of Dion Sanders, NFL Hall
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: of Famer legend and the coach at the University of Colorado,
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: where Shador Sanders played the last two years, was likely
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: to drop out of the first round, which was highly unexpected.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: In fact, ESPN, the so called experts, remember from COVID
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: how we should be looking at the credibility of the experts.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: The experts told us there was a ninety seven percent chance.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: These are ESPN's own stats ninety seven percent chance that
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: Shador Sanders was going to go in the first round
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: of the draft, and reading the tea leaves, I was
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: getting the sense that was not going to happen. And
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: part of what gave me that sense and why I
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: talked about it in the last episode of the podcast,
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: is that I'm a big believer in the bubble theory
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: or the not get run over by the herd theory
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the media in general and the
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: sports media in particular. I talked about this a lot
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: when it came to the whole Penn State Joe Paterno
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky case in our podcast. With the benefit of hindsight,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: the sports media is incredibly prone to group think because
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: no one wants to go outside the herd, and there
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: was a lot of group think about where Shaudor Sanders
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: was going to go in the draft. But then a
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: few days before the draft, I started to see some
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: people going outside of the herd, some credible people who
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: were saying, eyah, I think this might be a late
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: first round situation, maybe not even a first round situation.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: And I thought, Okay, if that's happening, and that makes
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: sense to me, given who Shadoor Sanders is and let's
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: be clear, this is a guy who played for a
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: team that never won a bowl game. He never played
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: particularly well against top notch competition. They play in a
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: second year conference. He had a career record of thirteen
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: and twelve. Yes, he can make some nice plays, but
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: he had a Heisman Trophy wide receiver in Travis Hunter,
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: and he's got his dad as the coach. I'm not
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: particularly impressed. So I've never thought of him as a
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: first round quarterback selection. And so I was reading the
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: tea leaves and just I got a sense this is
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: going to be a big deal when he falls. And
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: he's going to fall. Now, I didn't know how far
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: he was going to fall. And if he had told
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: me he was going to fall to the fifth round
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: to the Cleveland Browns, who had four other quarterbacks already
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: on the roster at that point, I would have said,
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: that's crazy, that's not going to happen. Not because I
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: think Shador Sanders is that great, just because it's hard
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: to believe that somebody who was that well thought of
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: and got that much publicity. And mal kiper Junior, the
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: alleged ESPN Draft expert, claimings the number one quarterback on
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: the entire board, even though the first pick in the
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: draft was cam Ward, a quarterback from Miami, who, by
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: the way, is black. That's an important part of where
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: this story is going here. Shador Sanders obviously black. Cam Ward,
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: who had his great moment as the number one pick,
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: basically obliterated by all the commentary surrounding Shador Sanders and
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: where he would go. So I mean it's not even close.
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: I would say that fifth round pick Shador Sanders going
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: to the Cleveland Browns got ten thousand times more attention
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: on NFL media and ESPN and on social media than
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: cam Ward did being the first pick in the draft.
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: And I was against cam Ward being the first pick
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: in the draft because he had quit on his team
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: Miami in their ballgame, literally quit. He set a record,
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: and then he sat out the second half and they
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: lost the game, and they even had a last possession
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: where he could have come back into the game to
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: potentially win it, and he didn't do it. So he
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: quit on his team, and he's the number one pick
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: in his last game in college. He quit on his
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: team in a ball game, and he's the number one
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: pick in the entire draft. I think he's talented from
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: a quarterback perspective, but that to me would have been
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: a disqualifier to be the first pick in the draft.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: But obviously this is a different NFL. So basically what
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: ended up happening here with Shador Sanders is that I
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: think there was a perfect storm of circumstances. There's almost
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: always a perfect storm when something that inexplicable happens, where
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: someone has a ninety seven percent chance of going in
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: the first round of the draft according to the so
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: called experts, and ends up going to the Cleveland Browns
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: in the fifth round. And I think this perfect storm
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: of circumstances really starts with his father and his college coach,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: Dion Sanders. Now I like Dion Sanders. I've been very
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: conflicted about him. I've talked about this on numerous occasions
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: on the podcast, like he's going back and forth on
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: where I stand on Dion Sanders. I want Dion Sanders
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: to succeed. I actually think he's somewhat of a closet conservative.
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: I think he teaches a lot of good principles, But
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: Dion loves himself some Dion, and Dion loves obviously his sons,
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: and I think Dion has a delusional view of how
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: good his son is. And this is a little bit
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: like what concerns me about Trump. There's nobody in Trump's
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: world to tell him you're wrong about this, sir, And
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: there's nobody in Dion's world to tell him you're wrong
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: about how good your son is. Because Dion made it
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: very clear to the whole world and obviously to his son,
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: that he's going to be a top five pick in
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: the NFL. I don't know where Dion got that idea,
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: but he got it from somewhere. And because Dion is Dion,
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: and he has, you know, universal access to the news media,
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: and the media is going to pick up everything he says,
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: and he gets interviewed all over the place, and he's
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: making this the narrative that he's a top five pick.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: Then that becomes the narrative the media sports media, especially ESPN,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: they just accept that as real because it's Dion. And
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: I think the fact that he's a huge celebrity, not
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: just a Hall of Fame football player, not just the
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: coach at Colorado. He is a huge celebrity with commercials
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: and everything else. Everybody knows who Dion Sanders is and
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: the media sports media is both enamored with him as
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: well as in many cases very friendly with him. So
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: this is all part of the perfect storm. You got
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of people reporting on the draft, like Rich Eisen,
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: who I generally like, I don't love, but I like.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: On NFL network, he's very good friends with Dion Sanders,
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: has worked with him. His perception of this cannot be objective,
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: and he's just one example. Dion's friends with a lot
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: of these people who were doing the commentary on the
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: NFL media and ESPN media, and if they're not friends
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: with Dion, they're enamored with his celebrity. I mean, celebrity
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: is so important to these people. So Dion has instant
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: credibility because of who he is, because he's a celebrity,
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: because he has connections and relationships with these people in
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: the media. So he's saying it's his son's a top
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: five pick, and mel kiper Junior is saying is a
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: top five pick, so this must be true. They accept
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: this as true, and this is where this goes so
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: much bigger than just the sports media. This is a
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: problem for the media in general. Once they accept something
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: is true, they can never go back. I don't understand this.
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: I've never gotten it. As a married man who's wrong
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: all the time, I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong.
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: But in the sports media and the news media, they
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: just can't do it. It's not even in their DNA. So
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: once they accept the narrative is real, they almost never
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: revisit it and they cannot accept it they're wrong. And
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: so once Sanders falls out of that top tier of
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: the first round, they don't understand it. They can't comprehend it.
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: Even though there's very good explanations for this. There are
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: all sorts of reports that Sanders did terrible shud or
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: Sanders did terrible in his interviews, that he did not
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: take them seriously. This Dion situation is not just a
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: problem with regard to the expectations that were created, the
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: narrative that was created, but also frankly, Dion was threatening
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: to memes, are you know certain cities that he wouldn't
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: name with the idea that he won't that his son
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: won't play for them, that there are certain places his
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: son will not play, which is a huge red flag.
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: And then you got the fact that Dion Sanders is
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: a major college coach who has said he wants to
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: coach his son. This is this is one that the
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: sports media completely ignored or downplayed dramatically, which I think
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: was a critical element to this whole situation. If you
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: are a coach in the NFL, why in the world
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: would you pick a quarterback who you don't think is
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: all that great whose father wants your job, has publicly
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: said he wants your job, and he is a massive
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: celebrity who ESPN has shown and other sports media utlets
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: has shown time and time again will do his bidding
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: for them. So if you pick his son and things
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: don't go well, either with his son or with whoever
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: you decide to play in front of his son, you
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: are in a very vulnerable position, very vulnerable because the
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: media locally and nationally could easily have Dion once start
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: to go on the rampage against you, either to force
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: you to play his son or for you to get
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: fired so that Dion Sanders can replace you. Why in
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: the world would you want that as a potentiality. What
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: would possibly be worth that. That's your literal job that
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: will be on the line, and there are only a
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: couple of coaches maybe only only Andy Reid at this point,
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: given the modern nature of coaching, when Bill Belichick can
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: get fired, we'll get to Bill Belichick momentarily what's going
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: on with him, But only Andy Reid has enough job
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: security to be able to say, I don't give a
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: shit about that because no one's firing me. Every other
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: coach in the NFL is one bad season away from
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: being fired basically, And so that part of this equation
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: I think that the sports media failed to give nearly
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: enough weight to partially because some of them, they would
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: even acknowledge that issue, would say, oh, no, no, Dion
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: is He's gonna be a good boy, He's not gonna
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: get involved. How the fuck do we know that? What
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: are you basing that? Are you gonna put your entire
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: career on the line because you have faith that Dion's
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: gonna behave like an adult and not metal. So, and
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: that's the other part of the other narrative. I saw
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: a lot from the Chador Sanders elements of the news media.
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how many media members suddenly became massive Shador
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: Sanders fans and promoters. I saw this narrative a lot.
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, where he got into race, which is absurd.
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: What what happened with the Mannings? Remember the Mannings. You
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: had Archie Manning and Peyton Manning and Eli Manning, and
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: Eli was trying to dictate and did dictate which team
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: he went to. Okay, I see where you're trying to
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: go here, But that's a terrible analogy for a couple
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: of reasons. Number one, uh, Eli Manning was better than
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: Shador Sanders, as was proven by the fact that he
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: won two Super Bowls. Two. Archie Manning was no Dion Sanders.
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: Archie Manning wasn't coaching in college, didn't say he wanted
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: to coach Eli in the pros, didn't have anywhere near
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: Dion's uh, you know, willingness to make critical comments or
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: problematic comments. I mean it was Archie Manning was no
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: threat to anybody in the NFL. He hardly ever said anything,
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: at least not publicly. Dion's a completely different cat. And
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: so so that analogy was completely bullshit, and I think
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: was a desperate attempt by the race baters to try
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: to come up with some sort of narrative here that
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: made any sense that what was happening to short Sador
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: Sanders was somehow racist, which was insane on its face.
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: First of all, cam Ward was the first pick in
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: the draft. He was a black quarterback. Second of all,
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: basically half the quarterback starting in the National Football League
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: are now black. We're almost exactly the halfway halfway when
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: it comes to how many black starting quarterbacks there are
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: in the National footballleag not to mention that a seventy
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: percent of those draft and are black. And somehow Sador
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: Sanders is the victim of racism because he's what more
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: authentically black? Is that what you're trying to say, And
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: by the way, your definition of authentically black, if that's
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: where you're going, it's about as racist as it possibly
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: can get because most of these qualities are not positive,
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: including you're not paying attention or not acting properly in meetings,
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: not taking it seriously, not being well prepared, having a
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: bad attitude. That's somehow to have that be a negative
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: is is somehow racist because what this is not me talking,
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: This is what I'm hearing elsewhere that somehow Sanders is
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: more of an authentically black guy and that the NFL
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: can't handle that. What the fuck is that? That is
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: so absurdly inherently and obviously racist. So everything is upside
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: down about the story. That's why it's I find it
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: so fascinating. Everything about the story is so telling about
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: the media in general, not just the sports media, but
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: also our culture. I mean, you've got this perfect storm
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: of celebrity and race and nepotism. I think that's another
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: part of why people were drawn to the story because
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: of the fact that he's Deon Sanders's son. I think
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: you also have the issue of a classic example of
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: a gen Z that is perceived by a lot of
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: people as being spoiled, and then you have the ultimate
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: gen Z spoiled brat in Shador Sanders, who thinks that,
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: you know, he's one of the greatest players ever, has
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: had his number retired by his dad at Colorado, even
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: though he never even came close to winning a Bowl game,
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: played only two seasons, lost twelve games. I mean, that's
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: classic gen Z. And you know, I think also it's
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: inherent that human beings like to see bad things happen
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: to rich, famous, and arrogant people. So I you know,
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: the ratings for this story and for the draft were
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: off the charts, way better than they've been in many
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: years and it's all because of Shador Sanders. And I
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: mean even Donald Trump got involved. Donald Trump waited using
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: the genetic argument, which was bizarre. The whole thing was
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: just so strange. But the President states, in the midst
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: of everything else going on, is winging in on social
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: media that Shador Sanders should have been taken in the
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: first round because of his great genetics with his father
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: just were they say, maybe you live in interesting times,
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: and we certainly are living in interesting times. But so
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: I think Trump was wrong on every level to go there.
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: But Trump saw that this story was getting a lot
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: of attention. Trump is a savant when it comes to
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. He understands ratings. And this was
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: a huge story. And the reason why it was a
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: huge story is people were interested in it because it
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: had everything celebrity, race, nepotism, gen z and this whole
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: issue of you know, let's face it, people like seeing
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: bad things happen to the rich, the famous, and the arrogant.
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: Of course, when it's a black guy, somehow that's racist.
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: When it's Aaron Rodgers falling almost out of the first
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: round many years ago and became a big story. He's
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: a white guy. So I guess that wasn't racist. That
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: was just I don't know, that's just people the human
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: natural tendency to watch a car wreck. It wasn't that
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: interesting what happened to Aaron Rodgers? Oh while, look at
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: him suffer, look at him sweat. People like that. That's
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: human nature. There's nothing to do with race whatsoever. So
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: I think that there were a lot of factors as
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: to what happened with Door Sanders, probably from a sports perspective,
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: the most underappreciated one. And this just shows how dumb
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: the sports media is. I saw some people in the
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: sports media say this, but not enough, because this, to
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: me is critical to understanding how you go from a
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: lock to be a first rounder to being a fifth
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: round pick of the Cleveland Browns with four other quarterbacks
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: ahead of you apparently on the depth chart. Here's what
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: really happened. The quarterback position in the National the Football
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: League has become so important, in my opinion, way way
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: too important, because I don't like that brand of football.
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: But it's become so important that you really have two
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: levels of quarterback. You have your starter slash hopefully franchise
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: quarterback who's going to be the face of your team,
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: hopefully for a decade or more to come. Who's going
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: to be the most important person on your team. And
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: with that comes enormous responsibilities. You're putting the entire fate
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: of the franchise on the shoulders of that very rare
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: breed of cat, that first round NFL quarterback draft pick. Okay,
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: so you have to be sure that the person that
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: you're giving that responsibility to is worthy of it and
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: can handle it. That's class one of quarterback. Class two
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: of quarterback is your backup. Now, the backup is a
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: completely different breed of cat. You're not looking for them
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: to be spectacular. You're looking for them to be reliable
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: in an emergency. And generally they don't get selected in
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: the second or third round. They get selected in the fourth, fifth, sixth,
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: seventh round. Well, once you fall out of that first
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: maybe second round category of quarterback where you could be
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: a starter, where you're at that level of play and reliability,
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: now you're in the realm of a backup. Well, as
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: a backup. Why in the world would you ever want
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: all the baggage that comes along with Sador Sanders. You
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: would never want that. There'd be no reason for you
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: to do that, which is why he starts to fall
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: well so precipitously after the first round and doesn't get
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: picked to the fifth round with the Cleveland Browns. I mean,
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: to me, it makes perfect sense. In fact, I'm a
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: bit stunned as to why the Browns selected him at all,
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: and I find it you want a conspiracy theory. I'm
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: not suggesting this is true, but to me, a conspiracy
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: theory involving the Browns makes more sense than a lot
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: of these other crazy conspiracies we talk about on this show.
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, because let's be clear, he was a fifth
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: round pick for the Browns who suddenly moved up. They
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: traded up. Why would you need to trade up to
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: get him? It's in the fifth round. If you're looking
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: for Shanora Sanders, he's radioactive at this point. There's plenty
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: of opportunity to still get him later. But for some
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: reason they decided to trade up when they had already
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: drafted another less heralded quarterback earlier in the draft than
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: the third round. I believe you already got four quarterbacks
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: on your roster four and you pick Shador Sanders in
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: the fifth round. Cleveland literally the city that nobody wants
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: to play in. How does that happen? I mean to me,
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: it's consistent with the end And I'm not saying this happened. Okay,
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying this, but if you wanted to be
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: conspiratorial about it, it certainly makes a little bit of
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: sense that the NFL wanted to get rid of this
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: headache that was being created, this media hysteria, and what
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: better way to do that than to get Shador Sanders
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: to be the fifth string quarterback in Cleveland where they
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: can get rid of him, where he can be cut
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: if it doesn't work out great in training camp in
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: the preseason, because there'll be there's no problem there. There's
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: all sorts of plausible deniability. He's the fifth quarterback. By
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: the way, ESPN just the other day did hire segment,
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: the entire segment. We're in the middle of the NBA playoffs,
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: the NHL playoffs, all sorts of things going on. They
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: did in the full segment with Stephen A. Smith talking
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: about whether or not shaanor Sanders is going to be
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: the Cleveland Browns starting quarterback at the beginning of the season.
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, forget about how irrelevant that is in the
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: broader scheme of things, there is no chance that Shador
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: Sanders is going to be the starting quarterback of the
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: Cleveland Browns. I think there's a much greater likelihood that
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: he's either cut or he's on the practice squad or whatever,
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: that he is jettisoned or maybe traded because he might
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: have some trade value, because he does have some athletic ability,
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: not as much athletic ability as melk hyper Junior and
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: the other sycophants seem to think. I mean, he really
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: isn't all that great. I was very spoken about Caleb
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: Williams not deserving to be the number one pick in
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: last year's draft, and I think so far under line,
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: so far, I've been vindicated in that in a pretty
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: significant way. I actually think Caleb Williams not having a
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: really good rookie year was part of the perfect storm
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: that hurt Shador Sanders. They are similar personalities, they are
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: similar playing types, and you know they're gonna be pocket
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: passers in the NFL if they play, because they're not
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: fast enough to be you know, you know, a running quarterback,
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: and they're not gonna be Patrick Mahomes. So you take
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: away in the pros. You take away their running ability
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: because they're gonna be run down by linebackers and even
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: defensive ends when they weren't in college, and so now
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: you're just a pocket passer, and that's a whole different animal,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: and I don't see that Sanders has that type of ability.
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 8: Now.
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: I think Caleb Williams is actually better than Shadoor sand
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: But I do think that both from an ego and
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: personality standpoint, as well as a playing style perspective, and
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 1: even their bodies are similar, their height, their physicality, they
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: are similar players. I think that Caleb Williams not doing
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: particularly well with the Chicago Bears in his first year
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: probably also was part of this perfect storm for why
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: Shador Sanders didn't go until the fifth round with the
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: Cleveland Browns. But anyway, I find the situation from a
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: media perspective to be very telling, quite fascinating. The temper
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: tantrums that the pro Shador Sanders media personalities, foremost among
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: them mel kiper Junior, but he was hardly alone, were
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: hilarious and it really goes to this biggest issue I
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: have with the news media and the sports media, which
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: is the unwillingness to think outside the box to ever
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: admit you're wrong, ever admit accountability, responsibility, and you know,
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: mel kiper junior, it should be career ending for him
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: what happened here unless the door Sanders somehow ends up
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: being the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns and having
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: a great career. He staked everything on this and he was.
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: It appears very very wrong Historically. Historically, in the recent
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: years of the drift, the last two decades plus, there
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: are no fifth round picks who ended up becoming real
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: starting quarterbacks. Now obviously, famously Tom Brady was a sixth
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: round pick, but I mean that was a unicorn among unicorns.
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: So statistically, historically, there is very little of any chance
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: that Shador Sanders is going to be a successful starting
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: quarterback in the National Football League. He's instead become essentially
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: their new Colin Kaepernick. That's what Shador Sanders is. He's
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: the media's new Colin Kaepernick. Where you know, they have
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: something they want to get people riled up about instantaneously.
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: You know, add water and stir. That's what ESPN wants
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: more than anything else, and add water and stir type
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: of story that you've got a celebrity you've got issues
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: of race, you got, you know, a victim card. That's
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: just amazing to me. That's another part of this whole situation.
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: It's so crazy we're now living in a world where
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: Chador Sanders is a victim. Chador Sanders, the son of
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: Don Sanders, a guy making millions of dollars in college
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: without ever winning anything in college, a guy who was
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: tricked into believing that he was a first round NFL
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: draft pick, and you know, had this big party and
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 1: this studio built for a winn. He was going to
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: be announced as a first round pick. And I mean,
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: just it's unbelievable that we're living in a society where
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: Shador Sanders is a victim. And the prank phone call
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: that he received, which was incredibly stupid from the son
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: of an assistant coach in the National Football League, who
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: unfortunately turned out to be white, which is a big
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: problem because that fell right into what the race baters
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: on this story wanted. They so desperately wanted something to
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: make Shador Sanders into a victim, and they got it
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: with the prank phone call where he was called by
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: this kid who was trying to I don't know what
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: he was doing. It was as stupid, but he made
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: it sound as if the New Orleans Saints were about
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: to draft Shador Sanders and it was a fake call.
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 1: And this gave you know, all sorts of moral high
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: ground to Shador Sanders and his supporters in the media,
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: and you know, to me, it was just a distraction
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: from the reality, which is that there is no Chad
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: Sanders is a victim here. If he's a victim of anybody,
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: ironically enough, he's a victim of the news media, the
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: sports media that oversold him and gave him way too
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: high expectations for what was going to happen in the draft,
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: and his own father, because there was a symbiotic relationship
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: there between his father and the sports media, creating this
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: false narrative about how good he was and how likely
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: it was that he was going to be picked in
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: the first round of the draft. I mean, I kept
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: seeing sports commentator saying, how in the world could he
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: possibly fall out of the first round, of the top
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: part of the first round. I kept thinking, what if
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: he was never really a top five pick? Maybe what
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: if that was all bullshit? What if he never no
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: one ever thought of him as a top five pick.
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: But see, nobody in the NFL is going to say that,
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: because why are you going to induce the wrath of
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: Dion Sanders and all of his media supporters. And it's
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: just hilarious to me that the media is not understanding
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: their own role with all this and the impact of
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: Dion and the circus. I mean, that's partially why Colin
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: Kaepernick became toxic. It wasn't just his stance on kneeling
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: for the American flag. It was because he became a
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: circus and not worth it, especially for a backup quarterback
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: Tim Tebow in a different direction, same deal. You know,
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: nobody wanted Tim Tebow because one he wasn't very good
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: and because two you're going to get a circus and
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: nobody needs that for a backup quarterback. This is not
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: that difficult except for the morons in the sports media. Now,
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: there's been a couple of things that I found interesting
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: regarding the issue of nil that people tried to relate
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: to what happened with Sador Sanders, and I've debated as
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: to how much validity there is. There was one guy
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: on CBS who is having to be a black commentator,
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: and I think he was trying to make this into
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: somewhat of a racial issue, where he was basically putting
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: forward a conspiracy theory that this was somehow payback by
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: the NFL over the NIL issue. I did not fully
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: understand where the idea is that the NFL needs to
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: show these kids whose boss, and that because the kids
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 1: are now making the stars, are making a lot of
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: money coming out of college, that somehow the kids have
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: too much power and the NFL feels insecure about that,
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: so they're using Shador Sanders as an example. They're using
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: him as an example to show who the real boss is.
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: I don't buy that, but I do think that there
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 1: is an NIL aspect to the Shador Sanders story that
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: does play a role, and part of it is the
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: Shadoor Sanders is obviously spoiled. He was spoiled as the
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: kid of Dion Sanders, but he was very much spoiled
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: in college making all sorts of money, largely because he
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: was the son of Dion Sanders. Let's be clear, just
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: based upon his playing ability and his accomplishments, he would
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: not have been getting tons of NIL money or endorsement money.
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: Based upon what he was doing at Colorado he was
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: not the son of d Ian Sanders. So I do
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: think that that hinders the drive and the willingness of
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: the kid to take things seriously. And if you've already
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: made millions of dollars, you think your shit doesn't stink,
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 1: and you think you're the person in the leverage position.
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: You also don't have the same desire that used to
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: exist coming out of college to make the NFL. And
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: University of Mississippi head football coach Lane Kiffen, who is
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit like Bill Maher, it's weird that he's
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: become the voice of reason. Bill Maher the voice of
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: reason on the left and Lane Kiffen the voice of
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: reason when it comes to college football. Lane Kiffen on
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: a podcast recently talked about this aspect of nil money
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: being paid to college athletes and the deletorious impact that
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 1: it may be happen that may be having on certain
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: star players and their desire to achieve at a very
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: high level, and how this might especially in the context
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: of Shador Sanders. Although he doesn't mention Sador Sanders, that's
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: important to point out that in this context it might
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: impact whether or not some of these guys are really
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: fully prepared and willing to do what it takes to succeed,
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: not just in college but at the NFL as well.
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 7: Obviously, the benefit is the financial situation for players now
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 7: that they can get in their families. But there's some
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 7: cost in there. You know, you give people too much
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 7: too early, and sometimes it takes away that drive. And
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 7: I think also there was so much in college in
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 7: a locker room and playing in college like that. The kids,
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 7: It's like, there's so much drive to get to the NFL.
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 7: And part of that is the money too. Well, now
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 7: if I already have that car and I have that money,
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 7: is that drive there? And then grass is green on
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 7: the other side. Now I can just go into the
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 7: portal basically free agency. If they would have had it
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 7: twice a year, you can go in, say, you know,
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 7: four year contract, I mean you twice a year. Well,
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 7: that sounds good, except for now I'm kind of always
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 7: looking over there, and there's there's no tampering rules, so
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 7: you're getting calls from coaches all time, well come over here.
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 7: You don't have to do what they're just saying over there.
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 7: I think there's some there's a lot of costs that
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 7: has come into that where guys just jump around, jump around,
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 7: or they're not even finishing their season, not enjoying the
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 7: moment they're in. Maybe they're still in the roster, but
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 7: they're already checked out, because I mean, I know that
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 7: portal's coming in December. I'm's week four, i ain't playing
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 7: as much only on special teams.
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to that portal. I found that comment from
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: lane kiffn to be really interesting, and I think that
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: it's one of those aspects there's so many of them
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: of Nil that I have failed to mention. I mean,
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: there's so many impacts that Nil has had that those
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: that were very naive and frankly stupid did not see coming.
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: And and even I didn't see that one because I figured, Okay, well,
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: you know, the money is still going to be a motivator.
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: But when you get it that early, when you're nineteen
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: twenty years old and you get that much money that early,
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: it changes a lot. And one of the things that
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: may change is your level of desire, your I of
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: the Tiger, if you will. And I thought what lane
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: Kiffin said there had a lot of merit. Now there's
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: another clip that I want to play for you regarding nil.
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: This is from Kirk Herbstreet ESPN commentator, a guy who
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: I kind of like, but I'm always frustrated by because
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: I always sense that he's not really telling what he
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: really believes because he's afraid of offending people. He's clearly
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: very politically correct. I mean, he's in the past, he's
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: virtue signaled on issues of race. By the way, one
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: last thing on the Shador Sanders deal, which I forgot
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: to mention with regard to the racial issue, you had
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: a circumstance that really facilitated almost everybody making it into
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: a racial issue. Black commentators felt like they needed to
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: show they were down with the struggle and they're not
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: an Uncle Tom. So they were instinctively defending Shador Sanders
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: even when they had no real need to. Not all
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: of them, but a lot of them did. And then
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: you had a lot of white commentators who needed or
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: felt like they needed the virtue signal that this was
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: a great opportunity to show how down with the struggle
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: they are and how not racist they are by jumping
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: on the Shador Sanders bandwagon, which is, you know, an
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: nauseating phenomenon that happens in all elements of the media,
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: but especially the sports media, where white people feel like
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: they have to virtue signal. Well, Kirk Herbstreet has done.
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: I think he did that on the George Floyd situation
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: that I think he may have cried on the air
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: at one point, I'm pretty sure about that. But so
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: he's prone to virtue signaling. I guess you almost have
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: to be as a white male at ESPN, you know,
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: on race issues, you have to virtue signal. So I'm
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: not a huge fan of Kirk Hrbstreet, but I think
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 1: he's a smart enough guy and I think as hard
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: as general in the right place. And he said something
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: very interesting. This is in the Pat McAfee show on
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: ESPN about Nil, and I would love to know whether
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: or not he's really being honest here, or this is
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: revisionist history, or whether or not going along with the
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: virtue signaling idea, whether or not Hert Street was one
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: of these people and I've said this many many times,
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: who were duped into believing this was a civil rights issue.
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: I truly believe that if you know basketball and football
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: were not dominated by blackmail athletes, that the left especially
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: would never have embraced Nil, like, for instance, if you know,
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: college lacrosse or water polo or a sport dominated by
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: white guys was the most popular and most you know, financially, uh,
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: you know, viable sports and college sports. If that had
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: been the case, there would have been no pressure for
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: NIL was seen as a civil rights issue because college
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: football and basketball teams are allegedly making so much money
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: and they're largely doing so on the back of the
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: black athlete, and that was totally wrong. But that's partially
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: what led people down this wrong path and to buying
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: the NIL would be a good thing and that maybe
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't really be that horrible. Well, Kirk Herbstreet essentially
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: does a mia kulpa, although he has to say, just
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: as they always do, as Nick Saban always does, I'm
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: in favor of players being paid. That's the virtue signal.
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: Whenever you hear I'm in favor of players being paid,
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: that's the virtue signal. On the race or the civil
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: rights issue, which is ridiculous. It was never a civil
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: rights issue. It was never a race issue, but it
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: became one because of the fact that the money sports
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: happened to be dominated generally by black athletes. So here's
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: what kirk Herbstreet said with suddenly, you know, this is
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: much worse than we ever thought it was going to be,
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: and it's destroying college sports. And here's what that sounded
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: like on ESPN.
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 8: Well you hear NIL.
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: What does that stand for? Name, Image, likeness, potential? So
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 1: basically marketing.
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 8: It's marketing. It's not a pay for play situation where
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 8: booster whoever from whatever school can say, Hey, that guy's available. Hey,
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 8: let's go spend ten million dollars. That's not what this
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 8: market was supposed to be about. That's not what this is.
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 8: And the idea of that still existing or continuing to
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 8: exist is not healthy. Collectives are not healthy. Boosters paying
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 8: for players is not healthy. Nil is healthy. Like if
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 8: Nico could have created money and opportunities in the marketing
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 8: world of his name, image, and likeness in Knoxville and
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 8: the state of Tennessee, more power to it. Aremiah Smith
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 8: in the state of Ohio and the city of Columbus
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 8: right now off of his name, image, and likeness can
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 8: create millions of dollars, more power to him. But the
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 8: idea of some booster saying, hey, we need to tight end,
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 8: let's go get this guy.
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: Let's go whoops, outbid him, just go get him.
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 8: That's not what That's not what this is about. That's
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 8: not what name, image and likeness is about. We're not
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 8: paid for play, and the whole thing is a disaster.
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 8: I'm all about paying these guys, but let's do it.
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 8: Let's be responsible. Let's help these guys grow and develop
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 8: his people and not just rely on boosters to outbid
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 8: one another for these guys to be playing at their school.
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: Now, when I heard that, part of me felt a vindication,
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: but part of me was very very frustrated, because I'm like, Kurk,
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: where were you when it mattered? How did you not
• 2:28:52
  Speaker 1: see this? How did you not see that this was
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: what was going to happen? This was always very obvious
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: unless you were very naive or very dumb or afraid.
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: And I'm I'm much more willing to go with afraid.
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 1: I think they were afraid of the civil rights issue,
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: and now that it's turned out way worse than even
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: I anticipated, at least some people like Herkurbstreet are willing
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: to tell the truth. Now it's too late to do
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: anything about it, but the truth automatter no matter what,
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: and I applaud Kirkurbstreet for at least starting to tell
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: the truth about NIL. Thanks for listening to today's free
• 2:29:30
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• 2:29:33
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• 2:29:47
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• 2:29:57
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• 2:30:02
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