Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Thirty Eight: If a 60 Minutes Producer Falls in the Forest

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Episode Two Hundred Thirty Eight: If a 60 Minutes Producer Falls in the Forest · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and thirty eight of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Sickler. I'm
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your host of the Today's show. Pope Francis dies on
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Easter Sunday. How will the media react in this new
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: post legacy era? Is Trump about the back down to
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: China in the trade war? Ourfka Junior and Pete Hegsteth
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: proved once again why they were awful Cabinet nominees. Larry
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: David takes Bill Maherr to the woodshd, the producer of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: sixty Minutes, resigns over Trump coverage. I finally talk about
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the kilmar Garcia and Carmarlo Anthony stories. And every time
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you think college sports can't possibly get any worse, it
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: does so. Yet again. We begin in this episode of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: the podcast with the biggest news story internationally for sure
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: over the last week, and that is the passing of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Pope Francis, who died on Easter Sunday. Apparently this after
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: actually presiding over Easter Mass in Rome and having an
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  Speaker 1: audience with Vice President JD. Vance. I mean, this is
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: from a purely human perspective, kind of a bizarre set
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: of circumstances where Pope Francis, who has been very ill
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  Speaker 1: for quite a while, seemingly was well enough to make
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a public appearance on Easter Sunday and then visit with JD.
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  Speaker 1: Vance and then just a couple hours later had a
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  Speaker 1: stroke and passed away. From Pope Francis's perspective, you can't
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: really do it much better than that. You somehow summoned
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  Speaker 1: the energy and the courage to do Easter one last time.
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  Speaker 1: If you're JD. Vance, I'm sure you feel rather conflicted
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  Speaker 1: about the whole thing. But it is seemingly pretty weird
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  Speaker 1: that it appears as if JD Vance was the last
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: person to have an audience with Pope Francis. But you know,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: these are the things that happen in life, and if
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: you're going to go and you all everyone obviously goes
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: at some point. If you're the Pope, you can't do
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: it much better than that. As far as where we
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: go from here, I am fascinated on a couple different
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  Speaker 1: levels by how the media will react to this particular
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: passing of the pope, as well as the choosing of
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  Speaker 1: a new pope, because throughout the modern history of the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: American media, a new Pope has always been a massive,
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  Speaker 1: massive news story, and there's a lot of reasons for that,
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  Speaker 1: but I think part of it is the media loves,
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  Speaker 1: loves this selection process and the fact that it is
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  Speaker 1: now coming on the heels of an Academy Award nominated
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  Speaker 1: movie named Conclave, which is all about the process of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: selecting a new Pope, a movie, by the way, that
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  Speaker 1: was very very good up until the last moments. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I really liked Conclave until and I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: give a spoiler, although if you haven't seen at this point,
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  Speaker 1: well I don't know. It just bizarrely, ironically and incredibly
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  Speaker 1: appropriately for the makers of the movie, it's now available
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  Speaker 1: in streaming literally the day I think after Pope Francis
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  Speaker 1: passed away, So they could not have possibly planned that
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  Speaker 1: any better. I mean, the pr marketing for this movie
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  Speaker 1: is off the charts to somehow coordinate it with the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: actual conclave that will choose the next Pope. By the way,
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  Speaker 1: with regard to Conclave, and when it comes to movies,
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  Speaker 1: you're always hesitant about giving spoilers, and why I hated
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the end of that movie, and I was not alone.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of conservatives hated the end of Conclave because
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  Speaker 1: it dealt with I guess you would call it transgender
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: issues one of the I was surprised that in the
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  Speaker 1: movie Conclave they did not raise this in any way.
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  Speaker 1: There used to be a part of the process in
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  Speaker 1: ancient times, although not that long ago, I don't believe.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure it was hundreds of years ago when this
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: was finally ended. That would have had it still existed
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  Speaker 1: in the modern era. Put a major glitch into the
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  Speaker 1: entire Conclave plot. And I don't know that very many
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  Speaker 1: people are aware of this, but part of the processes
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  Speaker 1: of you will, part of the pomp and circumstance. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what the right way to describe it
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  Speaker 1: would be of choosing a new pope would be that
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  Speaker 1: the pope would sit on a specially designed chair. The
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  Speaker 1: new Pope, just before they are officially the new Pope,
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  Speaker 1: would sit in a specially designed chair without any underwear,
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  Speaker 1: so that the other cardinals could make sure that the
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  Speaker 1: new Pope was a male. Now use your imagination as
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  Speaker 1: to how that would actually happen and how the chair
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  Speaker 1: would be designed. But I'm not making this up. This
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  Speaker 1: is an actual, real thing that used to be part
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  Speaker 1: of the process of selecting a new pope, a part
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  Speaker 1: of the process that would have been very important when
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  Speaker 1: it came to the issue of the movie Conclave. But
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  Speaker 1: I digress. So we have the movie Conclave coming out
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  Speaker 1: on streaming just as the new Pope is being chosen
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  Speaker 1: via a conclave, and the media is fascination with this
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  Speaker 1: process because it's very secretive, it's very mystical. You got
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  Speaker 1: black smoke, you got white smoke. You know, they love
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  Speaker 1: this process. I mean, it's really a situation where the
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  Speaker 1: media is so used to having access to everything in
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  Speaker 1: this social media age that this is one of the
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  Speaker 1: last major events where they have no access at all none,
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  Speaker 1: And I think that they kind of like that. And historically,
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  Speaker 1: this selection process and a new pope and the funeral
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  Speaker 1: of the old pope, and obviously the selection of a
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  Speaker 1: new pope has always been a massive media story in
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  Speaker 1: the modern age of America. Now, the last time this
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  Speaker 1: happened was in twenty thirteen, although that occurred under unique
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  Speaker 1: circumstances because there was a resignation as opposed to a
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  Speaker 1: death when Pope Francis was chosen, and I was intimately
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: familiar with what was going on with the media there
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: because I had just interviewed for the first time Jerry
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  Speaker 1: Sandusky in prison and had taken a secretively taken a
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: recording pen into the prison, which was not allowed in
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania prisons, so that I could have audio of my
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: interview with Jerry Sandusky, because I knew that there was
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  Speaker 1: a very good chance that The Today Show, because I
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: had been on there previously with Matt Lauer, would be
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  Speaker 1: interested in doing a story on this and potentially having
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  Speaker 1: me on to discuss the interview. And if I didn't
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  Speaker 1: have audio, then nothing I did was going to have
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  Speaker 1: any value at all, especially the fact that I'm not
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  Speaker 1: a celebrity and didn't have a major media outlet behind me.
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  Speaker 1: But that occurred right as the pope resigned, and then
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  Speaker 1: there was going to be the selection process for the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: new pope, which put everything into flux, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: so basically my life was in limbo for several weeks
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: because there was a lot because this was unprecedented in
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  Speaker 1: the modern era, the way this was going to go down,
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  Speaker 1: and Matt Lauer had to go over to Rome, and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: you know, there was ambiguity about how long he would
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  Speaker 1: stay there, and frankly, in retrospect, I kicked myself on
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  Speaker 1: a regular basis because I should have been using this
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  Speaker 1: time instead of being paralyzed, to further investigate the date
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of the mcquery issue, and that should have been the
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: headline from that appearance, which eventually did occur once Matt
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  Speaker 1: Lower returned to the United States after the ceremonies involving
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: now Pope Francis and obviously now the Pope Francis. But
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that was a major mistake on my part. But I
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  Speaker 1: remember that being excruciating because there was so much ambiguity
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  Speaker 1: and uncertainty, and I really felt paralyzed at the time.
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  Speaker 1: And I do wonder whether or not there's going to
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  Speaker 1: be the same level of coverage this time around, because
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  Speaker 1: so much has changed since twenty thirteen, especially in the
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  Speaker 1: legacy news media. First of all, covering a pipe papal
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  Speaker 1: funeral and the ceremonies involving a new pope are very expensive.
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  Speaker 1: It's very time consuming. This doesn't happen at all all
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  Speaker 1: in one day or two, as I've already just discussed.
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  Speaker 1: It happens over over a week, sometimes two weeks for
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  Speaker 1: this whole situation to train aspire, and you know, we're
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  Speaker 1: now living in a world where the business model for
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the mainstream news media, especially the legacy media, is completely broken.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm sure there's still going to be a lot
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  Speaker 1: of coverage. I don't know that it's going to be
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  Speaker 1: as blanket coverage as it has always been in the past,
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  Speaker 1: partially because of the strains on the business model of
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  Speaker 1: the mainstream news media and how that has changed since
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  Speaker 1: twenty thirteen even and also because of the change in
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  Speaker 1: the influence of Catholicism, not just worldwide but specifically in
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  Speaker 1: the United States of America. I mean, Catholicism has taken
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  Speaker 1: a massive hit in the last several decades, largely, although
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  Speaker 1: not entirely, because of the Catholic Church scandal, the child
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  Speaker 1: sex abuse scandal, and I think that that has probably
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  Speaker 1: diminished how big a deal Catholicism is in general and
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  Speaker 1: the Pope is in particular in the United States of America.
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  Speaker 1: I have a very odd comparison or analogy that I
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  Speaker 1: would make. This is probably a classic Ziggler analogy. No
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  Speaker 1: one else is ever going to make this. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know how good it is. You can decide for yourself,
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  Speaker 1: but I see Catholicism in America a lot like I
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  Speaker 1: see baseball. And maybe this is because the timeline is
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  Speaker 1: almost exactly the same in my life, where when I
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  Speaker 1: was a kid, baseball was a huge part of my
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  Speaker 1: life in the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties, and
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  Speaker 1: baseball is not a part of my life at all anymore.
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  Speaker 1: And I occasionally I'll be curious, maybe the World Series,
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  Speaker 1: the really big events, you know, when the Pope dies,
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  Speaker 1: I'll be interested, or when there's a new pope, I'll
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  Speaker 1: be interested. But by and large, other than in the
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  Speaker 1: big situations, the big stories, I'm no longer a baseball fan.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not just my experience. I think that there
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  Speaker 1: are a lot of people in the same boat that
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  Speaker 1: I am in. And if you look historically with regard
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  Speaker 1: to the influence of Catholicism in the United States, it
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  Speaker 1: really does kind of dovetail with baseball in a lot
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  Speaker 1: of ways. Now there are still an awful lot of
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  Speaker 1: Catholics in this country, just like they're an awful lot
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  Speaker 1: of baseball fans in this country. In fact, the percentage
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  Speaker 1: of those groups has not changed that much. It's diminished,
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  Speaker 1: but the number of people claiming to be Catholics or
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  Speaker 1: claiming to be baseball fans hasn't gone down dramatically. But
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  Speaker 1: what has, in my opinion, gone down dramatically is the
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  Speaker 1: level of passion that those groups of people have for
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  Speaker 1: the institution of baseball or the institution of Catholicism. And
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  Speaker 1: if you think about it, baseball and Catholicism also have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of other things in common. They are passed
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  Speaker 1: down from generation to generation. That's always been the key
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  Speaker 1: to their popularity. If you grew up as a Catholic,
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  Speaker 1: you were very very likely to have your children be Catholic.
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  Speaker 1: Up until recently, well, baseball has always relied, especially when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to fathers and sons, on passing down the
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  Speaker 1: love of baseball from one generation to the next. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that there has been in this last generation
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  Speaker 1: or two a diminishment on both the baseball side and
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  Speaker 1: the Catholicism side of that equation, that it's not being
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  Speaker 1: passed down with nearly the same level of passion or
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  Speaker 1: in the same numbers as it has been in the past.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I talk all the time when it comes to college
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  Speaker 1: sports about the issue of religion versus business, and I
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: think baseball used to be the whole. Kevin Costnerfield of dreams.
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  Speaker 1: Thing used to be seen by a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: as a very mystical, very religious type of sport, and
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  Speaker 1: then it became a business. And you can't treat a
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  Speaker 1: religion totally as a business, and can can consider that
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  Speaker 1: and assume that people are always going to treat it
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  Speaker 1: as a religion. Eventually people are going to figure it out.
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  Speaker 1: So if you sell off your religion, people aren't going
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  Speaker 1: to view it as a religion anymore, and they're not
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: going to have the same level of passion for it.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that that will eventually happen, probably fairly
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  Speaker 1: soon with college sports, and I think it has happened
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: with baseball to a large degree. Now. Baseball is still
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: very very popular in pockets, just like about twenty percent
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  Speaker 1: of Americans still consider themselves to be Catholic, but there
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  Speaker 1: are other pockets where it used to be very popular
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  Speaker 1: and it is no longer. I mean, baseball is seeing
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  Speaker 1: several markets where even in Saint Louis, which has always
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: been a very popular market for baseball, where they can't
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  Speaker 1: draw lies Suddenly now there are other markets, you know,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: New York and Los Angeles, and you know, the places
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  Speaker 1: to have the money to pay the players. Where baseball
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  Speaker 1: is extremely popular to this day, especially if the team
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: happens to be winning, But when the team's not winning,
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  Speaker 1: there's no passion because it's just a business. It's no
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: longer a religion. Another interesting, hope interesting comparison between baseball
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and Catholicism is that the demographics of Catholicism in America
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: at least have changed rather dramatically over the last couple
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of decades, and in both situations, the institution is much
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: more popular in the Hispanic community than it is in,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: for instance, the white community. Catholicism used to be mostly
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: white in America religion. Now, partially because of the massive
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: influx of immigrants from Latin America, it is becoming much
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: much more of a Hispanic religion in the United States.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Although ironically the percentage of Hispanics who consider themselves to
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: be Catholic has gone down pretty dramatically from something in
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: the seventies to something in the fifties in recent decades,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter because that's how many Hispanic immigrants have
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: come into the country, and the majority of those are Catholic,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and so the demographics of Catholicism in the United States
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  Speaker 1: is now much more Hispanic than it has ever been before.
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  Speaker 1: And I think you could make the same sort of
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: analysis of baseball. So I don't know what any or
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: all of that actually means. I just find it to
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: be an interesting comparison or analogy for where Catholicism is.
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  Speaker 1: And I wouldn't say that it's in complete crisis, although
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: there are elements of it that are. And when you
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: look at the percentage of US students who go to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Catholic school it has plummeted in recent decades, except for
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: during the COVID panic, when Catholic schools were maybe open
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit more than public schools were. But other
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: than that little blip in the radar. And I'm a
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: product of Catholic schools. I went to Catholic grade school
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and Catholic high school and allegedly a Catholic college. That
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: percentage has gone way down. The number of priests in
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: this country has gone completely off the charts in the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: negative direction, falling off a cliff for a number of reasons.
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  Speaker 1: And so you know, there are elements of crisis when
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: it comes to where Catholicism is, but it is still
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: a major, major part of the fabric of America. As
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I said, about a fifth of Americans consider themselves to
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: be Catholic. I just don't think they have the same
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  Speaker 1: level of passion. So when you consider that Catholicism is
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: not nearly as significant a part of American culture as
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: it was in previous decades, and the news media is
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: in no position to be spending ridiculous amounts of money
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and resources and time in covering a papal transition, my
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: guess is we're not going to see the same level
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: of wall to wall coverage of this papal transition as
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: we have seen in the past. From a personal perspective, though,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: this is the one time I ever get to use
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: any of the three years of Latin that I took
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: at a Catholic high school in the Philadelphia area, Holy
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Goes Prep. Actually took two years of Latin there and
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: then one year of Latin to Georgetown, where I learned
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: absolutely nothing. But of course, the world will be waiting
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: on the announcement of albemos popham, which is Latin for
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: we have a pope, and we'll be hearing a lot
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of a moment at Batavis Phili Espiritu sante Amen. But
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: other than that other than when there's a papal transition.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: All the years of Latin that I took is completely
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: totally useless, although my daughter Grace does get a kick
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: out of hearing the Latin on television whenever the Pope
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: is in the news, which obviously has been the case
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: over the last several days. As far as Pope Francis himself,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the media, of course, you know, is very very kind
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: to him because he was a liberal in every possible way.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: He was a progressive when it came to issues involving
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church, as well as politically a liberal. It
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: is perceived that he has the deck when it comes
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to the College of Cardinals so that someone like him
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: will be elected Pope in the next few weeks. We'll
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: obviously see whether or not that will actually transpire, but
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: you know, and with regard to the Hispanic issue, obviously,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: he was the first pope from Latin America, which I'm
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: sure also helped with regard to the issue of Hispanics,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and in this country especially it becoming much more of
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: a stronger force when it comes to Catholicism demographically within
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: the United States of America. I'm sure we'll cover more
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: of what's going on with the papal transition. But that's
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: where I was coming from with regard to the death
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: of Pope Francis and where we are from a media
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: perspective on how the story is going to be covered. Now. Domestically,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: we are still embroiled in the trade war that Donald
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Trump has facilitated, specifically on China, although also of course
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the rest of to the world when it comes to
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: tariff But to me, this is all about China, China, China,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And since the last episode of the podcast, the stock
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: market has been a literal roller coaster going further down,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and then in the last couple of days, including this
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: morning as of this taping, going back up. The latest
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: large development which facilitated the most recent developments in this
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: roller coaster was that Trump declared that he believed that
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the FED chairman Jerome Powell, was somebody who he had
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the right to fire, and that it was becoming very
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: obvious that he was itching to fire Pow. And it
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: was my perception, as well as the perception of many
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: other people who are observing this, that Powell was being
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: set up as a scapegoat for why this whole situation
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: was not working. Part of the strategy here was that
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: interest rates would go down, and that has not happened.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, when it comes to the bond market, things
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: have gone in largely the opposite direction of the way
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: that it was anticipated, which I think has freaked a
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: lot of people out, both inside the administration and outside
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: that there's something very strange going on and that that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: was starting to cause panic. And that's partially you know
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: why Trump put the pause on this a week or
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: so ago. But then when he went after Pal, the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: markets panicked further because they thought if Trump fires Pal,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: which I'm of the belief and most experts, not that
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I'm an expert in his area, are of the belief
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: that he does not have the authority to fire the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: FED chairman without good cause, and there certainly does not
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: appear to be anything that would fit that description as
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: far as good cause is concerned. If that occurred, that
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: would be an extremely destabilizing event. And there are very
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: very few people that the market still has faith in,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: that are in a position of power that are going
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to keep this thing on the rails, and Chairman Poal
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: is probably one of them. Well, Trump backtracked a bit
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: on a number of things. He backtracked on the issue
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of whether or not he's going to fire Pal, saying
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: he has no intention to fire Pal. This may have
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: occurred partially because there were even some Republicans, including Senator
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Kennedy from Louisiana, who spoke up and said, yeah, I
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: don't think Trump has the authority to fire the FED chairman.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: So he is at least verbally backed off of the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: issue of firing Pal. The markets like that a lot,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: but they also like the idea that it appears as
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: if Trump is setting up a cave when it comes
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to the trade war against China. Now, in the last
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, I laid out the argument I
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: don't think we are in nearly as strong a position
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: vis of each China as Trump appears to think that
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: we are, partially because our value systems are different. I mean,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: the bottom line here is China has all the time
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: in the world. China is a big problem. You know,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: it's a huge problem economically, but they don't have to
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: be as responsive to their people. They have total control
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: over their policies. They have all of this essentially slave labor.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: They don't have to worry about, you know, minimum wage
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and healthcare and all that sort of stuff that we
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: do in the United States of America. So they have
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: several structural advantages when it comes to enduring pain during
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: this trade war that we in the United States do
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: not have. And you know, Trump made a pretty strong signal,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: at least the markets as of this morning considered it
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to be a pretty strong signal that he was going
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: to do on China what he's always done, which is
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: to pretend that he's in for the long haul and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: then back down cave, make a deal, the Claire victory,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: regardless of whether there are any wins involved or not,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and then move on. That has always been Trump's m
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: that has always been my assumption as to what would
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: happen here. It's just a matter of how much time
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and how much damage would be done before we get there. Well,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, out of the blue, and this
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: is seemingly simultaneous to the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen declaring
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: that at least privately, that a trade war with China
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: is unsustainable in the long run. Trump made public comments
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: where he made it very clear that he is not
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: going to play hardball with China, that the terriffs would
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: come down relatively soon, I believe, is the way that
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he phrased it. And if you are someone who understands
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the way that Trump operates, virtually everything is pointing in
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the direction of a classic Trump cave. That it's all
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: basically bravado. It's all art of the deal, as he
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: would describe it, although I'm never very confident that the
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: deal is going to be any good. But here was
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the statement that Trump made when asked about how he
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: was was going to negotiate with China on this trade
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: war on tariffs, and Trump made it very very clear,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: could not admit it more obvious that he is setting
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: up a cave when it comes to battling China in
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the trade.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Warps, and our country is getting stronger all the time
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: because the other was not sustainable.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: China, are you going to play marball?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to say no, I'm not going to
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: mention COVID. I'm not going to say, oh, I'm going
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: to play hardball with China. I'm going to play hardball
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: with you. President She No. No, We're going to be
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: very nice. They're going to be very nice, and we'll
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: see what happens. But ultimately they have to make a deal,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: because otherwise they're not going to be able to deal
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: in the United States.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: So we Now, when I saw that, I'm like, Okay,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: here we go. He's setting up the cave. He's going
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: to fold like he always does, but in this particular case,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I'm actually kind of rooting for him to fold. The
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: sooner the better, you know. My concern at this point
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: is is China even going to let him off the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: hook by allowing him the cave and to fold, because
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: they may not. I mean, this is not an area
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I'm an expert in, but I'm just going by the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: nature of humanity and where I perceive the strengths and
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: weaknesses of each side to be. And I could certainly
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: see a situation where China now sees total weakness. I mean,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: let's be clear here. So Trump did this. A couple
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of days later, he cries uncle when it comes to
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the vast majority of the tariffs, puts a ninety day
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: pause on. It's been very, very obvious that our vulnerability
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: is in the bond market, and that the bond market
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: has reacted largely in the exact opposite direction of what
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: was anticipated. There's a very good chance that China played
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: a role in that. I mean, I don't know how
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: in the world you decide to go into a war
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: with somebody that has you buy the balls or buy
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the bonds, because effectively, that's what the situation is, because
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: they own a huge portion of our debt and so
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: they know our vulnerabilities. Now they know that Trump isn't
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: very serious about this. They know that we've experienced short
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: term pain in that we don't have a very large
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: threshold for pain. And now here we are less than
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks into this, and Trump is already
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: making it clear, Oh no, I'm going to be super
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: nice to China.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna mention COVID.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: This is the same guy who during the campaign made
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: it sound like, much like he did with the Russian
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Ukraine war, that this could be fixed like that, like
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: a you know, a snap, and it's never that easy
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: in real life. On the campaign trail at one of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: his rallies, this is very easy, but not in reality.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And I think Trump is starting to realize reality. And
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: it appears as if the voice of reality, the voice
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: of reason, is Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, who in my
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: mind has been whispering into Trump's ear because he is
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: in a very very difficult situation. Uh, you know, because
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: he cannot be a hard liner against tariffs. He basically
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: has to lead Trump to his own conclusion. Because I
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: think Bestn't seems to understand Trump's psychology here. You you
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: have to allow Trump to cave on his own. You
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: have to even make it, in my mind, you have
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to make it into an act of bravery and courage.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I can almost hear Bestn't whispering into Trump's ear, sir.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So you're you're you're being so brave here, so so
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: very brave, sir. You got to use sir, right, sir,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: you may be maybe even being too brave, too too
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: courageous boy that the Chinese are so afraid of you, sir,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and you know, maybe we should be magnanimous to them, sir.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I mean that seems to me to be the best
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: strategy when it comes to trying to convince Trump, because
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: if you tell him he's wrong and then it's not
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: likely to work. You've got to basically, you know, stroke
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the ego and allow him to come to his own conclusion.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: And Bessan is doing this in an environment that is
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: not at all safe, not at all conducive. There's all
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: sorts of indications that people are out to get him,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: including Elon Musk, which I don't even understand because it
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: seems to me as if Elon Musk, who's had an
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: absolutely awful year so far in every possible way, and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Tesla's earnings are now out and they're atrocious for the
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: first quarter, and and you know, I think Doje has
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: been largely a failure, and he failed in Wisconsin, and
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: his personal reputation is taken ahead, his brand has taken ahead.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: And I generally like Elon Musk, but he has sacrificed
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: far more, at least monetarily than anyone else has in
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: this whole situation. But for some reason, he seems to
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: have it out for Vessen. In fact, he even quote
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: tweeted a tweet from Laura Lumer, who's a complete fucking
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: nut job, I mean, a complete crazy person who seemingly
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: has huge influence over Trump getting him to fire respective
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: members of the national security agencies, and Mosque quote tweeted, shared,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and commented on a tweet of Laura Lumer where she
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: attacks Bessen for allegedly not being loyal enough to Trump
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: and having disloyalists somehow be close to him. And I
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: didn't even understand what the allegation was. But from a
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: political standpoint, from an infighting perspective, it was very obvious
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: that Mosque was fueling Laura Lumer's attempt. To let's face it,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the audience here is one person, It's Donald Trump to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: not trust Besson, and so here he has a situation
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: where people are trying to knife him, including Elon Musk
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: for some reason trying to knife Besson, and he's trying
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: to keep this whole thing on the rails and trying
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: to convince Trump very very softly, because you can't you
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: can't go hardline on Trump here this He has to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: come to his own conclusions here. It's basically like leading
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: a horse to water. You can't make him drink. But
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: hopefully Trump will figure this out on his own. And
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: if you portray the cave is actually a very courageous
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: and brave maneuver and a very effective one, as I'm
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: sure Besson is trying to do with Trump, then maybe
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: you have a chance. So it right now, it seems
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to me is if besson't is the only one keeping
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: this whole thing together, and he was barely named Treasury secretaries.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: So we're in a situation that could have been far,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: far worse right now if that had not been named
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the Treasury secretary. We're not there yet when it comes
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to him getting this across the finish line and it's
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: getting us through this crisis. But this is a very
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: very difficult thing to navigate because you know, I've referenced
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: in the last episode of the podcast. You know, this
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: is a lot like pickets charge in the Battle of
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Gettysburg in the Civil War. And you know, Trump is
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: General Lee and everyone is treating him like a god
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: and afraid to tell him no, and he orders pickets charge,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: and in this particular case, because of modern technology, Lee
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: has the ability to call picket back before it's a
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: complete catastrophe. Well, you're still in a bind. You're still
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: in a in a leverage position in foreign soil in
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania where you're you're essentially outnumbered and they have the
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: high ground. Well, now what do you do? How do
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: you retreat with any sort of dignity? And again, we're
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: not there yet. The market, you know, could be a
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: little bit optimistic because Trump can change his mind in
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: a heartbeat, and we still have to assume that there's
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: an assumption here, which I think is a dangerous one,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: is that China's gonna let us off the hook. They
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: may see blood in the water here. They may see
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Trump's comments that I just played for you as weakness.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: They may see the pause as weakness that they can
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: not just win this thing, but they can win it
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: in a big way. Now, maybe they're vulnerable and opt
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to where they're going to go. Okay, fine, let's just
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: go back to the way things were, and you know,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: and Trump can claim some sort of a victory because see,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: that's that's the superpower that Trump has in this situation
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: with his base. The base always presumes that he's going
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: to win, because he always wins. He's always right. If
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: he tells the base that he has won, they will
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: believe it. It doesn't matter what the details are. It
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter if we don't actually gain anything from whatever
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: deal may eventually be made with China or anybody else
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: when it comes to this whole tariff issue, that doesn't matter.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: That's the superpower. He doesn't actually have to win. He
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: just casts to declare the victory. And so as long
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: as you know, the stock market hasn't lost twenty five percent,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: or as long as inflation hasn't completely exploded, he has
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: plausible deniability. And that's I think the best case scenario
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: at this point. But we're not quite there yet. I
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: don't know what yard line we're at, maybe the ten,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: maybe the five. But Besson still has some work to
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: do to get us into the end zone. And by
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: the way, the end zone in this case is just
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: getting us somewhere back to where we were before all
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: of this. I have zero belief or anticipation that somehow,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: in the end things are going to be better than
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: they were several weeks ago. Now when it comes to MAGA,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and you know the Magabase and their belief in Trump
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and how radicalized they have become when it comes to
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: perceiving reality. There are two stories that I think really
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: might fit this mold that have been in the news
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: over the last several days, and I want to address
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: one with Pete Hegseth and one with RFK Junior, both
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: of whom I was critical of as nominees for their
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: cabinet positions. I like Pete Hegseth a bit. I certainly
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: like his philosophy. I'm perfectly fine with what he wants
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to do with the military, especially the anti DEI stuff,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the whole Warrior Nation thing, changing the whole culture.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: I'm down with that. My view on Hegseth was that
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: he was just not worth the risk, that there were
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: other people that were more qualified, that there were other
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: people who I had greater trust in, that didn't have
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: alcohol issues, that didn't have womanizing issues, that didn't claim
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: that their penis found Jesus, which is essentially what he
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: did in trying to get out out of these allegations. Now,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I will acknowledge that the fact that Megan Kelly was
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: a massive hypocrite in slobbering all over Pete Hegg's death,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: especially when it came to allegations that she's unfairly attacked
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: other people, including my friend Matt Lauer from NBC when
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: she was there and after she left, That really pissed
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: me off. So I'm trying to separate that part of
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: this equation, which may have had an influence on my
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: view of Petegg Stath. But as always, I'm trying to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: be as fair and objective as I can be, and
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: you know, to me, heg Seth wasn't worth the risk.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: This is a guy who's has shown that he's not disciplined,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: that he is not particularly qualified, doesn't have the experience
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: in heading up a massive organization. I mean, this is really,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: you know, being the Defense Secretary is really being the
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: CEO of one of the largest corporations in the world
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: and most complex corporations in the world. And so you
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: need some organizational experience and some executive experience, which I'm
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: not sure that Hegseth really has and I'm not sure
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that his persona, his personality is really cut out for this. Well,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: we had the signal app controversy, which I didn't really
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: blame Hegsat for because, I mean, while it wasn't a
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: great idea to be having the m and air strikes
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: discussed on a signal app, it wasn't his fault that
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: a reporter from the Atlantic was accidentally allowed into the
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: group chat. But we've now learned that that's not where
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: it stopped. When it came to hegstat Hexcat had a separate,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: separate signal chat on the Yemen air strikes that included
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: members of his family and his inner circle that were
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: clearly not appropriate, and obviously they didn't have the status
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: to be getting classified information, security clearances, what have you.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: At best, it was extremely unprofessional. At worst, it was
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: a clear breach of national security. And so this has
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: come out in the last several days, and for a
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: while it looked like Hegseth was in big trouble in
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: fact NPR, although I'm not sure how NPR could possibly
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: have gotten this information given the fact that their NPR
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: so I was inherently dubious that this report was based
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: in reality. But they were reporting after the revelation of
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: this second signal at chat group that Hegseth had when
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: it came to discussing the m and air strikes, which
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: was completely and totally inappropriate and wrong, that the Trump administration,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: despite their public claims of support for Hegseth, was actually
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: trying to search for a new Defense secretary. Now, again,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know how MPR would have that kind of information.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: If you have that information and you're inside the Trump administration,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that is incredibly sensitive news, right, you're going to go
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: to MPR, And how would MPR even have that kind
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: of contact within the Trump administration that would be reliable.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Doesn't make it impossible. That just makes it unlikely to me.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: But if you looked at the tea leaves, it certainly
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: looked as if Hegseth was in trouble, so much so
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: that on Easter Sunday at the Easter egg roll at
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: the White House, Hegstath gave what I found to be
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: a statement to the media that was essentially an emission
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: of guilt. And I found this statement that I'm about
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: to play for you from ptext to be really a
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: roars ac test about where we are in this country
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: politically and when it comes to the news media. And
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I had a very very negative reaction to this statement. Now,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Maga fans love this statement, and frankly, this statement may
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: have saved Pete X's job, which is just so depressing
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: to me, because what petext did was not deny the story,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: didn't even address the story directly, but essentially gave an
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: answer that might as well have been a Maga mad
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: libs where you just take all the words that are
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: buzzwords in Maga world that are automatically viscerally going to
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: have people rush to your aid. Know Russia Gate and
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: fake news and you know leakers. By the way, one
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: of the strangest things about this particular clip is that
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: at the beginning, you're gonna hear pt X death referenced
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: the fact that this story came from Pentagon leakers, who
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: are disgruntled employees. Well, these are people he was responsible for.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: So I don't know how he gets off the hook
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: for that, but somehow we're living in a world now
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: where this is actually a benefit to him. So you know,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: he had people that ended up getting fired close to
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: him who he can now blame for being the source
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: of what appears very much to be a very real story.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Because again headline Hexseth doesn't even try to deny the allegation,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: so that's effectively an admission that the story is true true.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: I believe the story was likely true before I saw
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Hegseth give this statement, but now I'm positive. I'm positive
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: that this story is true. They and you, I think,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: will come to the same conclusion. And so here was
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Hegstad that the Easter egg role. And I don't remember
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: whether or not they do that on Easter or the
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: day after Easter, but somewhere in the.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: Last few days, Hegseth gave uh this statement, which is,
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: as I said, a Maga mad Lives on how to
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: get out of an allegation that is scandalous and true,
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: but where you know what buttons to push to get
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: MAGA to support you.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: And apparently, at least so far, this is working for
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Pete Hexstad, even though for me this was really pretty
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: pathetic controversy.
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: You know what a big surprise that a bunch of
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: hit pieces come out from the same media that pedaled
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: the Russia hopes won't get back their Pulitzers. They got
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: poltures for a bunch of lies, pulsters for a bunch
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: of lies and on hoaxes time and time and time again.
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: And as they pedal those lies, no one ever calls
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: them on it.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: See, this is what the media does.
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: Not gonna work with me because we're changing the Defense Department,
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war fighters,
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: and anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: doesn't matter.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm happy to be here.
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: At the East regg roll with my dad and my kids,
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: because you know, this is what we're doing it for
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: these kids right here. This is why we're fighting the
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: fake news media. This is why we're fighting slash and
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: burn Democrats, this is why we're fighting.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Posters, posters. This group, no, no, no, this group right here,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: full of hopsters, the.
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: Pedal, anonymous sources from leakers, with access to grid and
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: then yes, put it all together as if it's some
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: news story and when we know it, we know.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: Exactly what it is.
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: So I'm really proud of what we're doing for the president,
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: fighting hard across the board, and I'm going to go
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: roll some East Eggs with my kids.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: Have spoken to the President and we are going to
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: continue fighting on the same page all the way.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Now. I hated almost everything about that statement. I thought
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: he was frantic. I thought that he didn't address the
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: actual allegation.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: I thought he was.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Throwing out buzzwords or playing a mad Lids game. I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: thought he was trying to use the distrust that the
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Magabase understandably has in the news media to somehow get
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: away with what was obviously a very inappropriate and wrong
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: thing for him to do. So a real man would
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: acknowledge what the truth is and explain it and at
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the very least apologize for it and at the very
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: least say it's never going to happen again. Instead, it's
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: always now blame the media, Blame the media, blame the media,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: no matter what the story is. And this drives me crazy,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: as somebody who obviously is the host of the Depth
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: of Journalism, has enormous disdain for the mainstream news media,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: has no trust in them, believes that they are capable
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: capable a blowing almost any story. But just because you
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: are capable of blowing almost any story doesn't mean you
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: blow every story, especially every story that Magaworld doesn't like.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: That makes Magaworld uncomfortable. I mean, that's the part of
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: this thing is so infuriating to me. How did we
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: get from let's be skeptical of every story to let's
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: just automatically not believe any story that we don't like,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: because that's where we are now when it comes to
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party or the Trump Party or whatever you want.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: To call it.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: And to me, that's a very dangerous place to be.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: But Hegseth is using the understandable and justifiable distrust in
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: the mainstream news media to get away with an act
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: that if it had occurred in a democratic administration, the
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: very same MAGA supporters and right wing media members that
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: are defending hegset now would be screaming bloody murder, screaming
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: bloody murder. If Joe Biden had an unqualified or underqualified
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: defense secretary and it was learned that not only was
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: there one signal app chat group, but two, and that
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: the second one involved friends and family when it came
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: to an airstrike in Yemen. That's all the right wing
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: media would be talking about. But for hegset to not
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: even address the allegation, I believe, essentially acknowledging that the
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: allegation is true without having to do so, and just
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: simply putting out a blanket. The media sucks. I don't
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: believe anything you hear in the media or from disgruntled employees.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: That's not the way this is supposed to work. But strategically,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: apparently it is working very very well for Pete Hegseth.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Here's a tweet from Matt Walsh, conservative commentator, a guy
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: who I have at times admired and praised. He does
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of great work, especially on transgender issues. He is,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: you know, when it comes to the right wing media,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: I think he's more intelligent and more principle based than most.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: And even which was not saying much, by the way,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: in this day and age, but even Matt Walsh put
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: out a statement in favor of Pete Hegseth which to
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: me said so much about how completely screwed up everything is.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: He wrote, I loved the Pete Hegseth pick initially, but
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: now after seeing this unrelenting, unrelenting campaign to smear and
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: destroy him, I love the pick even more. We all
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: need to rally around him. This coordinated hit job cannot
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: be allowed to succeed. And that was seen by over
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: one point one I guess one point six million times
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: impressions as of last check on Twitter. And that's for
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Matt Walsh. And that's about as maga as it gets.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: So inherently, if you are being attacked by people we
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: don't like, even if the attacks are based in truth,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: we must rally around you. This coordinated attack, What the
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: fuck does that mean? Any rational person must understand that
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Hegseth was not even denying the story. So is it
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: a coordinated attack. Is that really what? It is?
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: A hit job. It's a hit job to expose that.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: The Defense secretary is sharing information about a military attack
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: with friends and family before it happens on a relatively
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: unsecured signal app chat group. And this after this debacle
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: with the first you know, chat group one signal. I'm sorry.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: That is not a hit job. That is basic reality.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: And this is the part that is so frustrating to me,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: that this whole anti media crusade has gotten completely out
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: of hand, and coming from me.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: It's just so bizarre.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, because I've been in the trenches of this
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: war for decades, and at the beginning, you know, decades ago,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: it was a principled fight for fairness and accountability when
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: it comes to the news media. And now somehow we've
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: gotten to the point where it doesn't even matter if
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: it has anything to do with the news media. The
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: messenger is always wrong. Was the messenger wrong when they
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: told you that Trump won the election? Were they? I mean,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I'm just using that as a very basic example. The
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: messengers all told you that Trump won. They didn't even
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: question it, really, not that it should have been because
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: was clear. So when all these media outlets reported that
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Trump won the election?
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: What was going on there?
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Why were they trustworthy there? And that's just again. I
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: could use dozens of other examples. It happens all the time.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I see, Oh my god, even CNN had to report
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: this positive thing about Trump. You know, they aren't wrong
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: all the time. They should be looked at suspiciously and
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: with skepticism and cynicism. Because they are capable of blowing
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: almost any story. That doesn't mean they blow it every
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: single time. Each story must be evaluated on its own merits. Now,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: the source is important, I talk about that all the time.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: And the credibility of the source is important, and so
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: if a source has a particular agenda or a history
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: of bias, or if the reporter themselves is not credible,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: all that goes into But that's not what's going on here.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: This was not a specific attack on the story. This
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: was just a blanket attack on the messengers because why
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: because this story is obviously true, and it's just disgusting
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: to me that there's this knee jerk reaction where we
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: must defend Hexseth because we don't like those that are
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: the messengers of what is clearly at this point a
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: true story, and you know what, it seems like it's
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: gonna work.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: It looked to me and to others is if Hegseth.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Was probably in big trouble regardless of the validity of
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: the NPR story. And now, you know, time is everything
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: in politics. It's only been a few days, but there's
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: no indication as of this taping that can change in
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: the heart beat and Trump world. But there's no indication
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: as of this taping that Hegseth is going to get
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: bounced because of this, even though people have lost their jobs,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: like as a Defense secretary for far less than this,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: for this kind of security breach. But to me, as
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: the host of the Death of Journalism podcasts, the biggest
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: part of this equation, the most troubling part, is this
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: whole idea of he's on our team and the other
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: team is attacking him, even though their attacks are seemingly true.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: If we use our brain and that's all that matters,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: is that he's on our team and we don't like
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: the messengers. That is an incredibly dangerous perspective because now
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: there are no guardrails. Now truth means nothing, nothing, and
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: in this case, you know, not that This is the
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: biggest national security breach of all time baseball what we
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: currently know. But it was clearly a breach. It was
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: clearly the wrong thing to do. It is clearly an
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: indication of Hecksteth is not ready for prime to and
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: may never be. He may not be psychologically well designed
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: for this position. Now it's quite possible he may go
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: on survive this and be a very good defense secretary.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: I hope that's the case.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: I want there to be a strong defense secretary with
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: his philosophy because it's incredibly important to the future of
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: the country. But my view on excess has always been
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: why do we need to do this for him? There
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: aren't other people that could have the same philosophy that
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: don't have all the baggage. And now at this point
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: it's almost seeming like an egos thing for Trump. He
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to admit that he made a bad choice,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: and macaworld is strongly defending heg set so he doesn't
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: want to go up against his own base. So my
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: guess is he's just gonna let it go. The ice
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: is thinner under the feet of Hegseth, but my guess
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: is he'll be able to survive this, at least for now,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: assuming the ICE doesn't get any thinner now. The other
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: cabinet nomination that I was much more incensed about and
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: disagreed with much more strongly than I did with Hegseth
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: was r K Jr. As the head of Health and
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Human Services, and and RFK Jr. To me is a nutjob.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's a well person. I mean physically,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: I guess he's in good shape other than his voice,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: but I just don't think that he is mentally well.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: You know, he's a former heroin addict, his first wife
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: killed herself. I mean, he's done all sorts of very
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: crazy things. He has all sorts of insane beliefs, I
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: mean completely crazy things. Conspiratorially, he's very conspiratorially minded, especially
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the assassinations of his father and
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: of his uncle. By the way, the RFK assassination files
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: are out and there's no apparent bombshells. They're either surprise surprise,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: So I don't know when RFK Junior is going to
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: ever be held account for his completely wrong beliefs about
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: the government killing his father and his uncle. But there's
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: all sorts of things I have huge problems with when
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: it comes to RFK Junior, and he really stepped in
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: it a few days ago when it came to this
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: issue of autism. Now, I've discussed this previously where I
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: don't believe, not that there couldn't be, but I don't
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: believe that there is a direct connection or a causational
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: effect between vaccines and autism. I believe that the most
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: likely and by far the most prominent reason for why
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: there has been a massive increase in the diagnoses of
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: autism in this country is that it has been largely,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: if not totally, a social contagion. That it is much
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: more about the awareness of autism and the extreme expansion
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: of the definition of autism that is behind. Not to mention,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: there's some financial incentives and all sorts of psychological incentives
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: for parents and for doctors and for academics for a
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: particular child or a student to be diagnosed as being
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: on the autism spectrum, which is incredibly wide and seemingly
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: getting wider on a daily basis. So I'm not against
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: studying it, but I don't think that RFK Junior is
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: really interested in studying it. I think he has an
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: agenda I think he has a very strong belief. I
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: think he's been very clear about that belief, and I
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: don't trust how he is going to interpret any science
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: or data in this particular area, because I think he desperately,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, he has a huge vendetta here and
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: maybe it's even well intentioned in his mind. I don't know,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: but he clearly has an agenda in trying to prove
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: that the increase, the mass majority of this massive increase
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: in autism diagnoses is as a result of vaccines and children. Now,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: I've never understood the logic of this because to me,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: the timeline doesn't even add up. It doesn't make any
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: sense to me, and so I don't believe it on
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: a whole series of levels. But RMK Junior went way
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: beyond that a few days ago, late last week, where
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: he really went on the attack against those who are
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: autistic in a way that really really pissed off a
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: lot of people, especially the parents of autistic children. I
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: don't blame them, because this was really bizarre where r
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: ok Jr. Again as a Cabinet secretary head of Health
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: and Human Services, a completely different situation when you're making
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: a statement from that position as opposed to just as
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: a regular citizen or someone who's you know, on the
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: campaign trail. This is a completely different deal where he
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: makes it sound as if those with autism really have
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: no value to society and therefore this is why we
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: need to do everything we can to combat this disease. Now,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not even sure you know there's different definitions of diseases.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that in the minds of most people
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: you could even call autism a disease, maybe a disorder.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: It almost doesn't matter very much what you call it.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: But it's certainly not the same as in my view,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: as cancer or heart disease or something like that. But
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: in my estimation, what r. K. Junior said was completely inappropriate,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: factually wrong, and frankly scary. I mean, this sounds almost,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: you know, like something from Nazi Germany, and I mean
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: that sincerely, as far as you know, the idea of
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: cleansing the population of these people who are autistic because
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: they don't do anything for the greater good, which is
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: not even remotely accurate. But for the record, here is
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: what r. K Jr. Said about the issue of autism,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: and it's the role in weighing down society for all
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: intents and purposes.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 6: Sure, this is an individual tragedy as well. Autism destroys families.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: More importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which our children.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: These are children who should not be who should not
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: be suffering like this. These are kids who, many of them,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 6: were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: into autism when they're two years old. And these are
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: kids who will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: never go out on a date. Many of them will
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: never use a toilet unassisted. And we have to recognize
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 6: we are doing this to our children.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Now, that really pissed off a lot of people, and
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: understandably so. And I think the biggest mistake RFK Junior
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: made there is that he didn't seem to acknowledge that
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: there is a incredibly wide spectrum when it comes to
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the definition of autism. Now, there are certainly examples where
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: what r K Junior said is effectively largely accurate, but
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know it's certainly not even close to one
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: hundred percent of autism cases. And I don't know what
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the percentage would be it probably wouldn't. In my guess,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't even be close to half. He's talking
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: about extreme cases of autism. And you know the reality is,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: and this is Parsley, why so many more people have
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: been diagnosed with autism is that the definition of it
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: has expanded almost exponentially. It's literally the autism spectrum, and
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: there are a whole lot of people on that spectrum
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: who are extremely productive in society. One of them, which
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: I've mentioned previously, is Elon Musk, and I would love
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: to know what Elon Musk's view is on what RK.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Junior is saying, since it's obvious. I believe he's even
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: acknowledged that he has a Burger syndrome, which is on
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: the autism spectrum. But you know, I have had in
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: my family a fairly strong experience with autism. I have
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: a nephew who is very autistic, but it is currently
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: at MIT because he's a freaking genius, and so I
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: don't know how in the world he would fit into
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: this description given by RK. Junior. My grandfather, who was
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: a German rocket scientist, literally very famous one written about
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: in books because of his work in satellite technology and
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: the fueling of our first satellite. He was never diagnosed
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: as autistic, but it's obvious to everyone who knew him
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: long after he has passed that if he had been
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: growing up today, he would have been considered autistic. I
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: have another uncle on the same side of the family,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: although not blood relative, who was even more clearly autistic,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: never diagnosed, who ended up being the provost that Rensselaer
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Polytechnic is, you know, another super brain when it comes
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: to science and technology. I mean, so sometimes these people
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: who have autism, depending on what kind it is, are
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: extremely intelligent, off the charts at times and simply just
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: have social challenges. So how in the world r K
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Junior can get away with making it sound as if
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: the average autism person with autism is is a drain
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: on society and that that's why we have to do
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: everything we possibly can to end autism from from being
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: in existence is just bizarre to me. I mean, at
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: the very very best, this was catastrophically ad messaging. That's
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: at the best. But see, my view of RFK Junior
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: is that he's fucking crazy and so therefore I don't
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: give him the benefit of the doubt that he was
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: taken out of context or that this was just in
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: artful messaging. No, I don't put take anything off the
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: table here. I think he's just crazy, And for him
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: to put it in these terms I thought was outrageous.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: And frankly, again, how do you not look at that
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: and say, that's somebody who's trying to do social engineering here.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: That is almost right out of the playbook of Nazi Germany.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: That's what it felt like to me.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: Again, I am not against studying what's going on with
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: autism and whether or not there is something that is
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: causing what seems like an increase, but I am pretty
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: confident that what we're really talking about here is much
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: more awareness, an expansion of the definition a social contagion,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: an incentive structure that has created a circumstance where everybody
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: involved now is incentivized for there to be an autism diagnosis.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: By the way, as I've referenced many times before, my
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: wife is a special education teacher, so she deals with
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: this issue on a consistent basis and has articulated to
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: me the incentive structure that often exists when it comes
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: to diagnosing a child with being on the autism spectrum.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm actually kind of stunned the DISARMFK Junior story
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: hasn't been bigger. I mean, it was a big deal
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: when he said it, and I realized that the new
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: cycle is now like thirteen minutes long. But that was
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: ordinary to me. But that's something that left the mark
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: on a lot of people, because when you are the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: parent of a child with autism, that is a huge
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: part of your life and that's not something they're going
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: to forget when you make a statement like the one
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: that RMK Junior did. Now, this is not a great transition,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: but certainly the Nazi Germany theme is relevant to where
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go next, because I've got to share
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: with you what comedian Larry David from Kirby Your Enthusiasm
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: and obviously from The Seinfeld Show did in The New
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: York Times in what was very obviously a shot at
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Bill Maher for his recent visit to the White House
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: where he spoke glowingly of the real Donald Trump. Now,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: to be clear, what Larry David did in The New
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: York Times did not mention Bill Maher. It did not
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: mention Donald Trump, but it rather hilariously and somewhat effectively
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: was a satire of what Bill Maher, a friend of
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: Larry Davids, did because and we played this on this podcast.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: I played several minutes of Bill Maher talking about how
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: surprised he was that when he visited Donald Trump at
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: the White House that he was a different guy than
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: what he perceived, and that he was much more human
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: and much funnier, and that it was a very positive
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: experience for him. And I'm paraphrasing that he had a
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: much more positive view of Trump having met him in person.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: And my view of that was, really, are you that
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: easily snowed? I mean, are you that really easily charmed?
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: You're a guy who's been around famous people your entire
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: adult career. I realized celebrity, especially Trump's celebrity, is incredibly
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: powerful force. But you know, how could you be so
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: easily influenced? Not that I don't think Trump is charming.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: I'm quite certain that Trump is very, very charming. I
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: believed everything that Bill Maher was saying. And you know,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: when you have Trump's level of celebrity and you're the
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: President of the United States and you bring someone into
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: the White House, that's all very influential, that's very intimidating,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: that's going to have a huge influence on how you
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: perceive things. And Larry David, being a liberal, decided that
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: he wanted to mock what Bill Maher had done, again
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: without using Bill Maher's name or without Donald Trump's name,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: and he wrote essentially a satire where he described his
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: own meeting with Hitler, his dinner with Hitler. Now, I
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: want to make something clear, and this is this is
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: a source of frustration, but I understand it that whenever
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: you use the word Hitler, and especially if you're going
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: to use the word Trump, you have to, at least
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: in my mind, make a very significant disclaim, which is
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: that when you're comparing the two, at least in my mind,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not claiming in any way, shape or form that
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Trump is, you know, trying to plan ethnic cleansing or
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: the Holocaust, or start World War iree, or do any
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: of the things that have made Hitler the evil that
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: he is. I mean, literally, the name Hitler is synonymous
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: with evil, and understandably so and rightfully so. So when
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: I make a comparison, which I have done in the past,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: because there are comparisons, there's comparisons in the personality. There's
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: comparisons in the PR mechanisms and strategies surrounding the rise
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: of Hitler and the rise of Donald Trump. They're remarkably similar,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: all the way down to make Germany great again, make
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: America great again. There's all sorts of similarities. I just
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: recently saw a PBS documentary that was done, I think
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: well before Trump ever became president, called Hitler in Pictures,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: which was extremely well done and goes through the entire
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: history of Hitler from a PR perspective, and the similarities
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: between Hitler and Trump are numerous. That being said, I
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: don't believe that that Trump has any care in the
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: world about about world takeover or starting World War three,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: or a Holocaust or ethnic cleansing or you know, taking
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: over the entire country. I don't believe that Trump even
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: cares anything about all that, even if he had the inclination,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: which I don't believe that he does. So with all
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: that disclaimer being said, I thought that what Larry David
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: did was kind of funny and clever, and I thought
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: it was worthy of at least mention because it's this
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: is a major media story, and I'm someone who has
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: been very complimentary of Bill Maher being the voice of
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: reason on the liberal side. But here's what Larry David
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: wrote in the pages of the New York Times. Imagine
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: my surprise when in the spring of nineteen thirty nine
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: at the Old Chancellory with the world's most reviled man,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: he was going to do on the road to dictatorship.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: No one I knew encouraged me to go quote he's Hitler,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: He's a monster, unquote. But eventually I concluded that hate
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn't change his views,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: but we need to talk to the other side, even
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: if it has invaded and annexed other countries and committed
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: unspeakable crimes against humanity. Now, to be clear, Trump hasn't
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: done that, So that's partially where Larry David's effort fails here.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: But going on two weeks later, I found myself on
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: the front steps of the Old Chancellory and was led
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: into an opulent living room where a few of the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: feure's most vocal supporters had gathered Himmler, Goring, Lenny Venstahl,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: and the Duke of Windsor, formerly known as King Edward.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: We talked about some of the beautiful art on the
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: walls that had been taken from the homes of Jews. Again,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: the analogy fails there, but our conversation ended abruptly when
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: we heard loud footsteps coming down the hallway. Everyone stiffened
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: as Hitler entered the room. He was wearing a tan
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: suit with a swastika armband and gave me an enthusiastic
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: greeting that caught me off guard. Frankly, it was a
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: warmer greeting than I normally get from my parents, and
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: it was accompanied by us slap on my back. I
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: found the whole thing quite disarming. I joked that I
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: was surprised to see him in a tan suit, because
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: if he wore that out, it would be perceived as unfewerke.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: That amused him to no end, and I realized I'd
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: never seen him laugh before. Suddenly he seems so human here.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: I was prepared to meet Hitler, the one I'd seen
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: and heard the public Hitler, but this private Hitler was
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: a completely different animal, and oddly enough, this one seemed
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: more authentic, like this was the real Hitler. The whole
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: thing had my head spinning, all right. And that was
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: Larry David obviously talking about Bill Maher and his visit
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: to the White House to see Donald Trump. And while
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: there are a couple of situations there that are not
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: accurate and not fair that I've already pointed out, I
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: think in general, the way I would just described that
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: and Larry David fashion would be pretty good, pretty pretty good,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: pretty funny, And I think it makes an interesting and
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: important point, even though, as I've already suggested, there were
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: a couple of important factual inaccuracies with regard to the
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: analogy or the comparison between Hitler and Trump, and that's
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: always going to be the case. I mean, it's become cliche.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: The media has done this way too often. Trump is Hitler,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: Trump is Hitler. I get it, and I think it's dumb.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: And you know, I mocked, you know, Joe Scarborough and
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Meeker Brazinski for essentially playing the Trump is Hitler card
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: and then going to meet you know, Trump slash Hitler
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: just tacked to the election so I am fully understanding
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: of this, but it's a little bit like the headset thing,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: where we have gone from you know, don't trust the
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: media to no matter what the media says, it's automatic false,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: And we have gone from any you know, any comparison
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: between Hitler and Trump is completely and you know, totally
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: off base because of the fact that Hitler obviously is
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: the personification of evil and the Holocaust of World War
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: two and all of that, none of which Trump has
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: any indication of actually being. But now you're not allowed
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: in the kind of the opposite direction. You're not allowed
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: to make any comparison at all. And as I've already suggested,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: there are some important comparisons to make that if Trump
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: was a Democrat, I think Republicans would be making. Again,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: this is always going to be very problematic and very
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: complex because of the inherent nature of comparing anybody to Hitler,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: But there are some important comparisons. And while you know,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: I think Larry David was just trying to be funny,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: I do think he makes an interesting point about those
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: on the left who have used extreme language to criticize
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Trump and then kiss his ass when they perceive it
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: to be in their own self interest to do so.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: But I have concerns.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: I have concerns and always have had concerns about what
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Trump is really all about, and whether or not he
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: is usurping executive power at a rate where if he
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: was a Democrat, Republicans would be rightly screaming bloody murder,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: And whether his attacks on the media, which philosophically I
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: completely understand and mostly support, have gone so far as
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: to be in the realm of detalitarianism and authoritarianism, And
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: whether or not he is a threat to the free press,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: whether he's a threat to any semblance of journalism which
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: may still exist, and there's new evidence of that. I
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: have talked previously about Trump's attacks on CBS and his
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: lawsuits that he's been threatening against CBS in sixty minutes,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: and how this has created an enormous amount of fear
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: within CBS News because Paramount appears to be trying to
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: settle that case with Donald Trump, and that the news
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: side at CBS is very agitated and believes that they
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: are being pressured and not supported, and that they can't
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: do real journalism, they can't be free in their reporting
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: because their corporate overlords are putting pressure on them to
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: be nice to Trump, because if they're not, then somehow
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: this case isn't going to be settled in Paramount, which
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: is in the middle of being sold, isn't going to
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: be able to get passed all this. You know, the
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: corporate overlords don't give a flying fuck about journalism, especially
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: not at Paramount. All they care about is the bottom line.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: And so if it means curtailing the journalism at CBS News,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: rightly or wrongly, in order to help facilitate a deal
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: with Donald Trump so that they get Trump off their backs,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: They're gonna do it. Well, something extraordinary happened just yesterday,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: and that is that the executive producer of sixty Minutes
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: at CBS, a god the name of Bill Owens, has
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: resigned his position specifically because he does not believe that
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: he has been given the independence to do his job
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: properly in the Trump era. And he made it very
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: obvious that it's because of this lawsuit situation that the
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: attacks from Trump on CBS have essentially howd the corporate
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: overlords into curtailing CBS News in sixty Minutes Now. He
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: didn't give examples, at least not publicly of exactly what
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: he was talking about. But for him to resign his position,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: one of the most prestigious positions in all of news,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: if not the most prestigious executive producer, at sixty minutes
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: is quite extraordinary. But reading between the lines and reading
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: some of the backstory, it appears to me as if
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: Owens was remarkably naive. Now this is being portrayed as
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: an act of courage on his part, that he essentially
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: was falling on the grenade and resigning his job to
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: try to show CBS and Paramount that they were on
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: the verge of allowing sixty minutes the crown jewel in
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: his view of television journalism, from being destroyed, and the
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: only way he saw to shine a light on them
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: was for him to resign his position. To fall on
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: the sword, jump on the grenade, which is philosophically something
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: that I can appreciate. I've fallen on many grenades, mostly
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: very stupidly in my own career, for what I thought
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: were principal positions. It almost never works out at all.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: I would never recommend it for anybody, and I don't
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: think that Owens is making a particularly good move based
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: upon what I know of the circumstances as of right now,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: because it appears as if Owens thought delusionally that this
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: dramatic move would somehow create an earthquake, at least in
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: the news media and maybe at CBS paramount, where people
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: would suddenly go, oh my god, what are we going
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: to do here? Well, we can't allow this to happen.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: We can't let sixty minutes go by the wayside and
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: lose all of its prestige. That's our crown jewel. And
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, did Iones really think that was gonna be
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: the reaction to his resignation, because that's not the world
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: we're living in anymore. In nineteen eighty, nineteen ninety, two thousand, Yeah,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: that probably would have been the world we lived in.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: This would have been a massive earthquake sixty minutes. Sixty
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: Minutes has had its issues over the years. You know,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: the Russell Crowe movie with regard to the to the
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: tobacco companies, and you know, you could argue whether that
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: was good or bad or indifferent with regard to the journalism.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: There was probably a little bit of everything there. But
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like sixty minutes has been perfect,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: but sixty minutes has done a lot of good work
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: over the years. It's been generally biased in a liberal direction,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: getting more so, I totally understand why Trump fans are
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: pissed off by the way that they used the edits
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: from the Kamala Harris interview during the twenty twenty four campaign.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: That was completely wrong. It was medium outpractice. I don't
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: think it was necessarily illegal, as Trump seems to believe
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: that it was. And I don't believe that Trump has
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: a legitimate lawsuit against CBS. But here Trump is using
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: the FCC, and I've discussed this previously on the podcast
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: to intimidate CBS. That's the death sentence. You go after
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: CBS's license, and you know, well, I don't think that
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: Trump is really serious about it. It's enough of a threat,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: especially when you know the FCC chairman is a huge
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: Trump supporter and very very maga. So if he's going
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: after your license, then you don't care. You don't care
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: about whether or not the executive producer at sixty minutes
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: is going to resign. That person's easily replaceable, and you know,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: sixty minutes is still sixty minutes as far as they're concerned.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: It's just And by the way, what is sixty minutes.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: It's whether or not it's a profit making venture. And
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: while sixty minutes ratings isn't what it used to be,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: it's still one of the most popular shows on television.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: It still has a very loyal audience. I'm sure it
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: still makes a lot of money. But that's not gonna change,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: at least not in the minds of the corporate overlords
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: at Paramount. And they're not gonna give a shit. They
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: really are not gonna give a damn. They do not care.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: That's part of the problem because the news organizations have
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: lost all their leverage. That's why I say, in nineteen
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: eighty ninety, maybe two thousand, this would be a different
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: set of circumstances. But the balance of power has shifted
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: so much to where no one media personality or one
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: media outlet, not even sixty minutes, has the kind of
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: power or leverage to say, knock it the fuck off,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: get off of our back. I mean, I can't emphasize
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: enough how if a few decades ago the executive producer
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: at sixty minutes had resigned their very prestigious job saying
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: that our corporate executives are restricting our journalism with regard
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: to the President of the United States because of fear
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: of a lawsuit and having their licenses taken away.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: By the FCC.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: This would have been the biggest thing that ever happened
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: in the news media. This is all anyone would be
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: talking about. This would have in decades previous to this,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: I believe created a rally around the flag effect that
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: you would have had other media outlets rushing the sixty
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: minutes defense. This would have been an issue that maybe
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: the public would have even been exercised about. But see
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: since then, a lot has changed. They don't have the
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: individual power because their audiences have shrunk, and they're more
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: even more important than their audience is shrinking. Their credibility
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: has gone away. It has dissipated. The trust that the
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: public has in the legacy media has gone away. And
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: I say this consistently, but this might be the best
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: example of it. If the legacy media wanted to be
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: treated as special like the Associated Press, like it's outrageous
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: that we're not given access to cover the president at
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: all times. Okay, fine, you know, at one point the
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: Associated Press deserved that kind of special treatment to have
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: access to the president whenever the media does.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: But you blow it, you blew it.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe if you wanted to be treated as special, maybe
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: if you wanted what you do to be looked at
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: as sacred, then you shouldn't have squandered the public trust.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: You were warned, you were warned many many times, knock
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: off the bias, and it only got worse. And so well,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: I have huge problems, as I've already articulated, with the
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: way Trump is handling this, and it's I don't think
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: he has a lawsuit, and it's total bullshit to be
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: threatening licenses. That's authoritarian, that's Hitler like that. That is
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: something that conservatives should be very much against, even if
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: they hate CBS News. So I'm not on Trump's side here,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: but the news media needs to take some accountability and
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: some responsibility. And sixty minutes is a pretty good example
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: of this where you blew it, you lost your moral authority,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: you lost the trust in the public. So the public
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: is not going to rush to sixty minutes. Sixty minutes
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: defense here, or to Bill Owen's defense. No one's gonna
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: give a damn that he resigned from this very prestigious job.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: So it's my view. Again, I don't know what his
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: real motivations were. I'm just going by what's being reported.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: But if he really thought that this was gonna set
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: off an earthquake and that somehow everyone at CBS and
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: Paramount was gonna.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: Go, oh my god, we've seen the light.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: We had to fight Trump here. He's delusional, so delusional
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: he probably doesn't belong as the executive brouser of sixty
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: Minutes to begin with. And so I mean, I realize
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: I'm in a very odd position here because you know,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: I don't agree with Trump, and I have no trust
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: in sixty Minutes or or not. No, but I have
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: very little trust. I have a lot of skepticism towards
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: the legacy news media in general, but I also understand
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: the importance. See that's where my greatest conflict is. I
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: can't stand what has happened to the modern news media
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: and have criticized them on almost every level, in both
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: in general and very very specific stories that I've outlined
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: many times before on this podcast, where they've gotten things
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: wrong and at times very very wrong. But I also
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: see the need for them to exist and to be healthy.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: I want there to be a sixty minutes. That is healthy.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: The fact that sixty minutes has effectively become imbedded is
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: not a good thing for society. It's not a good thing.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: We lived in a world not that long ago. We are.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: One of the things that kept public figures and politicians
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: and corporate entities in line is that there was a
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: show called sixty Minutes. And if they caught on to
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: you and you're wrongdoing and they started investigating you and
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: they got the goods on you, you were cooked. Because
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: that's how much credibility sixty Minutes had, that's how large
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: their audience was. And if that got exposed on Sunday
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: night on CBS other media, We're going to pick up
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: on it, and you were in big, big trouble. And
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: just having that threat out there, I think was an
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: enormous positive for our society because it was a deterrence. Well,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: now that deterrence to bad behavior is completely gone. I
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: talk about this on the local level all the time.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: How when it comes to the changes in the news media,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: by far, one of the most underdiscussed and underappreciated elements
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: of the destruction of the news media is at on
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: the local level. Having local newspapers disappear and having local
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: television and news and radio news prog gonna become a
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: complete and total joke. Is that even in big cities now,
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: but especially middle level cities, there is no deterrence to
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: bad behavior at all. You can get away with corruption
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: at a local level that is off the charts now
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: because there are no policemen there. There is no accountability,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: there is no fear of being exposed because there literally
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: is no media that gives a shit. If you're in
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: a middle level town where there's no local media and
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: the national media doesn't give a shit about what happens
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: in your and your mid range town, then you're.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: Gonna be able to get away with whatever you want
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: to get away with.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: Essentially, well sixty minutes on the national level was a
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: deterrent to that, and the fact that that no longer
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: exists is bad for the country. So, while I have
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: disdain for the legacy media, I see when they operate properly,
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: they're not just value, but how integral they are to
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: our entire society. And you know, it's it's very troubling
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: to me. Well, you know, I don't I don't like
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: the fact that journalism is dead. I don't like the
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: fact that the legacy news media is on its last legs.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, and this is this is end time stuff,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: right when the executive producer of sixty minutes is resigning
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: and what they think is an act of principle and
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: seems to be expecting, you know, there to be an
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: uprising at CBS and elsewhere to come to the defense
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: of this legacy outlet with all this prestige sixty Minutes,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: and then effectively nothing's going to happen. I mean, that's
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: that's the end, folks. I mean, in a weird way,
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: the resignation will have, in my view, the opposite result
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: of what was intended. Because when nothing happens, when there
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: really is no blowback and everyone just goes along with
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: their business and Owens gets replaced, and now nobody at
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: sixty minutes is going to push back against whatever restrictions
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: they're going to be they're being placed on them by
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: their corporate overlords, then journalism has lost even more because
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: now it's become much more obvious about how completely impotent.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: They are. Now, hopefully Owens will articulate publicly. I don't
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: know what he's going to be legally allowed to say.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: I would like to hear, Okay, what do you mean,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: what are you specifically talking about? How did sixty minutes
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: get restricted or censored or how was your job hindered
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: by the corporate overlords at CBS and Paramount when it
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: came to Donald Trump. That's information I would like to know.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: I have no problem believing that that actually is, at
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: least at some level true. I believe that that is
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: likely true because I understand the nature of corporate executives.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: I understand the pressure that Trump is putting on both
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: on the lawsuit front as well as with regard to
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: the FCC, And I also understand the economics of all
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: this and how little those at Paramount and at CBS
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: are going to give a damn about what used to
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: be a really big deal, which is the journalism at
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: their crown jewel of sixty minutes. So none of this
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: is good. I'd like to hear more information from Bill Owens,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: but I don't think his resignation is going to turn
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: out the way that he hoped. I want to talk
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: now about two stories that have been getting a lot
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: of attention that I have yet to chime in on,
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: and there's pretty good reason why I've not talked about
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: them yet, because they both deal with story that are
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: emerging and where the truth is a little bit murky,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: and I felt like I wanted to let them kind
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: of play out a little bit because I didn't fully
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: know what was true. I still don't know one hundred
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: percent what is true and what isn't, and that's becoming
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: more and more difficult in this day and age, especially
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: if Trump is involved in any way, shape or form,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: because I no longer trust the right wing media to
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: tell me the truth, and I already don't trust the
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: left wing media, and so it's it's becoming much more
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: difficult and frankly, very very frustrating in certain situations to
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: get to the bottom of a story, and so I
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: don't like to jump the gun. And the first of
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: the two stories I'm referring to here is the issue
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: of Kilmore Garcia. This is the guy who has been
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: referred to in the liberal media as a Maryland resident
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: who's in it illegal alien who got deported to El Salvador.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: And there's been conflicting a court rules all over the
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: place with regard over the years, and specifically with regard
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: to whether or not the Trump administration should have to
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: bring him back, and and you know, it's all very
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: confusing and convoluted. In my view from a legal perspective,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: I happen to believe that the number one issue here
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: when it comes to alleged lack of due process that
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are screaming about because apparently this was admitted
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: to being a mistake at some level by the Trump
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: administration to deport him, is that he's a non citizen. Okay,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: that's what we know for sure. This is when all
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: of the dust settles. Garcia is not a citizen. And
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: so while I don't believe that a non citizen should
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: be treated as you know, some sort of a slave
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: with no due process rights, I also don't think they
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: get the same due process rights as a citizen. I mean, inherently,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: you're not supposed to be here. You're here ellelegally. And
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: I think that is where the biggest disconnect when it
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: comes to the left and the right comes from when
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: it comes to this Kilmar Garcia issue is that on
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: the right, he's here illegally. So I don't give a
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: shit about anything else. He doesn't get all these alleged rights.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: These are privileges that he's not eligible for because he's
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: not a citizen. And I get that. I think I'm
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: in that camp. But on the left, in the left
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: that they have so invested in themselves and the idea
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: that illegal immigration really isn't a crime and that you
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: actually have a right to be here, that effectively, they
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: think that just being here, being a resident here, even
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: if not legally a resident here, that that gets you
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: all these rights of due process, and so I think
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: that's where the disconnect is. But there's also the issue
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: of is this guy an MS thirteen gang member. I
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: don't know. I've looked into this and it's mind numbing
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: because again I don't trust anybody, and I've seen conflicting
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: information on both sides of this. I know that there
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: are people that are completely and totally convinced that he's
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: an MS thirteen gang member, which is important because of
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: the issues related to the due process and the authority
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: and the justification for kicking out of the country and
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: sending him to a prison in Al Salvador. I get
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: all that, I don't know what the truth is there.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. I do not know. I don't
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: know what to tell you. I can't tell what's true
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: and what's not. But there's another element of this story
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: that I'm much more confident about, and that is with
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: regard to the issue of the restraining order that his
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: wife put on him, his wife who's now currently supporting him,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: I think partially because of all this attention that he's
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: getting and you know, the tension that therefore she's getting.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: But this was probably the most extraordinary media moment of
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: the past week, and it might not even be close,
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: and that is when the wife of Kilmar Garcia went
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: on Good Morning America on ABC and was interviewed by,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: among other people. Just amazing that this happened. That we're
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: living in this world where Michael Strahan, former defensive end
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: Hall of Famer for the New York Giants football team,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: is doing really significant, important news interviews. This reminded me
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of the DeMar Hamlin situation. You may recall
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: that I was one of the very few that jumped
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: all over the Damar Hamlin interview, the first interview that
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: he did after he almost died of cardiac arrest on
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: an NFL football field. That the interview that he did
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: with Michael Strahan around the Super Bowl that year was
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: incredibly suspicious, And there's a lot of similarities about what
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: you're about to hear between the Tamar Hamlin interview and
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: the interview with the wife of Kilmore Garcia, because it's
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: what's not said that was incredibly telling, as well as
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: the way that Strahan was very meek, I mean I'm
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: talking really meek about the way he asked the question,
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: almost apologetic. So the comparison here is when Strahan asked
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: Tamar Hamlin, so what caused the cardiac?
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 3: Or asked?
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: And Hamlin didn't want to answer the question and did
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: so in the most suspicious way possible, in a way that,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: frankly to me, confirmed that it was not Commoshio Cordis,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: And therefore the only other logical explanation is that it
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: must have had something to do with the vaccines, otherwise
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: there would have been no hesitancy to tell Michael strahand
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: what actually caused the cardiac or asked. Well, in that context,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: I think you'll find a lot of similarities to what
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: happens here when Michael Strahan essentially apologizes both beforehand and
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: afterwards in feeling forced to ask the wife of kilmar
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: Garcia about the restraining order and whether or not she
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: was physically threatened or beaten by her husband, and her
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: complete and total, literal non response speaks volumes to everyone watching,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: except apparently to the guy asking her the questions, which
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: is Michael Strahan on ABC's Good Morning America. Have to
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: ask it you did take out a temporary order of
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: protection against your husband in twenty twenty one? Were you
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: in fear of your husband? Husband is a life? That's
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: all I can say, Okay, and you know I'm not
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: going to push on that. Apparently, now the headline from
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: that is that's effectively much like Pete Hegseth not even
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: addressing the allegations against him. That's her acknowledging that, yeah,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: she was threatened by her husband and or beaten by
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: her husband, and that there was a reason why there
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: was this restraining order. Michael Strahan is the second part
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: of this story. We're how pathetic is that when you
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: have to apologize both beforehand and then say that you're
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: not going to push back and you're not going to
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: amplify that. I mean, how do you not jump all
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: over that? You're you're getting paid millions of dollars to
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: be the host of Good Morning America on ABC. This
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: is a major news interview. This woman is making it
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: as obvious as she could that a major talking point,
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: a major talking point about this guy Garcia, is that
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: he's a good dude. He's not a gang member. This was,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: you know, somehow not a legitimate restraining order situation because
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: the wife is still supporting him.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 3: You know, so he's a good guy.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: You Democrats have invested a lot the idea that that
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: Garcia is the victim here. Well, sorry, that's de facto
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: her acknowledging that that narrative is not true. And how
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: does Straighthand not follow up on that and instead effectively
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: apologize this for even raising the question. But even in
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: raising the question, the answer could not have been more
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: obvious by silence. The silence there was literally deafening and
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: could not be more clear cut. So part of why
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of reasons I didn't talk about
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: Garcia previously. Part of this is I don't care about
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: this issue. I'm not really that concerned about one illegal
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: immigrant who was deported, whether it was mistake or not,
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: a guy who clearly is not a good dude, Whether
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: he's an MS thirteen gang member or not, and we
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: got a lot of other bigger problems. So while I
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: think that the right is probably not one hundred percent
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: accurate in everything that they're saying, and I'm concerned about
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: defying the courts, I get that that's that is a
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: major concern of mine, you know, from a philosophical perspective,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: I'm more baffled by how Democrats are investing themselves in
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: this story. I don't understand how they think that this
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: is particularly good politics. I don't get it. And so
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: the story's not really interesting to me that much other
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: than the Michael Strahan interview, which I found to be
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: absolutely bizarre and incredibly telling about where we are in
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: the modern media in twenty twenty five. But as far
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: as the Garcia story itself, it's it's a low priority
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: for me, for whatever that's worth. Thanks for listening to
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