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Episode One Hundred Ten: The Conspiracy To End America · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome to episode number one hundred and ten of the Death of Journalism podcast.
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My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. Taylor Swift
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is the Time Person of the Year. I make a half joking Trump prediction
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and it bizarrely comes true. More evidence that, as I have been warning,
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college sports are collapsing. Some telling moments in Congress about free speech,
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and a very combative interview with a member of the so called Lincoln Project.
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email marketing specialist that also happens to be a big fan of John Zigler and
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If you want to grow your business, Peter can help. That's the
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Dutch Digital Marketingman dot com. And hey, thanks for sponsoring the show.
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This being December, we're starting to get the end of the year awards being
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given out by media organizations, and two of the formerly most prestigious awards given
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by the media have most recently been named. I'm referring to the Time Person
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of the Year and the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, and I think
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that these are significant, not because they have any real inherent value anymore in
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this very fragmented era in which the legacy media has been sapped of almost all
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of its power and prestige, but because I think both are representative of and
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symbolic of the legacy media finally just waving the white flag and just giving up
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when it comes to this whole battle against the dry towards popularity rather than achievement.
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I say a lot on this podcast that the coin of the realm in
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the media is no longer the truth, its popularity, and therefore it's a
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lot easier to be popular with a contrived lie than it is to tell the
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truth, especially when the truth is so often not popular, especially when your
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entire goal is to essentially provide therapy for a very targeted demographic and or cult.
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So if you can target your message, your quote unquote truth to appeal
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to the people that are your customers. That's a workable business model. In
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the modern media age, telling the truth across the board is not because eventually
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you're going to piss off too many of your core customers because the truth is
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never exactly as these cult members would like it to be. And that's really
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the short history of the media. It began as broadcasting, then it turned
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into narrow casting, then it went to cult casting, and now it's into
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micro cult casting, where you only really need a relatively small cult. But
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if they're enthusiastic enough, and if they have enough resources, and you create
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the business model in a way that's conducive to making a profit, you can
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make that work. But that's in no way, shape or form consistent with
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the media outlet that has truth at the center of its primary focus, because
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it just doesn't work that way. We see this in politics all the time,
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and obviously we talk a lot about that on this podcast when it comes
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to the right wing media and their treatment of Donald Trump. And it's in
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that context that I find the fact that Time magazine has now named its person
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of the Year, which used to be a very prestigious I hesitate to use
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the word honor because they purposely chose some very notorious characters in the past,
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including Adolf Hitler, and not because they were really honoring the person, but
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they were making a historical statement about who the most significant person in any given
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year was. And historically it was always a significant person in the realm of
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serious events, whether that be in politics, or in science or war,
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or achieving like Charles Limberg in nineteen twenty seven being the first person to cross
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the Atlantic. There's all always been a seriousness associated with the Time then Man
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of the Year, now Person of the Year since we turned into the twenty
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first century, and Time magazine selected this week Taylor's as their Person of the
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Year. Now, I'm someone who talks a lot about the power of Taylor
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Swift. There's no question that she had an enormous impact on the culture of
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the United States and much of the world this year. I don't deny that
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at all. Now, the level of the impact I would take issue with.
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Yes, there are many millions of mostly young women, who consider her
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to be a cult hero, and what she did in her concert tour was
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extraordinary by any measure, and she was certainly one of the most talked about
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people of the year. No doubt about that. However, there's no real
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at least in this year, there's no real serious element news related to what
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she did, or at least very very little. Now I've already suggested a
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couple of times in this podcast she may have a massive impact on the twenty
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twenty four election because she has the ability to influence this massive cult of young
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female voters who may be malleable and may not be normally counted on to vote.
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But if she snaps her fingers, which I'm sure she will, she
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will get them to vote against Donald Trump. And I think that's going to
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have a very significant impact, especially in some very close contested states. So
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in twenty twenty three, what Taylor Swift did was amazing. It's not worthy
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of Time Person of the Year. It's just not It's not a serious endeavor.
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This is the first entertainer to ever win the Time Person of the Year.
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And let's face reality of why this choice was made. This choice was
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made one because there wasn't an obvious other choice. I mean, to me,
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it's between Elon Musk, but Musk already was named Person of the Year
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back in twenty twenty one, winning you who's still a member of the liberal
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mafia. He was still a made man in the liberal elite, and now
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he's lost that position in a very short period of time. But I think
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what Elon Musk has done this year is extremely significant, and he really was
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at the focus of so much that happened this year, especially with regard to
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what's happening with Twitter and free speech. But it's hardly limited to that.
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If you asked me, you know, okay, if it's not gonna be
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Musk, since we just chose him in twenty twenty one, I would have
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said, you got to go with Donald Trump. I mean, based upon
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the standards that have been used previously through its history of the time person of
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the Year, there's no question that Donald Trump was both talked about in an
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extraordinary way, was at the center of numerous important events. I mean,
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he was indicted four times criminally and you know, had numerous civil trials against
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him, at least two civil trials against him this year, and he's in
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the process of winning handily the Republican presidential nomination in unprecedented fashion. Now again,
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you don't have to like Trump, you don't have to agree with him
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on anything, but that is worthy of serious consideration for the Time Person of
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the Year, at least based upon the standards as they used to exist.
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But they weren't gonna do that. They weren't gonna name Musk because they just
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named him because he's now a right wing figure. They're not gonna name Trump
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because he's obviously a very right wing figure and highly unpopular. And they named
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Swift because they know that financially it's gonna be very, very good for them.
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And I have no doubt that this will probably be their most lucrative maybe
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ever, but certainly in recent history, their most lucrative Person of the Year
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issue ever because they named somebody who is a cult figure. And so I
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don't know what the numbers are gonna be, but I'm sure that financially this
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was a very sound decision by Time magazine. Of course, it's not based
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in any credibility or journal and it's waving the white flag. It's waving the
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white flag that we're we give up. We're going to give in to this
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whole idea that it's really all about popularity and survival and being able to juice
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our broken business model whenever we can do so. And so now you know
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the floodgates have opened. It's all about entertainment, it's all about clicks,
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it's all about money, has nothing to do. Even when it comes to
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the time Person of the Year, which hasn't been nearly as credible as it
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used to be for quite a while. They've made a lot of very poor
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choices, including BRETA. Thunberg, which was insane. And it's obviously a
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left wing organization, as almost all legacy media organizations are. But this is
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a new standard. This is a new level of absurdity, and I think
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it's significant for that. And it's also significant because, let's be clear,
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they're giving her credibility into the twenty twenty four election cycle. I don't think
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that that has been lost on those that made this decision, because she may
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end up being more significant in the serious world in twenty twenty four than she
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was in twenty twenty three, regardless of what happens with her and Travis Kelcey
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and the Kansas City Chiefs, who were not playing nearly as well as I
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thought they would be at this point. But it's ironic because I think she
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may be more significant in twenty twenty four than she was in twenty twenty three
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if my theory about her role in the election turns out to be true.
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And by the way, in the wake of this Time magazine decision, I'm
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seeing a lot of conservative commentators finally jumping on board this theory that I've had
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now for many many months, which is that she's going to be a weapon
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in the twenty twenty four election, and that this may have been part of
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why Time Magazine made this decision. Now, I reference the Sports Illustrated Sportsman
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of the Year, which is probably probably had a situation where it has lost
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even more of its prestige then the Person of the Year has, mainly because
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Sports Illustrated has essentially become a pamphlet. But Sportsman of the Year used to
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be almost as big a deal as the Time Person of the Year, and
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Sports Illustrated shows this year Dion Sanders as their Sportsman of the Year, and
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I'm a fan of Deon. I was disappointed how Colorado's football season ended,
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although it wasn't much different than what I predicted, because when everyone was going
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crazy about Sanders and Primetime and Colorado back in September, I said they weren't
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going to have a winning season. They didn't even come close to having a
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winning season, they didn't make a bowl game. And yet somehow, I
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guess, you know, Sports Illustrated must have made must have counted the votes
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back in late September early October, because Deon Sanders was named the Sportsman of
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the Year. Now, had Colorado had a winning season, I would have
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had no problem with that, because that would have been an achievement. And
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you know, he may be changing college football. I'm not as certain that
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he's going to be changing college football today as I was back in September,
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because the momentum has been lost and he's got some very serious challenges there.
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And again, I like Dion. I want to really like Dion because I
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think he's stealth conservative and could have a really positive influence on college sports and
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on young men, especially in the black community. That's all mostly hope at
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this point, but based upon his actual achievement beyond, Sanders, in no
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way, shape or form, was the Sportsman of the Year this year.
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Sportsman of the Year was supposed to be based upon achievement both on the field
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and off the field, and there's no argument at all that Sanders fit that
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bill. Now there's all sorts of people that might be more qualified. But
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what Sports Illustrated clearly did was very similar to what Time Magazine did. They
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chose the person that would be most friendly to one them getting publicity because most
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people are now ignoring the sportsman of the year, and two that there might
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be enough people interested in Dion Sanders to actually buy the issue. So on
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a smaller level, and I'm sure not nearly as successful, Sports Illustrated did
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exactly the same thing as Time Magazine did with their year end award, and
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I do think it's further evidence of waving the white flag towards the wave of
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the importance of popularity in all media, that it's not about achievement, it's
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about popularity and trying to sustain this broken business model. Now, Dion allows
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me to get into another topic that has been in the news quite a bit
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over the last week, especially in the sports media, and where I had
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kind of a funny thing happened. I referenced an episode number one and nine,
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this extraordinary debate that's going on in the sports media between whether or not
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Florida State, where Deion Sanders went to college, or Alabama should have gotten
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the final slot out of four in the college football playoff and I was very
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much on the fence in episode number one, number one hundred and nine,
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and I have to say, as someone who has followed sports now for forty
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nine years very closely, and been in the sports media briefly early on in
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my career, I cannot recall a debate of this kind where you could make
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such an incredibly strong argument for both sides, where you can really if this
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was a court case, I mean, there's to me, you could make
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an argument that would make both sides appear to be the obvious victor or the
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other side clearly the wrong way to go. And so therefore I was I
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was very conflicted in episode number one hundred nin and I basically said, look,
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if your definition of who makes the playoffs is the best teams, the
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four best teams, then Alabama is clearly a better team than Florida State right
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now, and you could justify their choice based upon that, And that apparently
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is part of the criteria for this committee that makes this decision. However,
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if you're going to make this decision based upon achievement, I guess that's the
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word of this episode of the podcast. Achievement if it's going to be about
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achievement or who is the most deserving, then obviously you got to go with
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Florida State because, unlike Alabama, they didn't lose a game, they went
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undefeated, they won their conference championship, and you could even argue that they
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deserve credit for being able to win their rivalry game against Florida and their conference
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championship game in a situation where they didn't have their starting quarterback. So they
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beat Louisville in their conference championship game and they beat Florida in their last game
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of the year, and their star quarterback is out and he's not going to
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be able to it looks like return for the postseason. So this debate has
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raged raged in the college football world and in the sports media. And I
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have to say that as I've thought about it, and I've watched a lot
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of the coverage, I've kind of gone more into the Florida State got screwed
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category. I feel like I myself fell I hate these word victim, but
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I fell victim to buying in to a series of principles and rules that really
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shouldn't exist. I'm kind of upset at myself for even buying into this idea
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that who on paper is the best team going into the playoffs should have anything
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to do with this. It really shouldn't. Now you can argue that that
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is part of the criteria and the committee's just doing their job, but this
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really should be about achievement. So, you know, everyone who has comment
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on this, I said, well, it's really tough luck for Florida State
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that they lost their quarterback and therefore they're no longer one of the four best
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teams, and therefore they should make the playoffs. And I really think,
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well that is enticing, especially if you're a sports media that desperately wants Alabama
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in the playoff, one because they're good for ratings, and two because they're
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probably good for competitive a competitive game, they're much less likely to get blown
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out than Florida State might be that that's a fallacy. I mean, that's
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a complete fallacy, the idea that we have any business in sports deciding playoff
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teams that way. It should be based upon achievement, and in fact,
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it should be tough luck Alabama. You lost a game earlier in this year,
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and you don't have the same record that Florida State does, and you
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both won conference championships and Florida State went undefeated. And it's just tough luck
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that you know, sometimes the best teams don't make the playoffs or they don't
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win the championship. That's why we play the games. The games actually have
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to matter. So well, I still understand the Alabama argument. I'm more
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into the Florida State camp now, and I'm kind of kicking myself for having
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bought into this, this false narrative about Alabama, a narrative that really,
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I do think is at least in part motivated by the perverse incentives in the
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sports media. They love Alabama. They love Alabama one because of the tradition,
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the history, Nick Saban, but also because Alabama is good for ratings.
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Alabama is the New York Yankees of college football in this era. And
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you got a lot of people love Alabama, a lot of people that hate
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Alabama. And you also know Alabama ain't gonna get blown out. There's no
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chance Alabama gets blown out by anybody. You always know you're going to get
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a competitive game with Alabama. You don't know that with Florida State without their
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star quarterback. Now, the reason why I'm talking about this other than it
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is an interesting debate and has dominated the sports media in some interesting ways,
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something I'm going to revisit in the moment. The primary reason I'm talking about
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this is that I tweeted after this decision was made, something that I considered
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to be a half joke. And what I tweeted was, has Donald Trump
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condemned Ron DeSantis yet? For what happened to Florida State? All right,
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so we got Florida State getting screwed. Desantras is the governor of Florida,
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And I tweeted, again, half jokingly, has Trump done this yet?
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Because Trump posts on truth Social and I'm not on truth Social, and so
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it generally takes a while for me to see any Trump posts, and I
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only see those that are particularly significant and get a lot of play on Twitter,
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where I spend a lot of my day, unfortunately, on Twitter where
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access it's now known. And so I tweeted that, and I didn't think
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much of it. I mean, it was half joke, but I was
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also half serious because I thought this is exactly the type of thing that Trump
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might do. This is becoming a massive issue, and he might use it
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as a chance to take a shot bizarrely, absurdly at Ronda Santis, who
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has nothing to do with this at all except for the fact that he happens
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to be actually in power unlike Trump, and be the governor of Florida.
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So somewhat to my surprise and very much to my amusement, Donald Trump did
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exactly as I have jokingly predicted, and he posted on Twitter the following Florida
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State was treated very badly by the committee quote unquote, they became the first
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Power five team to be left out of the college football playoffs. It's not
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factually accurate. I think he give him the benefit of that. I think
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he meant to say the first undefeated Power five team to be left out of
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the college football playoffs. Really bad lobbying effort. Dot Let's blame does sanctimonious
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exclamation point exclamation point. Now. One of the ways that Trump gets away
21:11
with this kind of insanity is you never know how serious he's being, and
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he gets to have his cake and eat it too. So if you want
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to take him seriously as a Trump cult member, you can do that.
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If you're not a member of the Trump Cult but you like Donald Trump,
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you think, oh, well, he's just poking fun that this isn't very
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serious. He's not really blaming Ron the sanctimonious. The fact that he calls
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him to sanctimonious is insane on its face, but we've just accepted that that's
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the way Trump does things. But the idea that you're blaming Ron DeSantis for
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what happened to Florida State in the college football playoff selection process is totally absurd.
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But I anticipated that it might happen, which is why I tweeted what
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I did, which people got a pretty big kick out of once it ended
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up turning out to be exactly what would occur. Now, Interestingly, rond
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de Santis, whether it was because of the post by Trump or otherwise,
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I doubt it was motivated by the post by Trump. But DeSantis has jumped
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into this obviously and understandably, and this is in the proper role of a
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governor to take Florida State side in this. But he's gone further than just
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issuing statements about it. He's actually set aside one million dollars of state money
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to fund a possible lawsuit against the college football playoff system. Now, whether
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or not this is ever going to happen, I have no idea, and
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this is kind of gets me to to an issue where I'm a little conflicted
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by Ronda Santis. I mean, I love the guy, especially on COVID.
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He goes a little too far on some things for me, but I'll
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take him in a heartbeat over anybody else who is even a theory medical candidate
23:00
for the Republican presidential nomination. But he does tend to take the role of
23:07
government at least a little too far for someone like myself who is at heart
23:14
a libertarian. I'm not really sure this is the role of the state government.
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Now. It hasn't actually happened yet, it was mostly theoretical. It
23:21
may only be political that he's he's putting aside this million dollars for a possible
23:26
lawsuit, So who knows, you know, whether or not this is really
23:30
ever going to happen in real life. I think I would like to believe
23:36
that this is Ron DeSantis as problem solver, that his instinct kind of like
23:41
you know, a good husband, something goes wrong with your kids or your
23:44
wife, you want to try and fix it. And this is what Desanta's
23:48
motivation is here, the idea that the role of government may be being interpreted
23:56
in a way that's not exactly the conservative or libertarian is I guess beside the
24:03
point, I don't know that he's really thinking about the philosophical aspects of this,
24:07
but I don't think this is the role of a state government. And
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again I don't know that that's actually going to happen, but it's worth noting
24:15
that DeSantis has, at least in theory, sided with Florida State. I
24:22
don't think at this moment that there's going to be an actual legal battle over
24:25
this, but there could be, and from a political standpoint, it's probably
24:29
a good move for DeSantis to make it very very clear he's on Florida State's
24:33
side. Now. From a media perspective, I do find this to be
24:38
rather fascinating and telling, even though it's about sports. But the sports media
24:42
is an awful lot like the news media. I do think that there's an
24:48
important point to be made here about how the sports media is handling this entire
24:53
Florida State Alabama situation. ESPN is really at the heart of this whole thing,
25:00
and it's laughable. It's laughable to see ESPN respond to this controversy involving
25:07
Florida State Alabama because that controversy has their fingerprints all over it. ESPN is
25:17
literally the partner of the college Football Playoff. It is their baby, not
25:26
just in the way they cover it, but on you know who's going to
25:29
carry it, where the money comes from, who makes the money from this.
25:33
It is their management team that is driving the entire system and changing this
25:38
from a fourteen playoff to a twelve team playoff next year. It's it's essentially
25:44
you cannot separate ESPN from the college Football Playoff, and you also can't separate
25:49
the narratives that ESPN creates from the decisions that the committee makes. The committee
25:57
clearly is in acted because they're college football fans. By how ESPN covers all
26:04
of this, and the fact that ESPN loves Alabama absolutely has to play a
26:12
role in this. And here's the proof of it. And I have to
26:15
give credit what credits do, even though I hate this guy, Stephen A.
26:18
Smith, probably the most highly paid ESPN commentator there is, and someone
26:23
who was as wrong about the Penn State Joe Paterno, Jerry Sudusky cases.
26:26
Anybody on the planet has been right about a bunch of things on this issue.
26:32
But one thing he said, which really I think proves the point about
26:36
the absurdity of this conversation and in a weird way, kind of indicts his
26:41
own network. Is he made the point that if Dion Sanders, you know,
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Sportsmen of the Year from Sports Illustrated, if Dion Sanders had been the
26:52
head coach at is alma mater, Florida State, does anybody think there's a
26:56
chance in fucking hell Florida State doesn't get chosen for the College football playoff?
27:03
There's zero chance. You give Florida State exactly the same resume and you make
27:08
Dion Sanders their coach, there is no chance that Florida State doesn't get a
27:15
spot in the playoffs. Why because that decision would be extremely popular and extremely
27:23
ratings friendly, and the ESPN narrative about Florida State would be completely different than
27:32
it is today, which is, oh, well, you know, their
27:34
quarterback is hurt, and you know they don't seem very exciting, and their
27:37
offense has been seemingly handicapped, and boy, we fear another TCU situation from
27:44
last year where they got completely obliterated in the championship game against Georgia. So
27:49
ESPN is at the heart of all of this, and yet you have a
27:55
lot of people on ESPN criticizing the decision that was dictated in large part both
28:03
by the management of ESPN as well as the narrative creators at ESPN. And
28:10
I have to say it wasn't one hundred percent consistent with where I'm going to
28:14
go with this. But I'm not going to play the clip because it gets
28:18
a little convoluted. But Pat McAfee, who's the new star at ESPN and
28:22
a former punter for the Indianapolis Colts who's turned into a media star, and
28:26
I kind of like him. He's funny and won't trust him completely. But
28:30
he had Stephen A. Smith on along with Mike Greenberg, another star at
28:34
ESPN, where he started chastising them somewhat seriously, somewhat humorously for allowing this
28:44
to happen under quote unquote their watch, which is a phrase that I have
28:49
used numerous times when it comes to ESPN and the entire issue of the destruction
28:55
of college football and college sports in general. How does e ESPN get off
29:00
the hook for what has happened under their watch to college sports? And again,
29:07
his focus was more on the you know, how could you let this
29:11
system be created. Because it's such a convoluted system. You got five conference
29:15
champions and you only have four spots in the playoffs, you know inherently you're
29:18
gonna have a problem, and this year there was a massive problem because of
29:22
what they it all turned out. But I echo Pat McAfee's question, and
29:29
I think this is a really important question. How does ESBN not get any
29:33
blame for the catastrophe that has befallen college sports in general and college football in
29:41
particular. This all happened because of them. They're driving the bus, This
29:48
is under their watch, and it's happening directly because both of there, because
29:52
both their management as well as they're on air people have allowed it to happen
29:57
because they perceived it to be in their self interest for it to happen,
30:02
and also because a lot of them are morons and a lot of them are
30:06
liberals who didn't understand the law of unintended consequences and how when you change the
30:12
incentive structure and you make it perverse, you're going to get perverse outcomes.
30:17
And I've been screaming bloody murder for years that we were headed down a very
30:22
very dangerous path when it came to college athletics as specifically college football. And
30:29
guess what, that slippery slope that I'm talking about has just become even slipp
30:33
rear and talking about waving the white flag, which I guess is the theme
30:37
of this episode of the podcast. Charlie Baker, the head of the NCAA,
30:45
is now ready to completely wave the white flag when it comes to direct
30:51
payment of athletes from their institutions from their colleges. Now. Charlie Baker is
30:56
an interesting guy, former Republican governor of Massachusetts, although very very moderate governor
31:03
of Massachusetts. I think I've mentioned on the podcast before. My father knows
31:07
him pretty well. I think my father co hosted a fundraiser for him.
31:11
He's a big fan of Charlie Baker, which is classic my dad, because
31:15
my dad is a very very moderate Republican about his moderate as you can get,
31:18
and he lives in Massachusetts, and he really likes Charlie Baker. I'm
31:22
not sold on Charlie Baker, and it certainly seems to me as if he
31:26
is completely waiving the white flag in what is now transpiring this week. This
31:30
story from the Associated Press, NCAA president Charlie Baker calls for new tier of
31:37
Division one where schools can pay athletes and then I'll just give you the first
31:41
part of the story. NCBA President Charlie Baker is asking members to make one
31:47
of the most dramatic shifts in the history of college sports by allowing highly resourced
31:52
schools to pay some of their athletes, and a letter sent to more than
31:56
three hundred and fifty Division one schools this week, Baker said he wants the
32:00
association to create a new tier of NCAA Division one sports where schools would be
32:07
required to offer at least half their athletes a payment of at least thirty thousand
32:14
dollars per year into a trust fund. Baker also proposed allowing all Division I
32:20
schools to offer unlimited educational benefits and enter into name, image and likeness licensing
32:27
deals with athletes. All right, now, Look, this is a very
32:30
complex issue, and I very rarely in my post sports career have I ever
32:37
wished that I was back in the sports media, But this entire issue,
32:42
what's happened to college sports is the only time I can remember where I'm feeling
32:46
like, gosh, darn it, I really wish that I had a role
32:50
in the sports media because there is nobody willing and able to fight the good
32:54
fight. Now that's too late, now it's over. As I said,
32:58
we're waving the white flag. But there has been nobody, no prominent voice
33:02
that I'm aware of, in the sports media that's been willing and able to
33:07
articulate the absurdity of all of this and where it was all heading. And
33:12
I think I could have provided an important role in that, and unfortunately that
33:16
was unable to happen for a milliar myriad of reasons. But it's very rare
33:22
for me to have regrets like that. But I really feel like I had
33:27
an important voice or important things to say on this. And while I wrote
33:30
a little bit about it for Mediaite as a senior columnist, obviously that didn't
33:35
have any influence at all. And a lot of my predictions have unfortunately come
33:38
true, And as as often happens, my predictions didn't just come true,
33:44
they've come true more dramatically and more quickly than even I feared. And you
33:50
know, this whole issue of paying players, the nil situation, name imagent
33:55
likeness has gotten so much worse than anybody claimed it was going to so much
34:04
more quickly. I mean, there are players being paid millions of dollars now,
34:08
and with instant transfers, you've got star players transferring willy nilly, and
34:15
you know, we've got the Nebraska head coach saying it now costs a million
34:17
to two million dollars to get a decent quarterback in the transfer portal. And
34:22
it's just completely insane. And by the way, we're seeing no evidence at
34:28
all of any of the benefits of nil money because we were told, well,
34:34
you know, there's gonna be players who will stick around to play in
34:37
the bowl games, or they're going to stick around to play their senior year
34:39
because they won't be as enticed by the money in professional football because they're already
34:45
going to get paid, especially if they're star players. There's been no evidence
34:47
of that at all. So you've given up everything in exchange for basically nothing.
34:55
And look, I realized, Charlie Baker's in a very difficult spot.
35:00
He has almost no real power. People don't realize how little power the NCAA
35:04
really has all overall of this, especially when it comes to football. They
35:08
run the basketball tournament, but they really don't run football. And frankly,
35:14
I'm not even sure why the top schools that he's talking about creating a new
35:19
tier for. Maybe this is why he's doing it because he realizes he has
35:22
no power. I don't understand why these top schools couldn't just do this on
35:25
their own and just say screw you to the NCAA. And that's probably why
35:31
he's waving the white flag, because what's gonna happen here is a situation where
35:38
you're gonna effectively only have fifty to sixty schools that play top college football.
35:46
There's gonna be absolutely no way, as I read this, that schools that
35:52
can't win a national championship and know they can't win a national championship are going
35:57
to be able to sustain a viable football program because it costs a ton of
36:01
money. Most schools don't make money from their college football program, and so
36:06
there's no way the have nots are going to just give up. And whether
36:10
they're gonna call it a different division or whatever, but they're not going to
36:14
be able to even remotely compete against the top schools. So you're just gonna
36:19
have and TV will love this. You're just gonna have all these schools playing
36:23
each other these sixty schools or whatever and whatever conference makeup ends up coming out
36:30
of the after the dust settles finally in this ridiculous radical realignment, and you're
36:36
just gonna have the top sixty schools playing against each other during a regular season.
36:40
And then you know, I don't know if they're going to keep this
36:42
twelve team playoff, which I think has massive negative ramifications. But the reality
36:47
here is you're going to eliminate at least seventy schools from playing top tier college
36:57
football. They're just not going to be able to do it financially, and
37:00
they're not going to be able to do it competitively. Because not be able
37:02
to they're not going to be able to attract players good enough to compete against
37:07
those that play at the top tier schools. And Baker seems to even just
37:13
be acknowledging this. I mean, it's obvious from this proposed new structure,
37:17
but I just can't even imagine if you had said, John, what's the
37:22
worst possible scenario in the next couple of years for college football? I mean,
37:28
the explosion in nil money, the instant transfers. There's been like over
37:34
eight hydred college football players that have entered the transfer portal in the last week
37:39
or whatever it's been since that that you know, opened up, and now
37:45
the issue we're just going to directly pay players, combined with radical realignment where
37:52
all the old history and tradition is gone and all the rivalry games are going
37:55
to be killed, and there's going to be all sorts of ramifications of the
38:00
playoff system that the moronic sports media does not understand. They really don't.
38:05
I mean, it's just so obvious to me all the things that are going
38:07
to happen as ramifications for this that are going to be bad, And then
38:12
when it happens, you know, the media is either going to ignore it
38:15
or say, gee, who could have possibly thought this was going to occur?
38:19
Spot stop me heard You've heard this before. But it's going to be
38:21
a lot like COVID, where things that were obvious to anyone with common sense
38:24
are going to be seen as startling. Wait, what really you mean?
38:30
We're you know, kids not being in school was going to cause them catastrophic
38:34
learning loss. Who could have possibly funked that? Well, well, it's
38:38
the same thing with college sports. If you just use your common sense and
38:43
you have any clue about what's really going on in the world. This was
38:45
all very, very obvious. And in defense of Baker, if if based
38:52
upon where we are today, I'm a big believer, and if you have
38:55
to make decisions based upon the way things are today, not where they should
39:00
be or where they used to be, and the reality is we were too
39:05
far gone. We've left the gravitational pull of the rational earth here, and
39:09
so when you're trying to fix an untenable situation, I can kind of understand
39:15
this idea of paying players directly if that was the only thing that was happening.
39:22
See, I could support this. I could support this idea if that
39:28
was the only thing we were gonna do. If you ended instant transfers and
39:34
you ended nil money, which is just a massive loophole for corruption and has
39:39
turned out exactly as I predicted, only worse, and you said we are
39:45
going to pay our Division one athletes a significant stipend out of a fund that
39:53
comes from TV money or revenue from other sources, I would be fine with
39:59
that. I wouldn't have favored it from the beginning because I'm always of the
40:02
belief that these are not employees. The idea that college athletes are employees is
40:08
absurd. But somehow this has become the mantra, and the left has driven
40:15
this, and Gavin Newsom here in California played an incredibly important role in forcing
40:20
the hand of everybody nationwide to go along with this, and the Supreme Court
40:23
made a decision that, in my opinion, has been misinterpreted and was wrongheaded
40:28
to begin with. But somehow, and it's not officially the law yet,
40:31
but effectively this has been deemed to be the reality that college athletes are employees.
40:38
And I just don't look at it that way. It is a privilege
40:42
to represent your school, the school that's giving you a full scholarship, room
40:47
and board, something valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars at top institutions now,
40:52
not to mention a platform for you to make an incredibly lucrative career,
40:59
especially in football and basketball, if you perform well. And here's the argument
41:05
I always make when it comes to this issue of the value that college athletes
41:09
create for their universities and whether or not they're really employees or whether or not
41:15
they're student athletes. I always ask the question, Okay, if you think
41:22
you're so valuable, if what you're doing as an athlete is so valuable to
41:27
the university, Then why don't you just create your own minor league. Why
41:31
don't the players that play for Ohio State or Michigan, or Florida State or
41:36
Alabama, why don't they go ahead and start a minor league football league,
41:45
something that's a feeder to the NFL, and see how that does financially,
41:50
See how that does. See what the value the actual players create for those
41:57
schools by virtue of their playing ability. How much money is that going to
42:04
create? What kind of value is that gonna generate. It's gonna be zero.
42:09
You can take the exact same players, whether it's basketball or football,
42:15
and if they play the same sport against the same players, but they have
42:22
a different uniform on. That isn't Alabama, that isn't Ohio State, it
42:29
isn't Michigan, it isn't Florida State. No one will give a shit.
42:36
No one other than maybe the scouts from the NFL or the NBA, No
42:42
one will care. Now, there's a couple of very rare exceptions to this,
42:45
people like Tim Tebow or Reggie Bush or Johnny Manziel. Those players made
42:51
an enormous amount of money for their schools and they didn't get squat from that,
42:55
and I think there could have been a way to rectify that problem.
43:00
I think you could have created a trust fund based upon you know, Jersey
43:05
sales or revenue that was clearly generated from them that they could access after they
43:13
left school. I'm fine with the concept of a stipend, which is what
43:16
it sounds like Charlie Baker wants to do. But that's you know, sticking
43:22
your finger in the dyke of a damn that's broken. It's too late now.
43:27
So if we only had a stipend and everyone got the same and it
43:32
was generated by some sort of fun from revenues from these sports directly say,
43:38
like every letter person got the same amount of money in anything particular year,
43:44
I would have been fine with that. Philosophically. I still would have had
43:46
issues with it, but it wouldn't have destroyed the entire system, and it
43:51
wouldn't have been the wild wild West, and it would have made some sense,
43:54
and the incentive structure wouldn't have completely broken down. But now this is
43:59
just a complet catastrophe. And it looks to me as if we're gonna have
44:04
direct payment of players plus nil money plus instant transfers, and I don't know
44:10
how the entire system doesn't collapse. And it's, you know, the espns
44:16
of the world a little bit like the conservative media when it comes to covering
44:21
Trump. They don't agree with all this at all, but they love the
44:24
chaos that it creates. They love the arguments and the debates that it creates,
44:30
and they love the interest that it creates. And the destruction of it
44:34
all is kind of fun and it generates a lot of audience interest in traffic
44:39
and ratings. It's very similar to the Trump phenomenon where if you ask behind
44:45
the scenes, a lot of these save people that are supportive of this shit
44:49
system. Are they really supportive of Trump if they're being honest, No,
44:53
but they like what Trump has done for them and their jobs. And it's
44:59
exactly the same thing when it comes to college football. A lot of these
45:01
people spent years praising the essence and the tradition and the history of college sports
45:07
what made it great, and they've just completely thrown that away because one their
45:12
boss has told them to, and two because it's great for content in the
45:15
short run. So we're just gonna burn it all down, just like the
45:17
Republican Party burned it all down on behalf of Donald Trump, and it's just
45:22
so disgusting, and very few people are willing to see the truth or speak
45:27
the truth, which to me is exceedingly obvious. One other sports related item,
45:31
and it's in the world of golf, which I'm very familiar with,
45:35
being a longtime tournament amateur golf player and having very very briefly worked for the
45:40
PGA Tour many many years ago and followed covered golf my entire life. The
45:47
powers that be and golf have finally announced a golf ball rollback. Now,
45:52
this is a complicated issue that really doesn't have much to do with the death
45:54
of journalists and podcasts, but there is an important media element to this story
46:00
that I want to touch on, and I'll give my two cents on the
46:04
actual issue. Very briefly. I'm in favor of a golf ball rollback,
46:07
which was announced this week, because I think the golf ball is going too
46:10
far. I would have done it differently. I think there are other ways
46:14
they could have done this that would have been more effective. I also think,
46:16
and this for avid listeners of the death of journalism podcasts may resonate.
46:22
I think they're completely missing an important issue when it comes to how easy it
46:30
will be for even at top competitions there to be rampant cheating. This is
46:37
something that no one is mentioning, but other than the top pro events that
46:43
are televised, I don't know how in the world you possibly regulate that someone
46:49
is using the new version of the golf ball. I just don't know how
46:52
you do this. I've asked people in the business and they don't have an
46:54
answer. Either. There's gonna be massive cheating because you're gonna have people using
47:00
the old golf ball and just creating markings that make it impossible to tell whether
47:05
or not it's an old golf ball or a new golf ball. And the
47:07
new golf ball doesn't go as far as the old golf ball. People that
47:10
are following the rules are going to be at a disadvantage. And it's I
47:15
mean, the cheap cheating, in my opinion, is already becoming a massive
47:17
problem in golf. I've talked about it on this podcast previously. At a
47:22
US Amateur qualifier that I played in earlier this year, there was an episode
47:27
of blatant cheating by a kid that really shocked the hell out of me,
47:30
and it's becoming more and more prevalent. And this new golf ball situation is
47:35
in twenty twenty eight is going to be I think, a huge problem in
47:38
this realm. But here's the media part of this. So the USGA and
47:44
the RNA may have bit off more than they can chew here because they're trying
47:47
to navigate a minefield, and part of the minefield is a massive conflict of
47:53
interest that the golf media, especially the Golf Channel has on this issue because
48:00
the golf ball manufacturers don't like this idea. They want the ball to go
48:04
as far as it possibly can for a lot of different reasons. And guess
48:09
who pays most of the advertising, or at least a huge portion of the
48:14
advertising for the golf media in general and the Golf Channel in particular. The
48:19
golf ball manufacturers. They're the ones paying the bills because that's an area where
48:27
golfers spend an enormous amount of money. Golf Balls are ridiculously expensive to begin
48:32
with, but there's a lot of competition between ball makers, and if everybody
48:37
is curtailed in the same way, the golf ball manufacturers feel like their entire
48:44
business model may collapse and they're not going to like it. And the PGA
48:50
Tour, which is in bed with the golf ball manufacturers, has already announced
48:53
that they're not in favor of this, although I don't know if they've responded
48:58
to this announcement that was just made this week, which was made just before
49:01
I started taping this podcast, but previously the PGA Tour has said this,
49:07
and other golf the PGA, which is different from the PGA Tour, has
49:09
also said they're not in favor of this. So we may have a situation
49:14
where only the US Open, the British Open, and the Masters go along
49:16
with this. And I think you're going to see a lot of media coverage
49:21
that is negative towards what's happening here, largely because of this incredible, obvious
49:27
conflict of interest when it comes to the financial incentives and the money being spent
49:31
by the golf ball manufacturers on advertising in the golf or sports media world.
49:38
And I do think that's representative and symbolic of a lot of what happens in
49:44
the media in general. There's all sorts of financial conflicts of interest that influence
49:49
content, and I think you're going to see that when it comes to this
49:52
issue of the golf ball rollback now scheduled for twenty twenty eight, shifting gears.
49:57
Before we get to our interview, which I hope you'll take a listen
49:59
to, there were a couple of things that happened in Congress this week that
50:02
are very much worthy of mention, and they both deal with the issue of
50:07
free speech. And there's a clip I'm going to play here for you that's
50:10
about three minutes long that went viral on Twitter, and it is at a
50:15
congressional hearing where the questioner is Republican Congressman Elise Stephonic from New York, who
50:23
is someone who has been seen as a future star the Republican Party, although
50:28
she's very pro Trump as of now, and so I'm not sure how that's
50:32
going to influence her future. But she was questioning the presidents of MIT,
50:37
Penn and Harvard about the issue of free speech on campus, but specifically the
50:43
issue of I guess you'd call it hate speech towards people who are Jewish in
50:49
light of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. And she got some extraordinary responses
50:58
from the presidents of these allegedly elite academic institutions because none of them were willing
51:06
to really condemn the calling for genocide effectively against Jewish people. And I would
51:15
like to believe that part of the reason, a major part of the reason
51:20
why this clip went viral was because of the massive hypocrisy when it comes to
51:24
the issue of protecting free speech and these elite academic institutions, although I'm a
51:31
little bit concerned that that might not be the full motivation. So I want
51:36
to play the clip because it's a little long, but it's worthy of being
51:39
heard, especially since we talk a lot about free speech on this podcast.
51:45
And then I want to give my impressions of what transpired here and what my
51:50
problem with what was said is as opposed to what I think drove the outrage
51:57
towards the responses from the president of MIT, Pen and Harvard. And here's
52:01
what that sounded like in Congress, Doctor Kornbluth at MIT, does calling for
52:07
the genocide of Jews violate MIT's code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment?
52:15
Yes? Or no? You've targeted at individuals not making public statements.
52:20
Yes or no. Calling for the genocide of Jews does not constitute bullying and
52:23
harassment. I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus,
52:28
but you've heard chance for Intipada. I've heard chance, which can be
52:34
antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.
52:38
So those would not be according to the MIT's code of conduct or rules,
52:44
that would be investigated as harassment if perfasive and severe. Ms migil at Penn.
52:52
Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Pen's rules or code of conduct?
52:58
Yes? Or no? If the speech turns into conduct, it can
53:04
be harassment. Yes, I am asking specifically calling for the genocide of Jews.
53:09
Does that constitute bullying? Harassment? If it is directed and severer pervasive,
53:16
it is harassment. So the answer is yes. It is a context
53:21
dependent decision, Congresswoman, It's a context dependent decision. That's your testimony today.
53:25
Calling for the genocide of Jews is, depending upon the context, that
53:30
is not bullying or harassment. This is the easiest question to answer, yes,
53:36
Miss McGill. So is your testimony that you will not answer yes?
53:42
If it is yes or though if the speech becomes conduct, it can be
53:47
harassment. Yes, conduct meaning committing the act of genocide. The speech is
53:53
not harassment. This is unacceptable. Miss McGill. I'm going to give you
53:57
one more opportunity for the world to see your answer. Does calling for the
54:02
genocide of Jews violate pens code of conduct when it comes to bullying and harassment?
54:08
Yes? Or no? It can be harassment. The answer is yes,
54:16
and doctor Gay at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews?
54:22
Violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? Yes? Or no. It can
54:27
be depending on the context. What's the context? Target it as an individual,
54:31
targeted at an individual, It's targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals.
54:37
Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them? Do you understand that dehumanization is
54:44
part of anti Semitism? I will ask you one more time. Does calling
54:51
for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? Yes?
54:55
Or no? Anti semitic rhetoric? Is it anti semitic rhetoric? Anti Semitic
55:01
rhetoric when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation,
55:08
That is actionable conduct, and we do take action. So the answer is
55:14
yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard Code of Conduct.
55:20
Correct, Again, it depends on the context. It does not depend on
55:25
the context. The answer is yes, and this is why you should resign.
55:30
These are unacceptable answers across the board. Now, like most people,
55:36
when I saw that, I'm like, wow, I mean, it's extraordinary
55:38
the level of hypocrisy here when it comes to these elite academic presidents, because
55:46
these are the same people who will not defend free speech when it doesn't suit
55:52
their purposes. And the most obvious recent example is you're not allowed to be
55:58
a speaker on most of these campuses and come out against biological males playing sports
56:05
against biological females. Literally, that's not hyperbole. You're not allowed to do
56:09
that. That's deemed hate speech, not protected. And in certain situations,
56:15
if you go too far, you can get punished for that. You can
56:16
be deemed anti trans or transphobic or whatever it is, and you're at least
56:23
a persona on Grada. Now, there's a big difference between being punished for
56:29
something and you know, not being given a platform for something. I agree
56:34
with that. This gets to be a very nuanced and complicated issue, but
56:39
that to me was the essence of the problem here. All right, So
56:44
you're willing to stand on this principle of defending free speech at all costs,
56:50
even if you're saying that Jewish people ought to be killed, which you know
56:54
no reasonable person should agree with. But that doesn't mean you're not allowed to
56:59
say it without punishment, right, So I actually was mostly agreeing with what
57:07
the college presidents were saying there. It's the very arbitrary enforcement of this principle
57:14
that's the problem. The politically motivated enforcement of this principle, that that's the
57:22
problem. It's basically, and this is what is inherently the issue when you
57:27
have people in power, almost always liberals, deciding what speech is acceptable and
57:31
what speech is not. And I guess my fear here is that we're going
57:37
to be in a situation where we use and some conservatives are in this boat,
57:42
which bothers me. We're going to be in a situation where an extreme
57:45
situation, which is obviously being provoked by the war between Israel and Amas,
57:52
is going to cause us to create dangerous rules and precedents. I've discussed this
58:00
for where you know, obviously calling for genocide against Jewish people is ridiculous it's
58:07
absurd, it's insane and should be condemned. But is that something that should
58:14
be actionable with punishment. And it's certainly similar to the fact that in certain
58:20
parts of Europe it's literally illegal to deny the Holocaust. Now, the Holocaust
58:25
obviously happened. Anybody who doesn't believe that is insane should be condemned. It's
58:31
important that people understand that the Holocaust occurred. I'm all with that, But
58:36
as a libertarian, I have a big problem once you start making speech illegal,
58:39
because now you're going down a very slippery slope, because who gets to
58:44
the side what is hate speech and what should be illegal and what the punishment
58:50
should be. And so to me, the issue here was hypocrisy. It
58:54
wasn't really the issue of not being willing and able to defend. And they're
59:00
Jewish students against I guess you would call it bullying or harassment. So I'm
59:07
glad that this clip I would just played got people's attention. I just feared
59:13
that it didn't get people's attention for the right reasons. But I'm a libertarian
59:17
and a free speech obsolutist, and oftentimes that gets misinterpreted. There's another episode
59:25
that occurred in Congress related to free speech. Then, in my view,
59:30
maybe more outrageous than what you just heard regarding you calling for Jewish genocide,
59:37
and that is that there was a member of the Biden administration, Assistant Attorney
59:44
General, Kristen Clark, who testified and she was being questioned in Congress by
59:50
Republican Congressman Dan Bishop about a court case it's ongoing, Missouri versus Biden,
59:58
which we've discussed previously because it's an important free speech issue. It has to
1:00:04
do with the Biden administration censoring free speech, some of it related to the
1:00:09
vaccines for COVID, and it's an extraordinary case and the evidence in it is
1:00:16
really very, very troubling. If you care about free speech, you care
1:00:21
about the First Amendment, if you care about making sure that the government doesn't
1:00:23
crack down on what is allowed to be said in the public sphere, and
1:00:30
this Biden administration Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark, had no idea none what the
1:00:39
Missouri v. Biden case even was. Now, for the record, she's
1:00:46
a woman who happens to be African American. Now, the reason why I
1:00:51
think that's relevant is this is the latest in a series, in a long
1:00:57
series of situations where Biden appointees who are clearly at least consistent with the idea
1:01:05
that they were hired as part of an pushed for equity or affirmative action have
1:01:09
been humiliated publicly in these hearings. John Kennedy, in the Senate Senator from
1:01:15
Louisiana has basically made a career out of doing this in an ingenious fashion where
1:01:21
he just absolutely tortures these people because they don't know what the hell they're talking
1:01:25
about. But I'm not sure that even Kennedy has ever had a situation that
1:01:30
it was more insane and ridiculous and telling than this one. Because this person's
1:01:37
job, this person's job is the issue of civil rights, and there's no
1:01:44
more primary civil rights than the freedom of speech, at least is not supposed
1:01:49
to be. It's the first freaking Amendment and the Bill of Rights. So
1:01:52
how the hell does she not even have a clue, forget about the fact
1:01:57
that she probably has the wrong opinion about it, She doesn't even have any
1:02:00
awareness. But this court case even exists. And here's what that sounded like.
1:02:07
When Congressman Dan Bishop questioned Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark, MS Clark and
1:02:14
the Bidens. Excuse me, the Missouri Versus Biden case in the District Court,
1:02:20
the court explained, quote, if the allegations made by the plaintiffs are
1:02:23
true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack on free speech in
1:02:30
United States history close quote. Court went on to find that the plaintiffs were
1:02:35
reasonably likely to succeed on the merits to trial, entered a preliminary injunction.
1:02:38
The Fifth Circuit has affirmed the Supreme Court has taken jurisdiction of the case course.
1:02:44
That's all civil litigation is any criminal investigation or prosecution of the persons responsible
1:02:50
for that activity in the FBI, SISA and at the White House and their
1:02:54
co conspirators underway in the Civil Rights Division. Congressman, I'm not familiar with
1:03:02
this litigation, but happy to bring your question back. Thank you. So
1:03:07
let me just make sure I understand that you are not aware of the Missouri
1:03:13
versus Biden litigation that is currently being taken up by the United States Supreme Court.
1:03:20
Is that correct? Unfortunately, I'm not a congressman, assuming not,
1:03:28
assuming that you're not aware of that, what reason would there be that the
1:03:37
Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Leader is unaware of what a United
1:03:44
States District court has described as the most massive attack on free speech in the
1:03:47
United States history. If you could share more of the facts, that could
1:03:55
be helpful, Congressman. Otherwise you're just you just don't know. Is that
1:04:00
correct? That's correct. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be a case
1:04:03
that I'm familiar with. Good enough, I'm going to yield the amounts of
1:04:08
my time to the chairman. To me, that is so telling on so
1:04:13
many levels, so infuriating, But it mostly goes to this issue of why
1:04:18
equity standards are so dangerous because it's so obvious, and it's because it's not
1:04:25
just Clark. There's been numerous other examples when the Divide administration where all these
1:04:30
people end up not having a clue what they're talking about when they're being questioned
1:04:34
in Congress. All of them are seemingly in this camp of people who are
1:04:39
at least theoretically equity driven hires. And that has nothing to do with whether
1:04:45
or not as a black female she's qualified for the job. It's because she's
1:04:49
a black female that she got a job. She's clearly not qualified for at
1:04:54
least doesn't appear to be qualified for based upon that answer. But see,
1:04:58
the left will intimidate people, and they're not saying anything about this because it
1:05:01
sounds like you're being racist or sexist if you say a person's not qualified for
1:05:06
their job. No, I'm saying they got their job in all likelihood,
1:05:13
at least in large part because of the fact that they're a black female and
1:05:16
it's obvious they're not qualified. This is the price we pay for the whole
1:05:20
equity boondoggle and why I always talk about equality of opportunity being what America was
1:05:28
supposed to be about and had been about, and now equity of outcome is
1:05:32
what it has become in the modern era and the Biden administration, and it's
1:05:38
just absolutely wrong. Now I get criticized a lot, especially on Twitter,
1:05:44
for having Trump derangement syndrome, and I take great umbrage to this because I
1:05:50
actually am very, very proud of my position on Donald Trump, which has
1:05:56
been very consistent from the beginning, never having voted for him, never supported
1:06:00
him in any way, a shape or form. However, I have defended
1:06:03
him on numerous occasions when warranted, and I have never ever given up my
1:06:12
conservative slash libertarian principles, unlike almost every other commentator who would be considered an
1:06:19
anti Trump conservative. It's astonishing to me. Astonishing to me, and I
1:06:26
probably don't talk about this enough because I really, contrary to public perception,
1:06:30
I don't like patting myself on the back. But I can't even think of
1:06:33
another conservative commentator who fits into this category of somebody who has been principled about
1:06:42
Trump but fair to Trump, and who never sold out in any way,
1:06:45
shape or form, either to go back into the Trump camp or to become
1:06:53
essentially a tool of the left on everything, become effectively a liberal. And
1:06:59
there were numerous events that exposed a lot of people on this issue. The
1:07:03
Brett Kavanaugh hearings to me was the first moment when I was like, oh,
1:07:10
oh my god, so all of my buddies are seeming buddies in the
1:07:15
never tramped conservative camp are a bunch of fucking frauds. They've now become liberals.
1:07:20
This is all a minstrel show so that you can remain relevant and get
1:07:27
you booked on TV shows and get paid by effectively leftist organizations. Now and
1:07:35
you can justify the fact that you didn't just back the wrong horse. You
1:07:41
still have some assemblance of a career that now that you're anti Trump. That
1:07:45
really was a shocking revelation to me, because I thought that the anti Trump
1:07:51
positioned by most of these people was at least somewhat based in principle. It
1:07:58
wasn't. It was based in careers survive and being able to remain somewhat relevant,
1:08:03
and that's never been a motivation for me. And obviously the biggest demarcation
1:08:10
point was COVID, because all the anti Trump conservatives were total sellouts on COVID,
1:08:17
every single one of them that I'm aware of, all went into the
1:08:21
whole concept that the COVID panic was totally justified and that we didn't lock down
1:08:27
enough. And liberals were awesome on this and conservatives and especially Ron de Santis
1:08:32
were terrible on this. And it's been very, very depressing to me to
1:08:38
see this that I'm the only guy I'm aware of that fits into this category
1:08:44
of an anti Trump conservative who has never sold out philosophically, which I do
1:08:47
not have Trump arrangement syndrome in any way, shape or form. He enrages
1:08:53
me, but he's not made me deranged and I've made. I've been incredibly
1:08:58
objective about him from day one and continue to be extremely proud of how I've
1:09:03
handled Have I been perfect? No, I mean I've been wrong a few
1:09:06
times, especially about how he would do in the twenty sixteen election against Hillary
1:09:11
Clinton. But I've acknowledged when I've been wrong, and I've corrected my path
1:09:15
on numerous occasions, and I think my record is better than anybody's. But
1:09:19
you want TDS Trump Arrangement syndrome, and this entire idea that Trump could possibly
1:09:26
stay in office past twenty twenty eight if he was elected, especially when we
1:09:30
would know what to be on guard for. Everyone would be on red alert.
1:09:38
There would be no surprise element in twenty twenty eight if Donald Trump would
1:09:42
to try to do something like that, And by the way, Trump at
1:09:45
twenty twenty eight would be older than Joe Biden is now, so he probably
1:09:47
wouldn't even have the energy to do it, or even or even the desire
1:09:50
to do it. He'd probably want to be out of there by now.
1:09:53
He basically wants to win reelection, to stay out of jail and to get
1:09:57
vindication for having lost in twenty twenty wouldn't surprise me if after he's elected he's
1:10:01
really not that interested in actually being president if he actually does win the election
1:10:05
at twenty twenty four. So all of this is a setup for this interview
1:10:11
that I want you to listen to. Here. It's a bit long.
1:10:14
I take this a couple of weeks ago, and it's with a guy by
1:10:16
the name was Stuart Stevens, who's a former Republican political consultant, and he's
1:10:23
a member of the Lincoln Club, an organization of supposedly anti Trump conservatives.
1:10:29
Many of these people are people that I knew previously, and some of whom
1:10:31
I liked previously until I realized they are all a bunch of frauds. Well,
1:10:35
Stuart is somebody I've actually had some respect for. He and I have
1:10:40
had a good rapport online. We've never spoken before this interview, but it's
1:10:44
clear that he follows me pretty carefully on Twitter. And I like Stuart,
1:10:48
and he was willing to come on because he's got this new book to sell.
1:10:53
And this interview did not go as I expected it. I thought this
1:10:56
was going to be a pretty high minded conversation about the history of the conservative
1:11:01
movement and how we got Trump and where we go on from here, and
1:11:05
that we would probably disagree on some things because I believe that the Lincoln Project
1:11:10
and people like him have given up their conservative principles to try to stay somewhat
1:11:15
relevant. But after the first half hour of this interview, which is basically
1:11:18
a history lesson, which I find to be interesting but I can acknowledge might
1:11:24
be a little bit dry, it gets pretty heated, and by the end
1:11:28
of this interview it's pretty clear that we don't even like each other anymore.
1:11:31
So I think you're going to find this to be fascinating. I think it's
1:11:35
a very telling interview because of what's happened to the conservative movement and how everything
1:11:42
is now broken. That you know, Trump either exposed everything is being broken
1:11:45
or he caused everything that was fractured to break permanently, but he clearly has
1:11:51
broken our politics, and this interview is a classic example of it. So
1:11:57
I hope you'll listen to most of, not all, of this rather long
1:12:00
interview. It's well over an hour with Stuart Stevens, which I recorded a
1:12:04
couple of weeks ago. Stuart Stevens, author of the book The Conspiracy to
1:12:10
End America, Welcome to the Death of Journalism podcast. Thank you, John,
1:12:15
a longtime fan, first time caller, so appreciate you having me on.
1:12:24
Well, I'm looking forward to this discussion for a number of reasons.
1:12:29
Before we get to the book in the Conspiracy and America, I would I'd
1:12:34
like you to tell our listeners about your political evolution, especially in the in
1:12:42
the Trump era as someone who was a long been politically conservative. Now you're
1:12:46
part of the Lincoln Project. You're obviously very much anti Donald Trump, and
1:12:51
you and I share a lot of pessimism, we share a lot of things.
1:12:55
We share a view of Donald Trump, and we warned people we should
1:13:00
want people this is gonna be really depressing. You know, if you're thinking
1:13:01
about drinking now, there's no reason not to start early. Okay, but
1:13:09
let's let's I want people to understand your political evolution. So how would you
1:13:13
describe it? It's I would call myself a broken hearted former Republican to be
1:13:26
honest, you know, I grew up in Mississippi, seventh generation of Mississippian
1:13:32
and when when I grew up there there was no Republican party, there was
1:13:35
only Democrats. I ended up working the Thad Cochrane who was a congressman from
1:13:44
Mississippi who was the first Republican congressman elected since reconstruction. He was one of
1:13:48
these bright young lawyer types, you know, the guys Kawana's Club, Rotary
1:13:55
club, good guy. Everybody liked him, got elected, you know,
1:14:00
thirties or something. And I was a page for him when I was in
1:14:03
high school, and that was my first stint in Washington. And I was
1:14:10
always interested, you know, in politics, film and writing, and tried
1:14:13
to pursue those three interests. So that cochrane ran for the Senate when I
1:14:18
was in grad school at UCLA going to film school, which I have to
1:14:24
say is one of the most sillier things in life ever to do. So
1:14:27
just you know, put that out there as a caveat. And his former
1:14:31
chief of staff, although he used to call him administrative assistance, now they
1:14:34
haven't flated titles, was going to run for his seat, as you know,
1:14:39
you've seen that a million times. Your boss runs, you run for
1:14:42
the seat. Nobody thought he could win. He was running against the longtime
1:14:46
powerhouse Republican Senator John stenmis Son. He's running against his son. So he
1:14:51
basically called me up and goes, look, man, you know, I
1:14:55
can't afford to hire anybody. Nobody thinks I'm going to win. You have
1:14:59
to make for me. And I'm like, John, that's great, but
1:15:01
I don't know how to make commercials, because now you'll figure it out.
1:15:04
So I ended up making commercials for him and ended up winning. Absolutely had
1:15:09
nothing to do with what I did. It was just a case. He
1:15:11
was the right place at the right time. And then you know that happens
1:15:15
sometimes. You know, you got a huge vote out of that congressional district
1:15:17
because Dad was running. And then I discovered that people would actually pay me
1:15:21
money to make political commercials for him, and I could do it kind of
1:15:26
like migrant labor work, working campaigns and a show was trying to write,
1:15:33
but nobody wanted to publish me. So that's how I started at this.
1:15:40
And once you start working for a Republican you you know, you got to
1:15:43
really work one side of defense. And the secret to success and republic and
1:15:49
any compolitical consulting is like coaching. Work for people who are going to win
1:15:54
anyway. And I add a good run of candidates, you start to win
1:15:59
more. You start work bigger races. So I started a firm in the
1:16:03
early nineties, and well, Steward, I guess, I guess I should
1:16:10
have asked the question more specifically towards what happened when Donald Trump? Yeah,
1:16:14
yeah, not of the bus. So when Donald Republican? Yeah? So
1:16:17
I was a guy I'd worked in five presidential Republican presidential campaigns, right,
1:16:25
I'd helped elect more Republican governors and senators, and I helped elect them in
1:16:28
over half the country. So I would be I guess you would call it
1:16:31
by the fault, and see I was not Republican. I was a Bush
1:16:34
guy. A lot of people were wrong about Trump and sixteen. It's really
1:16:40
hard to find anybody who was more wrong than me. I didn't think he'd
1:16:42
win. I didn't think he'd win the nomination or the general. And when
1:16:47
he did, it was pretty devastating to me on a personal level, because
1:16:53
how are these people that I thought I knew, that I helped elect,
1:16:56
how did they end up supporting Donald Trump? Most not all? Most notably
1:17:01
that led me in that kind of high school English teacher way, if you
1:17:05
don't know how to write something you don't understand it, to start taking notes,
1:17:11
reading a lot. That led me to write it was all a lot
1:17:15
how their poking party became Donald Trump. And you know, I came to
1:17:20
conclusion that really there were these two sides of the Republican Party in post World
1:17:25
War Two, the Osenhower side saying boring, governing, and the McCarthy's side
1:17:30
conspiratorial, often racist, xenophobic, non governing. And I would have thought
1:17:38
that those of us who worked in Bush campaign compassionate conservative side, that we
1:17:43
were the dominant gene. And I don't know any conclusion that comes to but
1:17:46
that we weren't. So I was not one of these people who believed that
1:17:53
Trump was an aberration. I had a lot of friends that said Trump is
1:17:58
hijacked the party. I desperately wanted to believe that. But my problem was
1:18:02
John, you know, when the hijacker takes over the plane, he's not
1:18:08
popular on the plane. Everybody he's not saying, well, I'm glad we're
1:18:12
not going to Grandma's. We get to go to Cuba. And Donald Trump
1:18:16
was really popular, and that for me, I processed this as not only
1:18:29
a disappointment in the individuals, but a disappointment in the party. So how
1:18:34
could the party's core values that we thought were character counts strong on Russia.
1:18:45
Personal responsibility deficit matters. If we go with the candidate who's not just drifting
1:18:51
away from these he's the opposite of them in most parties, what does that
1:18:56
say about us? So I really couldn't any a conclusion that more often than
1:19:00
not they were marketing slogans. So that's that's where it led me. I've
1:19:09
really lost any going out of business sale for optimism in the Republican Party.
1:19:16
And I think that the current Republican Party is unsalvageable and that we have to
1:19:28
construct and there's a desperate need for a saying center right party in America.
1:19:33
Most of my politics are more center right than not, like most of us
1:19:39
have had exceptions all the time where I had quirky things that probably didn't sit
1:19:42
in that category. So that's that's where I am now. I will vote
1:19:50
for Joe Biden. I will vote for Joe Biden enthusiastically. I have friends
1:19:56
that said in nineteen Bernie Sanders is a nominee or sixteen Bernie Sanders is a
1:20:01
nominee, which you vote for him? I was like, absolutely, I
1:20:05
go door to door from mad Bernie, because I think that say what you
1:20:10
will about him. Ah, he has a e theory of government, he
1:20:15
can articulate, and he's not a danger to the overall trend of democracy.
1:20:21
Okay, So that's a long one to answer. That's fine. And by
1:20:26
the way, I'm going to take issue with you on some of what you
1:20:29
said. And I no one lows Trump more than I do. But I
1:20:32
could never vote for Joe Biden either. I've never voted for Trump, I've
1:20:36
never voted for Biden. No chance to the will I'll ever vote for either
1:20:41
one of them. But I till the end of this you're going to be
1:20:44
a Biden contributor, I promise you. I know. Yeah, good luck
1:20:48
with that, Stuart. But here's here's where I want to go with the
1:20:54
beginning of this conversation because this is an important point because you have grappled with
1:20:59
an issue that I have thought a lot about as well, which is what
1:21:03
happened. Was the Republican Party not what we thought it was? Or did
1:21:09
it suddenly change dramatically or is the truth somewhere in the middle. And I'm
1:21:16
not one hundred percent sure where you are on this, but I'm as to
1:21:19
what the Republican Party really was, and that and I think you, you
1:21:25
and your friends need to take some responsibility for what happened here, because we
1:21:30
had two straight presidential election cycles with John McCain and Romney as the candidates.
1:21:35
You worked for Romney as a as a consultant. Did you work for McCain
1:21:40
too, I don't remember. No, okay, So, but you worked
1:21:44
for you work, I work for Romney in the primary McCain beatus, okay,
1:21:48
and so so you had two straight the Republican quote unquote establishment put up
1:21:54
two right. Okay, But here's the point. I supported both McCain and
1:22:01
Romney wholeheartedly. I was a McCain delegate to the National Conntion. But I
1:22:09
also acknowledged that both of them were perceived, and not irrationally, as having
1:22:15
whimmed out in the general election, and that they did not fight the good
1:22:20
fight, and that to the core Republican voter, they could not comprehend how
1:22:26
Barack Hussein Obama could possibly win an election in the United States of America unless
1:22:32
the Establishment had sold out the base by putting up a candidate who did not
1:22:38
fight to the end. And again, this is not an irrational perspective,
1:22:42
because when I watched the last Romney Obama debate. I was at a party
1:22:47
with friends here in southern California, and everyone was so excited that Romney had
1:22:51
done so well, and I said, guys, we just lost because Romney
1:22:55
was at the three yard line. You're a football fan. He was at
1:22:59
the three yard line and he kicked the field goal. He had a chance
1:23:02
to knock it into the end zone and potentially win this thing, but he
1:23:04
wasked out because he was believing people around him that he was going to win
1:23:10
if he just coasted to the finish line, and that turned out to be
1:23:13
wrong. So you and your friend Stewart played an important role, I believe
1:23:18
in setting up the twenty sixteen Donald Trump run. Are you willing to take
1:23:23
responsibility for that? Well? This is this is gonna be an easy argument
1:23:28
for you to win because the first line, pretty much in my book it
1:23:33
was all a lie, is blame me. So you know, one of
1:23:40
the things that drew me to the Republican Party was the idea of personal responsibility.
1:23:45
And if you don't take personal responsibility, the party obviously walked away from
1:23:50
it. I mean, Donald Trump, you're a chump if you take responsibility
1:23:54
for anything. So I I I'd say one hundred yes to what you just
1:24:01
said. Now, yes, as I said in the book, blame me,
1:24:10
it was a winnable race and we lost. I can that's the truth.
1:24:18
Now. We can talk about the race, and we can talk about
1:24:21
dynamics in the race, but the bottom line is you walked out of the
1:24:28
stadium having lost the game. You could have won. And I don't know
1:24:33
any other truth to accept. And I was working on the campaign at a
1:24:40
high level, so of course I take responsibility. I think i'm you know,
1:24:46
fair to say I'm hontybody because I think had Romney been president, we
1:24:51
wouldn't have had Trump obviously, I think most important on the foreign policy.
1:24:57
When you go back and you say what Trump, I mean what Rodney said
1:25:00
about Russia, and now extraordinarily prescient. He was, more so than probably
1:25:04
he imagined. I think it's fair to say, had Rodney been president,
1:25:11
his reaction to the invasion of Georgia would have been radically different his reaction to
1:25:20
the annexation of Crimea and the soft invasion, if you want to call it,
1:25:28
of Ukraine, which might not have happened if there had been a strong
1:25:31
reaction to Georgia probably wouldn't have happened, and you wouldn't have had a red
1:25:39
line in Syria that you announced that you didn't cross, and you wouldn't have
1:25:44
had the invasion of the Ukraine. I mean, those are history turning events,
1:25:53
and I think Obama failed in all of them them and you never know,
1:26:02
there's no alternative universe for Mitt Romney as president. I think intellectually you
1:26:06
have to allow for the possibility that there was a president Romney. He could
1:26:11
have handled them more bat he could have handled them worse. Who knows.
1:26:16
You can't say that. So you agree, which I admire you for,
1:26:21
you know, taking responsibility that you played a role and your friends played a
1:26:25
role in enraging the Republican base to the state where Donald Trump could take advantage
1:26:32
of this. And then, of course it gets even worse because not only
1:26:38
does Trump win the nomination in twenty sixteen, but against all predictions, including
1:26:45
those of myself. Although I thought he was gonna win the nomination, probably
1:26:47
sooner than almost anybody else did, I did not think he would beat Hillary.
1:26:50
And so he not only wins the nomination, he beats Hillary. And
1:26:54
now people like yourself have zero credibility for the rest of your life in the
1:27:00
Republican base. You acknowledge that. Right, So the non fighters lost twice
1:27:05
to Obama. The fighter beats Hillary kills the wicked witch of the West,
1:27:10
and now the Republican establishment has less than zero credibility for all time. Correct.
1:27:18
Well, let's talk about this. He Trump won with forty six point
1:27:26
two percent of the vote in sixteen. Romney lost with forty seven point two
1:27:32
percent of the vote. Oh, I agree with what you're saying. Romney
1:27:36
actually did just as well as Trump did. I forty six point nine percent
1:27:42
is what he got. Trump got in the second election. Just to go
1:27:51
to a couple of facts, they can be judged as you will. I
1:27:55
mean, when we were in the Romney campaign, we could see that there's
1:28:00
this group of very disaffected white voters who could have cared less about what we
1:28:05
were talking about taxes, Russia's small government. They were like, dude,
1:28:11
no, I don't I'm not going to vote. I don't care. But
1:28:14
if you went out there and did what Trump did and go to these extremes,
1:28:20
you could those voters would be interested in you now knowing Romney like people
1:28:26
kind of know them now. And you can see you know, if you've
1:28:28
gone into Romney's offices, suggested that you would have been thrown out. So
1:28:31
it was never even discussed. But as a political practitioner, I would have
1:28:35
bet that what you lost at the lower end and what you gained at the
1:28:40
lower end of these voters, you would have lost the college educated voters.
1:28:44
So I would have argued it wouldn't have worked politically any sort of moral issues
1:28:48
or any other issues aside. I would have been wrong. It was.
1:28:54
It was true up until the COMI letter, and then these voters came over.
1:29:00
So I think it goes to the question of I can look at this
1:29:12
another way, right, that all these voters said that they believed what McCain
1:29:18
believed in a value system. They believed the value system that Bush believed in.
1:29:25
They believed the value system that Romney believed in. So then you get
1:29:30
Trump and they support someone who is completely against that value system. What does
1:29:35
that say about the voters? What does it say about those people who are
1:29:41
willing to vote for a candidate. To me, the turning point John is
1:29:46
December fourteenth, twenty fifteen. I think it was check the Executate when Trump
1:29:53
came out from Muslim ban nineteen ninety fifteen. If you know, I Party
1:30:04
stood for anything as the Constitution and we all agree on that right. So
1:30:10
a Muslim band is a religious test. You know, if Stuart Stevens shows
1:30:15
up as a British citizen at JFK and they asked me what religion I am
1:30:23
and I say, I'm a Quaker, not a Muslim. I was a
1:30:26
Muslim, but I changed. What are they gonna do ask me trivia questions
1:30:29
about you know, William Penn. It's a religious test. So I think
1:30:33
the part that point what Ryan's Freevous should have done is gone out and said,
1:30:39
look, I can't stop anybody from voting for Donald Trump. I can't
1:30:43
stop Donald Trump from running, but as long as he runs, I'm not
1:30:45
going to support him. This is not what I Party stands for. Now.
1:30:49
I know why that didn't happen because nobody thought Trump was going to win,
1:30:54
and at that time Trump was still threatening to run as an independent candidate,
1:30:57
which made it impossible for any other Republican to win. But I think
1:31:01
it was a classic example. You know, one of our principles that we
1:31:08
believed in was you don't negotiate with terrorists. And you started negotiating with Donald
1:31:14
Trump. Then you started saying, Okay, you're for religious test right,
1:31:18
you don't. That's against the constitution. We can't argue that's not against the
1:31:23
constitution. That's against the constitution. We'll accept on that, Okay. So
1:31:29
then you're into the prison or release negotiations. And once once you get into
1:31:33
that, I think it is a very slippery slope that then leads us into
1:31:40
uh so what if there are one hundred contacts between the Trump campaign in Russia?
1:31:47
So what if if Trump says incredibly negative things about NATO? What so?
1:31:57
What if you know, Trump praises call up Vladimir Putin and congratulates him
1:32:02
on his successful election. I mean, these are disgraceful moments tonight view right,
1:32:10
But Stuart, couldn't you argue I get all, I get all that,
1:32:15
But couldn't you argue if you're talking slippery slope, that that slope may
1:32:19
have begun when your guy Mitt Romney accepted Donald Trump's endorsement in twenty twelve and
1:32:28
all sorts of credibility, Well back Obama. First of all, that's another
1:32:38
thing I'll take responsibility for. Okay, So we were in the Nevada primary
1:32:48
We did three or four business endorsements today, and anybody in the world can
1:32:55
choose to believe this. I probably, if I heard it, would choose
1:32:58
not to believe it. But it's true. We honestly did not see it
1:33:01
as a big deal, which was a mistake. We should have It's my
1:33:05
fault, one hundred percent of my fault, and I should have I should
1:33:11
have stopped that. We saw it as Donald Trump. You know, if
1:33:15
you look at surveys among you know, local kind of you know, alternative
1:33:21
newspapers, where where's a good place to work Trump Trump was a good place
1:33:26
to work. He wasn't in Pariah. We went there, we spent fifteen
1:33:31
minutes. Trump endorsed him. That was it. That's how we saw it.
1:33:36
They started getting calls in Donald Trump saying I've cleared my schedule. I
1:33:40
can go on the plane. Oh you know, And I was like,
1:33:44
mister Trump, that's not gonna missus. Trump, That's not going to happen.
1:33:47
And he literally could not understand it. John he didn't get mad.
1:33:51
He couldn't understand. He thought I was saying this because we didn't want to
1:33:55
inconvenience him. So he had Michael Cohen called me and go, Look,
1:34:01
Stuart, dude, mister Trump's fine with doing this. Don't worry. It's
1:34:05
okay. And I'm like Michael, he's not going to campaign with this,
1:34:12
Okay, come convention. I get a call from Donald Trump? What not?
1:34:19
Am I speaking? Mister Trump? You're not speaking. It's not good
1:34:26
for us. Hilarious. Yeah, it's not good for us. We're not
1:34:30
going to do it. Okay. Well, when am I going out on
1:34:33
the road with you? That's not going to happen, mister Trump. I'm
1:34:39
sorry. And oh, people had forgotten before this when you know we're in
1:34:49
a process of having nineteen primary debates. If you go back and you look
1:34:55
now, because you're a sane person and actually have a life, you probably
1:34:58
either never knew this or forgot got it. But three days after Christmas in
1:35:03
twenty nineteen, newsbacks had scheduled a presidential debate moderated by Donald Trump. Google
1:35:13
it. I mean not twenty nineteen you're talking about. You're talking about two
1:35:15
thousand and eleven, maybe, oh twenty eleven. Sorry, sorry, okay,
1:35:21
And three days after Christmas, we were in the process of having nineteen
1:35:26
debates. Think about that in the context of the debates are having now we
1:35:29
had nineteen two on the same day in New Hampshire. It was madness,
1:35:33
utter madness, which I tried to impact by getting Cannis to come together and
1:35:39
say, look, they can't have a debate without us, Let's don't do
1:35:42
this bullshit, to which I can say I also had one hundred percent failure
1:35:45
rate, so uh mtt Romney was as close as Mitt Romney gets to you
1:35:54
know, wtf, I'm not doing this. It's you know, three days
1:35:58
after Christmas as Donald Trump were doing nineteen debates, so it fell to me
1:36:00
to kill it. Called Donald Trump Trump, We're not gonna do this debate
1:36:09
and his big point was, but we're gonna get great numbers. You don't
1:36:15
understand, and he's probably right. I don't know. Maybe people would have
1:36:19
thought it was like a freak show and watch it and I was like,
1:36:23
miss we don't have a name ide problem, we don't need numbers. You
1:36:30
know, at a certain point I tried to get it in some language you
1:36:31
might understand. I probably failed. But at a certain point, you know,
1:36:34
movie stars get pressed people to keep them out of the press, to
1:36:39
get the quality of the press. That's where we are. So we went
1:36:43
back and forth and finally said, very matter of fact, never got angry.
1:36:45
Jump. If Romney doesn't do this, it's gonna be Newsmacks can endorse
1:36:54
new Gingers in the primary in Florida where Newsmats had a presence. Uh,
1:37:00
and that'll make a big difference. And I said, look, everybody's gonna
1:37:03
do what they're gona do. We're not doing this debate. So we didn't.
1:37:08
Newsmax endors knew we still won. So I don't think that not doing
1:37:17
something you should get credit for doing it for doing one thing right. So
1:37:26
I always said about Mike Tence, he shouldn't get credit for doing the right
1:37:30
thing because he didn't do the wrong thing. I mean, it's sort of
1:37:34
like saying, you know, I passed sixteen banks yesterday. I didn't robber
1:37:39
one, not on one. John, I said, really get credit for
1:37:43
this. I think what I will say this. Let me just say one
1:37:45
thing. I do not think I would argue this all day and argue.
1:37:48
You know that Mitt Romney played a key role in legitimizing Donald Trump. Some
1:37:58
could argue otherwise you disagree with that, you disagree with that, as disagree.
1:38:03
I think you're wrong about that. Because it could be that. I
1:38:08
think that that set the stage because in a lot of future Trump supporters minds,
1:38:15
you know, this was a situation where one, it gave Trump credibility,
1:38:21
it made him seem as if he was on that level. And then
1:38:26
when Romney failed and didn't fight the good fight, and Trump was there,
1:38:31
the guy who was going after Obama on the birth certificate BS, they saw
1:38:36
him as the fighter. The birth certificate BS is the is the foundation of
1:38:42
Trump's campaign in my view, without the birth certificate part of the narrative.
1:38:50
Agree, Okay, all right, I don't. I do not. I
1:38:54
do not onless on list. I mean, look, I think that's a
1:38:58
fair opinion. I would just say the politics doesn't work that way. That
1:39:01
had he taken Donald Trump and done like we did with so many governors,
1:39:08
so many senators, so many whatever, and campaign with him, you could
1:39:12
say, hey, this guy was on savee with Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney
1:39:15
was on his in his presence for under ten minutes. That's it. That's
1:39:19
not how politics work, Stuart. I'm not suggesting that it was an easy
1:39:23
situation. I don't. I'm not sure there was a perfect way to handle
1:39:27
Donald Trump. Oh no, no, I'll say there was a perfect way
1:39:30
to handle him. We should have said no. I should have said no,
1:39:34
just like I said no to campaigning. It was a mistake. So
1:39:38
before we get to your book, the Conspiracy, can I just object with
1:39:42
one thing, and if you want to talk about that, I don't understand
1:39:47
why you say that Romney didn't fight the good fight. Well, I literally
1:39:54
don't know what you mean by that. Okay, Well let me explain it.
1:39:58
So the narrative going into that last debate with Obama was that Romney had
1:40:06
pulled even or maybe even was inching ahead, or he was certainly within striking
1:40:11
distance of Obama. You agree with that, right, That was the narrative
1:40:15
going into the final debate, right, okay? And it was my very
1:40:20
very clear, strong, not just opinion, but conclusion watching it live with
1:40:27
a bunch of Romney supporters that he had the sword to Obama's throat and he
1:40:35
decided not to go for the kill, that he played it safe. And
1:40:39
it was clear to me, knowing as much as I know about politics,
1:40:43
then he and the people around him had made the decision that we don't need
1:40:46
to go in for the kill. We have the momentum we're gonna be able
1:40:50
to win this without doing something crazy. We don't want to do anything crazy
1:40:54
because we might mess this up and we're gonna get backlash, and we don't
1:40:58
want the narrative to change going into the last week or two of the campaign,
1:41:01
and that that was a critical miscalculation. And then Romney wassed out in
1:41:08
that debate and Obama was on the ropes and allowed to survive. And once
1:41:15
he did that, the incumbent was gonna win coming down the stretch, especially
1:41:18
with the media on his side. And no, that's my that's my argument.
1:41:24
That's a fair opinion. But let me ask you something in an alternative
1:41:30
universe, what what would Romney in your view, what should he have done
1:41:33
to go what? What is your vision of going in for the kill?
1:41:39
Well, I was I have not watched that debate in a long time,
1:41:43
but there was a controversy there. There was a controversy that where the moderator
1:41:48
sided with Obama. That was in the second believe me, that was in
1:41:51
the second debate. Okay, well, this is a long time ago and
1:41:56
only only people who are haunted by these things still think about it, like
1:41:59
me, all right, Well, I didn't I didn't like the way Romney
1:42:01
handled that situation where he got hosed by the female moderator, Crowley from from
1:42:06
CNN. But and then the third debate, I forget it might have been
1:42:11
the Russia issue. I can't even remember which issue in particular Romney decided not
1:42:15
to go in for the kill on. But it was just the demeanor.
1:42:18
His demeanor and his overall strategy was to sit on his hands and as I
1:42:25
said, kick the field goal from the three yard line. Stewart, I
1:42:28
think you're a little bit too wrapped up in people actually caring about issues.
1:42:32
It's not about issues. It's a persona. It's a it's a it's about
1:42:40
does the does the public believe that you're a fighter or not? And and
1:42:45
Romney thought, because I think people around him like you were telling him,
1:42:48
so, we are gonna win this thing. Is that not accurate? Were
1:42:51
you not? Was the perception of the campaign going down the stretch that you
1:42:57
guys were gonna win? No U? But certainly that makes it even worse
1:43:03
because if you thought you were gonna lose, why the hell were the bloves
1:43:09
off from the final debate. Look, these are all fair questions, okay.
1:43:15
And and and you know the problem with these things is there's not different
1:43:20
universes where you could say, Okay, there are a couple of debates where
1:43:26
he went on stage in the primary with the intent of the story an opponent
1:43:30
and did so successfully. He did it to Rick Perry in his first debate.
1:43:34
He did to New Gingridge in Florida. So you can make a case
1:43:39
to what he should have done is gone into that debate and you know,
1:43:44
with the mindset, one of us is going to walk off the stage alive.
1:43:47
So he did not do that. Okay, that's that's a fair that's
1:43:51
a fair point. Uh. I think it's an accurate point. More than
1:43:55
fair, I think it's accurate. I think it's demonstrated by the fact it
1:44:01
was not motivated by believing that we had won the race. Now, as
1:44:06
you said, that may make it worse, I accept that, okay.
1:44:12
But Romney went up after that debate in the polling. He went up after
1:44:19
every debate. Now, if you look at the history of these things,
1:44:26
and you look at Ronald Reagan's debates, right, and you look at the
1:44:30
voters who were in play, what voters did Romney lose in that debate?
1:44:40
He didn't lose them. I think you're looking I think you're looking at it
1:44:43
wrong. I am of the opinion that you know, since you're a sports
1:44:45
guy, you'll probably appreciate this metaphor the old boxing adage that you got to
1:44:49
knock out the champ and you have to knock out it looks I'm not I
1:44:57
listen. I fully concede that a different strategy might have been better, but
1:45:02
just mhm, as far as you know, being in in the room,
1:45:05
the truth of it, and again the conclusion may be that's even more stupid.
1:45:10
Don't don't get me wrong, but it at that point, you're you
1:45:19
are it's a foreign policy debate and you're auditioning to be president of the United
1:45:23
States. The single most desired quality that people want, the majority of people
1:45:32
want, that are in play for voters that might vote from Mitt Rodney is
1:45:36
stability. It is reasonable. This is if you go back and you watch
1:45:42
how wrong how Reagan defeated uh both mindalne Card and these debates. It was
1:45:48
exactly with that tone, and he asserted he asserted something that was you know,
1:45:58
history will obviously proved was completely right. But right, I get it.
1:46:02
I think I think you're miss are you mad, Well, I don't.
1:46:04
I don't listen. What you're saying is debating it. You're saying that
1:46:11
he should have gone in there with the same attitude he went in with Rick
1:46:14
Perry and with Newt Gingrid, and if you go back and just watch those
1:46:17
he prosecuted them, right, and the goal was one of us to walk
1:46:23
off the stage lives. So your point is that should have been Mitt Romney's
1:46:27
debate strategy in that debate. I think it's a fair point. I would
1:46:31
argue, I would argue against it. The significance of it, Stewart,
1:46:36
is bigger than even just whether or not that was the right strategy. This
1:46:41
is not, to me just an inside politics kind of thing. The reason
1:46:45
why it's so important is not just because it could have theoretically we don't know,
1:46:49
we'll never know, it could have theoretically altered the outcome. The main
1:46:54
thing to me that's important is it was symbolic for why Trump was the nominee
1:46:59
in twenty sixteen, because totally, totally, I totally don't buy that,
1:47:03
okay, And you're not understanding the Republican base, because the Republican base just
1:47:10
went through two losers who were perceived as not fighting, and Trump was the
1:47:15
fighter. That's all that mattered. He was the guy that was willing to
1:47:20
go after Obama on the birth certificate. He was the guy willing to do
1:47:24
a Muslim band. He was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay
1:47:28
for it. Those were all things they weren't hearing from the last two establishment
1:47:32
Republican candidates. That's why he became the nominee. It had nothing to do
1:47:40
hurt here. Okay, Hi, John, John, As the lawyers would
1:47:44
say, let me stipulate that is truth. Okay, I would look at
1:47:50
it differently. I would look at it. What that says is that the
1:47:57
majority of what Mitt Romney said on those issues forgetting tone right, was very
1:48:03
different than what Donald Trump was saying. Right, He was not out there
1:48:09
talking about the birth certificate. He thought that, he thought that he was
1:48:13
not going to run on that. He thought it was insane and racist.
1:48:15
Okay. It's not that he didn't fight for it. He was against that.
1:48:20
He didn't believe in it. Okay, So that's one. So building
1:48:26
a wall and doing all that, he did not believe that that was a
1:48:29
solution to the immigration crisis in America. So just go a two. I
1:48:34
understand. But no. But but if I say to you, if I
1:48:39
say to you, these are values, John, these are principles that Mitt
1:48:46
Romney did not agree with Donald Trump owned. So it wasn't that he wasn't
1:48:53
he was never going to fight for those things. Okay, he never was.
1:48:59
So I don't think I wasn't asking to. But let me, let
1:49:03
me just let me just lay out. Just let me give me one minute
1:49:05
to lay out an alternative view, right which in this, in this,
1:49:12
in this category of things that you think that I'm wrong about, this may
1:49:15
just prove another one to be true. Okay, don't don't you know I'm
1:49:24
wrong all the time, dude, except that, well I'm married. I'm
1:49:28
wrong all the time too. Brother, I'm with you, I'm with you.
1:49:30
Okay. So I look at this from a different view, Okay,
1:49:36
I wrote a book about it. I would say that what it proved was
1:49:43
that the Republican Party at its base did not care about the values that Admit
1:49:46
Rodney was talking about in twenty twelve, or John McCain talked about it,
1:49:50
that it was not a question of tone about fighter, It was not a
1:49:55
question about uh, the way in which these things. For said, these
1:50:00
are fundamental values that Mitt Romney did not share with Donald Trump. That Donald
1:50:05
Trump articulated, Yes, he did it very loudly. But when you turn
1:50:11
up the noise on turn up the volume on something that's just noise, it's
1:50:15
more louder noise. Trump put these out as these are the reasons you should
1:50:20
elect me president, and that the Republican Party responded to that. So I
1:50:27
think that what that says is what the Republican about the Republican Party, that
1:50:32
the Republican Party. I wake you up in the middle of the night in
1:50:35
twenty eleven and say, hey, John, look, tell me, do
1:50:40
you think the Republican Party is going to nominate a guy talks in public about
1:50:44
having sex with his daughter. You would have said, you're crazy, dude.
1:50:47
What do you like smoking? Do you think the Republican Party which embrace
1:50:54
somebody who attacks NATO? Dude? You know, have you talked to anybody
1:51:01
about these issues? You're happy I was crazy and they did start Stewart,
1:51:08
I get it, and I would since this is the Death of Journalism podcast,
1:51:12
I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the media angle on
1:51:15
this part of the not fighting the good fight against Obama by McCain and by
1:51:20
Romney was a perceived fear of the news media by both of those candidates,
1:51:28
where the news media turned on both of them in the general election because the
1:51:31
media is inherently biased against Republicans and they loved Obama to no end. Trump
1:51:39
was not afraid of the news media. Trump attacked the news media. He
1:51:44
made attacking the news media a foundation of his campaign, and Republican base voters
1:51:51
loved that because they didn't want someone who was afraid of the news media.
1:51:57
They wanted someone who was going to destroy the news media. So here's a
1:52:00
question. Let me ask you a question. It's a fair question to say,
1:52:04
who's the most successful Republican candidate? Who are the most successful Republican presidential
1:52:10
candidates? I would argue the ones who won the popular vote. That's not
1:52:14
a very complicated argument. So since nineteen eighty eight, that's happened twice.
1:52:21
Both of them had the last name Bush. So when Bush won the popular
1:52:26
vote in two thousand and four, he didn't attack the media and he got
1:52:33
more votes. Right, you do understand that that was in the post nine
1:52:39
to eleven era and the demographics of the country, where that was twenty years
1:52:43
almost twenty years ago, where the demographics of the country were vastly different.
1:52:47
I mean, a lot of our people have died and a lot of their
1:52:50
people are now voters. I mean, so you know, my favorite stat
1:52:56
my favorite stat on that is nineteen eight, Ronald Reagan wins a sweeping landslide
1:53:02
with fifty five percent of the white vote. McCain loses not particularly close race
1:53:09
with fifty eight percent of the white vote. Just to prove your point,
1:53:13
right, demographics have completely changed. Look, I can say this, you
1:53:24
could you could use this as your final arguments in front of the jury,
1:53:28
saying, see ladies and gentlemen, jury. This proves my point. But
1:53:30
that was never gonna happen in the Mitt Romney campaign, and that was never
1:53:34
gonna happen in the John McCain campaign because Mitt Romney and John McCain were not
1:53:42
people who they listen. If I had an hour, if I had a
1:53:46
dollar for every hour I have argued with reporters, screamed at reporters. You
1:53:54
know I would be buying the by Time Warner. Okay, you know I've
1:54:00
done that more than just about it. Literally anybody on the fucking planet.
1:54:03
So I have pretty good street credit, man, I get it. But
1:54:06
let me let me take this out of the theoretical into the practical. I
1:54:09
remember that one of the most absurd narratives about Mitt Romney in twenty twelve,
1:54:14
you know, was there was the binders of women from the from one of
1:54:17
the debates, which was completely insane. But even more ridiculous than that was
1:54:21
the story about putting his dog on the top of the station wagon during vacation.
1:54:27
Now, if Trump had ever been accused of something like that, Trump
1:54:30
would have come out on fire and attacked and attacked and attacked and attacked.
1:54:39
And instead Romney just let it stay there. But Trump don't know how much
1:54:44
impact it had. But but it was symbolic. So on election day,
1:54:50
Romney had fifty favorables. On election day, Donald Trump had forty two favorables.
1:54:59
Okay, Trump got forty six point two percent of the vote. Mitt
1:55:02
Romney got forty seven point two percent of the vote. The only reason,
1:55:06
the only reason, the only reason that Trump won is because African American turnout
1:55:13
with down minority non white turnout with down toicuarly African American and because of the
1:55:17
third Party, So Romney was a more popular figure who got a larger share
1:55:25
of the vote. I would argue, he I'm a huge Romney defender,
1:55:30
Okay, I'm someone who who will go to my death saying Romney was clearly
1:55:35
the most electable candidate and would have been a great president, and he was
1:55:39
the right person to nominate. I just I'm just telling you the reality of
1:55:44
how we got Trump, because how we got Trump is an important I have
1:55:46
a different view. Okay, fine, So let's get before we get to
1:55:51
your book, The Conspiracy and America, I just want to I want to
1:55:55
close the Trump portion of this conversation as much as we can by looking forward.
1:56:00
Now, So, do you agree that Donald Trump is an absolute locke,
1:56:05
barring death, to win the Republican nomination again in twenty twenty four?
1:56:12
Yes? And is there a particular reason why you agree that it's is it
1:56:16
just the polls or is it is it a mirror Donald Trump? The short
1:56:21
answer is to why Donald Trump is giving Republican primary voters more of what they
1:56:27
want to any other candidate, And what do you perceive that to be?
1:56:32
Exactly what you're describing someone who's gonna who's gonna go out and he's escalated the
1:56:40
attack. Now where if you haven't read or seen his announcement speech in Waco,
1:56:45
it's it's all late after Uh, it's the final battle. It is
1:56:51
a race to America is not a democracy America as an illegal president. We
1:56:58
all know that he wants the presidential race. This is about retribution and we
1:57:03
are going to go in and we are going to depose an a legal president
1:57:09
and restore our vision of democracy. And once we're in, we're going to
1:57:14
as the Santas says with their throats, and that is what the Republican Party
1:57:20
now has decided it wants. Now what now? With an understanding that both
1:57:27
of us have been wrong at times in the past about Trump's political me more
1:57:32
than most. Okay, fine, and I appreciate you admitting that. What
1:57:36
do you think, assuming it's Biden versus Trump, what do you how do
1:57:40
you forecast that out? I think Biden will went with a larger margin than
1:57:44
he did before. And why do you believe that the current poll is polling
1:57:49
is clearly wrong? Then? I believe the polls today have become what we
1:58:01
all know that polls have become less predictive. There's a question of why I
1:58:08
think that polls have really taken a turn to become more qualitative instruments than quantitative
1:58:14
instruments. You know in campaigns there's always quantitative were just the numbers. The
1:58:18
polling qualitative is like focus groups. I think people, it's very difficult to
1:58:24
get accurate polling samples. Now a technological or sociological or whatever start Let me
1:58:30
stop you there. I don't disagree with you. I've done political polling and
1:58:35
myself as an analyst and also commissioned polls on my own, so I know
1:58:40
a little bit about this enough to be dangerous. What is it that would
1:58:45
make current polling more favorable to Donald Trump against Joe Biden than reality would dictate?
1:58:53
Because Trump's voters, he has a higher, very favorable because his base
1:59:00
vote is he is giving them at this moment more of what they want than
1:59:06
Joe Biden is. Then Joe Biden has given the base voters that he has
1:59:10
what they want. I think that when this becomes a two person race,
1:59:17
the dynamic of this race is going to change, and it's going to be
1:59:20
between Now there's a third party, a no labels candidate that gets many votes.
1:59:27
I think Donald Trump will win, so that would be my I would
1:59:31
have to specify that. That is part of my answer is that there be
1:59:34
Do you consider RFK Junior to be someone who could I think RK It depends
1:59:42
on who RFK Jr is in that race. I think he has the ability
1:59:47
to elect Donald Trump. Yes, I don't accept it by definition more votes.
1:59:57
I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced yet that we know. That's kind
2:00:00
of That's exactly I feel. Yeah, we don't know. Yeah, all
2:00:05
right, so I think I think, Look, I think that when you're
2:00:09
seeing in poles, now, are you happy with the current incumbent president?
2:00:13
If you're a Democratic voter, most aren't, are you. It's basically goes
2:00:19
back to this new is the most powerful word in advertising. They never sell
2:00:25
cars by rolling on a new line of cars saying we haven't changed it things
2:00:28
since last year. They're just as good. I think that what this race
2:00:34
is going to be about is going to be defined again successfully by Joe Biden.
2:00:43
And and to answer me this, do you think there are many Biden
2:00:50
twenty voters who will become Trump twenty four voters? I don't, But I
2:00:59
think there are by twenty voters who may decide either not to vote or could
2:01:02
vote for a third candidate, and to use your car analogy. The Biden
2:01:11
car is running on fumes. Say what you want about the Trump car,
2:01:15
it at least is perceived as having somewhat of a full tank of gas.
2:01:19
I mean, Biden's physical condition is pathetic, Stewart, and the idea that
2:01:24
he's going to be president five years from now is utterly ridiculous. And that's
2:01:30
something that the average voter understands. We've all had experience in our own lives
2:01:35
with people in their eighties and they shouldn't be president of the United States,
2:01:41
and that is something that's going to be very difficult for Biden to overcome.
2:01:44
In my opinion, it all comes down to what the race is about.
2:01:47
Right, So take ninety two. It's my favorite example of this. Right.
2:01:54
You and I could sit here and list a lot of races that Bush
2:01:58
could have won easily. A race about experience, a race about foreign policy,
2:02:02
a race about stability qualifications. That wasn't the race. It was the
2:02:10
race. I mean in May Clinton was running third third, he managed to
2:02:17
change it into a race it wasn't about the economy. It was about change.
2:02:20
And once that race became about change, it's the one race that George
2:02:24
Bush, who had been everything, done everything, couldn't win versus obscure governor
2:02:30
from Arkansas. And that's kind of how politics works. There wasn't a poll
2:02:38
that I remember seeing in two thousand and seven that this country tying out for
2:02:43
hope and change. But the Obama campaign made it about hope and change.
2:02:48
And I think that the Biden campaign will be successful in making this a referendum
2:03:00
donald Trump, and a referendum on democracy and a referendum on decency. And
2:03:05
those are all racist that he can win now, they could take. But
2:03:11
nothing's going to change the fact that he's eighty one years old and looks like
2:03:14
he's eighty eight years old, and that that's a big problem for a lot
2:03:17
of people. Nothing's going to change. Nothing's going to change the fact that
2:03:20
Donald Trump is campaigning on golden showers. Look, you don't have to convince
2:03:26
me about Donald Trump, except I believe that he has made himself immune to
2:03:30
all viruses. With about half the public. It doesn't matter. It doesn't
2:03:35
in fact, you know, based upon his polling post each indictment that he
2:03:40
got stronger and stronger each time he got We both but we both would agree
2:03:45
that there's a very small number of voters are in play here. Oh yeah,
2:03:53
very small. Yeah, So that's really the only ones that really I
2:03:57
mean, Look, I can tell you this. If you and I are
2:04:00
sitting there two days after the election and we're looking at why Biden lost and
2:04:06
why Biden won, I think both are clear. Now it's just a question
2:04:12
of which one will happen. I have more questions in this realm, but
2:04:16
I want to at least get to the book because the book, the title
2:04:21
itself, I find to be fascinating, because you know, I'm someone who
2:04:25
believes at the end of America is near. I'm not sure that there's a
2:04:28
conspiracy to end America. The title of your book is the Conspiracy to End
2:04:32
America. I'm an anti conspiracy person, and I find it fascinating that an
2:04:35
anti Trump person would use the word conspiracy in the title of their book,
2:04:41
because obviously Trump is associated with a lot of lack of doodal conspiracy. So
2:04:45
tell me about the book, The Conspiracy to End America. Look, the
2:04:50
reason I wrote this book is because it seemed when democracies fall into autocracies is
2:04:59
not obscure subject, right. I mean, a lot of brilliant people have
2:05:01
studied this for a long time, and when you read a lot of works
2:05:06
on it, there seems to be these five elements that recur over and over
2:05:11
again that are necessary for an autocracy to emerge. And I looked at this
2:05:15
and thought that we talked about each of these a lot, we don't talk
2:05:19
about their collective impact enough. We don't examine how one has a either direct
2:05:29
impact on the other or a synergistic impact. And so this was an attempt
2:05:35
to sound a warning that these elements are in place. They're very powerful.
2:05:42
The difficulty with the unimaginable is it's hard to imagine, and that one of
2:05:48
the other elements of when democracies fall into autocracy is those who support democracy for
2:05:53
the most part, can't imagine that it was going to happen. So that's
2:05:59
why I wrote the book. And I think it is a conspiracy in the
2:06:02
sense I agree with everything he said about conspiracy. It is a conspiracy,
2:06:08
and that there is an assumption still too much that those on the other side
2:06:14
in Trump world, they have a different vision of America. But we're talking
2:06:21
about, you know, should Elizabeth warrenb on the Supreme Court or Kavanaugh.
2:06:30
I don't think that's it at all. I think they have a very different
2:06:33
vision of America that they have determined with some legitimate reason, that democracy is
2:06:42
their enemy. That in a country that is changing so rapidly demographically, when
2:06:47
they are eighty five percent of Trump's coalition is white and all the Steven Millers
2:06:54
in the world aren't going to change that. The majority of Americans sixteen years
2:06:58
and under and no white now the odds are still going to be non white
2:07:01
at eighteen are looking really really good at the moment, and they see this
2:07:05
as a threat and that they have a window here to change how we vote,
2:07:14
to change our government. And they are about that business very deliberately,
2:07:20
methodically, and effectively. And they actually benefit from the buffoons on the other
2:07:30
side, like the Marjorie Taylor Greens and John you know, the Gates.
2:07:34
And because you look at them and this must be a bunch of you know,
2:07:39
buffoons, they're not. So they really want a different America. And
2:07:47
I think you know another thing about autocrats is, you know, as Ruth
2:07:54
bin Geout says, listen to them they tell you what they want to do,
2:07:58
and listen to Trump in putting on paper what they want to do.
2:08:01
Do away with the civil service, politicized and military. They want to pardon
2:08:09
people who attempted to overthrow the government. They're not out running on the capitol
2:08:15
gains. They're not saying you know so, Stuart, for the sake of
2:08:20
argument, I agree with everything you said there with regard to what there are
2:08:24
elements of the Trump right that want to do or think is in their best
2:08:30
self interest to do, and that that's a threat to what America was supposed
2:08:33
to be. My counter to that is you and other members of the Lincoln
2:08:39
Project have aligned yourselves very strongly with people who also don't believe in America.
2:08:45
Who believe that a quality of opportunity ought to be replaced with equity of outcome.
2:08:50
Who believe that global warming climate change is the greatest threat to humanity and
2:08:56
that we need to destroy our entire way of life to combat it, even
2:09:01
if we theoretically could, who believe that it's perfectly fine to be racist against
2:09:05
white people and pretend that we're still an institutionally racist country against black people when
2:09:11
that's not the case. Who during COVID forgot all about civil liberties and embraced
2:09:18
tyranny and destroyed democracy. I live in a state where we had a dictator
2:09:24
for two years who declared a state of emergency with no legislative oversight whatsoever,
2:09:30
and none of you people in the Lincoln Projects said boo about it. No
2:09:33
liberals said boo about it. You're the ones that screaming and yelling about democracies
2:09:37
in peril. Well what about democracy in California and other states were because of
2:09:41
a virus that turned out to be not nearly as bad as was pretended it
2:09:46
was going to be, we completely abandoned all those principles. So can you
2:09:50
understand that someone like myself says, Okay, fine, I agree those are
2:09:56
problems, But what about the other side of this equation? Stewart, you
2:10:00
know what I'm saying. There is true no some I agree with, some
2:10:05
I disagree with. But look, John, I spent thirty years pointing out
2:10:09
flawlts on the Democratic Party. Okay, I have pretty good street criticials on
2:10:13
this, and I think there's one truth that to me trumps everything. Not
2:10:22
to get into punts or cliches beats everything. I think that the Democratic Party,
2:10:31
and I can't believe these words are coming out of my mouth. The
2:10:35
Democratic Party is now the only pro democracy party in America. And you know,
2:10:41
I worked with Joe Trippy and the Lincoln Project, who is you know,
2:10:45
famous democratic consultant. I hated going against Joe. He was really good.
2:10:48
When you look back at the races of Joe and I did, it's
2:10:52
laughable. We'd have knockdown, drag out fights. Said, the capitol gains
2:10:58
has to be thirty five or eight? You know, should should should you
2:11:03
expand medicat or not? That's actually important issues. They all are important issues.
2:11:09
But when the alternative is to put in power a group of people who
2:11:15
have decided that democracy is their enemy, it's a no brainer. It's absolutely
2:11:20
no brainer. It's like saying you're you're, you're to me. The argument
2:11:24
is, look, I think the gall is insane, absolutely insane. So
2:11:31
I'm not going to charge the Normandy Beach. So what so we can get
2:11:37
the gall? You know, I mean the fact that the fact that the
2:11:41
Democratic Party is imperfect, and it's vastly imperfect, but it's still a party
2:11:46
that does believe in rule of law, and it is a party that still
2:11:50
believes the central element of any democracy is being willing to lose, and the
2:11:56
Republican Party, the majority of them, have well walked away from that being
2:12:01
willing to lose. So every vote that, every election you don't win is
2:12:07
a rigged election, and I think that's farmost start Stewart. You do understand
2:12:13
that in twenty sixteen Democrats said a lot of the same things that you claim
2:12:16
our anti democratic statements about Hillary. But I also degree. I also think
2:12:24
I also think degree matters, and I also think that the fact that it
2:12:31
didn't become an official literally an official position of the Democratic Party matters. Here's
2:12:37
one of my interesting things. Kind of mind, just go with me.
2:12:41
Second, I did in my book. You know, somebody who worked for
2:12:45
Bush and O four right, you know it was a tight election. If
2:12:50
less than a home game crowded Ohio state had change their votes, we were
2:12:54
lost to hire and lost. So what would have happened if John Kerry?
2:12:58
You know, we didn't people forget, but we didn't declare victory on election
2:13:03
night. We knew we were going to win, but we waited until the
2:13:07
next day because theoretically, if every provisional vote went for provisional votes went for
2:13:16
carry, he could win. We knew it's not going to happen, obviously,
2:13:20
but okay, we waited today. But what if John Carey had refused
2:13:24
to conceive. What would the Democratic Party have done? Would it have supported
2:13:28
him as it supported Trump? What would the media that had backed Carrie?
2:13:35
How would they have responded? Would they have responded like Fox News supporting Trump?
2:13:41
No, they were have taken John Kerry's head off. And I think
2:13:46
that really matters, because I think it shows a fundamental difference in a very
2:13:52
analogous test case of when push came to shove, the Democratic Party was willing
2:14:00
to accept defeat in a close election, hold on, hold on, hold
2:14:03
on a second in two thousand Understandably, Al Gore extended that election for well
2:14:13
over a month, went to extraordinary degrees to continue. And I'm all for
2:14:18
fighting for a fair election, but there were plenty of times where Gore could
2:14:24
have if he had been pressured by the mainstream news media, been forced to
2:14:28
concede, and did not. John Kerry and I remember this exceedingly well because
2:14:33
I was on air all night that election night in two thousand and four sent
2:14:37
John Edwards out in the middle of the night, as I predicted that he
2:14:41
would and you know, claimed that the election's not over yet. It took
2:14:46
vot you know, and there was there was a delay. Now it wasn't
2:14:50
an extraordinary delay, but there was more of a delay than there needed to
2:14:54
be before Carrie finally saw the writing on the wall and said, Okay,
2:14:58
I need to give up on this. So, if they thought they could
2:15:01
get away with it, Stuart, they would have done it. And and
2:15:05
they just they realized they couldn't get away with it. The weirdest part of
2:15:09
that why why, let me say why, why? Why? Why did
2:15:13
they realize they couldn't get away? Why is that any different than Trump?
2:15:18
Uh, who lost by many more votes? Well, the media has changed.
2:15:22
The media has completely changed. Where we now We now have a right
2:15:24
wing media that will go dance to whatever tune Trump decides to play every election
2:15:31
that he loses. Let me ask you this, do you posit? Would
2:15:37
you make the case that had John Kerry refused to concede. The next day,
2:15:43
the New York Times sort of supported I think they probably would have for
2:15:48
a while. I think they would have. I think, I mean,
2:15:52
I think I think that's crazy. Well, no, wait a minute,
2:15:56
hold on, Stewart, do you recall now you were living this, so
2:16:01
I hope you remember this. But there were certain TV networks that were not
2:16:07
calling certain races. I think it was maybe in New Mexico or whatever there
2:16:11
was. There was there was a certain calculus going on where no one wanted
2:16:18
to declare a victor even though different networks had called different states. Do you
2:16:22
remember this now? The reason why that happened in two with a certainty?
2:16:30
Don John? John, I was the guy on the phone yelling at those
2:16:33
people that they should call it. Well, you're right, but I'm right,
2:16:37
I'm I'm telling you what I'm telling you happened. But no, But
2:16:41
to John, there's an entirely different thing between saying, look, there aren't
2:16:48
enough votes out for the other guy to win. You should declare this.
2:16:52
Okay, just declare it. You're going to be right that. That's an
2:16:56
entirely different thing than losing by eight million votes, seven and a half million
2:17:03
votes and the entire Republican establishment standing behind what was demonstrably a lie. That's
2:17:13
entirely different. I just want to make the record clear on this because I'm
2:17:18
not sure I explained myself properly. Each network was coming up with a different
2:17:24
calculation of the electoral college based upon what states that they were calling, in
2:17:30
order to make sure that they did not call the election. Because we had
2:17:35
just gone through the two thousand election and the news media did not want to
2:17:39
put John Kerry in a box. They were going to allow him to concede
2:17:45
and then they were going to call the race. I think those are my
2:17:50
talking points. Those were my talking points when I yelled at the networks.
2:17:54
Okay, I agree, thank you, And how long did that last?
2:17:58
It doesn't matter that it It does no, it does matter tremendously. It
2:18:05
does matter because they did not put the country. They were willing to accept
2:18:09
reality when it was indisputable. And it matters if you wait as Bust did,
2:18:18
a day, as the networks did, a day, as opposed to
2:18:24
three years in which the Republican Party still won't admit that Donald Trump. Well,
2:18:31
listen, you arrange a debate. If we arrange a debate on national
2:18:37
television on this subject, I'm going to kick your ass because people see the
2:18:43
difference between waiting twenty four hours and not conceding even after three years. That
2:18:50
is a difference. Now you can say, well, they're the same,
2:18:52
because they're both not conceding. This is the well, look, running one
2:18:56
red light is the same as running ten thousand red lights and killing all two
2:19:01
people. They're both red lights. It's not a sustainable argement, Stuart.
2:19:07
I'm not defending Donald Trump not conceding the twenty twenty election in any way,
2:19:13
shape or form. I'm explaining the history of what happened and this slippery slope
2:19:18
and how it is that Trump is able to get away with this because of
2:19:22
the changes in the right wing media and the fact that he runs a cult.
2:19:26
But the Democrats are not innocent in this. Gore, Carrie and Hillary
2:19:31
all dabbled in the same kind of behavior. And what happened in twenty twenty.
2:19:37
Let me dispinish with this, Stuart. When happened in twenty twenty with
2:19:41
a change in the nature of voting because of the overreaction to COVID and Democrats
2:19:46
realizing it was in their self interest to make mail in voting universal. With
2:19:50
seeing I understandable, I just should be bullshit, Stuart. Mail in voting
2:19:58
is a fraud because how do we say that? What states? Because I
2:20:03
because hold on, because I have old relatives. You know what happens when
2:20:07
old people get ballots mailed to their house, Stewart, do you know what?
2:20:13
Do you understand what happens? Their children and their grandchildren get access to
2:20:18
those ballots. Many times those older people don't even know what the hell is
2:20:20
going on, and those younger relatives fill out the ballot. That is fraud.
2:20:28
That is now let me ask you a question. Yes, we have
2:20:35
states now who have mail in voting completely. Is it your position that those
2:20:45
who are elected under that system are should be removed from office that they want?
2:20:54
No, because those are the rules, but those shouldn't be the rules.
2:20:56
Those rules were instagrat refusing a political panic for political advantage the Democratic Party.
2:21:03
Let me just follow up on this. Okay, So I see your
2:21:09
point. You say they're the rules, So you can't say that they were
2:21:13
not elected by the rules. Because they were elected by the rules. You're
2:21:16
saying the rules were wrong. So right, you believe that these states,
2:21:20
some of whom have had mail in voting now two generations, three generations?
2:21:28
How long not male in voting like we have today? There's a different there's
2:21:31
a different definition of mail in voting. The universal male in voting is a
2:21:35
totally different animal, steward than anything had only male in voting since the nineties.
2:21:45
You deny that Joe Biden got eighty one million votes in twenty twenty largely
2:21:48
because of mail in voting, all right? I mean, and because he
2:21:50
was running against Trump. He was running against the greatest negative turnout person in
2:21:56
the history of American politics, Donald Trump, and it was universal mail in
2:21:58
voting because of COVID. That's why Biden got eighty one million votes. Youno,
2:22:03
I think no, absolutely not as somebody who actually knows something about elections.
2:22:09
Okay, so now I don't know anything about elections. Okay, Well
2:22:16
that was a low blow. I withdraw all the comment if they would say,
2:22:18
I apologize. But I have two points on this, right, Okay,
2:22:26
they're somewhat irrelevant to But one, I think it'll be the sign of
2:22:30
a healthy Republican party when they believe they are advantaged when more people vote.
2:22:37
That's almost a truism. And two, I've never seen voter fraud in my
2:22:41
life, and I've worked more elections. How would you know about voter fraud
2:22:46
when it comes to mail in voting? Under the scenario I outline how would
2:22:50
that be found out? How would anyone know about that, Stewart, There's
2:22:54
lots of ways you would know about it. First of all, First of
2:22:56
all, any fraud vote that would affect an outcome, right, which is
2:23:05
a slightly different argument than there is no fraud voting, right? Okay,
2:23:07
But how do you scale that? How do you scale that? How do
2:23:13
you scale You say you've got all these demented people who don't you get this
2:23:18
thing, and they just have their kids fill it out. Why do you
2:23:22
assume that their kids were filling it out for Biden instead of their kids filling
2:23:24
it out for Trump. Well, the demographics, first of all, would
2:23:30
suggest it. I'm not suggest I'm not suggesting. By the way, hold
2:23:35
on, I want to make something else clear. I'm not saying that that
2:23:37
was the reason for the margin of victory at all. I'm saying that that's
2:23:43
the reason why Trump fans don't trust the system. Because Democrats took advantage of
2:23:48
a moral panic in the middle of a pandemic to change the way we vote.
2:23:54
That advantaged them. That's why Trump fans don't trust the outcomes. Words,
2:24:00
I don't, but that's the only But listen, just go with me.
2:24:05
Let me ask this as a question, not an argument. Okay.
2:24:09
In states that have only mail in battling, who consistently elect only Republicans to
2:24:18
state wide office, why do they not trust that system? Well, you'd
2:24:24
have to give me an example of what you're talking about, but you talk
2:24:28
I don't, So you're gonna use utahs an example Republicans? So wait a
2:24:35
minute, So wait a minute. So you're your your argument is that because
2:24:39
there's certain places where that still elect Republicans even after we've gone to mail in
2:24:43
voting, that therefore mail in voting is not to be discovered. No.
2:24:46
I asked this as I asked this as a question. Okay, And I
2:24:50
asked this legitimately. It's a question, okay, if mail in ballot produces
2:24:56
uh questionable results, that's what you would be saying, right, I don't.
2:25:01
I'm telling you why Trump fans don't trust the twenty twenty election is largely
2:25:07
because they they saw, and not without rationality, they saw the media establishment
2:25:13
and the democratic establishment use COVID to fundamentally alter the way we do our elections,
2:25:20
and it just so happened to advantage Democrats. That is why they don't
2:25:26
trust the system. So let me ask you this, Jim Okay, take
2:25:31
New Hampshire. New Hampshire has same day registration and voting. Twenty twelve,
2:25:41
ten of the voters for Barack Obama were same day registered voters. It's why
2:25:48
he overperformed the polls. Now, there are a lot of some Romney people,
2:25:54
not a lot of some very wealthy around the people that you know of
2:26:00
the Massachusetts they had homes in New Hampshire. So they were you know,
2:26:03
they were into New Hampshire and they said, well, this is obviously fraud.
2:26:07
They had to bus in people. You don't get ten percent, and
2:26:13
you know it was looked at. People were hired, detectives were hired,
2:26:18
they did a better job turning after the vote. They got ten percent.
2:26:22
So should we be still saying that because that system of ten percent registration,
2:26:31
the same day registration benefits democrats? Motor voter favors democrats. Are those things
2:26:39
bad? The reason they if when you make it easier to vote, it
2:26:46
is pretty much a truism. It favors democrats. Yeah, why is there
2:26:50
a lot of people that don't Because a lot of people don't have any business
2:26:54
voting. Stewart and some of it may be fraud related, but all is.
2:27:00
That's another one. I'll be happy to debate at the halftime at the
2:27:05
super Bowl, and I'm liking my chances. Well, look, no,
2:27:09
you you've wont you guys have won that debate because we live in a world
2:27:13
where the media things that inherently more people voting is inherently good. There's lots
2:27:16
and lots of people on both sides that I wish would never vote. Now
2:27:20
that doesn't mean they shouldn't have the right to vote, but I personally think
2:27:24
voting should be made more difficult, not easier, because if it's made more
2:27:28
difficult, inherently the people who aren't paying attention to our system are less likely
2:27:33
to vote. I mean, the idea that somehow my vote is equal to
2:27:37
somebody who pays no attention whatsoever is ridiculous. I mean, I'll you know,
2:27:46
I'm gonna I'm going to do the radical thing, and I'm I'm going
2:27:50
to take the anti poll tax position on this. I didn't say there should
2:27:54
be a poll tax. Last questions. All right, So look, I
2:27:58
think you know I like and respect you. I hope you know that That's
2:28:03
why I asked you. I've loved this conversation. Job Okay, good and
2:28:07
I hope people. And by the way, one of my favorite things I've
2:28:13
seen you say about I believe this was directly related to your book, was
2:28:18
how upsetting it is to you and it is to me too to see what's
2:28:24
happening to America when we were given such an amazing gift by our forefathers that
2:28:33
we we've so horrendously screwed it up. Regardless of your politicics, that here
2:28:37
we are in a situation where it's one thing to screw something up that you
2:28:43
created, but this, this is a situation where previous generations created this amazing
2:28:48
entity, the United States of America, and we're just pissing it all away,
2:28:52
and in large part we're doing it over people like Donald Trump. So
2:28:56
you and I share the tragedy of that. Okay, But I got to
2:29:01
ask you, as a as a cynic that I am, and as a
2:29:05
student of human nature, I have to believe that part of why you and
2:29:11
others who used to be my friends are now part of the Lincoln Project,
2:29:16
which I consider to be in large part of minstrel show for former Republicans to
2:29:22
dance to the tune of their new bosses, who are these far left Democrats
2:29:28
and liberals in the media. That part of why you guys all decided to
2:29:31
do this was because you realized after Trump won, your careers were over and
2:29:35
you were no longer relevant, and that this was the only path to relevancy
2:29:41
for maybe not you, but other members of the Lincoln Project who have now
2:29:46
pretended that everything they believed before the Lincoln Project existed no longer existed. That
2:29:52
you're now you're now full on down with the pro socialism Democratic Party, all
2:29:58
because it makes you relevant. And in the liberal media, how do you
2:30:01
respond that there's a I can't do this, but there's so much aside of
2:30:09
me they would like to conduct a social experiment. What do you think would
2:30:13
happen, John, If I announced on the hell site Twitter that I was
2:30:20
wrong and I think that Donald Trump should be President of the United States,
2:30:24
and I followed it up with an ourbed, it would get a lot of
2:30:26
attention, and I go through my arguments about what Donald Trump really should be
2:30:31
and Joe Biden shouldn't be. Do you know how long it would How long
2:30:37
do you think it would take until I'm getting extraordinarily lucrative offers to work for
2:30:45
Trump or Trump super pac Ah. That depends. It depends on when you
2:30:50
did it. I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example.
2:30:56
You couldn't You couldn't do that, now, Stuart, there's as it is,
2:31:01
completely transactional with Trump, completely transactional with Trump. He loves nothing more.
2:31:07
I'll give you a perfect example. For a long time, whenever I
2:31:11
went on at sixteen, whenever I went on the television he said anything about
2:31:13
Trump, I would get a call from someone in Trump world if it said
2:31:22
anything remotely positive about it, right, like that wasn't the worst to pay
2:31:26
for its ever in history or something right, I would get a call from
2:31:28
saying, look, this is something those you've had your differences, but you
2:31:33
know he really appreciates you saying this. We'd like to talk all. This
2:31:37
is how Trump operates. This is how he built a you know, this
2:31:39
is how you do real estate deals. It's transaction. I get it.
2:31:41
But there's a certain point. There's a certain point beyond which you cannot go
2:31:46
and so where and I believe, well, you guys have gone way way
2:31:50
too far. Now they would they would use that, they would use that
2:31:54
as proof we had broken these people finally and that we have won. See
2:32:00
what you're saying, there's no example to prove that there's no There's there.
2:32:03
Now there is an example who he was never a Lincoln Project guy. No,
2:32:13
but he's a guy that went out. He's a guy that went out
2:32:15
and said even at the convention, you should not vot for Donald Trump.
2:32:20
Between but this is Stewart. This is an important difference. There's a big
2:32:24
difference between being a person who was once anti Trump and someone who gave up
2:32:28
all their conservative principles so that they could do this. Minstrul I would say,
2:32:31
See, I would argue. I would argue, and I think I'd
2:32:35
win this argument that it is the Trump people who gave up all their conservative
2:32:39
principles. I'm much more conservative than Josh I'm much more of a conservative than
2:32:46
Josh Hally. I'm much more of a conservative than Ron DeSantis, who is
2:32:50
in a fight with the Happiness Company. The Happiness Company, I'm much more
2:32:56
of a conservative. No, because he's believing in this, He believes in
2:33:00
government interference with free enterprise over the fact that that that free enterprise institution did
2:33:07
not agree with him politically. Okay, let me, Stuart, let me
2:33:11
take it. This will be the last thing, because you know you've been
2:33:13
very generous with your time. But I have to take you on on this
2:33:16
because I think this is critical, a critical issue. I love it.
2:33:22
No, no, because this is not just about my belief that you Lincoln
2:33:26
Project guys sold out, sold your souls. What did we sell for?
2:33:30
About the way you get all sorts of attention from liberal media because you're a
2:33:35
member of the Lincoln Project. But I mention, a lot of you guys
2:33:37
make a lot of money. I don't know if you do, but a
2:33:39
lot of a lot of you guys make money. I can say, John,
2:33:41
I can honestly say that I make less money now in politics than I
2:33:46
did when I was twenty seven in my first campaign. I'm sure you do.
2:33:50
But that's because you picked the wrong horse. So I mean you,
2:33:56
but but but and by the way, this is here, let me let
2:34:00
me shift the conversation slightly because this might be even more important than that topic.
2:34:03
And you just raised it with your criticism of Ronda Santis. So your
2:34:07
view, you guys view you, the Lincoln Project view, is that Trump
2:34:11
is a grave threat to democracy. He's the worst thing that's ever happened in
2:34:16
America. He's going to destroy us, bring us into autocracy. We're writing
2:34:20
books about the end of America because of Trump, all of which, by
2:34:24
the way, I agree with you on. And you guys choose to attack
2:34:28
the only guy that can beat him for the Republican Party nomination. How the
2:34:33
hell does that make any goddamn sense? Yeah, okay, in your mind,
2:34:37
Ronda Santis has got flaws, great, but Rohnda Santis is the only
2:34:41
person that can stop the person you think is going to destroy America if he's
2:34:45
the Republican nominating a twenty twenty four And you guys, because you're doing a
2:34:48
minstrel show for the liberal media, you go after Rond de Santis, the
2:34:52
only person that can beat him. How does that make any damn sense to
2:34:54
it? Let me just ask you this term, no answer, I would
2:34:58
like you. How does it make any sense? How does it make any
2:35:01
sense? It's your case that Ron DeSantis has fallen forty points because of the
2:35:07
Lincoln Project. No, no, I'm talking about philosophically. You guys exposed
2:35:15
yourselves as frauds because you had a chance to back somebody who could beat Donald
2:35:20
Trump. Nomination and instead you attacked him. Instead, you attacked him because
2:35:26
you know why you attacked him, because you guys need Donald Trump to be
2:35:30
the Republican nominee in twenty twenty four. Otherwise you're irrelevant again. That's what
2:35:35
you guys have become, your sellouts to the left, and you need the
2:35:39
man you think is the threat to America to be the nominee because as soon
2:35:43
as he's gone, you guys are totally gone. You have no home on
2:35:46
the right, you have no home on the left. So explain that to
2:35:50
me, Stuart. Sure, we're gonna have a separate podcast debate about this.
2:35:56
Okay, I think Ron DeSantis could very well be a greater threat to
2:36:01
America than Donald Trump. Oh Jesus Christ, oh my god. I'll we
2:36:05
glad to debate that with you. Give me go ahead, just for shits
2:36:09
giggles. Tell me why you believe. First of all, he's not an
2:36:13
idiot and Donald Trump is an idiot, so we both agree on that point,
2:36:18
right, correct, Okay? Ron DeSantis has proven that he will use
2:36:24
the power of the state to punish opponents to a degree that is fundamentally uh
2:36:31
anti conservatives at a level that no one else's opponents. No, Disney is
2:36:39
an opponent. Disney largest one of the largest employers in the state. Wait
2:36:46
a minute, hold on, It's not punishing Disney to take away a privilege
2:36:52
that they didn't deserve and have had for decades that he took away from them.
2:36:58
That's not punishing. They had a special privilege, a special prison.
2:37:03
Do you understand that there between rights and privileges, Right, It's not punishment
2:37:09
to take away a government given privilege because you do not agree with the way
2:37:13
that that company is doing their business and therefore they should not be rewarded by
2:37:18
the government. How is that punishment because because you are trying to use the
2:37:26
heavy hand of the state to get this, everybody else, get everybody else.
2:37:33
No, No, you're not. You're not because every I can,
2:37:37
I can point to every business in that state that has some sort of special
2:37:41
benefit they get from the state. That's just how the world is. Be
2:37:46
it joning, be it a tax break. He's taking on what he saw
2:37:52
as a threat to his power, a very popular company and attempted to break
2:37:58
them to his will. That's what Putin does and Disney and what did and
2:38:05
what did Disney do? Tell me why we're on the Santa This is such
2:38:09
a good governor. They said, Okay, fine, we're going to spend
2:38:15
a billion dollars and have create twenty thousand new jobs with the average salary of
2:38:20
one hundred and twenty thousand dollars a person. We're going to go elsewhere.
2:38:26
Do you think there's any Republican governor in America that hasn't been calling Disney and
2:38:33
saying, if you come to my state, I won't do this shit that
2:38:37
hand, why haven't they left. Why haven't they left Stuart Because they're winning,
2:38:41
they're beating the Santas. You you have bought into this complete left wing
2:38:48
bogus narrative about at every level of this story, which goes to my argument
2:38:54
that you you you're not even realizing what's happened to you. You've become a
2:38:58
liberal. That's what's happened because and it's whether it's because if consciously or subconsciously
2:39:05
you view it in your self interest. But I want, I don't want
2:39:07
to let you escape the core issue here. Okay, let's pretend Rondes Sanders
2:39:13
is not perfect like every other human being that's ever existed in the history of
2:39:16
the world. He is an imperfect person. He's still, even by your
2:39:18
own definition, way better than Donald Trump. Yet you guys attack him as
2:39:24
much as you attack Trump. How can you justify that philosophically? If Trump
2:39:30
is really the great threat that you say that he is, the Sanders is
2:39:33
the only other option, So how do you justify it? Well? Is
2:39:37
there? Why do you say that? So? Why why do you say
2:39:41
that he would be a better general election candidate than say, Nikki Haley?
2:39:46
No, I'm not talking about You're saying that DeSantis is the only options,
2:39:54
the only one that can win the nomination other than Ni cannot win the nomination.
2:40:01
She cannot win the nomination. Look, I don't want to argue this.
2:40:05
I'm asking this. Okay, here's a question. Okay, why do
2:40:09
you say that when data points out the opposite. Nicky Haley cannot win the
2:40:15
nomination unless Trump dies. She cannot win because she is she is not a
2:40:22
maga Republican Maga has to eleasee you. It's the cult of the GOP.
2:40:28
So okay, So what you're saying is that Ron DeSantis can win because he's
2:40:35
in the cult. Okay, I agree. Therefore, he's a great threat
2:40:41
and arguably a greater threat than Donald Trump because he's not as stupid and is
2:40:46
incompetent. So what you just said proves my point. John. You're saying
2:40:52
that only someone who is in the Trump cult can be nominated by the Republican
2:40:56
Party. But if that person isn't named Trump, if they're still in the
2:40:58
cult, well they're okay because there's obvious licenses, different or something. I
2:41:05
think. I think what we're talking about is difference between perception and reality.
2:41:09
Des made what do you think he's really not in the call? You think
2:41:11
he's just faking it? Correct? Okay, So you want to get a
2:41:16
guy who's a complete liar who takes his toddlers and puts him in a commercial
2:41:22
building a wall. You think that guy's a great guy. But I want
2:41:26
to get that guy. He didn't really believe everything he's saying. That's the
2:41:30
argument to vote for for DeSantis. He's a total which you have to understand
2:41:33
about the santras Is, he's a total fraud. That's why we should vote
2:41:37
for him. No, because he's understanding reality. Look, nobody hates it
2:41:43
more than I do. Steward that you have to deal with this reality that
2:41:48
the Republican party has become a cult, and therefore you can't. I think
2:41:52
he's made a mis state frankly, but you can be. You can be,
2:41:56
you can be in the look. I I think as a member of
2:42:01
the Brands Davidians, we should have someone else in David Coruse leading us.
2:42:03
I'll stay and they If you're electing someone from the Brands Davidians, it's a
2:42:07
mistake. That's where I am. I think electing people who aspire to be
2:42:13
in a cult is I can't really believe anybody could argue the other. Well,
2:42:18
unfortunately, you're signing with the COVID cult, the climate change cult,
2:42:22
the equity cult. I mean, it's all, it's all the same cult.
2:42:26
Behavior is just different branding. And so you think you think policies,
2:42:31
So you think policies adopted by the most successful free enterprise countries companies in the
2:42:37
world are cults. Give me an example, what are you talking about.
2:42:43
I'm not sure Walmart. You think Walmart's a cult because Walmart supported mandatory masking.
2:42:52
You think they're just part of another caust. I think masking was whether
2:42:56
it was done because of political fear, which I think a lot of it
2:43:00
was, or because it was because you actually believed in something that was magical,
2:43:05
that science didn't ever back up the idea that. I mean, it's
2:43:09
absurd anybody that really, I'm sorry, I was a cult. Yes,
2:43:16
that doesn't mean that's a fair enough you can you can believe that. But
2:43:20
that means that Walmart was part of the cult because they had mandatory or they
2:43:28
had it means Nascar, NASCAR was part of the cult. They had mandatory
2:43:35
masking because they were afraid of the cult. There's two elements to this.
2:43:39
You're either in the cult or you're afraid of the cult. And you guys,
2:43:43
you were. You guys were absolutely siding with the cult throughout all of
2:43:46
COVID, you guys meaning the Lincoln Project. I think you completely embarrassed yourselves
2:43:52
during the entire COVID response and and the reality is that you enabled cult behavior
2:43:58
that harmed our children. My children have never been harmed by Donald Trump.
2:44:01
Never once have they've been harmed by Donald Trump. Stewart, My children's lives
2:44:05
were destroyed for almost two years because the people you supported on the left,
2:44:11
specifically our governor here in California, Gavin Newsom. So, I mean,
2:44:15
I hate Trump as much as anybody, but I despise the people that you
2:44:18
associate with. They are, in my view, a far greater threat to
2:44:26
at least immediate terms, to what America is. And I nobody loves Donald
2:44:31
Trump more than I do. And it's just amazing to me. And it's
2:44:33
just amazing to me that you guys don't want to see that, that you
2:44:37
won't admit I think you're deeply wrong, and I'm right fair enough well,
2:44:43
and I appreciate you you hanging in with me on this. This has been
2:44:46
a fascinating conversation. I did not expected to go in this direction. I
2:44:50
do hope people will check out the book, The Conspiracy to End America and
2:44:56
and I'll give you the last word on this. Is there anything else you
2:44:58
want to say? Wrap up this? No, Look, I think debates
2:45:05
like this are important and to me, to go back to this, the
2:45:11
essence of democracy is being willing to lose. And part of being willing to
2:45:16
lose is to admit that you were wrong and that others in the majority had
2:45:20
a different view. You know, when I went to bed after losing Romney's
2:45:26
race, right, I mean, I was shattered, but I didn't wake
2:45:31
up fearing for the country. I thought that we'd lost the race in the
2:45:37
country was going to do things that I didn't agree with. I think the
2:45:39
foreign policy element of it has turned out to be tragic and millions have died
2:45:45
because of it. But I didn't fear for the country, and I think
2:45:50
that's how it should be. I think you ought to have debates like this.
2:45:54
But I think that the fundamental of a maga cult that does not accept
2:46:05
the outcome of elections is that it's largely any constitutional The evil of that is
2:46:16
greater than any policy on the left because once you once you lose that democracy,
2:46:24
you have no ability to affect the policy on the left. That's my
2:46:31
pitch. Fair enough, and I appreciate your time and your perspective. And
2:46:35
once again, Stuart Stevens, author of the book The Conspiracy and America,
2:46:41
thanks so much for joining us on the Death of Journalism podcast. So that
2:46:45
was rather interesting. And I have to say that, you know, a
2:46:48
few weeks ago I interviewed Alex Michaelson for the Fox affiliate here in Los Angeles,
2:46:54
and I have had a great deal of respect for him, more so
2:46:58
after the interne you than I did before. We certainly don't agree on everything,
2:47:03
but I have to put this interview in the opposite category. I said
2:47:05
after I interviewed Michaelson that I don't think I can remember having increased my respect
2:47:11
for somebody more during an interview than that, And I probably went in the
2:47:16
other direction with Stevens because my respect for him has diminished to almost nothing.
2:47:22
I have such great disdain for the Lincoln Club because when you pretend to stand
2:47:26
on principle and you're actually more of a sellout than the people you're criticizing,
2:47:31
that's really saying something. And I thought Stevens was better than that, but
2:47:35
he's, unfortunately, just like all these other frauds in the so called Lincoln
2:47:39
Project, in the so called anti Trump conservative movement, which is basically just
2:47:45
another name for liberals who are trying to make money and grift off of and
2:47:50
gain relevance from the anti Trump movement, which I think is totally wrong.
2:47:54
Interestingly, the Lincoln Project just this week put out an going after Donald Trump
2:48:01
because they say he's losing it mentally and getting old, which by the way,
2:48:07
might be true, but holy hypocrisy, batman. If you're gonna go
2:48:11
after Donald Trump for losing it mentally and getting old. Then you've got to
2:48:18
go after Joe Biden, who's the actual president who is clearly losing it far
2:48:24
more quickly and more dramatically than Donald Trump is, and is older than Donald
2:48:28
Trump, and if he is re elected, would still be president five years
2:48:33
from now, which is utterly ridiculous from a mental standpoint and incredibly dangerous for
2:48:39
the country. Yet the Lincoln Project will never say anything about that, because
2:48:43
they're a bunch of whorees now. They're people who back the wrong horse.
2:48:46
They're no longer relevant, and their only ability to remain in this very,
2:48:52
very dirty business is to do the bidding for Liberals and Democrats and sell out
2:48:58
everything they claim to believe in before Trump came along. And it's just disgusting
2:49:03
and depressing. And so, you know, you can interpret what you want
2:49:09
from the Stuart Stevens interview, but while I found that to be very telling,
2:49:13
it was also rather depressing. I am the most tribalist person on the
2:49:18
planet. I basically hate everybody now, which is which is further justifying my
2:49:24
decision to end this podcast. Barring a cataclysmic event, sometime in early twenty
2:49:30
twenty four, probably in early February of twenty twenty four, after Trump has
2:49:33
wrapped up the Republican nomination. It's just it's just so depressing that everybody in
2:49:39
this business is just so corrupt. Nobody stands on any sort of principle.
2:49:43
They are all a bunch of frauds and liars. And I think that Stuart
2:49:48
Stevens probably doesn't even fully understand that's I think he's fooled himself into believing that
2:49:52
he's making a stand on principle, but in fact he's not, and he's
2:49:56
wrong. And hopefully, if nothing else, at first the proofs that I
2:50:00
don't really have trumped arrangement syndrome. That'll do it for this episode of the
2:50:05
Death of Journalism Podcasts. Thanks so much as always for listening. Until next
2:50:09
time, my name is John Zigler. Thanks for listening.