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Episode Forty Five: There Must Be Blood · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome to episode number forty five of the Death of Journalism podcast. My name
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is John Ziegler. I am your host. In our last episode, I
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promised that I would do a deep dive into the twenty twenty four GOP race
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for president in this episode unless something big happened in the media world in the
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meantime. Well, that indeed occurred, though it was not the supposedly imminent
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arrest of Donald Trump, which may never actually happen. At this point,
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I will discuss some significant developments in the Trump de Santis battle and just a
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little bit. But first the news that did dominate the news cycle over the
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last couple of days, which obviously was the tragic school shooting in Nashville,
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Tennessee, which left seven people dead, including the shooter, including three young
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children. This at a Christian school in Nashville, which where, by the
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way, I used to live. I've lived many many places, but I
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lived in Nashville for a couple of years in the mid late nineteen nineties as
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a radio talk show host there. Obviously, this is just a horrible story
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on so many different levels. Obviously, whenever you have a school shooting and
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then you have children, especially young children being killed. It is unspeakable and
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it is beyond tragic. You know, there's also another element of this that
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I don't think gets enough attention when we immediately have one of these shootings and
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everyone goes right into their battle stations over the narrative, which will get to
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momentarily and certainly has happened in this particular situation. But when it's a school,
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I really think it's a completely different type of situation. Is basically a
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desecration of a place that has incredibly important meaning to a community for a lot
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of people. I mean, think about everyone it's ever gone to that school,
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The school never be the same. In fact, usually when it happens
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at a school, they end up either tearing the school down or using it
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for other reasons, And so effectively, the entire history of that school gets
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a race for everyone who maybe even worse than a race, It gets desecrated.
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It becomes a horrendously negative thing to have in what used to have been
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a positive experience in most cases for anyone who was associated with that school.
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So you not only have the loss of human life, but for an entire
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community, you have this loss of this thing that was generally good to now
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something that is so bad that you probably can't even use the building anymore,
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because seven people died there, six of them were murdered and one was killed
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in an effectively a very heroic situation by police taking out the shooter here.
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So I just wanted to mention that because it never gets talked about the larger
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cost or rarely gets talked about the larger cost to a community when it is
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something like a school, because that community can never be the same. It
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literally physically has to. Now almost in every search, situation has to dramatically
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change, and you know, a lot is lost beyond just the obvious human
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tragic laws, especially with children. Now, of course there's a major media
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angle on this particular story, and the evolution of the media coverage of this
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was pretty obvious right from the beginning. I mean, as you know,
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I am incredibly cynical about the way the news media works. That's why we
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do this podcast while we call it the Death of Journalism, and when it
3:50
comes to mass shootings, to me that the news media is about as cynical
3:57
as it gets, especially for a situation that is almost always inherently dealing with
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tragedy, sometimes massive tragedy, sometimes massively horrific tragedy like the loss of young
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children. And that being said, I don't think the news media really looks
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at it from a human perspective. They look at it from the standpoint of
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Okay, is this a good story for us? And what makes it a
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good story for them? Well, obviously the first thing they want is an
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audience. So is this something that's going to bring eyeballs to you know,
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whatever they put on television or put out on the internet. Is this a
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story that's going to increase their audience or their ratings? Secondly, sometimes it's
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a very close second. Is this something that's going to promote or hinder their
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preferred agenda or narratives when it comes to the reality that they are trying to
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create about American life. And so with that as the backdrop, it was
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pretty clear, you know, the way that the news media evaluates this story
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and others like it. First of all, that when word comes down that
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the shooting has happened, the first thing they want to know is, Okay,
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so where is this? Oh, Nashville, Okay, Tennessee. You
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know, Okay, that's that's good. That's potentially good because we got a
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red state there, and it's a shooting, so that we like, we
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like where that's going. All right, they'll tell us more, tell me
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more. Oh, oh, it's it's a school and it's not just a
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school, it's a Christian school. Oh okay, this could be this could
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be really really good. How many casualties do we have, because generally we
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need to have at least ten that seems to be the cutoff now for the
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to be considered a big story, to be a massacre, to be something
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that can get attention, because you know, we've kind of raised the threshold
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in recent years, unfortunately, because we've had a lot of episodes where the
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ten threshold has been eclipsed when it comes to casualties, especially even in schools,
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and so you know, we need at least a double digit number,
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unless unless there are small children, because small children count more than just one.
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So how many we got here, Well, it looks like we got
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at least six victims and three young children. Oh okay, that qualifies,
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that qualifies. That's good. Okay, So this is definitely a story,
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definitely got a lot of potential here. We got a red state, we
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got a Christian school, schools are always good. We have young children dying,
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that's gonna get a lot of attention. And what about the shooter?
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What do we know about the shooter? The shooters female female? Wow,
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Okay, that's odd, but sometimes, you know, the black swan event
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can be very interesting and make a good story. You know. So we
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got a right wing nut job female now, well white female, like,
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okay, it's Tennessee. That certainly sounds plausible. All right, let's go.
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Let's mean this. This is definitely something we're all in on. Let's
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go with this. This is gonna be a great story. What what hold
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on? She's not just a female, but she's actually transitioning to being a
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man. So she's a genetic woman or was because she's dead now genetic woman
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who is transitioning to being a man. Huh wampwamp wamp. That was the
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sense that I got for how this was gonna go down that once the police
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in Nashville made it very clear. I mean, it was kind of a
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bizarre press conference where usually the police come out and they tell the press what
7:43
they know or what they think they know at the time. Instead, they
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had incredible, incredibly important pieces of information that only came out via questioning,
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which is very dangerous because you know, usually the media is terrible at questioning,
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but in this particular case, they asked the questions and the guy,
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who the police spokesperson happened to be a blackmail was very casual about giving out
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very significant pieces of information, including about the fact that the shooter appears to
8:13
have been a female who was transitioning to being a male. Oh, by
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the way, had a manifesto which as of this taping has not yet been
8:22
released, and in fact, there appears to be an effort to keep that
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from being released, which was highly, highly suspicious. But they had already
8:31
determined at least some level of a motive or at least a potential motive from
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that manifesto, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure this all out
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the way that the police spokesperson was talking. And okay, we got a
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transgender person who wrote a manifesto who shoots up a Christian school which they had
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attended previously a long time it goes, since they were twenty eight years old
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when this happen. But you know, this is not a difficult narrative to
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understand. Here, It's pretty damn obvious that the transitioning had a significant impact,
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if not a primary impact, on how and why this happened. I
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mean, there's all sorts of things that you could easily and rationally incredibly speculate
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about based upon just that police press conference, including okay, well what about
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medications, what about a political agenda? What about mental illness, all of
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which could be directly or indirectly related to this transitioning to being a man.
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I mean, it's in any murder, the first thing you look at is,
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Okay, what's going on in the person's life that is dramatic that would
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cause them to do something as crazy as go kill six people, including three
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young children in the school. Well, obviously it's the transitioning to being a
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man. It doesn't get much bigger than that in someone's life, as far
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as turmoil is concerned or change is concerned. I again, I find it
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amazing that we even have to mention this, but to the media, no,
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no, no, this is this is all just a trivial information.
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And I tweeted out that I thought that the evolution of this story was gonna
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be that it would quickly fade. Other people did the same, and you
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know, it was a pretty popular tweet for my account, and I'm not
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sure it turned out to be one hundred percent accurate. It was accurate in
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its essence, but even I even I was shocked, as cynical as I
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am about the news media, and I was actually too optimistic. I think
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about the path that the news media would go down on this school shooting.
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I thought they would realize, Okay, it's clear that this is a woman
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transitioning to be a man, that this is clearly a major part of why
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this happened. This is not good for us. Let's just pretend that this
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didn't happen and move on as quickly as possible. That was what I thought
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would be the general narrative, that that would be the general m O for
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how the news media would handle this. And I was too optimistic, because
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they just decided incredibly brazenly that we're just school to ignore the whole transgender thing.
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In fact, we're gonna honor the person who killed six people, including
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the three young children, by going out of our way to make sure that
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we use the proper pronouns that she would have wanted or he would have wanted
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to describe them as they murdered these six people. I mean, you can't
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make this up. How did we get here? The news media? I
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mean yeah, I mean I don't even use a person's name when these things
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happen, because oftentimes that's part of what their motivation was, was to become
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famous, usually in death. So I'm not even going to use the person's
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name. It's just a principle I have about it. But the idea that
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we go beyond that. We give them everything they want as far as publicity,
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but then we even bend over to their political agenda by we're not allowed
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to reference their genetic gender, and then we mute any conversation at all,
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any substantive conversation in the mainstream news media about what impact that transitioning very likely
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had in causing this. Yeah, you know, the left, of course,
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knee jerk always goes right to guns. Oh, it's guns, guns,
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guns, guns, Second Amendment guns, guns, guns. Guns.
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Obviously, this can't happen without guns. There's no evidence that any kind of
13:05
law would have, any rational law would have prevented this. But you know
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what probably would have prevented this, based upon what we currently know, if
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this person hadn't been in a situation where they were transitioning and they were in
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so much mental turmoil and maybe even doing drugs to help in that transition.
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That's screwed with their mindset and caused them to kill six people. I mean,
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it's again, how is this difficult? But here's a pretty good wrap
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up of how the news media, even to my surprise, decided to handle
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this situation. This is from the Blaze, conservative media outlet, but a
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pretty decent roundup of most, although not all, of how the mainstream news
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media handled this situation. Headline, liberal media issues corrections with transsexual child killers
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preferred prone sounds after school shooting prompting outrage. That's the headline in the Blaze,
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they write. The New York Times, CNN, USA Today, and
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other liberal media outlets have elicited scorn and outrage after they took measures to ensure
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that they were on the record as not quote unquote mis gendering the transsexual who
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slaughtered children inside a Nashville Christian elementary school on Monday. In the immediate aftermath
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of the shooting, there were mixed reports and a great deal of speculation about
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the identity and the sex of the shooter. And I hate when they when
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the media says sex, it's gender, but okay, the sex of the
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shooter. The confusion was ostensibly put to bed when the Nashville Police Department issued
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an update revealing the shooter had been identified as a twenty eight year old Nashville
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woman. Accordingly, the liberal media, including CNN, the New York Times
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and other outfits, reported that the quote shooter was a female. However,
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they soon discovered that the female child killer used the he hymn pronouns on her
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LinkedIn page and wrote her preferred male name on the stock of the rifle she
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used in the shooting. The New York Times issued an update several hours after
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the rampage, effectively apologizing for having dared to identify the school shooter by her
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biological sex quote. There was confusion later on Monday about the gender identity of
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the assailant in the Nationale shooting. The New York Times tweeted officials had used
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quote unquote she and quote unquote her to refer to the suspect. A suspect
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the murderer, who, according to a social media post and a LinkedIn profile,
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appeared to identify as a man in recent months. CNN similarly worked ardently
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to do right by the child killer. As a four thirty pm on Monday,
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CNN had a report on its site entitled, quote unquote, twenty eight
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year old woman kills three students and three adults at private Christian school and Nashville
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police say, which has been archived. This is the headline that would be
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memory hold by CNN. The original article refers to the child killer as a
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woman three times. However, CNN has since stout edited that article and changed
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its title to Nashville private school shooting suspect had maps of building and scouted possible
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second attack location. Police say, this is Orwellian type stuff. This is
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from nineteen eighty four. But it didn't end there. USA Today went so
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far as to accuse the police force as being responsible for stopping the school shooter
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of mis gendering her. The other words, USA Today put out a tweet
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that blamed the police for the initial initial quote unquote misgendering. Their tweet said
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police on Monday afternoon said that the shooter was a transgender man. Officials had
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initially misidentified the gender of the shooter, So USA Today, to get around
17:30
this, decides that the culprit here is the Nashville police who had the gall
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to call a person who is biologically female a woman a female as the shooter,
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and that that's why they misreported this because they don't want the sin of
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mis gendering on their record. So in order to I guess, fend off
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the woke mob, USA today decides to blame the police by way, the
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same police force that in many ways were heroic in this situation, given the
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body cam video that was released, which was extraordinary. So and it didn't
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end there. Let me give you a couple more headlines from mainstream news media
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organizations that went all sorts of different directions that had absolutely nothing too with what
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really was probably the root cause of this. MSNBC six are dead in Nashville.
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Let's revisit how much the Tennessee GOP loves guns. Yes, because it
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was the Tennessee Republican Party that was really behind this woman transitioning to be a
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man and why she decided to shoot up the Christian school that she went to
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at this byway, the second targeted area. Apparently it appears as if this
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was not the first place that she wanted to go, but apparently the first
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place had too much security. At least that's what's being reported currently Reuters.
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Reuters had a headline on their Twitter page former Christian school student kills three children,
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three staff in Nashville shooting. That was it. That was it.
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In that article, the headline is Nashville school shooter had quote emotional disorder and
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small arsenal. Police say so, they reference an emotional disorder in the headline,
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and then in the article it's not until very deep in that the word
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transgender even gets used, and then it is not linked to the crime at
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all. It is muted, and it is basically one and a half sentences
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and we move on. And by the way, the same article says,
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please have no indication of a motive. That's not true. At the press
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conference, they basically telegraphed by referencing the manifesto that they knew a motive.
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They were trying to confirm it. But that just means, you know,
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they basically means, Okay, we pretty much know, but we're not going
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to say that yet because it's too early and we want to make sure we're
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one hundred percent right, because we know this is a political hand grenade that
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we're dealing with here. But it seemed pretty damn obvious that based upon that
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those press conferences early that the police were confident that the transgender element of this
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story was very, very significant. And by the way, just to be
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clear, and some much us, this is obvious to rational people. But
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just for the record, can can we stop for a second and consider what
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the media reaction would be if this was a situation. Let's say a white
20:52
male, I mean not even wearing a MAGA hat, but just a white
20:56
male in Tennessee had gone into a me of transgender people with no manifesto,
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no internet, you know, record of their hatred of transgender people or anything
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like that, just simply by virtue of the fact of being a white male
21:15
in Tennessee had gone into a meeting of transgender people. Let's say we knew
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the person was straight. Okay, that's all we knew, and they killed
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six transgender people and this meeting of transgender people. What would the media reaction
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have been under those circumstances? Would there have been any hesitation whatsoever to just
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presume and by the way, understandably so, although you'd like to have more
21:40
verification for something that's important, but understandably so. The immediately immediate presumption would
21:48
be, Aha, this was an anti transgender crime. That's what this was.
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This was a murder rampage motivated by hatred of transgenderism. That would be
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the most absolute narrative from the start, without the manifesto, without any other
22:07
actual evidence. But in this case, there's way more pointing in the direction
22:12
of transgenderism being at least indirectly, if not directly, linked to the motivation
22:18
behind what happened here or the circumstances that created how this massacre occurred. And
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yet the media goes in the opposite direction and just place pretend we're just playing,
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pretend that this, oh yeah, we might acknowledge this in one sentence,
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but you know this clearly didn't have anything to do with that. This
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is just this is an issue of misgendering by the police. By the way,
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it wasn't. One more example of how crazy some of these narratives are.
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The Daily Mail had a tweet that got castigated pretty good. They wrote
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exclusive Nashville mass school suitor was objected by her Christian parents and as someone prominently
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quote tweeted, so basically, the Christians were asking for this. That's essentially
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the narrative here. I mean, there are so many other headlines that never
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happened so at least not so far instantly, are very very very unlikely,
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especially in the mainstream news media that deal with transgenderism, Like, for instance,
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how about a headline what was the role of this person's transition into motivating
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or causing them to go on a shooting ramp page. That's a pretty key
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question, more than legitimate. Yet the media is terrified of even asking it.
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And I gotta say, maybe I was naive. I should not have
23:49
been surprised that this is the tact that the media would take because they have
23:53
now learned that they can get away with this. I still thought we were
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in a situation where they would just realize this was not good for them and
24:03
move on. Instead, they've just decided to pretend that now this doesn't really
24:08
exist, it's not relevant. Well, it's kind of an interesting, somewhat
24:14
interesting side note, But you know, that's just a distraction for the conservatives
24:18
to get away from the real issue we're here, which is guns, guns,
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guns, guns, and how we got to get rid of the Second
24:23
Amendment. Look, I don't know what the answer is. We clearly have
24:27
a problem. But I think the problem is far more complex and far far
24:32
deeper, having much more to do with the nature of our society than it
24:37
does with the access to guns. I mean, I'm not a big gun
24:40
guy. I believe in the Second Amendment, you know. I think that
24:45
this is an issue that conservatives are losing on and have been losing for quite
24:51
a while. I mean, the nr used to be an incredibly powerful lobbying
24:55
organization. Now it's effectively impotent, and then maybe a negative in ways.
25:00
I mean, people used to be terrified of the NRA in Congress, and
25:03
that's no longer the case unless you're on the far right. And you know,
25:07
and the liberal media has been pounding and pounding and pounding this issue for
25:12
so many years, and especially among young people. From a generational standpoint,
25:18
as we move on in time here, I can certainly see a day I
25:22
don't know when it's going to be. I don't think it's now, but
25:26
where the Second Amendment gets repealed, I can see whether there be enough popular
25:30
support. Not yet, but as as we move on here and more and
25:33
more people from a certain generation die, and more and more people from this
25:38
whossified emerging generation become voters. I can certainly see that scenario and I would
25:45
not be in favor of that, But I think the answers here are so
25:49
much deeper. We have a major, major societal problem when people are willing
25:56
and able to commit these kind of crimes. I've speculate that we're going to
26:00
see older people commit these kind of crimes, which we have seen occasionally because
26:04
of a lack of a belief in God. But it's there's so many elements
26:10
that are involved in this. It's not a simple answer. It's incredibly complex,
26:15
and I don't think that I'm not even sure guns are in the top
26:21
you know, one, one, two, or three reasons for why we
26:25
are having these kinds of situations now, it's important to point out one of
26:30
the issues here. It's a little bit like a global warming, where we
26:33
are such a massive country and there are so many guns, and there are
26:37
so many people with problems mental issues, you know, economic issues, you
26:44
know, having nothing to lose in society. They don't believe in God,
26:48
they want attention. There's also I mean, it's basically a ticking time bomb
26:52
at any moment. I'm almost a little bit surprised that we don't see more
26:56
of these, maybe we may continue to And there does seem to be a
27:00
phenomenon that when one happens and the next one happens, almost as a copycat
27:04
a situation, and we seem to get a wave and then it dies down
27:07
for a little bit, and then it comes back and the media is not
27:11
helping at all. And one of them you might be wondering, Okay,
27:15
well, John, what does it matter? Really it's wrong, But what
27:18
does it really matter that the news media has taken a dive on this transgender
27:23
issue? Well, it's incredibly significant because if the media was telling the truth,
27:30
the media was telling the truth, you know, CNN and Reuters and
27:33
CBS which was also terrible on this issue, and MSNBC and the Daily Mail
27:37
and USA Today, if they were all telling the truth, this would be
27:42
an incredibly important data point in creating a narrative about the issue of transgenderism that
27:49
would, I believe, potentially turn the tide on the entire topic from a
27:56
political standpoint. But instead, because this data point is not going to be
28:02
known by the vast majority of American people. I mean, how many American
28:04
people are gonna know? Speaking of hypocrisy, I gotta mention this. It
28:08
was fairly recently, and Tucker Carlson did a good job of documenting this on
28:12
Fox News Channel, where NPR National Public Radio had previously, previous to this
28:19
attack, urge transgender people to get guns under the bizarre, inaccurate, and
28:27
damaging narrative that somehow transgender people or under attack in this country, that their
28:33
lives are endangered. It's just not true. There's no data to back that
28:38
up at all. And an MPR, you know, which is against guns
28:45
as much as any news organization that there is actually urge transgender people to get
28:51
guns. And then a transgender person or a person transitioning from being a woman
28:56
to being a man, kills six people in a school, including three young
29:00
children. How do they not get any blame for this? I'm not saying
29:03
that they are. Who knows whether or not this person was an MPR listener,
29:07
but can you imagine if the reverse occurred? Can you imagine if Fox
29:12
News Channel had been urging whatever group it is, you know, straight white
29:18
males, you've better get your guns because transgender people are coming for you.
29:23
And the scenario that I outlined earlier had occurred where a straight white male went
29:29
into a group of transgender people and started shooting, How would the rest of
29:33
the news media react, to Fox News Channel, Then it would be catastrophic.
29:38
It would be one of the primary, of not the primary narratives in
29:42
this entire tragedy. But instead, MPR gets passed because well, you know,
29:48
they're part of the club and their heart's in the right place, and
29:51
you know, there's no evidence that there was a direct connection between when NPR
29:55
did and what the shooter did. Well, the standards are completely different when
30:00
it comes to the left and it comes to the right. We know that,
30:03
but it is really really dramatic, and in a situation like this,
30:07
it gets exposed in a very significant way. But this was not the first
30:11
time that a quote unquote transgender person has done something like this. Even I
30:18
know, as much of a news junkie as I am, I was surprised
30:22
to learn how many times transgenderism has been at least associated with one of these
30:29
mass shootings. And if I don't know about it, then the average person
30:33
certainly doesn't know about it. And if that was considered a legitimate narrative by
30:37
the news media, if the news media was not terrified of the woke cult
30:41
the woke mob, and that they were willing to tell the truth about this
30:47
element of society that seemingly is being driven by what could be described as a
30:55
mental illness and they're being driven to doing some very bad things, then that
31:00
would have an impact. But that narrative is not being created, and it's
31:06
not being created out of fear and because of politics, and that's not journalism.
31:12
Journalism would be, hey, we got a problem here. Can anyone
31:17
see the connections? We seem to have a pattern. What's going on with
31:21
transgender people and violence? Now some have said that it's because of Republicans or
31:27
Conservatives driving transgender people to the violence, which, okay, if we're gonna
31:34
if that's if that's then I give up. If that's really going to be
31:37
considered a legitimate narrative out of all this, which some like in the MSNBC
31:42
crowd are are trying to promote, then you know, just let's just forget
31:48
it, because obviously truth and logic have no place here at all. That
31:52
this is purely about politics. This is purely about being trying to manipulate whatever
31:59
you can out of the events of the day to either protect your side or
32:04
attack the other. Side, and that's just sad, and it's incredibly destructive,
32:08
and it's bad for the country, and it's an indication of just how
32:13
dead real journalism is, even at major quote unquote news outlets. And so
32:22
you know, I have to say, I mean, I'll be the first
32:23
to admit it whenever I'm wrong, and as I often say, I'm whenever
32:28
I'm wrong, it's usually because I'm too optimistic. And I was not dramatically,
32:34
but I was slightly too optimistic. And my initial analysis of what was
32:38
going on here, it reminded me a little bit. By the way,
32:42
for fans of are with the benefit of Hindsight podcast, it reminds me a
32:45
little bit of the entire Penn State Sandusky story, where anything that does not
32:50
fit the narrative just never really happened. Massive news revelations just never really happen,
32:55
doesn't fit the narrative. Flip, We're it's going to pretend it didn't
32:58
happen. We're just going to move with our narrative and let's talk about guns,
33:01
guns, guns, and it's it's I guess it shouldn't be shocking at
33:07
this point as busy for someone like me who has lived this for so long,
33:10
but it still is. It still is stunning even to this day,
33:15
and it's it really is an indication of the death of journalism. Now,
33:21
as I previously intended, as I mentioned in episode number forty four, I
33:27
was going to an episode forty five take a deep dive into the scenarios that
33:32
I see as likely or possible when it comes to how the entire twenty twenty
33:37
four Republican presidential race is going to go down because of the shooting in Nashville.
33:43
I'm going to hold off on that. I'm hoping to do it in
33:45
episode forty six, but who knows what's going to be happening between now and
33:49
then. But I don't like making promises I can't keep. However, there
33:52
are several things regarding that presidential race that have occurred in the last couple of
33:57
days that I do want to talk about. And the first is that Donald
34:01
Trump has done his first Fox News interview in quite a while. There've been
34:07
talk of a soft ban on Donald Trump at Fox News Channel, even though
34:12
Fox News Channel did air his entire incredibly long hour and forty five minute CEPAC
34:17
speech without interruption and with only one camera focused on him. The entire time,
34:23
but he had not done an interview on Fox News Channel. I believe
34:28
this entire year and deeply into twenty two as well well. That quote unquote
34:36
soft band apparently ended with an interview that took up all of Sean Hannity's show
34:42
this week, and you know, not surprising that Sean Hannity would be the
34:45
person to do the interview. Now, the significance of this, right off
34:49
the top is that clearly there's not a hard ban on Donald Trump. I
34:52
never thought there would be or could be a hard man on Donald Trump at
34:57
Fox News Channel one because Sean Hannity alone would never accept that. So you
35:04
know, if there ever was a hard band, Sean Hannity would screen bloody
35:08
murder, and you know, there would be a revolt and that would just
35:14
never be viable. There's no way that that Fox could get away with that.
35:17
Now, could there be a situation where you know, they have told
35:22
Hannity, hey could be cut down on Trump appearances, Maybe they could get
35:28
away with that. But for whatever reason, it's been a long time since
35:31
Trump was on Fox News Channel. And I think this is important one because
35:37
I do believe, I do believe in the theory that Fox is trying to
35:43
move away from Trump. It seems pretty obvious that that's the case. But
35:47
they can't quit him completely. They just can't. And they most importantly,
35:52
they can't kill him. That's what the most significant element of this is.
35:59
Fox News Channel cannot play a important or vital role in killing him because too
36:07
much of their audience will blame it on Fox and they'll go to Newsmax or
36:13
One American News or whatever. And there's too much to lose for Fox News
36:17
Channel. So the best that Fox News Channel can do is that they can
36:22
try to be as not as agnostic as possible on the race, give the
36:27
santis as much oxygen as they possibly can, limit the oxygen that Trump gets
36:32
to a level of plausible deniability to where no one can claim definitively that Fox
36:39
has barred Trump from their airwaves or something like that. Now, I don't
36:45
think that's going to be good enough, by the way, I mean,
36:47
And I'll get into that when I do my deep dive into the race.
36:52
But just for the record, you know, the idea that somehow this can
36:57
be done, And Chris Christie said an interesting thing which I'll get to momentarily
37:00
that relates to this, the idea that Trump is just going to slowly die
37:04
and fade away. At this point, we now know with certainty that's not
37:08
going to happen. And so this idea, you know, dealing with the
37:13
cancer analogy, that we're just gonna we're just gonna eat healthy and get a
37:17
lot of sleep, and you know, the cancer is just gonna go away.
37:21
No, I'm sorry, We're way past that point. This needs major
37:27
surgery and it's going to be bloody. And Fox News Channel is not going
37:30
to be willing to do that. They can be helpful, but they're not
37:36
going to drive the steak into the vampire's heart. That's not going to happen.
37:40
And I think the fact that Hannity was able to do this basically hour
37:45
long interview with Trump was indicative of that. Now, my favorite part of
37:51
this interview with Seun Handy was when Hannity really pressed Trump hard on why he
38:00
was so wrong about getting arrested last Tuesday, and when Trump didn't have a
38:06
good answer, Hannity became convinced that Trump had lied and had duped and manipulated
38:13
him in the rest of the media into defending him for something that Trump knew
38:16
was never going to happen. And this was really dramatic because at that point
38:21
Hannity realized, oh my god, I've spent the last seven eight years of
38:25
my life defending this corrupt liar. I'm done. I'm renouncing my support for
38:30
Donald Trump, and I'm sorry. I apologize. None of that. None
38:36
of that happened. No, of course, of course none of that happened.
38:39
That's what would have happened in a rational world. In a rational world
38:44
where these people were still journalists, Trump would be very heavily questioned about how
38:51
it is that he was wrong about declaring he was going to get arrested the
38:54
previous Tuesday. But there was basically none of that in this interview, and
39:00
certainly no realization from Hannity that he had been tuped and that Trump had lied,
39:07
and that Trump had manipulated the news media to his benefit by saying something
39:10
that he knew was not true and was never going to be true. There
39:15
was never any chance that Donald Trump was going to be arrested them the day
39:17
he said he was going to be arrested. Now, I'm still open to
39:22
explanations for why he was wrong about that. My current belief, as I
39:27
outlined an episode number forty four, is that he realized that this was a
39:30
great opportunity for him to get attention and draw attention on an investigation that was
39:37
probably imploding, and that he could get credit for there never being an indictment
39:42
or arrest out of this particular investigation by looking like he was so strong that
39:47
he intimidated them not going down that path. I don't know that. I
39:52
mean a lot of that will be determined by what ends up happening. I'm
39:54
still open to the idea that he could eventually be indicted and arrested in this
39:59
grand jury investigation. But I have no doubt whatsoever that he knowingly told an
40:04
untruth, or at least should have knowingly known, you know, should have
40:07
known that it was untruth when he declared in all capital letters in a very
40:12
panic state and the five alarm fire that he was going to be arrested on
40:15
a particular day. And the particular day thing is important, folks. I
40:21
keep mentioning that, and it's possible. People, I'm going, John,
40:23
why are you so fixated on Tuesday? The reason why the date is important?
40:30
And Trump is a media savant, Okay, nobody understands how to manipulate
40:36
the news media better than Donald Trump. When you pick a date, as
40:42
opposed to saying I think I'm eventually going to get arrested. Eventually arrest getting
40:45
arrested doesn't really It's interesting. It's a story, but it doesn't have the
40:49
same urgency. It doesn't have a definitive end for the story. It doesn't
40:55
create focus on a particular moment in time. It doesn't get the New York
41:01
City Police to put up barricades for the potential protests. You need an actual
41:07
date, I mean, And so that's what's the pressure point, that's what's
41:14
feeding the media narrative. So it's almost like he picked the date perfectly in
41:19
two days so I can create enough media attention around this to get some shoes
41:22
out of this before we realize that it didn't happen. I mean, that's
41:28
not a coincidence. That's strategically. I'm gonna pick a day two and a
41:30
half days from when I'm gonna make this declaration, which is enough time for
41:35
there to be enough build up of negative publicity where I can take credit for
41:38
when there is no arrest, because it's going to be a reaction to my
41:43
cult and my media rushing to my defense. That's what I think happened here.
41:49
Again, I could be wrong. If I am, I'll be the
41:50
first to admit it. But back to this interview, the part that should
41:54
have happened did not happen with regard to what the hell occurred with you lying
41:59
about when you were going to get arrested. But what did happen was,
42:02
of course, there was many, many different things that occurred. I'm just
42:07
gonna play one particular clip because it deals directly with the twenty twenty four race,
42:13
and that's a shot that Trump took at the Santis. And you know,
42:17
if we were living in a pre twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen world,
42:22
in a pre Trump world, this would have in itself, it would be
42:27
disqualifying. It would be disqualifying to be the Republican nominee in twenty twenty four
42:32
because Trump takes what could be considered a quote unquote racist shot at Rhonda Santis,
42:39
an anti Italian shot, by claiming hilariously and absurdly that if it wasn't
42:46
for him and his endorsement, which saved Rhonda Santis in twenty eighteen from losing
42:52
a gubernatorial race in Florida, that he would be in a working in a
42:57
pizza polo right now. And here's what that sounded like. And what Hannity
43:02
says at the end about loyalty, I think is particularly significant in this exchange.
43:08
By the way, couldn't have never gotten the nomination. He would be
43:12
working in either a pizza parlo place or a law office right now, Okay,
43:15
and he wouldn't be very asshole. It's about loyalty. So even though
43:19
that's a short clip, there's a lot to unpack there, as there often
43:22
is with Trump. The first part is, I mean the pizza parlar thing.
43:25
I mean, come on, really, I mean, how are Italians
43:29
not offended by that? I mean, he tried meat ball ron and that
43:34
didn't go over. But so now he's trying to claim that a guy with
43:38
an esteemed record Ivy League education at this point had had already been a multi
43:45
term congressman. I mean, all sorts of potential career avenues. Even if
43:54
you don't have all that background and you lose a race for governor, you're
43:58
still highly employable. Hole. So it's just absurd the idea that the Santists
44:04
would be nowhere if he had lost in twenty eighteen. And by the way,
44:07
I am more than willing to accept the premise that the Santists did win
44:15
that race and did get through the primary and all that because of Donald Trump.
44:20
I don't doubt that. All right, But that's not the way this
44:23
works. Okay. This is not royalty, This is not a monarchy.
44:30
This is not a situation where Trump is the king and because he made you
44:36
a prince, that you are, you know, therefore barred from ever trying
44:40
to take the crown. He's also not even president. Can we at least
44:46
acknowledge basic reality. It's not like he's wanting for reelection. If he was
44:52
wanting for reelection, you know what, I would say that there would be
44:55
some semblance of reality here that that would be disloyal if he was doing a
45:01
halfway decent job. So if someone runs against you while you are in the
45:07
position, and you know, after you had done them a favor, yeah,
45:12
I got no problem with that being an issue of disloyalty. But Trump
45:15
loses any semblance of being able to make that argument because he lost the presidency
45:23
on his own. He lost it, and he also, by the way,
45:28
lost the US Senate and so a lot of damage was done because of
45:35
the twenty twenty election and Trump botching the entire COVID response, and so the
45:42
reality is that he's not running for president. This is not a monarchy,
45:46
and this loyalty issue, I mean, of all people to be talking about
45:50
loyalty Donald Trump, this is the guy who destroyed Jeff's Sessions, who was
45:57
the first major politician to endorse him in twenty sixteen, former senator from Alabama,
46:02
who became the Attorney general. And because Sessions tried to adhere to the
46:07
actual job of attorney general instead of being, you know, the lawyer for
46:12
Donald Trump, Trump completely threw him under the bus, destroyed him, fired
46:19
him, humiliated him. And I mean, that's just one of many examples.
46:23
In the last episode to talk about Mitch McConnell, who has done a
46:27
lot of Trump's bidding for him and now he's one of the greatest threats to
46:30
America even as he's recovering from a major concussion. His own personal lawyer,
46:35
Michael Cohen, who's a scumbag. But Trump was incredibly disloyal to Michael Cohen.
46:40
He put Cohen up to the acts which caused Cohen to be convicted of
46:46
crimes and did not only didn't support him, he threw him under the bus
46:52
as fast and as hard as he possibly could. This guy is incredibly personally
46:57
disloyal. He's loyal to only one person, Donald Trump. That's it.
47:04
And so it's awfully rich for Trump to be talking about in a racist fashion,
47:09
by the way, with the whole pizza polor thing that uh, you
47:14
know that that Ronda Santis is disloyal for running for president when a Democrat is
47:22
in office. Trump does not have the office, he doesn't own the party.
47:25
It's not a monarchy, and where he personally has a very distorted view
47:30
of loyalty in his own life. And so you know that. That's what
47:36
I'll say about that particular clip. There were other elements of this interview with
47:39
Hannity did not did not go well for either Trump or Hannity, including Trump
47:47
not giving the answers that Hannity wanted on the Moral Lago Classified documents investigation.
47:54
There were some interesting articles. Now they were written from the left wing perspective
47:59
that believes that somehow these indictments are going to finally bring down Donald Trump,
48:02
whether it's you know, the Manhattan DA or the Marlago investigation, or the
48:08
Georgia election interference investigation. I'm not convinced of any of that, But when
48:15
it came to substance, this was I found fascinating when it came to the
48:20
substance of potential obstruction of justice and other issues related to the classified documents investigation.
48:27
And let's be clear, part of the reason why the classified documents investigation
48:30
isn't gonna flies because Joe Biden has a vulnerability on the same, very same
48:36
issue, and so you Trump continues to get incredibly lucky, and because Biden
48:40
has a classified documents problem, from a perception standpoint, it's going to be
48:45
very very very very very difficult to make something like this stick, either legally
48:50
or politically. But I did find it worthy of mention that on two or
48:54
three occasions, Hannity tried to tell Trump what to say as far as what
49:01
was really going on there, and Trump refused to do so and basically made
49:07
it sound like the vulnerabilities that Hannity was articulating are real, because even Trump
49:15
wouldn't deny what in the way that Hannity clearly wanted him to and was feeding
49:22
him to try to get him to do Trump wouldn't do it. So I
49:25
think that was something to keep in mind as that investigation continues. Now back
49:31
to Fox News Channel in general and their willingness to start to at least criticize
49:37
Trump a little bit. Not directly, not by primetime you know, opinion
49:43
anchors, not Tucker Carlson or certainly not Sean Hannity or Laura Ingram or even
49:47
a newsperson, but they did allow one of their contributors, fromer Congressman Jason
49:53
Chavitz to respond. I believe this is on the Fox and End Show because
50:00
this is Ryank Kilmeade who asked the question, and Javids rips into Trump about
50:07
as hard as I can ever remember someone ripping into Donald Trump of a prominent
50:15
you know, from a prominent position, at least since he was the Republican
50:20
nominee in twenty sixteen. And here's what that sounded like. As far as
50:24
Javids's response to the interview with the Sean Hannity, which he found to be
50:30
horrendous, Jason, you said, overall you thought President Trump did a very
50:35
poor job in the interview. Why I thought Sean Hannity did a good job.
50:42
But I watched that and I thought, where is Donald Trump? I
50:45
voted for Donald Trump twice, I have defended him countless times. I thought
50:50
he was horrific. I think that was the worst interview I've seen the president
50:53
too. He was whining, he was complaining, he played the victim card
50:59
time and tie him again. And then after that he complained that, you
51:04
know, somebody had endorsed was now running against him. And I thought he
51:08
was absolutely horrific. He's the former president of the United States. Act like
51:14
it. He didn't in that interview. Now, I do think that the
51:17
fact that someone felt comfortable enough to be willing to criticize Trump that harshly on
51:24
Fox News channel has relevance that doesn't happen by accident. Now, you know,
51:30
this is not conspiratorial world. No one is telling Chavits to do that.
51:35
But Chavits is reading the tea leaves and realizing that it's acceptable to say
51:40
this. I mean, I've done many, many of these types of TV
51:45
shows, and you know, they don't have to tell you exactly what the
51:47
parameters are. You know, you know what they want, you know what
51:51
they don't want, you know what's acceptable, you know what is pushing the
51:54
line. I used to always say that if I got asked back, that
51:58
means I didn't do very well, because my goal was always espposedly in a
52:00
liberal outlet, was to not get asked back. And I did a pretty
52:05
darn good job of that, because I rarely get asked on liberal outlets anymore.
52:09
But that's another story for another day. A lot of people don't like
52:14
pushing the line. They just want to get asked back on television. Well,
52:16
Chavi, it's clearly understood or at least had a reason to believe that
52:22
this is acceptable commentary. Now he's ripping Donald Trump about an interview on Sean
52:28
Hannity's show. Now, he was careful to praise Hannity, but he ripped
52:31
Donald Trump, and that was I think a good sign. It's certainly consistent
52:37
with this theory that Fox News Channel, as I said earlier, is trying
52:40
to move on. But I just don't believe that they're going to be willing
52:45
and able to actually put the dagger in the heart. And that might be
52:51
what it is required at some point for Fox News Channel to do this,
52:54
and I just don't see it. I don't see it from any of the
52:58
key people. I don't see it with regard to their self interest, but
53:01
it is going to be needed. And Chris Christie made an interesting statement that
53:07
I think backs up my theory on the fact that there's gonna have to be
53:12
a moment where Trump is actually killed quote unquote figuratively, not literally, but
53:20
he's gonna have someone is going to have to really take him out. Now,
53:22
whether or not that's possible or not, I have my doubts. And
53:27
it's really particularly bizarre coming from Chris Christie because in this clip I'm about to
53:32
play for you and Christie, I guess, is contemplating a run for the
53:36
presidency himself, which is just absurd. I mean, there is absolutely positively
53:40
no path. I mean, heck, as wide as Christie's hips are,
53:45
the path for him to get through have to be really wide. But there
53:49
is no path for Chris Christie to be the Republican presidential nominee unless you know,
53:54
at least one person dies that would be Trump. But you know,
53:59
there's just there's even under those circumstances, there's just no way, and multiple
54:02
people would have to die for Chris Christie to have a path to the nomination,
54:07
and he makes this statement to a crowd, and it's obvious that he's
54:15
thinking about running and that he's even trying to make the argument that he needs
54:20
to be on the debate stage. So, and the way I interpret what
54:24
you're about to hear is that he's going to try is trying to make the
54:28
argument that I can repeat what I did to Marco Rubio in twenty sixteen.
54:34
Now, for those that don't remember, I remember almost everything. And then
54:37
I certainly remember this because this was a seminal moment in the twenty sixteen primary
54:44
campaign. It was, it was believe, just before the New Hampshire primary.
54:49
So they come out of Iowa and Trump is is third and Rubio is
54:54
right behind him in fourth place, Senator Rubio from Florida, and Rubio started
55:00
gaining in the polls. You know, he's the one that makes the surprise.
55:04
He's getting the you know, the Momentum award out of Iowa. And
55:07
they do the debate and Chris Christie attacks Rubio, and Rubio didn't respond particularly
55:13
well. Now, for the record, I didn't think it was nearly as
55:16
bad as portrayed. It was a classic situation where if it had happened to
55:21
Trump, no one would have cared. But you know, Trump has immunity
55:25
to all viruses and Rubio had no immunity to any viruses, apparently, and
55:30
Christie gave him a virus and Rubio then faded away, didn't totally fade away,
55:37
but he didn't. His momentum did and Trump ends up winning New Hampshire.
55:43
And that's what one Trump denomination. So the really strange part of this
55:46
clip, and with no self awareness whatsoever, Chris Christie is remembering his great
55:54
moment when he sealed the nomination for Trump. That's what happened. Rupe Bo
56:00
was the only person, in my very strong opinion, who could have taken
56:04
Trump out. If everyone in Cole last behind Rubio. I think Rubio could
56:07
have won the nomination in twenty sixteen, but Christie was a huge part of
56:13
why that never happened. So Christie is using this moment where he sealed the
56:17
nomination for Trump at twenty sixteen as some sort of foundation for why he should
56:23
run in twenty twenty four with what appears to be the intent of taking out
56:29
Trump. And here's what that sounded like. Take you better have somebody on
56:36
that stage who can choose, who can without things in market. That's the
56:43
only thing that's gonna defeat Onald Trump. And that means you gotta have still
56:49
to do it, and that means you have to be furious because he will
56:53
come back and great action. I see. You need to think about who's
57:00
going to still do that, who's got the guts to do it, because
57:05
it's not gonna end nicely now, He's end will not be a calm and
57:13
quiet conclusion. Again, the lack of self awareness there is what is really
57:17
striking to me. I mean, the ego on these people. What he
57:22
did the Rubio was neither spectacular nor was it good for the country or for
57:27
the party. I wonder if Christy even understands that. But it's it's it's
57:32
symbolic of what I actually think is going to happen. More likely than going
57:37
after Trump is it's people are gonna go after the Santis. That's the part
57:42
that really drives me crazy. Now, luck, what if Christy was in
57:45
the debates and he really went after Trump and I knew that was going to
57:50
happen, I'd be okay, Fine, go for it, dude, try
57:52
to redeem yourself. You're a big part of the reason why Trump won the
57:57
nomination in twenty sixteen. Oh, by the way, you were rewarded you
58:00
you worked on his campaign, and I guess someone in his administration. So
58:05
it's just incredible that here we are. Well, let me just tell you.
58:08
You know, we got to avoid what happened in twenty sixteen. You
58:12
know when I when I helped seal the deal for Trump and I benefited from
58:16
it. Well, if I knew, and I don't believe this because I
58:20
don't trust Chris Christie. If I knew that that was his sole purpose to
58:23
get in so that he could redeem himself for twenty sixteen, I'd say fine,
58:29
but not that I believe that Christie would have the ability to do it.
58:31
Because part of the big, big problem here is that in order to
58:37
take out Trump, you have to be at his level. You can't punch
58:42
up. Trump understands this incredibly well, which is why he's attacking the Sandus
58:49
consistently, which we're gonna get to again momentarily, because he knows that as
58:53
long as he can maintain the perception that he's the alpha male, and he
58:58
attacks on him will not be as impactful because they will be seen as the
59:04
desperate attempts from someone who would who was not at his level to try to
59:07
knock him off his perch. And Christie clearly is never going to be at
59:13
Trump's level. And so, you know, while it's probably not hurtful and
59:17
I'd like to see it from an entertainment standpoint, I don't think it would
59:21
be the moment to take out Donald Trump, because let's face it, Trump
59:25
is no Rubio and Chris Christie is not the right guy. But I found
59:30
that that statement to be important because it is true there is going to have
59:37
to be a bloody moment. I have said this previously, I'll continue to
59:40
say it. There will need to be blood if this is going to happen,
59:45
if Trump is not going to be the nominee, there will have to
59:47
be blood, and there might have to be multiple moments of blood. And
59:52
I don't know exactly how and when that would would best occur. I'm very
59:57
skeptical that it ever will because it hasn't had happened in the seven or eight
1:00:00
years that he has been on the stage. Is it possible, Yes?
1:00:05
Is the material there yes, obviously, especially when it comes to doctor Fauci
1:00:09
and some other issues. But you know, Pulling that off, especially on
1:00:15
a crowded debate stage, is going to be very, very difficult. And
1:00:20
I believe this is still playing right into Donald Trump's hands when we're going to
1:00:24
have seven or eight people maybe more on that debate stage, which is exactly
1:00:29
what Trump wants. And one of the things that I have I think been
1:00:34
rather prussian about in this podcast is talking about how everyone has an incentive,
1:00:39
like they would in a debate, to attack the santis and not Trump,
1:00:45
even people who are much more aligned with the Santists at least philosophically or intellectually,
1:00:52
and certainly not with Trump. And there was another example of this in
1:00:57
the media just yesterday which was rather depressing, and it comes from Meghan Kelly.
1:01:02
Now, Meghan Kelly is an interesting media personality. I am about as
1:01:08
conflicted about Meghan Kelly as I am anybody in the news media. One.
1:01:15
I think she's beautiful. I think she's very very smart. I think she's
1:01:20
funny at times. I love her outrage that she has I think become more
1:01:25
comfortable in sharing, especially when it comes to liberal insanity. And I think
1:01:31
that she's I don't think I don't perceive her to be a Trump fan at
1:01:37
all. She battled Donald Trump rather famously at that first Republican debate in twenty
1:01:40
sixteen. By the way, I think there's an entire story behind that that's
1:01:45
not been fully told. I mean, in her book, Megan Kelly basically
1:01:49
strongly implies that she thinks that she was poisoned by someone in the Trump camp.
1:01:54
I also believe, by the way, that someone gave Trump her famous
1:02:00
question about his treatment of women, which was why he was prepared for the
1:02:06
question and responded only Rosie O'Donnell, which you could argue was the moment he
1:02:10
won the goddamn nomination. And I've always been fascinated by that moment because Trump
1:02:16
seems incredibly confident and not at all uncomfortable. It feels very much like he
1:02:23
knew it was coming. And I think Kelly even implies that in her book
1:02:28
that he may have gotten that information from somebody in within Fox, although she's
1:02:32
confused as to how it would have occurred. So there's a lot I like
1:02:37
about Meg and Kelly. There's also a lot I don't like by I have
1:02:39
somewhat of a personal connection to Kelly. I've only talked to her one time,
1:02:45
and that was on Fox News Channel in an appearance I did, and
1:02:47
when she interviewed me regarding Sarah Paneland many many years ago. But you know,
1:02:52
we've we've had some exchanges on Twitter, both privately and publicly. She
1:02:58
she just quote tweeted it weet of mine the other day about Donald Trump,
1:03:02
which she was praising, and that even got a little bit of news coverage.
1:03:07
And I've had lunch with her lawyer on another matter. So I'm kind
1:03:13
of in her orbit. I would say, well, I don't know her,
1:03:16
and so there's lots I like, but there's also parts I don't like.
1:03:20
For instance, she's totally wrong about my friend Matt Lauer. She's convinced
1:03:23
herself that Matt lower somehow was raping women left and right at NBC, which
1:03:29
is just a total fraud. I've tried to get her to listen to me
1:03:34
on that, unsuccessfully. She's also been very close to getting it on the
1:03:37
whole Penn State Paterno Sandusky situations. She had Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote a
1:03:43
book with an entire chapter basically devoted to my work or most of it devoted
1:03:47
to my work on the case, and she had Gladwell on her show and
1:03:52
she seemingly was agreeing with him with regard to the nature of how the media
1:03:58
blew it in the whole Pence they pattern of Sandowsky case. But I've been
1:04:00
unsuccessful in getting her attention or to have me on to further discuss the issue.
1:04:06
So that's been very frustrating. By the way, we had her executive
1:04:11
producer, Steve Kraudhauer, who wrote a book about the news media, on
1:04:15
this podcast a few episodes ago. So again, I'm kind of in her
1:04:19
orbit, but I've not been able to fully get through. And while there's
1:04:26
a lot I like about her, there's also a lot of parts that are
1:04:30
very frustrating. And this would be definitely in the realm of things that are
1:04:33
frustrating because she decided out of the blue to rip not Donald Trump, but
1:04:40
Rond de Santis for not doing an interview with her, at least not so
1:04:45
far. Now. I have no idea why the Santists has to this date
1:04:48
not done an interview with Megan Kelly. Who knows. It could be just
1:04:53
a scheduling issue. I mean, if I was to Santist, I would
1:04:56
absolutely do an interview with Megan Kelly, but that has not happened. But
1:05:00
what's really shocking to me in this clip that we're about to play, is
1:05:04
it normally, if someone of that stature, who could, you know,
1:05:09
very theoretically be the Republican presidential nominee, you don't go after him that hard
1:05:15
over what could be just a scheduling issue. I mean, it doesn't make
1:05:19
a lot of sense. It's just from a political personal media perspective, because
1:05:26
you're kind of burning that bridge in a way that makes it very difficult for
1:05:30
de Santis to come on. Now you might say, hey, come on,
1:05:32
Ron, yeah, let's do this. I mean, what are you
1:05:36
afraid? I mean, that would be okay, But the level of anger
1:05:41
here and the level of attack that Megan Kelly brings to Ronda Santis. And
1:05:47
let's be clear, we know she's no fan of Donald Trump, and to
1:05:51
my knowledge, Donald Trump has never done the current version of her show,
1:05:56
which is basically a YouTube show. It's a very well done show, but
1:06:00
I mean it's not on a major media outlet. And and so you know,
1:06:06
Trump famously did an interview with her at at Fox and I think maybe
1:06:12
I guess when she made me he may have done one when she first went
1:06:14
to NBC, and but I can't remember. At some point he did a
1:06:18
primetime interview with Megan Kelly which got a lot of publicity, which frankly,
1:06:24
was a pretty softball interview considering their history. She didn't bring up any of
1:06:27
the stuff about the poisoning or him knowing the first question that the debate,
1:06:30
or any of that stuff. So I'm not sure I buy the idea that,
1:06:35
you know, her interviews that she's about to say are super tough,
1:06:40
and that the Santists is afraid of facing her. But for the record,
1:06:43
I found this to be worthy of mention and potentially important because here is a
1:06:49
person that should be in the de Santist camp attacking the Santist because he hasn't
1:06:55
yet done an interview with her. And then she goes on a ran against
1:06:58
the media, which I complained and totally applaud, which is kind of symbolic
1:07:01
of my continual conflict and frustration with Megan Kelly. And here's what that sounds
1:07:06
like. I will say, for the record, we asked to Santis to
1:07:09
come on the show. He has not said yes, and I find that
1:07:12
very interesting. You know, I love Pierce Morgan, He's palamine, but
1:07:15
why would you go sit with the British guy and not come on this show.
1:07:18
And I do think there's a reason for it. And I will venture
1:07:21
to say he's afraid. I'm just gonna put out there he's afraid because he
1:07:26
knows the kind of interview that I would give him. He's not going to
1:07:28
get a pass. We're not there to rub elbows with these guys who may
1:07:31
or may not be president and inure ourselves and they're good graces. The reporters
1:07:36
need to remember that the relationship is supposed to be adversarial. For the love
1:07:41
of God, these journalists should show it. I don't give a shit if
1:07:44
you've fallen in love with the Santis or Trump for that matter. They're not
1:07:47
your friend. Your friend is your audience. Is the truth. Grow a
1:07:53
pair that your business is not to be loved. It's to tell the truth.
1:07:57
Respect is what you want. Respect will get you an audience. Love
1:08:00
is for pundits who just want to say the nice, sweet nothings that people
1:08:03
want to hear. The whole thing is best Ackwards upsets me. So again,
1:08:08
I applaud ninety percent of that, especially the part about the news media
1:08:13
and not wanting to be light and wanting to be respected, and your audience
1:08:16
is what matters. One hundred percent agree with that a whole part of it.
1:08:20
I just don't understand the level of attack against the Santis or why to
1:08:27
Santis wouldn't have done an interview with Megan Kelly. I don't know what and
1:08:30
she implies that there's more to the story there. I don't think that there
1:08:33
is. Who knows. Maybe there is, and it's not like her to
1:08:36
hold back. If there was more to the story, I would expect that
1:08:41
she would tell it, or at least eventually tell it. So who knows.
1:08:44
But it appears as if the Santis may have lost a potential key member
1:08:50
of the conservative media who you would think would be prone to be on his
1:08:57
side. I mean, she's smart, she has no for Trump, She's
1:09:00
not as beholden to the Trump crowds as most conservative media members are. And
1:09:05
by the way, that could be her motivation. If I'm trying to figure
1:09:10
out, okay, what's really going on here? That could be her motivation.
1:09:14
I said a few episodes ago that there has now been a market created
1:09:17
within the conservative media by Trump and his attacks on the Santis, a market
1:09:24
for negative the Santist content, and she certainly knew and this did happen that
1:09:29
when she said that that was going to go viral within Trump world in social
1:09:33
media, and that's what occurred. And you know, who knows, maybe
1:09:36
she picked up some new Trump fans because Trump has already created so much hatred
1:09:42
within a niche of certainly Trump, Twitter and other social media platforms, that
1:09:50
than any criticism of him of the Santists is going to be immediately popular,
1:09:56
It's going to be immediately shared, it's going to get lots of retweets,
1:09:59
in light and views. And maybe that's what motivated her. Whether it was
1:10:03
conscious or subconscious, I don't know, but attacking the santis is basically the
1:10:08
best way to get street cred, especially if you're looking to get street cred
1:10:12
back with the Trump fans. And maybe, you know, again, if
1:10:15
I'm being cynical here, Megan Kelly, and I've given her credit for this,
1:10:19
has really been the first person to outline how difficult it's going to be
1:10:25
to beat Trump in this nominating process. She is basically said he has to
1:10:30
die. She didn't use those words, I don't think, but she came
1:10:32
darn close. And I've quoted her many times about this, because I think
1:10:36
she's probably right that that's by far the most likely scenario that would cause Trump
1:10:45
to lose the nomination. Yeah, imagine that him dying. It wouldn't be
1:10:48
good for winning the nomination, but that might be the only plausible path depending
1:10:53
on how things go here. And she has articulated that, and so clearly
1:10:58
she thinks Trump's got to be the nominee. So maybe she's making a strategic
1:11:00
play here. I mean, this could be a very strategic play that she
1:11:04
knows the Santist isn't gonna be able to pull this off, or anyone else
1:11:09
is gonna be able to pull this off. So I'm going to use this
1:11:11
opportunity to rip the Santists to get, you know, my Trump Street cred
1:11:15
back, because that's where we're headed. This is pure speculation on my part.
1:11:19
I hope it's not like this. I hope it's not nearly that cynical.
1:11:24
But if I'm trying to come up with some rational explanation, that's the
1:11:28
best I can do at this time. Now, speaking of ripping into Rhoda
1:11:31
Santists, Trump wasn't satisfied with just doing so. On the Sean Hannity Show
1:11:38
on Fox News Channel, and you know, basically being racist against Italians with
1:11:42
his pizza paul or crack. He decided to issue a video statement which made
1:11:48
the rounds on social media. And so this is Donald Trump with no question
1:11:55
or just him making a video statement to his Trump called his email, and
1:12:00
I guess he's back on Facebook. So I guess this was put on Facebook
1:12:04
as well, and then of course people take it and put it on Twitter
1:12:09
and elsewhere. So this is Donald Trump with a litany of lies and distortions
1:12:16
about Ronda Santis is falling poll numbers, the alleged theory as to why his
1:12:21
poll numbers are failing. And oh, by the way, he was a
1:12:25
disastrous governor of Florida even during COVID. So this is the alternative reality presented
1:12:32
by the forty fifth president of the United States and the current front runner to
1:12:36
be the Republican nominee in twenty twenty four. Donald Trump, Rhonda sanctimonious is
1:12:42
being crushed in the polls, all of them. Many globalists are having second
1:12:46
thoughts. Rhinos like Carl Rove, Pauline Ryan, and Jeb low Energy Bush
1:12:51
beside themselves. They don't know what's going on. They've really witnessed a cratering
1:12:57
of this magnitude, these poles going down rapidly. Maybe they should have told
1:13:02
Ron they're trying to destroy Social Security and Medicare and having voted to destroy them
1:13:10
three times is not a good thing to do. Also, his record in
1:13:14
China, virus crime, and education is, despite his ever spinning pr machine,
1:13:20
absolutely abysmal. Thank you now, I could literally spend at least forty
1:13:34
five minutes or an hour deconstructing what you just heard there. I'm not going
1:13:40
to do that. Let me just say that that is a complete fantasy,
1:13:45
all of it. The most important part of it from a political standpoint,
1:13:49
which I've already implied, is that Trump understands, and this is where Trump's
1:13:55
genius comes in. Trump understands that he must guard his out mail status at
1:14:01
all costs, and while he has it, he must use it because if
1:14:08
he doesn't use it, he might lose it and then he might never get
1:14:13
it back. And what I mean by that is because he has the upper
1:14:16
hand right now ironically using poles. Now, how hilarious is it that the
1:14:21
guy who does not believe in poles doesn't even believe in election day polls.
1:14:26
His fans don't believe in polls unless they're good for Trump is using polling data,
1:14:31
manipulating polling data, ignoring the polls that don't fit his agenda to try
1:14:35
to make the argument that De Santis is somehow cratering. By the way,
1:14:40
to be clear, DeSantis is not even a candidate yet. Can we say
1:14:43
that. We cannot possibly say that enough. So DeSantis isn't even a candidate
1:14:46
yet, which is really working against him right now because and I think Trump
1:14:51
realizes this. Trump sees the next couple of months as a key opportunity where
1:14:57
DeSantis is restricted in going into full warfare because De Santists is not technically a
1:15:03
candidate and he's also busy being a governor of Florida actually getting crap done.
1:15:09
Meanwhile, Trump is now free as a candidate to fire his full artillery against
1:15:15
Rhonda Santis and destroy him enough with the base to where he's far enough behind
1:15:23
where Trump maintains his alpha male status, and then any attacks on him on
1:15:28
De Santists is finally ready to run and is, you know, has his
1:15:33
military warfare up to full speed, then it might be too late, because
1:15:39
by that point his legs have already been cut out from under him. So
1:15:43
Trump understands this, Let's be very clear, he understands this is a free
1:15:48
opportunity for the next couple of months to attack a non candidate from a position
1:15:55
of authority, from the alpha male position, from the position of perceived don
1:16:00
and ends to make sure he maintains that position of dominance. That's what this
1:16:04
is, and it's it's the smart move. Now he's lying off his ass
1:16:10
to do it. He's lying even about the polling data, which I've been
1:16:14
very desponded about, but it's I can carry damn t. The polling data
1:16:17
has nothing to do with Ronda Santis is alleged pass positions on social Security and
1:16:24
medicare. That's nothing to do with it. Well, by the way,
1:16:28
that that video I just played the audio of it, that might as well
1:16:31
have been paid for by the Biden twenty twenty four campaign. And you know
1:16:36
who else should have paid for that that video The Kamala Harris twenty twenty eight
1:16:42
campaign as well. And maybe that's Kamala Harris twenty thirty two campaign. That's
1:16:48
who gets helped here, That's who Donald Trump is helping by attacking the SANDUS
1:16:54
in this fashion. And so the clear back to the loyalty thing. Donald
1:17:00
Trump's loyalty is to Donald Trump. Rhnda santis Is loyalty is to the United
1:17:04
States of America. And unfortunately, we're living in a world where these circumstances
1:17:10
are benefiting someone who is working only in his self interest and not in the
1:17:15
interest of the country, and certainly not the cause of trying to curtail the
1:17:19
socialist insanity that has overtaken the country and is threatening to destroy it forever.
1:17:25
But that's who Donald Trump is. And so you know, that video,
1:17:30
I think tells us an awful lot about where we are, where we're headed.
1:17:34
And oh, by the way, makes it abundantly clear, abundantly clear
1:17:39
that if the Santas ever wins the nomination, that Trump ain't planning when it
1:17:43
comes to the general election, He'll be planning for Biden, whether he says
1:17:47
so or not. But that's that's that's the reality of it. So you
1:17:51
know, you've been warned. The evidence is clear. We can just ignore
1:17:56
it and whistle past the graveyard, or we can you know, all those
1:17:59
still time we can realize what the situation here is and do our best to
1:18:03
try to stop it, even against all odds. So that's Donald Trump attacking
1:18:09
Rohn De Santis, and of course Santis dan to be does dan to be
1:18:14
doesn't when it comes to fighting back. And this is the very difficult situation
1:18:17
that Rohnda Santis is in, especially before he officially announces his candidacy. Now,
1:18:23
there are many people who believe that the last part of Trump's statement about
1:18:28
the COVID situation is really the heart of the matter, because Trump knows that's
1:18:32
his great vulnerability, and that's why he's trying to muddy the water by laughably
1:18:36
claiming that Rhonda Santis was a disaster during COVID, complete lie. The only
1:18:43
reason why De Santis did anything that in retrospect looks bad is because he was
1:18:46
following the guidance of Donald Trump and the people that Donald Trump was vouching for,
1:18:54
doctor Fauci and Burks, Deborah Burkes, the people that were running the
1:18:59
show, who turned out to be wrong about everything. But Desantists was able
1:19:04
to figure this out. Trump wasn't. Desantist was able to reverse course.
1:19:10
Trump wasn't. Trump had given up his entire presidency the Santists saved the country,
1:19:15
and I you know, look, I have some connections to the sand
1:19:19
this world, and I'm hoping to increase those connections. But one of the
1:19:24
things I hope De Santis World understands is they need to make the case they
1:19:29
didn't just save Florida, they saved much of the country. I believe here
1:19:35
in California we would still be under insane COVID restrictions today if it had not
1:19:42
been for Florida. If Florida had been like other Republican governors the whoosee and
1:19:48
in Ohio, the Wine or Maryland Larry Hogan, or you know Charlie Baker
1:19:55
in Massachusetts, you know the Rhino whose governors. If we had been like
1:20:00
if Florida had been like that, and there had never been a major state
1:20:05
that was able to prove to the world that this was all bull crap,
1:20:10
I don't believe we would be as far past COVID as we are today.
1:20:14
I really believe that. And that is an argument that has to be made
1:20:17
because then it's not just about Florida. It's about what Desantists did to save
1:20:23
the country. I don't want to overstate it because it wasn't just him.
1:20:27
Brian Kemp deserves a hell of a lot of credit because he went up against
1:20:30
Trump to open up Georgia. That's a part of the story that's got to
1:20:34
be told. In fact, I don't know what Kemp's view on this is,
1:20:39
but my guess is he's probably in the desantist camp. I would love
1:20:42
for Kemp to be used as an attack dog on Donald Trump, because Trump
1:20:47
went after Kemp hard on reopening and did everything he possibly could to prevent him
1:20:53
from almost everything he possibly could from being reelected in Georgia, and he won
1:20:58
despite Donald Trump in Georgia, while Trump's Senate candidate herschel Walker, who I
1:21:03
liked, ended up losing in the same election cycle. So anyway, the
1:21:10
reality is that the COVID thing Trump is projecting in a huge way because he
1:21:16
knows it's a weakness, he knows it's a vulnerability. And Faucci is back
1:21:21
in the news, which you would think would be good for De Santis.
1:21:25
There's that insane PBS quote unquote documentary about Fauci, and then Faucci made a
1:21:30
statement at a conference that was aired on c SPAN yesterday. I gotta play
1:21:34
a clip for you on it because it deals with the issue of misinformation,
1:21:40
and you want to talk about projection, Holy projection, Batman. Doctor Faucci
1:21:46
basically joking with a bunch of liberals on c SPAN about how awful misinformation is
1:21:53
and then getting very serious about how misinformation about COVID cost lives, and he
1:21:59
gets kind of angry about it. And here is Prince Fauci, and maybe
1:22:06
I shouldn't even call him prince. Maybe it was King Fauci at the time,
1:22:09
but former King Fauci who took over the Trump administration and then drove it
1:22:15
into the ground and then got Biden elected. Here he is talking about the
1:22:18
issue of misinformation and how misinformation, at least his version of it, costs
1:22:25
live less than nine Why do I know about this? Misinformation is truly the
1:22:31
enemy of pandemic control, and unfortunately I think we all know. I don't
1:22:36
have to tell this audience. This is that we are living in an absolute
1:22:42
see of misinformation and disinformation that has propagated very effectively by social media. And
1:22:50
I'm not so sure how we're going to get around that, but it can
1:22:54
be causing lives. Misinformation and disinformation costs lives. There's no doubt about that,
1:23:03
and the misinformation and disinformation that has people not wanting to get vaccinated costs
1:23:11
lives. Now. Look, I actually think that Fauci has a small point,
1:23:16
a small point, which is that there are some people who ended up
1:23:21
dying, probably because they didn't get vaccinated, who should have been vaccinated at
1:23:26
a critical time they were not. Now how many people fit in that category,
1:23:30
I don't know, but guess what. We live in a free country
1:23:33
people, at least we used to. People are allowed to make their own
1:23:35
medical decisions. And so you know, you put the information out there that
1:23:42
you told them that you thought you overstated dramatically how much this was going to
1:23:45
help them. At the time, it probably would have helped the right people
1:23:50
who were vulnerable. Not everybody took the vaccine, and I'm sure that there
1:23:56
are. Again I don't know the number. I don't think it's a massive
1:23:59
number, but I think there are some people who probably died largely because they
1:24:03
did not take the vaccine because they were vaccine hesitant for whatever reason. By
1:24:06
the way, part of the reason they were vaccine hesitant was because you would
1:24:11
lie to them for the previous two years. Maybe you think about the issue
1:24:16
of misinformation and credibility when you knowingly tell people that masks work and force people
1:24:25
to wear masks when you know they don't work. I mean, how does
1:24:28
no one ever make this connection with Fauci? How come no one in the
1:24:30
media ever asks him about this issue. If you care so much about your
1:24:35
sacred credibility and you want people to believe you, maybe not lie about masks.
1:24:41
Maybe not force school kids out of school for no goddamn reason. Maybe
1:24:46
not force sporting events outdoors to be basically destroyed, have no crowds or almost
1:24:55
no crowds, and other events graduations, feeling rules, weddings, whatever,
1:25:00
when you know outdoor transmission is basically impossible. So if you had really wanted
1:25:09
people to believe you when it came to the vaccines, maybe it would have
1:25:12
been a good idea not to lie and not to engage in misinformation or disinformation
1:25:17
on your own. And Fauci did this consistently, and by the way,
1:25:23
a lot of his disinformation probably cost lives too. I have no doubt that
1:25:28
much like there should have been people that took the vaccine early on, when
1:25:31
it was effective and when the virus was still very deadly, who died because
1:25:36
they didn't. There were probably also people who got COVID and maybe even died
1:25:41
because they engaged in reckless behavior because they thought their mask was magic and it's
1:25:47
not. Or did they get that idea they got it partially from Fauci.
1:25:51
And then there's the issue of the vaccines themselves and the transmission. Fauci lied
1:25:59
up about that, And so when you tell people that you're not going to
1:26:04
get COVID if you take the vaccine, then a lot of people take the
1:26:08
vaccine who don't need it, and that increases the number of adverse effects.
1:26:15
So, whether that's deaths or not, I believe some people probably died either
1:26:20
directly or indirectly do the vaccines. Again, I don't know how many my
1:26:24
guests right now, it's not a large number, But there's no question that
1:26:29
there's been a lot of adverse effects from the vaccines, far more than they've
1:26:33
been willing to admit to. We now have information that indicates that they knew
1:26:39
that there were going to be more adverse effects. Well, if lots of
1:26:42
people are taking the vaccine that don't need it because you lied to them that
1:26:45
it stops transmission and that you won't get COVID if you take the vaccine.
1:26:50
Well, who's responsible for that, doctor Fauci. That's misinformation, either costing
1:26:58
lives or causing people to be physically harmed, maybe in a permanent way,
1:27:03
sometimes because of your disinformation. The disinformation was you won't get COVID if you
1:27:11
get the vaccine, and this will stop the vaccine the virus from transmitting,
1:27:15
and this is going to help us get out of the pandemic. That was
1:27:19
all a lie, That was all misinformation. Yet Vaucia, of course,
1:27:25
never gets called out on any of this by anybody in the mainstream news media.
1:27:30
Now parts of the mainstream news media are very carefully starting to go you
1:27:38
know, there are parts of what we did here that's causing a lot more
1:27:44
damage than anybody really expected, especially in the area of education. Now,
1:27:50
who could have possibly imagined this, I mean only people like me who were
1:27:56
screaming bloody murder in March of twenty twenty, even telling my school principle,
1:28:03
who thought I was crazy, that we were going to shut down for over
1:28:08
a year and this was gonna cause devastating consequences with no benefit when it came
1:28:13
to the schools. Well, CBS's Sunday Morning Show had a really rich and
1:28:21
frustrating interview, an interview done by CBS reporter Tracy Smith with a gobin the
1:28:29
name of Jeffrey Canada, I think is how you say his last name?
1:28:32
Or Kannada? I think it's probably Canada, Jeffrey Canada, who's the founder
1:28:38
of Harlem Children's Zone in New York City. It happens to be a black
1:28:42
man. And I'm going to play a clip for you from this this feature
1:28:47
that they did on the devastating impact of Get This. They say the pandemic,
1:28:55
which is one of my all time pet peeves. That there are hundreds
1:28:59
of examples in the news media, and I tweet them out. I used
1:29:01
to tweet them out on almost a daily basis, but I'm almost gotten tired
1:29:05
of it where the news media will say the pandemic caused this particular impact and
1:29:14
it's worse than we thought. No, no, no, no, no
1:29:16
no no, no, no no no. It was not the pandemic.
1:29:21
It was the political reaction to the panic, That's what it was. And
1:29:29
it was enabled by the very same people who are now going, gee,
1:29:32
maybe this wasn't a great idea. Like the news media so Here was this
1:29:38
short clip with this interview between A Tracy Smith and the founder of the Harlem
1:29:43
Children's Zone in New York about all of the horrific, horrendous, catastrophic damage
1:29:49
that has been done to our educational system because of the COVID shutdown. We
1:29:56
all knew that the pandemic was going to affect education, but how bad is
1:30:00
it. We've got the data now and things are bad. They're actually worse
1:30:04
than most of us thought. In fact, I would tell you that we
1:30:09
have an education crisis right now. The actual numbers vary by community, but
1:30:14
according to a nationwide test given to fourth and eighth graders, reading skills dropped
1:30:19
to the lowest point in thirty years, and in math, nearly forty percent
1:30:25
of eighth graders couldn't understand basic concepts, the worst performance since testing began back
1:30:30
in sixty nine. This is not just poor kids who are limited in the
1:30:35
urban sentage. It's all over America. There's been a dramatic reduction in ELA
1:30:41
and in math scores. This goes along with the loss of students in school,
1:30:45
with the increased violence that's happening and the behavioral problems that kids are facing.
1:30:49
In my career of more than forty five years, I've never seen anything
1:30:54
close to this. I believe that that is an accurate assessment of the damage
1:30:59
that has been done, having a wife who is in the public school system
1:31:03
and being someone who follows this as carefully as possible. By the way,
1:31:09
the news media did a hell of a job of making sure that the statistics
1:31:13
regarding the damage were muted greatly before the midterm elections. There should have been
1:31:18
a massive issue in the midterm elections. We knew all of this then,
1:31:24
but it's now only safe now because we're not in a direct election cycle to
1:31:29
talk about all of this damage. But it was not something I mean,
1:31:32
it's implied at the beginning of that clip. Well everyone knew. Well if
1:31:36
everyone knew, then why didn't we have a fucking debate about it. Why
1:31:40
did we just decide to do it, especially when there was no evidence that
1:31:45
this was going to help anything. There was never any evidence anywhere, and
1:31:48
it's been proven around the world, Sweden being the perfect example where school went
1:31:54
on and there was no significant damage whatsoever because children, children were not vulnerable
1:32:01
to this, and he has would there have been a concern about teachers,
1:32:04
sure, but guess what you can do. You can give older vulnerable teachers
1:32:09
a sabbatical. That's all it would have taken. That's all it would have
1:32:13
taken. Would there have been have to have been a combinations made to make
1:32:16
people feel safe? Sure, but it easily could have been done, and
1:32:20
it should have been done. And we are going to be paying the price
1:32:23
for this maybe forever. I mean, this is gonna be essentially a lost
1:32:28
generation, a generation that already had massive problems already because of unprecedented social media
1:32:34
and video games and changing value systems and the change and pairenting. I mean,
1:32:40
this is a completely fucked situation that does not get nearly enough attention.
1:32:45
And you know, one short segment on CBS's Morning show on Sunday ain't gonna
1:32:50
change it. And it's not just about the education part. Here's part of
1:32:56
the CBS article that accommodated or companied that it come. Here's the part of
1:33:01
the CBS News story that accompanied the video portion that I just played for you
1:33:09
that has nothing to do directly with the actual educational part of it, but
1:33:13
also the physical elements of the shutdown on kids, they write CBS News does.
1:33:19
And here's something else that might take your breath away. A University of
1:33:24
California study found that during the pandemic, kids spent an average of seventeen minutes
1:33:30
a day less on physical activity. Now, seventeen minutes might not seem like
1:33:35
a lot, but over time, those small losses can really add up.
1:33:41
During the pandemic, some kids didn't go out at all, much less do
1:33:45
any kind of exercise. Well, yeah, duh, I mean, we
1:33:51
are an obese nation to begin with. We have a lot of obesity among
1:33:57
kids. By the way, when your obese is a kid, it's very
1:34:00
very likely to maintain itself as an adult. And you know, this is
1:34:04
the time, very where you're supposed to be. You're at your most healthy,
1:34:08
you're most physically active. And when you lock down kids, take them
1:34:13
out of school, and even when they're at school, you limit the physical
1:34:15
activity. I mean, I remember some of the insanity that happened with my
1:34:21
daughter's school where even when they went out to play, they weren't even really
1:34:27
allowed to play outside. They couldn't even share balls, like they had to
1:34:35
fake pretend play. Because there's some insane notion that you could get COVID or
1:34:43
transfer COVID by by sports and the actual athletic ball that would be used in
1:34:53
whatever game you were playing. I mean, just that's the level of absurdity.
1:34:57
And so most of the time my daughter wouldn't even engage in any kind
1:35:01
of physical activity. There's be outside and keep their six foot distancing. Every
1:35:09
level of insanity created more insanity and more damage, and nobody wanted to say
1:35:14
anything about it because then you'd be in favor of the virus, or you'd
1:35:17
be a Trump supporter or something insane like that. And so it's going to
1:35:24
be devastating to this generation with regard to both the academics as well as the
1:35:30
physical activity and the mental element of this, not to mention just the message
1:35:36
we send that the truancy issue, which is something that I also predicted right
1:35:42
off the bad that once we tell kids, we send a message for over
1:35:47
a year that you know what, school doesn't really matter, it doesn't really
1:35:51
matter, it's really not that important. We can do without it. Then
1:35:57
guess what's going to happen us What kids and their parents are going to start
1:36:01
acting like school doesn't really matter and missing school is not a big deal.
1:36:06
I mean, this is it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that
1:36:11
this was going to happen, and I really can't stand this notion. Well,
1:36:14
you know, some people say, we just didn't know the full extent
1:36:17
or there was we were dealing with in a unique situation. Bullshit. There
1:36:23
were people who knew. When they were shouted down, they were called conspiracy
1:36:27
theorists. They were censored, all in favor of a people who were promoting
1:36:30
a political agenda that had nothing to do with science and nothing to do with
1:36:34
medicine. And we're all gonna pay for it for fucking ever. And it,
1:36:40
just as you can tell, it pisses me off so much so I
1:36:44
gotta stop talking about it. So I'm gonna move on to my last story
1:36:46
of the of this particular podcast. As you are probably aware if you're a
1:36:51
sports fan speaking of sports, since I kind of did that in the last
1:36:56
story, the March Madness and Double A basketball tournament is going to wrap up
1:37:02
this particular weekend with the final four, and the media person who's gotten by
1:37:08
far the most attention, understandably so during quote unquote March Madness is Charles Barkley.
1:37:15
Charles Barkley, if you don't know a former NBA superstar who has really
1:37:19
made a niche for himself as an announcer. He's basically the last sports announcer
1:37:25
in America that has full free speech rights. He really is because he happens
1:37:30
to be black, and because he's not really liberal, he's not really conservatives.
1:37:34
He's kind of all over the map when it comes to his political philosophy.
1:37:40
And because he's funny, and because he's a celebrity, and because he's
1:37:43
got balls, he's allowed to say things in the mainstream that nobody else is.
1:37:48
When I say mainstream, I mean you know, when you're you're doing
1:37:51
a halftime show with the pregame show on the national Championship for the NCUBA basketball
1:37:57
tournament, that's pretty darned mainstream. And so Charles Barkley even got the sixty
1:38:02
minutes treatment last weekend. And I liked Charles Barkley. I liked him as
1:38:08
a player. I was a Philadelphia seventy six Ers fan when he played for
1:38:10
the Sixers back in the day. I've always thought him to be funny.
1:38:15
I think he says to this day some of the most conservative things that are
1:38:18
allowed in the mainstream news media or media in general. I mean just the
1:38:24
other day, I tweeted at a clip of him talking about one of the
1:38:27
biggest problems we have in this country is that too many parents want to be
1:38:30
friends with their kids, and they shouldn't be friends with their kids and their
1:38:32
little adults, and that, you know, the basically tough love is the
1:38:38
way to go. I think he and Dion Sanders, who's now the head
1:38:42
coach at Colorado Football. I look out for Dion Sanders. By the way,
1:38:45
I've been pretty bad at my NC double A predictions lately, but I
1:38:50
am in love with Dion Sanders and what he's doing at Colorado and his philosophy
1:38:55
there because well, I'm sure Dion would never admit to being a conservative.
1:39:00
His value system is very much keeping with conservatism when it comes to the culture
1:39:05
that he's creating there. Even I even jokingly said that Charles Barkley and Dion
1:39:10
Sanders ran as a presidential ticket. I would pick them over Donald Trump and
1:39:15
Carry Lake any day of the week, just from a philosophical standpoint, and
1:39:19
by the way, they'd win. I mean, I mean that sincerely.
1:39:24
I mean that totally sincerely. If if it was Charles Barkley and Dion Sanders
1:39:28
against against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It might be a landslide for Barkley
1:39:34
and Sanders, if only because the black vote I think would probably go over
1:39:42
to Barkley and Sanders. But anyway, I digress. The reason why I'm
1:39:45
mentioning this is because even though I like Charles Barkley, he was involved in
1:39:50
a moment I think was key to what's going on with college sports in general
1:39:57
and specifically, and I l money, image and likeness, money and the
1:40:01
transfer portal and all sorts of other things that are really destroying the essence of
1:40:05
what college sports was all about. And Charles has said that he is very
1:40:10
sad about what is happening. I'm in the category of people who think that
1:40:14
this is a total disaster, that we have destroyed one of the last great
1:40:18
things about America college sports, and that it's now just the minor leagues for
1:40:23
professional sports and it's only going to get worse. Although I will say,
1:40:27
you know, I've been wrong about the impact of NIL at least in one
1:40:30
area when it comes to parody, because the NCAA basketball tournament has proven that
1:40:36
my prediction that the blue Bloods were going to start dominating even more than they
1:40:41
have previously because they have all the money. Well, hasn't happened this year
1:40:44
for sure, as there's been all sorts of upsets and none of the favorites
1:40:48
made it into the final four. Now, maybe this was a fluke gear
1:40:51
maybe it's going to take a little bit longer for NIL to have a full
1:40:55
impact, But so far I have been totally wrong about that, and at
1:41:00
least to this point, from a rating standpoint, the NCAA tournament has been
1:41:03
a success, although my gut tells me the final four probably will not be
1:41:08
because the teams that made it are not exactly the most popular or the most
1:41:12
well known. But anyway, back to the important point of this. Because
1:41:15
Charles Barkley is perceived as being so influential and he's so popular, what he
1:41:21
says matters. But unfortunately, I don't think that Charles is educated at all
1:41:28
here on the issue, and that doesn't surprise me because he's a celebrity and
1:41:34
I know how this works. I mean, he's not going to go deeply
1:41:38
into the details of an issue like this, and no one is going to
1:41:43
tell him around him that hey, Charles, you're wrong about this or you
1:41:46
don't know what the hell you're talking about. So here's a clip that was
1:41:50
played over this past weekend during the NCAA basketball tournament, where it starts off
1:41:58
with Charlie Baker, who's the full allegedly Republican governor of Massachusetts, a guy
1:42:02
who I think is very smart. My father actually knows Charlie Baker pretty well
1:42:08
because my father lives in Massachusetts, and I think he held a fundraiser for
1:42:12
him at some point. He's my father's kind of Republican where he's really not
1:42:15
a real Republican's but he's smart and well spoken and he's very polite. That's
1:42:20
my father's Republican. But Charlie Baker is a good guy, and I didn't
1:42:27
even realize that he had become the new head of the NCAA, which was
1:42:29
fantastic because the last head of the nc DOUABLEA. Mark Emritt, was a
1:42:31
complete corrupt, idiot asshole who I have gone after along with Frank o'harris,
1:42:36
the now late Great Frank o'harris many years ago because of his completely in napped
1:42:43
and ignorant handling of the Penn State Joe paternal Jerry Sandowsky situation. So I
1:42:48
plaud the fact that Charlie Baker is now running the nc double A, and
1:42:53
so CBS runs this clip of Charlie Baker talking about the political problem is related
1:43:00
to trying to fix the problems in college sports related to NIL and other issues
1:43:06
that are similar to that, and he talks about Baker does a need for
1:43:12
a federal fix as opposed to a state fix. And then Charles Bartley comes
1:43:17
in and totally craps all over Baker and really in a very populous way,
1:43:26
and I'm sure a very popular way, says, hey, you know,
1:43:29
we don't need the politicians doing this, because the politicians are all bad people,
1:43:32
and this has got to come from the NCAA. There's got to be
1:43:35
a commission. And he comes up with his theory on how to handle this
1:43:39
problem. Well, I want to play for you the clip, and then
1:43:42
I explain how Charles has this totally wrong and why Baker kind of had his
1:43:46
hands tied and being able to tell the real truth of what was actually happening.
1:43:50
And here was what that sounded like on CBS last weekend. But I
1:43:55
think the other thing I would speak to specifically is trying to create some what
1:43:58
I would call consumer tections for families and student athletes around name, image and
1:44:03
likeness, which one of the ads referred to is the only thing that's true
1:44:08
about it at this point is everybody lies. So I would love to create
1:44:12
some transparency and accountability around that so the families actually know what they're getting into.
1:44:17
And I would really like to see some sort of uniform standard contracts so
1:44:20
that when somebody signs it, they know they're signing the same kind of agreement
1:44:25
everybody else's sign it. And in that along those lines, how do you
1:44:30
anticipate that being done and accomplished going forward. Well, there's a couple of
1:44:34
opportunities there. One is, obviously we're going to talk some with the folks
1:44:38
in Washington about this, and there's a fair amount of appetite to try to
1:44:42
deal with this. They've been hearing from a lot of the same people I've
1:44:45
been hearing from. But I think it's incumbent on the NCAA to also develop
1:44:48
a program that we believe we could implement if the Feds can't actually put something
1:44:55
together on their own. The only problem with it is EDGs do it off
1:45:00
fifty states comply. If we do it, we have to perhaps nudge some
1:45:04
states in their collegiate programs into participating visa. They may have state laws that
1:45:10
don't require that they play. Chuck is shaking your head. Did he say
1:45:15
we're gonna ask the politicians to help us? See? That pisses me off
1:45:18
already. Our politicians are awful people. As I talked to Clark earlier,
1:45:24
because I asked him about y'all conversation, I would ask the go to people
1:45:27
who ask to care about basketball not looking at it. Justin said I would
1:45:30
put a committee together. I would love for Clark to be on the committee.
1:45:33
Get some coaches, get some players, and let's try to work this
1:45:36
thing out. We can't ask these politicians nothing. Those people are awful people.
1:45:41
Democrats and republic They by all crooks. Now, when I saw that,
1:45:45
I was very frustrated, because again, Charles has Charles Barkley has a
1:45:48
lot of power, a lot of influence, and he's got the right gut
1:45:53
and he's on the right side of the issue in general. But what he's
1:45:56
not understanding is that what Charlie Baker was trying to say, but I think
1:46:00
he was afraid to say it because he's a former Republican governor and he didn't
1:46:04
want to make this into a political issue. Is that he's really talking about
1:46:08
Gavin Newsom here in California. That's the key to this whole thing. When
1:46:13
Charlie Baker says there are states that may not play along with us, he's
1:46:17
talking about California. In fact, he's really only talking about one guy,
1:46:23
Gavin Newsom. The media has not told you this story. I tried to
1:46:27
write a bar did write about it for Mediaite, but it didn't get any
1:46:30
traction. But it was basically California and Gavin Newsom that caused this entire issue
1:46:38
to go in the direction that it did, because California passed a law effectively
1:46:43
making it legal if you're a California school to essentially pay student athletes whatever you
1:46:48
want to pay them. And once that happened, it completely changed the political
1:46:54
dynamic because the rest of the country went, holy crap, how can we
1:46:58
possibly compete with California. I mean, USC is gonna win everything because everyone's
1:47:03
gonna want to go to USC because at USC you get to go to USC,
1:47:06
you get the girls, you get the sun, and you get to
1:47:10
get paid. There's no way that we can compete with that, and so
1:47:14
then everybody else was gonna jump on board with the same thing, and the
1:47:16
nc DOUBLEA lost all its leverage. By the way, the nc DOUBA has
1:47:20
very little leverage because it doesn't even especially in football, doesn't even really run
1:47:25
football, doesn't get any of the football money. The only get really runs
1:47:29
it matters is the NCUBA basketball tournament. That's where it gets all its money.
1:47:31
And they lost an entire tournament to COVID, and they lost essentially a
1:47:34
second tournament to COVID in twenty twenty one. And so the NZ DOABLEA is
1:47:40
in a very debilitated situation politically, And so what Charlie Baker is saying is,
1:47:45
look, if we're gonna do this, it has to come from federal
1:47:49
legislation. This reminds me kind of my philosophy on Ron de Santis conservatism,
1:47:54
where you've got to pass laws. Even though I'm a libertarian, I hate
1:47:57
that it's gotten so out of hand. It's the only option you have is
1:48:01
federal legislation, so that you have everybody planning under the same rules, and
1:48:06
California can't go rogue and create their own rules for themselves because that's how big
1:48:15
California is. That's how powerful California is, and how the competitive balance can
1:48:19
be so shifted by one asshole, Gavin Newsom deciding that in his world,
1:48:27
it's unfair for student athletes not to get paid, and it's somehow a civil
1:48:31
rights issue. That's what's really killed this whole thing. Somehow nil and paying
1:48:36
student athletes became a civil rights issue because, let's face it, the two
1:48:40
most popular sports are football and basketball, and most of the major college players
1:48:45
in both of those sports happen to be black, and so therefore it's inherently
1:48:48
racist to not pay them. And the key issue here is whether or not
1:48:53
student athletes are going to be considered employees, and there are some court cases
1:48:58
that are pending revolving around that, which I think is also partially why Charlie
1:49:01
Baker needs federal legislation, because if in fact, courts hold that student athletes
1:49:06
are employees, stick a fork in college sports forever forever. The NC double
1:49:15
A is done at that point, and college sports as we know it,
1:49:20
in my opinion, is completely done. It's already completely done in my opinion,
1:49:25
in all likelihood, but at least at this moment, it's still somewhat
1:49:28
salvageable, and I'm not against paying student athletes anything. In fact, I
1:49:33
think there are ways to do this. I think you could create funds that
1:49:39
every letterman on a particular sport gets access to, kind of like a pension
1:49:45
fund, where they get paid well after they're out of college. That would
1:49:50
make sense. And you've got to pay everyone equally, because as soon as
1:49:54
you start paying the stars more than the non stars, then the whole system
1:49:59
breaks down. But there are all sorts of ways that people could be compensated
1:50:03
for their benefit to the university. But it should be done in a way
1:50:11
that's rational and equal and doesn't destroy the essence of the sport and the essence
1:50:17
of student athletes, which we are so far gone on. I mean,
1:50:20
the combination of paying college athletes and allowing them to transfer to any school at
1:50:29
any time on a drop of a dime is so insane. I mean it's
1:50:33
at least in professional sports, you've got contracts and there are only certain windows
1:50:39
when people can change teams unless they're traded. In college sports, I don't
1:50:45
know how anyone can possibly coach college sports anymore. You have absolutely no authority,
1:50:49
no leverage, no power, no, nothing. Heck, you can't
1:50:53
even yell at a kid anymore. You never could even before this, because
1:50:57
you get fired if you ever were. That's why there's no Bobby Knights anymore.
1:51:01
I mean that, I mean it's the power structure is all screwed up.
1:51:05
But because now they can transfer whenever they want if they're a good enough
1:51:10
player. So it's not a surprise that people like Jay Wright and Mike Shashevsky
1:51:15
and some others have decided to know what I'm done, I'm out of this.
1:51:19
I think that's going to happen more and more, especially if it doesn't
1:51:21
get fixed. And Charles Barkley could be a great voice in getting it fixed,
1:51:27
and he doesn't understand the basics of the issue. And I hope Charlie
1:51:31
Baker will have a conversation with Charles Barkley, because I really think Barkley could
1:51:34
get it. But this idea of all pologists and suck, well, no
1:51:40
they do. But you know there's one poloiticisan that sucks way worse than everybody
1:51:44
else and who's causing the problem. And his name is Gavin Newsom. And
1:51:47
that's where the focus ought to because unless you deal with Gavin Newsom in California.
1:51:51
You can't fix the problem, and so that'll do it. For an
1:51:56
episode number forty five of the Death of Journalism Podcast. Again, I hate
1:52:00
making promises I can't keep, but I intend in episode forty six now as
1:52:05
I keep postponing this to get into my deep dive on the different scenarios and
1:52:11
what I think is likely to happen in the Republican in twenty twenty four nominating
1:52:15
process. But who knows the way things are going in this new cycle,
1:52:17
there could be something big to talk about between now and then. Until then,
1:52:20
though, thanks so much for listening. Please remember to subscribe, rate,
1:52:25
and review this podcast, and share it with others. If you share
1:52:28
it on social media, I'll be happy to share it with my followers as
1:52:30
well. And until next time, my name is John Ziegler. This has
1:52:34
been the Death of Journalism podcast