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Episode Two Hundred Eight: Legacy · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number two hundred and eight of the
0:02
Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
0:05
Speaker 1: your host of Today Show. Netflix hosts one of the
0:08
Speaker 1: biggest TV events of the year, and it's pretty much
0:11
Speaker 1: a disaster. Trump fills out key positions in his proposed
0:15
Speaker 1: second administration, and there are some problems, and the liberal
0:19
Speaker 1: cable news networks are officially in collapse after the election,
0:24
Speaker 1: with MSNBC's Morning Joe seemingly waiving the white flag to
0:29
Speaker 1: a man who's supposedly Hitler. One of the many elements
0:35
Speaker 1: of our culture that I constantly lament in this highly
0:40
Speaker 1: fragmented modern media era is the almost total loss of
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Speaker 1: communal moments or events. I always say that television in
0:50
Speaker 1: its heyday was the greatest uniter of this country that
0:55
Speaker 1: we've probably ever had in the media. This would be
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Speaker 1: the sixties to seventies and the eighties ease, and then
1:01
Speaker 1: ever since the cable explosion of the nineteen nineties and
1:05
Speaker 1: then the advent of the Internet now streaming and everything else,
1:08
Speaker 1: television has become a great divider. We are so fragmented
1:13
Speaker 1: that there are very very few things that we all
1:15
Speaker 1: share in common.
1:17
Speaker 2: The Super Bowl generally.
1:19
Speaker 1: Almost uniquely now is the one event every year where
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Speaker 1: basically every American or almost every American has some semblance
1:29
Speaker 1: of at least knowledge that's going on and probably actually
1:32
Speaker 1: watched at least part of the game, although even the
1:35
Speaker 1: Super Bowl doesn't in a country of well over three
1:37
Speaker 1: hundred million people ever get anywhere close to even half
1:42
Speaker 1: of the nation's population. Even Election Night doesn't do that,
1:46
Speaker 1: and of course that only comes around in a presidential
1:48
Speaker 1: election every four years. So when one of these communal
1:52
Speaker 1: events happens in this day and age, I'm particularly interested,
1:56
Speaker 1: and I think we can tell an awful lot about
1:59
Speaker 1: our societ and our culture from what drives them. Well,
2:03
Speaker 1: we had one of those this past weekend, and it
2:06
Speaker 1: was maybe the strangest communal moment at least in a
2:11
Speaker 1: very very long.
2:11
Speaker 2: Period of time. And I think I have a lot
2:16
Speaker 2: of thoughts.
2:17
Speaker 1: About what happened over the weekend with regard to Netflix
2:20
Speaker 1: and this much publicized I guess you would call it
2:23
Speaker 1: boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, And you know,
2:30
Speaker 1: I anticipated that this was going to be a big
2:32
Speaker 1: deal because it was obvious that it appealed to a
2:36
Speaker 1: lot of what.
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Speaker 2: Our culture has become.
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Speaker 1: There was a generational aspect to it, obviously, older people
2:43
Speaker 1: remembering who Mike Tyson was, and Jake Paul being this
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Speaker 1: young guy who's a popular YouTuber who became I guess
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Speaker 1: somewhat of a professional boxer at least credible enough to
2:56
Speaker 1: be taken seriously. And you know, you also had a
3:00
Speaker 1: black man versus a white thing, although thankfully the black
3:03
Speaker 1: white thing didn't really become a major part of it,
3:06
Speaker 1: but you know, maybe subconsciously that played a role. But
3:10
Speaker 1: mostly this had to do with the idea that Mike Tyson,
3:15
Speaker 1: a product of the nineteen eighties, is a huge celebrity.
3:19
Speaker 2: Now he's a bizarre celebrity because of.
3:22
Speaker 1: The track that his life and career has taken, including
3:26
Speaker 1: enduring a rape conviction that sent him to prison. Prison
3:30
Speaker 1: for an extended period of time. We've seemingly completely forgotten
3:33
Speaker 1: about that. I mean, that's one of the more amazing
3:35
Speaker 1: elements of the Mike Tyson persona and narrative, especially post
3:40
Speaker 1: Me Too. I mean, you would have thought that any
3:43
Speaker 1: chance of Mike Tyson making a cultural icon type of
3:47
Speaker 1: comeback would have ended with Me Too. But he just
3:50
Speaker 1: got a meet to exemption and we just forget about
3:53
Speaker 1: never even mentioned his rape conviction. By the way, I
3:56
Speaker 1: don't know one hundred percent that Mike Tyson was actually
4:00
Speaker 1: guilty of that charge, but he was found guilty, and
4:03
Speaker 1: I know, based upon the rules that have been created
4:05
Speaker 1: for society, that's supposed to be a death sentence, but
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Speaker 1: it's not because of the unique circumstances surrounding Mike Tyson,
4:12
Speaker 1: one of those being his massive celebrity. But even though
4:16
Speaker 1: I saw that this could be a very popular event,
4:19
Speaker 1: I was taken by surprise by just how big a
4:22
Speaker 1: deal this was. It turns out that at least sixty
4:27
Speaker 1: million households households that we don't even know how many
4:31
Speaker 1: people because this was not gauged or recorded in a
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Speaker 1: normal television ratings sort of situation like with the Super Bowl,
4:41
Speaker 1: we generally know, although I don't I never figured out
4:44
Speaker 1: how they know this, but they at least pretend to
4:46
Speaker 1: know how many people actually watched. But this Netflix apparently
4:50
Speaker 1: can only determine how many households, so it's obviously way
4:54
Speaker 1: more than sixty million or sixty five million households. Regardless
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Speaker 1: of what the number is, it was a massive number
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Speaker 1: by today's standards, not quite super Bowl level, but in
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Speaker 1: that realm, in that realm, and.
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Speaker 2: So I was taken aback by this.
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Speaker 3: Again.
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Speaker 1: I knew it would be a big deal. I didn't
5:13
Speaker 1: think it was going to be this big of a deal.
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Speaker 1: And I do think that it's mostly a testament to
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Speaker 1: one how desperate we are for something new, exciting, something
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Speaker 1: we've never seen before, something.
5:25
Speaker 2: That we can relate to. There were a lot of
5:28
Speaker 2: people who.
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Speaker 1: Were very invested in the idea that Mike Tyson would
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Speaker 1: beat up this young punk and show this younger generation
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Speaker 1: what it's really all about. Then there were other people
5:39
Speaker 1: who were more realistic, who thought, well, wait a minute,
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Speaker 1: Mike Tyson is fifty eight years old, and it's amazing
5:45
Speaker 1: to be so much about this as remarkable. But one
5:48
Speaker 1: of the more amazing elements of this whole situation was
5:51
Speaker 1: that nineteen years ago Mike Tyson told the world that
5:56
Speaker 1: he was done in very uncertain terms, he had nothing
5:59
Speaker 1: left and that he was retiring. He didn't have the
6:02
Speaker 1: eye of the tiger anymore, he didn't have the guts anymore.
6:06
Speaker 2: Nineteen years ago. Now, how in the world, you.
6:10
Speaker 1: Know, somehow find that nineteen years later, at the age
6:14
Speaker 1: of fifty eight in an endeavor like boxing is just
6:18
Speaker 1: beyond my comprehension.
6:20
Speaker 2: It's not possible. But people forget.
6:23
Speaker 1: Our memories are incredibly short, incredibly short. We forget about
6:28
Speaker 1: this stuff all the time, where something will be the case,
6:33
Speaker 1: like I think we're going to see that with Trump
6:35
Speaker 1: two point zero. There's a lot of comparisons be made
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Speaker 1: between Mike Tyson and Donald Trump. In fact, they were
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Speaker 1: connected through a large portion of Mike Tyson's first career
6:45
Speaker 1: as an actual boxer, where many of his big events
6:47
Speaker 1: were hosted by Donald Trump. And I think with Trump
6:51
Speaker 1: there's the same phenomenon that we just forget how bad
6:55
Speaker 1: things were at times, how awful he is at times
6:59
Speaker 1: at this and you know, over time, I always say
7:02
Speaker 1: this about family vacations, if we had to take them
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Speaker 1: more often than once a year, we would never take
7:08
Speaker 1: them because people would remember how awful they are. Well,
7:11
Speaker 1: you see that with Trump and the optimism with regard
7:14
Speaker 1: to Trump two point zero, and you really see it
7:16
Speaker 1: with regard to Mike Tyson, like who's going to get.
7:19
Speaker 2: Better at the age of fifty eight?
7:22
Speaker 1: And somehow suddenly, when you've already acknowledged you're done nineteen
7:26
Speaker 1: years ago, that you're going to be even a remote
7:29
Speaker 1: figment of what you used to be. It's just ridiculous,
7:33
Speaker 1: it's absurd, it's impossible. We see them, by the way,
7:37
Speaker 1: the same thing with Tiger Woods every single time Tiger
7:40
Speaker 1: Woods makes a comeback, and that's an endeavor golf, which
7:43
Speaker 1: obviously is much more mental.
7:46
Speaker 2: And then there theoretically, you know.
7:48
Speaker 1: We've seen flashes of where older men have done very
7:51
Speaker 1: very well in major championships, and so we fool ourselves
7:54
Speaker 1: to the thinking I don't anymore.
7:57
Speaker 2: But you know, a lot of Tiger.
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Speaker 1: Fans will believe the same thing that Mike Tyson fans
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Speaker 1: believed about Mike Tyson, that somehow, you know, he's rested
8:05
Speaker 1: up to now and he's going to get it all
8:07
Speaker 1: together and the old Tiger will come back at least
8:10
Speaker 1: for one great last hurrah, one great week, one more
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Speaker 1: major championship, and it's just not going to happen, because you.
8:17
Speaker 2: Don't get better when you're not playing.
8:20
Speaker 1: Tiger can't play enough to ever even theoretically, not to
8:24
Speaker 1: mention his body's broken down, to ever get anything close
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Speaker 1: to the level he would need to be at to
8:30
Speaker 1: compete in a major championship. Well, it's very similar to
8:34
Speaker 1: the situation involving Mike Tyson. You're not going to suddenly
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Speaker 1: return to your past glory at fifty eight years old,
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Speaker 1: nineteen years after you've.
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Speaker 2: Told the world I'm totally and completely done. But people
8:48
Speaker 2: are really, really.
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Speaker 1: Willing and desirous to buy into this kind of narrative.
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Speaker 2: It's nostalgia.
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Speaker 1: It's everyone wanting to not believe that they're too I mean,
9:01
Speaker 1: it's a very enticing idea. I mean very and I
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Speaker 1: feel it as well as a fifty seven year old.
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Speaker 1: You want to believe that somehow the past isn't the past,
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Speaker 1: that you know, the nineteen eighties really weren't that long ago,
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Speaker 1: that an old man can still bring it one last
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Speaker 1: time and can show this much younger man how it's done.
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Speaker 2: That I get it. I understand why a lot of
9:25
Speaker 2: people bought into that.
9:26
Speaker 1: By the way, I saw a lot of younger people
9:28
Speaker 1: buying into that. That was what was most shocking to
9:31
Speaker 1: me is that, based upon social media posts, there were
9:34
Speaker 1: a lot of younger people, especially younger women for some
9:37
Speaker 1: reason that I saw that were openly rooting for Mike
9:41
Speaker 1: Tyson to beat the crap out of Jake Paul. My wife,
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Speaker 1: who has no interest in boxing, never shown any indication
9:48
Speaker 1: of being a Mike Tyson fan. Doesn't really even know
9:50
Speaker 1: who Jake Paul is other than what she's heard from
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Speaker 1: our twelve year old daughter, Grace, who's watched him on YouTube,
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Speaker 1: and she was very in vested in the idea that
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Speaker 1: Mike Tyson could beat Jake Paul. Was very much rooting
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Speaker 1: for him to beat the crap out of Jake Paul.
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Speaker 1: I think as kind of this, this generational divide situation,
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Speaker 1: showing this younger generation whose boss, I really think.
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Speaker 2: That drove a lot of this.
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Speaker 1: There's a lot of understandable and I talk about it
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Speaker 1: all the time angst. There's always generational angst, but I
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Speaker 1: think the generational divide is greater in this particular era
10:29
Speaker 1: than it never has been before. And I think that
10:33
Speaker 1: drove at least part of what was going on with
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Speaker 1: regard to people desirous of seeing Mike Tyson beat the
10:39
Speaker 1: crap out.
10:40
Speaker 2: Of Jake Paul.
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Speaker 1: I want to play a clip from Mike Tyson for
10:45
Speaker 1: a couple of different reasons. This is before the fight,
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Speaker 1: and one, this is just a hilarious situation, and it
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Speaker 1: also exposes just how teflon Mike Tyson has become because
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Speaker 1: I would suggest that if someone who did not have
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Speaker 1: as much PC protection as Mike Tyson, for some reason
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Speaker 1: does forget about the rape conviction, that if you took
11:12
Speaker 1: someone who did not was not like Trump and was
11:15
Speaker 1: not already immune to every and all virus, that this
11:19
Speaker 1: interview would have been very, very, very problematic because it's
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Speaker 1: an interview that Tyson did a couple of days before
11:26
Speaker 1: the fight with a very young girl about ten years old.
11:30
Speaker 1: She happens to be a black girl who was interviewing
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Speaker 1: him about his legacy, which you would think would be
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Speaker 1: a nothing burger interview, but Tyson basically went off, and
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Speaker 1: the girl handled it in an absolutely extraordinarily positive way,
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Speaker 1: considering the fact that she's never done this before.
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Speaker 2: She's a young girl.
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Speaker 1: She's interviewing Mike Tyson, and Mike Tyson goes on a
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Speaker 1: diatribe about how we're all going to die and that
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Speaker 1: our legacy doesn't matter and we're all going to be dust,
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Speaker 1: and you know, I think the fact that the girl
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Speaker 1: handled it so well kind of saved Tyson. Also what
12:08
Speaker 1: saved Tyson was the idea that people bought into the
12:11
Speaker 1: notion that this was Tyson being mentally prepared for the fight,
12:16
Speaker 1: that he had the eye of the tiger, that he
12:18
Speaker 1: was so focused it doesn't give a crap about anything,
12:21
Speaker 1: and this was an indication that Jake Paul was really
12:24
Speaker 1: in for a rough night. Well, I get why people
12:28
Speaker 1: interpreted this clip that way at the time, but I
12:31
Speaker 1: would like you to listen to this through the prism
12:35
Speaker 1: and the context of what we now know, which was
12:38
Speaker 1: that Mike Tyson brought nothing to the fight, lost, should
12:43
Speaker 1: have easily been knocked out, and probably knew he never
12:47
Speaker 1: had a chance to win this fight. Because I now
12:49
Speaker 1: look at this clip very, very differently, and I think
12:52
Speaker 1: it's consistent with the guy who was actually talking about
12:55
Speaker 1: himself and realizing that he's going to destroy at least
12:59
Speaker 1: part of his legacy, but he's doing so for twenty
13:01
Speaker 1: million dollars or more, and that that's a good deal because,
13:05
Speaker 1: after all, as he's rationalizing to himself in this clip,
13:10
Speaker 1: no one cares about legacy because I'll be dead soon
13:13
Speaker 1: and I don't care what people think after that, and
13:15
Speaker 1: so therefore this sellout that I'm engaging in makes sense.
13:20
Speaker 1: That's at least my interpretation, I'm not positive that's what's
13:24
Speaker 1: really going on here, but it certainly makes a lot
13:25
Speaker 1: more sense now in retrospect after we know how the
13:28
Speaker 1: fight went down. So for a couple different reasons, here
13:31
Speaker 1: is Mike Tyson before the Jake Paul fight telling a
13:35
Speaker 1: young girl interviewing him that legacy doesn't matter because we're
13:39
Speaker 1: all gonna die.
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Speaker 4: Well, in your return to the ring for this fight,
13:44
Speaker 4: you are setting a monumental opportunity for kids my age
13:47
Speaker 4: to see the legend Mike Tyson in the ring for
13:50
Speaker 4: the first time. What type of legacy would you like
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Speaker 4: to leave behind when it's all set and done.
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Speaker 5: Well, I don't know. I don't believe in the word legacy.
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Speaker 5: I think that's another word for ego. That's just some
13:59
Speaker 5: word body grabbed onto and I was used every five seconds.
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Speaker 5: It means absolutely nothing to me. I'm just passing through.
14:05
Speaker 5: I'm gonna die and it's gonna be over. Who cared
14:09
Speaker 5: about legacy after that? With a big eagle, So I'm
14:13
Speaker 5: gonna die. I want people to think that I'm this,
14:15
Speaker 5: I'm great, I'm no ware nothing where you're dead with dust,
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Speaker 5: absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing.
14:24
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, so much for sharing that. That is
14:26
Speaker 4: something that I have not heard before someone say that
14:28
Speaker 4: as an answered.
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Speaker 5: Can you really imagine somebody saying, I want my legacy
14:32
Speaker 5: to be this way when I get dead? You think
14:34
Speaker 5: I really want to think about you? I want people
14:36
Speaker 5: to think about me when I'm gone. Who the fuck
14:38
Speaker 5: cared about me when I'm gone?
14:41
Speaker 1: Now, as it turned out, in my opinion, at least,
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Speaker 1: the Mike Tyson legacy in a rational world absolutely did
14:49
Speaker 1: take a hit, and that Tyson probably knew it was
14:52
Speaker 1: gonna take a hit, because our last memories of Mike
14:56
Speaker 1: Tyson are pathetic.
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Speaker 2: This fight was a joke, and.
15:02
Speaker 1: There were signs that it was going to be a
15:05
Speaker 1: joke in the lead up to this whole situation. There
15:10
Speaker 1: was a you know, a now infamous interview I guess
15:13
Speaker 1: you would call it that that Tyson did with his
15:15
Speaker 1: son before the broadcast.
15:17
Speaker 2: By the way, let me just say that the.
15:19
Speaker 1: The Netflix broadcast was absolutely horrific in every possible way.
15:24
Speaker 1: The announcers were terrible. There were all sorts of problems
15:28
Speaker 1: with the streaming. You know that Netflix claimed was actually
15:32
Speaker 1: an indication of how successful the event was. No, I'm sorry,
15:37
Speaker 1: I mean you have one job as a streaming service,
15:41
Speaker 1: and that is to make sure that the streaming is work.
15:44
Speaker 1: And you know, other than that, Missus Lincoln, how was
15:46
Speaker 1: the play? They didn't do their number one job. But
15:49
Speaker 1: the whole thing was amateur hour. The announcers are terrible. Somehow,
15:53
Speaker 1: Rosie Perez was on the broadcast. I have no idea
15:56
Speaker 1: why that was the case. But they had Tyson's on
16:01
Speaker 1: interview him before the fight.
16:03
Speaker 2: And it's a very short brief interview I guess you
16:06
Speaker 2: would call it.
16:06
Speaker 1: And Tyson walks away and his bare butt is exposed
16:13
Speaker 1: to tens and tens of millions of people, and my
16:18
Speaker 1: wife immediately says to me, after seeing, you know, Mike
16:22
Speaker 1: Tyson's fifty eight year old but that she had changed
16:26
Speaker 1: her mind about who was going to win the fight.
16:28
Speaker 1: She had been convinced that Tyson was gonna win, but
16:31
Speaker 1: she saw the old man butt and she thought, oh, okay,
16:35
Speaker 1: he might not be ready for this, And as it
16:38
Speaker 1: turned out, she was right. There was another, I think
16:41
Speaker 1: even more significant red flag just before the fight began
16:47
Speaker 1: that should have had people rushing to bet on Jake Paul.
16:52
Speaker 1: And that was when Tyson came out. He kind of stumbled,
16:56
Speaker 1: first of all, but he was wearing a knee brace
17:00
Speaker 1: that to my knowledge, no one had ever seen him
17:03
Speaker 1: where before, and he even struggled to get into the ring,
17:09
Speaker 1: and it became very obvious very early on, at least
17:12
Speaker 1: to me. And frankly, the only element of the broadcast
17:16
Speaker 1: that was I thought top notch was that the color
17:19
Speaker 1: commentator immediately recognized that the knee was a problem for Tyson,
17:25
Speaker 1: that he had no mobility, and without no mobility, he
17:29
Speaker 1: was a sitting duck.
17:30
Speaker 2: And I completely agree with that.
17:32
Speaker 1: It's my theory as to what really happened here that
17:36
Speaker 1: Tyson must have injured his knee sometime in the lead
17:42
Speaker 1: up to the fight, who knows when, could have been
17:44
Speaker 1: a day before, a week before, whatever, but didn't want
17:47
Speaker 1: to cancel for a second time. You can't cancel a
17:51
Speaker 1: second time. This thing was originally scheduled for the summertime.
17:55
Speaker 1: It got canceled because Tyson had a very serious illness.
17:58
Speaker 1: And so if he cancels the second time at the
18:01
Speaker 1: age of fifty eight, the entire event is in grave jeopardy.
18:06
Speaker 2: You get one, you know, mulligan.
18:08
Speaker 1: I don't think you get two mulligans for people to
18:11
Speaker 1: build this whole thing up, and especially if it's very
18:14
Speaker 1: late in the build up process, Tyson may have felt like,
18:17
Speaker 1: you know what, I got to go ahead with this,
18:19
Speaker 1: maybe I can work through it. But without any mobility,
18:22
Speaker 1: he couldn't get in close enough to.
18:24
Speaker 2: Paul to do any damage.
18:26
Speaker 1: And he also couldn't avoid a situation where if he
18:29
Speaker 1: did try to attack and it didn't work and Paul
18:34
Speaker 1: hit him with a good shot, he was going to
18:35
Speaker 1: topple over because he had no real balance.
18:39
Speaker 2: So instead it looked like he was very content to
18:42
Speaker 2: just not.
18:42
Speaker 1: Get knocked out and Paul it was very obvious to
18:47
Speaker 1: me realize this, certainly by the third round of the fight,
18:51
Speaker 1: that this was over, that Tyson had nothing, that there
18:55
Speaker 1: was no threat, especially when they were using these big
18:59
Speaker 1: glows which very much softened and he blows. So the
19:03
Speaker 1: idea that Tyson could land one last great punch and
19:07
Speaker 1: knock out Paul that was.
19:08
Speaker 2: Never going to happen. But if he got into a
19:10
Speaker 2: position to do so.
19:12
Speaker 1: And you know, the most ridiculous part of the whole
19:15
Speaker 1: thing was this eight round fight of two minute rounds,
19:19
Speaker 1: so you only have sixteen minutes.
19:21
Speaker 2: Of actual alleged boxing.
19:24
Speaker 1: The last ten seconds of which was Paul bowing to
19:30
Speaker 1: Tyson and Tyson not even responding.
19:34
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just pathetic. It was sad.
19:37
Speaker 1: It was obvious that Paul realized that Tyson had absolutely
19:42
Speaker 1: nothing and just didn't want to humiliate him, although even
19:46
Speaker 1: in trying to respect him, to me, it was actually disrespectful.
19:51
Speaker 2: I mean, Tyson was such.
19:52
Speaker 1: A warrior in his prime that, you know, taking it
19:56
Speaker 1: that easy on him and bowing to him while there's
19:59
Speaker 1: still time less on the clock, I thought was actually disrespectful.
20:04
Speaker 1: I don't know that was whether or not whether that
20:07
Speaker 1: was what Paul was intending to be the message, but
20:11
Speaker 1: that was certainly the.
20:12
Speaker 2: Message at the end of the fight, and it was
20:13
Speaker 2: also the.
20:14
Speaker 1: Message in the post fight press conference because Paul made
20:21
Speaker 1: it very clear this is very to me, very telling
20:25
Speaker 1: about what really did and did not.
20:27
Speaker 2: Happen in this whole circumstance.
20:29
Speaker 1: There's a ton of conspiracy theories out there which I
20:33
Speaker 1: can't stand in general, and in this case in particular,
20:36
Speaker 1: I think are kind of looney tunes. Most of them
20:40
Speaker 1: are trying to come up with explanations for why Tyson
20:44
Speaker 1: didn't really compete, didn't really have anything. There's a huge
20:48
Speaker 1: market for giving Tyson fans some explanation for why their
20:54
Speaker 1: hero scammed them, duped everybody into believing that this could
20:59
Speaker 1: be a real fight, when in fact it wasn't. So
21:02
Speaker 1: there's theories about the nature of the contract and all
21:07
Speaker 1: sorts of things for which I have seen absolutely no
21:10
Speaker 1: evidence and for which there is no logic whatsoever. Because one,
21:16
Speaker 1: if this thing was scripted, this would not have been
21:19
Speaker 1: the script.
21:20
Speaker 2: This was an incredibly boring event. It was dull. It
21:26
Speaker 2: was really not exciting at all.
21:28
Speaker 1: So if you were going to script something, it would
21:30
Speaker 1: have help been a hell of a lot more interesting
21:32
Speaker 1: than this was. Number Two, if in fact there was
21:37
Speaker 1: some sort of contractual restrictions on what Tyson under Paul
21:42
Speaker 1: were allowed to do, I submit to you that Paul
21:46
Speaker 1: would never, in the post fight press conference have responded
21:51
Speaker 1: to the question did you take.
21:53
Speaker 2: It easy on Tyson in this way?
21:56
Speaker 1: Because he would be opening up a massive Pandora's box
22:00
Speaker 1: and give Tyson all sorts of incentive to spill the
22:05
Speaker 1: beans on why it is that he didn't fight a
22:10
Speaker 1: decent fight. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever if this
22:13
Speaker 1: had been somehow scripted, which again no evidence it was
22:17
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense that it was in any shape
22:20
Speaker 1: or form, in my opinion, But you would never if
22:24
Speaker 1: you were Jake. Paul stir things up by, in my opinion,
22:30
Speaker 1: a very very disrespectful fashion. Although I think this is
22:34
Speaker 1: an accurate statement by Paul where he acknowledges yet I
22:39
Speaker 1: took it easy on Tyson because it was obvious that
22:41
Speaker 1: he had nothing, and I didn't want to embarrass him.
22:44
Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like.
22:46
Speaker 6: I wanted to give the fans a show, but I
22:49
Speaker 6: didn't want to hurt someone that didn't need to be hurt.
22:53
Speaker 6: There was a point where, you know, I was just like, Okay,
22:56
Speaker 6: he's not really engaging back, and so I don't know
23:01
Speaker 6: if he's tired or whatever. And I could just tell,
23:03
Speaker 6: you know, his age was showing a little bit, and
23:06
Speaker 6: I just have so much respect for him, and that
23:10
Speaker 6: like violence war thing between us, Like after he slapped me,
23:13
Speaker 6: I wanted to, you know, be aggressive and take him
23:17
Speaker 6: down and knock him out and all that stuff, but
23:20
Speaker 6: that kind of went away as the rounds went on.
23:23
Speaker 1: I believe Paul when he says that, I also believe
23:27
Speaker 1: that that ends any idea that there was some sort
23:29
Speaker 1: of massive conspiracy here or some sort of a staging.
23:35
Speaker 2: I'm an Ockham's razor guy.
23:37
Speaker 1: Tyson was too old, his knee was too hurt, he
23:41
Speaker 1: had nothing. Paul didn't want to embarrass him in the ring,
23:44
Speaker 1: but also didn't want people to think that he didn't
23:47
Speaker 1: have the capability of knocking out a fifty eight year
23:50
Speaker 1: old man who was hobbled, and so he gave that
23:54
Speaker 1: answer at the press conference, which, if it was inaccurate.
23:59
Speaker 1: Tyson would have responded rather dramatically by now, and he
24:04
Speaker 1: has not. There's been no response at all to that
24:08
Speaker 1: from Tyson. Tyson actually did tweet out that, you know,
24:12
Speaker 1: he was happy to have taken part in the event,
24:15
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and that was it.
24:17
Speaker 2: So to me, this was a scam.
24:20
Speaker 1: This whole thing was a brilliant marketing scam.
24:24
Speaker 2: There was no legitimate fight.
24:26
Speaker 1: Most people were very disappointed with the event, not just
24:30
Speaker 1: from the boxing perspective, but also the fact that the
24:33
Speaker 1: streaming for Netflix did not work. But in the bigger
24:37
Speaker 1: picture of all this, in the bigger picture, I felt sad.
24:42
Speaker 1: I felt sad for what Mike Tyson had been and
24:46
Speaker 1: seeing this punk, this YouTuber bowing to him, in the
24:50
Speaker 1: final seconds of what is likely Tyson's, hopefully Tyson's last fight,
24:54
Speaker 1: although he's claiming bizarrely that it might not be. I
24:58
Speaker 1: don't think he could pull off this kind of a
25:00
Speaker 1: scam again. I think this was a one shot deal.
25:04
Speaker 1: But it was sad, not just for Tyson, but for
25:06
Speaker 1: our culture and our sports and what we have become.
25:12
Speaker 1: I mean, this is what constitutes a major event now
25:17
Speaker 1: in our culture, this kind of contrived bullshit. I mean,
25:22
Speaker 1: we used to be a proper country. I mean, boxing
25:25
Speaker 1: itself used to be a major, legitimate sport with giants, kings, champions,
25:34
Speaker 1: and Tyson was at the very, very very end of
25:37
Speaker 1: that era and now it's gone. I mean, this was
25:42
Speaker 1: as much of a joke as it gets. You know,
25:45
Speaker 1: it reminded me, and I think it's an indication of
25:47
Speaker 1: how much our culture has.
25:49
Speaker 2: Changed, although not completely changed.
25:52
Speaker 1: This reminded me of something that happened several decades ago
25:57
Speaker 1: between my old friend, the late great Frank Harris and
26:01
Speaker 1: the legendary NFL running back Jim Brown. I don't know
26:04
Speaker 1: how many people remember this, but Jim Brown, many years
26:08
Speaker 1: after retiring early, had made murmurs that he would come
26:13
Speaker 1: out of retirement, and in fact, even was on the
26:16
Speaker 1: cover of Sports Illustrated back when that really mattered, wearing
26:19
Speaker 1: an Oakland Raiders jersey as if in his forties he
26:22
Speaker 1: was going to come back to the National Football League
26:26
Speaker 1: and as part of that effort to stir up I
26:30
Speaker 1: don't know what the motivation was. I don't know if
26:32
Speaker 1: it was just attention or money, or ego or all
26:36
Speaker 1: of them combined. I don't know, but Jim Brown and
26:39
Speaker 1: Frank o'harris engaged in this made for television event where
26:44
Speaker 1: they were competing against each other in all sorts of
26:47
Speaker 1: skills and it ended with a forty yard dash. I
26:52
Speaker 1: think I can't remember for sure if the forty yard
26:54
Speaker 1: dash was the only event or whether there were others involved,
26:58
Speaker 1: but regardless, it was a disaster for the old man
27:02
Speaker 1: because he ended up pulling a hamstring. And you know,
27:06
Speaker 1: Jim Brown never actually was signed by another NFL team,
27:10
Speaker 1: and the whole thing just sort of went away.
27:12
Speaker 2: But it was seen as a joke.
27:15
Speaker 1: You know, it was a little bit sad that Jim
27:17
Speaker 1: Brown had reduced himself to that, but most people have
27:21
Speaker 1: completely forgotten it, and it's not part of Jim Brown's legacy,
27:25
Speaker 1: but that was never to the extent, it was never
27:28
Speaker 1: as nearly as big a deal as this Mike Tyson
27:32
Speaker 1: Jake Paul situation. And look, I'm sure that Mike Tyson
27:36
Speaker 1: fans will rationalize and forget this whole situation, and it
27:41
Speaker 1: probably won't hurt his reputation, you know, with the vast
27:45
Speaker 1: majority of his fans.
27:46
Speaker 2: But to me, it was still sad.
27:48
Speaker 1: It was sad for him, it was sad for boxing,
27:50
Speaker 1: It was sad for our culture.
27:53
Speaker 5: You know.
27:53
Speaker 1: Frankly, it indicated that Netflix is not ready for prime
27:57
Speaker 1: time and simba, the fact that you know, Trump just
28:02
Speaker 1: won and is getting ready for his second administration kind
28:06
Speaker 1: of added subconsciously to this whole like the death of
28:11
Speaker 1: boxing even I mean, like I said, Trump formerly was
28:15
Speaker 1: connected to Tyson and was hosting many of his biggest fights.
28:19
Speaker 1: Well now he's moved on to UFC and Dana White
28:22
Speaker 1: and Joe Rogan, and this past weekend they had an
28:26
Speaker 1: event that was essentially a Trump rally. Then Boxing's not
28:31
Speaker 1: part of that. I mean, that's how much boxing has
28:34
Speaker 1: been diminished from being a very very major sport in
28:38
Speaker 1: the sixties, seventies and the eighties to now you know,
28:42
Speaker 1: even Donald Trump has moved on to UFC. And this this,
28:46
Speaker 1: you know, talk about dead cat bounces. That was the
28:49
Speaker 1: title of our last episode of the podcast. This was
28:52
Speaker 1: probably the ultimate dead cat bounce for what you would
28:55
Speaker 1: call boxing, because I don't know where it goes from here,
28:58
Speaker 1: and I certainly don't know where Mike Tyson from here
29:01
Speaker 1: as far as where Donald Trump goes from here. He's
29:04
Speaker 1: putting together his cabinet and his two point zero administration.
29:10
Speaker 1: And since the last time we spoke, there's been a
29:13
Speaker 1: lot of movement on this front. There have been several
29:17
Speaker 1: picks that have raised eyebrows and caused controversy. I would
29:21
Speaker 1: say that the four picks that have caused the most
29:23
Speaker 1: controversy would be Pete Hestech, Tulci Gabbard, RFK Junior, and
29:29
Speaker 1: Matt Gates. And so I want to address the four
29:32
Speaker 1: of those, at least briefly. I'm sure we'll talk more
29:36
Speaker 1: about them again in the future as their nominations go
29:40
Speaker 1: through the process. But Heseth is to me somebody who's
29:46
Speaker 1: getting the worst and the rawest, if you will, deal
29:50
Speaker 1: in the news media, the idea that he's being called
29:53
Speaker 1: a Fox News Channel host a weekend I love that part.
29:58
Speaker 1: I love where all these media figures are condemning him
30:01
Speaker 1: because he's just a weekend host on Fox News Channel.
30:04
Speaker 2: Not even a weekday host.
30:05
Speaker 1: If he was a weekday host, somehow that would be better,
30:07
Speaker 1: I guess, But they're ignoring a twenty year distinguished military career.
30:13
Speaker 1: And yes, by traditional standards, he does not have the
30:17
Speaker 1: quote unquote credentials to be the Secretary of Defense. However,
30:24
Speaker 1: if you're really looking to shake up the military, then
30:28
Speaker 1: you don't want somebody of that world. That seems rather obvious,
30:33
Speaker 1: and I don't have a problem with the concept. In
30:36
Speaker 1: this particular situation. It is such a massive bureaucracy that
30:42
Speaker 1: I think you need an outsider. You need somebody from
30:45
Speaker 1: the outside to be able to really stir.
30:49
Speaker 2: Things up, especially when it comes to the.
30:50
Speaker 1: Dei culture of the military, which absolutely positively has to
30:56
Speaker 1: be fixed. And Hexted has made it very clear that
30:59
Speaker 1: that's one of his time priorities. But they're going after
31:02
Speaker 1: him with everything, I mean everything they possibly can.
31:04
Speaker 2: He's a Fox News host, he's got.
31:06
Speaker 1: As somehow a white supremacist or a and he's got
31:12
Speaker 1: this Christian nationalist tattoo.
31:16
Speaker 2: I mean, it's all ridiculous.
31:18
Speaker 1: It's absolutely absurd, and there's an old allegation of sex
31:21
Speaker 1: abuse that appears to be bull crap. They are doing
31:25
Speaker 1: everything they possibly can to go after him, in my opinion,
31:29
Speaker 1: because he's dangerous. Now, this is something that Trump fans
31:34
Speaker 1: have a big problem being able to interpret because we're
31:38
Speaker 1: going to get the Matt Gates. It's not a badge
31:41
Speaker 1: of honor. Necessarily, in all cases where the establishment and
31:47
Speaker 1: the media is going after you, you have to be
31:49
Speaker 1: able to pick and choose based upon the circumstances as
31:55
Speaker 1: they are present for that situation. And in my opinion,
31:59
Speaker 1: with exstat it's they're going after him because he's dangerous, not.
32:03
Speaker 2: Because he's necessarily awful.
32:05
Speaker 1: It's a very subtle difference. But to me, trumpsters think
32:10
Speaker 1: now and this is this is very dangerous. This is
32:14
Speaker 1: a very you know, troubling situation where we've now created
32:18
Speaker 1: a set of circumstances where Trumpsters so distrust the establishment,
32:23
Speaker 1: understandably so distrust the media that inherently, if anyone's getting attacked,
32:31
Speaker 1: then that means they must be the right guy. That
32:33
Speaker 1: does not always mean that, but it might mean that
32:37
Speaker 1: With Hexstatt, I don't know I'd like to see him
32:39
Speaker 1: go through the process, but I like what I've seen
32:42
Speaker 1: so far, and I'm totally fine with an outsider in
32:45
Speaker 1: that role. As far as Tulci Gabbard and her as
32:49
Speaker 1: the Director of National Intelligence, the most common refrain among
32:56
Speaker 1: Democrats and the media against her is that she's some
33:00
Speaker 1: sort of a Russian plant. Now, of course, they have
33:03
Speaker 1: no credibility on this because of the entire Russia Gate
33:07
Speaker 1: investigation coming up woefully short and in the minds of
33:12
Speaker 1: most Trump supporters being a complete and total fraud or hoax,
33:16
Speaker 1: so it's not going to really harm her at all,
33:19
Speaker 1: certainly with Trump fans.
33:22
Speaker 2: To me, I'm a little bit more concerned with the
33:24
Speaker 2: fact that.
33:24
Speaker 1: She's a lifelong Democrat, which seems to be a constant
33:28
Speaker 1: theme among people who are going to be very influential
33:32
Speaker 1: in Trump two point zero, including Elon Musk, including RK Junior,
33:36
Speaker 1: including maybe Trump himself, who is a lifelong liberal Democrat
33:40
Speaker 1: out of Manhattan. So that's the part that bothers me
33:43
Speaker 1: the most about Gabbert. I will acknowledge that, like a
33:47
Speaker 1: lot of men, I'm probably not totally objective about Gabbert
33:51
Speaker 1: because she's very physically attractive, and she's super smart, and
33:56
Speaker 1: you put that combination together, and a lot of men
33:59
Speaker 1: like my will allow a lot of things to be forgiven.
34:05
Speaker 1: So I have a bias there. I mean, I'm more
34:08
Speaker 1: willing to forgive the fact that Tulci Gabbart is a
34:11
Speaker 1: lifelong liberal Democrat, you know, because of the fact that
34:15
Speaker 1: she's super smart and very attractive. So, you know, could
34:20
Speaker 1: there be something to those criticisms of Gabbard in that position,
34:25
Speaker 1: I'm open to it, but I'm not against her nomination.
34:30
Speaker 1: I like her in fact way before she was on
34:34
Speaker 1: the Trump bandwagon, and you know, and he could ever
34:37
Speaker 1: even possibly be part of a Trump administration.
34:40
Speaker 2: When she first came on the scene many.
34:43
Speaker 1: Years ago as a Democratic congresswoman, I asked my then
34:47
Speaker 1: good friend, Democratic Congressman John Yarmouth from Louisville about her
34:52
Speaker 1: because I thought, Wow, she could really be a.
34:55
Speaker 2: Star in the Democrat Party.
34:58
Speaker 1: I thought that if she was somebody that the Democrats embraced.
35:02
Speaker 1: Of course, the Democratic Party moved in a direction that
35:05
Speaker 1: they could never do with that, because she's not woke,
35:09
Speaker 1: and she's actually conservative on some issues or semi conservative
35:13
Speaker 1: on some issues.
35:14
Speaker 2: She's very politically.
35:15
Speaker 1: Incorrect, but that was part of why I thought she
35:19
Speaker 1: had a tremendous opportunity to make a difference in the
35:23
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Well, she soon realized that there was no
35:27
Speaker 1: future for her in the Democrat Party because the Democrat
35:31
Speaker 1: Party had moved to a place where rationality was actually
35:35
Speaker 1: a negative and someone like Tulsi Gabbard could never succeed.
35:40
Speaker 1: So now she's part of whatever the hell this modern
35:43
Speaker 1: Republican Party is, which is not conservative at Tulsi Gabbard's
35:47
Speaker 1: no conservative, but she is smart, and she is somebody
35:51
Speaker 1: who has a lot going for her, and obviously Trump
35:55
Speaker 1: takes a liking to her, probably partially because she's smart
35:58
Speaker 1: and attractive to things. He very much, you know, gives
36:02
Speaker 1: a lot of favor to, especially when it comes to women.
36:05
Speaker 1: So I am I'm fine with Hegstath, I'm okay with Gabbard,
36:09
Speaker 1: although I'd like to hear a little bit more. And
36:12
Speaker 1: then there's RFK Junior, and our K Junior is probably
36:17
Speaker 1: the at least for me, the most complex of the
36:21
Speaker 1: most controversial Trump picks so far to be the head
36:25
Speaker 1: of Health and Human Services. I have said many times
36:29
Speaker 1: that RFK Junior is a nutjob and I do believe that.
36:33
Speaker 2: I believe that he is.
36:34
Speaker 3: A complete nut, mostly because he buys into a whole
36:39
Speaker 3: lot of conspiracy theories that I know to be false,
36:44
Speaker 3: specifically about his father and his uncle's assassinations JFK and
36:51
Speaker 3: RFK and their assassinations, and his beliefs regarding.
36:56
Speaker 1: Those two events, two events that I know an awful
36:58
Speaker 1: lot about, And so when you believe that, and look,
37:02
Speaker 1: I get that, it's a huge part of his life,
37:04
Speaker 1: and therefore he probably can't be objective about it, and
37:09
Speaker 1: he's had a self interest in his own personal brand
37:13
Speaker 1: into buying into those massive conspiracy theories.
37:17
Speaker 2: But I'm sorry.
37:19
Speaker 1: One of the biggest problems I have with conspiracies in general,
37:23
Speaker 1: and those conspiracy theories in particular JFK and RMK assassinations,
37:29
Speaker 1: is that when you believe, for instance, that the government
37:32
Speaker 1: killed our president, then that has an enormous influence on
37:39
Speaker 1: how you interpret everything else. You cannot believe that in
37:44
Speaker 1: a vacuum. So that says an awful lot about how
37:48
Speaker 1: you just you know, are able to interpret information.
37:52
Speaker 2: But it also says an awful lot.
37:54
Speaker 1: About your worldview when it comes to everything else. I mean,
37:59
Speaker 1: that is an enormous impact on everything else you believe.
38:03
Speaker 1: You cannot believe, especially as a Kennedy, that the US government,
38:09
Speaker 1: the CIA, or the FBI killed the President of the
38:13
Speaker 1: United States and not have that create an enormous impact
38:19
Speaker 1: on your view of everything else. It is the prism
38:23
Speaker 1: through which you see all issues, all information. And then
38:28
Speaker 1: there's the whole other issues about the strangeness with the
38:32
Speaker 1: worms eating his brain, and you know that weird story
38:37
Speaker 1: in Central Park, and you know the fact that he
38:40
Speaker 1: was a heroin addict the fact that his first wife
38:44
Speaker 1: committed suicide. I mean, it's amazing how teflon he is.
38:51
Speaker 1: Even in this campaign. The reporter for the New Yorker,
38:56
Speaker 1: Olivia Nuzzy, engages in some sort of guess online romance
39:02
Speaker 1: with him, and she gets fired. And he hasn't, even
39:06
Speaker 1: to my knowledge, even received any legitimate questioning about it,
39:10
Speaker 1: any criticism about it. I mean, it's amazing. It's remarkable
39:15
Speaker 1: how powerful the Kennedy name is. But all of that
39:20
Speaker 1: has me in a very negative place when it comes
39:23
Speaker 1: to RFK jor, and that leads me to the whole
39:26
Speaker 1: vaccine issue. I understand totally that RFK Junior is getting
39:33
Speaker 1: a raw deal when it comes to his position on
39:36
Speaker 1: vaccines in general.
39:39
Speaker 2: I mean, it's absolutely hilarious to me.
39:42
Speaker 1: And this happened again on sixty Minutes last night, where
39:46
Speaker 1: they weirdly, bizarrely opened up their show with basically a
39:53
Speaker 1: couple of minutes, completely outside the norm of the way
39:58
Speaker 1: they normally do things. This is not the way sixty
40:00
Speaker 1: minutes generally works, but they just decided to start sixty
40:04
Speaker 1: minutes with a couple of minutes of Scott Pelly crapping
40:08
Speaker 1: all over all of the major Trump appointments, including the
40:13
Speaker 1: ones that I'm discussing right now, and in doing so,
40:17
Speaker 1: they referred to Rgate Junior as a vaccine skeptic. That's
40:23
Speaker 1: how they described it, which I think is an accurate description,
40:27
Speaker 1: But the fact that that now is a derogatory term
40:33
Speaker 1: used universally in the news media is incredibly telling and
40:38
Speaker 1: awfully astonishing. Not a you know, someone who doesn't believe
40:43
Speaker 1: in vaccines, but a vaccine skeptic. As if skepticism is
40:48
Speaker 1: inherently bad, I'm sorry, especially when it comes to the
40:52
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine. Skepticism is not just something that should be accepted,
40:59
Speaker 1: it's something that everybody should have, especially the news media.
41:03
Speaker 3: Just because the news.
41:04
Speaker 1: Media decided not to have any skepticism about the COVID
41:08
Speaker 1: vaccine doesn't mean that everybody else shouldn't have some skepticism. So,
41:14
Speaker 1: you know, if used properly, skepticism is not just okay,
41:18
Speaker 1: it's it should be mandatory, especially for someone in this
41:22
Speaker 1: particular position, is the head of Health and Human Services.
41:26
Speaker 1: So I have zero problem with vaccine skepticism. And those
41:30
Speaker 1: that are close to RFK Junior, including people who are
41:35
Speaker 1: within the health industry, have pushed back against this idea,
41:40
Speaker 1: against RFK Junior being totally against all vaccines, and I
41:45
Speaker 1: buy that. I don't have a big problem with that. However,
41:49
Speaker 1: I also don't buy into this narrative that RFK Junior
41:55
Speaker 1: was so fantastic on COVID that you know, he's going
42:00
Speaker 1: to get in to government and we're gonna find out
42:03
Speaker 1: where all the bodies are buried and there's gonna finally
42:05
Speaker 1: be COVID accountability for what they did to us. I
42:10
Speaker 1: would love to believe that, love to believe that, And
42:14
Speaker 1: if RFK Junior can do it, fan fucking tastic. I mean,
42:19
Speaker 1: he certainly has the mentality, he seems to have the
42:22
Speaker 1: balls of course, the problem is that Donald Trump is
42:27
Speaker 1: his boss, and Donald Trump just the other day tweeted
42:30
Speaker 1: that he can't wait to celebrate the anniversary of Operation
42:35
Speaker 1: Warp Speed because he's so proud of the COVID vaccine.
42:39
Speaker 1: So I don't see how RFK Junior under Trump is
42:43
Speaker 1: going to somehow expose either the COVID vaccine or the
42:48
Speaker 1: COVID response in general as being a fraud because it's
42:52
Speaker 1: not in the self interest of his boss, Donald Trump.
42:57
Speaker 1: So I don't believe that we're gonna get that from
43:01
Speaker 1: RFK Junior. Not to mention, r K Junior is way
43:05
Speaker 1: more liberal even than Tulci Gabbard. Mike Pence used to
43:09
Speaker 1: be Vice President of United States, remember him under Donald Trump.
43:13
Speaker 1: He came out against r K Junior's nomination under the
43:17
Speaker 1: premise that this is an extremely pro choice guy, which
43:22
Speaker 1: is true, and that he would be the most pro
43:24
Speaker 1: choice head of Health and Human Services of all time,
43:28
Speaker 1: and that therefore, from a conservative position, OURFGA Junior should
43:32
Speaker 1: be rejected. I don't think that's going to have any
43:34
Speaker 1: influence at all because of the modern Republican Party basically
43:38
Speaker 1: being the Trump Party, and once you've been kicked out
43:41
Speaker 1: you have no influence at all. In fact, you may
43:43
Speaker 1: have negative influence. But that's where we are right now,
43:47
Speaker 1: in this very very strange world. And you know, whatever
43:50
Speaker 1: the hell this administration is going to be, I would
43:53
Speaker 1: not call it conservative. I don't even think I would
43:55
Speaker 1: call it Republican. It's going to be Trumpian. And you know,
43:59
Speaker 1: our of Gage and Trump right now seem to be
44:01
Speaker 1: on great terms. They're flying together on private jets and
44:05
Speaker 1: RFK Juniors being forced to eat McDonald's with Elon Musk,
44:09
Speaker 1: I'm sure, And the look on RFK Junior's face was classic,
44:13
Speaker 1: because you know, he's supposed to be mister healthy eater, which,
44:16
Speaker 1: by the way, if that's what r CA Junior focuses on,
44:20
Speaker 1: that would be great, because there's no question whatsoever that
44:25
Speaker 1: this is a massive problem in this country, especially among
44:28
Speaker 1: our youth. So if r cay Junior can do something
44:31
Speaker 1: in that realm, that would be great. So I guess,
44:35
Speaker 1: of the four major picks, the ones that have caused
44:38
Speaker 1: the most controversy, I'm probably most conflicted about r K Junior.
44:42
Speaker 1: I could see some elements of good in this. I
44:46
Speaker 1: could also see some elements that we are very, very
44:49
Speaker 1: bad and I don't know how it's going to turn out.
44:52
Speaker 1: I do know this, and this is maybe the thing
44:55
Speaker 1: I'm most concerned about when it comes to RFK Junior,
44:58
Speaker 1: because he has been so kicked out of the liberal elites.
45:03
Speaker 1: And he used to be part of the liberal elites,
45:05
Speaker 1: no question about that, but he's been so kicked out
45:08
Speaker 1: of it now and is now being portrayed as such
45:12
Speaker 1: a nut and so anti vaccine and so dangerous.
45:16
Speaker 2: That's the median narrative about him.
45:19
Speaker 1: I guarant damn to you that during his term whatever
45:24
Speaker 1: it is, the four years as a head of Health
45:27
Speaker 1: and Human Services, and because it's Trump, because so Trump
45:30
Speaker 1: and RCA Junior together, if there is any sort of
45:35
Speaker 1: virus that gets out of control, even a little bit,
45:39
Speaker 1: any blip on the pandemic or whatever you might call it,
45:44
Speaker 1: radar is going to be immediately jumped on by the
45:48
Speaker 1: news media and exaggerated. They're already trying with the measles thing,
45:53
Speaker 1: and they haven't even taken office yet that we're seeing
45:55
Speaker 1: an increase in measles nationwide. Of course, that could be
45:59
Speaker 1: too increased illegal immigration and lack of vaccinations among illegal immigrants,
46:04
Speaker 1: So they don't want to make that connection in the
46:06
Speaker 1: news media. But I guarantee you that the news media
46:10
Speaker 1: is going to be thirsting, thirsting for something in the
46:13
Speaker 1: realm of a new COVID, because that's a narrative that
46:17
Speaker 1: they will find very enticing and they'll be able to say, ah, see,
46:21
Speaker 1: we told you so. You know, when you put rcage
46:24
Speaker 1: you and you're a vaccine skeptic in charge of this
46:27
Speaker 1: kind of situation, then bad things are going to happen.
46:30
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean they have the power or the ability
46:33
Speaker 1: to create a new COVID. But it's not just the media. Remember, see,
46:39
Speaker 1: the media no longer has the power to do this
46:41
Speaker 1: kind of thing alone. But in conjunction with blue states
46:46
Speaker 1: like California and New York and Illinois that might also
46:49
Speaker 1: be very incentivized to jump all over this. They could
46:54
Speaker 1: in tandem, those three states with the news media could
46:59
Speaker 1: create another COVID like situation if given the opportunity. And
47:05
Speaker 1: that has me very concerned about the RFK junior selection.
47:09
Speaker 1: But of the all of the Trump administration picks so far,
47:13
Speaker 1: the one that has created the most consternation, especially among
47:17
Speaker 1: Republican circles, is without a doubt, Matt Gates, who has
47:21
Speaker 1: been nominated as the attorney general. He's a Florida congressman
47:25
Speaker 1: who has actually resigned his seat, and the fact that
47:29
Speaker 1: he has resigned his seat, there's a number of elements
47:32
Speaker 1: to that whole situation that I find interesting. It's important
47:36
Speaker 1: to point out that while he has resigned, which created
47:40
Speaker 1: a lot of confusion for people, understandably so because that
47:44
Speaker 1: draw you know, he might not get confirmed as Attorney general,
47:47
Speaker 1: so then he's going to be unemployed. Well, you have
47:49
Speaker 1: to remember he also just got elected. So even though
47:53
Speaker 1: he has resigned from his current term, if in the
47:58
Speaker 1: next six weeks or so, his nomination ends up in
48:04
Speaker 1: the ashes and it's clear he's not going to be
48:08
Speaker 1: the attorney General, which is frankly the conventional wisdom right now,
48:12
Speaker 1: he would still have the ability to be part of
48:15
Speaker 1: the new Congress because.
48:17
Speaker 2: He got elected.
48:18
Speaker 1: Now it gets complicated, and you know, and the fact
48:22
Speaker 1: that he's from Florida is an element of this that
48:25
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to in a little bit. Because
48:28
Speaker 1: of what's going on there with Ron DeSantis and the
48:30
Speaker 1: fact that DeSantis is kind of being leaned on, not
48:33
Speaker 1: kind of, he's been clearly being leaned on by the
48:36
Speaker 1: Trump administration because he's turned Florida into a red state.
48:40
Speaker 1: So now they feel comfortable taking all these Florida, you know,
48:45
Speaker 1: Congress people in the case of Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
48:50
Speaker 1: Senators from Florida comfortable that they'll be replaced if need be,
48:55
Speaker 1: by other Republicans thanks to Ron De Santis turning Florida
48:58
Speaker 1: into a safely red state. So the fact that Gates
49:04
Speaker 1: has resigned but still could return to Congress, I think
49:08
Speaker 1: has caused some people to play this whole forty chess
49:13
Speaker 1: game with what's really going on with the Gates nomination.
49:17
Speaker 1: I mean, I was considering all those possibilities, and when
49:22
Speaker 1: it comes to Trump and forty chess again, I'm Anacam's
49:26
Speaker 1: razor guy. I'm more likely to believe that this was
49:30
Speaker 1: just him being impulsive and picking a guy he knows
49:33
Speaker 1: is going to be super loyal to him and is
49:35
Speaker 1: going to be a firebrand and you know it's gonna,
49:39
Speaker 1: you know, take no bullshit and do whatever he wants.
49:42
Speaker 1: I mean, he's always wanted his own Roy Kohane to
49:46
Speaker 1: be Attorney General, and Matt Gates is who he's chosen. Well,
49:52
Speaker 1: just for the record, I agree with those that say
49:54
Speaker 1: that Matt Gates is an.
49:55
Speaker 2: Absolutely horrendous choice.
49:58
Speaker 1: Horrendous And there are a lot of reasons why Matt
50:02
Speaker 1: Gates is a terrible choice, mostly having to do with
50:06
Speaker 1: his mentality.
50:08
Speaker 2: He's an asshole.
50:09
Speaker 1: Now, sometimes being a colossal asshole is a good thing.
50:13
Speaker 1: Sometimes you need an asshole to get into an organization
50:17
Speaker 1: and completely clean it out, which is what the Trumpsters
50:20
Speaker 1: think Matt Gates would be doing. But what we saw
50:23
Speaker 1: when Matt Gates took out Kevin McCarthy mainly out of
50:27
Speaker 1: his own ego and in a way that didn't help
50:30
Speaker 1: anybody other than Mike Johnson, didn't help the Republican Congress.
50:34
Speaker 1: They didn't pick up any seats in this past election.
50:37
Speaker 1: They it hindered their ability to get anything done.
50:41
Speaker 2: He did it basically because he's an asshole.
50:44
Speaker 1: He might be a smart asshole, but it was not
50:47
Speaker 1: based in what was good for the country or good
50:50
Speaker 1: for the Republican Congress. It was just him being an asshole.
50:56
Speaker 1: And look, I don't know what's true and what's not
50:58
Speaker 1: true regarding this investigation and allegations that he had sex
51:02
Speaker 1: with a seventeen year old girl and all it could
51:06
Speaker 1: all be bullshit. It could all be total bullshit, but
51:10
Speaker 1: I just do not trust the man. I don't think
51:13
Speaker 1: that he's qualified technically for the position. His priority list
51:18
Speaker 1: would be all wrong. His priority list would be what's
51:22
Speaker 1: good for Donald Trump and what's good for me. And
51:26
Speaker 1: this is an incredibly powerful position Attorney General of the
51:31
Speaker 1: United States. I have no problem with the idea that
51:34
Speaker 1: you want to have somebody.
51:35
Speaker 2: To stir things up and clean house.
51:39
Speaker 1: That's fine, But there are plenty of people that could
51:42
Speaker 1: do that, and that would be loyal enough to Donald
51:45
Speaker 1: Trump who would not be at the level of Matt Gates.
51:49
Speaker 1: Matt Gates is wrong for the job, and he's also
51:52
Speaker 1: wrong politically. You're gonna have to spend an enormous amount
51:56
Speaker 1: of political capital to even potentially get him through the
52:01
Speaker 1: US Senate. And right now, to me, I don't see
52:06
Speaker 1: how Gates possibly gets through the US Senate if it
52:09
Speaker 1: wasn't Donald Trump that was in charge here.
52:12
Speaker 2: And therefore, you know, it's very.
52:14
Speaker 1: Difficult to predict anything involving Donald Trump. I would say
52:18
Speaker 1: that there was zero chance of Matt Gates becoming confirmed.
52:23
Speaker 1: But the conventional wisdom is so often wrong when it
52:26
Speaker 1: comes to Donald Trump that I'm unwilling to say that
52:29
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure whether Gates is going to
52:31
Speaker 1: be able to get through. I do know that a
52:34
Speaker 1: lot of Republicans have been publicly voicing their opposition to
52:39
Speaker 1: Gates's nomination, and for them to do so publicly, let's
52:43
Speaker 1: be clear about this, for them to do this publicly,
52:46
Speaker 1: so quickly in an environment where your loyalty to Trump
52:50
Speaker 1: is so incredibly important, and you know where everyone's looking for,
52:55
Speaker 1: who the centers are going to be, and you don't
52:57
Speaker 1: want to be going up against Trump this early, right
53:00
Speaker 1: after his allegedly huge victory, and right at the start
53:03
Speaker 1: at Trump two point oho, you can be in the doghouse.
53:06
Speaker 1: So there's a huge cost to coming out publicly against Gates,
53:11
Speaker 1: and that has not stopped a lot of Republicans from
53:13
Speaker 1: doing so. Just to give you a sense of that,
53:16
Speaker 1: here is a group of the Republicans responding to the
53:21
Speaker 1: Gates nomination on.
53:23
Speaker 2: NBC, and here's what they're saying.
53:26
Speaker 7: Ali Scott Wong that House Republican lawmakers had every range
53:30
Speaker 7: of reactions from gasping to audibly saying, oh my god.
53:34
Speaker 7: Some of them thought that maybe they misread something, or
53:37
Speaker 7: that it wasn't real, but certainly we know now that
53:40
Speaker 7: this is President Elect Trump's pick to lead the Department
53:44
Speaker 7: of Justice. Putting aside the concerns about if this is
53:47
Speaker 7: good for a House Republican majority that is barely large
53:52
Speaker 7: enough to function, there is I think a pretty sizable
53:55
Speaker 7: amount of ire and frankly hatred of Matt Gates from
53:59
Speaker 7: some of his colleagues here on Capitol Hill. You have
54:02
Speaker 7: to remember there are layers to this, as there often are,
54:04
Speaker 7: and I know that you guys have talked about the
54:06
Speaker 7: ones from the legal and the Department of Justice perspective,
54:09
Speaker 7: but here on Capitol Hill. Part of the reason why
54:11
Speaker 7: Gates doesn't boast a lot of people coming out and
54:14
Speaker 7: celebrating this is one because they think he won't get
54:17
Speaker 7: Senate confirmed. And I think that leads us to a
54:19
Speaker 7: whole other conversation about which of these senators is willing
54:23
Speaker 7: to be the first to stand up and say no
54:25
Speaker 7: to Trump, as most of their colleagues are talking about
54:28
Speaker 7: Trump coming back in with a mandate. The other piece
54:31
Speaker 7: of this, though, is that Gates is the one who
54:33
Speaker 7: orchestrated the ouster of Kevin McCarthy just about a year ago,
54:37
Speaker 7: and that's something that earned him no friends within the
54:39
Speaker 7: House Republican Conference. There are some of them who are
54:42
Speaker 7: openly at this point saying that they're happy to see
54:45
Speaker 7: him leave the conference because they don't want him as
54:47
Speaker 7: a colleague anymore. But then they're also happy to watch
54:50
Speaker 7: him have a failure of a confirmation hearing because they
54:55
Speaker 7: don't think that the Senate will grant him the votes
54:57
Speaker 7: to actually get to this position.
55:00
Speaker 1: So on paper, there is no chance that Gates is
55:03
Speaker 1: going to be able to get the votes to be
55:06
Speaker 1: confirmed as Attorney General. Is it possible that Trump knows
55:13
Speaker 1: this and that this was a somehow a four dimensional
55:17
Speaker 1: chess decision by Trump, I guess so. I mean, there's
55:21
Speaker 1: some people who think that this is all a contrived
55:24
Speaker 1: way to get Gates out of Congress and he can
55:27
Speaker 1: either run for governor when DeSantis's term runs out in Florida,
55:32
Speaker 1: or who knows.
55:34
Speaker 2: There's all sorts of different possibilities.
55:36
Speaker 1: Was Gates trying to avoid the results of the ethics
55:40
Speaker 1: investigation by no longer being in Congress. That doesn't seem
55:44
Speaker 1: realistic to me, because if you go through the confirmation
55:47
Speaker 1: hearings for Attorney General, I'm sorry that's gonna come up
55:51
Speaker 1: that's going to come out in some way, shape or form.
55:53
Speaker 1: I don't see any way of avoiding that. So I
55:56
Speaker 1: don't really understand the four D chess. There's the four
56:00
Speaker 1: D chest thing. Could make some sense if in this
56:04
Speaker 1: context Trump realized that he had to have a sacrificial lamb,
56:11
Speaker 1: that this was a great distraction for all these other.
56:15
Speaker 2: Somewhat dubious picks that he's making.
56:18
Speaker 1: Let Gates be the lightning rod, and you also, by
56:22
Speaker 1: the way, in the course of Gates being a lightning ride,
56:25
Speaker 1: you get to see which Republican senators are really on
56:29
Speaker 1: your side, which are really loyal to you, and which
56:33
Speaker 1: are willing to publicly buck you on your Attorney general pick.
56:39
Speaker 1: That would make sense to me, but I just don't
56:41
Speaker 1: think that's the way that Trump's mind works. Again, it
56:46
Speaker 1: could be for DHS, but I think it's much more
56:48
Speaker 1: likely an impulse decision. There was a report, I don't
56:52
Speaker 1: know how accurate it is, that the Gates decision was
56:55
Speaker 1: made on an airplane while Susie Wiles, the chief of staff,
56:59
Speaker 1: was in another room, that somehow he did this without
57:03
Speaker 1: Wiles knowing it. That seems crazy to me how that
57:06
Speaker 1: could even work. Logistically, but you know, that sounds more
57:10
Speaker 1: like Trump to me, that this is a position because
57:14
Speaker 1: of the law fair against Trump that Trump feels very
57:18
Speaker 1: passionately about. He feels as if his attorney generals both
57:22
Speaker 1: of them in the first term, both Jeff Sessions and
57:25
Speaker 1: Bill Barr let him down. Although I strongly disagree with that.
57:29
Speaker 1: I think both Sessions and Barr were actually very loyal
57:33
Speaker 1: to Trump, but in Trump's mind that was not the case.
57:36
Speaker 1: So this is the ultimate middle finger. This is the
57:40
Speaker 1: fuck you. This is the one where Okay, you know what,
57:44
Speaker 1: if they shoot him down, no big deal, you know,
57:48
Speaker 1: and maybe Gates can get can run for governor of Florida.
57:52
Speaker 1: Who knows if he's no longer in the US House
57:55
Speaker 1: of Representatives. So I honestly I'm confused as to what's
57:59
Speaker 1: going to happen here. I think it was a very
58:01
Speaker 1: dumb decision. I don't think you get anything really out
58:05
Speaker 1: of it. There are other choices that could be just
58:07
Speaker 1: as loyal to Trump and do what he wants without
58:10
Speaker 1: it being so overt and so politically problematic as the
58:14
Speaker 1: pick of Matt Gates to be the attorney general. But
58:17
Speaker 1: this idea of the loyalty to Trump being the most
58:21
Speaker 1: important ingredient for anybody in his administration is really one
58:28
Speaker 1: of the major things that troubled me going into this
58:30
Speaker 1: whole situation. I've always said, when it comes to Trump
58:34
Speaker 1: two point zero, that we're going to get the D team,
58:37
Speaker 1: and that these people are going to be sycophants. These
58:40
Speaker 1: are people that are going to be tested purely based
58:44
Speaker 1: upon their loyalty to Trump. And in this environment where
58:48
Speaker 1: Trump is now a literal demi god within the Republican Party,
58:53
Speaker 1: having pulled off this miraculous comeback, He's Lazarus, He's a
58:58
Speaker 1: mythical figure. No one is going to go against him.
59:03
Speaker 1: Nobody and either in his inner circle telling him when
59:06
Speaker 1: he's wrong or publicly when it comes to supporting his picks.
59:12
Speaker 1: Unless you're a US senator and you're not up for
59:15
Speaker 1: reelection for several years, then you might have some level
59:19
Speaker 1: of safety to actually say, wait a minute, this is
59:21
Speaker 1: a bridge too far. And this whole topic of my
59:26
Speaker 1: concern about how Trump would be viewed in the second
59:29
Speaker 1: administration him being a demi god, and you know that's
59:34
Speaker 1: not what we have in America. We don't have kings,
59:36
Speaker 1: we have presidents. This has been fundamental to who we
59:40
Speaker 1: are in the United States of America really was crystallized
59:44
Speaker 1: by something that happened a few days ago in mar
59:46
Speaker 1: A Lago, when I think, by surprise, actor Sylvester Stallone
59:53
Speaker 1: introduced Donald Trump. And I'm going to play this clip
59:57
Speaker 1: because I think it really exposes is where we're in
1:00:01
Speaker 1: a very dangerous place where even Sylvester Stallone is equating
1:00:09
Speaker 1: Donald Trump literally to Jesus Christ. I guess a figure
1:00:15
Speaker 1: from Greek mythology is the way I interpreted it. And
1:00:18
Speaker 1: George Washington, the Saint George Washington, who by the way,
1:00:24
Speaker 1: vehemently believed that we are not a country of kings,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: being the first president of the United States, and who
1:00:31
Speaker 1: made it very very clear that this was something that
1:00:34
Speaker 1: we needed to avoid at almost all costs. And so
1:00:38
Speaker 1: Stallone is basically contradicting his own praise of Trump, because
1:00:44
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any chance that George Washington would
1:00:47
Speaker 1: approve of this kind of verbiage being used to describe
1:00:54
Speaker 1: an incoming president of the United States. But here was
1:00:57
Speaker 1: the legendary actor Rocky Balboa Silvester Stallone introducing Donald Trump.
1:01:04
Speaker 8: When I did Rocky, if you remember the first image
1:01:08
Speaker 8: was the picture of Jesus is a resurrection ac club.
1:01:12
Speaker 8: I found a church that had been converted to a
1:01:15
Speaker 8: boxing ring, so the image pans down from Jesus onto
1:01:19
Speaker 8: Rocky being hid, and at that moment he was a
1:01:22
Speaker 8: chosen person.
1:01:23
Speaker 2: And that's how I began the journey.
1:01:26
Speaker 8: Something was going to happen. This man was going to
1:01:28
Speaker 8: go through a metamorphosis and change lives.
1:01:32
Speaker 2: Just like President Trump.
1:01:41
Speaker 8: We are in the presidence of a really mythical character.
1:01:45
Speaker 8: I love mythology, and this individual does not exist on
1:01:49
Speaker 8: this planet. Nobody in the world could have pulled off
1:01:52
Speaker 8: what he pulled off.
1:01:53
Speaker 2: So I'm in.
1:01:54
Speaker 8: Awe and I'll just say this and I mean it.
1:02:02
Speaker 8: When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea
1:02:07
Speaker 8: that he was going to change the world, because without him,
1:02:11
Speaker 8: you could imagine what the world would look like. Guess
1:02:14
Speaker 8: what we got the second George Washington congrestula issues, folks.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: I got a problem with that, and I realized Stallan's
1:02:26
Speaker 1: an actor and it's dramatic, and the crowd loved it
1:02:29
Speaker 1: and all that, but this is too much. This is
1:02:32
Speaker 1: too much. Trump is not a god. He's an extremely
1:02:37
Speaker 1: flawed human being. Like we all are, and occasionally he's
1:02:41
Speaker 1: going to be wrong, and when he's wrong, he needs
1:02:43
Speaker 1: to be called out for being wrong because we're living
1:02:46
Speaker 1: in a very dangerous world. I mean, my gosh, it
1:02:48
Speaker 1: looks like the Biden administration is trying to escalate the
1:02:51
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine just before Trump takes over. Putin is
1:02:56
Speaker 1: threatening nuclear response. I mean, there's all sorts of very
1:03:00
Speaker 1: very dangerous things that can happen. And to have someone
1:03:04
Speaker 1: like Trump be treated as if he is a god,
1:03:07
Speaker 1: even by people that are considered god like figures in
1:03:12
Speaker 1: our culture Sylvester stallone, that is not conducive to somebody
1:03:17
Speaker 1: being able to be grounded enough to where they understand
1:03:20
Speaker 1: what reality is and where they can get good counsel
1:03:24
Speaker 1: and they can have people tell them that they're wrong.
1:03:27
Speaker 2: That is a huge thing. I talk about this all
1:03:29
Speaker 2: the time.
1:03:30
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the most important things in
1:03:32
Speaker 1: being a leader in almost any endeavor in life, being
1:03:37
Speaker 1: able to surround yourself with people who are willing and
1:03:40
Speaker 1: able to tell you when you are wrong. If you're
1:03:44
Speaker 1: not able to do that, you cannot be a great leader.
1:03:47
Speaker 1: And I have great concerns that Trump is not psychologically
1:03:53
Speaker 1: designed to be able to do that any respect, but
1:03:57
Speaker 1: especially now now that he's a demi god, no one
1:04:00
Speaker 1: is going to be willing to take the chance to
1:04:04
Speaker 1: cross him, to do anything but kiss his ass and
1:04:07
Speaker 1: be a sycophant.
1:04:09
Speaker 2: And that's problematic.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: That is very, very problematic, especially in a crisis situation.
1:04:17
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