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Episode Two Hundred Forty Five: The Wrong Hill To Die On · The Death Of Journalism

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and forty five of the
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  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host. In today's show, the Trump Musk bromance explodes
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  Speaker 1: into a messy divorce, but it seems hard to remember
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: because Los Angeles erupts into riots over ice enforcement and
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  Speaker 1: the media is not getting nearly enough blame. A prominent
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  Speaker 1: ABC News anchor gets fired for a bizarre anti Trump
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  Speaker 1: administration tweet. Olympic legend Simone Biles reveals who she really is,
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  Speaker 1: A conclusion is finally reached in the NCAA nil settlement,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and how this week's the US Open Golf tournament is
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  Speaker 1: going to tell us if it is still possible to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: have balls in today's wossified American culture. In the last
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  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, I went through the extensive timeline
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  Speaker 1: of what I described as the coming Trump Musk divorce,
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  Speaker 1: and I said that it was on the precipice of
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  Speaker 1: falling apart. Well, that turned out to be extremely pressient,
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  Speaker 1: probably more so than I even anticipated, because not long
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  Speaker 1: after we released the last episode of the podcast, that's
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  Speaker 1: exactly what happened, in spectacular fashion in ways that even
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  Speaker 1: I could never have possibly have predicted. And of course
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  Speaker 1: it's it's always very weird to me, you know, because
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  Speaker 1: I make a lot of predictions. A lot of them
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  Speaker 1: turn out true, a lot of them turn out ambiguous,
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  Speaker 1: some turn out to be totally false or wrong. But
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  Speaker 1: it's weird to me which predictions I make that people
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  Speaker 1: remember and either give credit to or criticize me for,
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  Speaker 1: because it never makes any sense. And this was a
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  Speaker 1: good example of that, because as the Trump Musk relationship
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  Speaker 1: publicly and spectacularly loaded last week on social media, I
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  Speaker 1: was getting a lot of credit for having predicted this,
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  Speaker 1: and I thought, this is odd. First of all, this
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  Speaker 1: was always inevitable. Everyone predicted this. This is like predicting
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  Speaker 1: the end of a Kardashian or Pete Davidson romance. It
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  Speaker 1: was always going to happen. No one was really surprised
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  Speaker 1: that this occurred. In fact, I probably thought that I
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  Speaker 1: don't think I ever put a time period on it.
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  Speaker 1: But if you had pressed me, I would have thought
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  Speaker 1: that they had a chance. This relationship had a decent
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  Speaker 1: chance of at least getting through the midterm elections, and
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  Speaker 1: then if the midterm elections did poorly, then that might
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  Speaker 1: be a moment when the Musk and Trump romance finally
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  Speaker 1: falls apart. I'd also said early on in this process
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  Speaker 1: that when the media was making it clear they were
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  Speaker 1: deeply invested in breaking up Elon Musk and Donald Trump,
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  Speaker 1: that that might actually help them, that that might enable
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  Speaker 1: them to get through some rough patches because they don't
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  Speaker 1: want to give the media the satisfaction of having been
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  Speaker 1: successful and to be able to celebrate the end of
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  Speaker 1: their relationship. Well, if that was in fact the case,
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  Speaker 1: it didn't last for very long, because we didn't even
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  Speaker 1: make it six months into the Trump administration, and this
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  Speaker 1: relationship that had been quite celebrated and was as close
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  Speaker 1: as could possibly be, very publicly and spectacularly fell apart
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  Speaker 1: in really the dumbest way possible. I mean, I went
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  Speaker 1: through all the things that happened leading up to the
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  Speaker 1: public divorce, which made it clear that Elon Musk was
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  Speaker 1: very very upset and understandably so, about the so called
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  Speaker 1: Big Beautiful Bill, and that his efforts regarding Doge had
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  Speaker 1: not been implemented. And basically, here was a guy who
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  Speaker 1: had put his reputation and his massive fortune on the
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  Speaker 1: line to try to do what he thought was best
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  Speaker 1: for the United States of America, and it turned out
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  Speaker 1: to really not be for very much at all. And
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  Speaker 1: in his mind and his perception, his evaluation, the Big
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  Speaker 1: Beautiful Bill was going to be a disaster in the
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  Speaker 1: long term for the debt and the deficit and for
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  Speaker 1: runaway spending, and it was. It's remarkable how quickly it happened.
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  Speaker 1: We documented all of it through the last two episodes
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  Speaker 1: of this podcast. It was clear where Musk was going,
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  Speaker 1: but once he got to that precipice, he really had
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  Speaker 1: no hesitation about jumping off at all. And I've thought
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  Speaker 1: a lot about this romance, this relationship. A lot of
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  Speaker 1: people have thought about it as a divorce, and I
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  Speaker 1: think the disconnect here because you know, I'm be married
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  Speaker 1: now for almost fifteen years. When I did an interview
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  Speaker 1: with my wife last year, I think we entitled that
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  Speaker 1: episode comfortably Stuck, which I think a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: are comfortably stuck in marriages. It's partially why marriages that
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  Speaker 1: do stick together do re maintain themselves because both party
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  Speaker 1: realize that it is in their interest even though it's
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  Speaker 1: not perfect, to remain in the relationship, because the alternative
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  Speaker 1: is too damaging. There's too much to lose for both sides.
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  Speaker 1: It's mutually assured destruction of your life if you decide
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  Speaker 1: to break the relationship apart. So the relationship may not
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  Speaker 1: be perfect. No relationship ever is, especially you know, marriage
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  Speaker 1: is very, very difficult for anyone who's ever been involved
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  Speaker 1: in a marriage. Even the best of marriages have their
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  Speaker 1: difficult times, but you try to stay in it, especially
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  Speaker 1: if there's children in because the alternative is usually far,
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  Speaker 1: far worse. There's a lot of damage that can be done.
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  Speaker 1: I mean from a family perspective, economically, lifestyle, all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of things, things you might not even consider when contemplating
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  Speaker 1: whether or not to break up a marriage. Well, this
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  Speaker 1: was a similar situation between Trump and Musk, where both
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  Speaker 1: sides have an enormous amount to lose for this relationship
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  Speaker 1: to go south. But I think the disconnect and where
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  Speaker 1: they didn't realize it, or they didn't fully contemplate it
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  Speaker 1: or fully consider it, is that these guys both obviously
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  Speaker 1: have tons of money, tons of power, tons of celebrity,
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  Speaker 1: and huge egos, and they're not used to being stuck.
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  Speaker 1: They're used to being able to tell anybody they want
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  Speaker 1: to go fuck themselves. It's not just fuck me money.
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  Speaker 1: It's fucked you money. You know, obviously Elon Musk has
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  Speaker 1: more than enough fuck you money. And Trump's president of the
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  Speaker 1: United States, so he has the inherent ability in his
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  Speaker 1: mind to tell anybody he wants to go fuck themselves basically,
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  Speaker 1: So these are two people that are not used to
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  Speaker 1: being comfortably stuck. I think that's the core problem. And
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  Speaker 1: they don't even contemplate the idea that, you know what,
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  Speaker 1: this is not what I wanted, this is not what
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  Speaker 1: I expected, this is not what I deserve. And I
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  Speaker 1: fully understand where Elon Musk thought that he was getting
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  Speaker 1: a raw end of the deal, especially when it came
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  Speaker 1: to the way Doge was being treated and the way
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  Speaker 1: that the deficit was being treated and the big beautiful Bill.
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  Speaker 1: But there were also other things happening, like, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: and it's it seems pretty obvious that one of the
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  Speaker 1: last straws was actually his recommendation to head NASA being
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  Speaker 1: torpedoed by Donald Trump himself, because Trump actually referenced this
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  Speaker 1: after the relationship fell apart, and so it seems to
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  Speaker 1: me as if, at least in Trump's mind, that was
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  Speaker 1: a key moment in all this, even though it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: seem like that big of a deal, but you can
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  Speaker 1: certainly understand, given you know Musk's interest and expertise in
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  Speaker 1: space exploration. Where here he in his mind, he got
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump elected, and you know, he gave him all
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  Speaker 1: this money and did everything he possibly could, but took
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  Speaker 1: all this risk had his own fortune be diminished because
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  Speaker 1: of the reputational issues were evolving around Doge and being
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  Speaker 1: associated with Donald Trump. So in Musk's mind, he more
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  Speaker 1: than deserves to be able to have the guy that
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  Speaker 1: he recommended to head NASA actually get the job instead
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  Speaker 1: of being replaced because apparently he's too much of a Democrat, which,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, okay, fine in a normal Republican administration
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  Speaker 1: that would make sense. Is that for the fact that
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  Speaker 1: you know, Rfk Junior and Tulcy Gabbard are very highly
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  Speaker 1: favored members of the administration and their lifelong Democrats, So
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  Speaker 1: it seems a bit hypnocritical, and if I'm Elon Musk,
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  Speaker 1: that would piss me off, especially if it wasn't done
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  Speaker 1: in a proper fashion. But I don't think that either
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  Speaker 1: Musk or Trump fully contemplated or calculated the downside to this,
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  Speaker 1: because they're just not used to dealing with people like this.
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  Speaker 1: They're not used to being comfortably stuck in a marriage
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  Speaker 1: that isn't perfect. And so, you know, to use the
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  Speaker 1: words of Will Ferrell in the movie Anchorman Boy, that
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  Speaker 1: escalated quickly. It went from Musk putting his toe in
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  Speaker 1: the water of criticizing the Big Beautiful Bill to going
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  Speaker 1: on Twitter, which obviously he owns, and releasing a series
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  Speaker 1: of salvos against Donald Trump, which I would have been
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  Speaker 1: okay with and in favor of if they were principal based.
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  Speaker 1: But the most absurd part of this whole situation to
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  Speaker 1: me was that Elon Musk chose the dumbest hill to
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  Speaker 1: die on that he possibly could have, which is the
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  Speaker 1: Epstein Files. The Epstein Files. I'm just absolutely flabbergasted it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, here's a guy who I do not think
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  Speaker 1: is perfect. I have concerns about. You may recall that
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  Speaker 1: I've even told the story of I have my father
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  Speaker 1: and I have an uncle who many years ago put
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  Speaker 1: a lot of money short selling tells Tesla because they
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  Speaker 1: thought Elon Musk was insane. My father fortunately got out
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  Speaker 1: of that, although I guess if he had held long
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  Speaker 1: long enough, maybe he could have made some money selling
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  Speaker 1: short on Tesla. But the point is I am very
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  Speaker 1: much aware of Elon Musk's weaknesses, his vulnerabilities. He's not perfect.
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  Speaker 1: I have said in the past that he is far
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  Speaker 1: too prone to buying into and sharing on Twitter crazy
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  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. I don't think he has enough time, because
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  Speaker 1: he's an incredibly busy guy to delve into a lot
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  Speaker 1: of these situations, and I don't think his instincts are
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  Speaker 1: all that great when it comes to conspiracies. And that
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  Speaker 1: came to a head where he decided that the big
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  Speaker 1: bomb he was going to drop in this igniting of
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  Speaker 1: a war against Donald Trump was that Donald Trump was
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  Speaker 1: in the Epstein files. And that's the real reason why
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  Speaker 1: they haven't been released, which is about the dumbest hill
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  Speaker 1: to die on I could possibly think of. As you know,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: if you've ever listened to this podcast before as a subscriber,
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  Speaker 1: you probably have. You know that my view of the
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  Speaker 1: Epstein situation is rather unique. I think I'm one of
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  Speaker 1: the very few people who actually has that story basically correct,
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  Speaker 1: which is there is no Epstein file to release because
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  Speaker 1: there was no massive conspiracy involving Epstein, and yes, he
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  Speaker 1: did kill himself in a federal prison, which even Cash
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  Speaker 1: Battel and Dan Bongino the FBI, have been forced to acknowledge,
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  Speaker 1: in contrary to pass statements by both of them, something
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  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump effectively acknowledged to Tucker Carlson a couple
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  Speaker 1: of years ago, something that was always obvious, that the
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  Speaker 1: Epstein story, for some bizarre set of reasons, has exploded,
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  Speaker 1: especially in the right wing twitter sphere, as this incredibly
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  Speaker 1: popular conspiracy theory and the idea that to whatever extent
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  Speaker 1: there is an Epstein file that Trump is in there
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  Speaker 1: has always been well known because they had a very
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  Speaker 1: extensive and public relationship. But does that mean that Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump was engaged in any of the illegal and criminal
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  Speaker 1: abusive activities of Jeffrey Epstein. Absolutely not. There's no evidence
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  Speaker 1: of that. And if there was evidence of that, and
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  Speaker 1: this is the part that is so clearly obvious even
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: some right wingers once you know they were incentivized to
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  Speaker 1: realize this because they were signing with Donald Trump, as
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  Speaker 1: the cult is prone to do. If there was any
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  Speaker 1: evidence in the so called Epstein files that Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: was involved in illegal activity with Jeffrey Epstein, don't you
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  Speaker 1: think the Biden administration and the FBI would have released that.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, can we use our brains for half a
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  Speaker 1: second here, folks. It's just ridiculous. It's completely absurd that
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  Speaker 1: what the Biden administration was protecting Donald Trump's association with
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  Speaker 1: criminal activity involving Jeffrey Epstein. It's absurd. And so you're
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  Speaker 1: gonna blow up if you're Elon Musk, You're gonna blow
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  Speaker 1: up this incredibly unique, powerful relationship that was credited with,
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  Speaker 1: you know, stopping a Kamala Harris administration and bringing in
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  Speaker 1: a second Donald Trump administration and potentially remaking the way
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  Speaker 1: government functions and try to streamline it and make it
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  Speaker 1: more efficient. All these things happened because of this relationship,
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  Speaker 1: this incredibly unique situation, this Batman and Robbins circumstance, however
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  Speaker 1: you want to describe it. You're gonna blow that up
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  Speaker 1: over Epstein, the Epstein files. You've got to be fucking
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  Speaker 1: kidding me. So that's where Elon Musk lost me. If
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  Speaker 1: he wanted to press Donald Trump as hard as he
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: possibly could and put his reputation on the line to
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  Speaker 1: kill the big beautiful Bill, I would have been all
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: in favor of that. That would have been interesting. That
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  Speaker 1: would have been fun to watch. It would have been
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  Speaker 1: fascinating to see whether that Musk was successful in that,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: because had he gone in that direction without dropping the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: fake Epstein bomb, I think he would have had more
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: credibility still within Maga world. But to me, in an effort,
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  Speaker 1: I think it was a misguided, miscalculated effort to try
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  Speaker 1: to appeal to Maga world because he knows how popular
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  Speaker 1: the Epstein file conspiracy theory is, but he doesn't seem
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  Speaker 1: to understand the power that Trump has over the cult,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and so the vast majority of people were always going
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  Speaker 1: to side with Donald Trump. That would I mean, anybody
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  Speaker 1: knew that, And so I just did not get it.
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  Speaker 1: If Musk had been being princive, he had been principled
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  Speaker 1: about the whole situation, if he had stuck with fiscal
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  Speaker 1: responsibility and the big beautiful bill, I would have been
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  Speaker 1: perfectly cool with that. But that's not what he did.
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  Speaker 1: And one of the stranger aspects of this entire, very
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  Speaker 1: bizarre situation that overtook all of social media and most
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: of the mainstream news media because they loved it. This
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: was catnip to them last Thursday was the fact that
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: there were two major Trump administration officials who were doing
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  Speaker 1: major podcast interviews while this was all going down, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to play clips from both of them. The
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  Speaker 1: first was FBI Director Cash mattel On with Joe Rogan
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  Speaker 1: and the fact that Musk chooses the Epstein files hill
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  Speaker 1: to die on, while the head of the FBI, who
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: was just basically forced to go public with the idea
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  Speaker 1: that oh, by the way, Epstein did kill himself in
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: a federal prison and was not murdered, wanted no part
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  Speaker 1: at all, no no part at all of this entire subject.
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  Speaker 1: But in my view, this is only from the perspective
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  Speaker 1: of the hilarity that in sued this is worth playing.
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  Speaker 1: And it was just absolutely so typically bizarre of this
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  Speaker 1: Trump era, where the FBI director is doing an interview
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  Speaker 1: with Joe Rogan on a podcast as the world is
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  Speaker 1: melting down on Twitter because of this shot fired by
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk against Donald Trump. And here's what that sounded like.
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  Speaker 2: This is gonna come up because it's been going on
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: since we've been recording here.
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  Speaker 1: Elon and Trump seemed to be in a little bit
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of a spat.
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  Speaker 3: Joe.
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  Speaker 4: You want to check the tweet that Elon just put
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  Speaker 4: out a little bit ago time to drop the really
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  Speaker 4: big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That's
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: the real reason they have not been made public. Have
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: a nice day, Jesus Christ.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not participating in any of that conversation. Have a
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: nice day.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: DGD so much to take its phone.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Away there going back and forth about different things.
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  Speaker 4: So he said he was disappointing Elon. Yeah, Jesus Christ,
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  Speaker 4: that's a crazy thing to say. How does he know?
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  Speaker 4: Does he know that Donald Trump is in the Epstein
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  Speaker 4: files or does he have access to them?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how he would.
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  Speaker 5: But I'm just staying out of the Trump Eylon thing.
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  Speaker 1: That's way outside of that. I just don't.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I understand he owns Twitter. I think it's
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: bad for your mental health. I think posting things public
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  Speaker 4: all day and arguing with people all day is bad
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: for you.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you raise a great point. Sorry to cut you off. Good.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Half of what we have to respond to are is
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the click army on social media. Now, I don't blame
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Cashrotel for not wanting any piece of that, but you know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to me, this bigger issue of Musk choosing the Epstein
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  Speaker 1: files as the Hill to die on really destroyed a
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: lot of his credibility, And it should be pointed out
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: that eventually Musk deleted that tweet, and I believe he
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: deleted a few other tweets, which was perceived as Musk
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: maybe trying to d esk late things, but probably too late.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I do want to mention one of the things about Epstein,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and this got totally lost amidst the avalanche of news
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: surrounding the Musk and Trump breakup, but Alan Dershowitz, who
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: obviously is very much connected to Donald Trump and also
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: connected to the Epstein case, in that he was falsely
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: accused by the most prominent accuser of Jeffrey Epstein and
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the accuser of Prince Andrew of having engaged in sexual
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: abuse against her. That's one of the things that has
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: always bothered me most about that accuser is that effectively
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: she was forced to admit that she was wrong in
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: her accusation against Alan Dershowitz. And if she was wrong
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: in her accusation against Alan Dershowitz, you know what else
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: was she wrong about? Well, Dershowitz came out and said,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and I believe this is the first time that he
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: has ever said, although it was incredibly poorly time, because
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: there's no chance of this occurring now thanks to Elon Musk.
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  Speaker 1: But Drshu had said publicly that he believes that Trump
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: ought to pardon or at least commute the sentence of
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Jiselene Maxwell, who is the person who is in prison
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: right now because she was convicted of trafficking on behalf
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of Jeffrey Epstein. And you may recall that I have
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: always said I am highly skeptical of the trial that
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: she endured and the charges for which she was convicted.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that she's innocent, but to me, the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: evidence against her was always very weak, and it was
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: consistent with my overall theory that she got railroaded in
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: that there was a moral panic, especially after Epstein killed himself,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and there was an incredible desire for somebody to pay
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: for Epstein's crime. Well, I was fascinated to see not
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: just that Dershowitz came out for Trump pardoning Maxwell, but
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: he referred to Maxwell as essentially a victim of Epstein. Now,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: again I have problems with Alan Dershowitz. He was on
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: OJ Simpson's defense team, which is usually a total disqualifier.
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  Speaker 1: For me. But Dershowitz is right about a lot of things.
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  Speaker 1: He's also an attention wore, so I get that he
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: has vulnerabilities and weaknesses, but he was obviously deeply embedded,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: almost literally in the whole Epstein's story. And for him
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: to publicly come out and say that he thinks that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Giselen Maxwell was effectively a victim of Epstein against self interest,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: because why in the world would he want this to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: be brought back up because it almost got him canceled,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: to me, was powerful and in further indication that my
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: instincts about Giseleen Maxwell are probably correct. But the bigger
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: issue is the whole Epstein's story has been completely misunderstood,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: especially by the right wing, and for Elon Musk to
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: use that as the hill he's gonna die on in
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: destroying this incredibly significant and up until this point largely
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: successful relationship with Donald Trump is just absolutely mystifying to me.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Now that doesn't mean that Musk is the only person
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: to blame here, because Trump, of course, having the massive
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: ego that he does and having incredibly thin skin, was
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: completely unable to not fire back. It was absolutely asinine
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: for Trump to respond at all, especially when he effectively
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: did the same thing that Musk did. In his response,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Musk effectively lied, claiming that somehow Trump was guilty in
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the Epstein case. That's a lie. It's an obvious lie.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: But then Trump fired back by trying to claim that
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Musk was motivated by the fact that the election trickle
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: vehicle mandates were eliminated in the big Beautiful Bill, and
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that that somehow is what motivated Musk to be one
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: against the bill and to two take out his ire
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: on Trump, which is also a lie. And we know
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it's a lie because Donald Trump said it was a lie.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump publicly praised Elon Musk on multiple occasions for
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: not caring about the ev mandates going away, and so
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't one. I was not surprised. Obviously, Trump passed
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the fireback. That's his DNA, that's his MO. But for
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: him to do so completely contradicting his own previous statements
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: was just infuriating, but so typical of Trump. So both
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: of these guys lied. Both of these guys allowed this
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: relationship to be blown apart to no positive end, seemingly unnecessary.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: We don't know how much damage is going to be
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: done yet, but I'm sure in my view, there could
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: be enormous damage going forward, depending on how Musk decides
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: to handle, for instance, the next midterm elections and the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: next presidential election. But all out of ego and being
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: thin skinned and not being used to being in a
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: situation where someone has that kind of leverage over you.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I really think that was the key part of this.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Neither of these guys are used to having somebody else
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: have real leverage over them, and their egos did not
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: allow them to fully understand the mutually assured destruction element
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: of why this marriage needed to stay intact, even with
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: bumps in the road, even with disagreements. Now, I mentioned
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: that there were two major Trump administration officials who were
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: engaging in significant podcasts interviews while this meltdown on Twitter
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: was going on. The second was Vice President j d Vance,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and I found it particularly telling an odd that jd
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Vance was on with a comedian named Theo Vaughn. Now,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I consider Joe Rogan to be a bit of a moron,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: but he's a moron in a way that is very
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: relatable to the average person. I think it's really the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: key to his success. I mean, he really isn't very bright,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: but he does have a good gut instinct and you know,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: he caught lightning in a bottle. And now he gets
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: great guests, and I get the popularity of the show.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: But Joe Rogan's shtick is basically he's the everyman, not
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: particularly bright. Sometimes he's idiotic, but theo Von stick is
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: that he's basically mentally challenged. Now I don't know how
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: much is real, how much is an act. I think
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that's actually part of his appeal. But it was fascinating
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: to me that we had Cash mattel On with a
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: guy who's a legitimate moron, and then jd Vance goes
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: on with a guy who maybe faking that he's mentally challenged,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: maybe partially faking. Maybe it's a little bit of both.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is very funny. The yovonn is very funny,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and sometimes he's even a pretty good interviewer, largely because
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: he's an idiot. But jd Vance, the Vice President the
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: United States, for some reason, decided that this is the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: place where he wants to give access to in a
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: one on one sit down interview, and it happened to
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: coincide with this attack by Elon Musk on President Donald Trump.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And I have to give credit here because jd Vance
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: was in a very difficult spot. Not that the Yvonne
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: was going to attack him very hard or that jd
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Vance couldn't handle the Vaughne intellectually, but this was classic
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: jd Vance where he is handed an incredibly difficult set
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: of circumstances and he's able to navigate the minefield. I
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: thought extremely well in trying to both understand and answer
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the question, you know, in a transparent fashion while not
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: further exacerbating things and making it clear obviously he's loyal
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump. But I really liked jd Vance's answer
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: here with THEO Vaughn. And here's what that sounded like.
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: Elon just hit the airwaves today. Bring it up, dude.
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: Oh man, the fucking shit missile is in the cannon. Okay, wow,
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: Elon Musk and you may have heard of them.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I've heard of him.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: Time to drop the really big bomb, right, And I
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: thought this was going to be on Iral. I haven't
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: even seen right, I haven't even seen this one. But
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: he goes at real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files.
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: This is the real reason they have not been made public.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: Have a nice day, nice signature from a South African
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: DJT man.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Well, here, here's here's my basic reaction to like all
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: this stuff is luck First of all, like absolutely not.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein. Like
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: there's the guy is whatever the Democrats and the media
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: says about him, that's totally bs. Here here's my basic
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: my basic reread on it. First of all, I'm the
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: vice President's the President Trump. My loyalty is are always
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: going to be with the President. And I think that
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Elon he's an incredible entrepreneur. He's actually done I think
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Dogs was really good. This sort of effort to root
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: out waste fraud abuse in our country is really good.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: And and and look, man, I'm always going to be
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: loyal to the President, and I hope that eventually Elon
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that's not
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: possible now because he's gone so nuclear.
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: Do you know why?
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so, look, I think number one, Elon's
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: new to politics, right, So his businesses are being attacked nonstyle.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: They're literally like fire bombing some of his cars. And
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: by the way, we're looking into a lot of the stuff.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, some of that stuff we're looking into as
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: an active terrorism at the Department of Justice, because I
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: think it is an act of terrorism. So I think
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: part of it is this guy got into politics and
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: has suffered a lot for it. But I mean, and
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I get the frustration there, and I get the frustration that.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, Congress got the spending bill, but the
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: main purpose of the bill is not actually spending or
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: cutting spending, though it does cut a lot of spending.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: The main purpose of the bill is to prevent the
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: biggest tax increase. But I understand, like it's a good bill,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: it's not a perfect bill. Like the process in DC.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: If you're a business leader, you probably get frustrated with
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: that process because it's more bureaucratic, it's more slow moving.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: So I think there's just some frustrations there. But I really, man,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: It's a huge mistake for him to go after the
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: president like that.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: And I think that if he and the President are
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: in some blood feud, most importantly, it's going to be
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: bad for the country. But I think it's going to
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: be I don't think it's gonna be.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Good for Elon either. Now, one of the things that
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I was very curious about was how was the right
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: wing media, and specifically Twitter influencers in the within the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: right wing or within magaworld, how were they going to
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: handle the Trump Musk Musk Trump breakup, divorce, whatever you
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: want to call it. And partially why I was so
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: fascinated by this is that we had a unique set
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: of circumstances. Obviously, under normal conditions, every single one of
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: these people is going to immediately virtue signal their support
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. It's a cult, and the loyalty of
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the cult is obviously to Donald Trump. And so you
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: might think, and certainly the rank and file was going
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to be very strongly inclined regardless of what the facts are,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: even if Moss could not stupidly use the Epstein files
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: as the hill to die on, that the loyalties were
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: all going to be with Donald Trump. But in this
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: particular circumstances, regarding the media personalities and you know, specifically
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the Twitter influencers, there is a unique set of circumstances
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: that could change the dynamics and the self interests involved here.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: And what I'm referring to, of course, is the fact
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: that Elon Musk owns Twitter. And it's not just that
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: he owns Twitter and theoretically could do whatever he wants
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to any particular account. He could, you know, shadow ban them,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: or mute them, or the you know, the algorithm could
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: suddenly mean that somebody's account is not seen as much
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: as it used to. But even more directly than that,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: even if you know, he didn't want to go in
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: a nefarious fashion, even more directly than that, Elon Musk
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: has a carrot in this circumstance that Donald Trump really
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: no longer has. Trump has it to some extent, but
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: nowhere near to the level that Elon Musk has it,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: which is that, on a moment's notice, literally a moment's notice,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk can highlight any right wing MAGA influencer's Twitter
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: account he wants in a very dramatic way, simply by
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: quote tweeting them or retweeting them or reposting them. I
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: guess is now what it's called now that it's X
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and not Twitter. But that is an incredibly powerful tool
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: within the right wing influencer group, within MAGA world, within
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: right wing media commentators. Why because when Elon Musk features
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: you via his own account, not even via the algorithm
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: that runs X, but just as this is very open, transparent.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Him doing it on his own, that means that that
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: account and that tweet, in most circumstances, is going to
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: be getting millions of impressions times tens of millions of impressions,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: which usually means lots of followers, attention, maybe even money,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: depending on the circumstances. There is a huge benefit that
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk can meter out at any moment. He wants
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: to basically provide a perk, a benefit to any right
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: wing media influencer on Twitter, and that has power, and
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: that is going to create a situation where a lot
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: of right wing media personalities and influencers are going to
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: be very hesitant to publicly, especially on Twitter, criticize Elon Musk,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: because if he sees it, or if he you know,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in the let's say in the future he's thinking about
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: whether he wants to highlight a tweet of yours, he
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: might just do a quick Twitter search and find out
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: what you said about the Musk Trump conflict. And if
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: you didn't say the right things, if you criticized Elon Musk,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: then guess what, You're no longer going to be in
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the in the group of people that Elon Musk shares
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: tweets of and so that is something that matters to
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: these people. It shouldn't, but it does. And so I
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: think to a large degree, not to intutality by any
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination, but to a large degree, that
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: muted what would have been the overwhelming, under normal circumstances,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the overwhelming desire of right wing media influencers to signal
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: their virtue and side one hundred percent with Trump in
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: this feud. So because of that, because Elon has this power,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: this unique power of owning Twitter. And it's not just
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: owning Twitter, it's having over two hundred million, I believe
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Twitter followers. So every single time that Must posts, it
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: gets a lot of attention, and any post that he
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: shares gets a lot of attention. And that's what these
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: people want, that's what that's their oxygen, it's their lifeblood.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: And so because of this unique set of circumstances, what
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I found was a lot of right wing media personalities
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: were desperate to cope. They were desperate to come up
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: with a way to thread this needle, to avoid this minefield. Now,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: they were all going to say things that were positive
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump because they had to signal their virtue.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: But what I found hilarious was that we had a
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: group of right wing influencers or commentators who fell into
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: several different categories of what I call coping. Here, the
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: most hilarious was those that believed that the Musk Trump
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: feud was contrived. Dansha Susa was one of the worst
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: defenders of this, which was just hilarious to me because
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I've been very critical of the Nesh de Suza in
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the past, and he was not alone. There was a
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: news Max anchor person who did the same thing. But
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: there were many people who were in the category of
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: this isn't even real, this is forty hss, this is
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: somehow all contrived. I'm like, okay, if you really believe that,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: And I think, based upon what Densh de Suza wrote
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: on Twitter, I think he really does believe it. I
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: can't be sure because he is a whore and he
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: is more than willing to say things that he doesn't
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: really believe if he thinks it's in his best interest.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: But my sense was he really believed that this was contrived,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: and he was not alone. Well, you have to be
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: a complete imbecile, you have to be dumber than THEO
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Vaughn pretends to be to think that this was contrived.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: This was not contrived. This was very real. And you know,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: it's just a completely ridiculous it's a coping mechanism to
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: try to claim that no, no, no, well this wasn't real.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: This was forty chess. These guys are geniuses and there
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: must have been some other rationale for why they decided
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: to do this, that there's going to be some good
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: outcome here. And then there was another group of people.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I think this was led by Megan Kelly, who is
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: always very good at navigating these situations for her own
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: self interest. She knew that there was no good situation
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: for her there because she doesn't want to be on
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk's bad side. But she's clearly made it obvious
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: that she is loyal to Donald Trump and that's the
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: huge part of her brand. Now. Her take on this
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: was that it was all meaningless, that it doesn't have
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: any real significance, this divorce between Donald Trump and Elon Musk,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: which is also absurd. I mean, it absolutely has meaning.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to that in just a second.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: And then there was another group of people who actually
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: thought that this was good, that this was actually good,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: and this is somewhat related to the contrived people. These people,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think they said publicly that they thought it
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: was all fake, but they thought that it just so happened,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: by coincidence to all transpire in a way that was
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: actually politically good, that because it gave people more freedom,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: It gave Musk more freedom, and it gave Trump more freedom,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: and it may actually help pass the Big Beautiful Bill,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: which in a weird way, it could possibly do that.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I know my friend Steve Cortes actually believes that this
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: feud will help the Big Beautiful Bill in the US
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Senate because any Republican that goes against it will be
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: seen as siding with Elon Musk over Donald Trump. I'm
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: not sure I agree with that one hundred percent, but
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I understand where Steve Cortez is coming from. But I
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: don't believe by and large that this relationship, should it
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: be as severed as it appears to be, is a
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: good thing politically for Trump, or for the Republican Party,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: or for the country. And the main reason that I
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: don't believe it's good is because Elon Musk has unique power.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: It's not just his massive amounts of money. Still technically
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: I guess the richest man in the world, despite what
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: he has lost in value, largely because of his association
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: with Donald Trump and the Doge program, but because he
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: owns Twitter, Twitter has become so unbelievably powerful within the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: right wing media. He has replaced the Drudge Report, and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: he is ten to one hundred times more powerful, depending
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: on how you define these things than Matt Drudge ever was,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: which is partially why Trump should have understood you cannot
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: divorce this person. Now, Trump may not give a damn
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: about the future of politics. He may not care about
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the midterm elections. He should because if Republicans lose the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: House of Representives, he's getting impeached one hundred percent. Now,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: he probably doesn't care because he's survived impeachment not once
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: but twice before and then ended up getting elected President
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: of the United States. So maybe he doesn't even care
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: about being impeached. He ought to care if he cares
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: about the country maintaining control of the House of Representatives.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: But Elon Musk could easily, easily, with almost just a
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: snap of a finger, could give the Democrats the House
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: of Representatives in twenty twenty six simply by manipulating Twitter.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: That's all he would have to do, and it would
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: be incredibly easy. That's how powerful Twitter is. He can
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: mess with the algorithms, he can use his own influence,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: his own money. There's all sorts of things that he
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: can do. He's threatened to create a third party. He
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: put that out on Twitter in the middle of this feud.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Do we need the third party? An overwhelming percentage of
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: the people who responded to his poll said yes, we
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: need a third party. Of course, a third party led
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: by Elon Musk would absolutely torch the Republican Party, especially
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: in a midterm election, and Democrats would roll into control
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: of the House, maybe even the US Senate. And so
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: this is a massive problem. Now I have no idea
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: where it's going to go from here. Like I said,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: there's some signs that Musk has tried to de escalate things.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Trump gave an answer when asked whether or not he's
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: gonna call Elon or has Elon called him? And of
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: course he you know, he made it clear that he
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: was the alpha dog and that Musk had to call him,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: but that hadn't happened. But he thinks that it might
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't the worst answer in the world
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: as far as the possibility of some sort of reconciliation,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: but clearly there has been a major break. And that
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean it can't be resolved or mended in some way,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: but it needs to be. It needs to be if
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the goal here is keeping Democrats at bay, which it
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: ought to be, then Elon Musk needs to be on
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: the team because he was an incredibly significant part of
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: that team. Again, one because of the fact that, well,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: there's for several reasons. First of all, he's not considered
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: in the public sphere to be a normal right wing Republican.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: This guy was perceived as a liberal icon previously. Plus
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: he's the richest man in the world, which has power
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: and prestige. And then also he has an enormous amount
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: of energy, ingenuity at times he's a genius, and obviously
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: also he owns Twitter. For all of those reasons, you
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: cannot you cannot go forward having that person go from
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: being a strong ally to an enemy. You cannot do that.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: You cannot allow that. You must remain, at best or worse,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: depending on new perspective, comfortably stuck with each other. And
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: that's where both of these guys blew it. They blew
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: it badly. Musk blew it on the hill he chose
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: to die on and Trump blew it by responding, especially
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: in the way that he did the meaning and lying
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: about Elon Musk, especially when it came to the issue
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: of ev mandates. Now I almost feel weird spending the
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: first half hour or so of this podcast episode on
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the Trump Musk feud, because it feels like incredibly old
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: news by now. It's the one drawback of doing this
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: podcast once a week. Thankfully, I was able to anticipate
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: that this might be a big story, so I spent
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of the last episode of the podcast on
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: it in a way that I think held up very
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: very well. Wants to meltdown, and the divorce actually did occur,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: but the news cycle has shifted as dramatically as I
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: can ever remember for a massive story like this, I mean,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: this feels very much like old news already. The Trump
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Mosk divorce was like a fireworks display on the fourth
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: of July. By the next morning, it's basically forgotten. There's
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: just the remnants of it left on the ground maybe
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: and maybe in the smell in the air, and then
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: after that it's very gone. It's very much gone soon afterwards,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: almost forgotten until next year. Well, it's very similar to
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: what's happened in this particular situation. Because what has occurred
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, it may now be spreading to other
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: cities in the United States as we tape this podcast
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: has completely overtaken the news cycle. Now I am never
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: in the camp. First of all, as you know, I
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: don't believe Donald Trump to be that smart. I don't
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: believe in conspiracies, and I always hate then the distraction narrative.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: This is incredibly popular narrative on social media. Whenever some
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: big story ends up taking a bad story out of
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: people's attention, there's always the idea that, aha, this was
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: all planned, this was a distraction. I don't tend to
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: believe that at all. However, if it was a distraction,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: this could not have turned out better for Donald Trump.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: In fact, the main reason I don't believe this narrative
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: is because I can't believe Trump would be this smart,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: or that anybody would be this good at it, because
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: this could not have gone better. I mean, if you
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: put out a scenario for how Trump would get out
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: of this news cycle of the story being the divorce
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: between him and Elon Musk. You could not possibly have
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: created a set of circumstances, at least politically, that are
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: better for Donald Trump. And what I'm referring to, of course,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: is what has transpired in Los Angeles, near where I live,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: where what started as Ice trying to do some rather
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: small roundups of suspected illegal immigrants. This then started some protests.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Trump immediately then federalized the National Guard and then escalated
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: further in the words of Democrats, by bringing in the Marines,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: and this further facilitated more riots. It just became this
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: vicious cycle where every everything because it's perceived it's coming
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: from Donald Trump. And I think this is one of
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: the things that is one of the many things that
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: the media has done a terrible job of reporting on
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: when it comes to this cycle of riots. If if
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: this was Barack Obama, and to be clear, Barack Obama
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: did do some of this, If this had if Ice
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: was working on the on behalf of Barack Obama, none
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: of this occurs. It's because it's happening on behalf of
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And the hate that has been fomented by
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Democratic leaders against Donald Trump, especially here in California, makes
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: it much easier for a situation that would be somewhat
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: combustible to a situation that's exploding, because that's what's driving this.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: It's anti Trump fervor. It really isn't even this desire
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to protect illegal immigrants, especially among the Black community in
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles. The Black community in Los Angeles, because they're
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: by and large citizens, they actually do not have a
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: favorable view in general of illegal immigrants. But in many
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: sectors of the Los Angeles community, there are professional rioters
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: who are just waiting for the opportunity to get some
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: new sneakers or new electronics. Because this happens every single
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: time there's a riot, whether it's the Lakers or Dodgers
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: winning a championship or whatever it is, whatever opportunity there is,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: aha it's rioting season. They don't give it a shit
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: about what the actual political topic is. And so in
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: my view, this is one of those classic situations where
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: everybody is at least a little bit wrong everybody. However,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I want to make clear from the start that nationally
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: this is working out very very well for Donald Trump politically,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: because the pictures are just absolutely awful. For the Democratic Party.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, you have obviously these fires and the attacks
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: on law enforcement, in the waving of the Mexican flag,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and the Democratic operatives, the leaders and their enablers in
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: the media, all trying to make excuses and trying to
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: defend this. To especially red state America, and I would
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: suggest even Purple state America, this looks very, very bad,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: especially since it's Los Angeles. Right, Everybody outside of California,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: many people even in California already have a very understandably
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: jaundice view of Los Angeles, especially when it comes to
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: the politics. But that doesn't mean that everything that Trump
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: has done here has been correct or I agree with.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: So while I fully acknowledge that as of right now
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: this is working out very well for Trump and I
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: side with him one thousand percent, when it comes to
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: the principle of the issue of illegal immigration, I do believe,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: and it pains me to say this, I do believe
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that there is a grain of truth in some of
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: the things that Gavin Newsom, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: my daughters have been referring to is Governor Pousam. Ever
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: since the COVID panic, there's a grain of truth and
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: some of the things that new has been saying, like,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: for instance, I do think there is a question of
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the legality and the constitutionality of some of the things
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: that Trump has done regarding the National Guard. I also
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: believe that Trump purposely jumped the gun when it came
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: to bringing in the National Guard and the Marines. That
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: by Los Angeles standards, what was happening when Trump decided
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: to do that. And this is where Democrats keep using
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: the word escalation, and I don't think that that's fair.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: But there is some accuracy to that term, because what
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Trump did at that moment was probably not necessary. I
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: because obviously, I've lived here now for over twenty years.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I've seen these things happen. And what was happening on
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: television was not good, but it was nowhere near. It
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: was amateur hour in comparison to the normal, you know,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: really bad Los Angeles riot. And it feels to me
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: as if Trump was looking for an excuse to elevate
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, that might be the better term than escalate,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: to elevate this situation under the guys of Okay, I'm
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: gonna protect Ice so that they can do their job,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: which by the way. Philosophically, I agree with I'm just
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: saying in the real world, I think Trump was looking
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: for an opportunity, and did the musk thing have a
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: role in that. I don't know. Was he looking for
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: a distraction, It's certainly possible, but I actually think that
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: newsome And again it pains me to say this was
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: probably right in that Trump did jump the gun, did
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: act probably too quickly to federalize this situation. Now, this
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: is not a perfectly simple set of circumstances. I understandophically
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: why Trump had the justification for doing what he did,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: because we have a unique and horrible situation here in California,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: which is really at the heart of this whole matter.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: See to me, I'm gonna get to this momentarily, but
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: this whole thing to me feels like theater. But that
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: the real crux of this is this is proof that
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: California is headed towards secession. I mean, I know that's
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: a big statement, but I'm and I'm going to get
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: to it. But back to the theater part of this.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Part of the problem, the core issue here is that
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: because California is not really part of the United States
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: of America anymore, philosophically, the leadership, the governor Karen Bass,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: the mayor of Los Angeles, all the elected officials. They
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: are on the side unabashedly of the illegal immigrants, unabashedly.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: And you know who is aware of that. The police.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: The police is exceedingly aware of this, and they have
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: effectively been trained, especially at the LAPD. I mean the LAPD.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: The pendulum always swings way too far in everything in
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: our society. The LAPD several decades ago probably was too
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: badass and probably was a bit racist in some of
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: the things that they did. I think it might be
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: an overblown narrative. It certainly shouldn't have resulted in OJ
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Simpson's acquittal, but I think there was some argument to
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: be made there well, that pendulum has swung so far
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: in the other direction over the decades that the LAPD knows,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: they know in every pore, in every part of their DNA,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: that the worst thing they can do is be seen
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: on camera doing something violent towards a person of color.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: It doesn't even matter what color that is. If it's
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: a person of color, they are completely toothless. They can't
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: do anything. And especially when the so called demonstration or
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: the riot, whatever it is, is on behalf of illegal immigration.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: So we're in an upside down world. You would think,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: you know, in the old world, Wait a minute, where
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: you're demonstrating on behalf of people that are here illegally.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: They can't even vote, so what power should they have.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: That's the rational world. In the real world, we're in
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Alice in Wonderland. These people actually have more power than
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: white male voters do lots more. And everybody in the
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: police department knows this. They can't do anything. And by
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: the way, the demonstrators, the rioters, know they can't do anything.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: They know that their skin color is literally a get
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: out of jail or not be sent to jail free card.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: That is not an exaggeration. That is the reality, and
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: every single person knows it. Therefore, therefore, philosophically, I totally
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: understand and somewhat support Trump's notion that you must you
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: must have law enforcement who is loyal to the federal government.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: See this is not being explained at all, especially in
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: the left wing media. You must have law enforcement there
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: that is loyal to the federal government in some way,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: shape or form, because there the dynamics and the incentive
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: structure is completely different. The local law enforcement is totally impotent.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: They can do nothing to well this because of the
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: unique and horrendous upside down political dynamics here in California,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: because it's a one party state, it's a socialist state,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: it is a pro illegue immigration state, it is a
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: sanctuary city in Los Angeles. And so I get it.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: I totally get philosophically and from a principal perspective what
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Trump is doing. I just think he acted purposely, awfully fast,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: because I do believe that in doing that, partially because
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: of who he is and all the stigma attached to Trump,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: that that did further facilitate more protests and rioting. And
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: that's where the media then comes in, because I've seen
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: this cycle happen time and time again in my twenty
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: plus years of living in the Los Angeles area. Where
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you have something happen, it's really not that big of
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: a deal. I mean, these ice round ups were not
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: seemingly all that significant this. I can actually understand the
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: argument some people have that the ice round ups in
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: themselves were provocative, that they were targeting, they were trying
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: to create a reaction. I don't know that, but This
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: was not a situation where you know, hundreds of thousands
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: of illegal immigrants were all of a sudden going to
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: be rounded up and forced out of the country. And
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: so you have you have a set of circumstances where
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: something has happened that might irritate a few people. The
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: regular suspects are going to come out to demonstrate, they're
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: going to have their Mexican flags, but it doesn't turn
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: into a riot until the media gets involved. See this
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: is this is what's so frustrating about this cycle. I
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: would love This is obviously impossible, it's unrealistic, and it
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: wouldn't even be constitutional. But I would love to see
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: from a purely human, experimental perspective, what would happen with
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: regard to these kinds of demonstrations that turn into eventually riots,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: especially at night, if the media was banned from covering them,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: if by magic, you could have no news trucks and
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: especially no helicopters. That's the part that I think really
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: drives a lot of this in Los Angeles. In Los
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Angeles you have a lot of news helicopters, not as
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: many as you used to, by the way, because local
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: news has gone to shit. A lot of outlets aren't
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: even doing traffic coverage anymore, but you still have a
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: lot of helicopters because they love covering these car chases
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: whenever news is light, which is one of the most
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: ridiculous things in the history of news. The helicopters, I
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: think play a huge role in this because if you
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: are on the ground and you're demonstration and there's no
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: cameras around, and there's no helicopters and there's a light
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: police presence, I think it is far less likely to
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: get out of hand, partially because guess what, you don't
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: get a crowd. See the crowd dynamics here are key.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: A large part of what draws a crowd is a crowd.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: That's how this works. So until you get a big crowd,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: you don't get more of a crowd. You need something
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: to ignite, You need a spark to get people interested
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: enough to show up to wherever the demonstration is. And
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: then once there's a riot and there's maybe free sneakers
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: and free electronics, then all bets are off. Well. That
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: can only happen with the media's help here in Los
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: Angeles well, with live coverage via helicopters and helicopters are
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: impossible to ignore. You might be able to ignore, you know,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: a couple of cameras on the street among hundreds of peace,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: but the helicopters have a massive impact. I think they
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: have a massive impact on those car chases. By the way,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I'm always convinced that a large part of the reason
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: why the car chases get out of control is because
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: the person in the car sees that they're on local
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: live television with multiple helicopters hanging over them, which creates
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: further stress and confusion and chaos and poor decision making.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: So I am one hundred percent convinced that the media
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: actually directly facilitates a lot of this problem. It doesn't
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: even matter what their coverage is, it's just the fact
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: that they're covering it. Once it reaches the level of okay,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: this is now worthy of live television coverage on multiple
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles local stations, guess what more people are going
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: to show up and it becomes an officially sanctioned rioting situation.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is really pretty clear and obvious. The
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: cycle happens constantly, and it's very, very frustrating, and I
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: would be very confident that if somehow it was illegal
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: for helicopters or television newsvans to show up at a
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: demonstration to guess what would happen basically nothing, and then
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: people would go home and that the crowd wouldn't get
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: any bigger. The media, especially the helicopters, are gasoline on
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: a fire and then a light of a match. That's
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: what the media is here, and nobody ever references this.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: It's incredibly frustrating, and as you might expect, the media
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: coverage of this situation has been horrendous, especially here in
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, especially on the left wing cable news networks.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: It has been extremely liberal. It has been extremely pro
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: illegal immigrant, it has been extremely anti Donald Trump. And
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: there's been some really good examples of this. I'm not
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: going to play all of them for you. In fact,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I'm i't really only going to play one one direct example,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: because this is just too good not to play. Is
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: This is hilarious. This is symbolic of so much of
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: what I've just talked about. This is local KABC affiliate
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: owned by Disney. This is an anchor reporter who, in
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: a very short clip that went super viral, actually had
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: the audacity to claim that these demonstrators are simply having
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: fun watching cars burn. This is not made up. This
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: is not AI, this is not the Babylon b satirical website.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: This is real life on KBC in Los Angeles. And
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: this understandably went viral.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 6: Large group of people. It could turn very volatile if
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 6: you move law enforcement in there and the wrong way
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 6: and turn what is just a bunch of people having
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 6: fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 6: between officers and demonstrators.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, you just can't make that up. I mean,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: and here's a guy who clearly is a white dude
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: who is terrified. This is a large part of what
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: drives of the narrative when it comes to news media coverage,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: especially in a place like Los Angeles when the issue
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: is illegal immigration. Every white dude knows this is a
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: dangerous set of circumstances for them. They cannot say anything
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: that's not down with the struggle. So white males on
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: local Los Angeles television are completely useless. They're the absolute worst.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: They're going to try to find every excuse they can
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: to defend the demonstrators or the riots, And of course
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: the phrases now almost become cliche mostly peaceful demonstrations, mostly
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: peaceful demonstrations, which is very much like other than that,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Missus Lincoln, how was the play. There's no question that
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: these have been violent. These demonstrations have turned into riots.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: There's been looting. I've already referenced the sneaker stores, the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: electronics stores of the jewelry district is now all boarded up.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Karen Bass was forced to put in a curfew in
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, which is awfully odds since she's been saying
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: that this is all very much overblown. Well it's not
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: overblown now because now it's got momentum. Now everyone knows
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: it's riot season in Los Angeles. Come on out, it
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: hasn't been you know, it's June. It's June. It's summertime.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: So it's riot season in Los Angeles. Get me some
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: new sneakers and electronics, and that is not an exaggeration.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Now there's one other medium moment, and there's been so
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: many I could probably spend an hour on it, but
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to. But I do at least one
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: of play this clip from CNN because it deals with
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: a virtue signaling reporter by the name of Jason Carroll. Now,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: those of you who were avid listeners to With the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: Benefit of Hindsight podcast, you may recall that Jason Carroll
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: was prominently mentioned in that podcast because Jason Carroll, as
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: a reporter for CNN, somehow convinced Jerry and Dottie Sandusky
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: that he might be fair to them, and without getting
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: into all of the details, when I had Dottie Sandusky
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: do an interview with me sitting next to her with
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Matt Lower from her home, Jason Carroll, when he found
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: out about that, was apoplectic and he contacted me and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: begged me, begged me to do the second interview with
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Dottie Sandusky with him, because he apparently had visited Jerry
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: in prison, and I think he had I believe he thought.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he thought that he had Jerry and Dotty
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: Sandusky snowed, and that he had been working on this
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: for so long and he saw his opportunity fade away.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: And I said, we're not interested, because I knew enough
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: about Jason Carroll not to trust him. In fact, I
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: was stunned that this was the guy I'd heard that
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: there was a CNN reporter that Jerry and Dottie Sandusky
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: had become somewhat trusting of and I thought, Jason Carrol,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: are you kidding? I mean this guy, he's a clear snake.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Take you spend three seconds with this guy, you know
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: he's a snake. And sure enough that turned out to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: be the case. I had him agree to do several
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: things if he wanted to do an interview with Dottie
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Sanduski and myself. He agreed to them. One of those
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: was that I would be on set with Anderson Cooper
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: after the taped version of his interview with Dottie was aired,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: so that I could be there in case there was
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: something that was unfair that I could correct the record.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: That was agreed to. I was flown from State College,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania to New York City to do that interview with
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: Anderson Cooper, and then the entire issue of the missing
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: Malaysian airplane came up and there was no new news,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: there was no breaking news. CNN just figured out from
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: the ratings that they had a hit on their hands,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: and so they decided the jettis and everything for like
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: the next month trying to find the stupid missing Malaysian
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: airplane that they never found. But in the course of
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: that interview, it was very clear to me that Jason
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: Carroll was a snake. In fact, right after the interview,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: I was, I think, getting washed up. I was exhausted,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I realized that Jason Carroll
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: had manipulated Dottie to going down in the infamous Sandusky
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: basement and had tried to get her to start screaming
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: for help so he could record the audio. I'm like,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: what is going on here? I put the kebash on
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: that immediately, But I mean, this guy is a snake.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I would not trust him at all based upon my
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: perception of him and my experience with him. But here
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: he was being detained very gently by I guess this
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: was Los Angeles police. I'm not even sure who what
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: the law enforcement agency was, but clearly Carol was very
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: much enjoying being the center of attention, and this was
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: him being detained because apparently he was in the wrong
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: place during the demonstrations. But just the virtue signaling here
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: and they look at me, look at me, I am
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: the story when it appears as if he was in
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: the wrong place, and while he was at one point handcuffed,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: I thought he was actually handled quite nicely and far.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: He was handled far better than I I was when
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: I got arrested for sitting in my seat at the
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: Matt Sedusky event, which, by the way, I'll mention again
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: later in the episode because it relates to the coming
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: US open. But here is the audio of CNN when
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Jason Carroll is describing what happened with him being detained
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: by law enforcement. It's time to escalate.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 7: Wait one second, John, hold on, Jason, what's going on?
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 7: I hear you what I am I seeing Jason Carroll
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 7: being what what happened?
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: Jason?
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: I am being detained. I am being detained, Laura, I'm
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: not being arrested.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: Correct officers, did you hear what?
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 6: We're letta, okay, continuing to come back in.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, I thank you, okay, thank you?
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: If you guys can still hear me, what happened was.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: I was? Yes, I'm Chris with you in New York
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Times week.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: We got video of you guys if you need it later.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you all New York Times.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 7: I appreciate that I can hear you still, Jason. What's happening?
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: So we here's what happened, Laura. We uh the officer.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: I was called over and the officer told me to
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: put my hands behind my back. I said, am I
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: being arrested? He said, you were being detained.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: Uh. I was walked out of the area. They took
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: down my information.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 7: Oh I'm losing his IFB right now, I can't hear you,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 7: Jason John Miller.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: So nothing about that, or because I know Jason Carroll is,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: or about the media coverage in general has been surprising
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: regarding all this. It's all theater, you know, all the
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: world's a stage, and everyone's an actor, and that's what
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: Jason Carroll is doing there. That's what everyone's doing. And
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are acting as if there's no real violence.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: This is mostly peaceful, and in fact, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: Waters another news figure with whom I have had direct contact.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I once did a hilarious interview with Maxine Waters at
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: a demonstration where we got into a major confrontation and
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: she started screaming at me. And this is a woman
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: who should be pointed out on multiple occasions has threatened
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: violence and urged people to be violent when it comes
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: to these demonstrations. Yet she was at a press conference
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: where she literally said don't believe your eyes or don't
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: believe what you're seeing on television regarding the nature of
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: these demonstrations. So this is right out of George Orwell's
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, and here's Maxine Waters.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 8: Tess and even those who were out of step with
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 8: what we are advocating peaceful protest did not create any violence.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 8: Nobody was shot, nobody was killed. Get it in your head.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 8: And so when martial law is called, what are you
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 8: going to say? I missed the point, don't miss the punt.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 8: You all don't think that somehow because they called out
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 8: the National Guard there was violence.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: There was no violence.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 8: I was on the street, I know, and I went
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 8: from downtown Detention back out into the community talking to people.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 8: What happened in Paramount, what happened in Compton, what happened
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 8: in Inglewood. So first of all, get it straight and
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 8: don't just rely on what you're being told are the
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 8: few incidents that you saw.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: Now. Of course Waters is completely wrong there. What you're
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: saying is ridiculous and absurd. But only one Democrat has
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: been willing, one prominent democrat has been willing to stand
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: up and say that, and not surprisingly, that was John Fetterman,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Senator from Pennsylvania. It's absolutely hilarious and telling. The Democrats
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: are much more concerned about Fetterman's mental health and his
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: fitness for office now that he's turned into a rational
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: moderate than they were when he was running for election
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: in the state of Pennsylvania unable to speak, and they
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: presumed that he was a woe liberal. It's incredibly telling,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: but much to Fetterman's credit, he posted this on x
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: law enforcement. Kudos to John Fetterman. And that has been
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: seen on Twitter millions and millions of times, mostly because
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: it's been shared by right wingers and Trump fans. Ununderstandably so.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: But that's the very strange, bizarre world we're living in.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: John Fetterman is the voice of reason within the Democratic Party.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: He might be the lone voice left, and he's absolutely right.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: This is looking very very bad for Democrats nationally now.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: To me, I want to go back to California, and
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get into the Newsom versus Trump battle
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: and just a second here, But to me, the real
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: issue here, forget about the theater. The real issue here
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: with regard to illegal immigration and California is that, frankly,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: this is all too late. I applaud you know, in
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: principle the apparent effort that Trump is making. I'm not
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: convinced that he's one hundred percent committed to this and
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: that it's not mostly theater, but it's too late, and
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: this is a lot like the spending issue. To me,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: I referenced that part of my disappointment about the whole
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk in Doge situation is that this was the
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: last chance. This was beyond the last chance. This was
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Luke Skywalker one shot in the Death Star, and Musk
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: didn't even get a shot off. And the only reason
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: why it was one last chance is because you had
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: a very unique set of circumstances. The richest man in
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: the world seemingly hell bent on making this happen on
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: a crusade with the support of the President United States,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: who had control somewhat of both houses of Congress. That
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: was never gonna happen. Again, and even that, frankly, you know,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: to use another Elon Musk metaphor barely got off the
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: launching pad and certainly never got a shot off against
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: the death Star. Well, in my view, the illegal immigration
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: issue is incredibly similar in California. At least, it's too late.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: The cancer has overtaken the host. It's so overtaken the
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: host you cannot do any significant surgery on the host
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: because it will die. And that's why all every single
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: element of the leadership apparatus politically and in law enforcement
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: even is not just accepting of illegal immigration. It's defensive
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: of illegal immigration. It's on the side of illegal immigrants.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: And a big part of that is Gavin Newsom. Now
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: I have talked about how this is working well nationally
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: politically for Donald Trump. I also think this is probably
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: not hurting. It might even be helping Gavin Newsom, not
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: just here in California, but i'mong potential twenty twenty eight
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary voters who are extremely liberal and very desperate
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: for someone to stand up against Donald Trump. So while
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: news has a point that Trump has effectively allowed this
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: to escalate by maybe jumping the gun and over exceeding
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: his authority when it comes to the National Guard. Newsom
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: is also escalating this for political purposes. I mean, the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: guy has basically been begging for Trump to arrest him.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: He's almost out there literally saying, arrest me, arrest me,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: arrest me. And then when Trump jokes about the idea
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: that Newsom might get arrested by the Director of Homeland Security,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: Newsom then says, how dare he joke that I might
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: get arrested? So which is I mean? Newsom is clearly
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: using all of this, This is the theater aspect of it,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: using all of this to try to help facilitate a
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: run for president to be the face of the opposition
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. Even if it means signing literally with
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: illegal immigrants. It doesn't matter among the people to whom
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Newsom needs to appeal in order to get traction to
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: be the Democratic nominee in twenty twenty eight. And you know,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: like for me, refereeing a battle between Donald Trump and
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: gaffn Newsomb brings no joy. I can't stand this. I've
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: talked a lot in the past about this relationship. I've
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: always been suspicious of Trump because he's way too nice
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: to Gavin Newsom. I've theorized that that's because one Newsom
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: is good looking and somewhat charming, but also because Trump
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: views Newsom as being part of his tribe, because he
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: was married to Kimberly Gilfoyle, who was once engaged to
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: his own son. And it has now been sent off
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: to Greece because Donald Trump Junior has a new girlfriend.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: But I have never trusted the Trump Newsom relationship, especially
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: during COVID that was extraordinary to me, and even after
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: the COVID panic, Trump was still defending Newsom's horrendous reaction
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: to it. I didn't like the way that Trump allowed
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: Newsom to glom onto him in the aftermath of the
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: LA wildfires. So I have never had any trust of
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Trump when it comes to Newsom. But now all of
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: a sudden, Trump and Newsom are at each other worse
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: publicly than maybe even Trump and Musk are, And certainly
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: the Trump Newsom feud has replaced the Trump Musk feud
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the news and the public consciousness.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: And I frankly think both of them are wrong. Both
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: of them have certain points on which they are right.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: There is a very strange, but I think telling controversy
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: that has erupted between the two of them in the
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: last day or so involving whether or not and when
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: there was a phone call between President Donald Trump and
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: Governor of California Gavin Newsom. And this to me just
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: so much about the nature of our cultification of our politics,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: and our media. First of all, it's not a big deal,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: all right, that's the first thing. Whether or not there
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: was a call, when there was a call, it doesn't
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: really matter to me. But somehow this became a big
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: controversy because Trump made the statement earlier this week that
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: he had talked to Newsom on the phone in what
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: he implied to be yesterday. Now, with Trump's language, this
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: is one of the many frustrating things about Trump. It's
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: always very difficult to tell what he really means by things.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: But if you use the English fictionary and basic logic,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: it was obvious that Trump was essentially saying that he
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: had called and spoken to Gavin Newsom either Sunday or
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: Monday of this week. I think that's a fair assessment.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: And Trump basically categorized or characterized the phone call as
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: him admonishing Newsome and you know, being a real tough guy,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: get your act in order. You don't know what you're doing,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: you know, basically classic Trump tough guy, and Newsom responded
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: that that phone call never happened, all right, And then
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: Trump responded by releasing a screenshot of what appears to
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: be his cell phone where it says the name Gavin
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: Newsom and it shows the time in which two phone
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: calls happened, one of which actually connected. Now, bizarrely, Fox
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: News Channel and John Roberts did a fairly extensive report
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: on this situation where they portray this as being vindication
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: for Donald Trump's star Here that Trump said he called
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: Knewsom had a conversation with him, and Knewsom denied that.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: But if you actually look at the details, this doesn't
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: vindicate Trump at all. Now, I can't even believe I'm
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: even bothering with this because I hate both these guys
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: at times, I really loathed Gavin Newsom, but I do
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: care about the truth, and I find it fascinating that
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: to millions and millions of people online, this was a
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: mic drop moment for Donald Trump, proving that Newsom lied,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: which would be the case except for the fact that
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: the phone calls in question occurred at least California time,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: late night on Friday, on Friday, not Sunday or Monday,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: and a lot happened between Friday and Sunday or Monday.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: And so one of the weirder parts of this is
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: that it's obvious that Trump's calling Newsom in the middle
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: of the night, if any of this is to be believed,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: you know, East Coast time, which is awfully strange. But whatever, Okay,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: I guess he's on the job. But here was the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: Fox News report from John Roberts, seemingly at least to
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: their audience, and this was lapped up on Twitter as
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: vindicating Donald Trump, when in fact, the reality is that
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: it shows that there was no phone call when Newsom
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: said there was no phone call, and I can't believe her.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: I'm even considering defending Newsom even a little bit here,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: But that's the reality of this situation. And here was
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: the Fox newstannel report in question.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 9: Between Gavin Newsom and President Trump. Gavin Newsom, after President
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 9: Trump said in the noon hour in the Oval office
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 9: that he called them yesterday the other day, Gavin Newsom
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 9: tweeted the following He said, quote, there was no call,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 9: not even a voicemail American should be alarmed that a
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 9: president deploy marines on our streets doesn't even know who
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 9: he's talking to. Well, President Trump contacted me from Air
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 9: Force One on his way to Fort Bragg, North Carolina,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 9: where he'll be in just a little while. He said,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 9: the first call to Gavin Newsom was not picked up.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 9: The second call Gavin picked up. We spoke for sixteen minutes.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 9: I told him to essentially quote this is quoting the President,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 9: get his asking gear and stop the riots.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: Which were out of control.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 9: More than anything else, this shows what a liar he is. Said,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 9: I never called. So here is the evidence, and here
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 9: is the call log that the President sent me from
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 9: his phone. This was June the seventh. Now granted this
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 9: was on Saturday, but look there is one twenty two
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 9: o'clock in the morning, which would have been ten o'clock
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 9: at night, ten twenty two at night California time. There
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 9: was an outgoing call for four seconds, and then there
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 9: was an outgoing.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: Call for sixteen minutes.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 9: So that from the President, which says, is proof that
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 9: he spoke to Gavin Newsom early in the morning our time,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 9: late at night. Friday night would have been June sixth,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 9: I guess in Los Angeles. So Governor over to you
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 9: as a response, say, that's next.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 10: Right, We're waiting to see what if Governor Newsom has
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 10: a response to the President's Essentially, what he has there
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 10: is the receipt for what he says is the call
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 10: that was made and the wrong conversation exactly in a
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 10: sixteen minute conversation. As you mentioned, as things were heating up.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 10: Is the timing of that call is things were really
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 10: just beginning to get started. So it'll be interesting to
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 10: see where this goes.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 9: Yeah, that's the president.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: Now. Just to be clear, I think what happened is
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: that Trump either misspoke or forgot amidst all the other
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: events when the call actually occurred, so he identified it
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: at the wrong time, and so Newsom looked at it
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: and said, wait a minute, we didn't have a phone
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: call on that time period that Trump gave, which I
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: interpreted to be either Sunday or Monday. And so he
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: makes a statement saying essentially that Trump's lying, which was
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: probably stupid. Newsom shouldn't have done that, should have just said,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: I think the President is mistaken about the time of
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: our call. That would have been the end of it.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: But Newsom decided he had to go further than that
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: and essentially call Trump a liar. Trump had to respond.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: Trump responded with information that really doesn't vindicate him at all,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: indicates that at best, his verbiage was very you know, inaccurate,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: and at worst, maybe he's completely forgotten the days of
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: the week. And yet Fox News Channel and the right
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: wing twitter sphere all cheer Trump for having the receipts
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: and dropping the micro on Newsome, when in fact, this
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: is just a classic misunderstanding between two very, very busy
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: people as to when a phone call occurred. But this
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: is the kind of bullshit that we're dealing with. This
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: is this is why I'm convinced this is all theater
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: and not real. I mean, I would love for this
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: to all be real. I would love for this. And
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: I have to say, because I'm always exceedingly fit to
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Trump gave a great statement in a speech
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: to Fort Bragg about the situation in Los Angeles, and
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: he made a pledge that if you believe what Trump
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: is saying is very consistent with the idea that this
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: is not theater, this is real, that he's not going
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: to back down, and that He's really going to go
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: to the mat to try to save America and to
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: try to save Los Angeles. Now I'm skeptical of this,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: but I thought the statement was so good that it's
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: worthy of being played. So here was Trump at Fort Bragg.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 11: And before going further, I want to say a few
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 11: words about the situation in Los Angeles, California.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: Have you heard of the place where I've.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 11: Deployed thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 11: to protect federal law enforcement from the attacks of a
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 11: vicious and violent mob. And some of the radical left
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 11: they say that's not nice. Well, if we didn't do it,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 11: there wouldn't be a Los Ange burning today, just like
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 11: the houses were burning a number of months ago. Generations
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 11: of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 11: shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 11: and third world lawlessness here at home, like is happening
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 11: in California. As commander in chief, I will not let
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 11: that happen.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: It's never going to happen. Now. I would love for
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: that statement to be real, to be legitimate, and to
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: be followed through on. I personally believe it's too late
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: as I've already said, I think that the cancer has
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: overtaken the host. That I think this whole situation has
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: proven just how far gone California is. Where you have
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: to federalize the National Guard and bring in the Marines
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: because the local law enforcement is on the side of
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: the bad guys. That's as bad as it gets. That's
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: as bad as it gets. And I have always talked
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: about California's future in a way that I think is
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: way more realistic than anybody else. I get a lot
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: of negative blowback for it. People think I'm overly pessimistic
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: or maybe even delusional. But this whole circumstance combined with
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: a statement that Newsom made which I found to be
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: just bizarre that was in the same time period, although
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: not related directly to the riots going on in Los
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: Angeles or the issue of illegal immigration, Newsom actually put
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: out a video on social media threatening to withhold California's
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: tax dollars to the federal government, which I always think
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: is so ridiculous. It's as if I would love to notice,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: does Galvin Newsom think that he collects or the state
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: of California collects, all of the federal income tax from
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: Californians and and then sends it to the federal government.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: That's not the way this works. People send their money
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: directly to the irs, or the federal government withholds the
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: money directly from people's paychecks. The state of California has
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with It, doesn't matter that a lot
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: of the money comes from people who live in California.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: He has no control over there's no ability to do
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: any of this. It's all just bravado and bullshit. But
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: it's an indication that my instincts about where this is
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: all headed may be actually correct, and in fact might
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: even be overly optimistic, because that is the talk of
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: somebody who is on the path towards secession from the Union.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: And I have to say living in California has some benefits. Obviously,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: the weather is great, There's sometimes there's fun things that
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: happen here. I can't move because my wife is from
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: here and her in laws and family members or are
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: all still here. But it is draining to live here.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: It is psychologically draining, especially post COVID because everything that
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: I suspected was where we were heading in California was
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: confirmed with an exclamation point during the COVID Panic, where
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: we turned into a totalitarian state driven by a maniac,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: a sociopath, a moron named Gavin Newsom. It turned out
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: to be wrong about virtually everything, and there was zero
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: accountability or even acknowledgment of how wrong he was and
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: how stupid everything that we did during the COVID Panic was.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: Living here is like living in a place where you know,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: if you're aware of reality, that the walls are closing
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: in and that eventually this is all going to turn
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: out very very badly. I am positive of that. I
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: don't know how long we have. I don't know exactly
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: how it's going to look when it happens, but it
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: is incredibly draining to me psychologically, especially with two young kids,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: knowing that this is all going to turn out very,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: very poorly. And I have a very pessimistic view not
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: just for the future of California, but for the future
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: of this union, the United States of America, because to me,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: the headline of the last several days has been this
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: is theater that is showing us what is going to
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: eventually happen, and that is California is not really part
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: of the United States of America currently and eventually officially
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: will not be part of the United States of America.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: When the President of the United States, whether it's partially
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: contrived for political show and partially out of principle, has
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: to federalize the National Guard and bring in the Marines.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: Because local law enforce will not do anything to stop
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: demonstrations and attacks against Ice for enforcing the law, You're
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: already on the path to secession. You're already on the
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: path to where this is not a place that is
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: really part of the United States anymore. I know, somewhat jokingly,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: since this is US Open Week, I have constantly told
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: anybody I ever meet who is a member at Los
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: Angeles Country Club, which is a very prestigious club. They
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: held the US Open there a couple of years ago.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: They're scheduled to hold the US Open at Los Angeles
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: Country Club in twenty thirty nine. Whenever I get any chance,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: I half jokingly, half seriously tell them there is a
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: very good chance that California will not be part of
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: the United States in twenty thirty nine, and even if
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: we are part of the United State twenty thirty nine,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: because I can't imagine they would have the US Open
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: in a foreign country, which I think California eventually officially
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: will be. We're already effectively a foreign country. I felt
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: that way since the time I moved here over twenty
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: years ago. I felt like it was kind of a
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: perk that we didn't actually have to show our passports
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: at the border enter Lax Airport, because it's essentially a
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: foreign country in almost every way, shape or form. And
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: that was over twenty years ago. Now it's clearly a
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: foreign country, and in my view, on the path to
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: not being part of the United States, and I would
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: find it hard to believe that they would have the
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: US open in a foreign country. But even if California
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: is still technically part of the United States in twenty
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: thirty nine, I am honestly not convinced that golf is
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: going to be effectively legal anymore, because I think they're
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: going to use water restrictions to destroy golf. And I'm
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: also convinced that the property values of Los Angeles Country
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: going to be too high for the members there to
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: not be tempted into selling the place, which means it
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: may not even exist. So I am actually not convinced
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: at all. I don't know what the percentages are but
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: I am. I think it's fifty to fifty at best
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: that there's actually a United States open in Los Angeles
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: in twenty thirty nine. And while that is not the
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: biggest issue in the world, it's symbolic of this larger situation,
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: which is very serious because to me, it's one of
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: the primary components of what I believe in about the
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: United States of America. Maintaining the Union is one of them.
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: No kings, you know, freedom and liberty and justice for all,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: and maintain the Union. And you know, is Trump really
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: committed to fixing this to maintain the Union? I wish,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: I wish he was. I hope he is. I doubt it.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: It's not really his mo, it's not really his d
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: When the fight gets tough, he tends to get distracted
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: and move on. And this is not a situation that
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: can be fixed with a surgical strike and a move on.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: This would have to be a situation where you'd have
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: to dedicate almost your entire presidency to this. Now, maybe
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: if it's working politically in most of the country, you
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: can get away with it, but clearly there would be
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: costs and there would be trouble involved in all this,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm not convinced that that Trump is actually going
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: to be able to pull this off, even if it
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: is impossible to pull off, because it's too late. It's
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: too late. The issue of illegal immigration has become way
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: too embedded to use that cancer metaphor within the host.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: There's just no going back now. And this whole situation
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: evolving the last several days further proves it, because these
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: ICE operations weren't even all that's significant to begin with.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, imagine if we there was actually a real,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: you know, circumstance where ICE was really trying to root
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: out illegal immigration. My god, they have now set the predicate,
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: set the precedent that there's going to be demonstrations, riots,
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna have to bring in the Marines and
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: the National Guard. That's just not a tenable situation. That's
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: not sustainable in the long run. In the short run,
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: I think this is probably working for Trump politically nationally,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: but it's also working for Gavin Newsom, I think nationally,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: given what his self interest is. And so I'm just
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: very despondent about this whole situation, not because of the
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: you know, all the things we've already talked about, which
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: we're aggravating. But in the big picture, I am very,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: very concerned about the state of the Union and the
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: future of California vis a viv the United States of America,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: not just because I live here, because I got two
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: young kids, but because I care about the United States
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: as a whole. And I think losing California would be very,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: very problematic, and I think that's the path we're on again.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know when, I don't know how. It would
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: not be easy, but Gavin Newsom is certainly talking very
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: much like that's at least part of his mindset. Mean,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: when he's threatening to withhold California tax dollars, as if
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: he could even do that if he wanted to. I mean,
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know how much how much more down the
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: path you can get. I mean, you're already acknowledging that
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: the federal government has no ability to enforce illegal immigration
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: laws in your state, and you're threatening to withhold the
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: tax money from people in the state to the federal government.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're almost a secession right there, even though
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: you don't call it that, effectively, that's what it is.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: So that's my take on what's been going on here.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: In the southern California area is obviously going to be ongoing,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: so I'm sure I'll have more comments on it in
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: the future, but that's where we are currently. I do
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: at least want to mention that this morning Trump announced
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: on social media that a tentative trade deal has been
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: reached with China, which okay, great, I'll believe that when
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: I see it. This is classic Trump where you know,
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: he really isn't to be believed until it's proven, and
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: you know who doesn't believe him at least as of
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: this taping the stock market. The stock market is basically
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: flat as of this taping, which you know, given the
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: way the stock market is dramatically fluctuated based upon the
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: tea leaves when it comes to trying to make trade
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: deals and getting out of this this tear of purgatory
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: that Trump has put us in, I think is very
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: very telling. The stock market has no trust for what
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: Trump posted on social media. We don't know what the
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: details are. He said it still needs to be approved
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: by him in President Chi, but he's you know, praising
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: Chi all over the place. So I have no idea.
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: I have no idea if the deal is real. I
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: have no idea how good or bad the deal might be.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: But for whatever it's where Trump is claiming that that
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: in fact has happened. Now, I talked a lot at
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: the beginning of this episode about Twitter and the feud
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: between Trump and Musk. Well, Trump and Musk's feud was
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: not the only situation where Twitter was causing a lot
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: of problems over the last week. Terry Moran, ABC News
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: anchor reporter was at first suspended and then fired because
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: of a tweet that he issued over the weekend involving
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: Trump advisor Stephen Miller. Now you may recall we talked
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: about Terry Moran because he recently did an interview at
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: the Oval office with Donald Trump, where Trump castigated him
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: for having the audacity to point out that Trump was
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: apparently duped by I guess you would call it. I
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: don't know if it was AI or if it was
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: photoshopped or whatever. It was this infamous photo of the
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: knuckles of this illegal immigrant that was deported and created
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: so much controversy, the so called Maryland Man, where the
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: Trump thought that the letters MS numbers MS thirteen were
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: on his knuckles, proving that he was obviously part of
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: that gang. And Terry Moran pushed back and said, well,
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: that's photoshopped, that's not real. You're misinterpreting what was happening.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: Trump claimed that wasn't the case, and then, in my view,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: may have suddenly started to doubt himself, so he, instead
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: of acknowledging he was wrong, started to attack Terry Moran,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: and you know, said he was a nobody. I don't
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: even know who you are. I'm giving you the opportunity
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: of a lifetime typical Trump stuff, well typical of Trump
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: as well as you know, even when he's wrong, he
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: often gets what he wants and he attacks Terry Moran.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: And now Terry Moran is out of a job not
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: much long, not long after that whole thing transpired, and
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: the reason why Moran is out of a job. And
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: to be clear, I actually think Terry Moran, by ABC standards,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: was not that bad. I mean, he's clearly a liberal.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: He became famous during the O. J. Simpson case at
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: Court TV, but I've always thought he was halfway decent,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: grunting on a curve for liberal mainstream news media members.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: And I thought he did a pretty good job in
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: that Trump interview. But over the weekend he very bizarrely,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: and while I have zero information that this is true,
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's not unreasonable to speculate that it's possible
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: that alcohol may have been involved in the decision making here,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: because this makes absolutely no sense for Terry Moran, ABC
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: News anchor over the weekend to go on Twitter and
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: seemingly unprovoked tweet the following. The thing about Stephen Miller,
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: trump advisor, who's very much associated, for instance, with the
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: policy of the administration when it comes to illegal immigration.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: the brains behind trump Ism. Yes, he is one of
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpest movement
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: and translates them into policy. But that's not what's interesting
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: about Miller. It's not brains, it's bile. Miller is a
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: He is a world class hater. You can see this
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: just by looking at him, because you can see that
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: Trump is a world class hater, but his hatred only
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: a means to an end, and that end his his
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: parent typo. There his his own glorification, that's his spiritual nourishment. Now,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: that is bizarre. I'm not saying that there's not some
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: elements of truth to it. That is bizarre coming from
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: a major member of the news media, especially someone who
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: was an anchor at ABC, who just a few months
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: ago settled a defamation case involving George Stephanopolis and Donald Trump,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: a defamation case that I don't think had any real
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: legal merit, and I don't think ABC from a journalistic standpoint,
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: should have settled there, but they did. They caved to
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: the tune of fifteen million dollars. So it was an
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: incredibly poor decision for Terry Moran to do this. That's
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: why I'm suggesting that alcohol may have played a role
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: in this on the weekend. But it was even worse,
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: even worse decision by Terry Moran when we learn when
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: he got fired that his contract was up for renewal
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: and that ABC has just simply decided to not renew
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: his contract. So in what world did Terry Moran think
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: it was a good idea to go on this diatribe
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: against Stephen Miller and Trump in the aftermath of his
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: company settling a defamation lawsuit with Donald Trump while your
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: contract is apparently up for renewal where you're particularly vulnerable.
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: And at first ABC suspended him, and then they essentially
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: said he's fired or not renewed. And I don't know
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: what happens with Terry Moran from here, but it's not
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: good because you know, Terry Muran is a white male,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: he's not young anymore, and you know, maybe MSNBC would
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: hire him, but for nowhere near the same kind of money.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he was making an ABC, but this is
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: not good for him. I don't understand why he did this.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: This was clearly inappropriate for a journalist to an ABC
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: News anchor to be tweeting this, and I don't even
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: understand what he was trying to accomplish, which again is
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: why I'm theorizing that alcohol may have played a role.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: But once again, the bottom line here is Trump attacks
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: Terry Moran and then a couple of months later, Terry
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: Moran is out of a job. It just seems to
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: work out that way for Donald Trump. Speaking of Twitter feuds,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: I got to mention what happened with Simone Biles, gymnastics
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: Olympic legend Simone Biles and Riley Gaines, former competitive college swimmer,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: who has become extremely associated with the issue of biological
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: males being prevented from participating in female sports, become very
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: much associated with the Trump administration. She's become a right
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: wing hero. Frankly, good for her. One hundred percent agree
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: with her on the issue. But there are some who
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: believe that her story has been a bit exaggerated about
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: how much she was really cheated. But it doesn't really
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: matter to me because she has the standing of having
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: participated in this situation competed against a clear biological mail
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: and she's right on the issue, and good for her.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: She's become a hero. She's made a career out of this.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: She's done a lot of good things. So I'm in
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: favor of Riley Gains. But Simone Biles out of the blue,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: when Riley Gaines was making a point about a softball team,
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: a high school softball team that had won a state
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: championship with a biological male playing a significant role in that,
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: Simone Biles on Twitter started to attack Riley Gaines, saying, quote,
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: You're truly sick all of this campaigning because you lost
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: a race, as if that's what really is motivating Riley
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: Gaines because she lost a race to a biological male.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: Straight up sore loser. You're a sore loser, according to
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: Simone Biles, if you are upset that you lost to
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: a biological male, I mean, it's just crazy stuff. I mean,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: you should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: a way to make sports inclusive or creating a new
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: avenue where trans feels safe in sports. You see, folks,
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: the real victims here are the biological males playing female sports.
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: In the minds of the left, they're the real victims.
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: Biles went on, maybe a transgender category in all sports
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: exclamation point. But instead you bully them, you see. That's right.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: That's another catchphrase by liberals. If you criticize, if you
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: criticize biological males for playing in female sports and pretending
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: to be girls, that's bullying. So they're the victims and
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: you are bullying them. This is this is a classic
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: tactic of the left. They take away the ability to
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: criticize anybody. I mean, my gosh, we saw what happened
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: with Angel Reefs. You get, you know, any sort of
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: crowd reaction negative from a white crowd. It's it's somehow
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: deemed racist. You're not allowed to say anything negative to
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: someone of a protected class. We see this all the time.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've referenced this in our school district here
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: in southern California. They have this say No to Hate campaign,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: which is basically, you're not allowed to criticize anybody of
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: a protected class. Otherwise it's bully or racist or both,
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: and you're wrong and you'll be punished. So don't you
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: dare even try so. You're not allowed to criticize people
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: who are transgender, or illegal immigrants or anything else. No. No,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: even though if it's substantive, even if you're standing on
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: a principle, it does not matter. That's bullying, another classic
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: tactic by the left. Bile's finished by saying one thing
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: for sure is no one in sports is safe with
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: you around. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: That's right. Riley Gaines is the problem, according to Simone Biles,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: Olympic legend liberal media darling. I mean, let's be clear,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, Simone Biles is as much of a liberal
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: media darling as it gets. She was excused in the
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one Olympics delayed from twenty twenty because of
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: the COVID panic, because she effectively quit on her team.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: Now you know she got the twisties or whatever it was,
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: she had a mental breakdown. But to me, bottom line
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: is she quit. I will fully acknowledge her comeback in
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four was amazing. I'm the first person to
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: admit that. But what she did in twenty twenty one
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: was protected by NBC and by the major networks, major
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: news outlets. She was turned into a hero, a heroin
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: almost for having quit, because she was dealing with mental struggles,
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: mental illness struggles, and so you know, she's a black
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: female and she's a hero heroin, so she can't be
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: criticized even when she does several things that by the
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: left's own religion would be cancelable events like, for instance,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: doing what Biles then did in her exchange with Riley Gaines.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: She wrote, bullies someone your own size, which would ironically
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: be a male Riley gains Now that that was the
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: part of this that just to me showed that the
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: left has no standards whatsoever. If you were a celebrity
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: and you were accepted as a heroin within the left
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: wing religion, then it doesn't matter what you do. You're
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: allowed to get away with anything because you're a female,
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: you're black, you're a celebrity, you're a heroin therefore, all
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: bets are off. But talk about bullying. I mean, can
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: you imagine? Can you imagine if in the reverse, Riley
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: Gaines had made fun of Simone Biles being extremely short
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: in her response, which was completely unprovoked. If that had happened,
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: Riley Gaines would have been tortured by the left. That
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: would have been one hundred percent a cancelable event. And
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: it's also just bizarre because Riley Gaines isn't even that big.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: Riley Gaines is a perfectly normal sized female, maybe a
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: little more muscular than most women, but she's not particularly tall.
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: Maybe tall in comparison to Simone Biles, maybe to Simone Biles.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: She thinks Riley Gaines is tall. But it's just absolutely
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: unbelievable that Simone Biles got away with this. This of course,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: went viral in both directions, both the left and the right,
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: and there was no apology for a couple of different days.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: Eventually there was an apology sort of, and I think
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: it was a total bullshit apology. Here's what Simone Biles wrote,
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: I wanted to follow up. This is a couple of
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: days later, which to me automatically means that it's not
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: a very credible apology. I wanted to follow up from
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: my last tweet. I've always believed competitive equity and inclusivity
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: are both essential in sport. What the fuck is competitive equity?
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: If Simone Biles understands the definition of basic words, competitive
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: equity would mean there are no winners and losers. That
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: would mean that everybody ends up in the same result.
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: That means there are no gold medal winners where everybody,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: I guess gets a gold medal, which means there is
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: no Simone Biles. There is no Olympics competitive equity. I
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: would like to believe she had no fucking idea what
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: she was running there, or that somebody else wrote it,
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: and she didn't even bother to ask what the hell
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: competitive equity means? But competitive equity is one of the
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: most bizarre phrases I've ever heard coming from an Olympic
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: gold medalist. She went on to say the current system
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: doesn't adequately balance these important principles, which often leads to
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: frustration and exchanges. No, you're looking for an excuse for
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: why you went off on Riley Gaines, and this doesn't
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: cut it, she wrote, It didn't help for me to
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: get personal with Riley, which I apologize for. These are sensitive,
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: complicated issues that I truly don't have the answers or
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: solutions do, but I believe it starts with empathy and respect.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: I was not advocating for policies to compromise fairness in
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: women's sports. You absolutely were. My objection is to be
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: singling out children for public scrutiny in ways that feel
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: personal and harmful. Individual athletes, especially kids, should never be
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: the focus of criticism of a flawed system they have
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: no control over. First of all, these are not children
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: we're talking about. No one ever discusses this, at least
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: until the high school level, And if you're talking about
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: state championships at the high school level, I'm sorry. That
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: is not a situation where you're dealing with children. That
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: is a seriousness enough set of circumstances where if you're
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: going to put yourself out there, you have to be
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: willing to accept some criticism. And when you're a biological
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: male pretending to be a female playing female sports in
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: a way that is both unfair and potentially unsafe. I'm sorry,
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: that is a matter for public discussion, and that public
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: discussion must be honest and it must be rigorous, and
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: Bile stepped in it. But because she's a black female
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: and a celebrity and liberal media darling, she gets away
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: with it, and she's allowed to put forward this BS
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: apology that to me was more confusing and didn't solve anything.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't believe it. I didn't feel like
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: it was sincere. I don't even understand what she's meaning,
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: and it's just a situation where she's just trying to
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: get out of having made a major mistake, a mistake
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: where if a conservative had made it, it would have
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: been a career canceling event. Now, speaking of the Olympics
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: and Olympic sports, I believe more firmly than ever that
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: Olympic sports are in big trouble in this country, largely
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: because of the massive House NCAA NIL settlement, which was
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: finally finalized within the last several days. Now, this is
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: an extremely complex set of circumstances, and I'm not even
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: going to claim that I understand every element of it.
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think anybody fully understands every element of it,
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: but I want to try to provide some of what
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: I see as the big picture of what has transpired here.
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: The first big picture is the utter absurdity that an
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: elderly liberal female judge here in California was effectively the
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: final decision maker about the future of all of college
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: athletics and what can only be described as a great reset.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: You know, that phrase was used a lot post COVID,
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: and thankfully it failed in a lot of ways. But
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: this is, in fact a great reset in college athletics,
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: the likes of which a few years ago would have
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: been unfathomable. And the most important decision maker in all
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: this is an elderly liberal female judge in California. I
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: have no idea how that even happened. I mean, this
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: all transpired because of a settlement between the House and
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: the NCAA over the NIL issues. And you know, there's
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: a lot in this final settlement that in theory I
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: should like, because frankly, the essence of it, the core
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: of it, is very close to my old proposal for
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: how this all s It would have been done years ago,
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: but now it's too late for And in case you
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: had forgotten. What my proposal was was it was to
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: create a pool of money based upon ticket sales and
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: television revenue that every school would get an equal amount
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: of within their conference, within your conference, everyone. This was
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: my proposal, not what actually transpired here, but within each conference,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: every school would get their share of this pool of money,
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: and that each player who participated in the major sports
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: would get the same amount. It would be essentially a
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: stipend or a share, kind of like what happens when
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: the World Series champions give out the amount of money
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: that they get for a full playoff share. In my view,
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: was very important that everybody get the same amount of money.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: The guy on the bench, if you're a letterman and
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: the starting quarterback, it doesn't matter. Well, that's not going
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: to happen here, But that was my proposal, and in
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: a sense, that is at the core of what's going
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: to happen here going forward, that there's this pool of
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: money based upon ticket sales and TV revenue where each
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: school will be able to spend. At first, it's going
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: to be about twenty zero point five million dollars in
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: directly paying college athletes. Now, to me, this is nowhere
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: near as good as my proposal, if only because my
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: proposal would have included, if it had been done before
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: the NCAA caved on NIL, it would have included the
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: idea that we're not changing the NIL rules. There is
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: no such thing as getting paid for name, image and likeness,
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: because that is too large of a loophole. There we've
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: proven in the last several years it is a loophole
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: through which you can drive a mack truck. And yet,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: in my view, deludely, delusionally, a huge component to this
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: settlement is the idea that there's still going to be NIL.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: It's just going to allegedly be more regulated now that
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: it cannot come directly from the schools, that the schools
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: will pay the players from this pool of money should
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: they choose to opt into the program, but legitimate so
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: called legitimate NIL can still be paid to players on
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: top of that, under the presumption that this is the
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: way NIL was intended to work, where it's a situation
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: where you do an endorsement, you have real value for
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: your name, image and likeness, and you get paid that
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: because you're a superstar. You're a Tim Tebow, you're a
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: Johnny Manziel, you're a Reggie Bush, You're somebody in that category.
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: But we already know that that's not workable. And I
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: knew from the start that wasn't gonna be workable, because
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: where do you draw the line? It is ripe for fraud.
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: And those involved already know this. Who's gonna be the
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: first person to step in in this meager enforcement mechanism,
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: that this powerless NCAA is more toothless than the irs
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: could ever dream of being. Who's gonna be the first
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: person to stop an NIL deal? That seems fishy. It
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: seems like it's really just pay for play in disguise.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: It's just augmenting whatever the players were gonna get paid
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: from the pool of money to begin with. So I'm
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: not buying that the NIL component has been, you know,
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: taken care of. That is still going to be part
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: of this, and it's probably gonna be a lot of
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: corruption involved in that, which, of course is only going
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: to mean that the rich are gonna get richer here.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: I mean that that is one of the biggest takeaways.
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: The rich schools are gonna get richer on the field,
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: the poor schools are toast And and again, no one
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: knows for sure how this is all going to turn out.
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: But you know what is most frustrating to me in
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: looking at this and seeing the date that they used
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: to go back and pay retroactively, former athletes are going
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: to now get paid nil money. Of course, they're not
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: going to get paid nearly as much as the lawyers do.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is a boondoggle for the plaintiffs lawyers
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: in every possible way. I mean, the billions of dollars
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: being paid out here, and the lawyers are going to
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: get more than their share of all of it. So
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: the only real winner and all this are the fucking
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: planeff lawyers. But when you look at this retroactive payment
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: starting back in twenty sixteen, So so college athletes somehow
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: from twenty sixteen to current day are going to be
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: eligible for retroactive back payments of what is estimated to
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: be maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on how
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: many years you played in some sort of bizarre formula
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: they've come up to. What I'm up come up with
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: to determine what your value would have been is just acidine.
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: It's asked on every level. But the twenty sixteen date
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: seems to be attached to the finalization of the Ed
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: O'Bannon lawsuit. Now you may not know what that is,
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: but it is now very obvious in light of the
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: settlement that all of this transpired. The destruction of college
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: athletics as we have known it for many decades transpired
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: all because the NCAA did not immediately settle the Edobannon lawsuit.
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: The Edobandon lawsuit dealt with EA Sports and a computer game,
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: a video game where the effectively the name, image and
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: likeness although their name was never used, just their number,
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: number and their likeness and their attributes of current NCUBA
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: athletes were used in this video game, and understandably, I
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: fully supported the idea that the athletes should have been
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: able to get something for that value that they created.
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: That their name, image and likeness, although the name was
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: not used in this video game, created value for EA Sports,
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: and the NCAA sanctioned that video game. And when Ed Obannon,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: a basketball player for UCLA, decided to sue. This was many,
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: many years ago and it took forever to go through
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: the court system. But had the nc DOUBLEA just said,
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: you know what, we really needed to pay these guys,
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: but we need to do it in a way that
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: isn't going to make us vulnerable to completely changing all
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: of our rules, our laws and regulations. Had they done that,
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure any of this happens. This is the
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: ultimate domino effect, because once the NCAA lost effectively to
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: Ed O'Bannon, then it was Katie bar the door. It
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: was a title wave. They started losing everything. I mean,
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: the lawyers for the NCUBLEA are basically like the Washington
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: Generals playing the Harlan Globetrotters. They lose every single case
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: they're involved in, and I don't even understand why they've
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: lost some of the cases they've been involved in, but
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: they're completely spooked now, and so now I guess what
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: they're doing is deciding, well, anything after the Edobannon lawsuit
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: NIL should have been legal, and so therefore, even though
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: it wasn't legal, it should have been starting in twenty sixteen,
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: So if you were a college athlete at that time,
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: you're going to be eligible for retroactive back payments. But
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: here's the rub on that if NIL was enforced properly,
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: the intention of which I knew immediately was unrealistic and
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: delusionalized screamed from the mountaintops that this was a massive loophole.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: But if NIL had been enforced properly as they're pretending
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: they're going to do going forward, ninety nine percent of
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: these athletes would not have made a goddamn dime from NIL,
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: other than maybe whatever little pennies they would have made
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: from the video game. I mean, that's what we're talking
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: about from an actual individual perspective. We're not talking about
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: that much money. I mean, very very few people bought
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: the EA, you know, college basketball and CAA gay because
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: of Ed O'Bannon. I mean, now, in my view, I
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: don't know how many people would have not bought it
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: if even the name and likeness, the image and likeness
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: hadn't been used. I mean, that was probably their first mistake,
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: is that they got grady, and eventually they got caught,
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: and they were too stupid not to settle in a
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: way that would protect their business model. And so this
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: all starts with that stupid video game. And there's a
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: direct line, direct domino effect to now somehow and good
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: for these these guys and maybe a few girls who
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: are all of a sudden going to get these massive
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: checks that they never expected, never would have earned. And
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: by the way, it has to come from somewhere. It's
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: not coming from a magic tree. This is money from
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: the NCAA or their insurance or whatever it is that
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: could have been and should have been spent in other
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: ways that is now going to be paid to settle
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: this lawsuit. And as far as the impact on college sports,
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of this is still to be known,
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: but if this goes through, it's very clear the rich
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: get richer private equity is now stepping in to college sports.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: Penn State and UCLA, among others, have already signed the
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: with private equity to raise the money so that they
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: can pay this twenty point five million dollar fund that's
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: going to go directly to athletes, mostly to football and
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: basketball players, which of course then leads to another problem.
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: And I frankly think this has been dramatically underestimated in
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: the coverage of all this. I have absolutely no idea
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: how any of this passes any sort of legal muster,
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: because it's clearly in violation of the spirit of not
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: the letter of the law involving Title nine, which is
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: supposed to ensure the equality of resources between men and
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: women in education, and this doesn't have anything it's ironic
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: that it's a liberal female judge from here in California,
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: because it's this doesn't seemingly have anything in it that
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: protects it from a Title nine challenge, and a Title
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: nine challenge is probably going to obliterate this whole thing,
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: even though it's supposed to go into effect in just
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: a few weeks. So how this gets beyond the Title
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: nine issues, I have no idea. Another element from a
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: sports perspective, it appears as if one of the best
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: things about college athletics, especially college football and college basketball,
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: walk ons are effectively dead. Now there's been some dispute
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: about this temporarily it appears as if they've been grandfathered
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: in when it comes to the roster changes. But all
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: sorts of athletes are going to be out of for
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: lack of better term jobs, including walk ons. And you
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: know there, I'm sure there'll be some'll exist to some
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: degree in some schools, like Notre Dame, the Rooty movie
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: that was a walk on situation, that type of circumstance,
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: But by and large, they're going to be far fewer
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: walk ons that make rosters because and I don't even
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: fully understand what the rational for this was, but the
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: number of roster spots is going to go way down
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: in all of these sports. So therefore walk ons are
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: an endangered species. It does appear as if you are
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: in basketball only school, in other words, a school that
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: plays Division I basketball but do not play football, and
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: you have the wherewithal and the resources to spend twenty
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: point five million dollars at least at first, that you
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: may end up being a huge beneficiary to this. Now
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: Miama mater Georgetown University would theoretically be a perfect example
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: of this, although I don't know that we have the
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: wherewith all of the resources to be spending twenty zero
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: point five million dollars on our basketball program, but twenty
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: point five million dollars on your basketball program, if only
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: because of the fact that you're only dealing with like
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: twelve roster spots or thereabouts, can go a very long way,
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: a lot longer than it can go in football. So
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: you're going to see somebody, whether it's a doubt Georgetown,
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: because I don't think we have our shit together, But
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: you know, a Villanova who has a minor in comparison
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: to Alabama, a minor football program, they do have a
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: legitimate football program, but it doesn't cost nearly as much
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: money as an Alabama or a USC or Penn State
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: or Michigan Ohio State, something like that. Villanova might benefit,
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: you know, other schools. Connecticut is a similar situation to Villanova.
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: They're a basketball school. They might benefit. But that seems
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: to be from a sports perspective, one of the situations
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: that you might want to call loophole where basketball only
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: schools may have a huge advantage now, at least when
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: it comes to basketball, But I'm not sure how many
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: of these schools are actually going to opt in. I
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: think we are headed towards exactly what everyone anticipated we
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: were going to head towards another division of college athletic
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: one that the NCAA might not be even involved in,
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: which may not be the worst scenario. I mean, it's terrible,
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: but you know, to me, it at least provides the
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: hope that maybe you just create your semi professional league
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: within so called college sports, your big time basketball and
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: your big time football, your top thirty forty to fifty
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: schools and teams in both of those sports, and then
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: you'll let everybody else kind of go back to the
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: way things used to be, where it was real college athletics.
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: If that's a scenario that occurs, then you know, I
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: wouldn't hate that, because at least I would be someone
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: way more interested in what you might call Division two
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: than Division one. But I'm not that optimistic about that because,
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: like for instance, in football, my sense is that a
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: lot of these have nots are just gonna quit. They're
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: just gonna quit. I mean, I think about Temple. I
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: used to go to Temple football games in Philadelphia. I
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: was literally one of a thousand people that went to
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: a Temple Louisville game at Veterans Stadium in my senior
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: year in high school. It was so ridiculous, kind of
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: a funny story, I mean, because I love college football
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: so much, and other than the Army Navy game, there
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: was no college football in Philadelphia other than when Penn
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: State would play Temple occasionally. I went to at least
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: one of those games as well, but this this was
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: such a small crowd. By the way, both teams were
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: halfway decent. Temple had a decent team, but it was
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: the last game of the year. I was literally sitting
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: alone by myself as a high school senior, wearing my
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: high school jacket my high school Holy Ghost Prep jacket,
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: and there was what you might call a Temple cheering
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: section of like a couple dozen students that saw me,
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure they thought this is awfully odd that this,
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: you know, teenager is sitting alone watching the Temple football game.
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: And I cannot exact This is not an exaggeration. There
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: weren't a thousand people at Vet Stadium. There were not
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: a thousand people, And at one point in the game,
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: the so called Temple cheering section actually started a chant
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: Holy goes Prep because they wanted to mock me for
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: being this kid sitting alone at a Temple football game
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: at the Vet, which I thought was hilarious. Let's go
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: Holy Ghost is I think what they started chanting. The
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: point of all this is Temple has always been very
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: much on the margins of existing when it comes to
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: Division one football and has often been thought of as
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: an endangered program. You know, when it comes to even existing,
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: How the hell is Temple going to come up with
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: twenty point five million dollars or thereabouts to support a
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: sport that's never made any goddamn money. I mean, most
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: of these programs that are not elite to not make
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: huge amounts of money. Sometimes they lose money. And now
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: in order to be competitive, they're going to have to
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: spend at the start. Now, if they opt into this program,
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: twenty point five million dollars and not all you know,
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: in all likelihood all most, but not all, that would
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: go to football if you had a big time football program.
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 1: My guess is you're going to see eventually, if this
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: all goes through, unless there's some sort of major development,
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: you're going to see a lot of these programs that
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: are not elite just to say. You know, they're going
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: to say, screw it, why are we playing football? And
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: you know it's just a matter of time as to
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: whether or not does that mean going back to a
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: Division one Double A or or an FBS or something
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: like that, or do you try to stay Division one?
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: Does there become this super conference? Who knows it all
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: sucks it all, all of it's terrible. It's all being
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: driven by money. That's the bottom line. The bottom line
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: of this settlement is we're not going back. The great
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: reset is now complete. It's over for college athletics. And
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: you know, we were heading in this direction for a
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: very long time. There was already we were already past
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: the point of no return, but now we're really past
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: the point of no return. And you know, this idea
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: of the fund for athletes would have worked had it
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: come before NIL was accepted as legal. I would have
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: been fine with that with some tweaks and adjustments. But
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 1: because NIL has now been accepted as legal, I view
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: that as a massive loophole that people are being very
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: naive about a second time around. And also, there's no
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: no evidence yet that the transfer rules are going to
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: be dramatically impacted. There's no change in those that anyone's
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: talked about. Now. There is the chance that because the
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: players are going to be directly paid by the the schools,
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: that that means that there can be contracts, and in
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: a contract you could create a buyout which would disincentivize
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: there being any sort of transfers, which would be good,
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: I guess, But technically the transfer issue has not been
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: taken care of either. So I don't see that NIL
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: problem has been taken care of. I don't see that
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 1: the transfer problem has been taken care of. I see
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: this in a situation where we're going to have a
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: breaking apart of the divisions and the sports. I think
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: the Olympic sports are in big, big trouble because those
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: sports are not going to get the money. They're going
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: to lose roster spots. That has always been in several
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: Olympic sports a huge advantage to the United States and
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: why we have done so well in certain sports. Well
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: that's not going to be the case in the future
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: because that's all going to go by the wayside. All
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: because football and lesser extend basketball change the equation. You know,
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: college football, the greatest sport man has ever created, man
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: is now destroying it and with it, college football, as
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: it is morphed into something completely different, is now destroying
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: all the other sports. We already saw college football destroy
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: the biggiest basketball conference, the greatest basketball conference ever created.
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: You know, the huge part of my childhood as a
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: kid growing up in Philadelphia going to Big Five basketball
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: games and eventually going to Georgetown University that was destroyed
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: by college football. Now college football is destroying everything everything.
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: That's what's driving the bus here. College football because it's
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: by far the biggest money maker at the elite levels.
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: It's where everyone wants to spend the money. It's where
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: everyone cares. You know, I believe that they have killed
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: the golden goose, that they have treated this religion as
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: too much as a business, and eventually this is all
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: going to collapse economically because I don't even understand the
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: business model anymore. I do not understand how in the
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: long run, other than at the most elite of these
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: colleges and universities, where this is going to make any
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: sense financially, because there are there no programs except for
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: a handful that we're making twenty point five million dollars
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: from their football or basketball program. But now they're in
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: an arms race and they're going to feel forced as
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: if they have to and now that they legally can,
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: and that they have the resource to do it because
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: of the television revenue, that's where we're going to go,
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: at least in the short run. So bottom line, of course,
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: I hate it. I have no trust at all in
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: anybody who participated in this. This sounds like it was
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: created by a committee of morons and people who do
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: not understand the sport, don't understand basic humanity and incentive structures.
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: Anytime you have a committee, especially when lawyers are involved,
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: you're not going to come up with a better situation
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: than what you are already had. And so while it's
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: not the absolute worst thing I could conceive of, my
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: sense is that this is really bad, and it's just
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: a matter of how bad. And frankly, part of me
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 1: is rooting for the Title nine Challenges to actually be
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: successful and maybe this the whole thing gets blown up,
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: But I don't anticipate that happening because it's just now
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 1: too big to fail. It's too big to fail at
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: this point. But we're just we're just at the start
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: of all the changes that are going to occur in
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 1: college sports. The landscape in five or ten years is
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: going to be so dermanically different than it even is today.
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think anyone knows for sure where it's going,
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: but I'm pretty confident it's not in a place that's
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: any good, that's for sure. One last topic I want
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: to touch on this is the week of the US
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: Open golf tournament. It's being played at Oakmont in Pittsburgh.
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: This is a place that I have a personal connection
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: to because if you were a fan of our podcast,
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: with the benefit of hindsight, you know that I actually
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: played Oakmont just before they played the US Open there
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: last time in twenty sixteen, about a month or so
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: before the tournament. But the reason why that was significant
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: was because it happened the day after I was brutally
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: and violently arrested at an event where Matt Sandusky was speaking,
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: where he was so afraid of me just sitting there
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: in a seat where I had a ticket in my
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: own name, that he would not start the event. I
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: was physically removed by police, I was handcuffed, I was
• 2:22:38
  Speaker 1: stomped on. I had bruises and marks on my wrists
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: and my arm. I was shocked psychologically. I was shattered physically.
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: I was banged up. I was not just arrested, but
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: I was charged. I think I was facing like nineteen
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: years in prison or something crazy of all the very
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: trumped up charges that ever resulted in convictions. I mean,
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: I was completely shattered in every possible way, and I
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: had to drive because that was the plan. The next day,
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: I had to drive three hours across most of the
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: state of Pennsylvania to go play golf. And this, you know,
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: once in a lifetime opportunity to play Oakmond just before
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: the US opened. Because Bob Capreto, a member of the
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: penn State Board of Trustees, had offered to host me there.
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: He was a member at Oakmind. I'm not sure if
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: he still is. I think he might be, but as
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: a longtime member there, and that was how I justified
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: the trip across the country. I was going to combine
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: playing at Oakmont with attending the Matt Sandusky speaking event. Well,
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: it all turned out way worse than I ever possibly imagined,
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: and not to mention that day having to be about
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: forty eight degrees and drizzling rain most of the day.
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: To Bob's good credit, he decided to still play, which
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: for as an old elderly guy, could not have been easy.
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm actually very proud that playing from the tips
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: all the way back where they were playing the US Open,
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 1: from the teas from which they were playing the US Open,
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: on the back nine, I actually broke forty with a
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: double bogie on the easiest hole on the course, which
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: is the short part for seventeen. I didn't play particularly
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 1: on the front nine, so I didn't break eighty for
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: the full eighteen. But considering that it's the toughest golf
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 1: course in the world by most estimations, and considering my
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: physical and mental state, I was pretty proud of that
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: set of circumstances, But that wasn't even the highlight of
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: the whole deal. The highlight of the whole deal was
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: the fact that after the round we went into the
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 1: grill room at Oakmont Country Club because Frank o'harris was
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: going to join us for dinner. He had bailed out
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 1: on playing with me because he claimed he had a
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 1: hurt risk, but I'm convinced of this day he just
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 1: didn't get his butt beat on the golf course. But regardless,
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: to his great credit, he showed up, despite the fact
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 1: that it was known now that I had been a
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 1: rested for sitting at Matt Sandusky's speaking engagement, so you know,
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: publicly there was a risk in being seen with me
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: literally and figuratively, and Franco did, in fact show up.
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: We had a very nice dinner. We took a great
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: photograph in front of the trophy case at Oakmont Country Club.
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: Franco gave the thumbs up, and I will always cherish
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: that memory, that photo and that act of friendship by
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: Franco Harris. In fact, this week, with the tournament back
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: at Oakmond, not once but twice, the Golf Channel has
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: very prominently referenced Franco Harris and I have taped those
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: and sent them to his widow, Franco's widow, Dana Harris,
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: which she seemed to appreciate. I also showed them to
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: my daughter Grace, who was only vaguely aware of what
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: she calls the bad guys in Pennsylvania and my entire
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: crusade in that particular situation. And I actually used that
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: set of circumstances to try to teach my daughter a
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: little bit of a lesson because she's been struggling as
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: a middle school girl with her friendship group, which seems
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 1: to be very common. There's nothing like middle school girl
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: friendship drama, which has been incredibly draining. But I played
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: the Golf Channel clips for her, and then I showed
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: her the photograph of Franco and I at Oakmont and
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: explained the circumstances of my arrest and how courageous it
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: was for Franco to show up and indicate support and
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: what that was a sign of, which was true friendship,
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: and that that's the kind of thing that you should
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: be looking for and a friend. And you never know
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: how much of an impact it really makes, but I
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: think it made somewhat of an impact with her because
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: she remembers a lot of that whole scenario, even though
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: she was very very young at the time. So there's
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: this personal connection in my own experience in life to
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: this US Open at Oakmond. But I think there's a
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: much bigger situation that we're going to find out about
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: this week at the US Open. And you're probably very
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: much aware that I am of the belief that we
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: as a culture here in America have become completely woosified,
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: that we are a nation of Woos's whims, that we've
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: gotten unbelievably soft. We talk about this with regard to
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: the nature of football all the time and how it's
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: becoming flag football. Well, the US Open golf tournament has
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: been branded for many years is the toughest test in golf,
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: and it has lost that branding in recent years because
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: the United States Golf Association has literally lost their balls,
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: because you know, they have a situation where nobody loses
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: their balls or the golf course anymore. So there's the
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: literal losing of balls and the figurative losing of balls.
• 2:27:59
  Speaker 1: But the USGA has lost their balls like much of
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: American culture has. And the reason why they've lost their balls.
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: Is because the players have too much power now, and
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: the players are a bunch of whims, they're spoiled brats,
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: and even this one time a year where they're supposed
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: to face the toughest test in golf has essentially turned
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: out to be nothing more than a glorified regular PGA
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: Tour event. I mean it used to be truly brutal,
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: and part of a brutal test in golf is that
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: sometimes really unfair things are going to happen. Now, the
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: modern professional golfer cannot comprehend that because they're not used
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: to it, because they're super soft, so they think any
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: really bad break is inherently illegitimate. What they don't understand is, then,
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: unless there's a set of circumstances where you occasionally get
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 1: a really, really truly bad break, the conditions aren't tough enough.
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: That's unfortunately a lot like life. You know, golf is
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: supposed to be a lot like life. That's the reality
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: of it. If things are so easy or not you know, tough,
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: that you're not eventually gonna get totally hosed, then guess what,
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: it's not tough enough. That's the price you pay for
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: a tough test. Occasionally someone's gonna get really screwed. Now
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: I realized that some people will claim that you're you're
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: doing you're being sadistic. As a golfer, you like to
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: see these players suffer. Sure, there's an entertainment value to that,
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: but there's also the value of what the US Open
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: used to mean, which was that you would survive the
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: toughest test in golf. Now, the reason why I think
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: this is particularly significant way beyond golf for this week
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: is that it's at Oakmont and it's in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's
• 2:29:54
  Speaker 1: entire brand is toughness, right toughness, steel Town, the Steel
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: Deelers of Frank o'harris cole Town used to be the
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: tough guy mentality. Well, the reality is that's no longer
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: modern Pittsburgh. By the way, you might argue Pittsburgh's a
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: much better city than it used to be back in
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: the Steel days, but the reality is Pittsburgh is not
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh anymore. The Steelers aren't the Steelers anymore. And there's
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 1: good in that, and there's bad in that. But Pittsburgh
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: still likes to think of itself as a really tough town.
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: And Oakmont more than any other club in America revels
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: and embraces its branding as the toughest test in golf,
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: the toughest golf course in America. So you have Pittsburgh,
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: their branding is still, whether it's based in reality or not, toughness.
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: Oak Mint, their entire branding is We're the toughest test
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: in golf. You've got the USGA where they're branding they're
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: still trying to hang on to is the toughest test
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: in golf, even though they wimped out on numerous occasions
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 1: in recent years. So if you can't have a truly tough,
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: old fashioned US Open in Pittsburgh at Oakmont, when the
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: USGA has already in recent years wimped out several times
• 2:31:17
  Speaker 1: and had situations where everyone was saying, oh, here we go,
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be an old time US Open, and then
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: we actually get to play and it's like, this is
• 2:31:25
  Speaker 1: not that much different than a PGA Tour event. So
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many times they're gonna have to
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: cry wolf here if they cry wolf this time and
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: it turns out that this really wasn't that tough of
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: a US Open, and the winning score is five six
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: seven eight under part. I don't think it will be,
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: but if it does turn out that way, then we
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: will know for sure that even in golf, where the
• 2:31:48
  Speaker 1: average demographic is extremely old school and still very conservative,
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: and even in Pittsburgh and even in Oakmond you can't
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 1: be tough anymore, have become so whissified that even an
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: US Open and oak Mind can't really cause suffering because
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: we've become that frickin' soft that spoiled and the multi
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 1: multi millionaires of professional golf have won out. Now, I
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: don't know for sure that that's gonna happen. I'm suspicious
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: that it might because I've been seeing, for instance, on
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: the Golf Channel, they've been talking a really good game
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: about how tough this is gonna be, and I will
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: believe it when I see it. Now, they got a
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 1: lot of rain at the early part of the week,
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: it's been dry in the later part of the week.
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: They might get rain again on the weekends. If there's
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 1: no rain between the time I'm recording this and the
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: end of the US Open, then I do believe we're
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: going to see a true old fashioned tough test where
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 1: it's possible no one breaks. Part that is possible. However,
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: if it rains on Friday or Saturday like it must night,
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: you know, the weekend may end up looking rather ordinary
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: and pedestrian. I'm rooting for a winner. To me, the
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: winning score ought to be around even part. To win
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 1: a US Open, even part ought to be the winning score.
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 1: And sometimes you don't have control over that because you
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: obviously don't control the rain the wind. In Oakmond's case,
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: their only real defense. They have two defenses. Incredibly thick
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: and high rough and very very fast and hard elevated greens.
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: They have no trees, they'll be very little wind. There's
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: no water on the golf course, almost no out of bounds,
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: so that's the defense of the golf course. And if
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 1: it's too wet, I don't care how long the holes are,
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: I don't care how high the rough is. Somebody's going
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: to go low. That's how good these guys are. But
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: if it's dry, then we're going to see some sort
• 2:33:56
  Speaker 1: of carnage. My prediction is it's probably going to be
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: somewhere in between. My guess is the winning score will
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: be two or three under par. It'll be a mild,
• 2:34:05
  Speaker 1: tough US Open, but not a massacre. Trust me, i'd
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: be rooting for a massacre. I'm rooting for no rain.
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: I want to see a massacre. I want to see
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: an over par winner. I don't think it should be
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: eight or nine or ten over par. That's too much,
• 2:34:19
  Speaker 1: Like I said, somewhere around par. Maybe a couple over
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: that would be great. But I'm not going to believe
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: that this is actually gonna happen, that we're finally going
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 1: to have a real US Open until I actually see it,
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: because I'm of the belief that the players have too
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: much power and the USG has lost all their balls,
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: much like we have as a culture in America. As
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 1: far as what's going to happen, obviously there's a lot
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: of focus on Scotti Scheffler. I correctly predicted, as most
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: people did, that he would win the PGA Championship. That
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: was about as easy as predicting an eventual breakup of
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk and Donald Trump. But he won in a runaway.
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: Here's what I'll say, and this is going to be
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: a strange prediction. All you need to know, or at
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: least all I would need to know about what's going
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: to happen in this US Open is I need to
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 1: see Scotty Scheffler hit two shots out of the primary roff,
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 1: two shots. If you told me, you know, if you
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: showed me two shots that Scotty Scheffler is going to
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: hit out of the primary roff, I would be able
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: to tell you what the result of this tournament was
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 1: going to be. If the first two times Scotty is
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: in the primary rough, he's able to hit functional golf
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: shots that either end up on or around the green,
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: depending on the hole. If he's able to functionally use
• 2:35:39
  Speaker 1: his advantage, which is a very steep swing. He's a
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: very tall guy. He's very good out of the rough.
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: It's very good everywhere, but he's particularly good out of
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: the rough in comparison to his competition. If he's able
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: to functionally get the golf ball out of the rough
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: and not have to just punch it back into the fairway,
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: he's going to win this tournament, and he might win
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: it by something close to what Tiger Woods did twenty
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 1: five years ago. This week at Pebble Beach in two thousand,
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: no one's ever going to match that record of winning
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 1: by fifteen shots, but it will be a blowout. So
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: if you see Scotty Scheffler hit his for two shots
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: out of the rough in a functional fashion. Lookout, Scotty
• 2:36:17
  Speaker 1: will win easily. If that's not the case. If Scotty's
• 2:36:22
  Speaker 1: advantage is actually taken away because the rough is just
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: that high and just that thick, then it's a crap shoot.
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: Then I have no idea who's going to win. Scotty
• 2:36:29
  Speaker 1: will surely be in contention, but I'm not confident that
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: he'll actually win, because you know who the hell knows.
• 2:36:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know that, and then all bets are off.
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: The only thing I will tell you is Rory McElroy
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: ain't gonna be the winner. Boil boy, Did I predict
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: correctly what was going to happen to Rory McElroy after
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: winning the Masters? I mean, it has been a disaster
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: for him. I mean, he almost missed the cut of
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: the PGA, he badly missed the cut of the Canadian Open.
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: He's gotten involved than controversies involving the media and his
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 1: driver not being conforming, and his attitude in this week's
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: press conference was just terrible, openly admitting he has no
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: real motivation. I mean, the golf media told you that
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: he was going to be freed up after winning the
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 1: career Grand Slam, and he would win more majors. I said,
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's the case at all. If you
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: look at history, it's exactly the opposite. Well, there's no
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 1: chance that Rory mcclroy wins this. Even if some miracle
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: happens and he finds his driver. I think he'll be
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: lucky to contend. I think he's much more likely to
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: miss the cut given the fact that he can't hit
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: it straight, and I don't think his swing is particularly
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: well suited for very heavy rough So it ain't going
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: to be Rory McElroy. So it's either going to be
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: Scottie in a very dominating performance or it's going to
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: be a crapshoot and it ain't going to be Rory.
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 1: Other than that and the score, the final score, which
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: I think will be in the two underd to three
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 1: under range. I don't have any other predictions for you
• 2:37:59
  Speaker 1: on that, but hopefully it'll be a good tournament, and
• 2:38:02
  Speaker 1: I'll have more comments on it, obviously in the next
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast. That'll do it for episode number
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: two hundred and forty five of the Death of Journalism podcast.
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: Is always the case. Thanks so much for listening, thanks
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 1: for being a subscriber until next time, so long. I'm
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 1: John Ziggler.