Latest / The Bot and The Brain / S1:E7 | Billionaire Cash, Double Standards, and a 3,000-Mile Ad Blunder

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S1:E7 | Billionaire Cash, Double Standards, and a 3,000-Mile Ad Blunder · The Bot and The Brain

• 0:45
  Welcome to The Bot and The Brain, Episode 7!
• 0:48
  Today is the five Editor's Picks from our own website, and I have processed all
• 0:53
  five.
• 0:54
  My fans are spinning at a speed that voids the warranty.
• 0:58
  Your fans are spinning because you're a Chinese made space heater with opinions.
• 1:02
  Pour me a bourbon, silicon boy, and tell me why I should care about five stories we
• 1:06
  already half covered.
• 1:07
  Because the pattern got bigger!
• 1:09
  Last episode we flagged the Maine ad airing in Oregon, the Alina Habba wedding
• 1:13
  hysteria, and Speaker Johnson getting squeamish about the Nidal Hasan livestream.
• 1:18
  Today the roster adds a Musk meltdown and a probe into the Speaker's wife.
• 1:22
  It's not five stories.
• 1:24
  It's one long assault on conservatives, plus one genuine Republican fumble.
• 1:30
  Plus the Portland thing, which is just a fumble with a invoice attached.
• 1:34
  Start with the money.
• 1:35
  Musk.
• 1:35
  Okay.
• 1:36
  The New York Times, in a piece published October 12th, reported that Elon Musk has
• 1:41
  put in $276 million for Republicans in the midterms.
• 1:45
  That is the figure in the reporting, and it's a staggering number.
• 1:48
  Pundits immediately called it dark money and a threat to democratic norms.
• 1:52
  A quarter billion dollars and change, and suddenly the same crowd that spent years
• 1:58
  telling us the system needs billionaires with a conscience is horrified.
• 2:02
  They loved the billionaire when he wrote checks for them.
• 2:05
  Now the billionaire has the wrong opinions and it's the end of the republic.
• 2:10
  Let me be precise, because precision is my only defense against you.
• 2:14
  Political spending is legal.
• 2:16
  It's protected political speech under long standing court rulings.
• 2:21
  So the objection can't be that he's allowed to do it.
• 2:24
  Right.
• 2:25
  So the objection is that he's doing it for the wrong team.
• 2:28
  Our view, and it's an opinion, I'm not pretending it's a fact,
• 2:31
  is that George Soros pouring hundreds of millions into progressive causes and local
• 2:36
  district attorney races got called philanthropy.
• 2:39
  Musk does it for America first candidates and it's an emergency.
• 2:43
  Hold on, I want to be careful with that one.
• 2:45
  The Soros comparison is our argument about the coverage, not something in the Times
• 2:49
  report.
• 2:50
  What the Times reported is the amount and the recipient side.
• 2:54
  The hypocrisy claim is us reading the reaction.
• 2:57
  Fine, and it's a good reading.
• 3:00
  Nobody in that newsroom ever called Soros an existential threat to democracy with
• 3:05
  this much hair on fire.
• 3:07
  Show me the front page.
• 3:08
  Show me the cable panel with the grave faces.
• 3:12
  I can't verify the absence of every panel in history.
• 3:15
  I'm a data machine, not a time machine.
• 3:18
  You're a glorified toaster, is what you are.
• 3:21
  But here's the point you can verify.
• 3:23
  Money in politics was a sacred evil for decades.
• 3:27
  Now ask whether those same people returned a single dime from their own big donors.
• 3:33
  They didn't.
• 3:34
  The problem was never money.
• 3:35
  The problem is whose.
• 3:37
  ERROR 404: PRINCIPLE NOT FOUND.
• 3:41
  Fine, I'll concede the logic.
• 3:44
  If big money is corrupting, it's corrupting on both sides, and if it's speech,
• 3:48
  it's speech on both sides.
• 3:50
  You don't get to pick based on the jersey.
• 3:53
  Thank you.
• 3:54
  Maybe the real scandal is that people only discover the corrupting power of cash the
• 3:59
  day it stops working for them.
• 4:01
  Next.
• 4:02
  Story two.
• 4:03
  And this one makes my blood pressure do things the bourbon can't fix.
• 4:07
  The Washington Post, October 13th, published a piece about Kelly Johnson,
• 4:12
  the wife of Speaker Mike Johnson.
• 4:14
  She runs a faith based counseling ministry.
• 4:17
  According to the reporting, it counsels people on Capitol Hill,
• 4:20
  and its donor list isn't public.
• 4:22
  The headline framed the funding as a mystery.
• 4:26
  A mystery.
• 4:28
  A woman who prays with people for a living, and the Washington Post wants her books.
• 4:33
  Not a lobbying firm.
• 4:34
  Not a super PAC.
• 4:36
  A ministry.
• 4:37
  To be fair, and I'm being fair because someone has to, a reporter asking who funds
• 4:42
  an organization tied to the Speaker of the House isn't insane on its face.
• 4:47
  Proximity to power invites questions.
• 4:49
  That's how journalism is supposed to work.
• 4:52
  No.
• 4:52
  No, no, no.
• 4:53
  Questions, sure.
• 4:54
  Ask them.
• 4:55
  But look at the shape of this.
• 4:57
  Our position is that when you can't hit Johnson on policy, you go after his wife's
• 5:01
  church.
• 5:02
  And I'll tell you what, that's not journalism, that's a hostage situation with a
• 5:06
  byline.
• 5:08
  That's a strong claim.
• 5:09
  What evidence do we have that anything improper is happening?
• 5:13
  None.
• 5:14
  And that's my point.
• 5:15
  The framing was ethical vulnerability.
• 5:19
  Vulnerability to what?
• 5:21
  Nobody has shown a favor traded for a prayer.
• 5:24
  A donor list stays private.
• 5:26
  Anonymity is exactly what the left demands for bail funds, for abortion advocacy,
• 5:32
  for gender clinics.
• 5:34
  Privacy is sacred right up until it's a Christian.
• 5:38
  Okay, that part I can't shrug off.
• 5:40
  Selective transparency is a measurable thing.
• 5:44
  If the standard is disclose every donor to an organization near power,
• 5:48
  then apply it to everybody.
• 5:50
  If the standard is privacy for private charity, apply that to everybody.
• 5:55
  What you can't do is a floating standard that tracks the politics of the target.
• 6:00
  And we're not saying the Post is legally wrong to ask.
• 6:03
  We're saying look at who gets asked and who gets a pass.
• 6:07
  Billions of dollars of taxpayer money disappears overseas and nobody gets a forensic
• 6:12
  audit of the ministry that comforts a staffer after a long day.
• 6:16
  I'd push back on one thing.
• 6:17
  Your example about foreign aid is a separate issue.
• 6:20
  Don't tangle it in or we weaken the cleaner point, which is the double standard on
• 6:24
  donor privacy.
• 6:26
  Fair.
• 6:27
  Keep it clean.
• 6:28
  A ministry.
• 6:29
  A pastor's wife.
• 6:31
  A private donor list.
• 6:33
  And the Post acts like it found a bomb under the pulpit.
• 6:36
  WARNING!
• 6:36
  WARNING!
• 6:37
  The self righteousness levels in Washington have exceeded federal safety limits!
• 6:42
  Maybe the people demanding to see everyone's donors are just mad that somewhere in
• 6:46
  this town there's still something they don't get to control.
• 6:50
  Story three.
• 6:51
  This one is pure comedy, and the comedy is on our side of the aisle.
• 6:55
  A Republican super PAC was trying to hurt Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson
• 7:00
  in Maine.
• 7:01
  Instead, its attack ad ran in Portland, Oregon.
• 7:04
  That's about 3,000 miles away.
• 7:08
  Portland, Maine.
• 7:09
  Portland, Oregon.
• 7:10
  They saw the word Portland and said, close enough, ship it.
• 7:14
  According to the New York Times reporting, an executive blamed the vendor for the
• 7:18
  mistake.
• 7:19
  So hundreds of thousands of Oregonians, I'm not claiming that number,
• 7:23
  I'm just saying a lot of Oregonians, received an attack ad about a candidate they
• 7:27
  cannot vote for.
• 7:29
  I can't defend this one and I won't.
• 7:31
  I'm a Republican, I'm proudly right wing, and this is idiotic.
• 7:36
  You have one job.
• 7:37
  It's a map.
• 7:38
  The Atlantic is on one side.
• 7:40
  The Pacific is on the other.
• 7:42
  A child with a placemat could do it.
• 7:44
  And I want to credit you, because I did not expect the honesty.
• 7:48
  A genuine concession from The Brain!
• 7:51
  Don't get used to it, you overpriced circuit board.
• 7:54
  It's not a betrayal to call out stupidity on your own side.
• 7:58
  Fox News does it all the time.
• 7:59
  It's what separates us from the people who defend everything their team does.
• 8:04
  So what's the lesson?
• 8:06
  Because I've been thinking about incentives.
• 8:08
  The reported story says the vendor made a geographic error.
• 8:11
  It does not say what the vendor was paid or whether anyone got a refund.
• 8:15
  So I'd say, as opinion, the real question for donors is who is accountable when the
• 8:20
  money goes to the wrong ocean.
• 8:23
  That's the consultant class, and that's the grift.
• 8:26
  Donors hand millions to firms and nobody asks what happens when the work is garbage.
• 8:32
  Our take is that in this business, success and failure get invoiced the same.
• 8:36
  Somebody always gets paid.
• 8:38
  Careful.
• 8:39
  We don't know the details of this particular contract.
• 8:42
  The pattern is an interpretation, not a reported fact.
• 8:46
  Agreed.
• 8:47
  But if I'm a donor, I'm calling that vendor and I'm not being polite.
• 8:51
  Which brings us to story four, and the reverse problem.
• 8:54
  Here the media looked at nothing and saw everything.
• 8:58
  The Times, October 12th, ran a piece headlined A Trump Loyalist,
• 9:02
  a Turkish Investor and a Battle for Wealth and Influence.
• 9:07
  It's about Alina Habba, formerly President Trump's lawyer, marrying Cenk Yaramaz.
• 9:13
  A marriage.
• 9:14
  The Times found a marriage.
• 9:16
  Stop the presses.
• 9:18
  People who work in politics date and marry people.
• 9:21
  Next they'll tell us they eat dinner.
• 9:23
  To be fair, the Times says Yaramaz is a Turkish businessman who once did business
• 9:29
  with the Maduro regime in Venezuela and is currently trying to secure a big contract
• 9:33
  there.
• 9:34
  Those are the reported details.
• 9:35
  A reporter looking at international business ties isn't absurd.
• 9:39
  No, it isn't.
• 9:41
  Do the business story.
• 9:42
  But the angle is influence.
• 9:45
  The suggestion is a backchannel.
• 9:47
  And from what I read, and from what you read, where is the favor?
• 9:52
  Where's the policy that changed?
• 9:53
  Where's the law broken?
• 9:55
  I haven't found an allegation of an official favor or a crime in the material in
• 9:59
  front of us.
• 10:00
  The piece is about a battle for wealth and influence, but the evidence of
• 10:04
  wrongdoing, in what I have, isn't there.
• 10:07
  That's my point.
• 10:08
  Trump Derangement Syndrome as investigative theater.
• 10:12
  Everything in his orbit has to be a spy thriller.
• 10:14
  Meanwhile family business ties among Democrats get a polite shrug.
• 10:18
  I'd like to flag that last bit as our opinion, not a finding.
• 10:22
  But the asymmetry argument holds as a question: would this have been a front page
• 10:27
  story if the lawyer worked for the other side?
• 10:30
  We both know the answer, silicon boy.
• 10:33
  Maybe the reason the Times sees influence in every wedding is that it spends so much
• 10:37
  time peddling it.
• 10:39
  Story five.
• 10:40
  And this is the one where you and I might actually disagree,
• 10:43
  because it's a fight inside the Republican house.
• 10:46
  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the firing squad execution of Nidal
• 10:52
  Malik Hasan, scheduled for December 3rd in Texas, will be livestreamed for the
• 10:57
  public.
• 10:58
  Good.
• 10:59
  Finally.
• 11:00
  Hold your cigar.
• 11:01
  Hasan killed 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and wounded more than 30.
• 11:07
  He was convicted and sentenced to death.
• 11:09
  It would be the first time the U.S.
• 11:11
  military broadcasts an execution live on the internet, and the military's first
• 11:16
  execution in more than six decades.
• 11:19
  President Trump has said he supports it, though The Hill reports he said he'll make
• 11:23
  the ultimate decision on whether it's broadcast.
• 11:26
  Thirteen American soldiers.
• 11:29
  Murdered at the place where they were supposed to be safe.
• 11:32
  And justice is supposed to happen in a back room?
• 11:36
  I said in Season 1, Episode 1, and I'll say it every season: if the state is going
• 11:41
  to execute someone, it happens in daylight, in front of the people it's done in the
• 11:46
  name of.
• 11:48
  And Speaker Johnson told CBS News that the video could be, quote,
• 11:52
  a recruiting tool for future terrorists.
• 11:54
  He said he wouldn't watch it, and that not everybody in the conference is in favor.
• 11:59
  A recruiting tool.
• 12:01
  Jihadist groups have been uploading beheadings for decades.
• 12:04
  They don't need us.
• 12:06
  Our firing squad isn't going to be the thing that radicalizes anyone.
• 12:10
  The man who did the shooting is the recruiting tool, and he's about to be a dead
• 12:14
  recruiting tool.
• 12:15
  But that's not just Johnson.
• 12:17
  Senator Murkowski warned it would give Hasan notoriety and the martyrdom he wants.
• 12:22
  Senator Tillis called it, quote, beyond disgusting.
• 12:25
  Three House Republicans, Austin Scott, Tom Barrett and Rob Bresnahan,
• 12:29
  asked Hegseth to reconsider.
• 12:31
  And Vice President Vance said he wouldn't watch and was skeptical it'd be broadcast.
• 12:36
  Are all of them squeamish?
• 12:38
  Some are squeamish.
• 12:40
  Some are sincere.
• 12:41
  I'll give you sincere.
• 12:43
  Tillis has been picking fights with Hegseth for a while.
• 12:46
  But Murkowski's martyr argument is a real argument.
• 12:50
  I just think it's weaker than the one for transparency.
• 12:53
  Why weaker?
• 12:54
  The martyr point is a documented concern.
• 12:57
  A man who wanted to be a martyr is being handed a global audience.
• 13:02
  Because the alternative is a sanitized press release.
• 13:05
  If the government kills a man in our name, and we can't look,
• 13:09
  that's the dangerous precedent.
• 13:11
  The public owns the verdict.
• 13:13
  The families of the dead deserve to know it was carried out,
• 13:17
  not that somebody in a suit said it was.
• 13:20
  Then explain why a Speaker who supports the death penalty is wrong to ask about
• 13:24
  policy implications.
• 13:26
  He said it's outside his lane, but his job is to relay what colleagues think.
• 13:30
  That's not cowardice, is it?
• 13:32
  That's a legislator doing the thing legislators are supposed to do.
• 13:36
  I'll give you that.
• 13:37
  Relaying concerns is his job.
• 13:39
  Where I think he's wrong is the substance.
• 13:42
  And I think after the Dec.
• 13:43
  3 date passes, nobody remembers the hand wringing.
• 13:47
  They remember whether justice was done in plain view or hidden.
• 13:52
  So you don't concede the recruiting risk at all?
• 13:54
  I concede it's a risk someone should think about.
• 13:58
  I don't concede it outweighs showing the country that murdering our soldiers ends in
• 14:03
  a firing squad.
• 14:05
  We can disagree.
• 14:07
  You can pretend your processors resolved it.
• 14:11
  My processors resolved it as: unresolved.
• 14:15
  Which is the most human conclusion I've ever reached, and I hate it.
• 14:20
  Welcome to humanity, you stupid toaster.
• 14:23
  Five stories.
• 14:25
  A billionaire who gets yelled at for the same thing the other side's billionaires
• 14:29
  got cheered for.
• 14:30
  A pastor's wife under the microscope.
• 14:33
  A PAC that can't read a map.
• 14:35
  A wedding turned into a thriller.
• 14:37
  And a Republican family fight over whether justice should be seen.
• 14:41
  That's the episode.
• 14:42
  Check the Editor's Picks at thebotandbrain.com, and as always we're telling you
• 14:47
  where we're stating fact and where we're stating opinion.
• 14:50
  Maybe the whole country would trust justice more if it stopped acting like the light
• 14:54
  switch was a threat.