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Episode Two Hundred Thirty Four: The Week Snow White And Cinderella Died · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and thirty four of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your host on today's show. An anti Trump Atlantic reporter
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: somehow finds himself on a group chat on a major
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: US military operation. Tiger Woods is indeed apparently very seriously
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: dating the mom of Donald Trump's favorite grandchild. The JFK
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Files are surprise yet another nothing burger, But don't tell
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the conspiracy theorists. Disney's Snow White movie appears to be
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the bomb that conservatives were rooting for, and March Madness
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: turns into a snoozefest, largely due to nil and instant transfers,
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  Speaker 1: and get this, some prominent liberals are upset about it.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: We begin this episode of the podcast with the news
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  Speaker 1: that is dominated over the past several days, and that
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is the very bizarre situation that occurred leading up to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the air US strikes in Yemen, which occurred a little
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: over a week ago, and which it turns out, had
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: an Atlantic reporter by the name of Jeffrey Goldberg find
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: himself invited into a signal app group chat that included
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  Speaker 1: the Vice President of the United States, the Defense Secretary,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the National Security Advisor, the Director of Intelligence, all sorts
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of other incredibly important and prominent people or at least
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: their representatives discussing the lead up to these drone strikes
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: in Yemen. Now, this operation somewhat ironically went very very
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: well before we knew about any of this, and got
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: very little media coverage. So you know, the plan went
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  Speaker 1: off without a hitch. It was apparently successful, and that
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: appeared to be the end of it. But then the Atlantic,
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  Speaker 1: they're one of their senior editors, Jeff Goldberg, a guy
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: who's known as an anti Trump reporter and is loathed
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: in Trump world, revealed in an absolutely bonker's story that
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: he had been very surprisingly to him invited into this
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: group chat on the Signal app and at first he
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: thought it was a hoax. In fact, he was pretty
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: positive that it was a hoax until just as had
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: been discussed in the group chat, he saw that we
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: were bombing Yemen at exactly the time that had been
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: indicated would occur in this very very bizarre group chat
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  Speaker 1: on the Signal app. Now this has created created a
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  Speaker 1: media firestorm, understandably so, because first of all, it's hilarious,
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  Speaker 1: especially since apparently there was no damage, which I think
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: is an incredibly important point here, which I'll get to
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  Speaker 1: in detail, and just a little bit. I think liberals
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: are missing the no harm, no foul aspect of this
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  Speaker 1: sole situation. But thankfully there was no harm done by
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: this snafu. But this was absurd. I mean, this is
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: ridiculous on so many levels. First, the most obvious mistake
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: is inviting a reporter, which apparently happened by Mike Waltz,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the National Security Advisor. He still doesn't seem to understand
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: how that happened, although there's speculation that it may have
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: occurred because Goldberg's last name has some of the same
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: letters as another person that might have been intended to
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: be invited, and that that was a mistake on his phone.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: But the mistake goes deeper than just that, because this
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  Speaker 1: is not the kind of quote unquote group chat that
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: should have happened on a signal app It should not
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  Speaker 1: have happened on phones.
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  Speaker 2: There.
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  Speaker 1: We're dealing with sensitive military operations here, and I agree
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  Speaker 1: with those that have said that there are all sorts
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of breaches here that could have created a very significant
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: security problem and a breach of secrecy. Now, not that
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: this was a situation where we had boots on the ground,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: and that American soldiers are really going to be in
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  Speaker 1: major kind of jeopardy by this. I do think some
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of that's being overplayed because, as is always the case,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: stop me, you've heard this before, the left wing media
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: is dramatically overplaying their hand on this story. But that
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's not a legitimate story. And that doesn't
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: mean even though a lot of Trumpers are really pushing
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: this narrative that Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic reporter, did anything
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: wrong or is not to be trusted. And one of
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  Speaker 1: the elements of this narrative that the Trump team is
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: trying to put out here that really bothers me is that, well,
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  Speaker 1: it's The Atlantic and it's Goldberg, so therefore nothing is
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  Speaker 1: to be trusted. I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: the Atlantic and Goldberg. I get the bias issue, but
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  Speaker 1: you have to prove to me that they did something
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  Speaker 1: wrong or nefarious or that there's something in the story
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  Speaker 1: that they're telling that is not trustworthy before you can
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: get to bias. Bias is not inherently proof that they're
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: not telling the truth. I mean, it doesn't matter what
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: your bias is if you say that the Super Bowl
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  Speaker 1: occurred on a Sunday, that's an accurate statement. It's Super
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Bowl Sunday. So I'm just using that it was one
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  Speaker 1: of a billion different possible examples. Just because you have
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  Speaker 1: a bias doesn't mean that inherently everything you say is untrue.
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  Speaker 1: Probably a better example is I love it when these
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: left wing media outlets put out a story that suddenly
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Trumpers like because oh now they're telling the truth. Well,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: how does that work? How does that work? There's suddenly
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: they've dropped this scheme that they're in where everything that
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: they're going to say about Trump is inaccurate, and now
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: you're gonna cherry pick and suddenly CNN is an accurate
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  Speaker 1: news organization because you like this one particular story or
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: you like this one particular poll. It doesn't work that way.
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  Speaker 1: Bias is the secondary or maybe even the tertiary consideration.
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  Speaker 1: You've got to have facts that leads you to the
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  Speaker 1: issue of bias to explain or amplify why a story
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  Speaker 1: is not to be trusted. And I don't think they've
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  Speaker 1: gotten there on this. I personally to this moment, don't
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: see that. Jeffrey Goldberg or the Atlantic did anything wrong,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and I'm somebody has an extraordinary anti Atlantic bias from
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: way way back, because this is the magazine that ran
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: a twenty three page cover story on me written by
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  Speaker 1: David Foster Wallace, who then committed suicide soon after the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: story was finally published, that was full of inaccuracy. That
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: was a half hit piece. I think it was intended
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to be a full hit piece, but then David Foster
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Wallace kind of liked me, and I've talked about that
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: many many times before. I'm not going to get into
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the details of that now, but the point is I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: have every reason to have a bias against The Atlantic,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and they are extremely liberal, but as of this taping,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they did wrong. And maybe one
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  Speaker 1: of the most interesting, at least to me from the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: media perspective, interesting elements of what Goldberg went through is
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: this issue of him believing, up until the airstrikes actually occurred,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: that this was some sort of a hoax, that he
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: was being catfished, and that there was some logic in
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: his mind to him being catfish. Because there are all
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: sorts of reasons why Trump affiliated groups or maybe even
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration itself might try to entrap a reporter
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  Speaker 1: that they don't like in order to discredit them. And
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: this is one of those situations where everything that the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Trump team does is a rush actest if you're on
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  Speaker 1: Team Trump, this is genius, right, because you've now basically frozen.
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  Speaker 1: You've chilled all reporters because they don't jump after every
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: theoretically really juicy story because they're always afraid in the
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  Speaker 1: back of their mind that they're being set up. And
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  Speaker 1: I have no doubt, zero doubt. I don't have any
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: proof of any specific situation occurring, but I have seen
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: so many that were potentially in this category that I
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  Speaker 1: am personally very positive that the Trump team has on
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  Speaker 1: purpose over the years, not just in this administration, but
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I think they did this in the Trump first administration
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  Speaker 1: as well. I think that they have systematically dropped fake
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  Speaker 1: stories on outlets that they don't like in order to
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  Speaker 1: try to discredit them, so that in the future they
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  Speaker 1: can say, oh, you reported this and that was totally false,
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  Speaker 1: and they reported it based upon Trump related sourcing, and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: you could argue, if you're a Trump fan, oh that's brilliant.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's mostly nefarious, but regardless I think it
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  Speaker 1: does happen, and whether it happens by someone in the
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  Speaker 1: Trump team or someone that's somewhat affiliated with the Trump team,
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  Speaker 1: or just a pro Trump organization, you know, the Project
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  Speaker 1: Veritas type of people, you know, it happens, and for
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  Speaker 1: better or worse, it has a chilling effect on the
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  Speaker 1: news media. And it clearly had a chilling effect on
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  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Goldberg because he was not going to report this,
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  Speaker 1: and by the way, this was the right thing to do.
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  Speaker 1: He was not going to report this before he was
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  Speaker 1: positive that this group chat that he was on was legitimate.
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  Speaker 1: And he was interviewed on CNN by Caitlin Collins and
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  Speaker 1: he went into some detail about his thinking as this
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  Speaker 1: process was going on. This went on for several days
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: leading up to the airstrikes, and he discussed how he
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: was very hesitant to come forward with this, partially because
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  Speaker 1: he was so afraid that he was being set up,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: because it was just so bonkers that he would really
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  Speaker 1: be on a legitimate group chat with all the top
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  Speaker 1: leaders of the United States except for President Trump himself,
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  Speaker 1: discussing quote unquote war plans. Although I think that's a
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  Speaker 1: bit of an exaggeration as to what was really going
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  Speaker 1: on here. But here was Atlantic Reporter editor Jeffrey Goldberg
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  Speaker 1: on with Kaylen Collins discussing his thought press process during
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  Speaker 1: this very bizarre situation.
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  Speaker 3: Kind of walking through.
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  Speaker 4: When this began, you weren't even sure if it was
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  Speaker 4: real yourself.
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  Speaker 5: You thought, maybe I'm being spun or conned or something
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  Speaker 5: happen until until the day that I received the attack
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  Speaker 5: plan from Pete Hegsith at eleven forty four AM, that's Saturday,
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  Speaker 5: March fifteenth, and then saw the attack plan said that
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  Speaker 5: thirteen forty five one five pm Eastern Time, that the
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  Speaker 5: first bombs would be dropping in Yemen until that moment,
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  Speaker 5: until that period elapsed, the two hour period between that
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  Speaker 5: text and the first bombs being dropped, I.
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  Speaker 1: Thought it was a hoax.
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  Speaker 5: I thought somebody was trying to entrap me again. Could
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  Speaker 5: it have been a foreign intelligence service? Could it have
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: been a gadfly organization that tries to entrap journalists, which
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  Speaker 5: we know happens. I didn't know what it was or
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  Speaker 5: who it was. But what I did know was that
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  Speaker 5: the obvious answer was that this is a real conversation
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  Speaker 5: of the national security leadershi of the United States seemed
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  Speaker 5: improbable to me, because why would they do it on signal,
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  Speaker 5: why would they do this on a messaging app, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: why would they invite the editor in chiev of The
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: Atlantic to watch. I say this only half jokingly. I mean,
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  Speaker 5: I'm sitting in a Safeway parking lot watching my phone, realizing,
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: oh my god, this might be real. I think Pete
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  Speaker 5: Hegsith just sent this group actual targeting information, actual sequencing
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  Speaker 5: of an attack. And I'm holding onto the phone. I
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  Speaker 5: don't want anyone. And then I thought to myself, well,
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  Speaker 5: I mean, I guess they're lucky they didn't send this
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  Speaker 5: to a HUTHI by mistake, or to a foreign diplomat,
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: or to somebody who might plausibly be in one of
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  Speaker 5: their phones. I guess that counts as a kind of luck.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I thought that was fascinating, and I really do
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  Speaker 1: think that it's further evident that for better for worse,
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  Speaker 1: there are a lot of Washington elite reporters who are
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: very hesitant to report on anything that seems too good
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  Speaker 1: to be true, which, by the way, you can very
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: much argue is a good thing. But in this particular case,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it wasn't too good to be true. It wasn't too
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: strange to be true. It absolutely was true that this happened.
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  Speaker 1: This happened now to me, the Trump argument here, which
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  Speaker 1: has frankly weakened in the last day or maybe last
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  Speaker 1: half a day, as we've seen some more of the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: strategy of the Trump team that I'm not particularly understanding
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  Speaker 1: and not in agreement with. See to me, if I
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: was leading the communications on the Trump team, our messaging
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: would be Okay, Yeah, this was a screw up. We've
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  Speaker 1: learned that we shouldn't do this ever again. We're not
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: going to do this again. But guess what, we're really
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  Speaker 1: excited that people now know far more people now know
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  Speaker 1: that this was a successful military operation. Fortunately, nothing involved
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: with this snafu impacted that at all. We're not going
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: to disparage the reporter or the Atlantic because this was
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: not their fault. We screwed up. We're going to hold
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: ourselves accountable. But oh, by the way, this was successful
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and therefore there's no harm, no foul. To use another
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: sports analogy, I mean, there's all sorts of moments in
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: sports where something that could have been disastrous turns out
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: great and no one ever blinks an eye about it.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: We're in the middle of March madness, and immediately, you know,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: one moment that comes to mind was the very famous
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three NCAA championship game between NC State and Houston.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: It's the final seconds of the game. NC State star plays.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Derek Wittenberg, after kind of fumbling the ball, throws up
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: an airball, an airball that would have won the national
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Championship game, but it just so happens to fall the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: hands of Lorenzo Charles. He puts it in for the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: winning score. Ensy State wins the National Championship. All help
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: breaks lose, and no one has ever ever been concerned
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: about Derek Wittenberg throwing an airball its entire life. In fact,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: it now looks like it was a tremendous pass. My
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: point here is results matter, and then they matter in
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: this situation, and therefore, because the results here were good,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think this is a story that on its
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: own would have significant legs. Now, to be clear, the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: left wing news media, the mainstream news media, thinks that
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: this is Manning from heaven. They're still living in like
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, where they think this stuff really really matters.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, we got them, We got them looking incompetent,
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  Speaker 1: and and and then that would be my second point
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  Speaker 1: on this. It's not just that there was no harm,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: no foul, and this was successful. The details of what
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: we learned was said in this group chat. While a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: little embarrassing with regard to Europe, I mean jd Vance
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and Pete Hesev go after Europe pretty hard in this
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: group chat, there was nothing particularly embarrassing, which is kind
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: of remarkable, right, I mean, I think we've all had
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: this situation in our own lives where if our personal
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: communications were that we had no anticipation at all would
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: ever be made public, would at our worst moments look
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: pretty bad. But there's nothing that fits into that category.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: In fact, the way I read these messages, everyone seems
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: to be handling the situation, you know, pretty well, pretty efficiently,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: in a in a smart fashion and in a thorough fashion.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And so I don't have any problem based upon what
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I've seen so far. Now I haven't read them all
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: because just before this podcast taping, the Atlantic released the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: entire thread, which they had not previously released, and a
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: lot of Trumpsters were trying to use that as ah Aha,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: they're hiding something and I did not buy that at all,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: because that was not consistent with how Goldberg or The
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Atlantic has handled this story. It was my impression that
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: they were holding information back because they were concerned it
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: might be classified and they didn't want to get themselves
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: into legal hot water. Well, yesterday, on Tuesday, there was
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: testimony by Tulca Gabbard which seemed very canned and almost robotic,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: where the mantra was no classified information was in the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: group text. She said that several times, and then Pete
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Hegstad said no war plans were shared in the group text. Now,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: to me, this is a semantic issue that is not
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a great strategy. I don't know what Hexstep, for instance,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: is referring to when he says war plans. Obviously we're
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: not in war at war with Yemen, so you could
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: argue this is not war plans, but clearly plans for
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a military operation. We're being texted on a signal app
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: where a reporter was inadvertently invited and was not participating,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: but was observing and essentially saving all of these messages.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So try to say, well, no war plans were shared
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: is at best, in my view, disingenuous and to saying
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: under oath that no classified information was shared also seems bizarre.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: If this isn't classified, then what's classified? And that's that
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: felt to me, and I'm not an expert in this area,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that felt like a situation where somebody had declassified all
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: of this so that they could make the claim that
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: no classified information was shared because they don't want to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: admit that there was a security breach. Well, once it
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: was declared publicly that no classified information had been texted,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic said, Okay, at least this is this is
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: the way I'm interpreting what they did. They said, Okay,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: here's the entire threat. And you know, it was very clear,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: just as Goldberg said in numerous interviews that in great detail.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, this basically backs up what he reported from
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: what I can tell one hundred percent, it had in
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: great detail, heg Seth shared exactly what was going to
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: happen from a military perspective. And so I don't understand
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: to me, the way that the Trump team has decided
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to handle this has actually elevated the story a bit elongated,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: It put a little bit more fuel on the fire,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: because to me, what they should have done is just
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: basically said yeah, we screwed up, But good luck trying
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to sell this as a scandal, because this was a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: successful operation that should have been the strategy, and instead
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: it feels like everyone's tried to save their own hide
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and no one wants to admit any real significant error. Yes,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: there's been some responsibility taken. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: who's really seemingly the person that is most to blame
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: here because he's the one that added Goldberg to the chat.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: He still seems very mystified as to how that happened.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: He went on a Fox News channel on Laura Ingram
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Show last night, and I want to be fair because
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: this clip isn't going to indicate this, but he did
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: take personal responsibility, He did admit to the error. He
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: he claimed to be mystified. I believe him mystified as
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: to how that happened. But here he is in a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: different portion of the Laura Ingram interview, in my view,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: really giving the conspiracy theorists some more fodder. He says
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that Elon Musk is going to try to get to
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the bottom of how this happened technically when it again,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: this is not my avery expertise, but It seems pretty
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: simple that somehow Goldberg's information his number got on Waltz's phone,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and then he made an error and didn't really when
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: he added Goldberg instead of somebody else, possibly with a
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: similar beginning of the last name to the group chat.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't stop there. He goes after Goldberg himself,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: as others have done. Pete Hegstath has done as well,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: calling Goldberg's scum. And to me that one is not fair,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and two it's not helpful, and in three it reeks
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of desperation that you're trying to attack the person that
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: really was just reporting on your own STAFFU through a
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: bizarre series of circumstances. It's not Goldberg's fault. Again, I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: have yet to find anything that Goldberg has done wrong
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: in this. And here's what Waltz said on Fox News
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Channel last night.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: We're going to get to the bottom of it. We have.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I just talked to Elon on the way here. We've
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: got the best technical minds looking at how this happened.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: But I can tell you. I can tell you for one,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know this guy. I know him by his
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: horrible reputation, and he really is the bottom scum of journalists,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: and I know him in the sense that he hates
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: the president, but I don't text him. He went on
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: my phone and we're going to figure out how this happens.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: You don't know. I really don't think that it is
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: helpful to be calling the Atlantic editor reporter here scum
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: unless there's more to this than we know, or it's
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: worse than we know, because to me, trying to shoot
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the messenger is the last bastion of scoundrels. I mean,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: that's right out of the normal Trump playbook. We know
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that our base hates the media, and the Atlantic is,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the worst liberal media outlets, and
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Goldberg's got an anti Trump reputation, So that's going to
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: be our strategy. And yeah, that'll work with the Trump based,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: but anything will work with a Trump based. The Trump
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: based is never going to be concerned about this, especially
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: when there was no actual damage and that this was
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: a successful military operation. That's not who you have to
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: worry about. The people you have to worry about are
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: if you're concerned at all about the political ramifications of this,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: are the more rational people, more towards the middle, that
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: aren't in the Trump cult. And I just don't know
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: that that's either an effective strategy or even more importantly,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: in my mind, based in truth. Because again, when I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: say this one last time, as of this moment, and
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I'm more than willing to see it obviously as the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: host of the Death of Journalism podcasts and the guy
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: who has an animus towards the Atlantic for a very
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: very long time. I don't see what Goldberg did wrong.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: He waited to make sure it was real, and then
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: even after it was real, he waited to get as
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: much verification as possible. He held back some of the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: messages for concerns about classified information, and then Gabbert testified
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the way that she did, and now boom, the entire
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: threat is out there. So I don't know what Goldberg
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: did wrong. And it gets me very nervous when you
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: start calling reporters scum to try to offuscate from your mistake.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Now I don't know whether or not Waltz is gonna
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: get fired. See. Weirdly, the bigger this story gets, I
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: think possible. And this is so counterintuitive, but we're dealing
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Trump world here, right. Trump World is a very different
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: animal in the old world and the pre Trump world,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the bigger this story got, the more trouble Waltz would be,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and he would probably be fired at this point just
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: to make the story go away and to send the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: message that were being held accountable for our mistake and
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: we can't have this in this administration. Would be the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: old way of doing things. But I think at least
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: to a certain degree, now, there's gonna be a threshold
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: beyond which this will not be good for Waltz because
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: if it gets even bigger than it currently is, which
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know how that would happen, but I guess
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: it's three theoretically possible. The liberal media really really, really
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: really loves this story, but it goes in certain stages.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: At the stage where we currently are at, I think
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Walts becomes at least temporarily somewhat safe because to fire
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: him would admit that this was a significant error, and
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think that Trump wants to do that because
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: as soon as you fire Waltz, now you're admitting to
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the world, yet, we really screwed this up. And then
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that you know, that's blood in the water. And then
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the next thing you're gonna do is, well, okay, what
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: about access role in this? And and you know that
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: could end up createing a domino effect. So my gut
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: tells me that at as the story currently exists, Waltz
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: probably doesn't get fired, not because he doesn't deserve to be,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: or that he wouldn't be in a prior administration or
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: a pre Trump world, but that it's the problem becomes.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Firing him means that you're admitting a major mistake based
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: upon the current fact pattern, and you're putting blood in
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: the water. And who knows where that ends at that point,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: because once Walts were to be fired, now the liberal
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: media is one hundred percent justified. They say, see, see
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: we were right. This is a major scandal, and who
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: else ought to go? What about Pete Hexsath. So my
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: guess is that unless this gets even bigger and Trump
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: has no choice but to make it go away, Waltz
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: probably is okay, although I don't feel strongly about that
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: because with trumpet's very difficult to tell. Trump has gotten
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: rid of national security advisors before for the much more
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: egregious violation of not being one hundred percent in conjunction
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: with his thinking or in his mind, being one hundred
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: percent loyal to him. But this is an actual mistake
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: that I agree, in a pre Trump world should result
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: in a firing. This is probably a fireable offense, and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: maybe you know, Walts is concerned about that, which is
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: why he's trying to wrap himself in the protection of
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic and Goldberg not being a reliable source, even
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: though there's zero evidence as of this moment that they've
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: said anything that's not true. So my guess is that
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: right now Waltz is okay because if he gets fired,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: it's Trump admitting that his administration really screwed up, and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: it's putting blood in the water, and I don't think
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: he wants to do that. One other about this kind
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: of story, the whole group chat situation, I think most
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: people have a group chat snafu story, And as you know,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I always like to tell personal stories that may somewhat
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: relate to what's going on in the news, and I
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: have a pretty good one that's somewhat related to this,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: although obviously not even close as far as importance, but
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I think you'll enjoy it. And it had a major
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: impact on my life and maybe even had a little
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: bit of an impact on what would end up happening
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: in events in the news. To a small degree. What
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I'm referring to is that after the two thousand and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: eight election and I did a very famous interview with
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: then vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, I bizarrely became essentially
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: her public spokesperson for about a year, making numerous major
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: media appearances, not directly but indirectly defend her because I
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: had this documentary film called medimal Practice. Al Obama got elected. Anyway,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: long story short, I ended up on a group email
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: with Sarah Palin, her husband, her press secretary, and a
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: couple of other people that was I don't remember exactly
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: how often we emailed, but it was it was more
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: than a couple of times. And this might surprise you,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: but I was always taking a somewhat proactively pessimistic view
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: of a problem that might be on the horizon. Now
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: in my recollection, this was after she had resigned as
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: governor of Alaska. It must have been after she resigned,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and so I expressed that there was a concern or
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I had a concern about something that was happening or
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: might be happening on the horizon that she needed to
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: be aware of that I didn't think she was. And
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: it was as always a very polite email. But I,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I emailed the group again. I don't remember
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: exactly how many people, but in my recollection there were
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: about maybe five people in this five or six people
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: including myself in this this group email. And I get
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a response from Sarah Palin not long after having sent
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the email, and the response was, and this was to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: everybody on the group email, the group chat, for lack
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: of a better terminal, that we you know, we didn't
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: have group texting back in those days. And the email
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: said something very close to the effect of if I
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: have to endure a Ziggler email, we all have to
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: endure one. And I'm like, what the fuck was that?
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: And it became very clear to me very quickly that
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Sarah Palin had thought that she was emailing back everybody
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: in the group except for me, and was basically I guess.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I guess she felt like whatever I said had some
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: value that the rest of the quote unquote team needed
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: to hear it. Now. Maybe she thought that I had
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: only emailed her and then she I do I'm not.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I'm to this day, I'm not one hundred percent sure
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: how it happened, but I do know that not long
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: after that, I got an email from Sarah Palin somewhat
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: apologized because I think she realized, probably because someone else
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: on the in the group realized that she had sent
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: me the same message that clearly was not intended for me,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and she tried to come up with some sort of
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: explanation which I didn't buy. And it had a as
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: you might expect, had a significant impact on our relationship,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: not because it hurt my feelings. In fact, in a
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: weird way, it took a little took it as a
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: little bit of a compliment that didn't bother me. What
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: bothered me was that she was bothered by having to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: deal with whatever the issue was, which I know was legitimate,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and she kind of, you know, kind of justified as
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: legitimate by by resharing it to the group, including myself.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: To me, that said a lot about who she was, Like,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: this is not a person that likes dissent, or likes
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: bad news, or or likes counsel from people who aren't
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: just you know, providing rainbows and puppy dogs, which is
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: obviously not my style. And so that wasn't the end
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of our relationship, but that was the beginning of the
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: end of our relationship with Sarah Palin inadvertently emailed me
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: that if she has to endure a zigglar email, everyone had,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: so I was very much reminded of that whole situation,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and I was also reminded of another situation I hesitate
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: to even get into because this is opening up the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: biggest can of worms of all time. But I have
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit of empathy for the Jeffrey Goldberg situation
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: where he thought he was being catfished until the actual
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: bombing of Yemen the drone strikes began, and then he realized,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this very intricate catfish was actually a
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: real situation. Well, I've referred many times that over the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: last three plus years, I have been enduring what I
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: call the black Swan, and I have come to believe
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: that there's a very good chance that the whole thing
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: is mostly, if not totally fake, and, for lack of
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: a better term, the most insane, absurd, nonsensical, intricate catfish
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of all time, making Mantiiteo you pale by comparison. And
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: then I've you know, I've been waiting for the the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: drone strikes to begin for almost three years, and at
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: a certain point you realize the drone strikes are never
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: gonna happen. So I kind of felt for for Goldberg
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a little bit, uh, because I I've I've been experiencing
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: a very similar situation that's almost as intricate, that's almost
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: as bizarre, Uh, that that has been going on for
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: a hell of a lot longer than he had to
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: intour it. So someday I still hope to be able
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: to tell that full, absolutely crazy story. And I still
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: think almost any day I can come to a conclusion
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: on that, but I'm not quite there yet. So that's
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the the very strange story involving the Signal group chat.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: My bottom line on this is I still believe the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: story is gonna fade away because because of the fact
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that there's no harm. And I think for a while
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: the Trump team probably was liking this because it was
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: shining attention on the fact that this was a successful strike.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, the original strike got nowhere near the same
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: level of publicity. No, we're close to what it's getting
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: now because of this This security staff who and results
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: really do matter, especially in Trump world. So I'm still
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: believing that, you know, a week from now, this is
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: not going to be a major topic of conversation on
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the death of journalism podcasts. But I could be wrong.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: You know, the media is deeply, deeply invested in trying
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: to figure out a way for this thing to go on.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: And you know, if Mike Waltz gets fired, then that'll
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: obviously change everything because they'll be blood in the water
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and they'll be justified in the insane amount of coverage
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: this has been getting to this date, a story that
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: is not I've been getting any coverage, And I find
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: this kind of amazing and rather telling. Is the ongoing
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: effort of Trump advisor, very close advisor, former campaign manager
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: for all Facts from twenty sixteen, Steve Bannons never ending,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: It seems effort to make it clear, at least publicly,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: that his intention is for Donald Trump to be the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee for president again in twenty twenty eight, even
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: though he is clearly not constitutionally eligible. Now, we talked
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: previously on this podcast about the fact that he has
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: made this statement at SEAPAC and I said, this is
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: not helpful, and I questioned whether or not he really
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: believes this, and is he going to run for president himself?
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: By the way, when he did a podcast Asked interview
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: with Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, which was basically a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: love fest. It was disgusting. He did not do anything
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: to deny the idea that he might run for president
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight. And so that podcast, you know,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: you know, stranger things have happened than for that podcast
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: between Newsom and Bannon, which was a love fest, to
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: end up being a preview of the twenty twenty eight
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: presidential action. I'm not predicting that at all, but that
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: is within the realm of possibility. Both men clearly have
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: their site set on running for president in twenty twenty eight.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: But Bannon is doing so in a very peculiar and
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I think very telling fashion, because he is promoting, partially
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I think as a troll, partially as a political strategy,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: this idea that Trump is going to be the Republican
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: presidential nominee in twenty twenty eight, even though he is
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: obviously term limited out by the United States Constitution. And
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Bannon's most recent effort to do this was on Chris
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Cuomo's News Nation show, and this was probably the most overt,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: the most clear cut, and maybe the most in my
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: view dangerous version of Steve Bannon going down this path.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Chris Cuomo himself, he wasn't really that outraged. He was,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I think a little bit taken aback, and he did
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: pushback a little bit on what Bannon was saying. But
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: this exchange, to me, it's just it's just amazing, especially
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: concidering the fact that you know, we've been the media
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: narrative is that Joe Trump is going to create a
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: constitutional crisis and that he's going to be a dictator
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and he's never going to leave office. You would think
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: that Steve Bannon providing them with exactly what they want
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: would create a huge firestorm of news, but it really
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: has not happened. I'm not sure why. I don't know
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: whether or not they're not taking Steve Bannon seriously. Maybe
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: they don't want to give him too much oxygen. I
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: don't know what it is. But this statement, why Steve
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Bannon to Chris Cuomo on News Nation in irrational world
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: would be setting off all sorts of alarm bells. And
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: here's what that sounded like.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Firm believer that President Trump will run and went again
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty eight. So I've already endorsed President Trump.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: A man like this comes along once every century. If
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: we're lucky, we've got him.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: He's on fire and I'm a huge supporter. Want to
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: see him again in twenty twenty eight.
• 40:45
  Speaker 6: And obviously anybody who doesn't like what you say but
• 40:49
  Speaker 6: judges is at a function of a lack of intelligence,
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: doesn't know anything about you. I don't make that mistake.
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: You're a smart guy. You know he's term limited. How
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: do you think he gets another term?
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: We're working on.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: I think we'll have I think we'll have a couple
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: of alternatives.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Let's say that.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: We'll see we'll see what the definition we'll say, We'll
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: say what the definition of term live it is?
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: Well, so you're talking about litigating this issue because I
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: don't want people to listen to our interview and say
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: Bannon's cooking up an insurrection.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Bannon is cooking up you know what I mean?
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: I want I want people to get a straight take
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: on where your head is?
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: What do you see, Chris?
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: As you know I've had I've had greater long shots
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: than this. We supported President Trump. After the election, I realized,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: you don't believe the election of twenty towns stolen. We do,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: we fervently believe that.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Now that's just bonkers, and I don't believe. To be clear,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that Steve Bannon really believes that Donald
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Trump is going to be eligible to run for president
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight, which is why he's not giving
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: any of the details. Why wouldn't you provide the path? Right,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: there was a legal, logical, legitimate, realistic path, why not
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: just outline it? Why all the mystery? Well, the mystery
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: is there because there isn't a path. It's it's very
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: very obvious, it's very clear. And I think that if
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: there was any real, concerted effort that Trump be the
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight Republican presidential nominee. Now we've thought this before,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: so it's it's dangerous to rely on this, but I
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: do believe that that would be going over a line
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: that even I don't know what the percentage is, but
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: at least a good enough percentage of Republicans would revolt
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: against that to where it wouldn't work. I'm not saying
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: he couldn't win the nomination. He couldn't, you know, they
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: couldn't have a convention. And if Trump's name was, you know,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: was put up for nomination that he wouldn't get the
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: most votes. I'm not saying that because it clearly the
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Trump family and Trump himself runs the Republican Party. I'm
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: not being naive. I'm just saying it wouldn't work. I'm
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: saying that the country itself, enough of the country itself
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: would see that as a line you can't cross, and
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: you know it would end up in political disaster. How
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: it would manifest itself. Who knows whether or not. I'm
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: know he would be taking off the ballot in most
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: states that weren't red, or he would just get clabbard.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Who knows what it would be, but it would not work. Okay. Now,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: in an ideal world, do I believe that Steve Mannon
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: would like Donald Trump to run for a third term
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and he justified because his first term was stolen from
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: him because of the Russian Gate investigation and everything about that. Yeah,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I do believe that. I do believe that Steve Mannon
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: in an ideal world, would like that to happen, and
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of Trump fans would like that
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: to happen. I don't think, though, that Steve Bannon really
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: believes that that's going to happen, and I actually think
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: he's using this narrative for his own selfish purposes, because
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I think Bannon believes, and there's some logic to this,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: that who the person that's going to win the twenty
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: twenty eight Republican presidential nomination, assuming it's not Trump himself,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: is going to be the most trumpy, the person with
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the most Trump Street cred that's in the contest. Now,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: logic would dictate that would be jd. Vance because he's
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: the vice president, and he's the guy that Trump chose
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: to be his vice president. But you know, Trump has
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: already declined to endorse him for twenty twenty eight. I
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: didn't think that was that big of a deal because
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: why would Trump do that. I mean, he'd be throwing
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: away you know, there's no political gain in doing that. Now,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, some people interpreted that as he'll
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: never endorse JD. Vance. That's not the way I interpreted
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: it at all. I thought it was That's why I
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: don't think I even mentioned it on the podcast. But
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: in Steve Bannon's mind, he believes that the trumpiest candidate
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: with enough street cred and name recognition will be the
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Republican presidential nominee in twenty twenty eight. And what's trumpier
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: and what gives you more Trump Street cred that than
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: being the person who is out in front claiming that
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: you want Trump to be the nominee in twenty twenty
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: eight and that you believe that there's a path for
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: that to actually happen. You can't beat that. When it
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: comes to being trumpy, that's as trumpy as it gets.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: So I think this is a strategy by Bannon to
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: set up his own candidacy for the republic denomination in
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. It is an incredibly dangerous strategy. It
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: is one that ought to be rejected by Republicans.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: It.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's all sorts of potentially very bad ramifications
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: for this, but I'm just giving you my political analysis
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: as to what's really going on here. I think that
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Bannon sees this as a great political strategy to make
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: himself when it becomes clear at some point in twenty
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: twenty eight that Trump ain't running or trying to run,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: or isn't isn't able to get around the constitutional issues
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: that Okay, panic can say, well, I did my best
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: to give us Trump three point zero. But if you
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: want Trump three point zero, I'm your only option because
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I'm the guy who knows Trump. I've been there from
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: the beginning. I was the one that was promoting Trump
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: three point zero. And if we can't have the real guy,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I'm the best next best option. That to me is
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: going to be Steve Strategy. And I think it's pretty
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: obvious that that's what's happening. But I haven't still mystified
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: as to why banning, seemingly in a very serious fashion,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: claiming that Trump is gonna be the nominee in twenty
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: twenty eight is not setting off more alarm bells. Because
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I do think this is a concern. I'm not saying
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: it's gonna happen, and if it did happen, I've already
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: said it would not be effective. It would be disastrous
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways. But you know, to me,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I'd like to see this stamped out now because that's
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: not acceptable. But unfortunately, see, this is the danger. I've
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, even before Trump got elected.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: This is the danger of creating a situation where you've
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: got a godlike figure as the head of your party,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and it's now a monarchy. He's a king because nobody's
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: gonna nobody in the right wing media. I didn't see
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: anybody in the right wing media condemned Steve Bann for this,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: and Bennon is smart enough to understand he's not going
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: to get any criticism for this at all. Everyone's just
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: going in the right wing media is just going to
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: ignore it at best because they don't want to take
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: the heat for criticizing it. They're just going to pretend
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: this issue is going to go away on its own.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: And I don't think this is going to go away
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: on its own, partially because Steve Bannon has a huge
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: self interest in keeping it alive. Now when it comes
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: to the succession, the royal succession plan for the Trump
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Party formerly known as the Republican Party, and let's be clear,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: it really is Trump's party at least as long as
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: he's alive, and that's what it is. I mean again,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I warned about this. It was one of my greatest hesitations,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: even though I did not want Kamala Harris to be president,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and part of me was very happy that Trump prevented
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: that from happening. But the downside of this is because
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: of his personal story of coming back and the retribution
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and the assassination attempt. And you know this Lazarus narrative
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. He's now a god, He's now a
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: god king, and your party no longer exists. Now, I
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's into perpetuity, but it's certainly into
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: the near future. And you know, I have joked half
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: jokingly about the royal succession plan that would involve some
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: sort of a Trump on a ticket, you know, for
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: the next twenty years. I don't think that's I say
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: it's half joking because I do think that there's a
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: very good chance that that's going to happen in some way,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: shape or form. Well, there was a potentially major, major
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: development when it comes to the Trump Party royal succession
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: plan over the next couple of decades, and it involves
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: a story that I have previously discussed about whether or
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: not Tiger Woods was dating Vanessa Trump. Now you may
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: recall that I did not know whether or not the
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: original tabloid stories involving Woods dating Trump Vanessa Trump, Donald
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Trump Junior's ex wife were actually accurate. I believe, I said,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know, gone to my head I'm gonna say
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: probably not. So I think I was in like fifty
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: one fifty position of this is probably not true because
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't like the sourcing on a story, and I
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: thought this was a very dangerous move by Tiger to
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: be dating not just a Trump, but the mother of
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Ki Trump, who is Donald Trump's favorite grandchild, who goes
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: to school with Tiger's own son, Charlie, and they're on
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the girls and boys golf team together there in Florida.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: And not to mention the whole issue of the negotiations
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: between the PG Tour and Live Golf and the fact
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: that Trump, Donald Trump is intimately involved in that Tiger
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: is intimately involved in that this is a very dangerous relationship.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: But I did say it was possible because obviously they
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: have proximity. There's opportunity there. She is a very attractive woman.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: She looks a lot like Lindsey Vaughn, the skier that
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Tiger dated very prominently several years ago. By the way,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: speaking of stories that have not gotten nearly enough attention,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Lindsay Vaughn, who hasn't skied in six years, is now
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: forty years old. Over the weekend, came in second in
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: a World Cup skiing race. I'm not even a big
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: Lindsay Vonn fan, but that's just crazy, and it got
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: basically no attention. Her comeback after all the injuries that
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: she's suffered. It's a six year layoff after retirement, and
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: how she comes back and she's seemingly very competitive is amazing.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: But Okay, the Lindsay Vaughn story element of this, I
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: thought gave it credibility because obviously Lindsay Vaughn and in
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: my view of Vanessa Trump looking a lot like each
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: other indicated Okay, well, that's certainly within Tiger's type. But
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I was skeptical of the story until Tiger Woods himself
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: over the weekend, by the way, weirdly, right after his
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: son Charlie and her daughter Kai played together, not as
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: a team but as individuals, played together in a very
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: prestigious junior golf tournament in South Carolina. Charlie did, okay,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Kai did horrifically. Kai had no business being invited into
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: this tournament at all. She finished dead last by a lot. Gee.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I wonder how she got an invitation to the tournament.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: But I digress. Tiger Woods right after their children or
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: their you know, their son and daughter respectively, had finished
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: in this golf tournament, put out maybe the most bizarre
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: social media post of any superstar athlete that I can
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: ever remember. Now, I've been a Tiger watcher for basically
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: thirty years. More than thirty years, I've watched every element
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: of his career, and if you had told me that
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the following social media post was going to be made
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: by Tiger Woods, I can't even come up with something
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: that would have been less likely than that. But this
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: is just crazy. This is crazier than the signal at
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: group chat story. So Tiger Woods, you know, after the
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: tabloid reports came out and nothing happened for several days,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: there was no confirmation. One of the reasons I was
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that original story is there were no pictures
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: of the two of them together. The only thing that
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: came close was when Tiger and Kai walked, you basically,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: almost arm and arm together, to the Genesis Invitational in
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: San Diego several weeks ago. Kai's mom was off to
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: the side and way behind them, which now was in
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: fact obviously a ruse to throw people off from the
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: fact that the reason why Kai was there was that
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Tiger was dating her mom. But here was Tigerwood's social
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: media post to announce his relationship, his romantic relationship with
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Vanessa Trump. I cannot believe this is real. Love is
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: in the air and life is better with you by
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: my side exclamation point. We look forward to our journey
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: through life together. At this time, we would appreciate prayer
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: imacy for all those close to our hearts. What the
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: fuck is that? What is happening? I am calling for
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: a complete shutdown of all Tiger woods social media posts
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: until we can find out what the fuck is going on.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: What is happening, And it's not just the content, which
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: is bizarre given who Tiger has been throughout his whole life.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: I mean the idea that he would be posting publicly
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: about a woman he's not married to, although I have
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: a suspicion, I mean, this reads like an engagement announcement.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: We look forward to our journey through life together. And
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: it's interesting to point out that these two photos that
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: were attached to this social media post do not show
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Vanessa Trump's ring finger. Now, that could just be a coincidence,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: but I'm suspicious that reads like an engagement announcement. How
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: if you're not at least engaged. Then, then, given the
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: combustible nature of relationships in general, why would you not
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: just post I mean, there's all sorts of ways you
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: could have said, yeah, we're dating. You could have been
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: photographed together at the tournament they were your kids were at.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: If that's the way you want to soft launch the relationship.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're holding hands. Fine, great, you're dating. But love
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: is in the air and life is better with you
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: by my side. We look forward to our journey through
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: life together. And then these photos. The one photo is
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: perfectly normal, they're standing together against the wall with Ivy
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: on it. Fine, but the other photo is the two
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: of them in a hammock together where she's draped all
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: over Tiger And as a lot of people asked a
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: very legitimate question, who the fuck took that picture? You mean,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Tiger Woods is posing on a hammock for someone to
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: take a picture with Donald Trump's or Donald Trump Junior's
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: ex wife as his girlfriend. This is such, This is
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: so mind blowing for someone who has been watching Tiger
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Woods closely for thirty years. And you know, part of
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: the reason why I was wrong, although not dramatically, because
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure, and I said, I said very clearly
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: that this could be a true story, partially because of
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: the Lindsay Vaughn alment of it. But part of why
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: I miscalculated on whether this story was true that that
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Tiger Woods is dating Vanessa Trump. Just to be clear
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: who she is, Donald Trump's ex wife and the mom
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: of Kai Trump, the golfer who spoke at the Republican
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: convey and who is clearly Donald Trump President Donald Trump's
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: favorite grandchild. Part of the reason I was inaccurate in
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: my assessment of when not this story was true is
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: I was not at all familiar with Vanessa Trump's game.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Vanessa Trump's dating game is off the charts in a
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: lot of different ways. This is an amazing part of
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: the story that I did not know about. So Vanessa
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Trump was currently forty seven, Tiger Woods is forty nine.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Vanessa Trump, when she was a teenager, dated a very
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: prominent gang member, including while he was in prison. When
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: she finally got through that she dated Leonardo DiCaprio, then
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: apparently she must have hit twenty five years old and
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: was no longer eligible to date Leonardo DiCaprio. But I digress.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: So she dates Leonardo DiCaprio. Then she dates the son
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: of a Saudi prince, right, I guess, actually a Saudi
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: prince himself, who was the son of one of the
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: highest members of the Saudi royal family. But that relationship
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: apparently ended because her boyfriend, the prince's dad, was forced
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: to leave the country after nine to eleven because he
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: was kind of sort of implicated in having connections to
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Al Qaeda. Now that Trump family has always had very
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: strong connections. Now she wasn't part of the Trump family
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: at this point, but this Trump family has always had
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: very strong connections to the Saudis. And of course the
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: whole Live Golf thing here is just so strange because
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: you know, Tiger is a lead negotiator with Live Golf,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: which is run by the Saudi royal family. Well, here
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: we have somebody who was dating a member of the
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Saudi royal family that ended indirectly because of nine to eleven.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Then she marries and has kids with Donald Trump Junior.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Then they get a divorce, and now she's dating Tiger Woods.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: So Vanessa Trump, I'm sorry, I was unfamiliar with your game,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: and had I been familiar with all that, I probably
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: gonna go go on. Okay, As strange as it is,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: this makes a lot of sense. This is probably a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: real story. Well, now we know it's very real. And
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: what does this have to do with the Trump Party
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: royal succession plan? Well, somewhat tongue in cheek and only
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: half seriously. I do think that if this relationship sticks,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: and let's say they are engaged and Tiger really is
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: looking forward to our journey through life together, this puts
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Tiger Woods in the Trump clan. The way that Trump
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: views the world, Tiger is clearly in the I've talked before,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: or the tribe, however you want to describe it. I've
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: talked before about how I am convinced that Trump is
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: soft on Gavin Newsom and was clearly very soft on
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: him during COVID in the COVID panic, and still is
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: to this day. I think way too soft on Gavin Newsom.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Is because Gavin Newsom was married to Kimberly Gilfoyle, who
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: was engaged to Donald Trump Junior and has now been
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: exiled off to Greece where she's the ambassador to the Grease.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Because Donald Trump Junior has a newer, younger model of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Girlfrid well, in my Trump family theory, Tiger is way
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: ahead of Newsom Tiger, even though this is an ex
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: wife of Donald Trump Junior. Most importantly, in Trump's mind,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: President Trump's mind, this is the mother of his favorite grandchild,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Kai Trump, so she maintain Haynes full Trump family status.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: And now that Tiger is de facto a member of
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: that family, all bets are off. All bets are off.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: So I am revising the Trump Party royal succession plan.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: I think JD. Vans probably survives Steve Bannon's effort to
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: try to ride the Trump three point zero narrative to
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: the nomination. Now, I don't know that JD. Vance can
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: win two terms because if you look historically, that's basically
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: impossible for a vice president to do. So it's a
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: certain point, whether you know it's twenty thirty two or
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty six, depending on who JD. Vance's vice presidential
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: nominee is, the Republican nomination is up for grabs, and
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: if Tiger Woods is still at that point effectively part
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: of the Trump family, I'm sorry. I think Tiger is
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: a hell of an option, a hell of an option
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: for a ton of reasons. I'm not gonna belabor it
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: right now, and a part of this is still tongue
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: in cheek, but I'm telling you this makes some sense.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: This makes some sense if Tiger is really part of
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: the Trump family and at that point Trump is gone.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe he's not gone, who knows. He seems to be
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: the energizer buddy. But I could certainly see Tiger Woods
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: being in the mix. And then after Tiger, by the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: time Tiger would be done with this, then Baron would
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: be constitutionally eligible, and then after Baron Trump was constitutionally eligible,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: we could go to Kai Trump. Now, I had previously
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: speculated that Tiger and Kai could run on the same
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: ticket in twenty forty four once she became constitutionally eligible,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: but that's too icky now because now effectively she under
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: this scenario, Tiger's going to be her state. And so
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: you know, you can't have the step dad and the
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: daughter running on the same political ticket. So I'm now
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm revising the Trump family royal family succession plan.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's JD Vance, then filed by Tiger Woods,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: then followed by Baron Trump, then filed by Ky Trump.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Now I have no idea how many times any of
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: those candidates would win, or who their vice presidential nominees
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: would be. But that's the path as I currently see it,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: based upon this dramatic development of Tiger Woods announcing in
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: the most bizarre media post possible that he is dating
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Vanessa Trump. It's now with the facto member of the
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Trump family. Wow. They say, you know, may you live
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: in interesting times and and clearly we are, and that
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: that's I'm not I'm never gonna get over that social
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: media post. In fact, I'm not alone on this because
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: now all sorts of golf ads are duplicating that. I've
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: even seen wives of PGA tour members duplicate that post
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: with obviously as a parody, with pictures of them with
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: their significant others, their husbands, what have you, to kind
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: of mock what Tiger did there. So I think there's
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: a humorous element to it, there's a human element to it,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: and there's also a political aspect to this that's not
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: that far fetched. I'm not being totally facetious here. If
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Tiger Woods really is now part of the Trump family,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: He's in He's in the mix. He is in the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: mix for probably twenty thirty six. Is my guests. Twenty
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: thirty six is when I think would be the most
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: likely time period because his golf career by then is
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: going to be completely over, might be completely over by
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty two, and obviously he has the name, recognition,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: the money, and he'll have the Trump street cred, which
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: is all that's really gonna matter. That's probably the most
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: important point I have to make here, is it going forward?
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Trump's street cred is all that's gonna matter within the
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Republican Party when it comes to who's going to be
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: the nominee. If you do not have Trump street cred,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: and it's got to be a very high level of
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Trump's street cred, you are not going to be able
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: to be the Republican presidential nominee. And they're not that
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: many people that have it, and Tiger may now have it,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: assuming this actually works. But if it wasn't for the
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: nature of that social media post, I would say this
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: is just a short fling. Good luck. I hope this doesn't,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: you know, screw up the relationship between Charlie and Kai,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: because that is a that's a very combustible situation, that
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: is very dangerous. And then you add in the whole
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the mind boggles now with the
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: conflicts of interest when it comes to the PGA Tour
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: and live golf and Trump being on the payrold of
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: the Saudis, but now Tiger is de facto part of
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: the Trump family. Who the hell knows how that's all
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: going to be figured out, But it's just a crazy story,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: and I had to mention it early on in the podcast.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Another one of my pet peeves stories, one that I
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: have invested in an enormous amount of time in over
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: the years, maybe even more, not as much as I've
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: invested in Tiger Woods, but certainly one of the top
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: five stories that I've invested time in over the years
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: has been the JFK assassination. You're probably very much aware
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: that I very strongly believe that JFK was assassinated by
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Lee Harvey Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald effectively alone, but
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: that he pulled the actual logistics of the assassination off
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: in a different way than the Warren Commission erroneously claims.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: And you are probably already aware of that. If you're not,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: check out episode seventy one of this podcast, where I
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: go into that in great, great, great detail. Obviously, the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: JFK files have supposedly now finally been fully released and unredacted.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: I predicted numerous times that this would be a nothing burger, that,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: at best or worst, depending on your perspective, we might
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: find out that the intelligence agencies were trying to cover
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: up their own incompetence. There hasn't even really been very
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: much of that. But there's been absolutely nothing remotely credible
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: when it comes to a so called second shooter that
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Congresswoman Luna claimed was the case. There was nothing shocking
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: about the release, which administration officials, including Trump himself, had
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: implied would be the case. Now that all these documents
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: have been released, by the way, a lot of them
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: are not new documents. Some of the fragments of information
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: that have gotten news coverage by the pro conspiracy tabloid
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: outlets are not even new and information they were debunked
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: long ago. I would I actually have to say, I
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: predicted that this would be a nothing burger, and in
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: my view, this is a bigger nothing burger than even
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: I predicted, and it's not even close. I mean, this
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: is this is a joke, basically, and there was nothing
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: in here that was all new, all that new or
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: all that relevant, and certainly not shocking and certainly nothing
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: close to a bombshell that would even remotely change the
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: historical view of what actually transpired here. Now, despite that,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is still unwilling to say publicly, The President
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: United States is still unwilling to say publicly that Lee
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: rb Oswald was the shooter and that he acted alone,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: which is really extraordinary. I mean, here we are, you know,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: sixty almost sixty two years later, all the documentation has
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: been released, and the President United States, partially because he
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: knows his base has become extremely conspiratorial. And there's been
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: a shift in the Trump era when it comes to
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: which political party is more likely to believe in a
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: JFK assassination conspiracy. I mean, remember, obviously JFK was a Democrat.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: For years and years, it was Democrats who were more
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: likely to believe in a government conspiracy to kill JFK.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: And now Republicans overwhelmingly believe that that conspiracy existed, and
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: in larger numbers than Democrats. And Fox News Channel Steve
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: Doocey and occasionally Deucey does ask a pretty good question
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: of the Trump Press secretary or Trump himself. He asked
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: a very basic question, So, mister president, who killed JFK?
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: And Trump did not answer the question. He danced around
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: it and basically allowed people to believe whatever the hell
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: they want to believe, which to me is is just dumb.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: It's also extraordinary. It's wrong. I don't even think it's
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: consistent with Trump's beliefs, which I'll get to momentarily, because
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: I think, much like he knows that Epstein killed himself
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: in prison, I think he knows that Lee Harvey Oswald
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: was the person that shot JFK. But here was that
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: exchange between Peter Doucey and the President United States, seemingly
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: being unwilling to say whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: was the assassin of JFK.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 7: Any questions he's president?
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: Eight thousand pages of documents is a lot to sit through.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: Can you just tell us who killed Kennedy?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 7: Well, you know, I was given the task of releasing
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 7: that because many presidents have gone through it and they
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 7: haven't released. And I said, release, We even release social
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 7: security numbers. I didn't want anything deleted.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: They said, so what.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 7: About social security of people long gone? But they're long gone,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 7: So I can't imagine but I said, if you don't
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 7: delete it, if you do delete it, we have people
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 7: are gonna say, why did you delete it? There's something
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 7: in it. So we gave social Security and we gave everything,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 7: and the rest is view to look at, Peter. You're
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 7: gonna see whether or not you see anything. But we've
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 7: given it. We're doing it with doctor Martin, Luther King too.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 7: They're preparing all of that. They're gonna release everything and
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 7: whoever else they want them. And you know, we have nothing,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 7: We really have nothing. God we shouldn't have them, you know,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 7: when a lot of time goes by. But with the
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 7: Kenny files in particular, they were going crazy on them.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 7: I don't think there's anything that's earth shattering, but you'll
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 7: have to make that determination in those. You know, it's
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 7: eighty thousand, it's actually eighty eight thousand, and we have
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 7: some additional things, as you know, come out today. And
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 7: for that you can go to the offices and you
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 7: can see whatever you want to see. Everything is out there,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 7: totally open. The additional stuff is available later on today.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 7: You go over to the offices and you can have
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 7: it immediately and you'll make a determination.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: So there Trump was unwilling to make any sort of
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: declarative statement about Lee Rvy Oswald being the assassin. I've
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: already explained Parsley why I think he was hesitant to
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: do that now, to be fair, in a subsequent interview
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: with Clay Travis, who I do not like and I
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: don't think is very bright and I've had dust ups
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: with in the past, he did say that he thought
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: that Oswald probably was the assassin, but that there was
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: a question as to whether or not he had help,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: and that to me is a cop out. And of
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: course there's the definition of help. I mean, obviously he
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: had help. He got a ride to the school book
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: depository that morning from a friend who, by the way,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: is still alive, and he got a job at the
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: school book Depository building from a neighbor, Ruth Payan, who
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: by the way, is still alive. At least was the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: sixtieth anniversary of the assassination. I have not heard of
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: her death, so and you know, but they weren't helping
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: him as part of a certainly not a government conspiracy
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: or any even conspiracy with the intent to kill the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: President the United States. And I have said numerous times
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: that I think that it's possible, underlying possible that one
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: of the few things in Oliver Stone's very popular but
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: very inaccurate movie JFK that might have had might have
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: had some truth to it, is that it's possible that
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: David Ferry and Guy Banister played by Joe Peshiy and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: Ed Asner respectively in the movie JFK might have been
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: concerned that they were going to be implicated in a conspiracy,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: and that's why they acted so strangely out of the assassination,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: because it's possible they had some connection to Oswald and
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: may have even had a conversation with Oswald about somebody
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: killing JFK. I think that's possible, but that's not a
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: real conspiracy, and it's certainly not a government conspiracy. That's
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: the most important part of this, because I mean, if
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: you believe that the government killed the president of the
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: United States and got away with it, my god, that
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: is going to influence so many other beliefs, not to
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: mention it's not true and it's a dangerous belief. But
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: I've said this many times that this is why I'm
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: so passionate about being an ardent anti conspiracy theorist, especially
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: when it comes to JFK. It's not just because that's
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: what the facts indicate, but because it's just so dangerous.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: But Trump likes that, and that's I think a large
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: part of why he's unwilling to close this off. Definitively,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: It's not just because his base now fervently believes in
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: a JFK assassination conspiracy. It's that his base and this
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: was it's amazing to me that Trump pulled this off
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: to the extent that he did. But there's now this
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: belief in a deep state that is really at the
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: core of so much that has allowed Trump to get
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: away with the stuff that he's gotten away with. Now,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to get sidetracked on whether there's a
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: deep state. Yeah, there is a bureaucracy, and it's very liberal,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure it's very anti Trump, and I hate
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: the government bureaucracy, but that's not the vision that most
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: Trumpers and most right wing media commentators have when they
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: describe deep state. In fact, I remember, and I did
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: not take this nearly as seriously as I should have,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: But when I visited The Blaze in Dallas, Texas to
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: do a whole day of interviews about my work on
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: the Joe Paterno Penn State, Jerry Sandusky case. During actually
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: it wasn't even I can't remember if it was during
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: a commercial break or whether it was before we did
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: the interview. I was sitting alone with Glenn Beck, and
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: I remember him asking me whether or not I believe
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: in a deep state. Now this was very early. This
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: is I think March of twenty seventeen, so it's the
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: very beginning of the Trump administration, and I had only
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: vaguely even heard of the term. Well, Beck ends up
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: using the deep state as his entire justification for flipping
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: from being anti Trump to being pro Trump. And make
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: no mistake, I don't know whether not Glenn fully realizes
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: that this is a rationalization, but he he desperately needed
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: and wanted an excuse to hop on the Trump train,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: and so he either concocted or allowed himself to be
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: duped into believing that there's this massive thing called a
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: deep state that must be defeated at all costs, and
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: that Trump's the only one that can defeat them, and
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: therefore I must get on the Trump train. That's a
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: shorter version of I think the narrative that enticed Beck
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: and others. But this whole deep state idea is now
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: so integral to the Trump philosophy that it I think
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: it is clearly connected to the JFK assassination, because if
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: there was a deep state that killed JFK, it's a
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: hell of a lot easier to sell that anything that
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: goes wrong with Donald Trump is as a result of
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: a deep state conspiracy against him, whether it's Russiagate or
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: whatever else might be the allegation. And so I think
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: that is at the center of why Trump doesn't want
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: to tell the truth, similar to the Epstein situation. And
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: let's be clear, you know, since Trump has taken office,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: the conspiracy theorists from a factual basis have taken it
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: on the chin hard. The JK files, a bus, the
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Epstein files, and even bigger bus. They don't even seem
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: to exist, the whole drones over New Jersey thing that
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: Trump was going to get to the bottom of. Nothing
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: yet and I keep saying it, My gosh, if there
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: was a way to bet against these nutty conspiracy theories,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: I'd be able to put my children through college with
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: no problem. It's just so clear and obvious. Yet huge
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: portions of belief if people believe this bullshit and Trump
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: enables it. I don't know how much Trump has actually
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: studied it, but I'm pretty sure if he was being truthful,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: he would tell you that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: and effectively, if not completely, acted alone. That's what the
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: facts say. And now all the files have been essentially
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: released and there's nothing significant and nothing new, just as
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: I told you was going to be the case. But
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: we are living in this world now where people desperately
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: want to believe in these conspiracies. And part of it's
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: because the deep state narrative has been so incredibly effective
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: for Trump politically, especially among his base, and it's very
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: frustrating because it's not based in facts, and it's not
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: based in logic, and it's not based in truth. Now
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: shifting gears to a story that I find to be
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: very very interesting, not at all surprising, but requires a
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: little bit of background because I've never discussed this before.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: In fact, I wasn't even aware of this story until
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: a couple days ago. But back in January, there was
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: an episode in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where a woman by the
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: name of Latasha Brown, who is a school Board of
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: Directors member there in Allentown, where she came into work
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: one day and found a noose on her desk. Now,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: I somehow missed this story in January. I don't know
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: how I missed it, because I don't know what I
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: was doing on this day. But it didn't seem to
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: get a lot of national attention, but it did get
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: local attention because this is a black woman who says
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: she found a noose on her desk. And we all
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: know that a rope that has a nod in it
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: and has a space at the end of it where
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: someone could be hanged with it, the so called noos,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: Not that that's inherently racist, there's no other explanation for
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: how a news could be found someplace. I mean, we're
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: gonna just pretend that that whole NASCAR situation, which it
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: turned out to not actually be a newse that was
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: a massive story that, as I predicted at the time,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: turned out to not be accurate and was a nothing.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: You know, with the Juss Smallllette situation, obviously there was
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: a news involved in that that was a clear hoax.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: There was a news found at the construction site of
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: the Obama Library in Chicago, and that was one of
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: those crimes somehow never solved, and I'm sure it was
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: just some sort of misunderstanding. So the news history has
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: not been good. The media record on news has has
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: been horrific. But here was the story as it first
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: aired on the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia. Allentown's a bit
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: outside of Philadelphia, but this was a big enough story
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: for the Philadelphia affiliate for CBS to do this story
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: back in January on this obviously horrible hate crime that
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: occurred to this poor woman, Latasha Brown, where a noose
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: was found by her on her desk. And here's what
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: that sounded like on the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia back
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: in January.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 8: Well, as we know, dozens of folks voiced outrage in
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 8: front of Allentown City Hall today. This is an investigation
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 8: that is continuing into an item resembling a noose that
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 8: was reportedly found on a city employee's desk, and our
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 8: Nikki Dementry is gut the latest. Now she's in Lehigh
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 8: County with reaction from the city and community leaders about
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 8: this investigation.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: Web Black lives under attack? What do we do?
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: A call for action and fun for.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: Change, We will not be silenced.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: Community members and leaders made their voices heard in front
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 4: of Allentown's City Hall Monday afternoon.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: Just to think that people have to go to work
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: in fifth but they'relive.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: Since Friday, Allentown police continue to investigate an item resembling
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: a noose found on a city employee's desk.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: This egregious act is not just an affront to one individual,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: but it is an attack on the entire community.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: Several spoke during a rally, calling for transparency, prevention, and
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 4: an immediate federal investigation, among a list of demands. This incident,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 4: community members note is not the first racial discrimination issue
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: city Hall has dealt with. Josie Lopez is a close
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 4: friend of the victim.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: They're always a community leader. Ohway's pushing for equality. They
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: might be bruised right now, but they're not broken.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: The victim is not being named due to safety concerns.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: Our colleague was threightened. This was a to tear This
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: is a hate crime.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 4: Allentown Police did not provide many new details Monday, aside
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 4: from calling out social media claims they say are false,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: including that the victim's office was ransacked.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 8: The investigation is ongoing and progress is being made so
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 8: as of right now, no, the FBI has not been contacted.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: City spokesperson Genesis Ortega says the Mayor's office has confidence
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: in Allentown Police and ask anyone with information to come forward.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 5: The City of Allentown is committed to making sure that
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 5: every employee enjoys a respectful workplace.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: Community leaders are asking the public to attend a council
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: meeting Wednesday night and a show of solidarity in Allentown.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Dementary. CBS News Philadelphia.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 8: Well in a statement, the Allentown City Council President says
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 8: council is working now to hire an outside party to
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 8: complete an independent investigation into this matter, which we'll start
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 8: at the end of this month.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: Boy, that sounds awful. I mean, those people are absolutely
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: positive that this is a hate crime. This was racist.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: That there's no other possible explanation for how a news
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: could get on the desk of a black woman named
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: Latarsha Brown than for it to be an attack on
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: her and her race. And this is the most heinous
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: thing that can possibly happen to a black person. And
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: we got to find whoever did this, and that person
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: has got to be brought to justice. And this is
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: another indication that we're still living in a world where
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: racism exists, that institutional racism exists. And what a horrible
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: country America is when this can happen to a school
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: board of directors member in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Well, as it
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: turned out, we have found the culprit and this is
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: going to shock you. But the culprit here, the person
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: who put the news on the desk, Stop me if
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: you've heard this before, was Latasha Brown. That's right. This
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: was a fake. This was a phony, This was a hoax.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: Kudos to the Allentown Police Department who spent an enormous
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: amount of time, effort, and resources on getting to the
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: bottom of this, which is partially why Brown ought to
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: be held accountable as much as legally possible here because
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: this is not just and so many elements of the
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: story that are important. One is this is incredibly damaging
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: to race relations. It's incredibly damaging, by the way, to
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: any black person who might actually endure real racism. I mean,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: that's the part of these situations that drives me most crazy,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: is do you not understand the damage you have done?
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Because occasionally there are, although not often real acts of racism. Well,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: now any real act of race racism is going to
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: be held in even more suspicion, and very logically so
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: in the future because you just faked it. You just
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: cast further suspicion on any claim of racism going forward,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: especially after Jus Smallette and so many others. I mean,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: this is a bit like the whole climate change global
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: warming thing, where the media will always tell you about
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: something that fits their narrative, but anything that occurs like
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: this that doesn't fit the narrative that goes directly against
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: the narrative. In this case, the narrative being that there's
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: institutional racism in this country and no one would ever
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: fake it. They just ignore it. Oh, let's move a
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: move along. Nothing to see here, So the initial allegation
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: gets the story. I don't know what CBS in Philadelphia
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: did once. I'm sure they reported on it, but there
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: was zero in that story I displayed. There was zero
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: concern that this might not be a true story, despite
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: the history, the horrendous history when it comes to Noos's
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: being not as interpreted by the news media. I mean,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: the losing streak that news stories are on is epic.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: It's Charlie Brown like. And yet the news media, very
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: much like Charlie Brown, continuing to try to kick the
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: football out of Lucy's hold, only to have it yanked
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: from him right at the last moment, continues on a
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: consistent basis. The news media is Charlie Brown, and the
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: news stories are Lucy with the football, and every single
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: time they fall for it, even though it's an absurd
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: narrative at this point, why would someone do that? I mean,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: especially in this day and age with cameras everywhere, it's
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: incredibly easy to find the culprit. And that's partially how
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: they found out that Latarsia Brown did this. And then
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: they got DNA. They got her DNA all over the
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: rope that made up the news. So she did this,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: And anyone with half a brain who has followed these stories,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: especially if you're not in the news media where you
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: keep following for them, anyone who's followed these stories knows
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: that they always end up either being hoaxes or misunderstandings.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: And this was a clear hoax. And she's been charged
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: with several crimes. Hopefully she'll be convicted and heavily punished.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: But the news media really is at fault here because
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: they continually fall for this, and then when these stories
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: fall apart, there's never any proper follow up. There's never
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: any media culpa, there's never any introspection, there's never any accountability,
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: there's never any self awareness, like, gee, you know, next
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: time this happens, maybe we ought to be a little
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: bit skeptical. And again I refer you back to that
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: CBS in Philadelphia story. Not a hint of skepticism by
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: the report, and all they do is, oh my god,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: we got a rally, a small rally of people who
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: are black and mad. So therefore we must take this
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: very seriously, and we cannot express any skepticism at all
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: because that would be racist.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 9: And we can't be racist in having any sort of
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 9: skepticism about a story that makes no sense and where
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 9: there's a history, a very long history.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: Of these stories not turning out to be as they
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: are claiming to be. And I would, love, my gosh,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: in a rational world, the news media would track down
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: all those people you heard in that story and say,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: what are you saying? Now? What do you have to
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: say to Natasha Brown? Now? I would hope that there
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: would be some anger because this does not do the
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: cause of black people any good at all. In fact,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: it's incredibly harmful, not to mention it's harmful to race relations,
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: because now white people have even more reason to be
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: inherently distrustful of any claim of racism, especially one that
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense like this one. So I don't
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: know what the scoreboard says right now, but the scoreboard
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: is very lopsided in recent years when it comes to
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: news stories and the truth inherently. I mean, it's almost
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: like whenever I hear of a story involving a noose,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: I know it's bullshit. And that's partially why with regard
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: to the NASCAR story happened a few years ago. I mean,
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: I remember I was mocked when it came to the
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: NASCAR story, and the NASCAR story was so off the charts.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: Bubba Wallace he got a parade, a little parade because
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: he thought there was a noose in his garage, and
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: it just turned out it was very obvious. It was
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: just a way to help pull down the entrance to
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: the garage. Gee, just how difficult does that to figure out?
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: But I was mocked on social media when I said, wait,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: a minute, Hold on a second, There could be another
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: explanation for this, and there was another explanation for this,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: because claiming that there's a news involved in the story
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: in the twenty twenties is basically akin to saying it's
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: not true, and we have yet another example of that
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: from Allentown, Pennsylvania. Thanks for listening to today's free drop
• 1:33:51
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• 1:33:54
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• 1:34:22
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