Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Forty Nine: Zig's 2024 Deep Dive

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Episode Forty Nine: Zig's 2024 Deep Dive · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Welcome to episode number forty nine of the Death of Journalism podcast. My name
• 0:04
  is John Ziegler. I am your host, and today I'm finally going to
• 0:08
  do my comprehensive deep dive into the entire coming presidential election on both the Republican
• 0:16
  and Democratic sides. Because I have seen enough, I can now make some
• 0:22
  definitive conclusions about what is going to happen. And I'll explain exactly why I'm
• 0:28
  so confident that I can do that even before all the candidates are officially in
• 0:32
  the race. But before I get directly to that, I'm gonna play three
• 0:38
  clips and share an infuriating text exchange and very telling text exchange I had just
• 0:44
  this morning with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which will all set up my
• 0:51
  primary subject for today's episode quite well. I think I want to begin with
• 0:56
  Gavin Newsom, King Gavin Newsom from here in California and his latest attack which
• 1:02
  is not against Donald Trump, which is incredibly telling and will be very evident
• 1:07
  as to why as we move along in this discussion. But no, not
• 1:11
  on Donald Trump, the Republican front runner to be the presidential nominee in twenty
• 1:17
  twenty four and obviously the scourge of the entire left right. I mean,
• 1:19
  we've been told that Trump is historically horrendous and dangerous president and candidate impeached twice.
• 1:27
  But Newsom doesn't go after Donald Trump. He's been targeting Ron Santis,
• 1:34
  the governor of Florida, who is decidedly in second place, hasn't even announced
• 1:40
  yet officially these running for the Republican nomination in twenty twenty four. But Newsom
• 1:45
  is on his Red State lecture tour during the media rounds, telling people in
• 1:49
  red states like Florida just how horrible they have it, even though people are
• 1:55
  moving from California to Florida and other places at record numbers. Now, Newsom
• 2:00
  has the gall and the audacity, and the ability to get away with the
• 2:05
  gall in the audacity because he knows his media will never call him out on
• 2:08
  it, the left wing media, in fact, they will praise him for
• 2:10
  it, and he can get away with lying audaciously, which he does on
• 2:15
  a regular basis. After after, after what he got away with for two
• 2:20
  plus years with regard to covid here in California, who's to blame him for
• 2:23
  believing that he can get away with just about anything, But here is Newsom
• 2:28
  doing an interview I'm not even sure who. This is not a major media
• 2:31
  outlet, but this is an interview that Newsom is doing with a left winger
• 2:37
  and he's just attacking Ron De Santis. And this is interesting on a couple
• 2:40
  different levels, not just that he's going after De Santis, who is really
• 2:46
  in his head. And let's be clear as to why De Santis is in
• 2:49
  Gavin Newsom's head. It's because Gavin Newsom was exposed by Ron De Santis.
• 2:54
  I truly believe that Newsome thought that when Florida opened up would be a crap
• 3:00
  show and it would validate everything that he was doing regarding COVID in California.
• 3:05
  In fact, the reality was the opposite. Now the media never fully told
• 3:08
  that story, but the reality was the opposite of that that. In reality,
• 3:15
  what occurred was that Florida exposed California as a fraud and COVID mitigations as
• 3:21
  a fraud. And that is stuck in Newsom's craw in a big, big
• 3:25
  way. Now he's never been fully called on it, especially here in the
• 3:30
  California media, but it's got to bother him. It's under his skin.
• 3:35
  DeSantis is living rent free in Newsom's head, and that's been obvious for a
• 3:39
  very long time. But this clip is just unhinged, but it's more than
• 3:44
  unhinged. It's an obvious example of projection. Listen to Gavin Newsom talk about
• 3:53
  DeSantis's motivations for this bogus narrative that Newsome in the laughter are creating that you
• 4:00
  know, De Santist is some sort of a tyrant. The projection here is
• 4:03
  that the real tyrant is Gavin Newsom, and that the real motivation behind Gavin
• 4:09
  Newsom being a tyrant is that he's a fraud, and he's a small man,
• 4:13
  and he's small minded, and these are all the things he's accusing the
• 4:16
  Santists of being, which you're not true. But this is a telling clip,
• 4:21
  as I've said, from a number of perspectives, and I want to
• 4:25
  start off what I expect to be a very long and extended and unique dive
• 4:30
  into the presidential race with this particular clip of Newsom once again going after not
• 4:35
  Trump but RHN de Santis like no mistake, That's what this is about,
• 4:42
  period, full stop. This is a full on assault of higher education and
• 4:47
  academic freedom, and this is about reshaping higher education, which many of these
• 4:53
  guys, like de Santists think is some damn establishment plot because they're bullies.
• 4:57
  The one thing Rhonda Santis hasn't coming every literally think about it. Every single
• 5:01
  thing this guy does he does with intention because he's a weak guy masquerading as
• 5:09
  if he's a strong guy. So he takes on the most vulnerable consistently,
• 5:14
  a seven hundred person college he takes on. He has to find migrants in
• 5:19
  another state. I mean, just think about it. He goes to another
• 5:21
  state to find migrants under false precontense and sends them to an island. He
• 5:26
  decides to have his own police force and go out and arrest people early in
• 5:30
  the morning and their underwear because they filled out the wrong form. Everything this
• 5:34
  guy does, going after the LGBTQ community, going after even trying to take
• 5:39
  I mean, everything this guy does as that in common, trying to humiliate,
• 5:44
  trying to bully other people. And this is consequential though, because if
• 5:47
  he's successful here, it will have an impact and reverberate in other states,
• 5:53
  in other institutions. And as a guy that runs the UC system and the
• 5:57
  CSU Board of Trustees, the greater compared about for talent, a public education,
• 6:00
  higher learning anywhere on the globe. This is a serious, serious moment,
• 6:05
  and that's why I'm here to call it out. In all of academia
• 6:08
  should be calling this out. I can't say enough just how insane what you
• 6:14
  just heard is. I mean, holy projection, Batman. I mean,
• 6:17
  the projection is obvious, It is factually inaccurate, it is philosophically incredibly bereft
• 6:26
  of any substance or reality. It's hypocritical, given especially his COVID response.
• 6:31
  But that's who Gavin Newsom is. Gavin Newsom is much more dangerous than just
• 6:36
  a lefty or a socialist. He's a sociopath, he's an asshole, and
• 6:43
  he's evil. I mean, this is a guy I didn't mention in episode
• 6:46
  forty eight as I was going through the litany of all the things that he
• 6:48
  did to kids. You know when you've done When he has such a long
• 6:51
  list of things you've done wrong to kids while claiming that the other side is
• 6:57
  anti kid and I can't even remember them all, that's not a good sign,
• 7:00
  but it should. I should never forget that. One of the many,
• 7:02
  many, many things Newsom did was to threaten to threaten the entire school
• 7:10
  population with forced vaccination for COVID. That was his plan. That was his
• 7:15
  plan until he quietly dropped it after he realized, you know what, this
• 7:19
  isn't gonna fly politically, and the science is overwhelming that the vaccines don't stop
• 7:25
  transmission. But this was a massive, massive problem for millions of families in
• 7:30
  California, including mine, where we had to really contemplate what we were going
• 7:35
  to do with our school kids if, in fact Newsom went ahead with the
• 7:40
  planet. He didn't just propose, he declared that he was going to do
• 7:46
  that, and again quietly dropped it with no media scrutiny, no, not
• 7:51
  even forced to admit that he was wrong, never forced to take any accountability
• 7:56
  for the stress that he put families through. I mean, my wife and
• 7:59
  high had incredibly, very difficult conversations because of this. I wrote about this
• 8:05
  for Mediite. I mean, I really thought it was going to cause a
• 8:09
  potentially a fracture in our entire family, all for nothing, all for Newsom's
• 8:13
  ego. I mean, this is an evil, dangerous person. He is
• 8:18
  far far worse than any other elected Democrat in the country than I'm aware of
• 8:26
  that has any real power. This is as bad as it gets. And
• 8:31
  he's going out to Rohn De Santis, not Trump, but Rohn De Santis,
• 8:37
  Trump's enemy and a guy who is in a very distant second place at
• 8:43
  this point when it comes to the Republican nominating process, although he's not officially
• 8:48
  in the race yet. So that's Newsome, and that's consistent with what Newsom
• 8:52
  has been doing. And Newsome has said even to De Santis. He's even
• 8:54
  taken Trump's philosophy or alleged advice to the Santists, which is to sit this
• 9:01
  one out. I said, I shared an episode forty eight that Trump is
• 9:07
  saying that the Santists sit this one out so nothing bad happens to you,
• 9:09
  kind of like a mob boss. Newsome is echoing that, saying that the
• 9:13
  Santist is going to get thumped and he ought to sit this one out.
• 9:16
  By the way, it's possible that that's not bad advice, but I don't
• 9:20
  believe that that advice is well intentioned or grounded in any semblance of sincerity.
• 9:28
  Newsom hates the Santis, but he also may actually be in some way shape
• 9:33
  or for him trying to help Trump or at least there's some sort of bizarre
• 9:37
  alliance going on there, because at the very same time that Newsom is on
• 9:43
  his tirade is consistent tirade. And that was not an isolated clip I played
• 9:48
  for you, his consistent tirade against Rhonda Santis. Donald Trump went on Fox
• 9:54
  News Channel and in an extended interview with Tucker Carlson. So first thing the
• 10:00
  headline here is, obviously there is no longer any band at all on Donald
• 10:05
  Trump on Fox News Channel. He did an interview with Hannity. Now he's
• 10:07
  doing an interview with Tucker Carlson post indictment. You know, the band is
• 10:11
  off soft, hard or otherwise. So Trump is back into the good graces
• 10:18
  of being on Fox News Channel. And I'll have more on that momentarily.
• 10:22
  But Donald Trump said a lot of things to Tucker Carlson, including he made
• 10:26
  some comments about Gavin Newsom and boil Boy. I mean, you could write
• 10:33
  a book, a book about Donald Trump and his relationship with Gavin Newsom,
• 10:41
  maybe even just based upon this clip that I'm about to play you, because
• 10:45
  everything you need to know about this psychology of Donald Trump and why he is
• 10:50
  not to be trusted, why he was a terrible president in many ways,
• 10:54
  why he caved and covid you know, why he's really not a conserve,
• 11:00
  Why he's a terrible judge of character. All these things and more are wrapped
• 11:07
  up in this clip where Tucker Carlson himself is baffle because he just spent his
• 11:11
  previous show, his Monday show, trashing Gavin Newsom. In spectacular fashion,
• 11:18
  Tucker was great on Monday attacking Gavin Newsom, who he believes, Tucker does
• 11:24
  is going to be the Democratic nominee. Now I don't share that belief currently,
• 11:30
  although stranger things have happened, But Tucker believes that that Gavin Newsom is
• 11:35
  going to be the Democratic nominee. And here he is talking with the heavy
• 11:39
  favorite to be the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, and Tucker has taken aback
• 11:43
  by some of what you are about to hear, which is Trump effectively saying,
• 11:50
  you know what, I like Gavin Newsom because he's nice to me.
• 11:54
  He says nice things to me. Now for context here, this is not
• 11:58
  just an idle statement. I mean, most people don't know, which is
• 12:03
  amazing. A lot of people do, but I would say a majority of
• 12:07
  the American people do not know that Donald Trump's favorite son is currently having sex
• 12:13
  with Newsome's ex wife. To put it as bluntly as I can, but
• 12:16
  I mean, that's that's a fact. I mean, Donald Trump Junior is,
• 12:20
  I guess, engaged to Kimberley Guilfoyle, who was once married to Gavin
• 12:26
  Newsom. I mean, so holy incestuousness, Batman. I mean that I
• 12:35
  really felt during COVID that that played a significant role in this because Trump views
• 12:41
  Newsome as being literally part of his tribe. That's how Trump views the world.
• 12:48
  So it's not Democrat a Republican. Newsom is part of my tribe.
• 12:52
  And he's nice to me. Yeah, he's respectful to me. He says
• 12:56
  good things to me about me. He compliments me. He basically he Knewsome
• 13:00
  understands how to play Trump, which is just give him a couple of compliments.
• 13:05
  And Newsom played him during COVID in an extraordinary fashion. But I want
• 13:11
  to play the clip here just to set this up. Here's Trump letting the
• 13:16
  quiet part be spoken out loud, where here he is speaking positively about a
• 13:24
  guy who is not just the most dangerous man in the Democratic Party, but
• 13:28
  potentially at least according to his interviewer, his most likely opponent in the twenty
• 13:35
  twenty four presidential election. I used to get along great with him, you
• 13:39
  know when I was president. Head along you got along really good, Gavin.
• 13:43
  Where you got along with Gavin knew? I did, I really did.
• 13:45
  He was always very nice to me. He said the greatest things.
• 13:46
  He would say things like he's doing a great job. Oh he was about
• 13:50
  you help me. That's why I could never hit him, because he was
• 13:54
  so nice to me. Now, in a rational world, that would be
• 13:58
  a massive problem for the Republican front runner for the nomination. That would be
• 14:03
  really problematic. I mean the juxtaa position of Newsome going after the Santists and
• 14:11
  Trump saying nice things about Newsom and indicating that, you know, if you
• 14:16
  really think about this, that Newsom is easily playing Trump and that could be
• 14:22
  his face. It could theoretically be his competition in the tent four general election.
• 14:28
  That would be it. That would be game set match if we lived
• 14:31
  in a rational world. I mean, there are lesser things that have torpedoed
• 14:37
  Republican presidential candidates than just that. That should be a mortal sin. That
• 14:43
  should be a mortal sin, and it should signal to Republican voters. First
• 14:48
  of all, wait, a meant, what the hell's going on here?
• 14:50
  That's number one. This doesn't make any sense too. Why is Newsome attacking
• 14:56
  the Santists and Trump is saying nice things about Newsome? Trump is far nicer
• 15:03
  to Newsom than he is to Ron De Santis. Newsome is far tougher on
• 15:07
  De Santis than he is on Trump. And again, let's not forget Trump's
• 15:13
  favorite son currently having sex apparently with Newsom's ex wife and has been for years.
• 15:22
  I mean, this is this is a situation that I mean, I
• 15:26
  mean you almost can't make it up. I mean, this should be game,
• 15:28
  set match, and it's not just a theoretical problem. This played a
• 15:35
  major role, major role in the response to COVID. Kimberly Leonard, who
• 15:39
  is a reporter, tweeted in response to the praise of Gavin Newsom by Trump
• 15:48
  to k Tucker Carlson. She tweeted the following, I sat down with Governor
• 15:52
  Newsom about a week ago, and he said similarly nice things about Trump.
• 15:58
  He said. The former president was incredibly supportive during COVID by quickly taking his
• 16:06
  calls and coordinating the response. Now look to be fair, you know you're
• 16:12
  in a crisis and you dropped the partisanship and you all work together that you
• 16:18
  know, come bay yah, I get that. However, the ramifications of
• 16:25
  this were catastrophic because here's the real world implications of what happened Gavin Newsom,
• 16:33
  and we go through this in episodes two and three of this podcast, which
• 16:36
  if you haven't heard, I hearge you to do so because it's a unique
• 16:40
  take on what really happened with regard to the COVID narrative and the timeline and
• 16:44
  how the dominoes fell. But maybe the biggest domino was Gavin Newsom shutting down
• 16:52
  California. And the only way that happened was that he and Trump had a
• 16:59
  symbiotic relationship going on. And let's be clear, Trump did not in any
• 17:04
  way, shape or form condemn what Newsom did. Yet what Newsom did was
• 17:11
  to drop maybe the biggest domino in what would result in Trump's loss in twenty
• 17:17
  twenty and Trump was either too stupid or naive to see what was happening,
• 17:22
  and Newsom lied to Trump. He wrote a letter to Trump claiming that over
• 17:27
  twenty five million Californians would get COVID in the next eight weeks, and mister
• 17:32
  President, can you please send us a military ship, hospital ship that we
• 17:37
  can use for the excess COVID victims that we're going to have that are going
• 17:42
  to overwhelm our hospitals in the next few weeks. None of that came anywhere
• 17:48
  close to happening, not within the stratosphere of that prediction. And Newsom,
• 17:57
  you know, I'm sure he did this for a lot of different but the
• 18:00
  bottom line reality is Newsom played Trump. Trump got completely manipulated by Newsom.
• 18:07
  And it appears from the evidence that we just heard that Newsom was able to
• 18:11
  do this simply by praising Trump that Newsom is, you know, smart enough
• 18:18
  to figure out it's not that difficult to figure out that that's the key with
• 18:22
  Trump. If Trump sees you as at least somewhat of an equal, especially
• 18:27
  if he sees you as part of his tribe, and you praise him,
• 18:33
  then it's like kryptonite. He will immediately see you as an ally that you're
• 18:41
  obviously a good person because you see him as being good, or at least
• 18:45
  you're a person of value to him, and so therefore he's going to be
• 18:49
  far more cooperative, and that's what happened with COVID, and by the time
• 18:55
  Trump figured it out, if he ever did, it was too late,
• 18:59
  and the country was largely destroyed because of it, and Trump's reelection was clearly
• 19:03
  destroyed because of it. And to this day Trump doesn't see it or doesn't
• 19:08
  want to see it, and is praising He's praising Gavin Newsom on Fox News
• 19:15
  Channel with Tucker Carlson, the man who just spent his previous night's show trashing
• 19:22
  Newsome as literally the most dangerous democrat in America. Again. You just can't
• 19:29
  make this up. This is the bizarre world we're now living in. And
• 19:33
  it didn't stop there. You know, I've been very critical of the way
• 19:41
  Tucker has handled things recently, and I'm going to get to my text exchange
• 19:45
  with him shortly. But Tucker didn't just allow Trump to spew this kind of
• 19:53
  stuff with no pushback. I mean, there was no pushback in this interview
• 19:56
  at all. Tucker went out of his way to set the whole thing up
• 20:02
  by praising Trump in no uncertain terms. Here is Tucker Carlson basically setting up
• 20:11
  the interview while praising Trump's brilliance on foreign policy matters, and here's what that
• 20:18
  sounded like. On Fox News Channel. We spent more than an hour with
• 20:22
  Donald Trump today and we were struck throughout the course of the conversation. How
• 20:27
  his grasp of foreign policy, This man who was supposedly stupid, his understanding
• 20:32
  of world affairs is so much more nuanced and sophisticated and pro American and the
• 20:37
  moronic neo CON's currently in charge. It was remarkable what send dollar Amo to
• 20:41
  Ukraine. Zolenski is like Churchill, Okay, now there's no need for Tucker
• 20:47
  to do that. I mean, you can play this straight in a rash
• 20:52
  of the world, in a world where journalism wasn't dead, and that Tucker
• 20:56
  wasn't afraid to go after Trump because or all. You know, he's been
• 21:02
  quoted in the Dominion System's lawsuit is saying he passionately hates Donald Trump. And
• 21:07
  so I believe for the last couple of months he's been working really hard to
• 21:11
  try to make it up to the Trump fans and to show that that was
• 21:17
  not true and to ignore that that even happened, and to basically do penance.
• 21:22
  That's what Carlson has been doing. And boys he'd done it in spades.
• 21:25
  I mean, his work on the January sixth situation I think was incredibly
• 21:30
  helpful to Donald Trump, and his work on the indictment where he very strongly
• 21:34
  implies that Republicans need to nominate Donald Trump otherwise we've lost the country if we
• 21:41
  let these bastards get away within indicting him over this bullcrap, which I agree
• 21:47
  is bullcrap, but I certainly don't agree that that's that that we are are
• 21:51
  compelled to to nominate Donald Trump otherwise we let the bastards take the country over.
• 21:56
  I mean, that's that's an incredibly absurd and Dane, you're as narrative,
• 22:00
  but that's one that that Tucker Carlson has promoted. Actually he created it,
• 22:06
  I believe, and he promoted it, and Glenn Back picked it up
• 22:08
  on his program. I've talked a lot about that narrative in previous episodes of
• 22:14
  this podcast. But you don't need you know, so, in the rational
• 22:18
  world, there should have been some pushback. There would have been plenty of
• 22:22
  opportunities for pushback by Tucker Carlson against Donald Trump in this interview. None of
• 22:26
  that happened. None of it. It was just let Trump spew his bullcrap.
• 22:32
  Let him have the air waves, Let him be normalized, Let it
• 22:37
  be shown that post indictment, it's not as if he's toxic at all or
• 22:41
  radioactive or no longer is allowed on Fox or anything like that. I mean,
• 22:45
  bizarrely, you know, it looks like the indictment was the best thing
• 22:48
  that ever happened to his campaign, not just in the polling, but when
• 22:52
  it comes to getting back on Fox News Channel, just like the Dominion Systems
• 22:56
  voting lawsuit against Fox News Channel may end up being the second best thing that
• 23:03
  has happened to Donald Trump during his campaign. Think about that, folks.
• 23:07
  The best thing that's happened during Donald Trump's campaign so far is getting indicted by
• 23:12
  the Manhattan DA. The second best thing is that the Dominion System's lawsuit against
• 23:18
  Fox News Channel exposed Fox host like Tucker Carlson as a bunch of frauds for
• 23:25
  saying behind the scenes that they don't believe any of this this election rigging narrative
• 23:30
  bullcrap, and Tucker Carlson specifically saying he passionately hates Trump and as glad that
• 23:37
  he will soon be able to ignore him. How that work out? The
• 23:41
  reason why this has been so great for Trump is that it effectively guilted or
• 23:45
  forced Tucker Carlson to signal his virtue to the Trump fans, which are a
• 23:51
  huge portion of his customer base for his show on Fox News Channel, and
• 23:56
  it has manifest itself at a critical, critical juncture that has played enormously in
• 24:03
  Donald Trump's favor. On January sixth, on the indictment and now here,
• 24:07
  we have this interview where Tucker is praising Donald Trump and his brilliance on foreign
• 24:12
  policy. By the way, I think that what really convinced Tucker of Trump's
• 24:18
  brilliance is that he asked him about who was responsible for the Nordstream bombing,
• 24:23
  and Trump very cryptically said, well, I can tell you who it wasn't,
• 24:30
  and it wasn't Russia, and he very strongly implied that it was the
• 24:33
  United States, which is an extraordinary thing. I don't know it's true or
• 24:37
  not, but it's an extraordinary thing coming from a former president. And Tucker
• 24:42
  loved that because that's now Tucker's mindset. Tucker is very conspiratorial, far too
• 24:48
  much so, from my blood especially, and I'm sure that's what titillated Tucker
• 24:55
  tremendously, but it was the praise I found to be particularly nauseating and also
• 25:03
  telling about how we got to where we currently are and where we're headed with
• 25:08
  regard to the Republican nominating process. So with all that as the backdrop,
• 25:15
  I finally couldn't take it anymore. I mean, I don't have a close
• 25:18
  relationship with Tucker by any stretch of the imagination. I worked for him briefly
• 25:22
  many years ago when I wrote for The Daily Caller, which he owned and
• 25:27
  ran at the time. He and I text occasionally. He is always very
• 25:33
  responsive when I text him, and you know, we've had some interesting and
• 25:37
  substantive conversations. I have referenced them previously on this podcast, but I've never
• 25:45
  overtly criticized him in a very significant way, not because I'm afraid to,
• 25:52
  just because it didn't seem strategically to be the right time. Well, after
• 25:56
  what I've seen over the last month or so and where we are now,
• 26:00
  I decided this morning, okay, this is the time. After watching the
• 26:06
  interview with Trump, it's very clear what has happened and where this is all
• 26:11
  heading. And while I'm just one person who I'm sure he doesn't consider to
• 26:15
  be all that significant, because I'm not. I wanted, at the very
• 26:19
  least Tucker to know that somebody for whom he might have some semblance of respect
• 26:26
  is willing to tell him the truth about what's really going on here. And
• 26:30
  so I texted him, and the exchange I think was extraordinarily telling, and
• 26:37
  I'll share it with you here. So here was my text to Tucker Carlson
• 26:42
  this morning, as I tape this, just after this interview that we just
• 26:47
  played you that Tucker did with Trump on the Fox News Channel on Tuesday night.
• 26:52
  So I write, Tucker, no one has more respect for your talent
• 26:56
  and intellect than me, which by the way, is true, but you
• 27:00
  should know that no one has done more to resuscitate Trump's campaign than you,
• 27:06
  and that this has greatly helped ensure his nomination, Biden's reelection, or even
• 27:11
  far worse, if you are right about Newsom, which I do not think
• 27:15
  you are, and the official end of the Republic. But at least,
• 27:22
  but at least, you will now have a democratic socialist president to rail against
• 27:26
  for the remainder of your very lucrative career. I totally understand the path you
• 27:32
  have chosen, but I'm disappointed because, unlike the rest of the hacks and
• 27:37
  grifters and the formerly conservative media, I actually had expectations that you might be
• 27:44
  the one person in the position of power who would have the courage and judgment
• 27:49
  to do the right thing for the country. That sounds pretty dramatic, but
• 27:55
  it was heartfelt. I believe every word of that. I was trying to
• 27:59
  be as respectful as possible, but I wanted at least somebody because I know
• 28:02
  how these celebrities are. Nobody close to them, has access to them,
• 28:06
  is going to tell them the truth in a situation like this, they're just
• 28:10
  gonna get pats on the back or at the very worst, silence, and
• 28:15
  you know, no one's gonna say, hey, Tucker, what the hell
• 28:17
  happened to you? Saying you passionately hate Trump and you can't wait to be
• 28:22
  able to ignore him, and now you're effectively the greatest thing that's ever happened
• 28:26
  to his campaign. And I wasn't sure Tucker would respond. I almost didn't
• 28:30
  even care if he responded, although he, like I said, he always
• 28:33
  responds, and I just wanted someone to tell him. I just wanted to
• 28:38
  make sure that for forty five seconds, he at least considered that somebody out
• 28:45
  there knows what's really happening here, that someone knows about the scam, that
• 28:51
  someone cares enough about the damn country to at least call him out on what
• 28:55
  he's doing and the role he's playing here. Well, he did respond.
• 29:00
  The first response was very short, ha ha exclamation point. Pretty funny.
• 29:06
  Now I knew what he meant by that, at least I thought I did,
• 29:10
  which was he was going to try to claim I'm just a talk show
• 29:14
  host. I don't have any real influence. I'm just doing a show,
• 29:18
  and you know you can't blame me for this. That was how I interpreted,
• 29:22
  by the way. Interesting to point out he does not at all push
• 29:27
  back on any of the substance of what I wrote, and he never does,
• 29:33
  because he responds one more time. He does not push back on any
• 29:37
  of the substance. He just goes to, ha ha, pretty funny.
• 29:41
  So I respond, I wish it was funny, Tucker, but the final
• 29:47
  end of the country which Trump's nomination brings is hardly funny. The fact that
• 29:52
  you appear to think that it is, and then in parentheses, I write,
• 29:56
  I know you are laughing that you are a key part in this happening,
• 30:00
  but you absolutely are. Tells me everything I need to know. Very
• 30:07
  sad, sleep well, and enjoy the grift while our kids greatly suffer.
• 30:15
  So again, I'm not backing down. And I believe I correctly analyzed where
• 30:22
  he was trying to go with the haha pretty funny, But I do believe
• 30:27
  everything I wrote there. And again, I just wanted somebody to tell him
• 30:33
  it's not going to change Tucker's path on this. He's chosen his path.
• 30:37
  But you know, maybe it'll guilt him just a hair. Even if it
• 30:41
  guilts him just a hair, it's worth blowing up whatever relationship I had with
• 30:45
  Tucker Carlson because I just don't care. I mean, this is it,
• 30:48
  folks, this is it for the country. So I'm not gonna I'm not
• 30:52
  gonna sit back and not tell the truth simply because you know, what the
• 30:56
  hell is Tucker Carlson ever gonna do meet for me in the future. Nothing,
• 31:00
  I'm not I don't care about being able to text Tucker Carlson. This
• 31:04
  is a time for choosing. This is the time that tries men's soul.
• 31:10
  And what we're finding out is no one has a goddamn soul. So then
• 31:14
  Tucker responds and basically vindicates my belief that I had already written to him.
• 31:21
  I don't know if he missed that part or not, but he writes,
• 31:23
  what's funny is that you think I'm in control of any of this. I'm
• 31:29
  a talk show host, which of course is exactly what I had just already
• 31:33
  said was going to be his response. So I responded again, by the
• 31:38
  way, no pushback on the substance, no pushback on he's changed his view
• 31:44
  publicly, at least on air, regarding Trump. No pushback on the fact
• 31:48
  that Trump's nomination would be the end of the Republic, no pushback on the
• 31:52
  fact that that Trump has got to be the dominee, no pushback on any
• 31:56
  of that. Just hey, don't blame me. This is all funny to
• 32:00
  me. I'm just a talk show host. I have no influence. I'm
• 32:02
  only the most powerful and highly paid and highly rated talk show host on the
• 32:07
  biggest conservative network by far in the country. Why why would you blame me
• 32:12
  for this? So I write, I already referenced that, Well, that
• 32:20
  was what you thought was funny. You are not in control, but you
• 32:23
  have huge influence. The poll changes track exactly with your coverage over the last
• 32:30
  month or so. I almost lost it when you strongly implied if we don't
• 32:36
  nominate him in response to his indictment, then we have lost the country.
• 32:44
  That absurd narrative has clearly won the day with a lot of people. This
• 32:49
  was a very critical juncture in the process. You boosted Trump in very significant
• 32:55
  ways. The only way he can be stopped now is if he has major
• 33:00
  health problems, which seems unlikely. It is now very obvious where this is
• 33:05
  going, and it is terrible for the country, but good for maintaining Fox's
• 33:12
  ratings. I appreciate your willingness to engage, and if my chance you were
• 33:15
  willing to speak to me, I would be happy to do so. If
• 33:19
  not, I understand, and I wish you the best now. It was
• 33:22
  my expectation that he would not respond to that, and he has not,
• 33:28
  at least as of this point, which my guess is he never will because
• 33:32
  most of the time you can It's amazing how you can tell whether someone's going
• 33:36
  to respond to a text by their texting habits. But Tucker usually responds almost
• 33:42
  immediately, and the fact that we're an hour or an hour or two after
• 33:45
  that indicates to me, I will not hear from Tucker and I probably never
• 33:49
  hear from Tucker again. But I think that that exchange was incredibly telling.
• 33:57
  I think it's telling about about my m O, why I am where I
• 34:00
  am in my career. But I think it's much more importantly telling when it
• 34:05
  comes to the media reaction to this entire situation, specifically Trump and also the
• 34:12
  Republican presidential nominating process. Because let's make it very clear here, Tucker hates
• 34:20
  Trump passionately. He clearly should be in the DeSantis camp, and instead,
• 34:27
  he, I think, largely in response to the Dominion Systems voting lawsuit against
• 34:32
  Fox News Channel and the revelations that came about in the discovery there, has
• 34:37
  felt rightly or wrongly forced to signal his virtue in extraordinary ways to the Trump
• 34:45
  people. And because he's the number one guy in Fox News Channel, he's
• 34:50
  the one that gets the footage of the January sixth situation, he creates a
• 34:54
  brand new narrative, which I think is huge, huge when it comes to
• 35:00
  helping Trump because it helps in the minds of the Trump voter mitigate one of
• 35:08
  the biggest reasons why a lot of people are thinking, well, maybe we
• 35:14
  should move on from here. This isn't this too much, too much drama,
• 35:17
  too much chaos. You know, he got impeached twice. I mean,
• 35:22
  the hardcore Trumper doesn't care about this, but the midcore Trumper, you
• 35:27
  know, might be a little bit concerned about the reaction to January six Well,
• 35:30
  instead, now Tucker has turned this into something that actually vindicates Trump,
• 35:35
  not just because you know, in his mind and in his show, January
• 35:38
  six was was not a scandal. It was actually a scandal on the left
• 35:44
  that this was a myth that was created and then that Trump was right.
• 35:47
  You know, this whole business with Trump was right. That's a that's a
• 35:51
  very powerful narrative on the right, you know, where they always come up
• 35:57
  with some sort of rationalization that Trump was right about this and that he's always
• 36:00
  right. And now, at first, I'll be the first acknowledge there have
• 36:04
  been some things Trump was right about, and he has been vindicated on a
• 36:07
  few things, but I don't think the January sixth qualifies. And January sixth
• 36:13
  was just one data point within this entire change of the narrative that Tucker has
• 36:19
  facilitated or help facilitate and you know, there's no question and over the last
• 36:23
  few months, let's let's look at what's happened, and here are the major
• 36:28
  things that have occurred. I believe among the Republican voting base, somehow the
• 36:35
  midterms have already been forgotten. So, you know, I guess it's like
• 36:38
  I always say about, you know, bad family vacations. While we why
• 36:43
  we take them every year is because we forget all the bad things by the
• 36:46
  time the next year rolls around. People's memories are very very short, and
• 36:52
  especially when you know, the information is uncomfortable, and so the Trump friendly
• 36:57
  voter has already forgotten how terrible the mid terms were. They were horrific,
• 37:01
  especially when it came to senatorial candidates in key states endorsed by Donald Trump.
• 37:07
  So whatever blame Trump got for that has faded, as well as the glow
• 37:15
  of de Santis's remarkable twenty point victory in Florida. That has also faded because
• 37:21
  it's, you know, it's old news. I guess I also think that
• 37:25
  COVID has started to fade in people's minds that and that's obviously writing to Santas's
• 37:34
  wheelhouse, and it's also probably Trump's greatest weakness among the Republican base. So
• 37:39
  I think that has helped Trump by the way, within the COVID umbrella.
• 37:46
  And I haven't talked about this much, but it does seem as if the
• 37:52
  evidence of vaccine harm has started to dissipate or not come fully to fruition.
• 37:59
  And I'm not willing to come to any conclusion about that yet, but that
• 38:02
  was a real danger for Trump because Trump is you know, he still thinks
• 38:07
  Operation Warp Speed was the greatest thing ever, and he's been very supportive of
• 38:12
  the vaccines and to a lot of his base, that's that's a potential problem.
• 38:15
  Well, that story has really not been at the forefront over the last
• 38:22
  month or two, and I'm looking at some of the data with excess deaths
• 38:25
  and thinking, well, maybe that the vaccines are not responsible. Again,
• 38:31
  I don't know, but it certainly it certainly has not been at the forefront
• 38:35
  of people's minds as it was for a while. So that issue has started
• 38:38
  to fade. And then you have the reversing of the revising of history when
• 38:44
  it comes to January sixth, and you have the reaction to the indictments,
• 38:50
  which obviously was very, very pro Trump and has helped him, probably even
• 38:54
  more so than I thought it would. I mean, I was like with
• 38:57
  everybody else that would help him, at least in the short when it came
• 39:00
  to Republican primary voters. But you have all these things that are promoting this
• 39:08
  narrative that is helpful to Trump, and Tucker Carlson has played a role in
• 39:14
  a lot of that. And you know, there's also the issue that Rona
• 39:19
  Santas isn't even in the race yet. So I mean, that's enough.
• 39:22
  This is all part of a perfect storm that has created a very strong momentum
• 39:30
  for Donald Trump to be the nominee. So, as promised, I want
• 39:35
  to go through how I see this all going down on both sides, mostly
• 39:39
  the Republican side, but also the Democratic side in the general election. And
• 39:44
  before I get into the details that, I just want to give some general
• 39:47
  comments as to why this is so important and why I think it's okay to
• 39:52
  do this now, even before to Santas has gotten into the race officially.
• 39:58
  The reason why that it's important, which I clearly implied very strongly in my
• 40:06
  text exchanges with Tucker Carlson, is that I really do believe that the twenty
• 40:10
  twenty four election is the last chance for the country. That sounds hyperbolic,
• 40:15
  that sounds overly dramatic, but I believe it. And part of why I
• 40:22
  believe it, I actually think that living in California gives me an insight into
• 40:29
  where things are headed, that it is different than people in the rest of
• 40:34
  the country, and people misunderstand California, I think too much to the danger
• 40:42
  of the rest of the country and much I think. I think it's naive
• 40:46
  among conservatives who think that, oh, California is just a bunch of whack
• 40:51
  jobs and it's isolated out there. Wow, they're crazy, and oh,
• 40:55
  I thank god we're not California. And my message I do it. I
• 41:00
  do regularly. I do a regular interview with Mark Reard and I talk to
• 41:04
  your host and Saint Louis I've known for a long time, and almost every
• 41:07
  time I go on there, I say to the people of Saint Louis,
• 41:10
  Missouri, you guys have got to hold the damn line, because what you
• 41:16
  don't understand because usually Mark calling ask about something crazy it's going on in California,
• 41:22
  and I always say, there's nothing that unique about California that can't happen
• 41:28
  in the rest of the country. It's just that here in California, because
• 41:32
  of demographic shifts and other factors, we just got to a place faster than
• 41:40
  the rest of the country did, which is one party rule in a state
• 41:45
  run media. And we should be an example to the rest of the country
• 41:50
  of what happens, how slippery that slope is, and once it's gone,
• 41:55
  there's no going back. Once you have slipped far enough away where you don't
• 42:00
  you can't even get enough traction to try to reverse it. There's a point
• 42:06
  beyond which there's no reversing. The rubber band is broken, the boomerang doesn't
• 42:12
  come back, and California has reached that very very clearly, and the rest
• 42:19
  of the country needs to understand this is going to happen to you too.
• 42:24
  It might happen really fast unless you hold the goddamn line, which is partially
• 42:30
  why the Santist is so brilliant, because I'm the Santists understands this. De
• 42:38
  Santis understands that while you still have the leverage, you must be aggressive and
• 42:45
  proactive to nip all this crap in the bud because once this crap game gets
• 42:51
  traction and gets hold of the culture. You're done, because this is the
• 42:59
  nat progression of things. Socialism is the natural progression, especially when you have
• 43:06
  the circumstances of our electoral process where people get to vote themselves free stuff.
• 43:13
  That's really the essence of this. And so Florida is holding the line far
• 43:19
  better than anybody else, even being proactive about eviscerating any semblance of this cancer
• 43:27
  getting hold of the state. And if if Biden Harris are re elected in
• 43:36
  twenty twenty four, then in my view, it is over. It is
• 43:42
  we will be down that slippery slope as an entire country with no ability to
• 43:46
  go back because the electoral realities will not allow it. We are quickly running
• 43:54
  out of time, quickly running out of time to ever be able to stop
• 44:00
  a democratic president again. Yes, the most recent senses helped by a few
• 44:06
  votes in the electoral college, but the map is only gonne. It's already
• 44:12
  precarious, and it's only gonna get worse as the demographics continue to change,
• 44:19
  as Republican voters continue to die, and eighteen year olds continue to be Communists
• 44:27
  at a record rate. So this election is the last shot, and it
• 44:35
  really is remarkable to me the Trumpers are so bizarre in so many ways.
• 44:40
  But one of the strangest mindsets of the Trump called is, you know,
• 44:46
  Joe Biden has dementia and he's a terrible kid to date, and he probably
• 44:52
  really didn't get eighty one million votes. They're mystified as to how we got
• 44:54
  eighty one million votes. And I always say, well, because you know,
• 44:59
  seventy five million of those were anti Trump votes, you morons. But
• 45:04
  but you know, so he wins the election, which they don't really accept,
• 45:07
  although they don't have any real evidence that the election wasn't real, but
• 45:09
  Biden dementia. Joe gets eighty one million votes by far a record, yet
• 45:15
  they're positive he can't win re election, and they're really positive that Kamala Harris
• 45:22
  will never win election. And I'm like, how can you believe Biden just
• 45:28
  beat an incumbent president with eighty one million votes. He's now the incumbent.
• 45:34
  Trump would be the challenger, So how exactly does that work? By the
• 45:40
  way, Biden's approval ratings are not that bad. Now, Look, we
• 45:45
  could have an economic collapse, which is I think probably what's going to take
• 45:49
  at this point for Biden not to be re elected. And or major health
• 45:53
  issues. But the reality is that Biden was a terrible candidate and got eighty
• 46:00
  one million votes and won in the popular vote very handily and fairly handily in
• 46:06
  the electoral college. I believe here's what's going to happen. I think this
• 46:12
  is very obvious what's going to happen. If Biden wins this election, he
• 46:15
  will serve through the midterms and then sometime early in twenty seventeen, twenty twenty
• 46:22
  seven, I'm sorry, twenty twenty seven, he will resign from office.
• 46:28
  No one will think twice about that. He'll be welcome to his eighties,
• 46:32
  clearly not totally with it, and the media will praise the decision as selfless,
• 46:38
  a man putting his country ahead of his own self interest and making history
• 46:45
  by giving us our first female president, a female president who happens to be
• 46:49
  a woman of color. I mean, I mean, it's so obvious that
• 46:53
  that's what's going to happen. Then I almost think it's it's ludicrous even mentioning
• 46:58
  it. Yet when I say this to Trumper's online, they think that's absurd.
• 47:02
  They think it's totally absurd that Biden could be reelected. It's insane that
• 47:07
  Harris could ever be president, and if she is, she'll get crushed in
• 47:12
  twenty twenty eight, I think, what are you smoking? She will be
• 47:15
  an incumbent president, praised by seventy percent of the media as historic, the
• 47:25
  first female president, a woman of color. Who's the hell's gonna beat her
• 47:32
  in twenty twenty eight? And if and if Trump loses, what's he gonna
• 47:38
  do. He's gonna claim it was rigged and he'll probably run again in twenty
• 47:42
  twenty eight. So, so the scenario here is, this is what's at
• 47:47
  stake, folks, four to twelve years of Biden Harris rule, and then
• 47:57
  you know who the hell knows when Newsom gets involved in this, someone even
• 48:00
  worse than Newsom, maybe AOC. Because let's be clear, under my scenario,
• 48:07
  Biden's reelected and then and probably with majorities in both houses, if Trump's
• 48:13
  the candidate, and then he resigns in twenty twenty seven, this allows Harris
• 48:19
  to serve for effectively ten years under the constitution because she can still run if
• 48:25
  he doesn't. Timing wise, if Biden resigns at the right time, she
• 48:29
  can still run twice. I mean, so the stakes could not be higher
• 48:35
  here, they could not be higher. This is the last shot now as
• 48:40
  far as why it's okay for me to make some conclusions or come to some
• 48:45
  conclusions at this stage. Here we are in mid April of twenty twenty three,
• 48:51
  and you know the primary votes don't start for at least ten months yet
• 48:55
  or round ten months. Is because we are in a unique situation. This
• 49:00
  drives me crazy. I mean, just yesterday I had seemingly smart people try
• 49:07
  to make comparisons for me that we shouldn't be coming to any conclusions about Trump's
• 49:14
  lead in the Republican primaries at this early stage, because look at history,
• 49:20
  John, look at history. Look at twenty fifteen, and the fact that
• 49:24
  Jeb Bush was leading in the polls at this stage, and what happened to
• 49:30
  Jeb. He was nothing by the time that Iowa and New Hampshire came along,
• 49:36
  and he quickly was forced to drop out. And I'm just like,
• 49:39
  are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? You really think that there's
• 49:45
  any comparison between Donald Trump in twenty twenty three and Jeb Bush in twenty fifteen.
• 49:54
  We are dealing with a truly unique situation here. Donald Trump is a
• 50:01
  former president. That's never happened before in the history of modern primary processes.
• 50:10
  We've never had that. So he's a former president. He also has a
• 50:16
  cult. He has a huge porson of the Republican Party who will vote for
• 50:22
  him no matter what. We don't know what that number is. I've said
• 50:27
  a hundred times on this podcast. You know the key number is forty.
• 50:30
  Is an over forty or under forty, that'll that'll tell the tale. But
• 50:35
  it's somewhere at least in that vicinity that is night and day from Jeff Bush.
• 50:43
  Jeff Bush had name recognition, but he had no loyalty. He was
• 50:47
  I mean, and there was the whole issue of being tired of the Bushes.
• 50:52
  He was a terrible candidate, He had no cult. I mean,
• 50:58
  Trump hadn't gotten into the race at that point, when Jeb was leading these
• 51:01
  these theoretical polls in twenty fifteen. I mean, it's just a horrendous,
• 51:07
  almost desperate an allergy to make. And this is partially why I think that
• 51:14
  it is more than rational to start making conclusions as to where this is going
• 51:20
  to go, because we've already learned a lot. I mean, I would
• 51:23
  say eighty to eighty five percent of what we need to know to determine how
• 51:30
  this is all going to go down is already very clear. I'll get to
• 51:34
  that in a moment. But the other comparison that people meet, and this
• 51:38
  is one that's more interesting than jeb in twenty fifteen. A lot of people
• 51:43
  make the comparison between Trump and twenty twenty three and Hillary in two thousand and
• 51:49
  seven. Hillary Clinton was, of course, the presumed Democratic nominee in twenty
• 51:54
  two thousand and seven, and then all of a sudden at the end of
• 51:58
  two thousand and seven, Obama came along and took her by surprise and ends
• 52:04
  up winning the nomination and becoming president. Now people forget, by the way,
• 52:09
  that Hillary Clinton actually got more votes in the Democratic primary in two thousand
• 52:15
  and eight than Barack Obama did. But the news media, in an unprecedented
• 52:21
  fashion, lifted Barack Obama on their shoulders. To mix a metaphor, they
• 52:27
  blew a hurricane wind at his back. Hurricane wind, I mean I literally
• 52:31
  did a very very prominent movie documentary called Media maut Practice, How Obama Got
• 52:37
  Elected, which debuted on The Today Show in an interview live interview in the
• 52:42
  seventh thirty slide with Matt Lower made huge news, and you know that,
• 52:46
  to me was a sea change in the media. I mean, the media
• 52:50
  before that had always been biased, but never before had they ever just decided,
• 52:53
  you know what, we are going to decide that this guy is just
• 52:58
  not only the nominee but the president because we're just so in love with him,
• 53:00
  and we love the narrative, and he's you know, he's half black
• 53:04
  and half white, and he's so clean, and he speaks so well,
• 53:07
  and he titillates us. And poor Hillary, you can just go screw yourself
• 53:13
  now on paper, on paper, that comparison to the Republican nominating process in
• 53:20
  twenty twenty four should make some sense, because if we lived in a rational
• 53:24
  world, Rhonda Santis would be the Obama of this cycle, right. I
• 53:32
  mean, what he did during COVID was spectacular. As a conservative, you
• 53:37
  should be thrilled with all the other things he's doing in Florida. He wins
• 53:39
  this massive victory by twenty points over a former governor of the state. I
• 53:45
  mean, here's way, way, way more substance behind the narrative that Rhonda
• 53:52
  Santis is a savior than there ever was for Barack Obama. However, there's
• 54:00
  a massive problem. Reality doesn't mean anything anymore. Facts don't mean anything anymore.
• 54:06
  Logic doesn't mean anything anymore. The media created that narrative about Obama because
• 54:12
  it fits their agenda. In multiple ways, the media is creating the exact
• 54:16
  opposite narrative surrounding RHN. De Sandis even much of the conservative media, because
• 54:23
  they are beholden to Trump. So while Obama was riding a hurricane wave at
• 54:30
  his back, De Santist is going uphill into the wind on ice with lead
• 54:36
  bricks around his feet. I mean, this is as clear as day to
• 54:42
  me. I mean I had somebody credible try to make this comparison just yesterday.
• 54:46
  I was godsmacked. I mean, how can anybody believe that the Santists
• 54:52
  can pull off what Obama did? And by the way, Hillary, while
• 54:57
  she wasn't a president, she was a first lady all the knowledge that so
• 55:00
  there's an analogy there with regard to certainly name recognition and you know, have
• 55:06
  being a known entity. But she never had anything close to the cult that
• 55:12
  Trump has. A lot of her support was very soft, and even still
• 55:17
  she's still she's still I will always maintain that if you know, if the
• 55:24
  media wasn't going to claim that she was racist for doing it, she could
• 55:29
  have won the nomination. I mean, some of the things that that not
• 55:31
  to get too deeply into it, but some of the things that the Democratic
• 55:36
  Party did to sabotage her in two thousand and eight are extraordinary. I mean,
• 55:43
  and if they had ever happened to Obama, they would have been considered
• 55:45
  racist. What happened with the Florida and the Michigan delegates that year just astonishing.
• 55:51
  And so even with all those advantages, Obama barely pulled this off.
• 55:58
  And so if you make the analogy between Obama and the Santis, it's actually
• 56:01
  a terrible, terrible analogy, because Trump has all kinds of advantages over Hillary,
• 56:09
  and the Santis has all sorts of disadvantages when it comes to Obama,
• 56:15
  especially when it comes to remember, a large part of the Obama narrative was
• 56:20
  the history history the first black presidential candidate of you know, of major proportions,
• 56:25
  and that just kept, you know, creating momentum for itself. And
• 56:30
  so neither of those comparisons are relevant. And because of the unique circumstances here,
• 56:38
  I believe we can really start to make conclusions. I mean, we
• 56:43
  have learned an enormous amount, enormous amount, especially on the Republican side,
• 56:49
  about how this will turn out. Let's just go through the list here,
• 56:52
  all right. The number one thing, number one question in twenty twenty four
• 56:57
  and the Republican side was will Trump run? And will he be healthy and
• 57:01
  vigorous enough to do so? Check he ran immediately after the twenty twenty two
• 57:10
  disastrous mid terms. I mean, timing was horrendous. He paid very little
• 57:15
  of any price for that. But he's clearly ready to go. He's in
• 57:20
  it to win it. He has the energy, his health is good enough.
• 57:23
  I've said before in this podcast. That's the number one issue in the
• 57:28
  campaign. Does Donald Trump wake up every morning and is he able to run
• 57:32
  a viable campaign? And it's clear that that is not just a yes,
• 57:37
  but it's a hell yes. So check mark number one. Check mark number
• 57:43
  two. Is the cult still with him? One hundred percent? The cult
• 57:47
  is still with him. They have made that exceedingly clear. We still don't
• 57:51
  know for sure what percentage of the voting populace his cult represents, but the
• 57:57
  cult is absolutely still there. There was a little bit of signs of some
• 58:00
  weakening on the fringes, but especially post indictments, it's obvious that the cult
• 58:07
  is still very much with Donald Trump. How about the media, what's the
• 58:14
  right wing media gonna do? Are they going to abandon Donald Trump? Are
• 58:17
  they going to attack him? Are they going to fully embrace a contender against
• 58:22
  him, like Rhonda Santis. I think we have our answer now. We
• 58:27
  know the right wing media, and it's been very very clear. Tucker Carlson
• 58:30
  being the best or the worst example of this, depending on your perspective,
• 58:35
  has made it very obvious they're not going to bring down Donald Trump. They
• 58:38
  are not going to do it. They are not even going to try.
• 58:43
  They know it's too risky, they know too much of their audience would be
• 58:45
  lost probably forever. You know, They're they're just never going to do it.
• 58:52
  And and Fox News Channel apparently isn't even going to try to ignore him
• 58:57
  anymore, as I've already outlined with recent interviews with Hannity and with Tucker Carlson.
• 59:05
  So the right wing media is clearly a check mark in in what these
• 59:13
  questions were about how this Republican nominating process would go down. It's a check
• 59:17
  mark and Trump's favor. It's probably even better for Trump than I even anticipated.
• 59:22
  How about the left wing media? What's the left wing media doing?
• 59:27
  They're playing right in the Trump's hands. Do we saw it with the indictment,
• 59:30
  you know, the OJ Simpson Bronco Chase coverage making him bigger than he
• 59:35
  is, showing how much they hate him, which only gives him fuel,
• 59:39
  and then also going after Ron De Santis, so simultaneously claiming that Trump is
• 59:46
  this danger to democracy but also the only viable candidate that he's running against.
• 59:51
  We're going to torpedo him too, and I've illustrated numerous examples of that on
• 59:57
  this podcast. So the media huge check mark for Trump. Is there going
• 1:00:02
  to be a pack field? That was the great fear that I had.
• 1:00:07
  Absolutely there's going to be a pack field. Tim Scott just announced this morning,
• 1:00:13
  Effectibility's running for president senator from South Carolina. So we're gonna have at
• 1:00:17
  least five, six, seven eight candidates in the debates and still viable in
• 1:00:23
  all likelihood by Iowa and Hampshire, which plays right into Donald Trump's hands.
• 1:00:30
  Everybody knows it, and tr Trump himself knows it, which is why he's
• 1:00:35
  hands off on everybody but the Santists, because the Santists is the only one
• 1:00:38
  he considers to be a threat. So check mark for Donald Trump. Our
• 1:00:45
  Trump's attacks on the Santis gonna work or are they going to backfire? Because
• 1:00:51
  the Santists is somehow such a beloved figure within the Republican base. Well,
• 1:00:55
  we know they've working, they're working. How much they're working, we're not,
• 1:01:00
  are you out? But they certainly have him backfired, and it's clear
• 1:01:04
  from the polling data that they are at least somewhat working. As Trump goes
• 1:01:08
  up, the Santis goes down. And so we now know that that Trump
• 1:01:15
  still has his magic. And by the way, by virtue of this,
• 1:01:20
  you know, increase in his polling lead, it further facilitates this this narrative
• 1:01:27
  or this myth that Donald Trump is magic, that no one can go up
• 1:01:30
  against him, that anyone who dares to do so will be immediately torched.
• 1:01:36
  I mean, that's that's the narrative about Donald Trump. Because of what happened
• 1:01:37
  in twenty sixteen and and everything that happened after that, well we're personally close
• 1:01:45
  to basically Trump being able to put another mark on his lipstick case, and
• 1:01:52
  that one will be named Rhonda Santis. Then he know he took care of
• 1:01:57
  Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Jeff Bush and all the other potential contenders in
• 1:02:02
  twenty sixteen, and he goes after Rohn is sanctimonious, and he's still got
• 1:02:07
  the magic so check mark on that. So health check, cult check,
• 1:02:14
  media check, packfield check, attacks on an opponent, working check. So
• 1:02:20
  what else is there to know? What else is there to know? I
• 1:02:27
  mean, I mean again, all of this is premised on the fact that
• 1:02:30
  Trump basically stays alive and stays out of prison. That's really all that matters
• 1:02:37
  at this point. Does Trump stay alive and reasonably healthy, and does he
• 1:02:42
  stay out of prison? And I don't see any scenario where he's in prison
• 1:02:45
  in time for it to matter. I don't even know for sure that it
• 1:02:49
  would matter. But that's where we are. So don't give me this business
• 1:02:54
  that, oh, John's too early, It's too early to be coming to
• 1:02:58
  any sort of conclusions here. Now. I want to be very fair,
• 1:03:01
  and I want to put put all sides out there. I want to make
• 1:03:06
  the argument that and this is really the last shot that the Santist has is
• 1:03:10
  because the argument for to Santists over Trump is so incredibly powerful on paper and
• 1:03:17
  in the real world. And so you know, that's basically I think what
• 1:03:22
  we're having here. And I've lived this before. I know I've say this
• 1:03:27
  so many times, but living through the Penn State Joe Paterno Jerry Sandusky story,
• 1:03:31
  I think really has equipped me for seeing how things are going to turn
• 1:03:36
  out in other situations. COVID was a great example. But I think that
• 1:03:40
  people who believe in the truth and who understand reality, and who are smart,
• 1:03:47
  and who can see very clearly that the Santist is obviously the choice over
• 1:03:52
  Trump, they can't comprehend that that that has no meaning. It's the same
• 1:03:58
  thing that happened with and still happens with some people to this day on the
• 1:04:01
  Penn State patern of Sandwsky. Thing that's never gonna get fixed. I've known
• 1:04:04
  that for years. Yet there are people who go, wait a minute,
• 1:04:08
  John, how is that possible. It's it's obvious. You're right, it's
• 1:04:11
  obvious what the truth here is. And I said, well, that doesn't
• 1:04:14
  matter. We don't live in that world. The truth has no power anymore
• 1:04:19
  unless the media decides that they for whatever reason, in that particular circumstance that
• 1:04:24
  they want it to matter, and even then sometimes it doesn't. But the
• 1:04:28
  reality here is that the Santis is so clearly a better choice that it gives
• 1:04:34
  I think a lot of people false hope that you know, it's here's a
• 1:04:41
  bizarre analogy. You remember when in the Superman movie, Superman gives up in
• 1:04:49
  the Christopher Reeves version and he gives up his powers to be with Lois Lane,
• 1:04:55
  and he decides that was a really bad idea, which it obviously was,
• 1:05:00
  and he goes up to his headquarters and you know, the whole thing
• 1:05:04
  is destroyed, except there's one crystal left, and he uses that one crystal
• 1:05:10
  to to basically rebuild the whole thing and get his powers back. Right.
• 1:05:14
  So here's my metaphor, and that the truth is that one last crystal,
• 1:05:19
  and people who believe in the truth think, well, as long as that
• 1:05:21
  crystal still exists, we can rebuild this, we can win this, right,
• 1:05:26
  because the truth has that much power that that's just one little piece of
• 1:05:29
  truth crystal will do it. Except this isn't the Superman movie. This is
• 1:05:34
  real life, and the crystal of truth has no power. But just for
• 1:05:40
  the record, a lot of people still do believe that the Santists can pull
• 1:05:45
  this off because it's so obvious he should be the nominee, and it's so
• 1:05:48
  obviously he should be the nominee for for very clear reasons. I mean,
• 1:05:53
  the short argument is he can serve two terms and Trump can only serve one.
• 1:05:59
  His disapproval ratings are far far less horrific than Donald Trump's because he hasn't
• 1:06:06
  yet been destroyed by the news media in the minds of independent or soft Republican
• 1:06:14
  voters. So DeSantis says far greater potential in a general election than Donald Trump
• 1:06:20
  does. Joe Biden is the most likely nominee DeSantis on the Democratic side.
• 1:06:28
  Obviously, DeSantis matches up so much better against Biden than Trump does, if
• 1:06:32
  for no other reason than Trump already lost to Biden in twenty twenty and Trump
• 1:06:38
  immediately takes the age issue off the table. The number one issue with Joe
• 1:06:43
  Biden is he's eighty years old. Will you take that issue off the table
• 1:06:46
  if you nominate Donald Trump, not to mention, you also take the entire
• 1:06:50
  COVID issue off the table. If you nominate Donald Trump and you take which
• 1:06:55
  is related, you take the inflation issue off the table if you dominate Donald
• 1:07:00
  Trump. Because Donald Trump was the one who started the inflation by the massive
• 1:07:03
  spending and the shutdowns during COVID. So he can't go after him on inflation,
• 1:07:10
  he can't go after him on COVID, he can't go after him on
• 1:07:13
  the age. He can only serve one term. He's hated by fifty five
• 1:07:16
  percent of the American public. Meanwhile, the santists who actually gets crap done
• 1:07:21
  is a young guy with an amazing background. Ivy league educated lawyer, a
• 1:07:28
  tremendous wife, a great family. He saved the world during COVID. He's
• 1:07:32
  doing all sorts of things on a daily basis in Florida that the Republican base
• 1:07:38
  agrees with. He understands the peril that the rest of the country is in.
• 1:07:43
  He's far smarter than Trump. He's not going to get played like Trump.
• 1:07:46
  He showed that during COVID. I mean, this is the easiest equation
• 1:07:51
  you could possibly come up with. This is basically two plus three equals five
• 1:07:56
  determining who the better candidate in this race is and who Republicans ought to go
• 1:08:00
  with. I mean, so that's a theory a powerful tool for Rhonda Santis
• 1:08:08
  as I make the argument on behalf of the Santists that he still might have
• 1:08:12
  a shot. He has an incredibly strong argument, and in theory, he's
• 1:08:17
  going to have the money to tell that story. Although I'm starting to question
• 1:08:21
  whether or not Trump has smartly attacked him early enough and change the narrative early
• 1:08:29
  enough to where a lot of these financial backers that were promising big money to
• 1:08:32
  Rhnda Santists get cold feet, just as NBC one of them too. In
• 1:08:36
  an article I detailed a few episodes that go on this podcast and that that
• 1:08:40
  money's going to dry up. I don't know that, I have no inside
• 1:08:43
  information that that's happening, but it would not surprise me at all at all
• 1:08:47
  if some of these donors start to hit pause based upon the current circumstances,
• 1:08:55
  and that this becomes a self defeating prophecy. But in theory, the Santis
• 1:09:00
  is going to have the money to be able to tell a hell of a
• 1:09:02
  story, a story that should, in a rational world, really resonate with
• 1:09:08
  Republican voters. Now I question whether or not it's going to have the impact
• 1:09:14
  that it should. I believe that the Fauci issue itself is not going to
• 1:09:19
  have nearly the power that it should because Trumpers are able to rationalize anything.
• 1:09:25
  And I've said before, I really think part of the problem here with COVID
• 1:09:30
  being the Santos's greatest selling point is that the footprint nationally was never large enough
• 1:09:38
  on that. I mean, most of the country doesn't believe that. They
• 1:09:44
  don't. First of all, I don't know the story, and second of
• 1:09:45
  all, they're just not equipped to understand that the Santos was right and everyone
• 1:09:51
  else was wrong. And so this is not you know, for a small
• 1:09:57
  portion of the country, this is a huge issue will always be an issue,
• 1:10:00
  but it's it's I don't think it's over fifty percent even close to that
• 1:10:04
  in a Republican primary. And by the way, a lot of the people
• 1:10:08
  for whom it is a ug issue are already part of the Trump cult.
• 1:10:12
  So they just they just decide, you know what, he's not perfect,
• 1:10:16
  but he's still my man, and I'm loyal to Donald Trump, and he
• 1:10:20
  you know, he's learned from his mistakes. He's not going to do it
• 1:10:24
  again. Kind of the O. J. Simpson argument. I remember people
• 1:10:27
  making, well, he's not going to kill his wife again, so let's
• 1:10:30
  let's let him go. I remember people actually making that argument, which I
• 1:10:32
  just thought was insane. But it's kind of the same deal with Trump and
• 1:10:35
  COVID. So I just don't see the COVID issue being as powerful as it
• 1:10:42
  should be, or even I thought it might be at one point. But
• 1:10:46
  the Descantis argument still has viability. I want to be clear about that.
• 1:10:51
  I mean, it still makes some sense, not only because on paper it's
• 1:10:56
  so strong, and if assuming he has the money, you know, Trump
• 1:11:00
  is going to have a negative. He is going to have a negative when
• 1:11:04
  it comes to this surge that he's just experienced, because in theory, in
• 1:11:12
  theory, what's going to happen here is all right, we've now set the
• 1:11:15
  narrative that the Trump is way ahead, way ahead. Well what comes up
• 1:11:19
  usually comes down, and Desantist hasn't even announced yet, so there's still a
• 1:11:26
  scenario where you know, this calms down passions fade. I talked about my
• 1:11:31
  mother in law being talked off the ledge after the indictment, saying that she
• 1:11:35
  was now going to vote for Trump, and then we had to convince her
• 1:11:40
  that that was a dumb idea and she was able to figure that out.
• 1:11:43
  But you know, I don't know how many people are going to have people
• 1:11:45
  like me and my wife are around these Trumpers to be able to talk him
• 1:11:49
  off the ledge. But the point here is that there is time for this
• 1:11:55
  to fade. There is time for desantist to announce he's going to run.
• 1:12:00
  I am not of the belief that he's going to get a massive surge from
• 1:12:02
  exactly for actually announcing, but he could get some significant surge from that.
• 1:12:11
  It's it'll be easier to be able to discern exactly where they are when you
• 1:12:15
  know DeSantis is an official candidate. But Trump has done an incredibly good job
• 1:12:21
  of using this time period where DeSantis is not a candidate, to be able
• 1:12:27
  to have his cake and eat it too attacking a non candidate while DeSantis is,
• 1:12:32
  you know, still running the state of Florida during a legislative session and
• 1:12:35
  selling a book and has decided to hold his fire. Well, I'm of
• 1:12:43
  the belief that he may have held the fire too too long at this point,
• 1:12:45
  because you in order to attack Trump, you have to be seen as
• 1:12:50
  at least at his eye level, and we're quickly coming to a point where
• 1:12:56
  DeSantis is not going to be at Trump's eye level, and then those attacks
• 1:13:00
  will have no impact and they will look desperate. And so that is a
• 1:13:05
  really dangerous situation for DeSantis. But again I'm trying to make I'm getting sidetracked
• 1:13:12
  from making the positive argument, the positive argument that the optimistic scenario is as
• 1:13:18
  follows. So DeSantis announces, he gets a bit of a bump. Slowly
• 1:13:24
  but surely, the indictment bump fades for Trump, and now you can create
• 1:13:30
  a narrative. Now you can create a narrative where, oh, Trump is
• 1:13:35
  starting to fade, de Santis is surging. And then DeSantis gets to spend
• 1:13:41
  hopefully some of this money that he actually has. He's a real candidate.
• 1:13:45
  And now as we get closer later on in the year to people actually voting,
• 1:13:50
  he has the momentum. There's even a scenario if I want to be
• 1:13:55
  really optimistic. I'm not really prone to this, but there's even scenario under
• 1:14:00
  this set of circumstances that I just outlined, where the Santist gets a little
• 1:14:05
  bump from announcing, the indictment bump fades for Trump. There becomes this narrative
• 1:14:13
  that the race is tightening, that the Santist is surging, that maybe some
• 1:14:19
  in the right wing media feel more comfortable, more comfortable not abandoning Trump totally,
• 1:14:29
  but at least pushing the santis a little bit and maybe knocking Trump a
• 1:14:34
  little bit because the indictment allowed them to build up street crag. Now I
• 1:14:41
  realized, I don't really believe this argument, but at least I think there's
• 1:14:45
  a chance. Like let me give you Tucker Carlson as example. Let's be
• 1:14:48
  clear, Well, I don't believe that my text messages to him are gonna
• 1:14:53
  have any real impact. I'm trying the best I can. You know,
• 1:14:57
  is it possible that somewhere down the road, Tucker uses the street credit he's
• 1:15:01
  built up over the last couple of months in propping Trump up to potentially take
• 1:15:06
  him down. Yeah, that's possible, But based upon its text message responses,
• 1:15:12
  I got I don't see that happening because Tucker doesn't even see himself in
• 1:15:15
  that role. That's why it was so incredibly telling and depressing about his responses
• 1:15:19
  to me. But is it theoretically possible that, if if the momentum swings
• 1:15:26
  in the other direction, that Trump has shot his wad effectively? You know,
• 1:15:30
  both from a polling as well as a fundraising standpoint, because that's the
• 1:15:32
  other thing Trump raised, you know, a bunch of money because of the
• 1:15:36
  indictment, but he can't go back to that. Well, those are all
• 1:15:41
  small donors. So unless the big donors decide, okay, you know what,
• 1:15:45
  he's gonna win. We hate him, but we got to go through
• 1:15:47
  this one more time because we got to stop Biden from from being reelected.
• 1:15:53
  So unless that happens, which could, but under the positive scenario Trump,
• 1:15:58
  all Trump did was pump out the last vestiges of this well of money from
• 1:16:05
  his small donors. He can't go back to those small donors again. I
• 1:16:11
  mean, how do you repeat I'm getting arrested, I've just gotten indicted by
• 1:16:15
  the Manhattan DA Give me money. How does that get repeated? Especially when
• 1:16:20
  you're dealing with millions of small donors, with the economy going to crap and
• 1:16:27
  an inflation killing especially seniors. So Trump's going to have a money problem.
• 1:16:33
  Part of the timing and the indictment was so great for Trump as that had
• 1:16:36
  happened just before the filing deadline for the first quarter, so his numbers were
• 1:16:42
  gonna look terrible. Now they won't look as terrible. But he can't go
• 1:16:46
  back to the well that well is drying up in theory to Santis as well
• 1:16:50
  is not dried up because it's from big donors. Of course, in the
• 1:16:56
  bizarreness that is the Republican primary process. Now, getting big donor money is
• 1:17:00
  a negative. It's a negative now to the average Republican voter. And I'm
• 1:17:06
  not quite sure that other than in things like organization in Iowa, where it
• 1:17:12
  still matters, I'm not sure that that money really rules the day. I
• 1:17:16
  mean, Trump doesn't need that much money because he's got one hundred percent name
• 1:17:20
  recognition and he can get on the media now even on Fox News Channel whenever
• 1:17:24
  he wants, and he uses him to use Twitter, but he can use
• 1:17:29
  Twitter whenever he wants. He's back allowed on Twitter. He hasn't tweeted yet,
• 1:17:32
  but he's got ninety million Twitter followers, so he doesn't really need that
• 1:17:38
  much money. So here, even as I'm trying to make the positive argument,
• 1:17:43
  the negativity still comes through, because unfortunately, I think that's where we
• 1:17:45
  are and that's where the truth is. But finishing the positive the Santis scenario,
• 1:17:51
  he gets momentum some of the right wing media that's who have built up
• 1:17:57
  Street credit and defending Trump, you know, during the tent and everything else
• 1:18:00
  surrounding. It feel like, you know what, maybe these numbers we're seeing
• 1:18:05
  between Trump and Biden aren't real good, and it does seem as if the
• 1:18:11
  Santist does better against Biden and Trump, does you know maybe this is the
• 1:18:15
  time that we shift, we shift captains guys. I don't really see that
• 1:18:19
  happening. It's possible, it could happen with some I don't think it's going
• 1:18:24
  to happen with the big guys, the people that are most influential, specifically
• 1:18:28
  the people on Fox. I think that at best they're going to be agnostic,
• 1:18:31
  and agnosticism isn't going to cut it here. And so we get to
• 1:18:36
  Iowa, and you know that's going to be very key. You know,
• 1:18:43
  somehow, some way, the Santis has got to be a very strong second,
• 1:18:47
  at least to Trump in Iowa, and in a multi candidate race,
• 1:18:50
  it's going to be very very difficult, especially in a caucus where I think
• 1:18:55
  Trump has a lot of advantages. But if the Santist has the money and
• 1:19:00
  he has the organization, an organization really matters in Iowa, could he pull
• 1:19:03
  off a big upset there. Yes, then you go to New Hampshire,
• 1:19:08
  New Hampshire. You know, a month or two ago there was a pole
• 1:19:12
  showing Trump up by forty one points in New Hampshire. Then the most recent
• 1:19:16
  poll after the indictment showed Trump only up by thirteen points, which Trump hailed
• 1:19:21
  in his fundraising email. Is a signed that he's he's dominating the field where
• 1:19:27
  you could argued that he's collapsing. I don't believe he was collapsing there,
• 1:19:30
  but you know, if you just go by the numbers, he was.
• 1:19:33
  There hasn't been a poll recently in New Hampshire, but unfortunately, there was
• 1:19:36
  a poll out just today in Massachusetts. It's a different state, but it's
• 1:19:42
  bordering New Hampshire, and Trump wins by an absolute massive blowout. It's a
• 1:19:49
  complete catastrophe. And so you know, New Hampshire has a history of doing
• 1:19:58
  the opposite of whatever iowa. Um, and so, uh, you know,
• 1:20:02
  my guests under this, you know, look, I'm trying to be
• 1:20:05
  as optimistic as possible. You know, it's to live free or die state.
• 1:20:09
  You would think that the guy that that save freedom during COVID Rondo Santists
• 1:20:13
  would have a shot there and and the governor of New Hampshire may or may
• 1:20:17
  not run. Chris Sinuno has said he thinks that the Santists would win New
• 1:20:23
  Hampshire. I am not as optimistic as he is based upon the current data,
• 1:20:30
  especially with a multi candidate race, because you're still gonna have people not
• 1:20:34
  dropping out by then, and so, you know, but under the optimistic
• 1:20:39
  scenario, you somehow at least are a very strong second in both Iowa and
• 1:20:45
  New Hampshire. Maybe you somehow pull off an upset, you know, I
• 1:20:47
  can I can see a scenario. I can see a scenario where where Trump
• 1:20:53
  barely wins Iowa and it gets kind of passed off as well. It's a
• 1:20:57
  caucus and the cult has more power there. Let's see what happens in New
• 1:21:00
  Hampshire and New Hampshire because they have an remarkable historical pre election for not wanting
• 1:21:08
  the process to end. I think that's why they do the opposite of what
• 1:21:12
  Iowa does. I could see some independence deciding, you know what, let's
• 1:21:15
  not end this for Trump. You know he won Iowa. Let's you know,
• 1:21:19
  I'm not sold on this totally, and and the Santis pulls off a
• 1:21:24
  miraculous last second upset in New Hampshire. I can see that scenario that gets
• 1:21:30
  you in the ball game. If you're the Santis. If that happens,
• 1:21:32
  strong second in Iowa, somehow win even by I don't care if it's by
• 1:21:39
  two votes in New Hampshire. You somehow win or tie in New Hampshire.
• 1:21:43
  You're in the game now because now it's just two candidates. Everyone else will
• 1:21:46
  be forced to drop out and you head to South Carolina. Problem with South
• 1:21:51
  Carolina is, well, you know we got we got bubble problems in South
• 1:21:58
  Carolina. But there's a new Paul out in South Carolina that is frankly the
• 1:22:02
  most emblematic poll of any you could possibly imagine for how no one has learned
• 1:22:09
  the lessons of twenty sixteen. Trump is at forty one, which is at
• 1:22:14
  a number that's very beatable, right except in a multi candidate race, and
• 1:22:20
  DeSantis is basically twenty points behind, and the rest of the field is all
• 1:22:26
  in single digits. But they're all taking right out of the Santis, including
• 1:22:29
  Nicki Haley, including Tim Scott. This is before he even announced that he
• 1:22:33
  was gonna basically run for president. He's the senator from South Carolina, and
• 1:22:39
  so at that point, you're it's basically up to NICKI Haley and Tim Scott.
• 1:22:45
  You know, if they were to endorse de Santis in South Carolina,
• 1:22:48
  then I think you got a shot. If everyone's out of the race and
• 1:22:53
  everyone's coalescing around the Santis in South Carolina, then you have a chance.
• 1:22:59
  And you know, so this is the this is the thread the needle scenario
• 1:23:02
  where you survive Iowa and surprise in New Hampshire, you get the you know,
• 1:23:10
  Haley and Scott on your team in South Carolina, Haley obviously the former
• 1:23:15
  governor of South Carolina, and you know, you somehow win South Carolina if
• 1:23:19
  that happens. Now money really matters, okay, because now we're heading into
• 1:23:27
  We've got the Vada in there too. I actually think Trump is gonna win
• 1:23:30
  the Vada. But I don't want to forget about Nevada. But I consider
• 1:23:32
  South Carolina more important than the Nevada Caucuses. But at after South Carolina,
• 1:23:39
  you get um, you get Super Tuesday, and that's where Trump might have
• 1:23:44
  a big problem with money. He might have a big problem with organization.
• 1:23:48
  And at that point Trump the Santas would have enough momentum where the floodgates would
• 1:23:53
  open on fundraising for him, and then it would all come down to Florida.
• 1:23:58
  That's that's when it would that would really be the battle Royale. It
• 1:24:02
  would be all about Florida, because obviously the Santis can't win the nomination if
• 1:24:08
  he doesn't win Florida. And unfortunately, as I've said many times before,
• 1:24:11
  Trump has I think a unique advantage in Florida. Not only does he live
• 1:24:15
  in Florida and he's very popular there, but also you're going to have some
• 1:24:20
  people who are going to look at this and go, well, gee,
• 1:24:24
  can't I have Trump as my president and the Santis as my governor? Why
• 1:24:28
  would I want to give up the Santis as my governor? And so even
• 1:24:31
  they might love De Santis and they might vote for Trump. And I think
• 1:24:34
  we're seeing some of that in the very dramatic differences in the polling data out
• 1:24:40
  of Florida. We're seeing poles where Trump is way ahead in Florida. We're
• 1:24:44
  seeing poles where De Santis is way ahead in Florida. We're seeing poles in
• 1:24:48
  Santis is slightly ahead in Florida. And I think it's partially because of this
• 1:24:53
  phenomenon, and I'm talking to you about where a lot of Republican voters are
• 1:24:57
  very much on the fence, and they delusionally think that, well, we
• 1:25:00
  can get we can get Trump in twenty twenty four and Santis can remain our
• 1:25:03
  governor, and the de Santist could be the president of twenty twenty eight.
• 1:25:06
  It's all fantasy. That's not going to happen. The country has gone at
• 1:25:10
  that point because Trump ain't, ain't likely to win and so um so.
• 1:25:15
  But I'm outlining the pro de Santis scenario here. And if you win Florida,
• 1:25:21
  then I think you got the nomination right if you if you can survive
• 1:25:25
  Iowa, win New Hampshire, you know, hold your own in Nevada,
• 1:25:30
  win South Carolina, and then win Florida. By the way, you know,
• 1:25:36
  Super Tuesday has a lot of other Southern states, all of which the
• 1:25:40
  Santis should do pretty well in, especially Georgia. I don't know when George's
• 1:25:44
  primary is, but the point is that you know you have you can make
• 1:25:49
  an argument then that that while it'll be a long slog, the Santist would
• 1:25:54
  have the advantage. By the way, I should point out that a large
• 1:25:57
  part of the argument for De Santas goes to the geography that he can take
• 1:26:03
  advantage of that Trump cannot in a general election against Joe Biden, and Georgia
• 1:26:10
  is a big part of that. De Santists wins Georgia, Trump loses Georgia.
• 1:26:15
  De Santis has a better shot in Arizona than Trump does. We've just
• 1:26:19
  learned from the twenty twenty two elections. Trump can't win Georgia because his candidate
• 1:26:26
  just lost there, while the Desantist governor, Brian Camp they're basically joined at
• 1:26:30
  the hip. During COVID he won fairly easily. Meanwhile, the two Trump
• 1:26:35
  candidates in Arizona for governor and Senate both lost winnable races. So Trump has
• 1:26:43
  already shown he can't win those two key states, while De Santist can,
• 1:26:47
  and because he's not as destroyed with independent voters, he has a much better
• 1:26:50
  shot in places like Nevada or Wisconsin or maybe even Pennsylvania. So I didn't
• 1:26:56
  want to leave that out of the argument for why De Santis is clearly the
• 1:27:00
  better choice. So I just outline the most optimistic scenario I possibly can based
• 1:27:08
  upon the current circumstances, for how it is that the Santis could win a
• 1:27:12
  very long slog to the nomination. But there's a problem. There's a big
• 1:27:20
  problem. Everything I just told you is plausible, unlikely, but plausible.
• 1:27:27
  The problem is we now know for sure that after a long slog, there
• 1:27:32
  ain't no way in hell Donald Trump is playing ball. And in the general
• 1:27:36
  election, we know for sure when he is attacking he is attacking Rhnd Santis
• 1:27:45
  on a regular basis and praising Gavin Newsom on Fox News Channel with Tucker Carlson.
• 1:27:51
  We know for sure he ain't gonna let Rhonda Santis be president of the
• 1:27:58
  United States, especially by the way, if he's running against Newsom. But
• 1:28:02
  it doesn't matter whether, apparently if it's Biden or Newsom he is. Trump
• 1:28:08
  has already turned enough of his cult against the Santis in such a dramatic way
• 1:28:14
  that it wouldn't even take much of an effort for Trump to keep the Santis
• 1:28:18
  from winning a general election. And we already know put this on the check
• 1:28:23
  mark list. We already know that Trump is more than willing and capable of
• 1:28:28
  doing that. He could easily sabotage de Santis in a general election, and
• 1:28:33
  it's obvious from his actions as well as his general personality that that's exactly what
• 1:28:40
  he would do, especially in a long slog, bitter World War one trench
• 1:28:46
  warfare, primary battle, which is at this point that is the only scenario
• 1:28:51
  where De Santis can be the nominee. That's the only one, and that
• 1:28:57
  one leads to electoral death in the general election. So I am now willing
• 1:29:03
  to make effectively my first call. I have seen enough I can make my
• 1:29:10
  first call of the twenty twenty four presidential process. Now, of course,
• 1:29:16
  this is barring deaths, all right, barring deaths or may or at least
• 1:29:21
  one death or physical incapacitation, and maybe a perfectly timed economic collapse, right,
• 1:29:29
  I guess, I guess you could say, if you know, to
• 1:29:31
  say, it has wins, a long slog, and Trump isn't playing ball
• 1:29:34
  with a general election, and all of a sudden, just like two thousand
• 1:29:38
  and eight, we have an economic collapse at exactly the right time, and
• 1:29:43
  Art Biden has a massive health issue, I mean, some incredibly large black
• 1:29:47
  swan event. Barring something of that proportion, Ron de Sanders is not going
• 1:29:56
  to be elected president in twenty twenty four. I say that with great row.
• 1:30:00
  I say that by the way more than willing to fight this fight to
• 1:30:04
  the bitter bitter end for him to potentially pull that off. But barring a
• 1:30:11
  black Swan event, I am now positive Ron De Santis is not going to
• 1:30:15
  be elected president in twenty twenty four. And that's bad. That is really
• 1:30:24
  bad for the country, and I'm sure it's going to piss a lot of
• 1:30:27
  people off, especially coming before he's even announced. But I'm just telling you
• 1:30:30
  the truth, and I believe that very passionately, more passionately than Tucker Carlson
• 1:30:38
  hates Donald Trump. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it
• 1:30:43
  just as passionately. But there's no path, barring the black Swan events that
• 1:30:48
  I outline, for DeSantis to win the general election. Now, you know,
• 1:30:56
  anything is theoretically possible, And is it possible that De Santis wins them
• 1:31:00
  domination. Yeah, I still think it is possible, unlikely that he wins
• 1:31:04
  the nomination. I just don't think that that nomination, there's any path for
• 1:31:09
  that nomination have any value because the only path for that nomination have any value
• 1:31:13
  was that Trump fades away. Right, there was a theory at the beginning
• 1:31:19
  of this process, well, maybe Trump will just fade Maybe the cult is
• 1:31:26
  smaller than we think. Maybe the media ignores him, maybe he can't get
• 1:31:30
  any traction. Maybe De Santis takes control early on, and you know,
• 1:31:35
  like the wicked witch of the West, Trump just melts away and he doesn't
• 1:31:42
  have the power or the influence or the predilection to sabotage De Santis in the
• 1:31:48
  general election. That scenario is gone. That's part of the check marks we
• 1:31:55
  already went through. That scenario cannot happen now. Again, barring dying or
• 1:32:00
  being physically incapacitated, that that cannot happen. We already know that now,
• 1:32:04
  which is partially why I feel very comfortable and confident making these kind of pronouncements
• 1:32:12
  in April of twenty twenty three, because you know, look, part of
• 1:32:15
  this, I'm doing this partially because I care about the truth, Partially because
• 1:32:17
  I don't want people to be complacent and think, oh, it's all going
• 1:32:21
  to work out when it's not. And also it might help people psychologically to
• 1:32:26
  prepare for the worst, because this is where we're headed, folks. And
• 1:32:29
  maybe one of the things that I do better than most people is I go
• 1:32:32
  through the stages of grieving a lot faster than most people. Do, and
• 1:32:35
  I'm able to see the truth faster than most people are able to, and
• 1:32:41
  I'm willing to articulate it, either out of stupidity or whatever you might want
• 1:32:45
  to call it, but I'm not afraid to tell the truth once I've figured
• 1:32:48
  it out, even when i know people aren't gonna like it. Now,
• 1:32:53
  there's also the scenario that Trump wins the nomination, and he wins the nomination
• 1:32:58
  pretty easily, and this is what I call the Valkyrie scenario. All right,
• 1:33:05
  the Valkyrie scenario is all you have to do to understand how this is
• 1:33:09
  all going to go down is to watch the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie, which
• 1:33:14
  is a great movie. It's basically the story of Tom Cruise's character trying to
• 1:33:18
  take out Adolf Hitler and create a coup against Hitler in Nazi Germany. And
• 1:33:28
  and basically what happens is that Cruz, his character, thinks that he's successful
• 1:33:32
  at first, and there's a movement to take out Hitler, and there's a
• 1:33:38
  moment when it looks like the coup is gonna work, which you could argue
• 1:33:43
  has already passed in this Republican nominating process. And for the record, I
• 1:33:46
  am not comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. Just to be clear about that,
• 1:33:51
  I'm using the analogy of what happens in the movie because I think the
• 1:33:55
  movie, if you haven't watched it, that is the Republican nominating process.
• 1:34:00
  Because the key to a coup like this, the coup, the key to
• 1:34:03
  taking out a cult leader, is that when you strike, you must strike
• 1:34:09
  decisively, and you must give the people on your side the confidence that you
• 1:34:14
  are going to win, because then they have the courage to stand their ground.
• 1:34:18
  But the moment they think you're not gonna win, they scurry like rats
• 1:34:24
  because they all know they're gonna get killed. And we are very close to
• 1:34:30
  the scurrying like rats stage of the Valkyrie movie, where maybe the fundraisers get
• 1:34:36
  cold feet and the Santis's poll numbers dive to a point where he can't even
• 1:34:45
  be in touch with Trump and his attacks aren't gonna work and they may even
• 1:34:49
  backfire. I mean, the Morning Consult poll, which I've talked about previously,
• 1:34:55
  is incredibly depressing because it's just showing incrementally month by month, week by
• 1:35:00
  week that Trump increases and de Santis decreases. January second, they had Trump
• 1:35:08
  at forty five nationally, de Santis at thirty four percent. Not great but
• 1:35:12
  not terrible, especially since DeSantis obviously hadn't even announced he was running yet.
• 1:35:16
  In February, the eleven point margin went to eighteen. In March that the
• 1:35:21
  eighteen point margin went to twenty four. April ninth, the margin nationally is
• 1:35:28
  now thirty three points Trump fifty six, De Santis twenty three. That's the
• 1:35:34
  coup failing. That's the rats starting to jump from the ship. And once
• 1:35:43
  that perception becomes embedded, especially with Tucker Carlson lavishing praise on Donald Trump and
• 1:35:51
  Fox News Channel where he's now welcomed again, that's only gonna accelerate. So
• 1:35:57
  as I go through the negative scenario pro Trump scenario, I think there's a
• 1:36:02
  chance that DeSantis. Look, I was telling a friend about this who was
• 1:36:10
  a formerly pro Trump guy. One of the worst things to me that has
• 1:36:15
  happened in the last week or so. If I was advising De Santis at
• 1:36:20
  this point, I would honestly tell him, don't run. If you're Tom
• 1:36:25
  Cruise, you know what, don't don't try to bring the brute briefcase into
• 1:36:30
  Hitler's office and blow him up, because it's not gonna work. Don't do
• 1:36:35
  it. It's going to end up badly for you. But but now Trump,
• 1:36:40
  either through his dumb luck or his sick brilliance, has actually set up
• 1:36:45
  a situation where De Santis has nowhere to go because both he and Newsome have
• 1:36:54
  said De Santis shouldn't run. So if he were to at the last moment,
• 1:37:00
  say, you know what I thought about it. I have heard the
• 1:37:03
  voices of American Republicans and it's clear that they want to give Donald Trump a
• 1:37:11
  second try, or third try, whatever you want to call it. And
• 1:37:15
  and look, I wish him the best. I have grave reservations about what
• 1:37:20
  other this is going to work out, but I'm going to focus on Florida
• 1:37:25
  and do whatever I can to help the country in the future. If he
• 1:37:29
  did that, which is what I would have recommended him to do at this
• 1:37:31
  point, he's going to look like a giant pussy and uh, you know,
• 1:37:35
  he will be seen as taking the advice of Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom.
• 1:37:42
  And you know, while we have short memories, I don't know how
• 1:37:45
  in the future, especially as an unemployed guy by twenty twenty eight, that
• 1:37:49
  you ever ever overcome that again. So I don't. I don't even know
• 1:37:54
  what the hell I would tell the Santist to do at this point. I
• 1:37:57
  mean, if you know, under the negative scenario, this is all gonna
• 1:38:01
  work out very poorly, and there is even a scenario. I actually think
• 1:38:08
  that there is a scenario where Nicky Haley actually has a better chance of winning
• 1:38:14
  the nomination very low, very very low, then Ron de Santis does.
• 1:38:18
  As insane as that is. And the reason is because Nicky Haley's not in
• 1:38:23
  the line of fire. And Nicki Haley's actually raised a lot of money in
• 1:38:28
  the first quarter of this year, and she is liked in magaworld because she
• 1:38:33
  was the UN secretary under Donald Trump, and she's not a great candidate.
• 1:38:39
  She's way to PC And so I'm not suggesting that this is a very very
• 1:38:44
  long shot situation, but she could sling shot under the safety of not being
• 1:38:50
  attacked because Trump is so concerned about the Santis. And if the Santis ends
• 1:38:56
  up imploding at the last minute, you could see us situation where Haley catches
• 1:39:00
  fire. And and here's and here's why this might happen because there is a
• 1:39:08
  large portion within the Republican Party that just like there's the only Trumpers. There
• 1:39:13
  are still never Trumpers. Now, I don't know what that percentage is,
• 1:39:16
  but if it looks like the Santists isn't going to be able to pull off
• 1:39:20
  the coup, right if if it looks like Tom Cruise has failed in the
• 1:39:26
  mission, there're gonna be a lot of people that abandoned the Santists and look
• 1:39:30
  for somebody else pronto, because they're gonna be people who their primary focus is
• 1:39:35
  making sure Trump is not the nominee. They love the Santists, but they're
• 1:39:41
  not married to him the way that the Trumpers are to Trump. So there's
• 1:39:45
  even a scenario here where not only does De Santis not pull this off,
• 1:39:48
  that he basically implodes and becomes Jeb two point zero, even though he's a
• 1:39:57
  way better candidate. But I mean, the parallels are obvious theoretically establishment candidates,
• 1:40:03
  a two time governor of Florida, you know, I mean there,
• 1:40:09
  Jeff Bush has said nice things about the Santists, So you could see a
• 1:40:13
  situation where, you know, if if he doesn't get a bump from announcing,
• 1:40:18
  and the gap doesn't close, and it becomes clear that, Okay,
• 1:40:23
  De Santist isn't the guy, and after all, you know, the left
• 1:40:26
  wing media has been trying to create that narrative already that he's just as bad
• 1:40:30
  as Trump, but he's not ready for prime time. And you know that
• 1:40:33
  I can see a scenario where, desperately, when we get closer to the
• 1:40:39
  vote and it's looking like that De Santists can't do the job, that Hanley
• 1:40:45
  becomes the option of last resort. Again, very very low chance of that
• 1:40:51
  happening, but I can actually maybe make a strong argument that there's a path
• 1:40:57
  there then for De Santis. To be clear, I'm not saying that the
• 1:41:01
  Santisis path is non existing or that at zero I already outlined it. It's
• 1:41:05
  very precarious, there's a lot of landmines, and in the end it doesn't
• 1:41:10
  result in the presidency. But the reality is that Trump is going to have
• 1:41:15
  enormous advantages. When you have a cult in your back pocket, you start
• 1:41:25
  with effectively or at least forty percent of the vote, and when you have
• 1:41:30
  multiple candidates in the race, that's likely enough. That's why I went through
• 1:41:33
  the South Carolina pole. The South Carolina pole, you know, is Trump
• 1:41:39
  at forty one percent, which you should lose as a former president with a
• 1:41:44
  one hundred percent name recognition, forty one percent shouldn't hack it. But it
• 1:41:48
  will easily under this circumstance where you got seven or eight candidates, some of
• 1:41:54
  whom were there simply to block for Donald Trump to be a hitman, like
• 1:41:58
  Vevague Ramaswami. I mean, so this is going exactly as Trump would have
• 1:42:04
  wanted. Hailey, penns Ramaswamy, Scott, maybe, Chris Christie maybe in
• 1:42:15
  New Hampshire. The more they get in, the better for Trump, because
• 1:42:19
  he has that cult. And I still don't know what that number is.
• 1:42:26
  I keep saying, is it more or less than forty percent? Right now
• 1:42:28
  it certainly looks like more than because Trump is now easily pulling over fifty percent
• 1:42:33
  in the national palls, which are historically very unreliable in general and particularly when
• 1:42:39
  it comes to predicting primary states. But you know, like I said,
• 1:42:44
  South Carolina and Massachusetts just came out today, and while Massachusetts is in New
• 1:42:48
  Hampshire, it's a blood bath. It's an absolute blood bath. And A
• 1:42:55
  I know Desanders is not the candidate yet, I get it, but you're
• 1:43:00
  not going to suddenly get a massive fifteen point bump simply because you officially become
• 1:43:05
  a candidate and he can't become a candidate until probably at least June because of
• 1:43:11
  the Florida legislature legislature being in session. So the Valkyrie scenario, I think
• 1:43:17
  is far more likely than the thread the needle. The Santis wins the nomination
• 1:43:25
  scenario, and you know, at that point, I don't know what you
• 1:43:31
  do, because then Trump's the nominee and the Santist is probably toast forever.
• 1:43:40
  And you have Trump going up against the Democrats and we've already seen this movie
• 1:43:45
  before. We've already seen the movie specifically against Biden. So who is he
• 1:43:49
  going to run against? All Right, well, I'm still in the camp
• 1:43:54
  that it'll be Biden. You know, Biden has already suggested Al Roker that
• 1:44:00
  he's gonna run. He just hasn't announced it yet because that's who you tell
• 1:44:03
  on national television, Al Roker, the weather guy for the Today Show.
• 1:44:09
  But there's no indication that Biden is not going to run. And that's you
• 1:44:14
  know, the old saying possession is ninety percent of the law. Well,
• 1:44:17
  when it comes to presidential politics, possession is probably ninety five percent at least
• 1:44:23
  of the law even in this very strange asi in which we live, because
• 1:44:28
  once he announces, he's an incumbent president and if you run against him,
• 1:44:32
  not only do you threaten your own career and you know, if you lose,
• 1:44:36
  it's a total disaster. But the main thing is you are to run,
• 1:44:42
  you basically have to be making the argument that Biden is a failure,
• 1:44:46
  and the left wing media is not going to accept that narrative. Now there's
• 1:44:53
  room, I've said this before, there is room in the polling for someone
• 1:44:56
  to contend against Biden. But someone has to actually do it. It can't
• 1:45:01
  just be theoretical. There has to be an actual human being to do it,
• 1:45:04
  that has the name recognition, that has the money, that has the
• 1:45:08
  wherewithal, that has the incentive, that has the ability to be able to
• 1:45:14
  thread that needle which is maybe unthreadable against an incumbent president. I mean,
• 1:45:18
  heck, Ted Kennedy tried it against Jimmy Carter in nineteen eighty and it ended
• 1:45:24
  badly for Kennedy and it ended badly for Carter. It's a huge part of
• 1:45:29
  the reason why Carter lost was because he had a bruising primary battles as an
• 1:45:33
  incumbent president and since then, you know, by the way, the same
• 1:45:40
  thing happened and in nineteen ninety two with George W. Bush and Pat Buchannon.
• 1:45:45
  So it's not good at all for an incumbent president to have a primary
• 1:45:53
  challenge. And I just can't believe that the liberal media is going to put
• 1:45:58
  up with that if Biden run. So unless there's a massive health issue,
• 1:46:02
  Biden's gonna run. And if once he runs, who's going to run against
• 1:46:08
  him? Now, of course the media I will acknowledge his actions and his
• 1:46:13
  statements are certainly consistent with the idea that this could happen. The media is
• 1:46:16
  saying, well, what about Gavin Newsom? Okay, well what about Gavin
• 1:46:20
  Newsom? So tell me how that's gonna work. I am the biggest strongest
• 1:46:28
  Gavin Newsom critic on the planet. I'm also the most pessimistic person you'll ever
• 1:46:31
  hear in the public eye. Right, And even I do not see a
• 1:46:35
  path currently for Gavin Newsom unless he's just counting on Biden to die or be
• 1:46:41
  incapacitated during the process, right, which is not impossible. Not impossible.
• 1:46:45
  I don't know what the percentages are on that. It's not zero, So
• 1:46:50
  I guess you could argue that that would make some sense. But if it's
• 1:46:55
  Biden versus Newsome and Biden is not physically incapacitated, someone please tell me the
• 1:47:01
  path here for Gavin Newsom to be the nominee. Where is he going to
• 1:47:05
  make his mark? You gotta make your mark early. It looks as if
• 1:47:10
  they're gonna have South Carolina go first, So it's either going to be South
• 1:47:15
  Carolina or New Hampshire. They've abandoned Iowa because of the disaster that happened with
• 1:47:19
  the caucuses in twenty twenty, and also they've given up one Iowa in the
• 1:47:25
  general election, so too many white people in Iowa. So Iowa's gonna lose
• 1:47:30
  its spot on the Democratic side as a key race. So Gavin Newsom is
• 1:47:38
  gonna go up to New Hampshire, the live free or die state, and
• 1:47:43
  being an incumbent president three thousand miles away from where he is. I mean,
• 1:47:49
  I realized that Democrats in New Hampshire are very liberal, but I mean
• 1:47:54
  they don't have a particularly high view of California, and I just I just
• 1:48:00
  don't see how how that works. But more importantly, South Carolina, how
• 1:48:05
  the holy hell, is Gavin Newsom, oily haired, Gavin Newsom, rich,
• 1:48:14
  straight, white guy from San Francisco. How is he going to go
• 1:48:19
  into South Carolina, a southern state with a massive black population on the Democratic
• 1:48:26
  side, and beat Joe Biden when one hundred percent of the black vote is
• 1:48:30
  going to be or almost one hundred percent of the Black vote is going to
• 1:48:33
  vote for Joe Biden thanks to Congressman Clayborne, and and we saw what happened
• 1:48:40
  in twenty twenty, South Carolina pulled Biden's ass out of the fire. So
• 1:48:45
  you cannot win. You cannot win the Democratic nomination without a vast majority of
• 1:48:51
  the Black vote, or at least especially as a white person. You just
• 1:48:55
  you cannot do that. You need at least half or more. And generally
• 1:49:00
  there is no half when it comes to the black vote. The black vote
• 1:49:02
  seems to be monolithic and Democratic primaries. So how do you take away the
• 1:49:08
  black vote from Joe Biden if you're Gavin Newsom. Now I've heard some people
• 1:49:12
  say, well, that's why he's trying to give reparations in California. Okay,
• 1:49:15
  fine, yeah, I'm sure that I'll get some attention. I don't
• 1:49:18
  know if that's going to happen or not, anything's possible. But even I'm
• 1:49:24
  not sure that reparations in California helps him in a South Carolina primary among black
• 1:49:30
  people. I just I refuse to believe that. Now, maybe I'm being
• 1:49:33
  naive. I mean, maybe all bets are off at this point, but
• 1:49:39
  I just don't see how Newsom pulls that off unless there are massive health issues
• 1:49:45
  with Joe Biden, and if Biden doesn't run, okay, and it's Harris,
• 1:49:48
  And I realize Harris is a terrible candidate, But how the hell does
• 1:49:53
  Harris lose to Newsom when the black vote is so key, So black voters
• 1:49:59
  are going to vote for Gavin Newsom over Vice President Kamala Harris? What?
• 1:50:05
  And as far as Harris is concerned, it really bugs me that so many
• 1:50:10
  Republicans say, oh, John, she's such a terrible candidate. Why would
• 1:50:13
  we ever ever bother to worry about her. She couldn't even get one percent
• 1:50:16
  in the Democratic primary. She wasn't vice president or president. Then I realize
• 1:50:23
  she's terrible, But it's all about the stature and narrative. She's been vice
• 1:50:29
  president where will have been for four years during the twenty twenty four election,
• 1:50:33
  and if she becomes president, as I think she will likely do, when
• 1:50:39
  Biden resigns in twenty twenty seven, she's an incumbent president who made history,
• 1:50:44
  is the first female president. It's a totally different ball game. She's a
• 1:50:48
  different person now. And we've seen from Biden that being a good campaign or
• 1:50:55
  doesn't mean crap. We saw that with John Fetterman. It doesn't mean crap.
• 1:51:00
  And by the way, I love I've left out the debates, right,
• 1:51:03
  you know, yeah, even I bought him to the idea of well,
• 1:51:06
  desantists will crush the Trump and the debates. Well, no he won't.
• 1:51:13
  You know why he won't because the vake Ramiswami will be there to block
• 1:51:16
  for Trump or someone else will be there to block for Trump, and Trump
• 1:51:21
  will Trump is good enough to be able to come back with some semblance of
• 1:51:27
  a one liner in in a debate where you only have thirty seconds or a
• 1:51:31
  minute to respond. There's never gonna get to a one on one manoamano really
• 1:51:36
  substantive debate where DeSantis just schools. And by the way, even if that
• 1:51:41
  happens, ask John Fetterman and doctor Oz about how important debates are in modern
• 1:51:45
  politics, they don't mean crap anymore. They should, but they don't.
• 1:51:50
  I mean, Fetterman literally couldn't put a sentence together, and he ends up
• 1:51:54
  winning the senatorial election fairly easily in Pennsylvania. So Trump isn't going to crap
• 1:52:02
  himself to the point where you'd have to crap himself to lose any of his
• 1:52:06
  real base, because they've become professionals at rationalizing everything he does and says,
• 1:52:13
  and he's lost every debate he's ever been in. Trump has and it has
• 1:52:16
  the impact that his poll numbers at all. So I'm sorry, the history
• 1:52:20
  is pretty damn clear that the debates aren't going to do anything. Will they
• 1:52:24
  be interesting viewing, of course they would be, But as far as actual
• 1:52:29
  political impact, basically nothing, given the nature of who Trump is especially and
• 1:52:34
  I think also the nature of modern politics and modern media. But I think
• 1:52:41
  Republicans are way underestimating Harris, who is a terrible campaigner, a terrible politician.
• 1:52:48
  But it's going to have enormous advantages should the scenario that I have outlined
• 1:52:56
  actually take place. But I don't see Newsom beating Biden or I don't even
• 1:53:00
  know how he runs against Harris Right, a former senator from his own state,
• 1:53:04
  and it's her turn. So you're gonna have a straight white man take
• 1:53:10
  away the turn of the historic first female president, a woman of color.
• 1:53:15
  How does that fit within the prism of the Democratic base and the liberal media.
• 1:53:25
  I just don't see how it does not to mention that from substantive standpoint,
• 1:53:29
  it's really pretty easy to attack Newsom. People are leaving California in waves.
• 1:53:35
  San Francisco, his former city is a absolute shit hole. Los Angeles
• 1:53:41
  is a shiitthole. I mean, the budget deficit has now exploded, and
• 1:53:46
  to re gave massive amounts of money away to people during the election season last
• 1:53:51
  year. I mean, so, I don't even know what his argument would
• 1:53:55
  be substantively, as if that really matters anymore, but it might matter to
• 1:54:00
  people. There is no California miracle like there. You could argue there is
• 1:54:03
  in Florida. It's the exact opposite. So again, I am as fearful
• 1:54:09
  of a of a Newsome presidency as anybody. I just don't see it happening.
• 1:54:15
  And and so I unless there is a physical catastrophe in you know,
• 1:54:20
  in impairment, massive impairment on the part of Biden. I think Biden will
• 1:54:26
  be the nominee. So we're gonna get Trump Biden, which is what I
• 1:54:29
  predicted a couple of years ago when I was still working as the senior columnists
• 1:54:33
  for Media, I predicted it's gonna be Trump Biden. I even said that
• 1:54:36
  Trump had a pretty good chance at that time. But some has changed since
• 1:54:43
  then. The twenty twenty two elections I think destroyed this narrative that Biden is
• 1:54:47
  incredibly unpopular and that Democrats are on the verge of implosion. There's no cavalry
• 1:54:54
  coming, folks. If there was a cavalry, it would have had,
• 1:54:57
  it would have arrived in twenty twenty two. And Trump greatly dissipates whatever cavalry
• 1:55:03
  there is because he turns off suburban white moms in particular, but a lot
• 1:55:09
  of theoretically independent voters, and so a Trump Biden matchup, we know exactly
• 1:55:16
  how this would go. We already saw this movie before, and it will
• 1:55:20
  come down to Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Those
• 1:55:26
  are the only states all the matter. And maybe North Carolina. Can Trump
• 1:55:30
  hang on to North Carolina. I'm not sure he can hold on to North
• 1:55:31
  Carolina. And if you can't hold on the North Carolina, it's over,
• 1:55:35
  game set match. So to even get out of the batter's box, Trump
• 1:55:39
  has to hold on to North Carolina, which currently in the last pole against
• 1:55:43
  Biden in North Carolina, he does not do so right there, game set
• 1:55:46
  match, you lose North Carolina, it's over. Biden wins. But let's
• 1:55:49
  just be outtimestic here for a second. If you don't want Biden to be
• 1:55:54
  reelected, it's Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, in Pennsylvania. If
• 1:55:58
  only we had some information on which to discern how Trump might do in a
• 1:56:02
  rematch against Biden in those states. Let's see, Well, in twenty twenty
• 1:56:09
  he lost all of those states, lost all of them to Joe Biden.
• 1:56:15
  Some of them were very close, especially Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, but
• 1:56:19
  he lost all five. And is there any further information like what happened in
• 1:56:25
  twenty twenty two where we could discern if there's been any change there? Well,
• 1:56:30
  his Trump's senatorial candidate in Georgia lost herschell Walker twice to Biden's candidate.
• 1:56:39
  In Arizona, Trump's senatorial candidate lost to Biden's candidate, his gubernatorial candidate.
• 1:56:46
  Trump's gubernatorial candidate also lost in Arizona in twenty twenty two. In Wisconsin,
• 1:56:53
  we just had a race for the Supreme Court, deciding which party would control
• 1:56:57
  the Supreme Court. The Democrat won big in Wisconsin. Now, Trump tried
• 1:57:02
  to claim that it wasn't his fault because the Republican candidate didn't ask for his
• 1:57:06
  endorsement. Well, Donald Trump Junior was urging people to get out to vote
• 1:57:12
  for that candidate on the day of the election and the day before, and
• 1:57:15
  the guy got thumped and a whack job ended up deciding the fate of the
• 1:57:23
  Wisconsin Supreme courts. Now three two Democrat, So that doesn't look good for
• 1:57:29
  Wisconsin. Nevada is not that big of a state, and there's no reason
• 1:57:33
  to believe that Trump would win Nevada. It also went Democrat in the twenty
• 1:57:41
  twenty two election from the senatorial side. And then Pennsylvania, we have a
• 1:57:45
  Trump candidate, doctor Oz, losing to a guy who was suffering from a
• 1:57:50
  stroke so much he couldn't put two sentences together in John Fetterman. And that
• 1:57:55
  wasn't even that close. So exactly what's the argument that Trump can beat Biden
• 1:58:00
  in the electoral college. He ain't gonna win Georgia, he ain't gonna win
• 1:58:05
  Arizona, he ain't gonna win Wisconsin, probably not Nevada, and Nevada is
• 1:58:11
  not that big of a deal. And he ain't gonna win Pennsylvania. So
• 1:58:16
  there's no argument. It's over at that point. There's no path from an
• 1:58:21
  electoral college standpoint none. It does not exist. So I mean again,
• 1:58:30
  could there be a massive economic collapse or physical incapacitation of Biden. Yep,
• 1:58:35
  And that's what it would take. It would take a two thousand and eight
• 1:58:40
  economic collapse, certainly plausible, possible to change the dynamic. But that's the
• 1:58:45
  only thing that's going to change the dynamic. And by the way, I'm
• 1:58:47
  actually giving you the fairly optimistic view. The negative view of a Trump Biden
• 1:58:54
  situation is it's a catastrophe. He loses North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona,
• 1:59:00
  Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania. You know, Virginia never gets even on the
• 1:59:05
  map. You could even theoretically lose a couple of other states that have generally
• 1:59:10
  been read lately. You'll lose the House, you'll lose you keep losing the
• 1:59:15
  Senate, even though this should be a good cycle for Republicans in the Senate
• 1:59:20
  because six years ago, obviously, in twenty sixteen, I mean, I'm
• 1:59:28
  sorry, twenty eighteen was such a bad year for Republicans. So that's the
• 1:59:31
  way, you know, it works in reverse. Democrats have a lot more
• 1:59:34
  seats to defend than Republicans do. This was probably the last chance to take
• 1:59:41
  back the Senate, maybe ever. And so you now not only have Biden
• 1:59:45
  being re elected, but you have Biden being reelected with very likely a Democratic
• 1:59:51
  House and a Democratic Senate, and it's over now. He can do whatever
• 1:59:57
  the hell he wants with nothing to lose, that does not have to worry
• 2:00:00
  about reelection. He can he can instill so solum for those first two years.
• 2:00:05
  They get through the the twenty twenty six primary, i mean the midterm
• 2:00:12
  elections in twenty twenty six, and then in twenty twenty seven, perfectly time
• 2:00:15
  so that she can still run for two more terms, he resigns. Kamal
• 2:00:19
  Harris is President United States, and that's the death knell of what's left of
• 2:00:25
  the country. That's the very likely scenario here, folks. That is that
• 2:00:30
  is the by far the most likely scenario what's going to happen here all because
• 2:00:35
  really the conservative media is afraid to destroy Donald Trump because it'll be too bad
• 2:00:42
  for their business model. That's at the heart of all this, which is
• 2:00:44
  why I started that text exchange with Tucker Carlson this morning, because that's where
• 2:00:49
  it all begins. And the fact that Tucker is either unwilling or unable to
• 2:00:53
  see the kind of influence that he and Fox News Channel has over this process
• 2:00:58
  is both incredibly telling as well as very very depressing. So I'm sorry I
• 2:01:03
  don't have better news, but I do believe that that is the most accurate
• 2:01:06
  and honest analysis of all the different scenarios that you're about to see over the
• 2:01:14
  next year, year and a half when it comes to presidential politics. Now,
• 2:01:17
  could massive events change this dynamic? Of course, I hope that it
• 2:01:23
  will, But we're talking about really big black Swan type of events that would
• 2:01:29
  have to occur to disrupt the current path we're on when it comes to both
• 2:01:34
  the Democratic Republican sides as well as where we're headed in the general election.
• 2:01:39
  But at least you can't say you weren't warned. I just warned you about
• 2:01:44
  what was going to happen. That will do no good for me and probably
• 2:01:46
  no good for anybody else. May help my conscience a little bit, but
• 2:01:51
  that's the truth as I see it, and you do it with what you
• 2:01:56
  will. I don't want to end on that incredibly depressing notes, so I
• 2:02:00
  want to play an entertaining clip that really does show a lot about the death
• 2:02:03
  of journalism. It comes from Elon Musk in an interview that he did with
• 2:02:08
  the BBC and a reporter by the name of James Clayton, and Clayton was
• 2:02:13
  going after Musk about this issue of allowing I guess non politically correct posts on
• 2:02:18
  Twitter and how you know there's this narrative that hate speech is on the rise
• 2:02:25
  on Twitter, and Musk handles this situation really particularly well, simply asking for
• 2:02:31
  an example of what the hell Clayton is talking about, and hilarity basically ensued.
• 2:02:38
  And here's what that sounded like. Content you don't like or hateful.
• 2:02:42
  What do you mean to subscribe a hateful thing? Yeah? I mean,
• 2:02:45
  you know it just content that will solicit a reaction to something that may include
• 2:02:50
  something that is slightly racist or slightly sexist, those kinds of things. So
• 2:02:55
  do you think if something is slightly sexist it should event I know what you're
• 2:03:00
  saying. I'm not saying anything. I'm just curious what I'm trying to say,
• 2:03:02
  what you mean by hateful content? And I'm asking for specific examples.
• 2:03:06
  Um, and if and you just said that if something is slightly sexist,
• 2:03:13
  that's hateful content, and set mean that it should be bad. When you've
• 2:03:15
  asked me, you've asked me whether my feed, whether it's got less or
• 2:03:19
  more, I'd say it's got slightly more. That's what I'm asking for examples.
• 2:03:24
  Can you name one example? I honestly don't. Honestly, I can't
• 2:03:28
  name a single example. I'll tell you why, because I don't actually use
• 2:03:30
  that for you feed anymore, because I just don't particularly like it said a
• 2:03:33
  lot of people, a lot of people are quite similar. I only you've
• 2:03:38
  said you've seen more hateful content, but you can't name a single example,
• 2:03:41
  not even one. I'm not sure I've used that feed for the last three
• 2:03:45
  or four weeks. And I then, how did you see the heful content
• 2:03:46
  content? Because I've been I've been using it. I've been using twisters since
• 2:03:49
  you've taken it over for the last six months. Okay, so then you
• 2:03:51
  must have at some point seen that you've poor you hateful content. I'm asking
• 2:03:55
  for one example, right, and you can't give us some more. And
• 2:03:58
  I'm saying, then, I I say, so that you don't know what
• 2:04:00
  you're talking about, really, yes, because you can't be a single example
• 2:04:03
  of hateful content, not even one tweet. And yet you claimed that the
• 2:04:08
  hateful content was high. Well that's a false no, what I could just
• 2:04:13
  wide what no, No, what I claim was there are many organizations that
• 2:04:17
  say that that kind of information is on the rise now, whether whether it
• 2:04:21
  has I mean right literally, someone like the Strategic Dialogue Institute in the in
• 2:04:29
  the UK. They will say that. So look, as people will say
• 2:04:31
  all sorts of nonsense, I'm literally asking for a single example and you can't
• 2:04:34
  name one, right, And as as I already said, I don't use
• 2:04:38
  that feed. But let's how did you know that? I don't think this
• 2:04:40
  is getting any You literally said you experienced more hateful content and then couldn't name
• 2:04:44
  a single example, right, And as I said, that's absurd, I
• 2:04:46
  haven't I haven't actually looked at that feed up. Then how would you know
• 2:04:50
  content because I'm saying that's what I saw a few weeks ago. I can't
• 2:04:54
  give you an exact example. Let's move on, we have we only have
• 2:04:57
  a certain amount of time. Um Well, I still don't fully trust Elon
• 2:05:01
  Musk, but it certainly is a good thing that he now owns Twitter,
• 2:05:05
  and he's willing to stand up for free speech, and he's willing to call
• 2:05:10
  out the news media. I mean, he calls out the news media more
• 2:05:13
  effectively and to more people than probably anybody else in the planet, which is
• 2:05:17
  really bizarre given who he is in his background, of the fact that he
• 2:05:23
  made most of his fortune through a company, Tesla, that makes electric cars,
• 2:05:28
  which is used to be a you know, a liberal fantasy world.
• 2:05:32
  You know this was he was a hero among liberals up until recently when he
• 2:05:38
  bought Twitter, and now he's he's actually fighting for free speech far more effectively
• 2:05:43
  than certainly any American politicians are, So kudos to him. But most importantly,
• 2:05:47
  that really did expose the true nature and the vacuous nature of the very
• 2:05:53
  very broken news media and why journalism is dead. Our next episode of the
• 2:05:58
  death of journalism is going to be our FI. So my intention barring any
• 2:06:01
  massive news stories. I want to do an episode of Ask John Anything,
• 2:06:08
  so that means you can ask me any question at all related to the subjects
• 2:06:13
  that we talk about on this podcast, which is pretty wide and varied and
• 2:06:16
  diverse, so that gives you a lot of leeway. But if you have
• 2:06:19
  a question you would like me to answer, feel free to send it to
• 2:06:24
  me. You can respond to me in a tweet. My Twitter account is
• 2:06:28
  at Zigmund Freud, or if you follow me on Facebook, you can certainly
• 2:06:31
  message me on Facebook, or you can email me. My personal email,
• 2:06:35
  which is an ancient old email that I still have access to, is talk
• 2:06:41
  to Zig. That's TA LK t O Z I G. Talk to Zig
• 2:06:45
  at aol dot com. That's talked to Zig at aol dot com. If
• 2:06:50
  you want to have your question read and responded to in the next episode of
• 2:06:55
  the podcast, please send it to me in one of those particular platforms.
• 2:07:00
  Until then, thanks so much for listening. Please remember to subscribe, rate,
• 2:07:03
  and review this podcast and share it with others. If you share it
• 2:07:05
  on social media, please tag me and I'll share it as well. And
• 2:07:09
  until next time, please hang in there and I'll try to do the same
• 2:07:13
  my name is John Ziegler. This is the Death of Journalism podcast