Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode One Hundred Twenty: It Wasn't Inevitable

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Episode One Hundred Twenty: It Wasn't Inevitable · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Welcome to episode number one hundred and twenty of the Death of Journalism podcast.
• 0:05
  My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. How Trump
• 0:08
  ended up as the Republican presidential nominee so easily and what it means to the
• 0:13
  future of the country. I may have lost another friend over Trump, a
• 0:18
  bit of good news about the future of tackle football, and an extraordinary interview
• 0:23
  with a longtime investigative reporter who has taken on the cause of Jerry Sandusky's innocence.
• 0:30
  I'm known as the Dutch Digital marketing Man. I'm a digital advertising SEO
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• 0:40
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  dot com. If you want to grow your business, Peter can help.
• 1:03
  That's the Dutch Digital Marketingman dot com. And hey, thanks for sponsoring the
• 1:10
  show. We begin this episode by tying up a couple of loose ends from
• 1:15
  the coverage of the Iowa Caucuses and Donald Trump's big victory, which appears to
• 1:22
  have essentially made him the Republican nominee, just as I have been predicting for
• 1:26
  many, many months. And there was one particular issue that I did not
• 1:33
  address in episode number one hundred and nineteen. I probably should have, but
• 1:38
  I thought that it was one being talked about by so many other people,
• 1:42
  and two, I also thought that it really wasn't that big of a deal
• 1:46
  that I neglected to do. So, so I'll start this episode off by
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  revisiting I guess maybe the major media issue of the night of the Iowa Caucuses,
• 1:57
  which was the fact that AJOR networks including Fox News Channel and CNN called
• 2:04
  the race for Trump while the caucus was still going on. Now, I
• 2:08
  fully agreed with those who found this to be outrageous and wrong. There was
• 2:15
  no need to do it. I mean literally, if they just waited another
• 2:20
  fifteen or twenty minutes, there would have been no real harm done because then
• 2:24
  everyone essentially could have cast their ballots. Because everyone's casting their balance is exactly
• 2:30
  the same time. I mean, you know, it's only within a half
• 2:34
  hour forty five minute period of time in which ballots are actually cast, and
• 2:38
  then it takes longer to count them depending on the nature of the precinct and
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  what have you. So what happened was almost immediately after the voting started,
• 2:50
  the networks called the race for Trump. And this was wrong. And you
• 2:55
  know, there were all sorts of stories about how people were getting alerts on
• 2:59
  their phone that the race had been called, and that the Santas campaign in
• 3:04
  particular was whining about this incessantly all night long. Again, it was wrong.
• 3:10
  It was It was absolutely an active medium outpractice. They should not have
• 3:15
  done it. However, I don't think it had any impact on the vote
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  at all, nor would it logically have any impact on the vote, because
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  let's be clear about what's going on here. You have people who have braved
• 3:31
  negative temperatures minus five degrees, whatever it was wherever you were in Iowa to
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  go out to your local firehouse or your local school, or a neighbor's house,
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  whatever it is. So you've gotten your butt to the caucus. You're
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  not going to suddenly leave after going through that simply because a media outlet has
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  called the race. Exactly as everybody already expected it would go when they went
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  to the caucus to begin with. So I would be stunned if there were
• 4:06
  more than a handful, literally a handful of votes that were impacted by the
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  premature calling of the race. And by the way, of course, that
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  call was one hundred percent correct. Trump won over DeSantis by thirty points,
• 4:23
  so it's not as if it was an inaccurate call. It was just stupidly
• 4:27
  timed. There was no need to do that. But there's another element of
• 4:30
  this which is being missed, even by people in the right wing media who
• 4:35
  have complained about what the networks did in calling the race so quickly, is
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  that this is not the same thing as calling a presidential election like in November,
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  or a state in a presidential election. This is fundamentally different. This,
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  theoretically and on paper, is the beginning, the very very beginning of
• 5:02
  an incredibly long process. It's supposed to be a long process. It's probably
• 5:09
  not gonna be and probably gonna officially end next week, even when Trump wins
• 5:15
  New Hampshire. But there was nothing being called. And by the way,
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  if you think about this as the process of choosing the Republican presidential nominee.
• 5:26
  The votes were still just as important after the race was called for Trump as
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  they were before, because you're still voting on delegates, and the vote total
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  still matters just as much as it did previously in determining pole position and momentum
• 5:43
  and the state of the race and all of that. So the votes were
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  not all of a sudden null and void. This wasn't the last vote.
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  This was literally the very very beginning of the process. So the idea that
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  somehow now these you know, your vote was meaningless or discounted or you know,
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  noll and void because a network called Iowa for Trump is just ridiculous.
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  It's not remotely true. So I don't think it had any influence on the
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  race, and I think a lot of people in the Disantas campaign in the
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  right wing media are really being obtuse about what it even meant, because again,
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  Trump winning Iowa doesn't do technically anything. It doesn't change the importance of
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  your vote in the Iowa caucus at all, and I don't think there's any
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  evidence that people reacted that way. So that's part of why I didn't mention
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  it in the last episode. Plus there was a whole lot of other things
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  I needed to get to, and I knew we were going to be long
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  in that episode anyway, So that's number one. The next thing that has
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  happened is that there's not going to be a New Hampshire, which is pretty
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  extraordinary and kind of the ultimate end to what I've been predicting about these debates.
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  I was a little bit off. The only thing I was off on
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  when it came to the debates is I thought the debates would end up being
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  canceled sooner than they were. But I was absolutely right that Trump would never
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  do any debates, and I was absolutely correct that each debate would have a
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  lower and lower audience or television rating as people understood just how irrelevant they were
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  and that Trump wasn't showing up and that Trump was going to be the nominee.
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  And that's exactly what happened. Well, you know, we barely had
• 7:35
  an Iowa debate because it was only two people without the front runner, and
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  it was being opposed on Fox News Channel by a Trump town hall. I
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  mean, so Iowa effectively didn't get their debate, and New Hampshire is not
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  going to get their debate because Nikki Haley is dodging Ron DeSantis in her never
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  ending effort to pretend that he does not exist. And I understand strategically why
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  she's pretending that Rond de Santis doesn't exist, and in New Hampshire he barely
• 8:03
  does exist, although at least he's there. And you've got to give Rond
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  de Santis credit, folks. I mean, look, I have been very
• 8:09
  critical of his campaign and very critical of his chances, but frankly, I
• 8:16
  actually think a little bit more of Rond de Santis as a human being and
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  as a potential president today than I did even at the beginning of this whole
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  process. I mean, part of what the presidential election process is supposed to
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  do is to reveal who these people really are and to put them under pressure
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  and to see how they react. And it's one of the few good things
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  about the process. Didn't work with Trump, and maybe you know, won't
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  go work so well in the future, but at least when it came to
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  this year and DeSantis, I think we learned who DeSantis really is. This
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  guy has been under a ridiculous amount of pressure. This guy has been attacked
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  from every angle. He has had all sorts of reasons to lose it to
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  have a public meltdown. He's visited ninety nine counties in Iowa. He's done
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  probably more town halls than anybody else. He's done every single debate. He
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  did a town hall with Wolf Blitzer on CNN from New Hampshire, a state
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  where he knows he's going to get absolutely crushed next week. He showed up.
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  He has showed up everywhere he needed to show up, answered every question
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  he needed to answer, but done every debate, never lost his cool,
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  never had one flash of anger or frustration. I'm telling you there's no chance
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  in the world I could have possibly gone through what DeSantis has done, knowing
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  what I know. When you got to know if you're runing to say it
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  this, that you're clearly the best candidate, that the fate of the country
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  rides on your sixth and to see an asshole like Trump not just beat you,
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  but beat you to a pulp by lying about you, and where you
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  have to defend him every time he gets indicted criminally, I couldn't do it.
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  I don't think many people could. And the fact that the Santis has
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  been able to do this and still stand and still survive, and you know,
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  at least save some face in Iowa by finishing second. Kudos to Rond
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  de Santis. I mean, I got to say, as a human being,
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  I doubt there are very many people who could possibly have gone through this
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  crucible and not lost it at some point, not lost their dignity, not
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  lost their cool. It has never happened with Rondo Santis. And frankly,
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  I thought his town hall with CNN was the best I've ever seen him.
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  And maybe that's practice. Maybe he Now you know, this happens a lot
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  in politics, where the is at their best once they realized they've lost,
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  and the pressure kind of is off, and I think that that might be
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  what is happening with Ron de Santis. But his performance last night one on
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  one with Wolf Blitzer and this crowd in New Hampshire was fantastic. And I
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  just want to play one clip. I could play three or four that were
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  really good, but I just want to play one clip, and I want
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  you to think about and I tweeted this when I saw this clip. I
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  want you to think about how much we as a country forget about the conservative
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  movement, Republican Party. How much we as a country are going to regret
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  having chosen Donald Trump over Ron DeSantis because what you're about to hear is an
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  answer that Donald Trump could never possibly ever give on like eight or nine different
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  levels. And the question was one that DeSantis could not possibly have anticipated.
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  The question was what question and haven't you been asked in this campaign that you
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  wish you had been And his response was an eleven out of ten because it
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  won was a great response to an unexpected question. But two, it brought
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  in so many different elements of why DeSantis is a great choice to be president
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  of the United States, as well as ways that differentiate himself from Trump.
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  And it also tug at the heartstrings a bit. And you know, if
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  every New Hampshire voter or whoever else still votes in this process, watched just
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  this short clip, I mean I realized we're now in a situation where the
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  Republican Party as a cult and the cult leaders is in the process of being
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  rehired after you know, having an attempted coup fail, and so therefore everyone's
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  roullying around him. But I would like everyone do at least be forced to
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  deal with the decision they're making here and that you're rejecting this guy for Donald
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  Frickin' Trump. So here it was Ron desandis on a CNN town hall in
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  New Hampshire. Thanks for taking my question, Governor. So my name's my
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  name is Brian Henchy. Sorry. I mean to say that during this campaign
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  you've been asked many, many, many questions by voters and the media.
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  So my question for you is, what's a question that you have never been
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  asked. You've been through so many different debates, so many questions, a
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  lot of stuff, and I've been to a few of your events, so
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  I'd love to hear you say something new that you've never said before. So
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  what's a question you have never been asked during this presidential campaign that you wish
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  that you had been asked? Than? Well, that's a good question,
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  Brian, So thank you, thank you for your support. So I had
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  a debate with the governor California, Gavin Newsom, a couple months ago,
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  and one of the points of contention that came up was Florida what we did
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  with respect to special Olympics and having the athletes be able to compete, and
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  it didn't really get resolved. People didn't necessarily know and I've never actually been
• 14:09
  asked to kind of clear the air on that, and here's what's happened.
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  I think it shows the type of leader I am. In Florida, we
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  saw the COVID stuff being used to deprive people of their rights, and we
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  took a stand against that. We said, past protections, you can't have
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  to choose between a shot you don't want and a job you need. And
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  we all said, we're not going to have COVID nineteen vaccine passports where you're
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  discriminated against based on your status of whether you decided to take this shot or
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  not. Well, we hosted the Special Olympics one year and lo and behold
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  the international bureaucracy that oversees that imposed the COVID vacs mandate on the athletes.
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  Well, one that violated Florida law, but two I had families frantically coming
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  to our office saying that their kids are not going to be able to participate
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  in this and that was wrong. So we said, we're going to enforce
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  the law against you if you discriminate against these athletes. And we ended up
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  getting all the athletes that wanted to to be able to compete, and that
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  had a huge impact on people's lives. This summer I'm walking around the Iowa
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  State Fair and I get a big hug from a family because we made sure
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  their son, who had unique abilities, was able to compete in the Special
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  Olympics. That is how you use your position of authority to ensure that people
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  are able to realize their dreams. They wanted to exclude those people based on
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  these ridiculous mandates. I stood up and said, no, not on my
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  watch. Everybody gets to compete. I mean that was just perfect, fantastic,
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  and I mean it. We are going to regret it. Our children
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  are going to regret it. Our grandchildren are going to regret that we chose
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  Donald Trump over Ron DeSantis. That Ronda sant Again, nobody's perfect. De
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  Santis is not perfect. I disagree with him on some things. I have
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  huge problems with some of the ways in which the campaign has been run.
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  I've expressed those continually, and I did so directly to the campaign back when
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  it still mattered early last year. No one listened. So I have all
• 16:22
  sorts of frustration with regard to the Santas campaign. But I'm sorry this narrative
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  that people have been latching onto to rationalize why they're going to go for Trump.
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  That DeSantis is a lousy campaigner and he wasn't ready for prime time and
• 16:38
  maybe he'll be ready to go in twenty twenty eight is just pure bullshit.
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  It's complete bullshit. It is nothing more than rationalization for people who want to
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  go with the fun guy or the guy who's if you're a member of the
• 16:56
  right wing media, who is in your own personal best interest to be the
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  nominee from a financial standpoint, a business perspective, not losing your audience,
• 17:07
  not having the cult revolt against you. I mean, that's what's going on
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  with the right wing media here. I've talked about that continually, and Desantas
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  seems to understand it himself based upon a clip we played in the last episode
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  of the podcast. But this idea that DeSantis wasn't ready is just garbage.
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  He proved during COVID he was ready. He faced more pressure than anybody else
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  and he came through better than anybody else did. And you know, when
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  it came to handling pressure, as I've already stated, nobody's been under more
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  pressure in this campaign. It's not even close than Ron desandis. Donald Trump
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  hasn't been under any pressure. Donald Trump didn't show up for one fucking debate.
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  Donald Trump has had one difficult interview, and hilariously, he's the one
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  that gets the credit from his cult. Oh my god, all these indictmencies
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  under can you imagine how strong he must be? So now he gets credit
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  for being indicted. And he's had all sorts of meltdowns in response to those
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  indictments, all sorts of meltdowns. It's just people just I guess they well,
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  that's justified. He has every right to be angry. Look what they're
• 18:23
  trying to do to him and his family. I mean, oh my god,
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  the rationalization just never ever ends. And look, the race is over.
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  I am the first to acknowledge that because I've been predicting that for a
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  long time. Trump is gonna win New Hampshire, borrowing a miracle. Even
• 18:41
  if he somehow loses New Hampshire to Haley, there's still no path for anybody
• 18:45
  else Unless Trump dies, He's gonna be the nominee. I'm even willing to
• 18:51
  say if he gets incarcerated before the Republican Convention, which is not likely to
• 18:56
  happen. And I think, by the way, being the presumptive nominee is
• 19:00
  going to help him in many ways fighting these legal battles, and I think
• 19:04
  Trump has known that all along. And I do think there's something to be
• 19:07
  said for the idea that Trump is largely running to stay out of prison.
• 19:11
  He knows that his position with a jury and without all sorts of things,
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  I mean, even with judges. I think the fact he is the presumptive
• 19:22
  Republican presidential nominee helps him dramatically in some of these court decisions. The Supreme
• 19:30
  Court, for instance, is going to look at his cases, I think,
• 19:34
  in a significantly different way when his lawyers can very credibly argue that he
• 19:41
  is the Republican presidential nominee. I mean, that is going to change things.
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  So I mean, this is important to keep in mind. And look,
• 19:52
  it's obvious that Trump is going to be the nominee. I've said it,
• 19:56
  other right wing media commentators saying it. I found it particularly interesting that
• 20:03
  Ben Shapiro, a guy I have respect for, is a very smart guy
• 20:07
  who has been clearly more in the the Santa's camp and clearly does not really
• 20:14
  like Donald Trump. He declared the race to be over, but he did
• 20:17
  so in a way that really irritated me, because he said it was always
• 20:22
  inevitable that Trump would win. This is another narrative that people are latching onto
• 20:29
  to make themselves feel better about the fact that they didn't do everything they could
• 20:33
  to stop Donald Trump or to help the Santas be the nominee. I tweeted
• 20:38
  that if you take the Jewish element out of this, because I didn't want
• 20:41
  there to be any confusion about that, because that's obviously a sticky issue.
• 20:47
  But it very much felt like Shapiro was like a French leader during World War
• 20:52
  Two, saying that it was always inevitable that the Nazis would take Paris.
• 20:57
  Well, France didn't put up a fight, so of course it was always
• 21:00
  inevitable that the Nazis would take Paris. And I don't think Ben Shapiro put
• 21:06
  up nearly as good a fight as he should have. And I think a
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  lot of other media commentators on the right didn't put up any fight at all.
• 21:17
  You know, the best they did was, well, I really like
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  grond de Santis. But we're going to accept and promote this entire fairytale narrative
• 21:25
  that makes it basically impossible for Trump to be beaten. And that fairytale narrative
• 21:30
  is that if we don't support Trump, you know, and we let the
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  bastards win because they indicted him four times, We'll have lost the Republic,
• 21:38
  We'll have lost the country. I've said this many, many times, but
• 21:41
  that was the moment I knew this was over when Tucker Carlson and Glenn Beck
• 21:45
  wearing his red Maga hat on Fox News Channel started to create this narrative after
• 21:52
  the first Trump indictment. At that point, it was over. And I
• 21:56
  said that on this podcast, I said that on Newstation Television for All Time
• 22:00
  and Purposes. I said, this thing is very very close to being over.
• 22:03
  And no one seems to understand that because that is the path that most
• 22:10
  Republican voters always wanted to go down. That's what they wanted. And you
• 22:15
  know, the reality is that people are going to gravitate towards what is fun,
• 22:21
  what makes them feel better, and if you're a right with media commentator,
• 22:25
  you're going to do what's good for business. But I don't really believe
• 22:29
  that it was always inevitable. And look, I want to make something clear
• 22:33
  because someone on Twitter accused me of hypocrisy on this issue. I think most
• 22:37
  people probably understand where I'm coming from. But I just want to explain it
• 22:41
  very very clearly why I'm not a hypocrite here, because I have been predicting
• 22:45
  for many months that Trump would win, and I've been acting like Trump was
• 22:51
  going to win, although I continue on Twitter and on this podcast to defend
• 22:56
  DeSantis as much as I possibly could, and to attack Trump whenever appropriate.
• 23:02
  But this podcast, and my position, as small as it is in right
• 23:07
  wing commentary, is truly unique, and there's some good things about it,
• 23:14
  and there's some really bad things about it. But I would suggest that there
• 23:18
  is no other right wing or conservative commentator who has my level of expertise and
• 23:26
  experience both within the conservative media as well as when it comes to politics in
• 23:33
  general, and so little, if non existent, actual influence over events or
• 23:42
  voters. I mean that there's a whole series of reasons for why that is,
• 23:48
  some of which are bad luck, some of which are bad decisions on
• 23:51
  my part, some of which are the nature of who I am, the
• 23:53
  fact that I put principle over politics and career path and my wife reminds me
• 24:00
  of this all the time. But there's nobody else in my position who has
• 24:07
  been through the wars knows these people knows the game, as I proved once
• 24:11
  again with my prediction in the Iowa Caucus being dead on, and I've proven
• 24:17
  being way ahead of the game and predicting exactly how this whole thing would go
• 24:21
  down. Nobody else has my level of experience and expertise, but also no
• 24:26
  influence. And the one positive of that is it allows me the freedom to
• 24:36
  one tell it like it is and tell you what's going to happen without any
• 24:41
  real fear of influencing events. So that's the one benefit I get. The
• 24:47
  negatives. I make no money, and I bang my head against the wall,
• 24:51
  and it's frustrating as hell, and I can't help save the country.
• 24:55
  But the one benefit of this phenomenon is I get to do that without being
• 25:03
  criticized for not fighting the good fight, because I don't matter. Ben Shapiro
• 25:08
  matters. And if Ben in in a magical world, in a rational world,
• 25:15
  which is unfortunately magical because it doesn't exist in this day and age,
• 25:19
  but in the rational world, if Ben Shapiro had felt like he had some
• 25:26
  support, if Tucker Carlson was leading the charge still on Fox News Channel,
• 25:32
  if Megan Kelly was doing what she clearly in her brain wants to do.
• 25:37
  If Glenn Beck hadn't suffered so much in twenty sixteen for being anti Trump.
• 25:44
  And let's be clear, the ghost of Glenn Beck hangs over this entire campaign.
• 25:49
  Nobody wants to be Glen Beck two point zero. And Glen and I
• 25:55
  were very close during that period, and I considered Glenn to be a friend.
• 25:57
  I had almost contact with Glenn this year, and it's not a coincidence
• 26:03
  because he went on Tucker Carlson with that red Maga hat and at that point
• 26:08
  I realized, Okay, I see what's happening here. Glenn doesn't want to
• 26:11
  go back down the dark, dark pit of almost losing your career. I
• 26:17
  mean, Glenn was at the top of the mountain and then because of his
• 26:19
  position on Trump at twenty sixteen, he was with an inch of his life
• 26:23
  and now he's back on his two feet again because he sold out the Trump.
• 26:27
  Nobody wants to be Glenn Beck. But if Glenn Beck had done what
• 26:33
  he clearly in his brain and in his soul wants to do, which is
• 26:38
  to support the Santas over Trump, and he had joined Shapiro and Carlson and
• 26:42
  Kelly and Mark Levin is probably in the same category. And a guy like
• 26:48
  Clay Travis, who's super anti COVID, who ought to be at the Santas
• 26:52
  guy who, by the way, I didn't even realize Clay Travis, the
• 26:53
  guy who basically took over for Rush Limbaugh and who runs out kicked the allegedly
• 26:59
  concernervative sports outlet. I had no idea until yesterday that Clay Travis is very
• 27:04
  open about the fact that Trump's the first Republican he's ever voted for. I
• 27:10
  mean, he's a middle aged adult, and he's and he's the guy who
• 27:14
  took over for Rush Limbaugh, and he's the one now telling conservatives they got
• 27:18
  a rally around Trump when the only only person other than the Democrat he's ever
• 27:22
  voted for for president is a lifelong Democrat named Donald freaking Trump. But I
• 27:27
  mean, Clay Travis should have been in the sada's campbell. Clay may just
• 27:32
  be a complete grifter. I mean, he may be just putting on a
• 27:33
  total act. I didn't think that was the case until I realized just how
• 27:38
  much of a Democrat he's been his entire life. But I don't see how
• 27:41
  you vote for Barack Obama twice and then get on the Trump train and now
• 27:45
  somehow you're a conservative. Now that sounds like a grifter. I mean,
• 27:51
  but if he had been joined in on this crowd and Candace Owens, who
• 27:55
  has said negative things about Trump and philosophically onto like DeSantis. Tim Poole similarly,
• 28:02
  you know, very anti COVID tyranny guy, but if he sold out
• 28:06
  the Trump very early on. You know, Matt Walsh has been good on
• 28:10
  DeSantis, but you know, it's always been muted. It's always been on
• 28:15
  the around the edges. It's not full throated because everyone's afraid again of being
• 28:19
  Glenn Beck, you know. And if they had all joined with Ann Colter,
• 28:23
  who's been great, but she's been basically jettisoned. I mean here she's
• 28:27
  she was the one who wrote the book in Trump We Trust, and now
• 28:32
  here she is very much anti Trump and very pro DeSantis, but she's out
• 28:37
  on an island basically by herself. You know. Dave Ruben's been good,
• 28:41
  and there's been a couple of others. But if all those people who were
• 28:45
  philosophically designed to understand one that DeSantis is clearly the better choice, and two
• 28:55
  to actually believe that that was in the best interest of the country and to
• 28:59
  care about the few of the country. If all those people had gathered together
• 29:03
  and been on the same side, Shapiro, Carlson, Kelly back, Levin,
• 29:07
  Travis Owens, Pool Walls, and the Coulter and Ruben and some others,
• 29:12
  if all of those people had combined their forces early on, and when
• 29:18
  I say early on, right after the twenty twenty two midterm election, where
• 29:22
  Trump was wounded and Desandis was riding high off a twenty point victory. Had
• 29:27
  that happened and the message had been Okay, we're moving on, We're moving
• 29:34
  on. Had that been the message at that moment, that I think this
• 29:41
  could have been different. The groundwork may have been laid in a way that
• 29:47
  at the very least would have made this a very close and extremely competitive primary
• 29:56
  situation. I really do believe that, and it and it's largely because you
• 30:02
  know, I'm somebody who doesn't think the media has that much influence in most
• 30:07
  situations anymore, but they still have influence over unprecedented circumstances where people don't have
• 30:17
  any experience from which to draw, and this was one hundred percent one of
• 30:23
  those situations. We have a former president twice impeached who is now coming back
• 30:33
  and trying to win his party's nomination. That's never happened before. And then
• 30:38
  when you add in the indictments, see, I think the indictments could have
• 30:45
  been seen in a completely different light if before the indictments, in that you
• 30:52
  know, late twenty twenty two early twenty twenty three period where Trump was vulnerable,
• 30:57
  had there been a message of we're moving on, it's time for a
• 31:03
  new generation. We're not going to go up against an eighty one year old
• 31:07
  guy with a seventy seven year old guy who was just beaten by the eighty
• 31:11
  one year old guy. We're not doing this. If that had been the
• 31:17
  message, the indictments would have been seen through that prism and may have actually
• 31:22
  crushed Trump because it would have been perceived he's old news, he can't win,
• 31:27
  we got to move on. I'm not sure that's the way it would
• 31:33
  have gone down, but it might have. And so for Ben Shapiro to
• 31:37
  claim, well it was always inevitable, Well, you and your other heavyweight
• 31:44
  influencers never gave it a chance because you were too terrified to immediately win the
• 31:52
  opportunity presented itself to take Trump out because you knew that if you failed,
• 32:00
  you were going to end up like Glenn Beck in twenty sixteen. And so
• 32:06
  I'm sorry, Ben Shapiro. That doesn't work. The always inevitable thing does
• 32:12
  not work. I think that it is quite possible Trump could have been beaten
• 32:20
  now when I look at the autopsy for this thing. I mean, look,
• 32:23
  there's no question that the Santus campaign was way overconfident, and I think
• 32:30
  a large part of their overconfidence came from their misperception of the COVID issue.
• 32:37
  To me, all of this begins and maybe ends with COVID, and it's
• 32:43
  not just because I'm somebody who's still obsessed with the issue, because I think
• 32:46
  it fundamentally changed America. What I mean by this is that is that I
• 32:52
  think in DeSantis world, they thought all Republican voters knew intimately that it was
• 33:02
  DeSantis who was being attacked over his desire to destroy COVID tyranny, attacked on
• 33:12
  all fronts and not being helped at all, especially early on by Donald Trump,
• 33:17
  and that it was DeSantis that had been victorious and effectively saved the country,
• 33:23
  and that this was why he won his twenty point victory, and to
• 33:29
  me, the first major red flag I saw for the Dessantas campaign, ironically
• 33:35
  enough, came the night of his great midterm victory, because when he gave
• 33:40
  his victory speech, it was only carried by one network, Fox News Channel.
• 33:50
  That was it. And you may say, well, John, that's
• 33:52
  the only network that matters. No, that's not the only network that matters,
• 33:55
  especially in this kind of a situation. I mean, there was nothing
• 33:59
  else going on that night when DeSantis came forward and gave his great speech about
• 34:05
  having defended liberty, and that was why he won a massive reelection in Florida.
• 34:13
  All the other networks essentially censored Ron DeSantis. But if he had been
• 34:17
  on every other network ABCNBCCBS, CNN, MSNBC, it would have been a
• 34:25
  much bigger story. Dessandas's footprint would have been much larger. It would he
• 34:34
  would have gone way beyond just Florida, and it would have been able to
• 34:40
  sustain him. He probably also would have gotten a much bigger bounce out of
• 34:45
  the mid term victory, and instead of being five or ten points behind Trump
• 34:50
  in those early polls in twenty twenty three, he might have even been tied
• 34:53
  or ahead of Trump, which made it would have made a huge difference.
• 34:59
  But if the media had given DeSantis his due on COVID, even close to
• 35:07
  the who his due, which they were never going to do because it was
• 35:09
  against their own self interest and agenda to do that, they'd have to admit
• 35:12
  they were wrong. So I knew that was never gonna happen anything close to
• 35:15
  the way that it should. But even just giving him the airtime on election
• 35:21
  night, which he absolutely positively should have been given, would have, I
• 35:27
  think given him a lot more leverage going forward. And I think that is
• 35:31
  Santa's people thought that they had created that foundation, but they really hadn't.
• 35:38
  It's quite obvious to me that a huge portion of the Republican base didn't really
• 35:45
  know the DeSantis COVID Florida story, and that's why Trump was able to get
• 35:51
  away with lying about it. I think that there must have been focus groups
• 35:55
  within the Trump campaign that showed them that most people did understand the Santas' role
• 36:01
  in fighting against the COVID tyranny, and they took advantage of that. They
• 36:06
  said, oh my god, guess what, guys, nobody really knows about
• 36:10
  this. We can lie our asses off, and we can destroy the Santus
• 36:15
  on his primary issue. And I think that the Sandus people were very slow,
• 36:20
  maybe never fully understood this until it was too late at least. And
• 36:25
  so that's why Trump's lies actually mattered and actually worked, not just because he's
• 36:31
  running a cult, but because people had not been given that narrative, and
• 36:37
  the right wing media didn't carry that narrative nearly as much as they should have.
• 36:42
  Why because inherently it was going to piss off the Trump fans. So
• 36:47
  the COVID, the true COVID narrative, was never told in a way or
• 36:54
  with enough weight to sustain the Santas through difficult times. And that to me
• 37:04
  was, you know, that was the It's kind of like a movie opening,
• 37:07
  right, I mean, you know how a movie opens, That first
• 37:10
  weekend is everything. Why, because it's gonna dictate the rest of the history
• 37:15
  of that movie. And so that's why movie people are so focused. They're
• 37:20
  not just on opening weekend. They're usually now focused on just opening night.
• 37:24
  Well, it's essentially the same thing. If the Santus is opening night,
• 37:30
  which I consider to be winning. The midterm election of twenty twenty two had
• 37:34
  been much larger. It would have sustained him and given him far more leverage
• 37:39
  and everything. You know, kind of like snow melting from the peaks of
• 37:45
  mountains, you know, preventing a drought in the summertime. There would have
• 37:49
  been more snow up in the mountain peaks, and there wasn't enough snow to
• 37:54
  melt later on when you needed it. And it was mainly because the media
• 37:59
  didn't want to have to admit that DeSantis was right and they were wrong.
• 38:02
  So that's where this begins in my view when you look at an autopsy of
• 38:07
  the DeSantis campaign. I also believed there was a huge missed opportunity to define
• 38:14
  the race properly during that period prior to the first indictment of Trump in a
• 38:21
  way that would have theoretically paved the path for Desanti's victory. I mentioned in
• 38:27
  episode number one hundred and nineteen that I was beside myself watching Nicki Haley cite
• 38:35
  almost word for word, word for word, my theory of the race that
• 38:42
  I articulated in this podcast almost a year ago, back in I think April
• 38:46
  or May of last year, before DeSantis officially announced his campaign launch, which
• 38:53
  was a disaster on Twitter which we've talked about many times before. But she
• 38:58
  was articulating after the Iowa Caucuses that, hey, I'm the last chance to
• 39:04
  stop this Biden Trump rematch that nobody wants. Trump and Biden are very similar.
• 39:10
  They're the old guard establishment. It's time to move on from them,
• 39:15
  and I'm the only choice. Well, that was again, almost word for
• 39:19
  word, what I was saying, should be the DeSantis can't paign narrative,
• 39:25
  but they didn't go with that. I don't even know one hundred percent understand
• 39:30
  what narrative they did go with. I really don't know what their narrative was.
• 39:35
  It was basically, I'm more trumpy than Trump, or I'm smarter than
• 39:39
  Trump. I'm maga but smarter, and I can serve two terms. And
• 39:44
  I guess that's a major problem. I can't even tell you what the actual
• 39:47
  DeSantis argument was, especially once it became clear that Trump is no longer a
• 39:54
  sure bet loser in a general election. I think that was partially part of
• 40:00
  the miscalculation. I think they thought Trump was gonna get destroyed in these polls.
• 40:06
  You know, throughout the late part of twenty twenty three, heading into
• 40:09
  the the primary elections, where Republicans will be looking around going, well,
• 40:15
  crap, do we want to lose again? I mean, Trump's losing in
• 40:17
  all these polls to Biden. He lost in twenty twenty. We have another
• 40:21
  alternative. He can serve two terms. Let's go that way. Well,
• 40:25
  that argument got erased when all these polls, which may not be accurate,
• 40:30
  And it's just hilarious that, you know, liberal polling institutions are dictating how
• 40:36
  Trump voters are voting in primaries based upon their view that Trump might beat Biden
• 40:42
  by a point or two. It's not like Trump is beating Biden by ten
• 40:46
  points. I mean, and I'm not convinced he's gonna win in the general
• 40:51
  election. Could he win, Yeah, he could win. You could also
• 40:53
  get collaborate, especially if he gets convicted of a felony between now and then,
• 40:59
  it could be an app electoral catastrophe on all levels for Republicans. That's
• 41:05
  still very very much in play. And so the reality here is that there
• 41:10
  was a miscalculation on that front. And I think I never know when not
• 41:15
  to give Trump enough credit. You know, sometimes he's just dumb, luck,
• 41:19
  sometimes it's genius. I don't know, but I would love to know
• 41:22
  if I ever had a chance to ask somebody in the Trump campaign, did
• 41:27
  you attack Desandas in the way that you did because you had some data to
• 41:34
  back that up? Or was it the focus group that I suggested might have
• 41:37
  existed over people not knowing the real COVID story? Or were you trying and
• 41:43
  this would have been genius. Were you trying to make sure that enough of
• 41:47
  your cult members didn't tell pollsters you would vote for DeSantis over Biden so that
• 41:54
  the polling issue wouldn't work against you. In other words, if I enough
• 42:00
  of mine, it only takes a few percentage point of my cult members to
• 42:02
  tell posters I'll vote for Trump but not the Santis, and the electability argument
• 42:08
  goes away because it appears as if Trump is actually more electable than the Santas,
• 42:15
  and most polls, by a small margin, have indicated that. Well,
• 42:19
  once you lose the electability argument, you're done, especially when you're going
• 42:23
  up against a cult leader like Donald Trump. I also think that I may
• 42:30
  have missed an opportunity, and I had to say I missed this opportunity.
• 42:35
  First of all, I didn't have any influence, obviously, despite my best
• 42:37
  efforts to try to communicate with the de Santas campaign, and I did communicate
• 42:43
  with the original campaign manager and had discussions with Steve Cortez, who was part
• 42:47
  of Never Back Down, the Political Action Committee. By the way, I'm
• 42:51
  going to talk about Steve in a little bit because there's been a major development
• 42:53
  on that front, which was quite interesting. But I know I did try
• 42:59
  to make these arguments, and what I'm about to tell you might have actually
• 43:05
  worked, would never have fit with my worldview or my mindset, and it
• 43:09
  may have destroyed DeSantis in a general election. But hindsight being twenty twenty,
• 43:19
  I think that if if you're DeSantis and you declare early, or you at
• 43:24
  least act like a candidate early. I'm not sure you have to officially declare,
• 43:30
  but you know, to start acting like a candidate early. If you
• 43:34
  had gone with not just the Biden Trump old guard establishment needs to go narrative
• 43:43
  that Haley is now latched onto. That was my original idea. I now
• 43:46
  actually think if you only wanted to win the primary when Trump was vulnerable,
• 43:52
  there was an opportunity to out conspiracy even Donald Trump. And again this goes
• 43:59
  against everything believe in, but I think that when you consider how many people
• 44:06
  within the Republican base believe that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered. I think if you
• 44:10
  had been a you know, would have been absurd. But if you had
• 44:14
  gone ahead and made a major issue of Trump's part in the cover up over
• 44:21
  Jeffrey Epstein's murder, Not because that one issue would have made a difference.
• 44:23
  I'm talking about how if you out conspiracy Trump, I think there might have
• 44:29
  been a chance you start to paint him as part of the of this establishment
• 44:35
  that is behind all these horrible conspiracies. Okay, so Epstein was murdered,
• 44:39
  Well that's on Trump. And then you add in some more you know,
• 44:44
  fauci conspiracy stuff, vaccine conspiracy stuff. My god, that's one of the
• 44:50
  more bizarre elements of the Trump base is they're very anti vaccine, and Trump's
• 44:55
  still this day taking credit for the vaccines. And so I think if you
• 45:00
  had gone and tried to out Trump Trump when it comes to these bizarre conspiracy
• 45:07
  theories about the world and blamed him for the vaccines, and throw in Saudi
• 45:14
  Arabia and Jared Kushner getting two billion dollars from directly from the royal family and
• 45:20
  Trump getting money from Live Golf and create all sorts of conspiracies regarding Saudi Arabia
• 45:27
  and Trump and the price of gasoline. I mean, it would have all
• 45:30
  been mostly bullshit, not all of it. I think the live issue was
• 45:32
  a legitimate conflict of interest, as I've said many times before on this podcast,
• 45:37
  But I think there was enough there where if you had played dirty,
• 45:43
  you could have eroded a significant portion of Trump's cult base. But they never
• 45:50
  really went after Trump's cult base, and they never really tried to bridge the
• 45:53
  gap between the anti Trump brigade, which is too small, and the I
• 45:59
  like Trump. I'm ready to move on, but it's got to be good
• 46:01
  portion of the population. They never picked a lane, and so I do
• 46:07
  think there was a chance to have this happen. It would have been a
• 46:10
  very difficult needle to thread, but it could have been done. I really
• 46:16
  do believe it could have been done. It can't be done now, barring
• 46:21
  Donald Trump actually dying in fairly short order, but it could have been done.
• 46:25
  So I don't buy this idea, this excuse. Well, it was
• 46:29
  always inevitable. So you know, at least I didn't get my hands bloodied,
• 46:32
  and my career is still in good shape and now I'm going to be
• 46:36
  all on board with Donald Trump. Moving. Now, that gets me to
• 46:40
  Steve Cortes. Now, many of our listeners probably know that Steve was a
• 46:45
  guest on this program back when he joined Never Back Down, the DeSantis Political
• 46:51
  Action Committee. He's a former Newsmax anchor commentator, and he is somebody who
• 46:59
  was part of the Trump campaign previously, very close advisor to Donald Trump and
• 47:06
  a guy who I've never met, but I consider to be a friend.
• 47:09
  I really like him. He and I got acquainted because he was a listener
• 47:13
  to our previous podcast with the benefit of hindsight. He went to Georgetown University
• 47:17
  as I did. He played football there. We did not go to Georgetown
• 47:22
  at the same time. So again we've never never met, but we've gotten
• 47:25
  a pretty good relationship via telephone and text. And you know that interview that
• 47:30
  well, it didn't age very well, the interview that we did, which
• 47:36
  was really great at the time when Steve joined Never Back Down. I can
• 47:42
  talk a little bit more about my experience with Steve on that now because a
• 47:49
  lot of things have happened. In fact, just in the last few hours,
• 47:52
  some things have happened. I have implied previously, bizarrely counterintuitively, that
• 47:59
  I was trying very hard to not have Steve join never back down, And
• 48:04
  you're probably thinking, how was that possible? You mean, Zig, you're
• 48:07
  a huge the Santa's guy. You hate Donald Trump? Why would you not
• 48:12
  want a legitimate Trump a supporter, a guy very associated with Trump publicly,
• 48:17
  guy Trump has talked about publicly and seems to like, why would you not
• 48:22
  want him on the the Santas team? Well, it's because I had become
• 48:27
  friends with Steve, and two things. I wanted what was best for my
• 48:30
  friend, and I knew that the Santas thing wasn't going to work. And
• 48:36
  even the day that Steve I might have been I mean the day after Steve
• 48:40
  took the job, but before it was announced, there was a problem.
• 48:44
  I can't even remember exactly what it was, but there was a problem with
• 48:47
  the way it was being handled that made Steve uncomfortable, and I said to
• 48:51
  him, Steve, get out, don't do this, do not do this,
• 48:57
  Do not blow up your your bridge to try from do not destroy you
• 49:01
  know your Maga street crad going with the Santas. He's not gonna win.
• 49:07
  So from a friend's perspective, You're making the wrong choice here. He said,
• 49:12
  I appreciate that, but you know what, I really believe in the
• 49:15
  Santas and I'm gonna go ahead with I said, that's great. I applaud
• 49:19
  that, and I'll support you in every way possible. But I'm just telling
• 49:22
  you, you know, because I'm an extremely objective guy as a friend,
• 49:27
  I'm advising you not to do this. Well, it turned out to be
• 49:30
  even more than a disaster than I expected, both from the Sandus campaign as
• 49:37
  well as Never Back Down. Never Back Down turned out to be a complete
• 49:40
  shit show, and they had all sorts of people leave or get fired.
• 49:45
  They did. They did nothing but burn money. It's clear they were run
• 49:49
  by a bunch of grifters. I mean, the amount of money that was
• 49:52
  wasted on Never Backed Down is just astonishing. They had no idea what they
• 49:55
  were doing, and they had they had no strategy, they had no expertise.
• 50:01
  And Steve left there a couple of months ago. And when Steve left
• 50:08
  there, I said, Okay, when can you talk about your experience with
• 50:15
  the campaign or with the Political Action Committee? Said well, I can't talk
• 50:17
  legally until after the Iowa Caucus. I said, fine, so we'll do
• 50:22
  an interview right after the Iowa Caucus. And I thought he had agreed to
• 50:27
  that, and both in phone conversations, and I'm positive that I had even
• 50:30
  referenced it with regard to text. In fact, I remember saying to Steve,
• 50:37
  because we were talking about the fact that I'm planning on ending the podcast
• 50:40
  after the super Bowl in February, I told him part of my timing,
• 50:45
  it was a small part, but part of my timing for ending the podcast
• 50:49
  was based one in my belief that this race would be over by February,
• 50:52
  which it will be, and two that that would give me time to do
• 50:57
  an exit interview with Steve Cortez about what happened in his experience with Never Back
• 51:02
  Down and essentially the the Sandis campaign. And he seemed to agree to do
• 51:08
  that. That was my impression. So last week he and I had a
• 51:14
  conversation, a long conversation about a number of different things. We're in contact,
• 51:17
  I don't know, three times four times a week, mostly being via
• 51:21
  text. We talked a couple of times a month, and I said,
• 51:24
  so, when can we do the interview? And I started to get pushedback,
• 51:29
  like, well, I don't know if I can, I've got some
• 51:32
  non disclosure agreements. And then he referenced a couple of other things that made
• 51:38
  me go, oh, okay, so you're I didn't say this, but
• 51:43
  you're bailing out of the interview. And I kind of saw the handwriting on
• 51:49
  the wall and I didn't make a big issue of it because I wanted to
• 51:52
  think about it, and I didn't want to blow up a friendship because I've
• 51:55
  I don't have too many friends and I've lost a lot of friends over Trump
• 52:00
  had over COVID and over the ped State Paturno Sedusky case. And so I
• 52:06
  was like, Okay, take care. And I think he probably sensed that,
• 52:13
  you know, I knew what was going on. I could tell his
• 52:15
  texting was a little bit different after that. Maybe I'm wrong about that,
• 52:20
  but that was my impression that he knew that. I was a bit put
• 52:22
  off by that, but I was still, you know, willing to go
• 52:27
  along. Okay, you know, he doesn't want to talk, and I
• 52:30
  had a feeling I knew why he didn't want to talk. I didn't think
• 52:32
  it was really about the non disclosure agreements, because he had already told me
• 52:36
  he was free to talk after January fifteenth and the Iowa Caucus. And so
• 52:42
  then I woke up this morning, just before I'm about to do this podcast,
• 52:45
  and I see on Twitter that Steve Cortes has written an article for Real
• 52:53
  Clear Politics, and the article is entitled only Trump can Save America. Only
• 53:07
  Trump can Save America by Steve Cortes, And I'm like, wow, ain't
• 53:15
  that a bit you know? I was not surprised intellectually, I was a
• 53:23
  bit shocked emotionally because I thought, gee, Steve, you could have at
• 53:30
  least given me a heads up, you know, hey, I'm gonna do
• 53:35
  this, But he clearly purposely didn't do that. And I think that this
• 53:40
  is really the key reason why Steve doesn't want to do an interview with me,
• 53:46
  not just because he's going back to Trump, which shouldn't theoretically be an
• 53:52
  issue. I mean, philosophically I have big problems with it, but from
• 53:57
  a you know, a human standpoint, I get it. I was I
• 54:00
  was advocating for this before he ever went on team to say at this publicly.
• 54:07
  But I think that Steve, this is just my interpretation, Steve is
• 54:12
  pitching for a job within the Trump campaign. I think that's pretty clear,
• 54:16
  and that's something that I would actually be in favor of, not just because
• 54:22
  it would be good for him personally, but if it was the right job,
• 54:28
  I would want Steve. And I've told him this, and I've said
• 54:30
  this publicly. I would want him in Trump's sphere as a voice of reason,
• 54:36
  as somebody who might actually tell Trump when he's wrong. However, because
• 54:42
  Steve burned his bridge so dramatically, you know, it's my impression, and
• 54:47
  I could be wrong about this. I hope I'm wrong about this. My
• 54:51
  impression that if Steve does get another job in the Trump campaign, that he's
• 54:55
  not going to be in the inner circle. I mean, he's basically if
• 54:59
  we look at this as a a mafia situation, and Trump absolutely looks at
• 55:02
  himself as a mob boss and acts like a mob boss, you know,
• 55:07
  here's someone who's going to be coming back begging for forgiveness after having betrayed him,
• 55:12
  and you know, you might, you might let him back into the
• 55:15
  fold, but you're not gonna give him a position of extreme responsibility because he
• 55:21
  can't be trusted anymore. And in fact, you may only use him as
• 55:24
  an example to everybody else as to what happens to you if you cross the
• 55:30
  mob boss and so and again. I could be wrong about that, but
• 55:37
  my impression is that Steve's gonna join the Trump campaign in some way, shape
• 55:43
  or form, but it will not be in a position where he could really
• 55:46
  have enough influence over Trump to make a difference to try to help the country.
• 55:51
  If that was the case, if I believe that, I would put
• 55:54
  up with this, even the not letting me know he was doing it,
• 55:58
  which I'm still irritated, but you know, I would at least understand it.
• 56:05
  But you know, to put this out right after the Iowa caucus,
• 56:09
  when DeSantis is still campaigning, just at a fantastic town hall meeting in New
• 56:16
  Hampshire on CNN, to put out only Trump can save America. I have
• 56:24
  a problem with that. And by the way, I also have a problem
• 56:28
  with the whole idea that only Trump can save America because I don't see any
• 56:32
  difference between Trump and Biden going forward. I've said on NewsNation Television previously that
• 56:42
  this is basically like choosing between a lobotomy and castration. If the doctor only
• 56:47
  gives you two choices, you know, Trump's the lobotomy and Biden's the castration,
• 56:54
  and so I don't buy this idea that Trump's any better than Biden at
• 56:59
  all. It's just different to different kind of poison for the future of the
• 57:04
  country. And by the way, I should point out, and if I
• 57:07
  ever did interview Steve about this, which I doubt is going to happen,
• 57:10
  especially after this commentary on the podcast, which I know Steve listens to on
• 57:15
  a fairly regular basis. If I ever did interview Steve, one of the
• 57:19
  things I would talk about is, Okay, Steve, tell me what happens
• 57:22
  for the country if Trump wins with a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate,
• 57:30
  because I gotta tell you, that is the worst scenario for America you can
• 57:37
  possibly imagine. That is far, far worse than Biden with a Republican House
• 57:46
  and a Republican Senate. Now, I personally think, gun to my head,
• 57:50
  I think it's going to be Biden with a Democratic House and a Republican
• 57:53
  Senate barely. That's my gut instinct, my guess as of right now.
• 58:00
  Obviously a long time to go. But if you put a gun to my
• 58:02
  head right now, I think it'll be Biden with a Democratic House Republican Senate.
• 58:07
  But If you get Trump as the president with a Democratic House and a
• 58:12
  Democratic Senate, which is more than plausible. More than plausible, We're done
• 58:20
  because at that point Trump can do whatever the hell he wants. Trump can
• 58:25
  be as liberal as his instincts tell him to be because there will be no
• 58:31
  resistance because Republicans aren't going to stand up to him, and Democrats are going
• 58:38
  to be thrilled with a lot of the liberal crap that he's going to do
• 58:43
  because he's not a conservative, he's a lifelong Democrat. He's a liberal.
• 58:49
  So you know, the idea that only Trump can save America is bullshit.
• 58:53
  But I'm more concerned from the standpoint of a human being and a friendship.
• 59:00
  And you know, I was having breakfast when I first saw what Steve wrote,
• 59:07
  and my eleven year old daughter, Grace was there with me, and
• 59:13
  I said, Grace, let me tell you a story about human beings.
• 59:15
  And I don't think I've ever told her about Steve before, and so I
• 59:21
  told her the whole story, And you know, I said, don't expect
• 59:25
  much from human beings in your life. If you find a couple of people
• 59:30
  that you can really rely on, really believe in, and have a really
• 59:34
  strong friendship with consider yourself lucky because human beings are inherently weak and a lot
• 59:42
  of them really suck. And I'm not saying Steve sucks. I would like
• 59:45
  to get his version of the story, which I have not gotten yet as
• 59:50
  of this taping. Interestingly, Grace's response to the story was you should send
• 59:58
  him the Elon musk go fuck yourself jiff or meme or SoundBite, whatever,
• 1:00:07
  which I thought was interesting idea. I did not do that. Instead,
• 1:00:14
  instead, I texted Steve with a link to his article with a question or
• 1:00:19
  the statement remind me again why you can't do our interview, and he responded,
• 1:00:25
  let's discuss. I'd like to. There's just a lot I don't really
• 1:00:29
  want to discuss, I said, trying to take the high road. Yeah,
• 1:00:32
  I think I see what is really going on. I wish you the
• 1:00:36
  best, Steve, and he then responds, I don't know what you mean,
• 1:00:39
  but I'll call you this afternoon if you're free. I said, I'm
• 1:00:44
  around and you're welcome to call, but I have a huge problem with how
• 1:00:46
  you have handled this with regard to me, So I don't know what we'll
• 1:00:52
  talk or not. You know, it'll be interesting because if he does call,
• 1:00:55
  it'll be before this podcast actually comes out, so you know, it
• 1:01:01
  is what it is. This is not the first time I've had a situation
• 1:01:05
  come up like this, so it's not shocking. It is still depressing,
• 1:01:09
  and I do think it's an indication of the way that politics is so incredibly
• 1:01:15
  broken, and that even good people at principle never actually stand on principle anymore,
• 1:01:20
  and they will always sell out eventually in some way, shape or form.
• 1:01:25
  You know, there's so many lessons to this primary process, the way
• 1:01:30
  that it has gone down, and so many implications for the future of the
• 1:01:34
  country. I'm just going to state a couple of them quickly here, and
• 1:01:38
  I certainly want to revisit this in the remaining episodes we have of this podcast.
• 1:01:44
  But I think the primary, big picture lesson of all this, and
• 1:01:49
  I think this is a big part of why the Sandest people had such a
• 1:01:52
  difficult time understanding he wasn't going to win Iowa, is that there are just,
• 1:01:59
  simply, straight out, bottom line, far too few smart people in
• 1:02:06
  this country for us to function properly. The incentive structure is broken, and
• 1:02:13
  there are not enough smart people on either side of the political divide, there
• 1:02:20
  just aren't. This is one of the problems that, for instance, I
• 1:02:25
  think have happened with the COVID issue. People who are on Team Reality,
• 1:02:30
  as we called ourselves, the COVID contrarians, simply could not understand how more
• 1:02:37
  people were not with us because it was so obvious that we were right,
• 1:02:40
  and everybody we knew within our social sphere basically agreed with us, because we're
• 1:02:47
  all in our own little silos and bubbles. Now see. I think one
• 1:02:51
  of my strengths is a commentator, is I'm in no silo. I'm in
• 1:02:54
  no bubble, especially living here in southern California, so I see reality and
• 1:03:00
  I don't let social bubbles influence my perception of the general public. But it's
• 1:03:07
  a very difficult thing for someone who is smart to understand just how unbelievably fucking
• 1:03:12
  stupid the average American is, the average Democrat is, and the average Republican
• 1:03:17
  is, especially in the era of Trump. And that's a problem you can't
• 1:03:22
  get around, because that's the problem decades in the making. And I don't
• 1:03:29
  see how you fix it. And if you saw the movie Idiocracy, you
• 1:03:31
  know there's really no hope for fixing it. I mean, The Ideocracy was
• 1:03:35
  not intended to be a documentary, but apparently it was. It was supposed
• 1:03:39
  to be a comedy and it was funny, but unfortunately that comedy has become
• 1:03:45
  reality. And I just don't think that there is a viable path for the
• 1:03:50
  country going forward, at least not politically. I mean, there's no off
• 1:03:53
  ramp now for the Republican Party from Donald Trump. There's no COVID accountability.
• 1:04:00
  Thanks to Trump winning the nomination. Conservatism is totally dead. Trump is a
• 1:04:05
  liberal populist, and it's clear Conservatism has no place forget about the country.
• 1:04:13
  It has no place even within the Republican Party anymore. And with Trump,
• 1:04:16
  I guess one of the most underrated things about Trump is that because of Trump,
• 1:04:23
  you know all the elements of his personality and the way he does things,
• 1:04:27
  and how his statements contradict each other constantly, his actions contradict each other
• 1:04:30
  constantly, nothing ever means anything anymore. And COVID is the perfect example of
• 1:04:38
  that. If you can be Rhonda Santus and save the country by bringing rationality
• 1:04:45
  to the COVID tyranny that was happening, and use Florida as an example,
• 1:04:50
  to force the rest of the country to finally go along. If you can
• 1:04:55
  do that against all odds and still have the Republican nomination, the claim that
• 1:05:01
  you were doctor Fauci's best friend during COVID and then he wins Iowa by thirty
• 1:05:08
  points right after that, nothing means anything. Nothing means anything. And you
• 1:05:16
  know that, combined with the fact that Trump is gonna win and go against
• 1:05:20
  Biden, is a huge part. It's not the only part. There's a
• 1:05:24
  very complex equation, Trump Shaw explain as we end the podcast, but it's
• 1:05:29
  a it's a significant part of why I'm planning to end the podcast and leave
• 1:05:32
  public life. There's just no point to it. Nothing means anything in the
• 1:05:40
  Trump world, and I just do not see a viable path. It's not
• 1:05:45
  because whose president matters that much. It matters a lot, but it doesn't,
• 1:05:49
  you know, necessarily impact everyday life on a regular basis. But when
• 1:05:55
  it comes to Trump Biden, those two paths there are there is nothing viable
• 1:06:02
  or remotely good about either of those paths going forward. They both lead to
• 1:06:08
  destruction, just in different ways and maybe with different timetables. And so you
• 1:06:15
  know, it's very frustrating, but you know what the most frustrating part is.
• 1:06:19
  You know, people alive and my age group, and older than me,
• 1:06:24
  and certainly younger than me, people basically everyone alive in America today.
• 1:06:28
  We're handed the greatest country that humans have ever created, with more opportunity and
• 1:06:38
  more prosperity and a better system than has ever been created in the history of
• 1:06:45
  man, and we are in the process of throwing it away with the last
• 1:06:50
  line of defense being neutered because of devotion to a cult leader named Donald fucking
• 1:06:59
  Trump. That is the part of this that's going to bother me the most,
• 1:07:04
  that we threw all this away for Donald Trump. Donald fucking Trump.
• 1:07:15
  I mean that is it's just disgraceful, It's pathetic. And again, I'll
• 1:07:19
  have more thoughts on this as we come down to the last few episodes of
• 1:07:23
  this podcast. I do want to have at least one good news moment on
• 1:07:28
  this episode of the podcast, and it comes from a very very strange and
• 1:07:32
  ironic source. That's right, my least favorite public figure, Gavin Newsom,
• 1:07:40
  may have saved the day when it comes to tackle football in California. For
• 1:07:44
  the last couple episodes, I've been talking about the fact that in the state
• 1:07:47
  legislature of California, it is being proposed that that tackle football be banned for
• 1:07:54
  those under the age of twelve. I wasn't convinced it was going to pass,
• 1:07:58
  mainly because of logistical issue, but now Gavin Newsom has said he will
• 1:08:01
  veto. Although he shouldn't get a lot of credit for this because one,
• 1:08:05
  it's politically good for him nationally, but also his statement about this has problems.
• 1:08:14
  But you know, okay, I'll take a victory wherever I can get
• 1:08:15
  it. Newsom has said he will veto should it pass a bill to ban
• 1:08:21
  tackle football for those under the age of twelve. Newsom released the statement saying,
• 1:08:27
  I'm deeply concerned about the health and safety of our young athletes, but
• 1:08:31
  an outright ban is not the answer. That's the key word their outright band.
• 1:08:36
  So they're going to do a soft ban. Apparently, he said,
• 1:08:41
  my administration will work with the legislature and the bill's author to strengthen safety in
• 1:08:46
  youth football. Well, get this, This is an amazing statement. While
• 1:08:51
  ensuring parents have the freedom to decide which sports are most appropriate for their children,
• 1:09:00
  get out of town. Hold on a second. The guy who believes
• 1:09:02
  that children ought to be able to change their gender. The guy who didn't
• 1:09:06
  give a crap about freedom during COVID or what parents were going to say about
• 1:09:10
  their children and their rights to go to school or anything else or any other
• 1:09:15
  activity, all of a sudden, he's worried about parents having the freedom to
• 1:09:19
  decide which sports are most appropriate for their children without a hint of self awareness
• 1:09:25
  or irony. That's just extraordinary, but okay, fine political reports. The
• 1:09:30
  governor said he plans to consult with health and sports medicine experts, coaches,
• 1:09:35
  and parents, and community members to ensure California maintains the highest standards in the
• 1:09:41
  country for youth football safety, saying, quote, we owe that to the
• 1:09:45
  legions of families in California who have embraced youth sports. So it sounds like
• 1:09:51
  they're just going to do a soft castration of tackle football rather than than a
• 1:09:58
  more blatant, more direct cash But I guess this is good news. That's
• 1:10:02
  not going to be officially banned in California, And of course, if you
• 1:10:04
  can't ban it in California, then you're not gonna be able to ban it
• 1:10:08
  in any other states. So I do think there's significance to this, and
• 1:10:11
  I do think it's generally a positive, so it might delay the end of
• 1:10:15
  tackle football by a few years. Of course, the NFL still is running
• 1:10:19
  the show here. I mean, you know, whatever the NFL decides is
• 1:10:23
  what's going to dictate the future of tackle football going forward, and I'm still
• 1:10:27
  not optimistic about that now. Speaking of football indirectly, obviously, I'm extremely
• 1:10:32
  associated with the entire Penn State Joe Paterno Jerry Sandusky scandal. We did an
• 1:10:38
  epic podcast with the benefit of hindsight. If you've not yet checked that out,
• 1:10:41
  you absolutely should just be prepared to have your mind totally blown. And
• 1:10:46
  over the many years that I've been involved in that story, now well over
• 1:10:50
  a decade, there have been various reporters or media figures who have either behind
• 1:11:00
  of scenes or publicly taken their crack at trying to bring justice to this case.
• 1:11:05
  And I've become so cynical and so resigned to defeat that I've essentially given
• 1:11:12
  up on the case, although I'm certainly happy to help anybody who who wants
• 1:11:15
  to try to still salvage something from this catastrophe. And there's a new name
• 1:11:21
  that has recently surfaced in the last few weeks a god by the name of
• 1:11:26
  Frank Parlato who does what is called the Frank Report, who's a longtime investigative
• 1:11:31
  reporter, and he has put out a series of really good articles, mostly
• 1:11:35
  using my work in research, which basically makes the argument that just as I
• 1:11:42
  have been saying against all conventional wisdom and at the risk of being seen as
• 1:11:47
  a looney tune, Jerry Sandowski, believe it or not, is one hundred
• 1:11:53
  percent innocent and it's not even close. And so, you know, I
• 1:11:58
  was a little skeptical as to whether that he would continue writing these articles once
• 1:12:01
  he got the initial one blowback from people who were upset at him, and
• 1:12:05
  two once he realized that the chances of success in this are extremely low.
• 1:12:11
  But he's continued to go on, and he's up to almost ten articles,
• 1:12:15
  and he's got plans you're about to hear for many, many, many more
• 1:12:19
  articles than that, and he has a history of getting some things done when
• 1:12:24
  it comes to long term investigative reporting. So I thought, let's have him
• 1:12:29
  on the podcast and see whether he's for real and give people a chance to
• 1:12:33
  understand where he's coming from. Because I know he's generated some excitement among fans
• 1:12:40
  of mine and people who have followed this story on Twitter and other social media,
• 1:12:45
  so I taped an interview with him earlier this week. Is really good.
• 1:12:49
  I think you'll find it interesting. So I hope you'll take a listen
• 1:12:53
  to this interview with Frank Parlatto of the Frank Parlotto. Welcome to the Death
• 1:12:59
  of Journey podcast. Thank you, thanks for having me. Frank. I
• 1:13:04
  want people to understand a little bit about you and your background before we get
• 1:13:09
  into your new involvement in the Sandusky case. So because I was not familiar
• 1:13:14
  with you until you started writing about the Sandusky case, but tell us a
• 1:13:18
  little bit about you and your and your career and your background. Well,
• 1:13:25
  I've been an investigative journalist for three decades and I began in the city of
• 1:13:34
  Nagara Falls, where I owned a newspaper weekly newspaper called the Niagara Falls Reporter.
• 1:13:41
  And I'm I had the good fortune of stumbling across a fairly large investigative
• 1:13:49
  quest which was they made of the missed boat tours by Niagara Falls, and
• 1:13:56
  I began to write some stories about it. Eighty stories late, the mad
• 1:14:01
  of thet made of the missed boat tour was canceled and a new tender was
• 1:14:05
  put out and the public got three hundred and thirty million dollars more for the
• 1:14:14
  rebidding. A couple of years later, I began to look at a unusual
• 1:14:20
  group of people called Nexium, and it turned out that they had a kind
• 1:14:25
  of bizarre sex cult. I broke the story nationally that they were branding women
• 1:14:31
  and blackmailing them. It led to a investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
• 1:14:40
  that led to the arrest of six Nexian members, including the leader, Keith
• 1:14:44
  Rinieri, who is now serving a one hundred and twenty year prison at Federal
• 1:14:50
  Prison USP Tucson. And so and so you appear to be an independent writer.
• 1:15:01
  Now how long have you been independent? Well, I was always in
• 1:15:05
  my own publisher. I've had newspapers, and then I started something in twenty
• 1:15:12
  fifteen called The Frank Report, which generates has generated about thirty million page views
• 1:15:21
  and has a regular audience. And I also own a publication called Art Voice,
• 1:15:29
  which is a nationally recognized publication. All of these are legitimate, bonafide
• 1:15:34
  media and recognized by Google and their search results. And so at what point
• 1:15:45
  did you become familiar. I mean, obviously, I'm sure you heard about
• 1:15:49
  the Penn State Joe Paterno Jayson Desky story when it broke back in twenty eleven.
• 1:15:55
  What was your Do you remember back in twenty eleven, twenty twelve,
• 1:15:59
  when this first became public knowledge, what your impression of the story was.
• 1:16:04
  Well, yess I do. I gave it very scant attention, except for
• 1:16:09
  the thought in my mind that he was clearly guilty based on media reports.
• 1:16:19
  That you say, you believe that Jerry Sandusky was clearly guilty, but you
• 1:16:23
  didn't delve deeply into it. Yes, I think I was like most Americans,
• 1:16:28
  and I trusted that five million Frenchmen could not be wrong, that if
• 1:16:35
  all of the media was reporting that he was guilty. In fact, I
• 1:16:42
  kept I recall one conversation I had with some friends who, in the rhetorical
• 1:16:47
  way, were very amused and yet at the same time a tadbit outraged,
• 1:16:54
  because they told me that can you believe it? They said, jerrys and
• 1:16:59
  dust. He lives a thousand feet from a school, and I thought,
• 1:17:03
  hmmm, that's interesting. A pedophile and he selected a house, or perhaps
• 1:17:11
  he just happened to get a house right next to a school. The point
• 1:17:15
  is the presumption I had, like everybody else, was without thinking he's guilty.
• 1:17:21
  This was even before he was convicted at trial. It's interesting that you
• 1:17:30
  mentioned the one thousand feet from a school. None of the accusers ever came
• 1:17:33
  from that school, I believe it. So I'm not sure how that necessarily
• 1:17:40
  relates, other than in public perception of the rush to judgment and the moral
• 1:17:45
  panic that occurred. But so, you, like most people, Frank,
• 1:17:48
  presumed Jerrysonosky to be guilty. You didn't think a lot of it. You
• 1:17:51
  trusted the news media, even though you've been in the media for a long
• 1:17:56
  time, and you know, I'm sure that the media is not always to
• 1:17:59
  be trusted by the way. I'm curious, so in twenty eleven, did
• 1:18:01
  you have general trust in the news media at that point? Did you not
• 1:18:06
  have cynicism or skepticism towards the news media in general at that time? You
• 1:18:13
  know, I had a certain amount of skepticism because I often broke stories that
• 1:18:17
  the mainstream media was in direct contravention. But this was when I was still
• 1:18:24
  a babe in the world of the legal system. I had a foggy notion,
• 1:18:32
  and it was foggy that the criminal justice system would get things right.
• 1:18:40
  I have since learned, prior to Santusky that they very often do not get
• 1:18:45
  things right. Okay, so slowly your naivete, especially with regard to the
• 1:18:53
  criminal justice system, has faded. And so at what point did you revisit
• 1:18:58
  the Sandusky case? How did that happen? Happened? What was by happenstance
• 1:19:01
  really a fortuitous thing? A writer for me, one of my writers wrote
• 1:19:05
  a story about an unrelated case, and just for some additional flavor, he
• 1:19:13
  compared the individual to Joe Paterno's overlooking the anal rape of a ten year old
• 1:19:24
  boy in a shower and compared it to this present official. I thought nothing
• 1:19:30
  of it. I thought it was all assumed and settled that that's exactly what
• 1:19:32
  he had done, raped a ten year old boy in a shower, and
• 1:19:38
  so I ran the story. It wasn't focused on Paterno or Sandusky, just
• 1:19:43
  happened to mention them. And a gentleman who I later learned aged ninety and
• 1:19:48
  a prominent professor of English headed the Department of Berkeley, sent me an email
• 1:19:57
  that it was very simple email. He said, you know, the truth
• 1:19:59
  of this Sandusky case is exactly the opposite of what the public thinks. And
• 1:20:04
  he gave me a link to an article. If I er or not,
• 1:20:09
  your name was mentioned in it. And it began a what would you say,
• 1:20:14
  an aha moment, a epiphany, and I said, you know,
• 1:20:19
  didn't take me long. Within maybe an hour, I said to myself and
• 1:20:26
  to another, jerryson Dusky is innocent. All right. Now you're referring there
• 1:20:33
  to Frederick Kruz, the ninety year old professor emeritus at cal Berkeley, who
• 1:20:42
  is as convinced as I am that Jerrysondusky is in fact innocent. Now,
• 1:20:47
  why did you have so much faith in Frederick Cruse? Were you convinced?
• 1:20:51
  You said, in an hour by just what reading one article from Frederick?
• 1:20:56
  Oh no, no, no, that's what happened. I read his article.
• 1:21:00
  It was a great article. I was called a shower of lies.
• 1:21:04
  And from there I went to John Ziggler and I started pouring into what you
• 1:21:12
  wrote. And I pride myself and maybe I'm arrogant or as one gentleman set
• 1:21:17
  a human lie detector, but I started to smell the most rancid smells of
• 1:21:26
  corruption, railroading a man, and a simple rush to judgment. And it
• 1:21:34
  didn't take me long to say, wait a minute, there are huge,
• 1:21:39
  huge problems with this case. I think any intelligent person who would study it,
• 1:21:44
  go to your site would understand this. So tell me. Was there
• 1:21:50
  an aha moment like that you remember going okay, wait a minute, these
• 1:21:55
  people aren't crazy. Frederick Cruz and John Zigler aren't nuts. They're on.
• 1:22:00
  Was there one thing in particular that kind of struck you? I think there
• 1:22:04
  was maybe three things that happened in rather a quick succession to my brain.
• 1:22:11
  Now, I wasn't ready within an hour just to say okay, publicly he's
• 1:22:15
  innocent. I had to do a lot more research. But the three things
• 1:22:17
  were a repressed memory, recalled memory was part a major part of the case
• 1:22:27
  number two. As you revealed through your investigative work, there wasn't a rape
• 1:22:33
  of a boy in the shower, and there was an inaccurate dating. And
• 1:22:38
  the inaccuracy in the dating was so profound, so important because it led to
• 1:22:43
  not an immediate disclosure, as the prosecution wanted to mislead the public into believing,
• 1:22:48
  but a five or six week delayed between when Mike mcquery first said he
• 1:22:57
  saw something and then ultimately it appears said something to Joe Paterno. And the
• 1:23:05
  third thing was that every one of these so called victims received an excess of
• 1:23:15
  a million dollars. Now, obviously I'm most associated with in many ways,
• 1:23:23
  and since you mentioned my name to number two there and the issue of the
• 1:23:27
  date, which happens to be the title of the first episode of our podcast
• 1:23:31
  with the benefit of hindsight, and so I'm glad that the date had an
• 1:23:36
  impact on you. And can you recall because Malcolm Gladwell was also convinced by
• 1:23:44
  my date argument and wrote about it in his best selling book Talking with Strangers,
• 1:23:48
  Can you expound a little bit on why you were convinced by my date
• 1:23:54
  argument and why that was so important to you coming to the conclusion that Jerry
• 1:23:58
  Sandusky is innocent, Well, as you pointed out, and it's absolutely true.
• 1:24:03
  The whole media perception, everything, and I even recall this from twenty
• 1:24:10
  eleven. Everything was based on a little boy of ten years of age or
• 1:24:18
  thereabouts being raped in the shower by Sandusky by a witness that one would assume
• 1:24:27
  is disinterested and when you showed that they changed the date from the grand jury
• 1:24:33
  testimony of I think it was March twenty and twelve that you pointed out to
• 1:24:41
  March. I'm so sorry, March. And then at the trial he amended
• 1:24:48
  that to February two thousand and one. And I think you established pretty convincingly
• 1:24:56
  that it wasn't February tw one, it was actually December, late December,
• 1:25:03
  and I believe you're absolutely correct on that pinpointing of the date based on the
• 1:25:11
  process of elimination. And and just to be clear, the reason why that's
• 1:25:16
  so critical, and I mean, I can't talk about this enough, mainly
• 1:25:20
  because you don't even have to discuss child sex abuse. You don't have to
• 1:25:25
  call any accuser a liar. It's very much common sense, and it destroys
• 1:25:30
  the entire prosecution narrative that if you in fact have because we know for sure
• 1:25:38
  that Mike McQuary went to go see joe bertno on the morning of February ten,
• 1:25:42
  two thousand and one, we know that with one hundred percent certitude,
• 1:25:45
  because we have emails to prove that, multiple emails to prove that. And
• 1:25:50
  so if it indeed, if this episode did in fact occur as I believe,
• 1:25:55
  and you believe, and Jerry Sedusky believes, and Gary Schultz believes,
• 1:25:58
  and I think Ram Spaniard believes, and Dottie Sandusky believes that it happened on
• 1:26:04
  December twenty ninth of two thousand. That means that McQuary had to have waited
• 1:26:11
  five to six weeks before going to go see Joe Paterno. That ends any
• 1:26:16
  urgency. And if there's no urgency, you can't have child rape. Is
• 1:26:21
  that how you see it? Absolutely correct? I think in other points that
• 1:26:27
  you made that I think was important was that doctor Draynov was not charged.
• 1:26:31
  So does drain Off? Is that us pronounced yes? Well, he was
• 1:26:35
  one of the two people that McQuary apparently went to go see or talked to
• 1:26:40
  at some point after viewing this episode, and Dranov testified that he asked McQuary
• 1:26:46
  three times whether or not he saw sex, and three times Mike McCleary said
• 1:26:49
  no. But I don't even know if you're familiar with this, Frank,
• 1:26:53
  I mean we've had some phone conversations and so I can't remember what we've discussed
• 1:26:57
  what we have And but to Menoff's testimony actually proves my date theory because he
• 1:27:03
  talks in his test in multiple times in different testimonies about when he had this
• 1:27:11
  meeting. He and Mike McCurry's dad had this meeting with Gary Schultz, one
• 1:27:15
  of the three administrators who eventually went to jail in this case, and that
• 1:27:19
  he said that there was up to a three month lag from the time that
• 1:27:25
  Mike came to them to the time they had that meeting. Well, I
• 1:27:28
  have had extensive, very very extensive conversations with Gary Schultz, and I know
• 1:27:34
  it's not possible for that to have been three months from the February ninth date.
• 1:27:41
  It's not possible. In fact, it was probably only a couple of
• 1:27:45
  weeks at most from the time of that February ninth date to the time when
• 1:27:47
  that meeting occurred. However, if you backtrack and you use mcquery's dads and
• 1:27:54
  Jaranov's testimony, and they both say it's in the two to three month period,
• 1:27:58
  If you backtrack from when that meeting with Schultz occurred, two to three
• 1:28:01
  months hits you right in late December of two thousand, which is exactly when
• 1:28:06
  I believe this happened. So I think Dranoff's testimony as is often the case,
• 1:28:12
  even though he's a key prosecution witness, actually is the smoking gun for
• 1:28:16
  the defense. Does that make sense to you, that's my point. Yeah,
• 1:28:19
  that's exactly right. And I think it's interesting that he was not charged
• 1:28:25
  yet he gave what I would call similar or the same testimonious Schultz and and
• 1:28:33
  Span Graham Spaniard and Tim Curley and Tim Curley. So why wasn't he Tim
• 1:28:40
  cur Tim Curley, So why wasn't Well, he wasn't charged because he Yeah,
• 1:28:45
  the reason they're just for the for the record. The reason why he
• 1:28:48
  wasn't charged was because he's critical in the prosecution's mind to backing up Mike McQuary's
• 1:28:55
  story. They need someone other than Mike McQuary's dad to his established and Mike
• 1:29:00
  mcquery said he saw something immediately. So Dranoff is a key part of that
• 1:29:06
  narrative. If you take Dranoff out, or if you just credit him,
• 1:29:11
  then you've really kind of torpedoed your own case. So Dranoff was seen on
• 1:29:16
  the right side of this. Ironically, Frank Joe Paterno was in the same
• 1:29:23
  category as Dranoff. He was a prosecution witness who was backing up the prosecution
• 1:29:30
  narrative. Yet the sports media decided this was too juicy, and you know,
• 1:29:34
  the police chief turned on Paterno when the story broke and they weren't getting
• 1:29:40
  the kind of media traction that they had hoped or expected, and so they
• 1:29:44
  poured gasoline on the Paterno fire, and all of a sudden, Paterno became
• 1:29:47
  the bad guy when he was actually a key prosecution witness. And the main
• 1:29:51
  prosecutor, Frank Fina, acknowledged this on HBO, saying he didn't believe Paterno
• 1:29:58
  was part of any sort of cover up because turnout had been their witness.
• 1:30:01
  So and it's interesting to me that Frederick Cruz told you that everything about the
• 1:30:06
  Sandusky case is the opposite, not just wrong, it's the opposite of what
• 1:30:13
  the perception was. And I have said constantly ever since I figured out what
• 1:30:16
  really happened here that the best way to describe this case is that the good
• 1:30:23
  guys are the bad guys, and the bad guys are the good guys.
• 1:30:28
  The white hats are the black hats, and the black hats are the white
• 1:30:30
  hats. It's almost like a negative black and white photo, right, or
• 1:30:35
  the negative of a black and white photo where everything is the opposite when it
• 1:30:40
  comes to black and white. And that's the way I view this case.
• 1:30:44
  Is that how you see it? Frank, Yes, I do with one
• 1:30:47
  I think important edition, and that is that you broke this case. I
• 1:30:55
  think more than any human being living this case was your insights. The fact
• 1:31:00
  that we learned this, about the fact of it being a reverse of everything
• 1:31:08
  we've been told, is because of you and your relentless nature. Without you
• 1:31:15
  this, we wouldn't be here talking. You did it. Well, I've
• 1:31:19
  thought a lot about whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing,
• 1:31:24
  because I actually think that in many ways, at least for me personally,
• 1:31:28
  that's been a bad thing. But I appreciate you at least acknowledging that.
• 1:31:31
  But let's go back to your involvement here. So you hear from Frederick
• 1:31:38
  Cruz, you do some research, you immediately smell a rat, and you
• 1:31:43
  know, most people at that point would just go, well, boy,
• 1:31:45
  that's really weird, but you decide to go and do nothing, but you
• 1:31:48
  decided to go in a different direction. Tell us what your reaction to this
• 1:31:53
  information was. Well, it took me several months of doing some research,
• 1:31:59
  before I was to publish. In fact, Fred called me a couple of
• 1:32:02
  times and he asked if I was going to do something, and I said
• 1:32:05
  I planned to and I just needed more information. You, of course,
• 1:32:10
  of all the people that did work on this case, were the most was
• 1:32:15
  the most helpful to me. I also got good help from Ralph Cipriano's work,
• 1:32:18
  and from John Schnedden, and of course Mark Pendergrast. Without you stopped
• 1:32:29
  there, let me stop you there for a second, Frank, have you
• 1:32:30
  spoken to all those people you just named. I'm talking to Cipriano, and
• 1:32:35
  I've spoken with Snedden. I read Pendergrast's book. I have not spoken with
• 1:32:43
  him. Okay, all right, well it is It is interesting, Frank.
• 1:32:48
  I don't know whether this is just coincidental, but you know, we've
• 1:32:51
  got Frank Parlato and Ralph Cipriano, and the producer of our podcast is Mike
• 1:32:59
  Aggovino. There does seem to be an Italian connection here among people who who
• 1:33:04
  in the media a realm have gotten this. I don't know, do you
• 1:33:08
  find out to be coincidental? Maybe it's the Joe Paterno angle or what I
• 1:33:12
  mean. I find that interesting. Well, paternal wasn't my inducement to get
• 1:33:17
  into this, but I you know, as an Italian myself, I'm proud
• 1:33:24
  to be with such distinguished fellow Paison. All right, so you you do
• 1:33:33
  some more research, you talk to some people. You've also spoken to Dottie
• 1:33:36
  Sandowsky, I understand that is correct, and Jerry too, okay, and
• 1:33:42
  so tell me your impressions of both of them. Give me your impressions of
• 1:33:45
  Dottie and and Jerry and the extent of your conversations. Well, I only
• 1:33:54
  spoke to Jerry once, fairly briefly, but we did have a chance to
• 1:33:59
  have an interesting Yet. He answered all of my questions that I asked him,
• 1:34:02
  and I saw a man that was cheerful, a man that I think
• 1:34:10
  was sustained by his innocence. You had extensive interviews with him, did you
• 1:34:16
  not? Before you? Yeah? I think you started off similar to me,
• 1:34:21
  but back in the day when it was fresh and new. Right,
• 1:34:27
  Yeah, I did two. Well, I guess two or three, depending
• 1:34:30
  on your definition in person and phone interviews. I'm assuming you interviewed him via
• 1:34:33
  zoom, is that right? That is correct? Joe? And was there
• 1:34:39
  a particular question that you were really eager to get his reaction to and if
• 1:34:44
  so, what was it. It wasn't really any specific question, because you
• 1:34:49
  expect a person, whether guilty or not, to deny that they they did
• 1:34:55
  the deeds. It was more his demeanor, his manner of answering the questions,
• 1:35:01
  which to me is persuasive of his innocence. Unlike what some people concluded
• 1:35:09
  when he did the Bob Costas interview was I didn't see him as being deflective
• 1:35:15
  or trying to obscure things. That's just his manner of looking to stay the
• 1:35:23
  truth. I think he's a man who is truthful, and that was my
• 1:35:27
  impression. One of the many, many, many catastrophic mistakes in this case
• 1:35:32
  was, in fact, the Bob Costas interview that you referenced, the idea
• 1:35:36
  that his attorney, Joe Mondola, had him do a phone interview with no
• 1:35:41
  preparation with Bob Costas out of what I believe was a self interested agenda and
• 1:35:48
  being intimidated by the bright lights of NBC and thirty Rockefellow Center, and wanting
• 1:35:56
  to ingratiate himself with Bob Costas. And I happen to believe Frank, I'm
• 1:36:00
  the only person on the planet that has ever spoken about that interview extensively with
• 1:36:04
  Jerry Sandowski, Joe A. Mendola, and Bob Costas. So I believe
• 1:36:08
  I'm the world the world expert on what happened in reality in that interview,
• 1:36:14
  and having done many interviews that are similar and having interviewed Jerry extensively myself,
• 1:36:18
  I think that was a catastrophic mistake because I think that if Costas had sat
• 1:36:25
  down on video and in a in a situation where Sandusky was prepared, I
• 1:36:32
  think that that would have come off completely differently. And then if people when
• 1:36:38
  there was still the at least the potential to save this thing. There was
• 1:36:41
  already they were already against the backs against the wall because of the paternal firing
• 1:36:46
  and the rush to judgment and the media firestorm, but there was still at
• 1:36:49
  least a potential for people to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
• 1:36:54
  whoa Wait a minute, hold on, does this really makes sense? I
• 1:36:58
  think that could have been a very composed So so it sounds like you agree
• 1:37:02
  with my assessment of Jerry as a potential witness both in a Costas interview that
• 1:37:06
  would have been done properly as well as if he had been a witness at
• 1:37:11
  his own trial. Correct. I do agree. I think if he would
• 1:37:15
  have testified at his trial, he would have had a very good chance at
• 1:37:20
  persuading the jury that these were false charges. But there wasn't one question in
• 1:37:29
  particular that you you asked him that you thought was interesting or that you were
• 1:37:33
  really eager to define his answer to. No. No, really really,
• 1:37:39
  it was not that at all. I just wanted to hear his his tone
• 1:37:43
  of voice, his manner of expression, his personality, and how he was
• 1:37:48
  after eleven years in prison. And so you feel like you could just get
• 1:37:58
  a sense, like you have a of a BS detector, that you could
• 1:38:01
  tell from demeanor that this was not a guy who was a liar at his
• 1:38:06
  core. Well, either he was a very sophisticated and manipulative liar or he's
• 1:38:15
  telling the truth. Was my kind of initial impression. And I don't really
• 1:38:24
  think unless he's a mastermind, that he's a manipulative, clever liar who got
• 1:38:30
  away with raping and abusing thirty six boys now all men, and was able
• 1:38:42
  to escape detection with not a single person ever making a report contemporaneous to the
• 1:38:48
  time of the abuse. What you just said there, Frank, is really
• 1:38:53
  important because I went through the same experience in my interaction with Jerry's and that
• 1:39:01
  is that I presumed him to be at least mostly guilty from the beginning.
• 1:39:05
  From the very start, I thought, is it possible some of these are
• 1:39:09
  exaggerated, you know? But I was. I was absolutely in the camp
• 1:39:15
  he must be at least mostly or partly guilty. And so when I interviewed
• 1:39:20
  him in prison, I was still of that mindset, and I was very
• 1:39:26
  wary that, Okay, I am potentially going to be manipulated here by a
• 1:39:32
  criminal mastermind, right, because you have to believe that Jerry Sandusky is a
• 1:39:36
  criminal mastermind to believe the entire media and prosecution narrative. There is no in
• 1:39:45
  between. He's either an absolute great manipulator and a criminal mastermind, or he's
• 1:39:50
  innocent. And here's what my experience was. I got no sense at all
• 1:39:57
  that this guy was a criminal mastermind. But I thought, Okay, is
• 1:40:00
  it possible that that in itself is manipulation, That this awe shucks, you
• 1:40:05
  know, naive persona that he's creating as part of the manipulation. But then,
• 1:40:12
  Frank, I went from being an adversary, someone who went on the
• 1:40:17
  Today Show and against my better judgment and for reasons that are complicated, essentially
• 1:40:23
  declared him guilty after Matt Lauer asked me three times as I was trying to
• 1:40:28
  avoid the answer because I didn't really know what the answer was, but I
• 1:40:30
  essentially declared him guilty on the Today Show. I went from being an adversary
• 1:40:35
  to being his biggest defender publicly and trying to prove that he's innocent, and
• 1:40:43
  putting my entire reputation and life's work on the line to do that. And
• 1:40:47
  guess what I found. I found that he's exactly the same guy on that
• 1:40:53
  side of the fence as he was when I was on the other side of
• 1:40:57
  the fence. And so that's it's not possible for that that to then be
• 1:41:01
  a manipulation or an act. He's the same naive dufus that when I was
• 1:41:10
  an adversary as he has been frustratingly when I have been an advocate for him.
• 1:41:16
  Does that make sense to you based upon your experience, Yes, it
• 1:41:20
  does. I think he's a fourth right person. He seems to be a
• 1:41:25
  fourth right, simple but honest, not a stupid man, not by any
• 1:41:29
  means. I don't think he lacks intelligence, but he is naive. But
• 1:41:32
  he is naive, you would agree very much. So maybe smart smartening a
• 1:41:39
  little bit over time that the system, and I think he now knows he
• 1:41:43
  is. You think it well, I think what my first clue was,
• 1:41:53
  Well, he told me the one most interesting thing he said is he felt
• 1:41:56
  that the jury would see the truth and he thought he was going to be
• 1:42:00
  a quitted Well, for me, one of the more profound moments, and
• 1:42:05
  I've had many in this whole ordeal, was when I interviewed Jerry and Dottie
• 1:42:11
  in prison the second time, and I asked them what I thought was a
• 1:42:14
  very key question. I said, when was the first time you thought that
• 1:42:17
  this whole thing might not turn out okay? And that's a really important question,
• 1:42:23
  because if you understand this story, there's a hundred, if not a
• 1:42:28
  thousand moments where if you're guilty, you might go that was the moment we
• 1:42:32
  were in trouble. However, if you are innocent, there's really and especially
• 1:42:38
  if you're a big believer in God, which Dottie and Jerry are, there's
• 1:42:43
  only one answer to that question, and the answer is the reading of the
• 1:42:47
  verdicts, and both of them not only told me the reading of the verdicts,
• 1:42:51
  they did so with tears streaming down their eyes, which was especially in
• 1:43:00
  that environment in prison, when I knew, you know, didn't know these
• 1:43:02
  people well at all, was an impossible thing to contrive. And I knew
• 1:43:09
  at that moment that, Okay, there's no way, there's no consciousness of
• 1:43:13
  guilty here. There's no possible way that these people are guilty. And then
• 1:43:17
  just to be sure, when I got out of prison, I called immediately
• 1:43:21
  I had called Joe Mondola, who I still had a good relationship with that
• 1:43:25
  time, Jerry Situsky's defense attorney at trial, and I said, Joe,
• 1:43:30
  I asked, GODDI and Jerry, you know, when was the first moment
• 1:43:33
  they thought this might not turn out? Okay, what do you think?
• 1:43:36
  They said? And he paused for like a beat beaten half, and he
• 1:43:41
  said, was it the reading of the verdicts? And I'm like, there
• 1:43:45
  we go, ding ding ding. There's there's no consciousness of guilt here.
• 1:43:50
  There's a lot of naive ta, but there's there's no guilt. And and
• 1:43:56
  Jerry did believe that, and that's probably probably why he he accepted Joe's colossally
• 1:44:01
  stupid decision for him not to testify at trial. Do you have any thoughts
• 1:44:05
  on that? Well, I agree with your assessment, and I'd like to
• 1:44:13
  simply say that of all the poor defenses and bad judgment by defense attorneys,
• 1:44:23
  and I've covered a lot of court cases, I think that his defense,
• 1:44:28
  Joe Ammondola's defense was either the most incompetent, or it might be a combination
• 1:44:36
  of he was intimidated by the chance of winning so that he sabotaged the case,
• 1:44:45
  or I think this is a possibility, he may have deliberately thrown it.
• 1:44:54
  I don't believe he deliberately threw it, Frank, you know. I
• 1:45:00
  more bizarre things that has happened in this case, and there's been many,
• 1:45:03
  is that his girlfriend at the time of the trial and I had a great
• 1:45:09
  deal of interaction because she essentially, I don't know what you could call this,
• 1:45:15
  whether it was a sting operation or whatever, but she got Mike McQuary
• 1:45:18
  to send her his penis pictures, and she did so because I think the
• 1:45:27
  sending of penis pictures by McQuary was part of this equation that when investigators came
• 1:45:33
  to him, that's what he thought this was about, because he had been
• 1:45:36
  sending pictures of his rather large penis to women, not his wife, through
• 1:45:42
  a penn State phone, and that he thought that that was what was the
• 1:45:45
  cause for investigators to contact him. By the way, he's no longer married.
• 1:45:51
  He was married at the time. And so in the course of that
• 1:45:58
  entire episode, one of the things that Ammidola's girlfriend got across to me at
• 1:46:03
  the time was how incredibly hard she thought Joe worked and how very dedicated he
• 1:46:12
  was to this case into trying to get Jerry Sandusky off of these charges.
• 1:46:19
  And so, and I used to have a pretty good relationship with Joe Amidola.
• 1:46:24
  We haven't talked in many years. My assessment here is that Joe was
• 1:46:29
  in over his head, overwhelmed because there was no continuance and they were bombarded
• 1:46:34
  with a massive amount of discovery at the last minute, a lot of it
• 1:46:39
  in violation of the Brady Law. And you know, we have ten different
• 1:46:45
  accusations. Two of the accusers don't even exist. You've got this media firestorm.
• 1:46:51
  There's no chance of being prepared for trial, especially when you have very
• 1:46:56
  limited resources. And I also think that Joe was comp or by the media
• 1:47:01
  spotlight. I think Joe thought he was going to come out of this as
• 1:47:09
  a media personality, if not a star, depending on how it all broke.
• 1:47:15
  Uh. And I think he really It is very clear he was in
• 1:47:18
  on the record saying this. He wanted a television career out of this,
• 1:47:23
  and I think that's why he was so easily manipulated by the media. I
• 1:47:27
  mean, when Jerry gets convicted, you see him going on CNN Live and
• 1:47:32
  gushing all over Anderson Cooper. I don't know if you've ever seen this video,
• 1:47:35
  but it's it's bizarre and it's comical where he's he's he's basically kissing up
• 1:47:41
  to Anderson Cooper as much as he possibly could, almost like it's the last
• 1:47:45
  bite of the apple for him from a from a media perspective, because now
• 1:47:49
  that the trial is over, the media is not going to care about Joe
• 1:47:53
  Mindol anymore. And and so I think there was there was a perfect storm
• 1:47:57
  of circumstances here, But I don't think it was a situation where the fix
• 1:48:02
  was in or that Joe A Mondola threw it. In fact, I've even
• 1:48:06
  told Joe and I've said this publicly many times I wish Joe A. Mondola
• 1:48:12
  had thrown it in a way that set up a better appeal. In other
• 1:48:16
  words, I actually think that in retrospect, if I was Joe Mandola and
• 1:48:21
  I realized my client had no shot, I might do something in order to
• 1:48:28
  bait the prosecution, like I don't know, fake DNA or something to bait
• 1:48:33
  the prosecution into doing something that would set up a better appeal. But the
• 1:48:38
  problem with Jerry's appeal, other than the fact the entire state of Pennsylvania is
• 1:48:43
  deeply invested against him, is that there's no evidence against him. So the
• 1:48:46
  appeal was like shooting ghosts nothing. The appeal process is not set up for
• 1:48:53
  a case like this anyway, I said a lot there. I'm curious as
• 1:48:57
  to your reaction to what I just outlined. Well, let's say, and
• 1:49:02
  I don't think I believe that I read an interview that you did and where
• 1:49:09
  you gave percentages of probabilities of what certain things were. This was an early
• 1:49:15
  interview, and so I would give taking the same attempt to try to quantify
• 1:49:25
  what I think the percentages are, I would say I agree with you.
• 1:49:29
  Primarily, I think that there's a small chance he was overtly corrupt. However,
• 1:49:35
  there's a kind of deeper, more insidious type of corruption where you pretend
• 1:49:43
  or act like you're putting on the very best defense. And yet he was
• 1:49:46
  not motivated, in my opinion, to zealously defend Jerry Sandusky with all of
• 1:49:55
  his heart and all of his soul to win acquittal for his client. His
• 1:50:01
  higher purpose was a to protect himself, b to advance his career, and
• 1:50:11
  ce to not make any enemies of the prosecution, when he should have probably
• 1:50:17
  done at least the latter. He should have called these people on all of
• 1:50:23
  the dirty tricks that they did. Frank I agree with that, and I
• 1:50:28
  think the word that I would use to describe that as compromised. He wasn't
• 1:50:32
  corrupted, he was compromised. And I think that last point you make is
• 1:50:38
  a very good one. I see a lot of evidence in this case where
• 1:50:44
  I don't know for sure that this conversation ever happened, although it may there
• 1:50:46
  may be actual direct evidence that it did. I think the prosecution played on
• 1:50:53
  this with their interactions with Joe. Hey, Joe, you don't want to
• 1:50:57
  go too hard on these poor accusers. Know you you got a career after
• 1:51:00
  this, Joe. You know you could be a star. You're a TV
• 1:51:04
  guy. Now, this was this was I think. And again I don't
• 1:51:10
  know how direct the prosecution was, but there's there seems to be some aneidotal
• 1:51:14
  and circumstantial evidence that this happened. And I you know, based upon what
• 1:51:17
  my understanding of Joe mcgedigan, I can totally who's a prosecutor in this case.
• 1:51:23
  I can totally see mcgedigain manipulating Amadola in that way. Hey, you
• 1:51:28
  know you're going to get destroyed if you go after these these poor innocent victims.
• 1:51:32
  You don't want to do that, Joe, you got a career after
• 1:51:34
  this, right, And and Joe realizing that it was not good for him
• 1:51:40
  to go to the lens that he would need to to potentially get an acquittal
• 1:51:45
  here, Although I have to say, I'm not sure that any attorney once
• 1:51:48
  we got to trial could have possibly saved this case, because the rush to
• 1:51:53
  judgment was so profound, the media firestorm was so great. You knowau had
• 1:52:00
  died in the interim. So Jerry Sandusky was not just the pedophile that brought
• 1:52:04
  down Joe Paterno, he was the pedophile who killed Joe Paterno, and the
• 1:52:09
  community itself was being accused of enabling his crime. So this jury was as
• 1:52:14
  compromised as Joey Mendola. But anyway, I think we're pretty much on the
• 1:52:18
  same page. What is your sense of Dottie Sandusky. I like her,
• 1:52:26
  first of all. I think she's an honest Southern woman who is devout,
• 1:52:34
  who is the type of person to be very slow to speak ill of,
• 1:52:40
  someone who has a kind of gracious manners and a simple, clean lifestyle.
• 1:52:47
  And I think it speaks volumes to me that she is one hundred percent faithful
• 1:52:57
  and supportive of her husband of what sixty years. Well, I agree that
• 1:53:05
  her still being married to Jerry is pretty close to a smoking gun of innocence
• 1:53:12
  as you could possibly get, because much like Jerry is either a criminal mastermind
• 1:53:17
  or he's innocent, Dottie Sedowsky has to be the dumbest person on the planet
• 1:53:24
  or Jerry is innocent, because there's not a woman alive that would still be
• 1:53:29
  living in State College, Pennsylvania. She wouldn't you know, She could have
• 1:53:31
  moved and made her life a lot easier if she had any guilt or thought
• 1:53:35
  her husband was guilty. But she's in state college, in the same house,
• 1:53:42
  still married to the same guy, visits him every time she possibly can.
• 1:53:46
  I'm completely devoted to his innocence, So there's only two choices there,
• 1:53:51
  And I know that she's not nearly dumb enough to be in the category of
• 1:53:57
  where Jerry would be guilty. That being said, I told you on the
• 1:54:01
  phone, I hate her guts, and I think you were a bit shocked
• 1:54:04
  by this, And I also blame her for a large part of what went
• 1:54:11
  down here. I could tell on the phone you were a bit stunned by
• 1:54:15
  those two statements. Can you expound on why you were? Well? She
• 1:54:23
  First of all, from my little experience with her, she doesn't impress me
• 1:54:29
  as the type of woman that would provoke hatred or anger. I do think
• 1:54:39
  that it shows a kind of resilience and strength for her to stay. I
• 1:54:43
  agree with you, in the very house in the community where everybody wanted to
• 1:54:48
  lynch the monster, and she's there in the same house, and you're going
• 1:54:54
  to the store, driving in her car, living her life almost like a
• 1:54:59
  widow. But she didn't move away. Well, look, as far as
• 1:55:05
  who she is as a person, I have felt great sympathy for and empathy
• 1:55:11
  with her in the past. But and I'm sure you like her and a
• 1:55:15
  lot of people like her, but you haven't been in a foxhole with her
• 1:55:17
  like I was, and and under extreme pressure situations. And uh, And
• 1:55:25
  I think she did me wrong in a lot of ways. And I have
• 1:55:29
  a lot of anger and yes, hatred for her. I have no I've
• 1:55:31
  said that in the podcast with the benefit of hindsight, and I do blame
• 1:55:36
  her for a lot of what happened here. And and maybe it's a defense
• 1:55:42
  mechanism on my part, but it's a little bit of how I've dealt with
• 1:55:45
  the gravity of this injustice is that, you know what, Dotty didn't deserve
• 1:55:53
  this. But I'm not really losing sleep over the fact that she's suffering because
• 1:55:57
  I don't like her. And I actually think that Doc, I actually I
• 1:56:00
  actually think that Jerry. Bizarrely, I think Jerry on his deathbed, and
• 1:56:08
  this gets pretty deep. I think Jerry is so naive and and at his
• 1:56:15
  essence a good person to this extraordinary and absurd degree that I think on his
• 1:56:19
  deathbed part of him will be glad this all happened, because those boys that
• 1:56:27
  he loved benefited dramatically financially for having betrayed him, and that he will in
• 1:56:35
  his mind be meeting his maker and he will get a reward in heaven and
• 1:56:41
  that and that even though there were you know, some many of those that
• 1:56:45
  got paid by Penn State and never even met Jerry Sandowsky, in his mindset,
• 1:56:49
  part of him will think that this was actually a good thing that occurred,
• 1:56:54
  because all these poor boys ended up benefiting from either there interaction and betrayal
• 1:57:00
  with Jerry Zandowski or just making up stories about Jerry Zandisky. What do you
• 1:57:05
  make of that theory? Well, I think that you're not completely just a
• 1:57:13
  dispute it a bit. I do agree that he doesn't have any hatred or
• 1:57:19
  any kind of real malice towards these people. I do think that his standards
• 1:57:25
  of decency probably make him feel that these deceptive men will not enjoy the long
• 1:57:38
  term benefits of their deception, and that ultimately they will suffer or are suffering
• 1:57:45
  for, you know, the short term gain of millions of dollars versus the
• 1:57:49
  fact that you got it inside. You know, you got it from injuring
• 1:57:57
  an innocent man who only tried to mentor you and through deception, and I
• 1:58:01
  don't know if you can be happy. I think his mindset, I'm just
• 1:58:04
  guessing here. I think his mindset would be is that they're not victors at
• 1:58:10
  all. Look, you may be right. I haven't spoken to Jerry in
• 1:58:18
  a very long time. We used to email fairly regularly. We don't do
• 1:58:23
  that anymore because I am incredibly frustrated with him not going into federal court with
• 1:58:30
  his appeal, which I thought I had convinced him was the only theoretical path.
• 1:58:34
  But he's afraid that if he goes into federal court and loses, that
• 1:58:38
  he has nothing left to live for, because you only get one bite of
• 1:58:41
  that apple, one crack at this So he keeps going back into the state
• 1:58:45
  court with lawyers, you know, like Al Lindsey's a complete idiot and will
• 1:58:49
  never win anything, especially as he gets older and older and in a state
• 1:58:54
  that's completely invested against him. So I don't have hatred towards Jerry Sandusky.
• 1:58:59
  I just have frustration and I'm resigned that he's never gonna get it that the
• 1:59:04
  federal court system is the only potential place for justice in this case. But
• 1:59:09
  you may be one hundred percent right, and I may be overstating what I
• 1:59:14
  think Jerry's view of this case and its totality will be on his deathbed.
• 1:59:18
  Let's go back to your involvement. So you know, I kind of went
• 1:59:24
  down that road a little bit, and then we got sidetracked with your views
• 1:59:27
  of Jerry and Dotty, which is fine. So you speak to all these
• 1:59:31
  people, including Jerry and Dottie, you come to this conclusion. I want
• 1:59:36
  to ask one more time. Was there a moment when you decided that you
• 1:59:41
  were sure that Jerry is innocent? I mean, do you remember how that
• 1:59:45
  how you came to that conclusion. I think it was a gradual thing.
• 1:59:54
  I don't think there was any one moment in time. I suppose I went
• 1:59:59
  back and forth a little bit in my mind. Okay, could this guy
• 2:00:01
  be, as I said before, master manipulator? Could these men whose stories
• 2:00:08
  are so bizarre, including mcquery, and their stories are so improbable? And
• 2:00:14
  then we add another thing that has been brought out. I've read it on
• 2:00:17
  your site and on Cipriano's site. His medical condition, it common sense and
• 2:00:27
  reason all militate against him being guilty. But there's still this thing that we
• 2:00:33
  have called a herd or intuition, and that I think, gradually combined with
• 2:00:41
  the evidence, persuaded me that here's a man of incredible resilience, here's a
• 2:00:47
  very strong man, because I think very few people could hold up who were
• 2:00:54
  not innocent to the kind of universal hatred that he has experienced, and yet
• 2:01:00
  he profoundly lives on in a cheerful way, as cheerful as you can be.
• 2:01:08
  He's made a Christian life for himself in prison, known to the world
• 2:01:15
  as a child molester, known to himself as a falsely accused innocent man,
• 2:01:21
  and I think that may be the final culmination of thoughts that permitted me to
• 2:01:27
  begin publishing. We'll get to what you've published in the moment, but you
• 2:01:31
  reference Jerry's medical records, and it sounds like you agree with me and others
• 2:01:38
  that this is really the smoking gun. This has never been fully made public,
• 2:01:44
  and the reason I have not made the records public is because I'm still
• 2:01:48
  under this delusion that somehow a major media corporation would like to be the first
• 2:01:55
  to actually reveal them in an exclusive fashion, and so been holding back the
• 2:02:00
  records. But you know, Cipriano has them, Pendergrast has them. I
• 2:02:05
  think you've seen them there at this point, it's pretty you know, Keenan
• 2:02:11
  Trotter, another reporter for Business Insider, has seen them. And and to
• 2:02:17
  me, there's two keys to this. The low testosterone, very very low
• 2:02:23
  testosterone at the time of some of the most horrific allegations against Jerry Sindusky.
• 2:02:29
  But the real smoking gun to me is the lack of any testicular matter that
• 2:02:33
  effectively, Jerry Sandusky had no testicles. And the idea that not one of
• 2:02:41
  the eight trial accusers and not one of the thirty six guys who got paid
• 2:02:46
  a lot of money from Penn State ever mentioned this in any way, shape
• 2:02:51
  or form is game, set match. It's not possible to abuse anybody,
• 2:03:01
  mean, especially when Aaron Fisher is claiming one hundred episodes. It's not possible
• 2:03:06
  for victim number one to be abused one hundred times and never mentioned. Oh,
• 2:03:11
  by the way, Jerry has no testicles. That's not possible. But
• 2:03:14
  it's really not possible when you have the number of people here who are involved
• 2:03:18
  in this case and no one to mention it. It's not just that it
• 2:03:23
  would impact Jerry's ability to perform some of these acts of abuse, especially in
• 2:03:29
  the case of victim number nine, Sebastian Payden, who you've written about most
• 2:03:32
  recently, and he has the most horrific allegations, absolutely impossible based upon common
• 2:03:39
  sense and Jerry's medical records. But the lack of testicular matter not being mentioned
• 2:03:44
  by any accuser, that's game set match, right, I would think.
• 2:03:49
  So, I really think it would be. I run on Wikipedia, and
• 2:03:54
  I'm not sure which victim so called victim this is maybe you know. One
• 2:04:00
  of the comments part of the article on Wikipedia about Sandusky is that there was
• 2:04:04
  an eight to ten year old boy who, as a man, testified that
• 2:04:11
  he had to rub Sandusky's penis and his testicles. And that was, at
• 2:04:20
  least on Wikipedia, that was said to be the testimony of a man when
• 2:04:26
  he was eight or ten years old. Well, Sandusky didn't have testicles to
• 2:04:30
  rub, so that was struck. That's I don't know for sure which accused
• 2:04:36
  you're talking about, but I needed sounds that sounds like the settlement testimony.
• 2:04:44
  Another words, someone who was not a trial accuser, because some of those
• 2:04:46
  stories were more ridiculous, even more ridiculous than the trial accusations. And I
• 2:04:53
  don't remember an eight year old boy allegation from the trial and so but to
• 2:05:00
  me, it's not even a matter of one story being discredited. To me,
• 2:05:04
  they all get discredited because, you know, especially the age group.
• 2:05:11
  And one of the great misconceptions that people have about this case is that we're
• 2:05:14
  talking about seven eight year old boy. We're not. The allegations are all
• 2:05:17
  eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and the reason
• 2:05:23
  for that is very clear. That's when a boy starts to become a man,
• 2:05:27
  which is when they become an athlete, and Jerry Sedusky was a coach,
• 2:05:32
  and so this is when he started to take a greater interest in those
• 2:05:39
  So there's no way that you have all these kids at this age where they're
• 2:05:45
  very much aware of their own genitals and what's happening to them, that they
• 2:05:51
  wouldn't have noticed that, not one of them wouldever notice that Jerry's dusky had
• 2:05:56
  no testicles. That's just not statistically possible, consistent with basic common sense,
• 2:06:02
  and unfortunately that was never even admitted into trial. And my theory on that
• 2:06:09
  is that Joe and Mendola was so overwhelmed that when Dottie Sanowski went to go
• 2:06:15
  get the medical records at Jerry's request because Jerry was thinking about the testosterone issue,
• 2:06:24
  and so Dottie gives these documents to Joe, and these documents are pretty
• 2:06:29
  voluminous and they're tedious, and I think that Joe looked at the testosterone issue
• 2:06:36
  and made a mistake and thought, well, this isn't good enough. I'm
• 2:06:40
  not going to go down this path, and never even saw because Dottie never
• 2:06:45
  mentioned it, the issue of the notisticcular matter. And you also have to
• 2:06:51
  factor in here. You know, these are puritanical people. Jerry and Dottie
• 2:06:56
  don't like talking about sex or genitals or testicals or anything like that. And
• 2:07:00
  Dottie has said to me directly, John, I never saw any other man
• 2:07:06
  other than Jerry, so I had nothing to compare him too, So it
• 2:07:12
  never occurred to me that he might be different or deformed in that area.
• 2:07:16
  That's my paraphrase of what she said. But that was very, very clear,
• 2:07:21
  and so you know that, to me was probably the worst mistake by
• 2:07:27
  the defense, because you know, in a case like this, that's as
• 2:07:30
  close to smoking gun evidence as you're going to get. And I think you've
• 2:07:34
  already said you basically agree with me on that. So let's go to your
• 2:07:39
  reporting on this. So you decide, after your own investigation and talking to
• 2:07:44
  a lot of people, that you believe very very likely that Jerry Sinusky is
• 2:07:46
  innocent, and you decide to do what I mean. I saw you write
• 2:07:50
  in the article I it was sent to me, and I'm like, oh,
• 2:07:54
  this is interesting. I've never heard this guy before that he seems to
• 2:07:57
  understand what really happened here. I wonder whether I he's going to continue on
• 2:08:01
  with it. And I'm so cynical. I'm presuming that you know this is
• 2:08:05
  going to be a one and done or maybe a you know, two and
• 2:08:09
  done situation, because most people get very tired once they start hitting their head
• 2:08:11
  against this all of this case. But you have not done that. So
• 2:08:18
  at this point, Frank, you've written so many articles I've lost count.
• 2:08:22
  So tell me, you know what your plan in all this is? How
• 2:08:28
  many articles have you written about the Sandusky case and how many more do you
• 2:08:31
  anticipate writing in the future. Well, I think I've got I'm not sure
• 2:08:37
  how many I have written, maybe eight or nine. I better check that.
• 2:08:41
  But when I did the Maid of the Missed story, I took eighty
• 2:08:46
  articles before the Toronto Globe and Mail caught the story and led to some significant
• 2:08:52
  changes in the Nexium case. I had to write about four hundred stories before
• 2:08:58
  the New York Time contacted me and wrote a story that kind of blew it
• 2:09:05
  up worldwide. So I imagine this is going to take about five hundred stories.
• 2:09:16
  Do you have five hundred stories in you on this, Frank? What
• 2:09:20
  I found is they don't all have to be different. It's the repetition.
• 2:09:24
  It's the spreading of the truth that gradually catches. What I've noticed is the
• 2:09:31
  audience is getting bigger and bigger. The first story had maybe a few thousand
• 2:09:39
  readers or views. I don't know if everybody read them fully, and it
• 2:09:43
  keeps getting bigger and bigger and broke ten thousand, and I expect that pretty
• 2:09:52
  soon this will catch on and people will it's I think it's just determined effort,
• 2:10:00
  And at this point this is just a matter of principle. Now he's
• 2:10:05
  I believe he's innocent, and he can't continue to stay in prison. He
• 2:10:09
  may trade places with several individuals who put him there. That's a possibility,
• 2:10:16
  but I think we have to continue this effort. So you're optimistic very much,
• 2:10:24
  so I am not. I don't know if you've caught onto that,
• 2:10:31
  Frank. I have accepted defeat on this a long time ago, and I'm
• 2:10:41
  now I've been in the autopsy phase for years, and now I'm almost in
• 2:10:46
  the amusement phase. And I'm amused by you. I think it's great what
• 2:10:52
  you're doing. Good luck to you. You're going to be disappointed because this
• 2:10:58
  is not a winnable situation. This is the perfect storm. Our society is
• 2:11:03
  not built for this anymore, Frank, our media is not built for this
• 2:11:07
  anymore. You know, ten twenty thirty years ago, this could have been
• 2:11:13
  fixed. But I don't think that today's society allows for this, and the
• 2:11:20
  perfect storm elements of this case don't allow for it either. What would be
• 2:11:24
  your rebuttal to that view, Well, I do agree with your assessment of
• 2:11:30
  the state versus federal courts. These state actors here are completely invested in covering
• 2:11:39
  this. I think a lot of them know that he's innocent, and they
• 2:11:43
  would They're prepared to sacrifice his life for the benefit of the core, for
• 2:11:52
  the benefit of the perception of the judiciary. For admitting this corruption. This
• 2:11:58
  kind of get it wrong is a they probably believe, in their mind is
• 2:12:03
  a greater harm than letting one old man die in prison though he'd be innocent.
• 2:12:11
  I think that there's a I'm sorry, go ahead, No, I
• 2:12:16
  didn't want to interrupt you, but unfortunately this platform MORN creates problems like this.
• 2:12:22
  You said something there that I found very interesting. You believe that many
• 2:12:24
  on the prosecution side, at least some on the prosecution side, believe him
• 2:12:28
  to be innocent on What are you basing that, well, I'm speculating they
• 2:12:33
  would never admit this, But I think the evidence, especially the evidence that
• 2:12:39
  you brought on you must be a most hated name and figure in a lot
• 2:12:43
  of prosecutors, judges, and Pennsylvania actors' minds because you produced post trial,
• 2:12:56
  you produced overwhelming and comprehensive, in really dispositive evidence that this case was built
• 2:13:07
  on a tissue of lies, corruption, politics, and it was the sacrificing
• 2:13:16
  of a man for the welfare of a bunch of unrelated but curiously aligned forces.
• 2:13:28
  I think that's a pretty good way to put it. I am sure,
• 2:13:30
  I am very hated. If I am, I'll take that as a
• 2:13:33
  badge of honor, because these people are terrible human beings, and I'm glad
• 2:13:39
  they hate me, if in fact they do. I know there's certainly many
• 2:13:43
  people within this entire perfect storm that hate my guts, some of whom should
• 2:13:48
  be on my side, which is maybe the most frustrating element of this whole
• 2:13:52
  situation. And I really think, by the way, Frank, you know
• 2:13:56
  we've talked about Italian men in a kind of humorous way earlier, Scott Paterno
• 2:14:03
  is really a massive roadblock here. And I don't know whether or not you've
• 2:14:07
  looked at this situation, but because Scott Paterno is deeply invested in mcquery telling
• 2:14:13
  the truth and Jerry, he's therefore very invested in Jerry being guilty, and
• 2:14:18
  because he is associated with his dad, or is his client as he referred
• 2:14:24
  to him bizarrely, because he was Joe's lawyer at the time. It's really
• 2:14:28
  difficult to get past Scott Paterno because in the media's mind, because they don't
• 2:14:33
  understand this case. In the media's mind, they think that if Jerry was
• 2:14:37
  even remotely innocent, the paternal family, led by obviously Shut Paterno and Scott
• 2:14:45
  Paterno and Jay, who's a complete wooss, who knows that Jerry is innocent
• 2:14:48
  because he coached with him for several years and knew him very well. But
• 2:14:52
  in the media's mind, if Jerry was innocent, the paternal family would be
• 2:14:56
  screaming bloody murder. And I've tried everything I possibly can, things that people
• 2:15:03
  would have their minds blown by. I have attempted to do in an effort
• 2:15:09
  to try to get some semblance of a flip within the paternal family to Jerry's
• 2:15:16
  innocence, and I have been completely unsuccessful, And with Frank o'harris having passed
• 2:15:20
  away, I basically have given up on that entire effort. But what do
• 2:15:24
  you make of the paternal family problem in this equation? Well, this might
• 2:15:31
  be presumptuous in my part, but I don't know that it's relevant to me
• 2:15:39
  what Joe Paterno knew or did not know. I think that Sandusky's evidence are
• 2:15:46
  Sandusky's innocence is established through evidence that's fundamentally unrelated to Joe Paterno except as it
• 2:15:54
  touches on the Mike mcquerie testimony, and thanks to you, his credibility is
• 2:16:01
  completely demolished. But Frank, you're talking about rationality and facts and that's not
• 2:16:09
  the world we live in. We live in a world where perception is reality,
• 2:16:13
  politics matter, and it's very, very difficult to get any traction in
• 2:16:20
  this situation when the media is as invested as the prosecution in Pennsylvania is,
• 2:16:26
  maybe more so in this fairy tale narrative that they created, and when they
• 2:16:33
  look at the paternal family, they go, well, that doesn't make any
• 2:16:37
  sense. These people must all be crackpots to believe Jerry Zanowsky is innocent,
• 2:16:41
  because if he was innocent, as Scott Paternal himself has said one hundred times,
• 2:16:45
  if he was innocent, I would be screaming that from the mountaintops.
• 2:16:48
  Of course, people don't understand that Scott Paternal has a very perverse self interest
• 2:16:52
  here, and he's also a fucking moron, so those two things prevent him
• 2:16:58
  from doing that. But I'm living in what I perceive to be the real
• 2:17:01
  world where you can't get traction, Like nobody in the media is going to
• 2:17:07
  pick up on your reporting on this for a number of reasons. One it's
• 2:17:11
  an old story, but two because they can't even get the first base because
• 2:17:18
  they look at it and they go, well, why is the paternal family
• 2:17:22
  not say anything about this. You don't see that. I understand what you're
• 2:17:26
  saying, and I don't agree completely with you. I do think that as
• 2:17:33
  this thing develops, and again I say it's based on your work, you
• 2:17:39
  broke the story, someone will pick it up. And I don't want to
• 2:17:45
  say anything in advance. But I have talked to some major media already and
• 2:17:50
  they have entertained my taking this a little further. With them, we're still
• 2:17:56
  a little preliminary on it. I also believe that we can we can get
• 2:18:01
  this information with or without the media. We can get it out because the
• 2:18:07
  game has changed a little bit. Now there are influencers, there are people
• 2:18:11
  who can begin to learn the truth. And I'll make this I'll make this
• 2:18:18
  statement as a form of a deer to anyone. Spend an hour with John
• 2:18:26
  Ziegler, or spend an hour with me, and by the time we're done,
• 2:18:31
  if you'll openly look at and debate this, I think you're going to
• 2:18:33
  have a different perspective. Well, I agree with that, and I'm all
• 2:18:37
  for that. As far as you dealing with major media outlets, good luck
• 2:18:43
  with that, Frank. I mean, I realize you want to keep that
• 2:18:46
  close to the vest. And if on the phone you want to talk about
• 2:18:50
  strategy, I'm trying. I'm more than willing to help because I've dealt with
• 2:18:54
  all these people on this issue many times. But you should have a conversation
• 2:18:58
  with Keenan Trotter. Have you spoken to keenanan all yet? I have not.
• 2:19:01
  Do you know Keenan Trotter is No, I don't. Keenan Trotter is
• 2:19:05
  a very young liberal gay reporter who was working on this story for two years
• 2:19:11
  or Business Insider, along with a writing partner, and eventually that story got
• 2:19:18
  killed and he ended up getting fired indirectly because of his role in this case
• 2:19:22
  because if it drove him so crazy he went back into being an alcoholic because
• 2:19:28
  of the stress of this situation. And we did a very long podcast interview
• 2:19:35
  with him. You should check that out because it really is a very telling
• 2:19:39
  story of a lot of things. One how difficult this story is on those
• 2:19:45
  reporting it. But two, everything that we're up against when it comes to
• 2:19:50
  trying to get the story into some sort of mainstream media outlet. They it's
• 2:19:54
  just not built for that anymore. Frank, I mean, I mean,
• 2:19:58
  I'm curious in the big picture. You know, you've been around a long
• 2:20:01
  time. You're even older than I am, more experienced than I am.
• 2:20:07
  Don't you see the changes in the media. Yes, you reference that it's
• 2:20:11
  more more plausible for an independent voice to get traction today. I get that,
• 2:20:16
  But you still need the mainstream to some extent, especially in a story
• 2:20:20
  like this. And the reality is that the mainstream news media is completely and
• 2:20:26
  totally broken beyond comprehension. Do you agree with that in general? Yes,
• 2:20:31
  I do. I agree that the mainstream media is broken, but I think
• 2:20:37
  there's now so many tributaries in side streams and rivulets that one can gradually seep
• 2:20:48
  out information. It will leach out into the general consciousness that what we all
• 2:20:54
  collectively thought is not true. And I'll take it as of further, I
• 2:21:01
  do believe that what we do now is we provide some tension. And I'll
• 2:21:05
  make this statement assuming that some of the victims and other bad actors will maybe
• 2:21:09
  listen to this. But sooner or later, one of you will break.
• 2:21:15
  One of you is going to realize that the game is over, and the
• 2:21:18
  first man to inform is probably the person that's most likely to suffer the least
• 2:21:28
  amount of consequences. But tension now is in play. I get that theory.
• 2:21:37
  I held it for a while. I spent a ridiculous amount of time
• 2:21:41
  and effort focusing on Alan Myers, victim number two, the so called shower
• 2:21:46
  accuser, because I thought he was by far the most vulnerable to flipping,
• 2:21:52
  because he did not testify a trial, he had the strongest relationship with Jerry
• 2:21:56
  Sandowsky, and you know, there were a lot of reasons to believe Alan
• 2:22:01
  Myers would be the first guy to crack. Alan Myers ain't cracking because he's
• 2:22:05
  getting millions of dollars. I don't know if it's into perpetuity, but for
• 2:22:09
  a very long time, these settlements were designed to make sure that the key
• 2:22:13
  players did not crack, because they're still getting paid today, and they're still
• 2:22:20
  going to get paid for a long time to come. I don't know how
• 2:22:22
  much longer, but it's gonna be a long time. They did this on
• 2:22:26
  purpose, and so I'm not ironically enough. I think the guy you should
• 2:22:31
  be focusing on his Matt said Dusky. It's insane as it is. I
• 2:22:35
  think, Matt said Dusky has the greatest opportunity to flip because he's not getting
• 2:22:41
  paid anymore. And because there's at least some value in being the prodigal son
• 2:22:45
  and getting back into the good graces of his family, and he's such a
• 2:22:48
  rat that he might actually enjoy mocking the media for having believed his bogus story.
• 2:22:54
  And that's just a long shot, but it's at least a theoretical chance
• 2:22:58
  that that would have happened. But you don't see why I'm so pessimistic on
• 2:23:05
  that. I do see why, and I don't necessarily disagree. But I'm
• 2:23:09
  not referring just to the the eight or what was it seven eight, No,
• 2:23:15
  the eight men who testified at the trial, or even some of the
• 2:23:18
  other Motley group of flyers who got settlements. There's a lot of actors here,
• 2:23:26
  and right now they're going to experience some tension because they know what they
• 2:23:33
  did. I hope you're right. Nothing would make me happier. I just
• 2:23:37
  think that the glue that keeps this case together. There's a lot of glue,
• 2:23:43
  including those settlements being paid out over many years. But each individual person,
• 2:23:50
  even if they realize somewhere in their soul that they're part of this was
• 2:23:54
  bogus, they are still believing that the mentality of the story is real because
• 2:24:03
  there's so many accusers and so many other people that bounce for this story.
• 2:24:07
  So even if they think their one piece is bull crap, they won't come
• 2:24:13
  to the conclusion that the whole thing is bull crap. You don't see that.
• 2:24:18
  I see that. That's a challenge that we have, but I don't
• 2:24:22
  think it's it's insurmountable because Okay, so Peydon knows. Peydon knows Sebastian Peyton.
• 2:24:30
  And if you're listening, Sebastian, I hope you will come to your
• 2:24:33
  senses that money will not buy you peace. And I know you can't have
• 2:24:39
  peace right now because you you did something you know is wrong. But Sebastian
• 2:24:46
  got twenty million dollars and that has to rankle Aaron Fisher. He's got to
• 2:24:52
  be pissed that he told almost as good a story as Peyton, and Peyden
• 2:24:56
  got twenty million, and all this little meaner got was this little fool got
• 2:25:01
  Aaron Fisher got was seven point five million. Well wed Peyton didn't tell three
• 2:25:07
  times as big a whoppers. So I think there's got to be some ill
• 2:25:13
  feeling and we're just waiting for tension. Now there's gonna be a lot of
• 2:25:16
  tension. Look, Frank, you and I agree totally in the strategy here.
• 2:25:22
  I've always said that you put white trash under pressure or tension, and
• 2:25:28
  eventually it's going to crack. And and that's what we got here. Unfortunately,
• 2:25:33
  I have never been able to put enough pressure or tension. Maybe you
• 2:25:37
  can. If you can. I'll be cheering as loudly as I possibly can.
• 2:25:43
  Uh, and and and hope for the best for your success. I
• 2:25:46
  think it's great that you're doing this. I think it's great that you're determined,
• 2:25:52
  and you do not seem to be you know, certainly you're undeterred,
• 2:25:56
  and you're you're you're persistent, and you've got a history of persistent and getting
• 2:26:01
  results. And so you know, if you think it's going to take five
• 2:26:03
  hundred articles, wow, good luck to you. You know. By the
• 2:26:07
  way, I have a suggestion. I think that one of the things you
• 2:26:09
  ought to do, not just because it'll tick off the article count, but
• 2:26:15
  I think that it will lead interesting context. Is I think you want to
• 2:26:18
  do interviews with each of the members of this motley crew that we have of
• 2:26:24
  people who on their own have come to the conclusion that Jerry is innocent.
• 2:26:28
  Interview Frederick Kruz before he dies, you know, Interview Ralph Cipriano, John
• 2:26:35
  snedden Mark Pendergrass me. You know, I think you should try to interview
• 2:26:39
  Graham Spaniard and Gary Schultz. I know Gary Schultz would go on the record
• 2:26:43
  for sure. You know Malcolm cloudwell, maybe give him an effort. You
• 2:26:50
  know, people like that, because there are many people and I'm probably missing
• 2:26:54
  a few. You know, Jeff Byer's local radio host in in State College,
• 2:27:00
  who's the voice of Penn State Wrestling. People like that who have known
• 2:27:05
  for a long time that Jerry was innocent, and we all, we all
• 2:27:09
  have very different ways in which we came to this conclusion and very different stories.
• 2:27:13
  So I think that might add some credibility and context to what you're doing.
• 2:27:16
  That's just absolutely, it's not only it's not only the exact right thing
• 2:27:22
  to do, but I am encouraging people to provide me with content. I
• 2:27:28
  plan to interview everybody. In fact, I do believe that this will be
• 2:27:35
  an important documentary. It will be made, and I want to film people
• 2:27:41
  because it will be made and it will err and obviously no one can ever
• 2:27:50
  mitigate or minimize the work you did. You are the guy that broke the
• 2:27:54
  story, and I owe you really every thing for what you did to make
• 2:28:03
  this a reality. You influenced everybody that's ever worked on this afterward, and
• 2:28:09
  you know, I believe that this. I think my role is just to
• 2:28:13
  try to put it across You did the work. I think it's my responsibility.
• 2:28:18
  I feel it's my responsibility. You see it untruth, you see an
• 2:28:22
  injustice. I feel that we have to combat it, and this is now
• 2:28:26
  a matter of principle. Well, kudos to you. I'm glad that we've
• 2:28:31
  gotten connected. Thank you for doing this interview. By the way, you
• 2:28:37
  do. What you do is called the Frank Report, and you post a
• 2:28:41
  lot of your stuff on Twitter, which is where I see it. But
• 2:28:43
  what's the easiest place for people to find your work, Frank, Well,
• 2:28:48
  they can go to Frankreport dot com and I have a category called Sandusky And
• 2:28:54
  if they click on Frankreport dot com and then on the homepage, they can
• 2:29:00
  click Sandusky and they can find an ever increasing number of stories. And I've
• 2:29:09
  also I linked to your articles, your web page and a few others who
• 2:29:16
  have also followed in your footsteps. Who became convinced like I did. Frank,
• 2:29:22
  keep up the great work, and thanks so much for your time.
• 2:29:24
  Let's keep in touch. I'll be in touch. Thanks, John, I
• 2:29:26
  appreciate it much. Take care. I really do wish Frank the best.
• 2:29:31
  I hope he's successful. I don't think he will be. I'm happy to
• 2:29:35
  help him in any way that I can. But you know, it's nice
• 2:29:39
  to at least have some other people agree with you occasionally and realize that you're
• 2:29:46
  not actually nuts, that you actually did solve, you know, the greatest
• 2:29:50
  travesty of this millennium, at least so far, regardless of the fact that
• 2:29:54
  the mainstream news media will never accept that, because much like COVID, they
• 2:29:56
  never want to admit that they were completely and totally wrong. They were more
• 2:30:01
  wrong on the Sandusky Paterno Penn stakecase than they even were on COVID. But
• 2:30:05
  that'll do it for this episode of the podcast. Thanks so much for listening.
• 2:30:09
  Until next time. My name is John Ziegler. You've been listening to
• 2:30:13
  the Death of Journalism podcasts